EARLY SEPTEMBER
Ed & Margy
‘Well, that’s a funny thing to find!’ Margy shouted through to Ed who was busy hanging up their clothes in the wardrobe of 23 The Strand. There was hardly enough space for all the clothes she’d brought with her, never mind Ed’s. Not that he’d grumble about that, because Ed didn’t ‘sweat the small stuff’ as he put it now he’d learned that phrase, and would probably live out of his suitcase for the fortnight.
‘Eh?’ Ed shouted back
‘A… note… from… an… alcoholic!’ Margy enunciated clearly and slowly. ‘Poor woman.’
‘Eh?’ Ed shouted back again.
‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ Margy said, almost in a whisper this time. Ed hated it when she said that. She’d forgotten in the excitement of being here, and why, that Ed didn’t hear quite as well these days as he once had. She supposed that when a body was seventy years old – as Ed’s would be very soon – there were things that might drop off a bit. ‘Although not that,’ she said out loud with a giggle. Would Ed be up for that during their stay? Hmm, maybe… or then again, maybe not. But it didn’t matter. They’d had plenty of that in their time, her and Ed.
Margy was still standing by the little kitchen work station, the note in her hand, when Ed came out.
‘Thought you asked if I wanted a cup of tea just now,’ he said.
‘You thought nothing of the sort!’ Margy said. ‘But I’ll make you one if you want one. I was talking about this. A letter from an alcoholic.’
‘Come again?’ Ed said. ‘I know the old ears aren’t what they were but that’s a sentence I never thought I’d have to struggle with.’
Margy handed him the note.
‘And there’s a bottle of Rio… something or other to go with it. Rio-jar or something.’
Ed took the bottle from her.
‘Rioja,’ he said, giving it its correct pronunciation.
‘Obviously you’ve never bought me enough of it if I don’t know how to say it,’ Margy admonished him, eyebrows knit-together, mock-cross.
‘Not going to buy you one now either,’ Ed said, ‘seeing as we’ve got this.’ He read the note again. ‘Can’t understand how people can’t put a hand over their glass after two but there you go, some of them can’t. Poor Caroline I’d say. And here on her own too. There’s no “and whoever” on the end of her note.’
‘No,’ Margy said. ‘I wouldn’t want to be here without you, Ed.’
All her good spirits and the cheeky banter she’d been sharing with Ed evaporated. She knew why they were here. To get married. Their three daughters thought they already were. Their ten grandchildren had been told they already were. There was even a photograph on their mantelpiece back home of Margy wearing a costume and a hat at a jaunty angle and Ed in a dark-grey suit he’d bought in a sale at the Co-op that they’d had taken on a day out in Lyme Regis. They’d told everyone it was their wedding photo. They’d eloped, they’d said. The truth was they hadn’t wanted to get married. It would have been a shotgun job and Margy hadn’t wanted that – a photo of her stomach in a satin frock looking like she had a baby seal under it and all the pinched looks and pursed lips and disapproval of their respective mothers in all the photos because all the neighbours would know. Goodness, but how different it all was today. Did anyone get married today?
‘And you’ve missed a cue,’ Margy said. ‘You were supposed to say you wouldn’t want to be here without me either, but you didn’t.’
‘I was waiting to find out why your balloon had deflated. You went all serious there. Like the time you put your foot through one of my paintings when you were tidying up – unasked, I don’t need to remind you – and didn’t know how to tell me.’
‘I told you in the end. And I’ve never gone into your shed to tidy up your paintings ever again, have I?’
‘I haven’t painted much either. What with the kids and then the grandkids there’s not been a lot of time.’
‘You could take it up again.’
‘Maybe,’ Ed said. ‘But maybe not. I was never very good.’
‘But you’ve never forgotten I did that, have you? Put my foot through a painting. It’s not like you to bear a grudge, Ed.’
A little shiver of unease rippled up Margy’s spine – what other grudges might he be harbouring? She was too afraid to ask. Too afraid that if it was something they might go on to row about – not that they ever argued much these days, if ever – Ed might pull out of the wedding.
‘It’s not, and I’m not. And all forgiven. Forget I brought the subject up.’ Ed plonked a kiss on top of her head. ‘I don’t know why I did.’
‘Why did you then?’ Margy asked, unable to stop herself.
‘Nerves probably.’
‘You? Nerves? What about?’
‘This wedding thing. I might stumble over the words. Say the wrong ones or something if I don’t hear properly. I’ll have to wear my glasses.’
‘Is that all!’ Margy laughed. She knew Ed had never liked the idea he had to wear glasses these days. ‘Anyway, there’ll be a card to read it all from as well as the person taking the ceremony saying it. I’ve checked.’
‘You’re not letting me off the hook then?’ Ed said, with a wink so Margy would know he was only joking.
She hoped he was only joking but he’d planted a few seeds of doubt in her mind now and she hoped the damned things didn’t germinate any time soon.
‘No,’ she said, blowing a kiss at him. ‘I’ve got a great big hook on the end of my line and I’m going to reel you in!’
‘That’s that sorted then,’ Ed said. ‘That kettle’s boiling its head off, by the way.’
‘You make the tea,’ Margy said. ‘I’ve got lists to write.’
Now they’d registered their residency in the area and booked the registry office for two weeks’ time, all Margy had to do was find a dress to wear, and shoes, and a bag. Oh, and sort flowers. Her head was fizzing with all the possibilities and the romance of it, if she was honest. The young thought they’d invented romance, didn’t they? They shivered in disgust to think about anyone over forty feeling frisky, and being sexy, and just being plain romantic. Ha, if only they knew!
‘What sort of lists?’
‘For the wedding.’
‘Remind me again who’s getting married,’ Ed said.
‘We are!’ Margy laughed. Honestly, Ed found it hard to take anything serious, sometimes, and while that was good in many situations, she wished he’d meet her halfway over this wedding because, so far, he’d left everything to her. ‘So I’ve got my list. Dress, shoes, bag of some sort. Flowers.’
And then, of course, there was the little matter of witnesses to find, seeing as they knew not a single soul in the area.
‘So,’ Margy said, ‘how are we going to go about this?’
‘Go about what?’ Ed asked.
Ed, driving carefully in the narrow lanes towards Totnes, slowed down rather than overtake a cyclist. Margy had her list on her lap, a biro in her hand.
‘Witnesses,’ Margy told him. ‘We have to find some.’
‘We?’
‘Yes, we!’ Margy snapped. She sighed heavily. Honestly, Ed wasn’t taking this seriously enough, was he? Leaving it all to her, as per usual in the fifty years they’d been together. They’d be marrying on their fiftieth wedding anniversary had they had a wedding in the first place, but it would be fifty years since the day they began their life together.
‘Are we having a row?’ Ed asked. ‘Because if we are, could it wait until I’ve safely parked the car?’
Ed couldn’t even take a potential row seriously. Not that they’d had many rows. Only disagreements over how to discipline the girls – or not – when they were younger.
‘No, we’re not having a row,’ Margy said, perhaps a bit too sharply because Ed took his eyes off the road for a brief moment and stared at her before jerking his head to a forward position again. ‘It’s just that I’m not sure your heart is in this wedding.’
I’m goading him, I know I’m goading him. I do it all the time and I wish I didn’t. I’ve got to stop. Now.
‘It’s not,’ Ed said. ‘Weddings are women’s stuff. When has a bloke ever enjoyed planning a wedding? Weddings and marriages aren’t the same thing. And that’s all I’m saying until I’ve parked this bloomin’ car and we’re sitting in some dippy hippy café having coffee and, with a bit of luck, a doorstep wodge of carrot cake or whatever sort of vegetarian stuff they cook up around here. Totnes, the hippy capital of the world, so you said, eh? The things I do for you, Margy Grey!’
‘Not Margy Grey for much longer. I’ll be Margy Ford soon. Legally.’
Ed did a ‘zipping-up’ gesture in front of his mouth and drove on in silence.
‘What’s next?’ Ed said. He ran a tongue around his lips, licking away every last crumb of cake.
‘See, that wasn’t a half bad bit of cake, was it?’
Margy couldn’t help smiling. Ed had rolled his eyes to be told the only cake on offer was courgette and carob because the café had sold out of everything else. Margy had given him one of her looks, not to start complaining or rubbishing it off – albeit in a jokey way – before he’d tasted it.
‘It was all right. I wished you hadn’t told me what it was though. Courgettes in a cake, for crying out loud. I don’t even eat the watery old things as a vegetable! And what the heck is carob when it’s at home? Who’d have thought it! I kept my eyes shut, though, and told my brain it was chocolate cake because it was vaguely that sort of colour.’
‘And didn’t you look daft doing it?’
‘You know what you’re marrying then, don’t you?’ Ed said, grinning at her. ‘Now, leave a man to get over the shock of courgettes in a cake and whatever else that mystery ingredient was and go and do what we’ve come here to do. What’s first?’
‘The dress first.’ Margy didn’t have the first idea what sort of shops were in Totnes. All she’d read was that the place embraced alternative living in a big way, with therapists of all sorts and communal living and the like. A throwback to the sixties. Maybe she’d find something appropriate here? Something to remind her of what she might have worn had she got married back then?
‘Count me out,’ Ed said. He tidied the cups and saucers and cake plates into a neat pile ready for the waitress. ‘See how well you’ve trained me over the years!’ he quipped.
Margy ignored the quip.
‘What do you mean, count you out?’
‘I need time to recover after that cake,’ Ed said. ‘And anyway, it’s unlucky, isn’t it? For the groom to see the bride’s dress before the big day.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Margy said, a frisson of something she didn’t quite understand in her stomach, like a blob of ice cream dropped into a glass of lemonade. And then a thought hit her – what if their relationship went hideously wrong after all these years? She’d read enough stories in magazines and newspapers about couples who’d been together for years only for their relationships to flounder once they’d made the union legal. That wouldn’t happen to her and Ed, would it?
‘I’m not being daft,’ Ed said. ‘I’m being sensible. When have I not liked a dress or a blouse or whatever that you’ve bought?’
‘You’ve never said you didn’t like something.’
‘There you are then. You could wear what you’re wearing now and it would be all the same to me because I know what’s underneath.’
‘Ed! Keep your voice down. Someone might hear you!’
‘I didn’t mean that sort of underneath. I meant who you are inside whatever fancy rig you cover yourself up with. I meant you, the person I’ll be marrying.’
‘Oh,’ Margy said. This was a strange sort of conversation they were having because Ed didn’t normally do ‘emotional stuff’ as he put it. Or compliments for that matter. ‘That’s nice to hear, but just for the record I don’t remember you ever saying you liked anything I’ve bought either.’
‘Women! I’ll never understand ’em as long as I live! You can take it as read I’ve liked everything. So far. And if I don’t like what you buy I’m not daft enough that I’d tell you. Now off you go. Same as usual? I sit with a pint in a pub somewhere and wait for you to pitch up with half a dozen bags? Then we do lunch?’
‘You’re driving. I know that’s what we do at home but we always go by bus, don’t we?’
‘We do. But you could drive back.’
‘What? Through all those little lanes?’
‘Yep. The same little lanes I drove down to get here, only in reverse. Not the car in reverse, I mean…’
‘I know what you mean!’ Margy said, a bit more snippily than she’d meant it to sound. But maybe Ed did have a point about it being unlucky for the groom to see the bride’s dress before the big day? And why shouldn’t she drive? Ed had driven for six hours to get to their holiday chalet and would drive back. ‘All right. I’ll give the driving some thought. After I’ve bought my dress.’
‘That’s my girl,’ Ed said and tapped Margy on the bottom as she got up to leave.
Girl? Goodness!
It seemed strange shopping for clothes without one of her daughters with her. They kept her in check. Stopped her getting too ‘beige’ in her choices as she got older. Stopped her buying cardigans unless they came in bright, jewel shades and were made with some sort of randomly shaded wool or knitted up in complicated, fancy patterns.
Margy wandered in and out of charity shops. You could get a good class of clothes in some charity shops and the ones here seemed to echo that. After all, why spend a fortune on something she’d wear only once, she told herself, at this stage in her life? Ed was going to be wearing a pair of cream chinos with a blue-and-white striped shirt and navy jacket. She considered a multicoloured Monsoon, ankle-length dress in the second charity shop she went into. But it was as though she could hear her middle daughter – Louise – saying, ‘No, Mum, you’ve got great ankles, don’t hide them.’
‘Not that one either,’ she heard her eldest – Libby – say in a shop called Susie’s.
‘What’s wrong with lace?’ she said.
And it was only when the saleslady said, ‘Nothing, madam. It will look lovely on you,’ that Margy realised she’d spoken out loud.
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Margy said, as lovely as it was – shell-pink with a deep V neck and asymmetric hem. At least one of her ankles would be on show so Louise wouldn’t be able to admonish her for hiding them.
‘Are you looking for something for a special occasion?’ the saleslady asked.
‘Yes. A wedding. Mine.’
‘Second time around?’
‘No. First.’
And then, before she could be drawn further into a conversation she didn’t want about having daughters and grandchildren and wanting to tidy things up in the finance department before she and Ed became gaga with dementia or got some horrid illness, she fled the shop.
Only when she got outside did she realise she was crying.
Get a grip, Margy told herself as she stood staring into the shoe-shop window without actually seeing. All the shoe colours seemed to mash together, like a cracked kaleidoscope. She had to meet up with Ed later with something. Shoes would be a start. What was it the Duchess of Cambridge always wore on her feet? Beige heels? No, not beige – nude. Laura, her youngest, had corrected her when Margy had questioned why the Duchess always wore beige shoes.
‘They’re nude, Mum,’ Laura said.
‘Well, they look beige to me,’ Margy had countered. ‘You know, the same colour you won’t let me wear in cardigans or jackets.’
Laura had wagged a finger at her playfully.
‘Now, now, play fair. Wearing nude shoes means you can wear absolutely any other colour anywhere else on your body and there won’t be a clash. And besides, they lengthen the leg visually.’
‘That’s a mercy, that it’s only visually,’ Margy said. Her legs were so long she often had trouble finding jeans that ended at her ankles and not halfway up her leg. And crops were not a good idea in winter, however wonderful they might be on a hot day in summer for keeping her cool. Ah yes, jeans. Margy’s girls were proud of the fact she wore jeans still at sixty-nine. They forbade her to call them trousers, even when they were in white or turquoise or red or… dare she even think it?… beige.
‘Nude it is then, Laura,’ Margy said to herself as she made her way into the shop. It was as though she had Laura – dare she even think of her as her favourite daughter? – with her now. No, she loved them equally but she felt, perhaps, more protective of Laura, whose youngest son, Marco, was quite severely autistic. ‘High heels.’
‘Is that all you’ve got?’ Ed asked when she eventually joined him at the King William for lunch. He was on his second pint and, if the packets on the table were an indicator of what he’d eaten, had munched his way through two packets of crisps and a bag of salted cashews.
‘I had a bit of a wobble in the dress shop,’ Margy said. ‘I suddenly missed the girls and I’m not sure now that we’re doing the right thing having this wedding without them. I saw something I liked but wasn’t sure – one of them would have told me had they been here.’
Ed put his hand over Margy’s.
‘Buckle up, buttercup,’ he said. ‘They’re lovely girls but they’re not always right, you know. Trust your own judgement. You were right about me, way back then, weren’t you? Despite your parents thinking I was the boyfriend from hell because I rode a motorbike.’
‘And a Barbour jacket that left wax up my fingernails.’
‘I bought you a crash helmet though, didn’t I? Even though it wasn’t the law that you had to wear one back then.’
‘You did,’ Margy said.
There had been quite a few new motorbike jackets for Ed – as he’d grown more portly – between then and now. And a fair few crash helmets as well as fashions changed.
‘I can still get my leg over,’ Ed said.
‘Ed! Keep your voice down. Whatever will people think, saying things like that out loud?’
‘I don’t know what’s going on in that saucy mind of yours but I’m talking about the motorbikes. I can still swing my leg over and kick-start the blooming things. Well, most of the time I can.’
Ed had six motorbikes – all vintage, all bought for a song years ago but worth a fortune now. They were his pride and joy, and he still rode them, in rotation, once a week when he met up with like-minded pals. Margy had got quite used to being a motorbike widow, the way some women were golf widows and the like. It was being a widow sort of widow she didn’t want to think about.
‘Oh dear, you’re looking a bit maudlin. What’s up?’
‘Nothing’s up. I was just thinking about you on a motorbike and us not getting any younger.’
‘Then stop thinking. How about we have some lunch? You have just the one small glass of something white and fizzy and then you walk it off before you drive me back to the chalet? We’ll go and look at that dress and…’
‘No, it’s unlucky for the groom to see his bride’s dress before the big day. You said so yourself.’
And there came that stomach-churning thought again – what if their relationship went wrong once they were married?
‘We don’t have to do this,’ Ed said. ‘If you’d rather not.’
Margy flinched. What was Ed implying?
‘Are you saying you’d rather not?’
‘Don’t be daft. I thought all my birthdays and Christmases had come at once when you asked me to marry you!’
‘I did, didn’t I?’ Margy said.
‘And what did I say?’
‘You said “yes” so loudly I think they heard you three streets away.’
‘There then, that was your answer and it still is.’
Ed got up and went to the bar, coming back with a glass of Prosecco for Margy and the menu.
Margy took the glass from him and sipped cautiously. The bubbles always went up her nose and now was no different. It made her laugh as it always did.
‘That’s better,’ Ed said.
‘Yes, but I’ve been thinking. The trouble with lies is they’re self-perpetuating. You tell one little one and then you have to add a little bit to it, and then it becomes a bigger lie. You have to remember what you’ve said and what places and dates and things you gave to cover your traces.’ Margy took another sip.
‘And that’s why I’ve never bothered to have an affair,’ Ed said. He leaned over and kissed Margy on the cheek. ‘Not clever enough to keep up the subterfuge.’
‘Is that a backhanded compliment to me?’ Margy said. She picked up the menu.
‘No, it’s a compliment. What was it Paul Newman said? He didn’t go out for hotdogs when he had a decent roast dinner at home?’
‘It was going out for burgers because he had steak at home.’
‘Same thing,’ Ed said. ‘To me you’re the full Sunday lunch with all the trimmings.’
‘Oh, Ed,’ Margy laughed. ‘You say the nicest things!’
‘I’m still not sure we’re doing the right thing,’ Margy said when she and Ed were back at 23 The Strand.
She’d bought the dress she’d admired in Susie’s, and with the nude heels it was perfect.
‘What? Eating fish and chips out of the wrappings?’
Ed had suggested he run up Seaway Road to a fish and chip shop he’d noticed. It wouldn’t take him five minutes, he’d said. But it had taken a lot longer than that because there’d been a long queue when he got there.
‘Worth the wait though,’ Ed went on. ‘These are the best fish and chips south of Leeds.’
‘I didn’t mean the fish and chips,’ Margy said. ‘I mean this secret wedding thing.’
‘Yes, well, some secrets are best kept as just that – secrets.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Margy asked. Ed had a funny look about him, like his mind was squirming.
‘I’ve got one. A secret.’
Oh gawd. Was he about to tell her he’d been married when they had their faux-wedding photo taken and that his wife was still alive? Margy had just put a chip in her mouth and was having trouble swallowing it. She reached for her glass of water.
‘Do I need to know?’
‘Probably not. But I need to tell.’
Ed dipped a chip in the polystyrene pot of tomato ketchup that had come with the fish and chips and licked off the scarlet sauce, very slowly, as though he was buying himself time before divulging what he was going to. Margy knew him well enough to know he would do that.
‘You’d better tell then,’ Margy said, now she’d swallowed back the chip with half a glass of water.
‘When we first met, you and me, I was seeing someone. I kept on seeing her as well for a few weeks.’
‘Two-timing? Did you? You never said.’
‘’Course not. What bloke does? I was sort of hedging my bets.’
‘Thanks for the compliment, not!’ Margy said. She knew she would have little streaks of pink running up the sides of her neck – that always happened in an embarrassing situation and this one was up there with the biggest of them. ‘Who was going to be the better catch? Her or me? Is that what you’re saying?’ Margy felt a bit sick in the stomach now. ‘Do I know her?’
‘Did,’ Ed said. ‘Sally Stokes.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Margy said. ‘Excuse my French.’
She and Sally Stokes had been through junior school together and then through secondary school. They’d been in the same group of friends although never best friends. Margy’s brain was peeling back the years now. When had she and Sally stopped being in the same space at the same time? About the time she’d met Ed, she was sure of that now.
‘I’d only been seeing her for about a month when I met you. Once I’d met you I needed to let her down slowly.’
‘And that excuses any two-timing, does it?’
Margy wrapped what was left of her fish and chips in the paper and threw them in the wastepaper bin. Her appetite had well and truly gone now. There were questions she badly needed to ask. Except she didn’t know she wanted the answers.
‘I was young. We were young. We knew nothing, did we, even though we thought we did?’
Ed carried on eating his fish and chips as though all he’d said was what a lovely day it was and did Margy fancy a stroll on the beach later. It was all off his chest at last and he felt better now.
Margy had other ideas.
‘One question,’ Margy said. ‘Did you “marry me” – in inverted commas – because you got me in the family way?’
‘You daft apeth. What a question!’
‘That hardly answers it but I’ve got another one – did you get Sally Stokes in the family way as well? I heard she’d had a baby. Not married. Went for adoption.’
‘So she might have done,’ Ed said, ‘but she didn’t get it from me. We never got past the holding hands and kissing in the back row of the Roxy stage. And besides, I never felt for her like I did for you. We slept together on our second date, didn’t we, you and me?’
‘Third,’ Margy said.
‘Third then. Not that Sally didn’t try and persuade me otherwise, but I knew she wasn’t who I wanted to be with long-term. Sleeping with someone before marriage wasn’t so easy to organise back then.’
‘Not that we got any sleep on that third date,’ Margy said. She’d taken in everything Ed had said, and the thought that she’d been the one he’d wanted to be with long-term was barely sustaining her now she’d been knocked off an even keel a bit with his revelation. Right at that moment she didn’t mind if she never heard the name Sally Stokes ever again. ‘And talking of sleep, I’m off to bed. It’s been a long day. I’ve spent a lot of money on clothes, and shoes, and a bag, and I’m not sure I’ll be getting any use out of any of them now. Sally Stokes! I mean, it’s fine you were seeing her before you met me, but to carry on…’
‘Shut up, love, and give us a kiss,’ Ed said.
Ed always said that if they had a minor spat about something and it always made her laugh and sometimes she gave him a kiss and sometimes she didn’t, saying ‘Oh, you!’ as they let the argument drop. But this was hardly minor, was it? She had to know he really wanted to marry her, and not just because he was righting a wrong from the past.
‘Not right at the moment. Goodnight.’
Margy slept fitfully. She pretended to be asleep when Ed came to bed and when he put an arm across her back as he always did before going to sleep she rolled over and away from him. She lay there for a long time after he’d gone to sleep listening to the tenor of his breathing and the little snuffles he made. It had been a shock hearing he’d two-timed her with Sally Stokes. She liked that he’d been totally honest about his motives, in a way, and she believed him when he said he and Sally had never had sex, but there was still that niggle in the back of her mind now that he’d, perhaps, been trapped by her own pregnancy. Their pregnancy. Didn’t everyone these days say, ‘We’re having a baby, and not I’m having a baby?’ Had they been living a lie, the both of them, for years?
Margy eventually went to sleep just as the sky began to lighten.
‘Wakey wakey, sleepy-head.’ Ed’s voice penetrated the fug in Margy’s brain. ‘Coffee just the way you like it, strong with hot milk and one sugar. Toast just the way you like it, white bread an inch thick with lashings of butter and a scraping of marmalade.’
Margy hauled herself to a sitting position as Ed placed a tray with her breakfast on it on the bed beside her.
Ed was always cheerful in the mornings – sometimes irritatingly so, as now. It was as though the awkwardness of the previous evening had never been. For him that was. He’d got all that off his chest and now he was fine. Well, Margy wasn’t.
‘Thank you,’ she said, picking up the tray and placing it on her lap.
‘Anything for…’
‘I’ve got another question. In relation to last night’s conversation.’
‘I thought you might have,’ Ed said, but he said it with a grin.
‘Then you didn’t think wrong. What I want to know, Ed,’ Margy said, ‘is had we got married back then, would you have told me at the time about Sally Stokes?’
‘A hypothetical question if ever there was one,’ Ed said, grinning some more. ‘We didn’t get married back then, did we?’
‘No. But I knew Sally Stokes had a baby round about the same time I had our Libby and if I’d known you’d been two-timing me with her, if only for a short while, I’d have asked questions. I mean, our girls might have another sibling out there.’
‘Margy, for goodness’ sake,’ Ed said. ‘I told you last night the wherewithal for having babies didn’t happen between me and Sally Stokes. You do believe me, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Margy was swift with her reply. She had to be. Ed had never given her reason to disbelieve anything he’d told her before, had he?
‘Good. So, unless you’ve had a baby you haven’t told me about, it’s just our three girls against the world.’
‘You know I haven’t.’
‘And I believe you. Without question.’
‘I still don’t know why you told me after all these years. I thought I knew absolutely everything about you.’
Ed shrugged.
‘You do now. That was the last thing. There shouldn’t be any secrets between husband and wife, should there?’
‘No.’
‘There you are then. As we’re going to be husband and wife soon I thought it was time to clean the slate, as it were. That was my secret and it was gnawing away inside me, and I needed to tell you. I’m sorry it’s made you feel so bad.’
‘I wondered why Sally Stokes ignored me all of a sudden,’ Margy said. ‘I mean she even crossed the road when we almost bumped into one another outside Peter Jones’s one day so she wouldn’t have to speak to me.’ Even now Margy could see the coldness in Sally’s eyes when she’d noticed her coming along, before she’d flicked her gaze away and hurried on.
‘There’s nothing I can say to that that will make it any better,’ Ed said.
‘No. I think I might have reacted to your, er, um, confession a bit too strongly. Thinking about it now. Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Now eat that breakfast before it goes totally cold.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ Margy said, picking up a triangle of toast. ‘You don’t often bring me breakfast in bed. Unless I’m ill.’
‘Play your cards right,’ Ed said, ‘and you never know what might happen from now on. Once we’re married.’
And then he winked at Margy and left the room.
Once we’re married…
But Margy couldn’t let go of the fact that she and Ed had deceived their girls – and now their grandchildren – all these years. All day she’d fretted and done her level best not to bring up the subject. But it hadn’t been easy. They’d taken the open-top bus to Babbacombe and gone down to Oddicombe Beach on the funicular railway, stopping there for a cream tea in the café on the beach before riding back up again.
Now they were back in their chalet, a little pink in the cheeks from the sun.
‘It’s no good, Ed,’ Margy said. ‘I’ve got to say what’s on my mind.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve…’
‘Ed, let me finish. Don’t come chipping in with a funny remark like you usually do. Not that I don’t appreciate your funny remarks.’
‘Well, that’s a relief. You’ve never said.’
‘I’m saying now.’ And then before Ed could chip in again she held up a hand to stop him. ‘We should have told the girls when your dad died – he was the last to go, wasn’t he?’ Margy didn’t wait for an answer because none was needed really. ‘We should have got married then and they could all have been bridesmaids. Well, all except Libby who was married by then.’
‘Well, we didn’t. D’you remember how surprised Libby was when she told us she was expecting? I think she’d braced herself for the old Spanish Inquisition and “you’re ruining your life having a baby so young”, but we didn’t give her any of that, did we?’
‘That’s because we couldn’t. And I’m getting nervous now about what they are going to say. When they find out.’
‘Or it could be if they find out. We don’t have to tell them. They’ll be thinking we’re just having a holiday like we do every year. Their minds won’t be full of suspicion.’
‘They might be when they see my new frock. And the nude shoes.’
‘They don’t have to see any of that either, do they? You could offload it all to a charity shop before we go home or something.’
‘Hmmm,’ Margy said. ‘I don’t think I’ll wear a hat. The lady in the dress shop said my hair is too lovely a shade of silver to hide under a hat and had I ever thought of having it much shorter with a few lowlights put in. So I think I will. And I’ve decided to carry just one flower – a deep-pink rose. With the thorns cut off. And maybe a bit of ribbon wound round the stem.’
‘So, it’s on then? This wedding?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘Phew!’ Ed brushed his forehead with the back of a hand. But he was looking serious.
‘What is it, Ed?’ Margy asked. ‘I’ve known you long enough to know there’s something you want to say but don’t know how.’
‘Do you now, Watson?’ Ed quipped.
‘Elementary,’ Margy quipped back. They were both huge Sherlock Holmes fans. ‘So what’s troubling you?’
‘It’s not exactly troubling me,’ Ed said. ‘But now I’ve got it in my head we’re getting married after all these years I think it’s the right thing to be doing and we should have done it years ago.’
‘You never asked me,’ Margy said.
‘That’s not to say I didn’t think about asking you a million times. You know, when I go a bit quiet like I’m thinking and then you say, “What? Is there something you want to tell me, Ed?”, and I always say no. Well, then.’
‘Oh,’ Margy said. So there was the reason for all those little troubled looks over the years.
‘I’ve often worried that, should I get some terrible illness or get run over by the number twenty-seven bus or something, no one would fetch you to hold my hand when I’m dying because you’re not my next of kin. What a terrible way that would be for the girls to find out.’
‘Well, that’s not going to happen now, is it?’ Margy set about clearing up the plates and crockery from their supper of bread and cheese and pickles. And then a terrible thought struck her, like the onslaught of flu times a million. ‘You haven’t got some terrible illness you haven’t told me about, have you?’
‘Do I look like a sick man?’
‘No. Thank goodness. Another cup of tea?’
‘No, thanks. I fancy an early night though.’ Ed put a little stress on the word ‘early’. Barely there, like the way a butterfly might touch your face as it flies past.
‘Early night? It’s not nine o’clock yet. There’s still a bit of daylight left out there.’
‘I didn’t mean any old sort of early night. I meant an early night. A nudge-nudge, wink-wink sort of early night. Remember those?’
‘Fondly,’ Margy said.
Goodness, it must be all the sea air, she thought, as she reached for Ed’s hand and led him to the bedroom.
‘How many texts is that you’ve sent now?’ Margy asked.
They were into their second week – Margy able to see it as a holiday now, seeing as she had the essentials for their wedding sorted. Well, all except the witnesses, but that could wait. Ed had been receiving and sending texts almost nonstop for almost a few days now. The girls. First Laura, then Libby, and then Louise had texted. And the grandchildren. Marco often texted rather than use voice or say anything when he was at Margy and Ed’s, even when he was in one room and they were in the other. And he had been known to text them when they were all in the same room sometimes. Even Marco could see the funny side of that.
‘I dunno. Lost count a bit.’
Secretly, Margy was hoping Ed had told the girls what they were up to and that they were planning a ‘surprise’ visit for Saturday. Of course she’d look suitably surprised and delighted. She wouldn’t ask Ed if that was what all the texts were about though. It would spoil it.
‘What do they want?’
‘This and that. Louise wants me to build a chicken run when we get back.’
‘Chickens? She’s going to keep chickens?’
‘Well, I imagine so. I don’t think she’s thinking of keeping a panther in there or anything. Oh…’ Ed put a hand to his ear, making a sort of ear-trumpet shape of it. ‘I can hear motorbikes. Old British ones. Coming down over the hill.’
‘Well, there’s a marvel,’ Margy said, laughing. ‘You go deaf as a post when I ask you to put the rubbish out, or clear all your sudokus away, but you can hear British bikes a mile off.’
And you’re throwing me off the scent about all those texts by changing the subject, aren’t you?
‘Vaccinated with a speedo needle, that’s why,’ Ed said. ‘Fancy a walk along the front? Walk off all the fish and chips we’ve been eating since we’ve been here. I mean, you want to get into that dress, don’t you?’
‘If I didn’t know you better, Ed, I’d say you’d planned this.’
‘Well, I did see a poster for some sort of charity motorcycle gathering further along the prom. I wasn’t expecting British bikes though.’
‘So you think we ought to go and check?’
‘I do.’
‘Only if you hold my hand all the way.’
‘Consider it done,’ Ed said.
Blimey, they’d got out of the habit of holding hands years ago, but the sea air and a wedding to plan and a few early nights and they were back to how they’d been back then. Almost.
The holiday was turning into more of a honeymoon than Margy ever could have hoped it would. She and Ed made love most nights, and on the nights they didn’t they spooned together like they’d done when they were younger and thinner. But it felt just as good now as it had back then. And every day they walked along the beach when the tide was low or along the promenade when it wasn’t.
They became on nodding terms with the young couple who ran the kayak business.
‘Lovely day for it,’ Ed had quipped one morning. ‘Shame I haven’t brought my sea legs on holiday with me.’
The ponytailed man running the business had looked up.
‘The wife then?’ he’d said laughing.
‘What wife?’ Ed said. He patted the back of Margy’s hand with his free one. ‘I’ve yet to make an honest woman of her.’
‘Ed!’
‘Same here,’ the young man had said, looking lovingly at the woman beside him.
Margy thought she looked surprised at his remark, and yet pleased too. Hmm, Margy thought, I wonder what’s going on there?
‘Ed?’ Margy said now, coming back to the present as they sat in a shelter looking out to sea. The kayak business was just setting up for the day, and Ed was texting again. Oh yes, he had to be planning something, didn’t he? ‘Ed?’ she said again when he didn’t respond.
‘That’s me. What can I do for you?’ Ed shuffled along the glossed seat nearer to Margy. ‘That was a very loaded “Ed”. You’re not thinking of backing out at this late hour, are you?’
‘Of course not. I’ve been thinking. I’d like to ask the couple running the kayak business to be our witnesses. I know we don’t know their names but they always nod and say hello and give us a friendly wave if they see us passing, don’t they?’
‘Yes, but…’ Ed began. He checked his phone again but nothing had pinged in – nothing Margy had heard anyway. ‘There’ll be loads of people around at Cockington Court. Cleaners and the like, and other holidaymakers. There’s bound to be someone we can ask.’
‘No, Ed. I’ve got nothing against cleaners or holidaymakers but I’d like our witnesses to be faces I’ve seen before. I’m going to ask them.’
Margy got up and crossed the promenade, and Ed followed as she’d known he would.
‘Morning,’ Margy said when she reached the rack of wetsuits where the young woman was arranging them in size order. She waved to the young man setting the kayaks out on the sand and he waved back.
‘Morning,’ the young woman said.
‘I’ve got something to ask you. You and your man,’ Margy said. Ed had caught up with her now and she reached for his hand. ‘We both have.’
‘Ask away.’
‘Well, it’s like this. Ed and I are here so we can get married. On Saturday. We need witnesses. Could you…’
Now she’d said the words Margy was filled with emotion. Marriage was a momentous step whenever you took it.
‘Married? Goodness. How wonderfully romantic. I’d be delighted to. I’ll just go and ask Ross if he minds though. I’m Lucy.’
‘Thanks, Lucy,’ Ed said, speaking for them both. ‘Ed and Margy. Margy and Ed. Depends who’s wearing the trousers.’
Lucy laughed and went off to ask her partner. They came back hand in hand.
‘Ross is up for it,’ Lucy said.
‘Yeah,’ Ross said. ‘Saturday’s changeover day and it’s always a bit quiet for business. My lad, Toby, can manage on his own.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Margy said. ‘It’s just that, well, we’re doing this secretly without our daughters and their families knowing and… well, I wanted our witnesses to be people whose faces I sort of know.’
‘Gosh, that’s romantic, big time!’ Lucy said, and then she gulped as though swallowing back something. Ross put an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.
‘Lucy and I haven’t been together long,’ he said. ‘Poor girl should have been on her honeymoon in Bali but the groom pulled out. His loss.’ He pulled Lucy to him and kissed the top of her head. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t be saying all this…’ He looked worryingly at Lucy.
‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘It’s like we’re friends now if we’re going to Ed and Margy’s wedding. Where are you stopping? Shall we meet you there or at the wedding venue? I stopped in one of the chalets along the end of the prom,’ Lucy said. ‘Drowning my sorrows at first and then I decided to do things you don’t need another person for. I met Ross and—’
‘What number?’ Ed interrupted. ‘We’re stopping at Number 23.’
‘No!’ Lucy said. ‘That’s where I stayed! It’s meant to be, isn’t it, us witnessing your wedding? Ooooh, I’m getting excited now. I’ll need to find something to wear.’
‘I thought she might,’ Ed said, laughing. He put an arm on Ross’s shoulder. ‘It’s what women do for weddings. Sorry about that, mate.’
‘No worries,’ Ross said. ‘I’ll need to find a pair of trousers that have knees in them myself.’ He ran his ponytail through a hand the way people did with a cat’s tail. ‘And maybe a new shoelace to tie back my hair.’
Margy went into town the day before her wedding and went in and out of all the hair salons until she felt comfortable with the place and a stylist who would cut her hair and put lowlights in. Ed pretended not to recognise her when he came to fetch her.
‘Blimey, I thought you were someone off the telly for a moment.’
‘Fibs,’ Margy said. ‘Flowers next.’
In a florist’s shop called Panache, Margy explained to the young man who was running it – Gary, it said on a name brooch pinned to his shirt – about wanting just the one deep-pink rose to carry at her wedding.
‘It’ll be just Ed and me,’ she said. ‘And our witnesses, Ross and Lucy. Our daughters don’t know we’re getting married or even that we’re not married yet.’
Gary smiled warmly at her.
‘How many daughters have you got?’
‘Three. Libby, Louise and Laura.’
‘Lovely names but I can’t help thinking that must have got confusing on Valentine’s Day! But then I would say that because I always insist on a forename when a man orders flowers for the big day. Imagine the problems if the wrong girl got the right flowers, if you follow my thinking.’
‘Oh yes,’ Margy said. She’d never forgotten the 14th February when Laura had opened a card, only to recognise her boyfriend’s – at the time – writing saying, ‘Darling Libby, you’re the sister I really want. How about it?’
‘It’s only a suggestion,’ Gary said, looking thoughtful, ‘but have you considered carrying three roses – one for each daughter? I can do different shades of rose if that takes your fancy.’
‘That’s a wonderful idea,’ Margy said.
And it was. But there was a part of her that felt sad the girls wouldn’t be part of her big day. God, but she wished they could be there, although she knew they couldn’t be. Ed had said only that morning that Libby and Louise had gone camping somewhere with their families, although Laura hadn’t joined them because it would have been too much for Marco.
Well, there was nothing for it now. The wedding was booked, Margy had a dress and shoes and she’d had her hair done. She’d sorted witnesses and now Gary was choosing three roses for her and tying them with raffia.
‘Wedding next stop,’ she said.
Dear next occupant,
I’ve thought long and hard about what to leave as my welcome gift because it seems it’s a tradition at 23 The Strand to leave some little thing for the next occupant. It’s not obligatory, apparently, but I like the idea so I’m carrying it on. I got married from here. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I used the ring I’ve been wearing for nearly fifty years as my something old. My dress and all the bits that go with a wedding were the something new. My witness, Lucy, loaned me a necklace when I realised the one I’d brought with me didn’t suit my dress. And the something blue? Well, I didn’t have anything so I rushed into the glass workshop beside the registry office and bought this little blue glass bird which I carried with my flowers. I thought it was a good omen because bluebirds in Hollywood films always mean happiness, don’t they? It’s yours if you’d like it. I’ve had a really lovely time here but I’m so looking forward to going back to my family and seeing the looks of surprise on their faces at our news.
Happy holiday
Margy Ford – and Ed too.