Page 20 of The Happiest Ever After
She followed the sound of the BMW driving off and when it dissolved to nothing she let go of the breath she didn’t realise she’d been hanging onto. It was all so close now, that ‘I’ve got something I need to tell you’ moment, and even the thought of it tasted bitter in her mouth. A feeling of dread overcame her. It was so much easier to comply with the devil you knew than stand up to him: the nearer it came, the scarier it felt. She went to the fridge and poured herself a very large glass of chenin blanc. She wasn’t one to turn to alcohol hoping it would smooth her life out, because it hadn’t done her mother much good, but at that moment, she wished it would have a go for her. She just needed to get on with things and not think too hard.
She had some money in her savings account that would greatly help, but it wasn’t a fortune. It should have been. When her mother died and Polly was going through her paperwork she’d found that her uncle had left her a substantial sum which her mother had ‘managed’, since she had been a minor. Polly never saw a penny of it; all she had to show for her relationship with Ed and Rina was the wedding ring threaded onto her necklace, and her sweet memories of them.
She gulped down half the wine and headed upstairs to pack. She put as many suitcases and bags in her boot as it would take. The rest were stored neatly in her upstairs sitting room because it wasn’t very wise to leave a car on the street with boxes and bags in full view. Everything of true importance was in her biggest handbag: money, phone, bank cards, passport, driving licence, documents, her few bits of jewellery. In the event of a dire emergency, if she had thisbag with her, she could cut and go without anything else and survive.
When bedtime came, the only thing hanging in her wardrobe was the beige bridesmaid’s dress. She put her head on her pillow, closed her eyes and tried to power down by visualising her near future. In forty-eight hours, her head would be on a pillow in a little guest house by the sea. There would be a lot to sort for the longer term, of course: a new job, a new house, wherever they might be. But for the next couple of weeks at least, she had sea air and the song of seagulls to look forward to.
TheDaily Trumpetwould like to apologise to Mr Norman Dean Barker for an article which appeared in the Yorkshire Strongman contest article last weekend. Alas, under the picture of the winner was the name Norma Jean Baker not Norman Jean Barker. We apologise to Norma and are happy to report that he has accepted lunch for two at Miller & Arthur steakhouse in Sheffield as due recompense.
Chapter 12
The big day
Polly woke up at six o’clock and she was glad to be out of her dream. In it, she’d been running through air as thick as syrup, taking giant strides but getting nowhere, and behind her a scarecrow lolloping at breakneck speed, dressed in rags and dropping hay in his wake. She’d always had a thing about scarecrows, as some people had about clowns. She’d never liked them, even the thought of their grotesque straw-stuffed bodies crawling with insects made her shudder. She always imagined that when she passed one, it would twist his head and stare at her. She couldn’t even watch the affable Worzel Gummidge without feeling anxious.
One day her mother and her had taken a bus into the countryside to the spot where Uncle Ed’s car had been forced off the road and into a tree, and there in the field at the side was a scarecrow. She could see it now with its hessian flat face and floppy hat, arms resting on a T-frame, tatty legs. Its head was at an angle as if perusing them. Its features were drawn on in thick marker pen, a crooked sly smile and stubbyblack crosses for eyes, and Polly wondered what was stored in that straw brain. It looked too knowing to be a mere ‘thing’.
She’d told Chris about her aversion to them and though he said he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, Shauna turned up one Sunday with a decoration for their garden that she’d bought in a car-boot sale – a three-foot-tall jangly scarecrow. She was sure it was no coincidence. Two weeks later, she’d found out Chris had been cheating on her.
Just a dream, Polly told herself. But she couldn’t chase away the thought that scarecrows were synonymous with ill portents. She hated them, even the most benign-looking ones with their dopey, friendly expressions.
She had a shower and washed her hair, packing up her toiletries into a bag and taking it out to the car. Then she had a very strong coffee and waited for the make-up woman. Ridiculous expense, but that was Camay all over, never happier than when she was spending money.
The make-up woman, ‘Iz’, arrived at nine on the dot. She had a teak fake tan, liquorice-black eyebrows, eyelashes she could have tripped over and only her bottom lip seemed capable of movement. Whatever Iz’s middle name might have been, it definitely wasn’t ‘Subtle’.
Iz dried Polly’s hair and put it in rollers and then got cracking on her face: she had a heavy hand where make-up was concerned and totally ignored the rule of not drawing attention to both eyes and lips. There was too much black around Polly’s eyes and her lipstick was dark ruby.
‘Wish I had natural lips like yours,’ said Iz, with a sigh. Polly’s mother had bequeathed her the full-lip gene. She’d had a mouth like a young Debbie Harry.
Polly put her dress on then.
‘Oh, that’s beautiful,’ said Iz, sounding utterly convincing.Polly thought that she was either daft, blind or had been poisoned by Botox.
Iz then took out Polly’s rollers and did a lot of painful tugging and backcombing, piling her hair high on her head in a sort of bride-of-Frankenstein tower. Then on went the dead swan fascinator, secured by lots of glittery grips.
The bouquet arrived as Iz was packing up. A large teardrop of purpley-red roses, presumably to accessorize with the bride’s dress. Polly put it on the dining table; it would be big enough to hide her handbag behind, which was one good thing. The other was that it would also hide a big portion of her frock as well. Camay really was going to town on expense.
When Iz went, there were twenty minutes until the car arrived. Polly checked herself out in the foxed full-length mirror hanging on the wall by the front door and despite everything, she laughed. How absurd it all was. This ghastly dress, the feathery disaster on her head, the spiders’ legs eyelashes. The end to a perfect week of waters breaking, coffee-chucking, Auntie Marian’s Bread, Alan’s portrait, Brock the cock, all of it in one huge dung-ball in her head. Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough, it really couldn’t.
Five minutes later than expected there was a cheery car pip from outside and Polly looked out of the window to see a limo with beige ribbons tied on the front. She slipped on her too-tall shoes, swept up her handbag and flowers and locked up the house. The elderly chauffeur had got out of the car to open the back door for her. She wondered if he’d retired from whatever job he had, got bored doing nothing, and found this job to supplement his pension. She liked to guess at people’s life stories, as if the curious, writer part of her brain was always on the lookout for ideas.
He smiled at her and said, ‘Morning ma’am, Stanley here at your service. You look beautiful.’ There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in his voice. God bless the old-gent types.
‘Nice day for it,’ he said through the glass partition when he started up the engine. ‘Rain later though, so I hope you get your photos done in time.’
Polly thought then that she’d never see those photos, thank goodness. She wondered if Camay really would scribble her head out with a biro.
At the traffic lights, they pulled level with an old Volkswagen Beetle festooned in pink ribbons. There was a young bride sitting in the back with a man, her father presumably. She waved madly through the window and mouthedgood luckat Polly and stuck her thumbs up.She thinks I’m a fellow bride, thought Polly, who mouthed the same sentiment back. She looked happy, excited, as if she couldn’t wait to get to the church.
Eventually the limo pulled up in front of the town hall and Stanley once again got out to open the door for her.
‘Hope it goes well. I’ll see you in a bit. I’ll be waiting around the corner.’ And he pointed to where that was.
‘Thank you.’ Polly adjusted her dress and walked up the steps. A wedding had just finished because a bridal party was posing outside the doors. A young couple with beaming smiles in gothic attire. The bride was in a red lace dress, black veil and was heavily pregnant, and both she and her new groom were resting their hands on top of her bump as if they wanted their little one to be a central part of their celebration.
I never want to get married unless I’m wearing a smile like that, thought Polly to herself as she entered the town hall. Camay was waiting for her in the foyer. She had on a long satin plum dress with a bolero, a matching pillbox hat with a veilover her eyes, and she was carrying a posy of purpley roses, much smaller than Polly’s bouquet. She looked surprisingly understated to be the bride. Polly had expected nothing less than a six-foot train and a crown. Possibly even a sceptre. The florist had got the two mixed up, it was obvious.
‘Slightly late but that’s all right. Everyone’s in there,’ Camay said, looking at her Rolex. ‘Are you ready?’ Her shoulders shimmied with excitement.
