ON A COLD afternoon in January, and dressed in full snow-queen regalia, Chloe prepared to walk up the aisle of St Anthony’s Church.
Her father, dressed handsomely in top-hat and tails stood back to let the photographer get some shots of the bride on her own.
“Such a shame we don’t have the snow,” the photographer was saying and if Chloe didn’t know better she’d have sworn there was mockery behind his words.
She turned slightly to the side and gave him a beaming smile. At least it was supposed to be a beaming smile. Chloe wondered if the lens would pick up on her nervousness, capturing it on film forever. Yet it didn’t feel quite the same as nervousness, she decided, it was more like . . . like uncertainty.
Why was she feeling like this? Chloe wasn’t quite sure. She had been looking forward to this day for so long, and despite all the setbacks and the chopping and changing, her wedding day was finally happening.
Why then, did she not feel what she was supposed to feel – elation, excitement, anticipation? Where were all of those feelings?
Chloe followed the bridesmaids inside. Now, standing at the back of church with her mother with Lynne fussing over the hem of her cloak, she felt . . . unsure.
What the hell was wrong with her?
Just then, Lynne looked up at her and smiled. Chloe wondered if she was just imagining the faint look of anxiety on her friend’s face. Was Lynne feeling uncertain too? Had she made a mistake confiding in her? But what else could she do?
After her meeting with Nicola, Chloe hadn’t known what to make of her fiance’s behaviour towards his ex-wife. She knew that there were two sides to every story but Dan had all but admitted that he had abandoned his wife when she needed him most.
“What’s to say that he wouldn’t do the same to you?” Lynne had said. “What’s to say that he wouldn’t go running at the first sign of trouble?”
But Dan hadn’t gone running though, had he? He had just admitted that he couldn’t continue with the way things were.
“I just couldn’t cope with it, Chlo,” he had said. “There was no point in pretending otherwise. It wouldn’t have done Nicola any good in the long run.”
It was true that Nicola seemed to have got on just fine without him but then, she hadn’t had much of a choice, had she?
“It’s not so much his leaving her that should worry you, but the fact that he had no intention of telling you about it is a problem,” Lynne had said.
Or had she?
No, Chloe thought, Lynne hadn’t said that, it was the little voice inside herself that had said it.
The little voice that at this very moment was doing its best to make Chloe feel incredibly nervous.
The opening bars of the bridal march began: This was it. Chloe felt a sudden rush of adrenaline – or was it panic? She exhaled deeply, and flinched when her father touched her elbow.
“This is us, darling,” he whispered, entwining Chloe’s right arm in his left.
As she followed her bridesmaids up the aisle, Chloe’s gaze travelled past the rows of smiling guests and flashing cameras and settled at the top of the church. She didn’t see the elaborate flower arrangements, she didn’t hear the harpist – she didn’t even care how she looked. Somehow Chloe thought she would be blown away by all the romance and excitement of it all, blown away by being a princess for a day.
But Chloe didn’t feel like that at all.
If anything, she felt as though all of this was very, very wrong.
She looked up and saw Dan standing with his back to the congregation, stiffly awaiting his new bride’s arrival.
Chloe exhaled, resisting the urge to quite literally shake the uncertainty out of her head. She loved Dan. Surely that was all that mattered? And everything that had happened in the past was simply that – the past.
They were getting closer now and Chloe’s heart was knocking hard against her ribs, pounding in her chest. Suddenly, white spots appeared before her eyes and she felt her throat close over and her mouth go . . .
Then the bridesmaids stopped walking, and Lynne turned around to take the bridal bouquet for the duration of the ceremony.
Dan was smiling.
Her father was smiling.
The priest was smiling.
Then . . .
Chloe looked up. What was wrong with her? Nobody knew what the future held, did they? Nobody could be a hundred per cent certain. Could any bride on the day, what with all the fuss, pomp and spectacle – really, honestly say that they were absolutely certain?
Chloe thought about it.
Could anybody ever be absolutely certain?
The bride moved forward to take her place before the altar.
Probably not.