‘This one is called the Vivienne,’ she says, pronouncing the name in a French accent and shaking the dress out so the sequins send shivers of light around the room. It’s fussier than I’d choose, with a heavily beaded bodice and layers of netted skirt. I follow her instructions, stepping into it carefully as she unbuttons it. I watch my reflection as she fastens me in, fixing all kinds of clips along the back so that it pinches in at the waist, then fanning out the layers of netting.
As I stare into the mirror, the weirdest thing happens. I slowly turn into a bride in front of my own eyes. It’s a shock. I’ve been swept along with the tide of Oscar and his mother’s enthusiasm, and somewhere along the line I’ve forgotten that this is my wedding day we’re planning, my once in a lifetime.
Gwenda is watching me, shrewd blue eyes over my shoulder.
‘Your mother was right, perhaps,’ she says, suddenly more serious.
‘It’s not that,’ I say, still staring at myself as if I’m looking into one of those magic mirrors where a different you is reflected in the glass. I half expect the bride in the mirror to wink at me, she’s so alien. ‘It’s me … I’m …’
‘A bride?’ She smiles sagely. ‘A lot of women feel a bit of a shock when they put their first wedding dress on. It’s certainly a special moment, isn’t it?’
I’m not sure Gwenda totally understands, but then I can’t quite articulate it either, so I just nod.
‘My goodness! If it has this effect on you, imagine how your groom is going to feel,’ she coos, probably as she has to many other brides standing in this exact spot. ‘There he’ll be, the man you’ve always dreamed of waiting for you at the altar, about to turn round and get his first glimpse of his blushing bride.’ She sighs, pure theatre. ‘It’s a precious moment.’
I stand completely still, her words swirling around my head so clearly it’s a wonder I can’t see them in the mirror. I see myself as Oscar and all our guests will see me as I walk up the aisle.
‘I don’t like it,’ I say, suddenly breathless. ‘Please, Gwenda, just get me out of it. It’s too tight.’
She looks at me, shell-shocked; she obviously thought she had me wrapped round her heavily jewelled finger. And she sort of did, right up to the moment she mentioned ‘the man you’ve always dreamed of’.
Back at home, hours later, I strip off in the bathroom and turn the power shower up to full-on assault. What a bloody disaster. I managed to pull myself together in the bridal boutique enough to try the other dresses on, but none of them were the mythical ‘one’ all of the magazines bang on about. Gwenda tried to coerce me back into the first dress at the end of the session, but that wasn’t going on my back again for love nor money.
I turn the water temperature up to a tiny bit hotter than is comfortable and stand there with it raining down over my head. I’m so achingly disappointed with myself. It’s not that I don’t love Oscar or that I don’t want to marry him. It’s nothing like that. It’s just crushing to know that it’s still there, like a muscle reflex.
That when someone says ‘the man you’ve always dreamed of’, I think of Jack O’Mara.
23 April
Jack
She’s standing looking into a shop window when I see her. I’m not here by coincidence, I’ve been hanging around close to where she works for a while now hoping to catch her coming out for lunch, and there she is, her black-and-pink-striped brolly sheltering her from the rain. I move quickly in case I lose sight of her on the bustling street. She turns up a side street and I hurry after, nearly bumping into her as I round the corner.
‘Laurie.’
She turns, frowning at the unexpectedness of my being here, then smiles and half laughs.
‘Jack,’ she says, bobbing up on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. ‘What are you …?’ She trails off, looking at me. Belatedly, I realize that we’re standing in front of a vintage clothes shop, and the dressmaker’s dummy in the middle of the window is being used to display a wedding dress.
‘Were you …’ I nod towards it, aware that for some reason we’re only able to talk in half-finished sentences.
‘No,’ she says, shaking her head as she looks back at the dress again. ‘Well, yes, kind of. It caught my eye.’
‘You’re going to need one,’ I say. ‘Have you set a date yet?’
She nods as she looks back at the window. ‘December.’
‘Wow, this Christmas,’ I say softly. ‘That’s great, Lu. It’s really … great.’ Where are my words when I need them? Great? How come I can talk for hours on my show, but find myself dumb-struck now? ‘Have you got time to grab a coffee somewhere, get out of the rain for a bit?’
As we stand there, someone inside the shop leans into the window and turns over the price tag on the wedding dress to get a look at it. I see Laurie flinch and I realize she wasn’t idly gazing in the shop window; she really loves that dress. I’m no expert on these things, but even I can see that it’s very Laurie. There’s something unique about it; it’s nothing like the Disney princess dresses most girls seem to go for.
‘Unless you were going inside?’ I nod towards the shop door. She looks at it too, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, undecided. ‘I can wait for you, if you like?’
She looks from me to the dress again, a tiny frown tugging her brows together. ‘It’s stupid really. I’ve tried loads on already and none of them look right. This one just seems different somehow.’ As she speaks, the customer looking at the dress gets her phone out and takes a photo of it.
‘I think I will just go and have a quick look,’ Laurie decides. ‘Have you got time to hang around?’
Because the most pressing thing on my list today is to speak with her, I say yes. I loiter, unsure what to do as she folds her umbrella down and pushes the shop door open. She looks back at me and then up at the dark skies.
‘You should come inside. This rain isn’t going to stop.’
She’s right, of course. It just seems an odd thing for me of all people to be doing with her. I hold the door open for the woman who’d been looking at the wedding dress, and relief flashes through Laurie’s eyes as she steps into the shop. I follow her gingerly. It’s not what I expected. Forties swing music plays unobtrusively in the background, as if someone has their wireless on. Wireless? I’ve slipped back in time too, it would seem. The yesteryear clothes are arranged in huge old open wardrobes, and jewellery spills carelessly from drawers tugged open on dressing-table tops. It’s like walking into a wartime dressing room abandoned mid air-raid.
Laurie is over by the dress now, her fingers turning the label over to read it. I hang back as the assistant approaches her, and after a moment lifts the dummy carefully out of the window and sets it down for Laurie to take a better look. She circles slowly round it, a tiny, wistful smile on her lips. I don’t have a shred of doubt in my mind; she’s going to buy that dress. The assistant must have asked if she’d like to try it on, because she looks suddenly nervous and turns to me.
‘Are you okay for time?’ she asks when I make my way over.