Chapter One
Sorry, big sister, but it bloody well is not.
Unless spending three days trapped with family that I don’t even like is fun… in some draughty old house in rural Scotland that probably has quaint plumbing and bats, playing happy families with my very recently exed boyfriend. In that case, pass the mulled wine; this is going to be a blast.
Of course I did the sensible thing and tried getting Robert the Rat uninvited, but Jez won’t budge. Apparently, it’s not the done thing to jettison your best man a month before the wedding just because he’s dumped your fiancé’s sister. So we’re stuck with each other, for better or worse, till the weekend do us part.
I’m late for Marley’s final fitting. Mum will say it’s because of my attitude. Not because the Tube is about as efficient as Father Christmas’s sleigh for getting around London at this time of year. Or because working twelve hours a day doesn’t make it easy to pop out just to hold my sister’s hand while she tries on her dress for the hundredth time.
I can see them through the bridal salon’s large front window. Marley’s hands are flapping, which means she’s talking a mile a minute. Even jangling with pre-wedding nerves she looks beautiful. She got the petite, huggable genes in the family. Next to her I usually feel like Pippi Longstocking.
‘Hello, my love,’ Mum says when she spots me. ‘We’ve been having a lovely chat with Miranda while we waited for you.’ She glances at her watch.
The bridal consultant nods to let me know that I have indeed missed a lovely conversation. My expression conveys the devastation I feel at missing their debate about veils over tiaras.
Just as I reach for my vibrating BlackBerry, Mum sticks her hand out.
‘I just need to check it.’
‘Give it here. Whatever it is can wait. This is your sister’s fitting.’
‘Fine, have it your way, but it could be important.’
‘You have a funny idea about what’s important,’ she says.
I’m not about to rise to that bait. ‘May I have one of those, please?’ I say instead, gesturing to the glass of fizz that Marley’s waving as she talks. Miranda’s hand keeps hovering beneath the glass as Marley makes another point. ‘Marl, do you want to try on your dress now?’
‘I thought you’d never ask!’ She rushes off to the fitting room, nearly knocking over the white Christmas tree in her exuberance. My eyes dart to my BlackBerry, held hostage by Mum.
‘No,’ she says.
‘There’s nothing else to do.’
‘Try enjoying your surroundings.’
It’s like the inside of a meringue in here – thick pile white carpet, plush white sofas, white walls and ornate cornicing. I feel a bit snow-blind as I wait for my sister to emerge in her bridal splendour.
We always knew Marley would marry Jez. He knew it too, since she told him so on their second date. She’s never been afraid to lay her cards on the table when it comes to romance. That scares the crap out of most men, but not Jez. He was already crazy about her when she informed him one day that she’d be planning a honeymoon with him. Then he made her wait six years before he popped the question. I guess it was important to establish some semblance of control over the situation. Every time she brought it up he tacked six months on to the day he’d get down on one knee. She finally caught on and stopped asking. Then she had to get Mum to stop asking, which took another two years. And finally, on a snowy day last January, he asked her to become Mrs Marley Jane Lucas. She cried all over him and acted like it had been his idea all along.
Marley emerges from the fitting room in a cloud of champagne tulle. ‘Oh, love, you are beautiful!’ Mum exclaims, like we haven’t done this seventeen times already. She’s right, though. Marley is stunning. The silk bodice moulds perfectly to her tiny waist. It’s scattered with appliquéd flowers in the palest of pastels, which tumble down the full tulle skirt in an artfully haphazard cascade. The ankle-length gathered hemline is embroidered with little pearls that wink when she walks.
‘I feel like a fairy princess!’ she says, carefully stepping on to the platform before the curved wall of mirrors. ‘Oh!’ She squints at her hem. ‘I think there’s a pearl coming loose.’
Miranda rushes to Marley’s side to assess this latest catastrophe. ‘I don’t see–’
‘There, there’s a thread hanging down.’
We all peer at Marley’s hem. I point to a quarter inch thread. ‘You mean this little thing?’ And my family thinks I’m a perfectionist.
‘Don’t pull it!’ she bellows. ‘There’s another one.’ She points as if there’s poo on her dress. ‘And another one… and another. Look!’
I can see she’s about to lose it. I’m very familiar with the symptoms. First her cheeks go crimson and her mouth pulls down at the ends. Then her eyebrows start twitching. Finally, she sticks her chin out just before she cries.
She gets to the twitchy eyebrow stage in record time. ‘My dress is all thready!’ Out goes the chin. ‘You have to fix it!’
‘Marley, love, Miranda can fix anything. Can’t you, Miranda?’ Despite the inflection, Mum’s voice is always gentle (well, gently threatening). That comes from decades of getting her way.
‘Of course we can fix it, Marley. Please don’t worry. There won’t be a loose thread on it for your big day. I’ll personally supervise the seamstresses.’
Thank God the crisis is averted. It wasn’t quite as dire as the Should I Wear My Hair Up question, but more serious than the Shoes Are A Bit Pinchy emergency. I’m just glad there was no permanent psychological damage this time.
Marley calms down enough to change back into her normal clothes. I can see the shine has come off the day for her. I go to try on my dress to cheer her up.
As I yank the silk over my head, I comfort myself with the fact that she’s not normally insane. Obsessive has always been my territory.
‘What do you think?’ I ask them as I emerge from the fitting room with, admittedly, less grace than Marley had.
‘Are you sweating, love?’
I look down at the darkening streak beneath my left boob. ‘Well, it’s hot in that room, and it’s not the easiest dress to get into.’ When Marley chose it I threatened a boycott. A mushroom-coloured bandage dress wouldn’t be everyone’s (anyone’s) first choice for a bridesmaid. I look like I’ve been sprained. She says it’s supposed to be that fitted. I practically have to dislocate a shoulder to get it over my head.
‘Will it need to be cleaned?’ Marley asks Miranda, her face flushing. ‘Do we have time to have it cleaned?’ Not again with the eyebrows.
Miranda assures her there’s time to clean it. I know better than to ask whether there’s also time to let it out a few inches, so that I have at least a chance of squeezing into it after eating my own body weight in mince pies and Celebrations over Christmas. If Marley has her way I’ll be under Nil By Mouth instructions until the twenty-eighth.