The wedding goes smoothly, and we make our way back to the castle afterwards, where the ballroom has been transformed for the reception. The fairy tales theme of the chapel has been replicated in the vast room, with more twinkling fairy lights, swathes of pale pink ribbon, and pretty jars filled with pink and white flowers, as well as a machine pumping bubbles into the air. There’s a not-very-fairy-tale-like bar set up, a band playing awesome songs from the sixties through to the present day, and a photo booth with fun props. Dinner will be more formal and intimate in the great hall later, but for now we’ve got our party hats on.
I haven’t seen Alice since she and the other bridesmaids paraded past us at the chapel, but Tom and Kevin have been keeping me company. We’ve commandeered a table close to the bar and have been making the most of the free booze on offer while we make each other laugh with ever more elaborate tales. I’m having a fantastic time, even if I am psyching myself up to confess all to Tom.
‘I see I’ve found the fun table,’ Alice says as she drops into the seat next to Kevin. I grab my phone and take a photo of the pair of them.
‘Tom was just telling us some stories about growing up here,’ Kevin says once he’s posed with a cheeky grin, and I feel a little stab of glee when Alice’s eyes widen.
‘Oh, God. Nothing too ghastly, I hope?’
‘Relax.’ Tom shrugs. ‘It isn’t as though I’ve told them about the time we went skinny-dipping in the lake.’ Tom claps a hand to his mouth. ‘Whoops.’
Kevin and I laugh, more at Alice’s face than the story. She’s starting to turn a hilarious shade of scarlet.
‘I was ten.’ Alice folds her arms across her chest and glares at Tom. ‘And simply following the others, who were older and should have known better.’
‘To be fair, Carolyn and I were only twelve ourselves. We didn’t know better.’
‘It was freezing.’ Alice wraps her arms around herself, as though she’s warding off the cold right now. ‘And not something I’d want to repeat.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Kevin says. ‘I quite fancy a dip.’
Alice smiles coquettishly across the table. ‘There’s a heated pool here.’
Tom and I lean in towards each other and groan, both pulling ‘please-don’t-make-us-listen-to-your-sexy-talk’ faces.
‘Emily.’ Alice tears her eyes away from her beloved and stands up. ‘Will you come and give me a hand with something?’
‘It depends what that something is.’ If it has anything to do with her and Kevin getting it on in the pool, she’s on her own.
‘I’ll explain all in a minute.’ Without awaiting confirmation that I’m a willing helper, Alice yanks me up onto my feet and practically drags me to the opposite end of the ballroom.
‘First of all, ow.’ I rub my arm, where the police could now identify Alice’s fingerprints. They wouldn’t even need to dust for them. ‘Second of all, what the hell?’
Alice places her hands on her hips. ‘What’s going on?’
I look around the room, a finger resting on my chin. ‘Looks like a wedding reception to me.’
‘Funny.’ Alice grabs me by the shoulders and turns me a hundred and eighty degrees. ‘Why are you here and Archie is all the way over there?’ She nods towards the other side of the ballroom, where Archie is listening to Francelia drone on about something like the good little nephew he is.
‘Alice, you need to stop with the Archie thing. It isn’t going to happen.’ Alice opens her mouth to object, but I hold up a silencing finger. ‘I’ve told you I find him threatening, and yet you still want me to pursue him. And no…’ My finger is up again. ‘I’m not being “typical Emily”. One day you may just see what he’s really like, and then you’ll wish you never tried to inflict him on me.’
‘But he’s your Prince Charming.’ Alice’s voice is small, wounded.
‘I think you’ve inhaled too much hairspray.’ The air is clogged with it wherever Alice goes. I can taste it.
‘That I won’t disagree with.’ Alice pulls a face and pats her carefully constructed hairdo gingerly. ‘But what I’m saying is absolutely true.’
‘You’re forgetting a very important thing.’ Other than the fact Archie is a tool. ‘I don’t believe in Prince Charming, or fairy tales. It’s all nonsense.’
‘You didn’t always think so.’ Alice takes me by the hand and starts to tow me out of the ballroom. ‘Come with me. I asked Kevin to bring something with him and I want you to see it now.’
‘What is it?’ I ask, but Alice is already heading towards the door, towing me along behind her. She won’t tell me what it is she needs me to see, no matter how much I quiz her about it as she leads me up the stairs, and she keeps me hanging on until the moment we arrive at the room and she reaches into Kevin’s overnight bag, pulling out a familiar pink book, its cover slightly charred and stained with curry sauce.
‘I asked Kevin to bring this for you. Thought you might need a reminder of the little girl who craved her happily ever after more than anything.’
She holds the book out to me and I reluctantly take it, handling it cautiously, as though it could come to life and attack at any moment.
‘I hate to break it to you, Alice, but I’m a bit too old for a bedtime story.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, because I won’t be tucking you in. Though I know the right bloke for the job.’ Alice winks at me and I puff out my cheeks before letting the air out slowly. How can you love someone so much when you’d also take quite a bit of pleasure from strangling them?
‘This book is just a collection of silly stories.’ I toss it down on the bed.
‘Is it?’ Alice grabs the book and shoves it into my hands again. ‘Or is it a wonderful collection of stories that offer hope and the dream of a happily ever after?’ I snort with derision, but Alice ploughs on. ‘There are no actual princes here today, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find your happily ever after. You just have to believe and trust in yourself enough to allow it to happen.’
I’m about to tell Alice about Tom, because even though I still don’t believe in fairy tales, I’m dying to share my excitement for the future with Tom that is bubbling inside me. But she’s already slipping out of the room, and the door clicks shut before I can form any words. Left alone, I sit down on the bed and place the book down on my lap, running my fingers over the familiar embossed picture of Cinderella’s carriage. It was my second-favourite story as a child (Red Riding Hood was far superior, in my young opinion, with its real edge of peril). I’m hit with a memory of me as a little girl, safe and warm as I snuggled up to my mum. She’d slipped under the covers with me to read at bedtime instead of perching on the edge like Dad. My head was resting in the crook of her arm as I drank in the colourful illustration on the page between us.
It couldn’t have all been bad then. She hadn’t been constantly off her tits, at least not in the beginning. She’d functioned as a mother, for a fleeting moment, at least.
I open the book, intending to flick through to the Cinderella story, but I stop as I see Mum’s familiar scrawl on the inside of the cover.
Happy 6th birthday, angel! Keep smiling and laughing every single day. With a million hugs and every single drop of love, Mummy and Daddy xxxxxx
Angel? I can’t help frowning as my finger hovers over the word, not quite daring to touch it in case it disappears in a puff of smoke, never to be seen again.
There were smiles and laughter? Hugs and every single drop of love?
Why don’t I remember seeing this? Perhaps because, as a little girl, I was more interested in the adventures and vibrant illustrations within the book than a quickly scribbled message from Mum. But it’s been here all this time. The proof I needed. The proof that I was once enough for Mum, even for a short while. I am good enough for love. She had loved me. Every single drop had been for me. Not for the drugs. Not for the men who entered and left our lives as though we had a revolving door fixed to the house.
Me.
Emily.
Her angel.
As though it really does contain magic, the book gives me a boost of strength, and I vow to go back down to the ballroom right now and tell Tom – and Alice – how I really feel.
‘Thank you.’ I catch up with Alice, breathless, my hand reaching out to touch her arm as she’s about to open the door to the ballroom. ‘For this.’ I hold out the fairy-tales book. I can’t seem to put it down. It has become as enchanting to me as it was to the six-year-old who believed in happily ever afters.
‘You’re welcome, honey.’ Alice hugs me, long and soothingly, before she ruins the effect by saying, ‘Archie will make you happy, if only you’ll let him.’
‘No, Alice.’ I want to scream with frustration. ‘You don’t know what he’s really like. He can be really quite scathing and yesterday…’
Alice gives me a pitying look as she places her hand on my arm, interrupting me. ‘I need to get back inside. Bridesmaid duties. Sorry.’ She pushes open the door and steps into the ballroom and I figure I may as well follow her. Tom and Kevin are still at the table by the bar, so I head over and plonk myself down in the chair with a sigh.
‘I take it I should have left that at home?’ Kevin indicates the fairy-tales book, which I’m still carrying.
‘Oh, no. Thank you for bringing it.’ I lay it gently on the table and start to trace the silver lettering on the cover. ‘It’s made everything seem a little bit clearer.’
I can’t say the hurt and confusion of my childhood has been erased – I’m not sure I’ll ever feel content when I look back – but it’s like the wall around my heart has started to shift and crumble, just a little bit. I have irrefutable proof now that I mattered to Mum, that she loved me when she could, before the drugs took hold and clouded everything.
‘What is it?’ Tom asks, and I nudge the book towards him, slowly, my eyes fixed firmly on the table as my cheeks start to bloom pink. I know it’s silly and childish to hold the book so dear, but it’s important to me, more so now than before.
‘Your mum gave this to you?’ Tom has opened the book and is reading the inscription. ‘Wow, this must mean a lot to you.’
I nod as my cheeks heat up even more, turning almost the exact shade of the fairy-tales book.
He gets it. He gets you.
‘I’ll, er, just go and get another round.’ Kevin thrusts a thumb at the bar before scraping back his chair and dashing away.
‘Would you like to dance?’ Tom asks, and I’m about to decline, my mouth on autopilot, when I remember Alice’s words. I can find my happily ever after if I allow it happen.
‘I’d love to.’
Leaving the book on the table, I take Tom’s hand and allow him to lead me to the dance floor, which is already full of couples dancing to the wedding band’s music. It’s a slow number currently, and I’m stiff in Tom’s arms to begin with, but I soon start to relax. It feels a little odd, but I’m sure I could get used to it.
‘Mind if I cut in?’
I hadn’t realised I’d closed my eyes as we swayed to the music, but they snap open when I hear Archie’s voice. He’s standing beside us, so-called charming smile in place, hand already reaching for mine, so sure is he of himself that I’ll accept. That Tom will hand me over.
‘Actually, I mind. I mind very much.’ I start to guide Tom away, but Archie doesn’t give up that easily.
‘I beg your pardon?’ The smile is still in place, but I can see it’s strained. I don’t think Archie is used to being told no, but I’m not afraid. I’ve had enough practice at knocking guys back over the years.
‘I don’t want to dance with you, Archie. I never wanted to dance with you, or have dinner with you, or go for romantic walks in meadows. And if you’re truthful, you’ll admit you didn’t want any of those things either.’
Archie adopts a wounded look, a hand on his chest for added effect. For ever the actor. ‘What do you mean?’ His eyes slide to the side and, when I follow his line of sight, I see Alice heading towards us. He takes a deep, theatrical breath before lifting his chin. ‘Ah. I see. I get it.’ He shakes his head and claps Tom on the back. ‘But no hard feelings, eh?’
‘Bad feelings?’ A frown starts to form on Tom’s face. ‘Why would there be hard feelings?’
‘Because I saw you. The other night, at the bonfire.’ The volume of Archie’s voice has increased so he’s almost booming. ‘I saw you and Emily, out the back, kissing.’
‘What?’ Alice’s mouth is a round ‘o’ of shock as she looks at the three of us in turn before her eyes settle on me.
‘Emily?’ Her eyes flick to Tom for the briefest moment. ‘Is this true?’