sure.’
‘Understood. Say no more about it.’ He pulled at the fridge door and rummaged about inside. ‘Now … eggs. Scrambled or fried?’
I suddenly felt starving hungry, and Dan Campbell, it transpired, cooked exceedingly good eggs. Big and white with bright runny yolks, and bread cut into thick soldiers that we dipped and dripped with sheer abandon as we sat together and talked, starting slowly to feel a little less like strangers.
Dan was twenty-two, which surprised me as he looked younger, and a trainee accountant, which, taking one look at his dark-rimmed glasses and the pale, rather serious, face that peered out from behind them, somehow didn’t surprise me at all. He lived three floors below last night’s party, which was where we were now, in the flat to the left of the downstairs hallway. He told me that he shared it with someone called Rich, who, according to Dan, was probably still crashed out in a drunken post-party stupor on some grimy armchair upstairs and was unlikely to be back for a while yet. Did I remember Rich? Tall, ginger hair, covered in freckles … I tried to, but I couldn’t. In fact, there was very little about the party after I re-joined it that I could remember with any clarity at all. I really should stop drinking so much. It didn’t help with anything. With not having a proper job at the moment, or with still being stuck in my old room at Mum’s, with the tape marks from my old pop posters still liberally splattered over the wallpaper, hideous flowery curtains and all. And it definitely didn’t help with the Trevor problem. I wasn’t sure that anything, except hiring a hit man, was going to shift Trevor, so it was probably time I just accepted he was there to stay. Mum’s house, Mum’s rules, Mum’s choice. A bad one, but she’d have to find that out for herself. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t made a few bad choices myself recently.
‘Would you like to meet up again? Go for a drink or something?’ Dan was clearing away the plates and had his back to me so I couldn’t see his face, whether he really meant it, or was just being polite.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’ He turned back towards me and there it was again, that look, that connection, as his gaze locked on to mine. ‘I think you might actually enjoy it. If you let yourself. Go on, Kate, take a chance. What’s the worst that can happen? We sit in some pub all evening with nothing to say to each other? Find we have nothing in common? You discover I’m the world’s worst kisser, or I bore the pants off you, or you can’t stand my aftershave? At least you get a free half of shandy and a ride home. Let’s be honest. You have nothing to lose!’
And he was right, of course. I had nothing to lose but my heart, and by the time I walked out of that flat just thirty minutes later, into a bright cloudless Sunday morning that suddenly sparkled with possibilities, I was fairly sure a big chunk of it was already gone.
Natalie, 2017
Natalie hesitated outside the bridal shop. The lights were on inside, so it was still open, even though it was almost five-thirty. The dress in the window was absolutely stunning, in sleek sculptured ivory satin with just a hint of lace in all the right places, and tiny buttons that glinted like pearls. It was exactly the kind of dress she had longed for ever since she and Phil had finally set the date, but going inside a shop like that by herself would just feel way too strange. Even if she tried the dress on, which she so wanted to do, how would she know it was right with nobody there to oooh and aaah and spin her around in all directions and take sneaky pictures on their phones?
Natalie wasn’t used to doing things alone. In fact, these last few days had probably – no, definitely – been the first she had ever spent entirely by herself. Phil was away at a work conference so boring she didn’t even want to hear about it when he called, let alone be there with him, and Mum was off on one of her regular retreats, her mobile deliberately switched off. Jenny and Beth were visiting some seaside spa place together on a cheap mid-week deal for two. Natalie hadn’t been able to get the time off work to join them, even if squeezing an extra bed into their room had been a possibility, but the truth was she hadn’t been asked. Despite their distance, the bridesmaid question still hung in the air between them, unspoken but so obviously there, and she knew that by the time they came back, it needed to be answered.
Natalie shook her thoughts away, tentatively leaned into the glass door of the shop and eased it open. Although the best of the summer was over and the days were already starting to get noticeably shorter again, the sun was bright today and she could feel her spirits lift along with it. The path through the park was bordered by bouncing rows of tiny-headed purple pansies, newly planted in neat rows, and, after a week of relentless drizzle, her raincoat and boots were at last stuffed back in the hall cupboard in favour of a lighter jacket and her favourite sandals. There was something about the change in the weather that seemed to promise better things to come, making her feel suddenly bold. It was her wedding, after all. Not theirs. And she would do things the way she wanted to, whatever any of them said.
The shop’s interior was an oasis of beauty and calm. There was a deep cream carpet and floor-to-ceiling mirrors without so much as a smudge on their shiny gilt-edged glass. The sweet scent of jasmine drifted in the air but, in the absence of any real flowers, it seemed to be coming from a huge fat candle that floated in the centre of a bowl of water on a shelf, well out of harm’s way, behind a small desk in the corner. Little red velvet-covered chairs were dotted about around the edges of the room, between tall slim glass cases with the most wonderful satin shoes, beaded bags and glittering tiaras displayed on their shelves. One wall, the longest one, off to her right, was swamped by an unbroken row of big billowing floor-length dresses that brought the phrase ‘as far as the eye can see’ instantly to her mind. There was nobody else about and, for a moment, she just came to a standstill right in the centre of it all, feeling completely overwhelmed.
‘Can I help you?’ A small bird-like woman, with a slight foreign accent Natalie couldn’t quite place, and a tape measure looped loosely around her neck, emerged from behind a curtain at the back of the shop, revealing a brief glimpse of a hidden workroom beyond, with a sewing machine and scraps of satin and lace strewn across a cluttered table in the centre, and yet more dresses, draped on hangers from an over-full coat stand and all encased in see-through plastic bags.
Natalie saw the look of surprise that flickered across the woman’s heavily made-up face before it was swallowed up in what was clearly a well-practised customer-friendly smile. It was a look she was used to, one that told her she was not quite who, or what, had been expected to come rolling in.
‘Sorry … about the carpet.’ Natalie turned her head to indicate the small trail of dirt and soggy leaves her wheels had brought in with them.
‘That’s all right. Can’t be helped.’ The woman’s face flushed as she came forward, fiddling nervously with the tape around her neck.
‘I’d like to look at a dress, please,’ Natalie said. ‘The ivory one in the window. And, I’m sorry, but I might need a bit of help to try it on.’
***
The house felt cold and empty when she got back, echoing with an unfamiliar silence as she eased her chair into the hall. The one thing you could say about a house normally full of women was that it was rarely quiet, and Natalie was surprised just how much she was missing the hustle and bustle of her family in full swing. Only two nights and the girls, at least, would be back. Mum was a different prospect altogether. If she wasn’t standing on her head or wrapping her legs around her own neck at some yoga class, she’d be trying out a new aromatherapy course or letting herself be hypnotised into thinking she was once Cleopatra, or sitting in a circle in the woods with a group of protesters, waving ‘Save our copse’ placards while communing with the lesser-spotted tree frog. This time it was something involving immersing herself in healing water, though quite what it was that needed healing, Natalie wasn’t at all sure. She’d said she’d be back on Sunday but, with Mum, it was best to take all plans with a pinch of salt and just wait and see what happened.
She