Katie Fforde - Wedding Season

‘A friend of mine is coming over for a drink this evening.'

‘Oh? One of your hairdresser friends? You want to discuss the latest edition of Frizz, or whatever? Well, that's OK as long as I can watch that film.’

`We'll go in the conservatory, or the kitchen,' said Bron, hoping Roger wouldn't be rude to Elsa. He could be quite sarcastic.

She waited on the doorstep for him, so she could lock up. 'Are you wearing that?' Roger asked when he came out to the car.

‘Apparently not,' said Bron and went back into the house to change out of her clean jeans and into a skirt that had a mark on it, but would be more in keeping with Roger's idea of Sunday clothes.

At least doing Roger's mother's hair took them both away from the tedium of what passed for entertainment in that house. Roger and his father liked to watch sport on Sunday afternoons. This was punctuated by Roger's father commenting on items in the paper. Bron almost always disagreed with his opinions, which weren't so much right wing as fascist, but had learnt to say nothing after the time she had suggested politely that England would really suffer if every immigrant who had arrived since the War was repatriated. The discussion turned into an argument and only just stopped short of a row.

Early on, Pat, Roger's mother, had retired to the kitchen to do the washing up. At the time, all fired up with the injustices of the world, Bron had longed to demand that the men of the family cleared up. A couple of months later she discovered that Roger's father's contribution to Sunday lunch was opening and pouring a bottle of wine.

She liked Pat and felt a loyalty to her. Pat did whatever her husband Vince wanted without argument, probably because argument was futile. In spite of this doormat imitation, when she was on her own Pat was fun in a gentle way and the two women got on well.

Really, Bron should have realised Roger wasn't a long term prospect the moment she met his dad, but she had still been blinded by love and thought the similarity between father and son was only superficial. Now, she and his mother had got into a routine. After the men had gone off to the sitting room, they cleared the table, stacked the dishwasher and put the tins into soak. Then they went up to the bedroom for the hair appointment.

‘Tell me about the wedding,' said Pat when Bron had finished pouring jugs of water over her head at the en-suite sink and was gently towel-drying her hair. 'I love hearing about all the clothes and things.'

‘It was lovely. A bit of a panic at the last minute though, because the chief bridesmaid backed out.' Bron squeezed a dollop of serum into the palm of her hand and then pulled it through Pat's wet curls.

‘Really? How rude!'

‘I know! And the bride and her mother insisted that Elsa, the girl who made the dresses, stand in for her. I had to do her hair. I cut it and gave her a fringe. It looked wonderful! I did the bride's mother's too, only that was just a quick comb-through and make-up, really.' She looked at her client and friend in the mirror, wondering if it was time for a restyle. She took out her scissors. Their familiarity in her hand was comforting and restorative.

Pat wasn't so interested in her hair as in the wedding. 'So tell me what everyone wore. And was the bridegroom handsome?'

‘I didn't see the bridegroom, but the dresses were heaven!’

There was a short pause and then Pat said, 'Don't worry, dear, I'm sure Roger will get round to asking you to marry him eventually. Took his dad five years.’

Bron exhaled quietly and snipped a little bit off the back of Pat's hair. Was that what she wanted, really? If she and Roger were married, would she feel more secure, confident, and less put upon? It was hard to say. She might do, but she wasn't in love with him any more, she knew that. But did it matter? Wasn't being 'in love' only a matter of hormones anyway? Wasn't it some chemical that wore off after a while? Maybe it would be OK to be married to someone familiar but not exciting. Excitement was probably very over-rated.

Early that evening Elsa had walked out of the town to where a small estate of new houses had been built near the river. A couple of rungs up from starter homes, they seemed mostly to be lived in by young families. She could hear someone mowing a lawn out of sight; a car was being washed by an enthusiastic father with his two small sons, all getting very wet and soapy; and two young mothers watched their toddlers play in a paddling pool while they chatted. It was very domestic and happy, very Sunday afternoon, and she wondered if Bron was thinking of starting a family. It would be the perfect place to live if she was because there would be a ready-made network of friends. Elsa sighed, thinking of the group of friends she'd known at college – none of them lived within easy reach and because of the nature of her work and her shy personality, she hadn't built another one.

She heard the ding-dong of the bell and saw a shape appear behind the glass of the front door. When Bron opened it, Elsa thought she looked a little fraught.

‘Hello, come in,' Bron said, smiling slightly. 'I've got a bottle of wine on the go. Would you like some?'

‘Oh yes, why not,' said Elsa, 'I walked here.’

A tall, good-looking man appeared in the hallway. 'Elsa, this is Roger,' said Bron.

The man regarded Elsa with speculative eyes. 'Hello, Elsa, are you one of Bron's crimper pals?’

Elsa had to think what he meant for a minute. 'No, I'm a dressmaker. I did the wedding dress for Ashlyn's wedding. You know? The one Bron did all the hair for? Yesterday?'

‘Oh yes. So you drive some poor bugger mad by spending every weekend doing some wedding or other too, do you?' He smiled, to take the sting out of this statement, but Elsa sensed he actually meant what he'd said.

Elsa blinked. 'No, only sometimes.' She didn't bother to add that there was no 'poor bugger' in her life to be driven mad.

‘Bron's always off, leaving me to fend for myself on a Saturday. Missed your tea duty yesterday, didn't you, Muffin?’

Bron raised her eyebrows apologetically. 'I'm afraid I did. I should have remembered to swap. You don't really want to miss paid work to make a mountain of sandwiches and jam sponges.'

‘But you're actually quite good at cakes,' went on Roger, ignoring the reference to paid work. 'She made a really excellent one for my parents' anniversary. No one believed it wasn't made by a professional.'

‘Really? You're multi-talented then,' said Elsa.

Bron shrugged, apparently not wanting to admit to anything.

Roger didn't give her time to speak anyway. 'Are you going to offer Elsa a glass of wine? There's a nice bottle in the cupboard she might like. There's something I want to watch before supper so you've got half an hour.'

‘I really just came to give Bron her hairclips-'

‘Do stay,' said Bron. 'Just for a minute.'

‘OK then, but I won't be long. I'm on my way to my parents.’

Elsa followed Bron into the house. 'Come with me to the kitchen while I pour us some wine,' she said. 'I've got some Pinot Grigio in the fridge. I don't know why Roger always assumes I like sweet wine. I think it goes back to one of the first times we visited his parents and his father had opened some Liebfraumilch. I said it was lovely. It wasn't.’

Elsa felt glad she lived alone, with her work, and not with a difficult man. How awful to come back from a hard day on your feet and have to tend to someone who wanted looking after all the time. The odd twinge of loneliness must be better than that. She hoped her relief didn't show on her face.

Bron poured the wine and then led the way to the tiny conservatory at the back of the house.