Fear, like a dead weight, sat on my chest, pushing me down, taking me over. What sort of woman was it that could leave her six month old babies to be looked after by another woman while she was off frolicking in a damp wood, snogging like it had gone out of fashion?
The early hours of the Friday morning of the wedding found me so riddled with guilt at what I’d been up to with Alex the previous afternoon, I almost confessed all to Nick. If there had been a priest anywhere in the vicinity of Judge Colin’s huge, seventeenth century manor house where we were all staying, I’d have been on my knees, rosary in hand, begging forgiveness for my afternoon of madness with the blue eyed gorgeous one. And I wasn’t even Catholic. I lay, cold one minute, sweating with fear the next, alongside Nick – as he gently snored the sleep of the innocent, unaware that, had his wife had time on her side, she would now more than likely be sporting the label adulterer– adulteress? – across her burning, clammy forehead? Did all sexual cheats, regardless of their gender, take the masculine handle adulterer in the same way that all actresses were now known as actors?
I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable on the hard, bolster type pillow that must have been as old as Colin Fitzgerald’s house itself. It was like trying to sleep on one of those dreadful backwash basins at the hairdresser’s and I could feel my neck begin to knot from discomfort and anxiety. I longed to cuddle up to Nick, to rest my head into his naked back, but it didn’t seem at all appropriate – having been wrapped around Alex Hamilton ten hours earlier – to now expect my husband to act as a substitute pillow. Propriety, I acknowledged to myself, seemed to have flown out of the window. I turned away from Nick, wrestling the pillow with me, and tried to thump it into submission. I sat up, lay down, turned again and, ten minutes later, just as I was beginning to fall into an uneasy doze, Fin started to cry. I crawled out of bed and went over to the other side of the bedroom, where both the twins were sleeping in the travel cots we’d borrowed and brought down with us.
We’d been so lucky with the twins – they’d started to sleep through the night from about five months old and, while they still tended to wake at some godforsaken hour in the morning, we’d had a really good stretch of unbroken nights’ sleep. Until now, apparently. Fin was restless and, as he attempted to gnaw gummily on my finger was, I now realised, probably teething. I walked the room, patted his back, soothed and comforted him. I offered water, walked some more, put him back down, picked him up, patted his back and walked some more. Within twenty minutes Thea had joined us and I paced the room, a baby over each shoulder, like a penned polar bear, walking, turning, soothing, walking. After almost an hour of this, I went downstairs to the kitchen and made up a bottle for each of them in the hope that, like a shot of brandy, it might do the trick and send them back to sleep.
It didn’t.
I considered putting them both into the car and driving round Epsom for a while, but remembered I still hadn’t tried out the bus, wouldn’t know where the hell I was going and, in reality, they were probably awake in the middle of the night because they’d slept most of the day driving down in the car. Thea was wide awake and gurgling, grabbing fistfuls of my hair, content to be with her mum, but Fin was still restless and hot, constantly wanting to gnaw on my finger, which seemed to give him some relief.
By five a.m. we’d been downstairs for over three hours. I’d tried four times to take them back upstairs to their cots but, while Thea would probably have dropped off to sleep, every time I tried to put Fin down he roared and Thea was immediately alert again, wanting to join in the party. At home I would probably have left Thea to cry herself back to sleep and taken just Fin back downstairs, but in someone else’s house, I was loath to leave her to it. The last thing I wanted was everyone looking dreadful on Sylvia’s big day through lack of sleep.
Nick, anaesthetised from several glasses of Judge Colin’s best Merlot, slept on.
At six a.m. I made myself a strong coffee, accepted I wasn’t going to get any sleep, and, with the twins still awake but happy to sit in their little chairs, made myself useful by emptying and restacking the dishwasher and laying the huge kitchen table for breakfast. Hunting for breakfast juice glasses, I went over to the enormous pine dresser that took up almost the entire back wall of the kitchen. A photograph of a much younger Judge Colin, his arm around an attractive blonde woman in her twenties, was pushed towards the back of the dresser, and I reached behind the Wedgwood and the Emma Bridgewater, fishing it out so I could take a closer look.
With a jolt, I realised this must be Anna, Colin Fitzgerald’s only daughter and – more pertinently – Nick’s ex, from whom I’d snaffled him one Saturday night in the university union bar. After Nick had very considerately dumped her in order for me to be able to step into her shoes, Anna had never really returned to this country. While that sounds amazingly dramatic, I will just add that at the time Anna had newly embarked on a year’s study at the Sorbonne in France and, while there, had fallen in love and married some Italian count or other which, apparently, now gave her the right to call herself Countess Anna. What with Judge Sir Colin and the soon-to-be Lady Sylvia, I began to feel I was missing out on a handle or two. Adulteress Harriet sprang to mind as I scrutinised Anna’s features in the photograph, but I mentally shook my head at that particular notion. I had, I told myself, in a mad moment snogged Alex Hamilton and that was that. That was where it was going to end. Before it started. But where did adultery start and finish? Could one, hypothetically, meet up with the same man on a weekly basis and do absolutely everything but actual penetrative sex and still be classed a non-adulterer?
I yawned. Hell, I was knackered as well as totally guilt ridden – neither of which, I acknowledged to myself, would do anything to make me appear the radiant, mother-of-the-bridesmaids wedding guest several hours hence. Thank God Anna herself had declined the invitation to her father’s wedding. According to Sylvia, who only remembered her as the young girl she’d hoped her son would marry twenty years ago, Anna had been back to England only a couple of times since her marriage, the last being to attend her mother’s funeral two years earlier. She had, I knew, a daughter about Kit’s age, who had been acquainted with her English maternal grandparents on only the few, rare occasions Anna had stepped back across the Channel. Sylvia had been unable to understand why there was so little communication between Anna and her now widowed father and had tried, on numerous occasions, to suggest that either she and Colin go over to Italy to visit his daughter and her almost unknown husband and daughter, or that Anna come and stay with them at the family home in Epsom. Both suggestions had, apparently, borne little fruit and Anna’s polite, formal note declining the invitation to her father’s forthcoming nuptials, had rankled badly with Sylvia.
I yawned again. The adrenalin, which had geared me up and carried me through all of yesterday and last night, had long dissipated, leaving me tired and lethargic. I needed sugar, carbs – anything to rev me back up to cope with a full day of celebration and socialising. I made more coffee and a couple of slices of toast, which I loaded with the butter and honey I’d denied myself the past few weeks while endeavouring to stick to the regime set by the tyrant Tina Trainer down at the gym.
‘Mummy, I’m ready.’ India came into the kitchen, proudly attired in her burgundy velvet bridesmaid dress, bouquet firmly entrenched in her little hands. I licked some escaped honey from my fingers and leaned forward to give her a hug. She smelt of sleep and garlic.
‘Darling, it’s not quite time to put your dress on yet. You don’t want to spoil it, do you? Pop back upstairs and hang it up and then come back down for some breakfast. Then you can have a shower with me and I’ll do your hair properly.’
India pouted, admiring her reflection in the huge stainless steel fridge door before turning her now seven year old critical gaze towards me. ‘You look a bit funny, Mummy. You’ve got black under your eyes and a spot on your nose and honey on your nightie.’
Had I? I whipped out a mirror from my bag, and then wished I hadn’t. I looked dreadful. The burglar’s bags under my eyes needed only emblazoning with the word ‘loot’ to confirm their authenticity, and a newborn spot was waxing triumphantly on the side of my nose. My face, apart from the black of my eyes and the red of my nose, was pallid and anaemic looking.
Great stuff.
‘I’ve been up all night with these two,’ I said, as both twins gurgled and waved their chubby little fists in India’s direction. Fin’s right cheek sported the red badge of the teething baby, but he now appeared happier and was smiling gummily at his big sister. The novelty of being a big sister had long worn off and India ignored both of them, interested only in herself and the visual impact she was hoping to achieve later that day. ‘Go on, India, back upstairs… and put your jeans and jumper on and hang up that dress nicely. I’ll do your hair and you can have some pink on your nails, if you go now, this minute.’
Liberty arrived as India, trailing her feet, went back upstairs. I glanced at the clock. It was still only six thirty a.m.. ‘What on earth are you doing up so early?’ I asked, downing the dregs of my cup of coffee and pouring myself another.
‘Jesus, it’s the middle of the night.’ She too, studied the kitchen clock. ‘I’d no idea what time it was. My phone’s gone flat and I’ve forgotten to bring my watch with me and then I heard you all downstairs, so assumed it was time to get on with this circus.’
‘Ssshh, your granny will hear you.’
‘I doubt it. Snoring was coming from her bedroom as I came past. I thought it must have been Colin at first, but then remembered he isn’t here.’ Judge Fitzgerald had done the decent thing and, after dinner the previous evening, had gone to stay with his brother and wife for the night in order that Sylvia should have some semblance of playing the virginal bride-to-be. ‘Seems weird… Granny shacked up with a toy boy and sleeping with him before she’s married,’ Libby went on, rubbing yesterday’s mascara from under sleep filled eyes before gazing, almost in wonder, at me. ‘Blimey, you look rough. Have you been out on the town? You need to do something about that spot, Mum. It’s embarrassing to have a mother with spots.’
I laughed, despite the confirmation from my blemish free seventeen year old that I needed an industrial sized tube of concealer. ‘Colin is only two years younger than Granny, you daft thing. Hardly a toy boy.’ I poured Libby a coffee and she sat down at the table with me, yawning. It had been weeks since I’d had any sort of conversation with her without her snapping my head off or slamming out of the room, and it was lovely to have her to myself for once. I wondered if I dare broach the subject of this boy she was so obsessed with, find out why it was making her so unhappy.
‘So, how’s it all going?’ I ventured.
‘What? How’s what going?’
‘Well, I know your school work is going really well, apart from the maths stats module.’ We’d had Parents’ Evening earlier that week and received only glowing reports about Liberty. The physics and maths she’d chosen to study at A level were totally beyond my brain, and I had only admiration for anyone attempting their intricacies at that level. ‘What about everything else?’
‘As in?’
‘Well, you don’t seem to be too happy at the moment, darling.’ Sally Saxton’s insinuating suggestion, from several weeks ago, that I should be more aware of what my elder daughter was up to was constantly at the back of my mind – but Libby wouldn’t talk to me, despite the many attempts on my part. All my efforts at trying to find out what, if anything, was going on in my eldest daughter’s life continued to draw a blank. Apart from reading Libby’s diary, or having Sally Saxton pinned against the school playground wall and demanding she be rather more specific about what she thought my daughter was up to, there didn’t seem to be much else I could do. I’d even tried having a quiet word with Bethany, Libby’s best friend, but she’d just got terribly embarrassed, as any young girl would when being probed by a mate’s nosy mother, and had obviously avoided being alone with me ever since.
Liberty scowled. ‘Don’t start, Mum. It’s bad enough being here, having to wear that horrible dress, without you constantly going on at me. Everything is fine, OK? I’m working really hard because I know you and Dad want me to be a doctor…’
‘That’s not fair, Liberty,’ I interrupted. ‘We’ve never pushed you. It was always you that said you fancied doing medicine. For heaven’s sake, if you’ve changed your mind, don’t go down that route.’ I actually felt a modicum of relief that perhaps it was this that was at the bottom of all her seeming unhappiness. ‘Do not think for one moment that either Dad or I will be upset if you change your mind about what you want to do.’
‘No, Mum, I do want to do medicine. I really do. I just feel a bit pressurised at the moment.’
‘Well, we’re not pressurising you. You must know that.’ I smiled and took her hand, feeling that now she seemed to be opening up to me a bit I could perhaps bring up the subject of the mystery boy.
‘So, is there some boy that you fancy?’ I laughed. ‘Gosh, at your age I was in love with someone different every week.’
‘For God’s sake, Mum, leave it out, will you? When there’s a boy that I fancy you’ll be the first to know.’ She pushed back her chair, crossly. ‘Seeing I’m up I might as well go and do a couple of hours’ work.’ And with that, she poured more coffee and slammed out of the kitchen.
What did she mean, when there’s a boy that she fancied? Did that mean she fancied a girl? Was my daughter a lesbian? Goodness, this was something that had never crossed my mind. Was this what Sally Saxton had been desperate to tell me? I tried to think of any clues that might confirm Liberty’s sexual orientation but couldn’t really come up with anything. She’d always been a bit of a tomboy as a child – I could never get her out of the dungarees she’d loved in order to wear anything pink or frilly – and we hadn’t really seen the steady stream of boyfriends one might expect from such a gorgeous girl. But this was all stereotyping, I censured myself. And if my daughter preferred girls to boys, then fair play to her. I was liberal minded. Nick and I would welcome any lesbians into our house. With open minds. And hearts. Yes.
I was just imagining myself at Midhope’s first gay wedding, Liberty and girlfriend both lovely and radiant in white trouser suits, cocking a snook at Sally Saxton – who just happened to be at the church entrance, for some reason – when India came back, but this time with Lilian in tow.
‘India is showered and ready for the dress,’ Lilian smiled, ‘but I reckon bridesmaids need a good breakfast first.’
‘Oh, thanks, Lilian. You’re a gem. I’ve been up most of the night with these two – Fin’s teething, I reckon. I don’t think it’s any more serious than that; he’s calmed down quite a bit now.’
Lilian looked at her watch. ‘Do you want to try and get a couple of hours now? I’ll take over down here. I have to say I think I had the best night’s sleep for ages. I’m ready for action. But you… you look all in.’ Lilian peered over her glasses at me and then whispered, ‘Do you have any haemorrhoid cream?’
‘Erm, sorry, Lilian, I haven’t got any, but Sylvia or Colin might have some.’ I didn’t relish the thought of asking the good judge if he had piles, but poor Lilian was obviously in need of some relief.
‘For that spot, Harriet,’ Lilian whispered once more, indicating the side of my nose with raised eyebrows. ‘Marvellous stuff for spots.’
‘Are you sure? I thought that was wrinkles.’
‘Well… if it gets rid of permanent wrinkles, I’m sure it’ll have a good go with temporary spots. I can take the twins out for a walk later and see if I can find a chemist. You want to look your very best, don’t you? Go and put your head down for an hour.’
‘Oh, I’m up now, Lilian. I don’t think I’d sleep even if I went back to bed.’ I had a little flutter of my heart as I recalled my session with Alex up against that tree, and the reason I’d been unable to sleep in the first place. ‘But I’ll go up and get showered and ready, if that’s OK with you.’
I crept into our room, not wanting to wake Nick. I needed a shower to clear my head and then at least a week to try to put right the ravages of a night with no sleep. As I scrabbled around in my overnight bag by the side of the bed, looking for all the different things I needed, an arm shot out of the duvet and tumbled me into the bed with its owner.
‘Have we got ten minutes?’ Nick asked sleepily as he pressed his not-so-sleepy erection into my back.
‘Ten minutes?’ I asked, feigning jollity. Jolly I most certainly did not feel. Knackered, guilty, and full of an overindulgence of toast and honey, yes. Jolly, no. ‘Why so long?’
‘Five minutes is all I need with you, you ravishing creature,’ Nick said, expertly reaching for his own honeypot.
Ravishing? Ha! He hadn’t seen my bags or spot yet. ‘No go, I’m afraid,’ I said, batting away his hand and reaching once more into my bag before patting him on the nose with a Tampax. ‘Nature calls.’
I leapt out of bed and, not meeting Nick’s eyes, dashed into the adjoining bathroom. Leaping and dashing were surely signs of a guilty conscience, I thought, as I soaked in the tub, eyes closed. Even when not strictly required, the mere sight of a Tampax did relay a well understood message. I remembered Elaine Wilson, a teacher from school, who’d made us laugh one lunchtime telling us how – even though she’d had a hysterectomy – she still, occasionally, sported the evidence of the little blue thread to keep her husband at bay when all she wanted was a good night’s sleep. It had seemed incredibly funny at the time.
By ten o’clock we were all assembled, ready for the off.
‘Why’re you getting married so early, Granny?’ Kit grumbled, his hair still wet from the shower. He’d been fast asleep, stinking in his pit, only twenty minutes earlier.
‘PLUs get married in the morning, darling, before lunch. And never on a Saturday. Just look at the Royal Family if you want to see how it should be done.’
Kit looked blank. ‘PLUs?’
‘People Like Us, darling,’ Sylvia said vaguely. ‘Now, are we all ready? I have to admit to being a teensy bit nervous. Do you think I’m doing the right thing? Is it all a bit sudden, do you think?’
Oh, Jesus. Don’t say she was thinking of backing out. Asking Judge Colin for piles ointment would have been hard enough. Telling him his bride-to-be no longer was would have been horrendous.
Sylvia turned to Nick, taking his arm. ‘Is this really all right with you, Nicholas? I know no one can replace your father in your eyes, but I do feel I’ve been given a second chance with Colin.’
God, she was such a drama queen. There was no way she was going to miss the chance of becoming Lady Fitzgerald and living in this lovely house in Epsom for the rest of her days. Nick grinned down at her and kissed her immaculately Max Factored cheek. ‘Come on, Mum, let’s go. You look lovely.’
Sylvia smiled graciously, took one final look in the mirror at her dove grey Joyce Young outfit and matching hat, before taking Nick’s arm once more and heading for the door and the waiting wedding cars. Kit accompanied Lilian and the babies in the first car, Liberty, India and I went second and Nick and the bride herself brought up the rear, my mother-in-law taking the first, grey suede heeled step of her journey to become Lady Sylvia of Surrey.