Chapter One

When, in my younger days, I idly contemplated the time I might one day go wedding dress shopping, it never crossed my mind that it would be a covert operation, accompanied by oversized sunglasses and a floppy hat. Or that I would be the one to cry. And that if I did, those tears would be a combination of stress, fear, loneliness, shame, and feeling buried alive in a gold mine.

It was Marilyn’s idea. She bullied me into it. Currently drowning in the domesticity brought on by nine-month-old twins, and representing the closest thing I had to a best friend at that point – or any point in my mixed-up, disaster-strewn, battle-scarred life – she ignored my protestations that it was a waste of time.

“No arguments, Faith. I need some romance! I’m going to remind myself what life was like before existing on four hours’ sleep a night and leftover mushed-up vegetables. And you need to show that bag of Botox Larissa who’s boss. Get your jacket.”

Marilyn and I had met three months earlier, at my first meeting with the Houghton Country Club Committee, known to its members as HCC. Most of the sleek, silky, skinny women greeted me with patronizing smiles, before dismissing me as irrelevant. None of them recognized me from my time serving on the other side of the bar, but they had no doubt heard the gossip. Marilyn, on the other hand, grinned at me across the table. “Nice to meet you, Faith. Although, I have to say the service in here isn’t what it used to be. Someone told me their best waitress ran off with a millionaire playboy.”

I smiled, and declined to comment. I didn’t know if Perry was a millionaire or not, but he certainly deserved the playboy reputation. Until now. I hoped.

After two hours discussing such grave matters as, at the top of the list, whether or not to ban non-organic cucumber in the cricket teas, Marilyn invited me for coffee at her cottage of chaos. I accepted, consuming enough cheesecake and hilarious HCC committee stories to send me home with a stomach ache and sore ribs. And now, here we were, sneaking through Nottingham Lace Market on the hunt for a wedding dress.

The assistant in the first boutique we stopped at smoothed out my skirt, before standing back to reveal my reflection.

I gazed at the woman in the mirror, at her dark auburn hair peeking out from a vintage-style veil and her miraculously cinched-in waist. It looked perfect. The neckline just high enough to cover the scar running underneath her collarbone. Shimmer and shine to deflect attention from the wan, sunken eyes and hollow cheekbones.

I didn’t deserve this dress. I never expected or even hoped for it. People like me don’t get dresses like this. In wonderment and awe, forgetting the complicated reasons behind the whole need for a wedding dress in the first place, I stepped out of the changing room to show Marilyn, who was lounging on a stripy sofa with a glass of Buck’s Fizz.

“Hooten tooten, Faith. You. Are. Beautiful.” She screwed up her round face and let out a honking sob. At that point I too burst into tears, pressing my fingers against both cheeks to prevent hot, salty water dripping onto the most beautiful dress in the world.

Marilyn blew her nose, producing more honks. I thought about the frightful, flouncy frock hanging up in its layers of protective wrapping in my wardrobe, and cried even harder. Thick, hiccupy, non-bride-like gulps. Sheesh. I had to pull myself together. I hadn’t cried in eight years. Where was this coming from?

My friend wiped her eyes, before offering me her orange, baby-food-stained handkerchief. With a look of horror, the shop assistant dived to intercept, handing me a pure white tissue from a lilac box. Marilyn shook her head. “You have to have this dress. Or another one like it. The last one you tried on, or the one before that. Even the dress in the window with the purple bow and the weird frilly train. All of them are better than the Ghost Web. You have to do this, Faith! If you can’t stand up to her, destroy it! Rip it! Burn it! Spill red wine on it! Give it to Nancy and Pete!” Nancy and Pete were Marilyn’s twins, currently being looked after by her sister. “I’ll do it for you. I’ll destroy the Ghost Web.”

The Ghost Web is Marilyn’s name for my future mother-in-law’s wedding dress, because it droops like a sorry, lonely ghost and is covered in peculiar grey net like a cobweb. I know this dress well because, despite having only met my mother-in-law-to-be Larissa four times, she has decided that sometime next year I’ll be gliding – or shuffling, one or the other – down the aisle in it. That is, the aisle of her choosing. That is, the aisle of the Houghton Country Club. No, I didn’t know either that anyone in twenty-first-century Nottinghamshire belonged to country clubs, until I got a job there a few years ago.

The dress is too long, as at barely five foot three I am seven inches shorter than the original owner. The bodice also needs serious alterations, as I have what fashion stylists call an hourglass figure, and what my charming mother-in-law terms “nothing a bit of hard work and self-control couldn’t rectify”. The reasons why Larissa insists I wear it are manifold, layered like an onion. The layers include control, selfishness, family pride, and superiority. I wonder if at the centre of this onion is the hope that when her son sees me walk down the aisle in that dress he’ll do a runner out the side door.

Perry, my fiancé, wants to think it is a touching gesture, symbolizing my warm welcome into his family.

He hasn’t seen the Ghost Web.

Mission accomplished, Marilyn and I stopped off at a nearby tea shop. She sighed, shaking the equivalent of about six teaspoons of sugar into her full-fat latte. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s only a dress. I’ll talk to the seamstress doing the alterations and see what changes she can make.”

“That’s not the issue here, and you know it. If this woman decides your dress, she’s going to be hovering over you the rest of your marriage. Like a ghost. Or a spider in a web. You have to stop this now! You need your own wedding dress, or how are you going to be your own woman?”

I did. I needed my own dress. The problem was I had no money to buy my own dress and no idea what kind of dress I even wanted. The truth? I had lost control of my life a long, long time ago. I still had the scar on my stomach from the last time I pushed to be my own woman.

“I’ll talk to Perry, see what he says.”

“You do that. Bat those gorgeous eyelashes at him. Now, what’s next on the list?”

Next on the list was a church. I would rather get married in a wheelie bin than HCC. Having slept in a wheelie bin once, it might be more appropriate. Except nobody on the face of this earth except me and a drunk old man knows I slept there.

“Brooksby.”

An hour or so later, pressing on with the fake wedding plans, we drove into the village where I spent the latter part of my childhood. Avoiding the road passing the House of Hideous Memories, Marilyn parked in the tiny car park next to the central square of shops. Houghton’s poor neighbour, Brooksby had grown rapidly since the initial slump following the pit closure. Well on the way to becoming a commuter town, the old, independent shops were being slowly replaced with high street chains – a bakery, a chemist, a newsagent, and two decidedly non-super supermarkets. Coming to a stop outside the tiny chapel, I paused to look at the dark red brick, the one stained-glass window, and the ugly car park.

Marilyn frowned at me. “Here?”

I nodded. “It was my mum’s church.”

“She got married here?”

“No. She never got married.”

“Will it fit an Upperton wedding?” Perry’s family, the Uppertons, would be planning an extravagant guest list.

“Well, given that this is my fantasy wedding, in which the sum total of guests equals five, including your family, I think we’ll manage it.”

She nodded her head. “Excellent. I need plenty of room since my body seems to have forgotten that it no longer requires the space for two extra people inside it. Let’s have a butcher’s.”

Marilyn must have been curious about my lack of fantasy wedding guests, and why four-fifths of them were made up of a family I had only known for a few weeks. But she didn’t ask. She never asked. And I loved her for it.

I tried the front door, which was locked. We could see lights on, however, in the adjacent hall, so after knocking and waiting for a couple of minutes we walked round and rang the bell by the side door. A moment later it opened, and an older woman with hair like a shiny black helmet, a black pencil skirt, and a starchy cream blouse stood in the doorway. She looked us up and down, then at the path behind me.

“Is it just you?”

“Um. Yes.”

“There isn’t anyone else?”

“I don’t think so.” We checked behind us, to be sure.

“No one at all?” She sounded incredulous now, her face stiff, lips barely moving. “Well, you’d better come in. The others are waiting.”

She turned around and marched off. Slightly at a loss, we followed her up the steps, through a dark porch, and into the church side hall. It had been redecorated since I had visited as a young girl. The cracking plaster had gone, exposing soft pink brickwork covered in bright paintings of outdoor scenes. Instead of the tired carpet the floor now gleamed with light oak boards, and the rows of chairs lined up in the front half of the room were no longer cheap plastic but a combination of wood and red-cushioned seats. The woman strode to the front of the room, coming to a stop next to an upright piano. About a dozen other people sat dotted along the first three rows.

“Well, come along then. You’ve already missed the warm-up. Find a seat please.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, as Marilyn plonked herself down on one of the chairs, shuffling about to get comfortable as she winked at the person beside her.

The helmet woman ignored me, addressing the wooden beams above our heads. “Everybody back in positions. From the beginning, Rowan.”

An older teenager, presumably Rowan, cleared her throat. As the rest of the room stood up, Marilyn gestured for me to move next to her before opening her bag and pulling out a packet of toffees.

Helmet woman blew out a large puff of air. “When you’re ready, Rowan!”

Rowan, five foot two inches of scrawny nothing, jerked her head at Marilyn, who offered her a toffee. “Who’s that, then? I don’t wanna do it with them gawpin’ at me.”

Helmet closed her eyes, momentarily. “You know this is our open afternoon. Would it make you feel better if our new recruits came to the front and introduced themselves? Then perhaps we can start. Seven minutes late.”

I answered from where I was. “Um, sorry, but we’re not here for this. We wanted to look at the church. I’m getting married.”

She stared at me for a good long moment, eyes hovering on the massive chunk of rock I wore on my ring finger before seeking out Marilyn. “You – put that disgusting bag away. No food until we’re finished. None of that fake food ever. Now, repeat after me.” She let out a long, high, clear note that bounced off the stained-glass window and rattled our eardrums.

Marilyn stood up. About half a semitone lower – in other words, painfully flat – she sang, “I’ll eat fake food if I want to, thank you very muuuuuch!”

Helmet waited for her to finish, and turned to me. “Aaaahhhhhh,” she sang, low like sweet, dark treacle.

I looked back at her. Really?

“Come on. Put that pre-wedding stress into it. Aaaaahhhhhhh.”

She marched up to me as she sang the note, eyes piercing beneath beetling brows.

I shifted about and glanced over at Marilyn, who smiled at me and stuck another toffee in her mouth. “Aahh.”

“Louder! Come on. You’ve got more to give than that!”

“Aaahhh.” I upped my volume, minutely.

Helmet stood about four inches in front of me, and thrust her face forwards. “Let go your tension!” she sang. All on the same deep note. “From here, here, and here.” She pointed to my shoulders, the centre of my chest, and my stomach. “La, la, la, la, let it goooooo!”

Having a stranger stick her finger at me and sing accusations about my stress levels (however true) in my face did stoke my inner furnace. I had learned how to be tough. To be a survivor. Fierce even. I could happily have kicked my mother-in-law to the kerb weeks ago. Gone back to a life of grot and grime and struggling to keep my head above water rather than compromise my independence. But it wasn’t about me. And I would shut my mouth, swallow my anger, scoop up all my doubts, and carry them down the aisle dressed in a dishrag if it kept my brother alive.

People singing in my face? Not happening.

“Baaaaaccckkkk oooooffffffff!” I sang. Helmet closed one eye, backing off slightly.

“Baaaack oooooff. Like that, hold the nooooote. Oooooff. Release all your emotion into it. Oooooff.” She sang back every word at me.

“Oooooff,” I repeated, mentally adding a word in front of it that I wouldn’t say out loud in church.

“Once moooore – ooooooff. Sing it with meeeeee.”

We sang together, and I allowed into that note about five per cent of the frustration, fear, and helplessness squatting in my stomach. It seemed to be enough. A tiny crease flickered at the corner of her mouth. I guessed it was a smile. I did not smile back.

“Alto. You can sit with them while you wait for the minister to arrive. He’ll be here at four.” She gestured towards the women on the right hand side. “You,” – she pointed at Marilyn – “feel free to keep plugging your mouth with those sweets. For now.”

I took a couple of steps towards the alto section, then another one back towards the door. Helmet spoke as she returned to the front. “Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Notice how light you feel. Has a tiny portion of stress been carried off by that one note? That’s just one. Think about what a bar, a line, a verse, a whole cantata will do. The power of music. One glance at those shoulders tells me you are a woman who needs to regain some personal power. That’s what we’re all about here.”

She was right. I did need to regain some personal power. It had felt good la-ing out some emotion at the strange woman. I wanted to la some more, sing out some of the twisted, scrunched-up feelings so they could stretch and spread their wings. Maybe they would even flap out the door and never come back.

Marilyn sat down again, pulled out an emery board, and started filing her nails as she whispered to the girl beside her. To be fair, it was as good a place as any to wait for the minister to arrive. I stole around to the alto seats, where a black woman who looked to be somewhere in her thirties moved along to make room for me. Helmet turned her attention back to Rowan, the skinny girl with hair like a Disney princess, and this time, instead of arguing, Rowan began to sing.

How someone could flip from a coarse, jagged whinge to the voice of an angel, I had no idea. If I could sing like that, I would never speak. The notes were running water, the sun coming out from behind a cloud, an eagle in flight, a mountaintop. The words weren’t English – I guessed it was Latin – but oh, I understood every single mesmerizing, heart-squeezing, aching syllable. Four lines in, the other members of the group joined her. The water became an ocean, the sun a galaxy, the mountaintop a whole range, stretching out into the distance. At once beautiful, majestic, powerful, and mysterious. They sang of loneliness and betrayal, utter sorrow and bitter loss, the harmonies blending together as they gradually grew stronger, building to a crescendo of triumph.

Talk about goosebumps. Marilyn had been frozen, nail file in hand, since the second note. I wanted to clap, but feared the crudeness of the action shattering the glorious, lingering silence, so heavy I could touch it.

Helmet pursed her lips. “Not bad. You’re getting it, soprano twos. Soprano ones – drippy. A cold, wet nose. Alto ones – clompy. A drunk, overweight auntie dancing at a wedding. Alto twos – timorous. A bunch of morose mice. Again.”

They sang again, and again, with little rest between Helmet’s metaphors (sloppy rice pudding, faded tea towels, anxious bluebottles). Individuals were asked to repeat phrases, relearn melodies, copy strange mouth positions, and breathe in the right places. They broke up into the four different parts for group work and went over everything again.

An hour later, as the choir closed by performing the whole piece one last time, somebody behind me did start clapping. Turning round, I saw a man, leaning on the wall at the back of the hall. He nodded his approval, a thick mop of dark, unruly curls flopping, shadowy jawline definitely more couldn’t-care-less than designer stubble or hipster beard. Dressed in a scruffy jacket, with paint-stained hands and a tool belt strapped to his ripped trousers, I assumed he was the caretaker.

Helmet dismissed the choir, and the group began murmuring as they checked their phones, two of the women opening the serving hatch into a kitchen where refreshments stood waiting.

The man wandered over to where I sat, still slightly spellbound by the music, and nodded hello. “Are you going to join?” He had a faint Yorkshire accent, the solid vowels complementing his capable appearance.

I shook my head. “I’m not exactly sure. I sort of ended up here.”

He grinned, white teeth gleaming in his swarthy complexion. “I don’t think anyone actually chooses to join the choir. More like the choir chooses you.”

“I was hoping to speak to the minister.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow and started walking over towards the serving hatch. “Coffee? It’s filter. Or there’s tea. But the coffee’s better.”

I glanced around the room. With no minister-type person yet appearing, and Marilyn helping herself to a custard cream, I figured I might as well have a drink while we waited. Plus, I was freezing.

“Tea, please.”

He leaned forwards to speak to the person inside the hatch, and I noticed a streak of cobweb tangled in his curls. I thought about the Ghost Web, followed by a ripple of disappointment.

I hovered for a moment while someone topped up the teapot, waiting for the leaves to brew. The caretaker chatted easily with the rest of the women, flashing that brilliant smile, making a joke about the poor quality of the biscuits. When he turned to hand me my drink, one of them reached up and plucked out the cobweb, shaking her head at him before pretending to put it in her pocket like a souvenir. He ignored her gesture, nodding politely as he moved away.

“I’m Dylan.” He handed me my drink.

“Faith.”

“Pleased to meet you, Faith. A perfect name for a choirgirl.” He smiled at me over the top of his mug.

“Maybe. Shame I haven’t got the perfect voice.” I looked away, disconcerted by his open gaze. Disconcerted about feeling disconcerted. I had learned the hard way not to let a handsome man’s smile get to me.

“Oh, Hester’ll find it in there somewhere. She knows what she’s doing.”

“Hester? Ah – right. The conductor. Choirmaster. Mistress!” I pretended to concentrate on drinking my tea.

Dylan kindly ignored my flustered demeanour – probably well used to his effect on women, engaged or otherwise. “Yes. She talks tough, but she loves her choir. Refuses to let them settle for anything but the best.”

“The best singing?”

“That too.”

We pondered that thought for a minute. Helmet – Hester – stood on the other side of the room, frowning as she listened to a young Asian woman wearing a headscarf and a long, black cardigan with grey jeans.

“You wanted to see the minister?”

“Yes. I’m looking for a wedding venue.”

I pretended that I imagined the micro-flash of surprise on his face. I tried with reasonable success to believe my new, swanky haircut and expensive clothes hid the underlying truth about my utter lack of respectability, but the rapidly concealed expression was a punch to my guts. First Hester, now this bloke. Was this a magic church that revealed my hidden secrets to all of the staff? Did God tell them?

“This isn’t most brides’ first choice. Not those that aren’t members anyway. They tend to prefer the C of E. It makes better pictures. And fits more people in. Why did you pick Grace Chapel? You don’t live in the village, do you?”

“Not currently, no. And I’d rather discuss that with the minister, when he finally turns up.” I heard the snap in my voice, and tried to wind my wedding-plan irritation back in. This was supposed to be a fun day. And it was only my fantasy wedding, after all. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just… private. And churches make me nervous. I can’t help finding all that holiness a bit creepy.”

He shrugged, smiling to indicate no offence taken. “Why don’t I show you the chapel?”

“Thank you. That would be great. I’ll grab my friend.”

We spent a few minutes wandering around the hall while the caretaker pointed out the relevant features: where the bride and groom usually sat, where the register was signed, and so on. The room didn’t look ugly as much as boring. Plain white walls and ceiling, with one faded banner hanging in between the two narrow windows on one side. More red-cushioned chairs – ten rows of eight; a parquet floor and another piano. Some shelves at the back stuffed with books and that was about it.

Marilyn prowled up and down the centre aisle. “Okay. We can make this intimate rather than cramped. Put some candles in the windowsills, hang fairy lights in the beams. Tiny bouquets of flowers on the ends of the rows?” She carried on describing her ideas for how we would turn this from “dull to quaint” and from “soulless to romantic sophistication”.

Dylan, now sprawled on a chair with his legs stretched out into the aisle, straightened up. “Excuse me? Soulless? A more sensitive man could get offended by that. This is a church.”

Marilyn flapped her hand at him. “Oh, you know what I mean. Is this minister bloke single? A crusty old bachelor?”

Dylan shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s relevant.”

“It’s absolutely relevant as to why this place is so… stark.”

“Stark? That’s a bit harsh.”

“The room’s all about functionality. Where’s the heart, or the comfort? Anything that would make people other than cyborgs feel at home?”

“Cyborgs?”

“Sorry mate, this just isn’t the type of place anyone would want to spend time in if they didn’t have to. Ask the congregation.”

Dylan frowned and looked about, as though seeing the room for the first time. Marilyn was right, but we were strangers here, and her comments were pretty disrespectful.

“Well, thanks for showing us round. It was very kind, considering you’ve probably got much better things to do than listen to wedding plans. It doesn’t look like the minister’s going to show. Perhaps I’ll call and make an appointment.”

“Although,” Marilyn added, “if he’s always this late, it doesn’t bode well for the big day, does it?”

My embarrassment grew. “I’m sure he’s not, Marilyn. Ministers must have to deal with important unexpected issues all the time. Maybe somebody died. Or had some terrible news. Or, or… maybe Hester made a mistake.”

Dylan shook his head. “No, Hester doesn’t make –”

At that moment the door opened and a man dressed in a dishevelled suit, one trainer, and one house slipper burst into the room, instantly followed by a potent cloud of alcohol fumes. “Dylan!” he slurred. “My car’s been stolen again!” He shuddered, violently, and let out an anguished wail. “Why do they do it? Why me?”

Dylan strode over, putting his arm around the man’s shoulder. “Hey, now. Steady on. We’ll find your car. Sylvie’s probably driven it home. Let’s call her and find out.”

As he steered the weaving man out of the door, he turned and pulled an apologetic smile at us. “Sorry about this. If you look online you’ll find our website. The contact details are all there if you’re still interested. Nice to meet you, Faith. And Faith’s friend.”

Marilyn watched him leave, then winked at me. “What d’ya reckon? Interesting?”

“Behave yourself, married woman with many babies at home. There’s only one man I’m interested in, as you know full well.”

“You’re not married yet. Haven’t even set a date. Still plenty of time to avoid shackling yourself to the Ghost Web, and the Ghost Web’s previous owner.”

We began to leave, too. “I can put up with both of those, if it means marrying Perry. No marriage – or man – is perfect.”

“No, but take it from one who knows – no marriages are easy, either. I love you, Faith, and will support you whatever, but this is supposed to be the fun, exciting, head-over-heels bit. If things are tough now… I don’t know. My brain is frazzled. I’m probably transferring my own frustrated feelings onto you.”

We reached the car, and my good friend Marilyn looked at me before unlocking the doors. “You should be happy. Despite the family and all that goes with it, being with Perry should make you happy. Just make sure you’re happy, Faith. That’s all.”

Happy? What the heck did that even feel like?

We finished our fantasy wedding plans with a trip to an Italian restaurant on the banks of the River Trent, just outside a village four miles from Brooksby. Housed in a large Victorian country manor with a conservatory wrapped around three sides looking out onto the water, it boasted a huge riverside garden with chairs, tables, and assorted sofas on a canopied patio. Simple, rustic, relaxed, run by a family who had emigrated from Italy only six years before, it was everything I would have dreamed of in a reception venue, had I ever dared to dream of one. At the end of the garden was a wooden area for dancing. I could picture laughter, and music, twinkling lights strung between the trees, great food, and even better wine. A place to let down your hair, sit back, and watch the moon kiss the water. A place where good friends were reunited and new friends were made.

I thought about the HCC function room and its stuffy decor. The fussy menu full of food most people had never tried, and never wanted to. The strict dress code, the ban on children, the uncomfortable chairs. The fact that some there knew I had once been “staff” and now seethed at my crossing over to become one of them. Ugh. Dress. Service. Reception. I didn’t know which one of the current non-fantasy plans I hated most.

Marilyn gazed out over the water as a barge glided by, slow and easy. She looked as though she wanted to hop onto that boat. I wished I could join her. “This is it, Faith. It’s you.”

I hugged her, vainly attempting to hide my tears. It was not me. It was the me I wished I could one day be. And now almost certainly never would.