The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(38)

Freddie squeezes my shoulders. ‘Is the ceremony itself in here too?’

‘Yes and no.’ Victoria strides off towards a door at the other end of the barn. ‘Your ceremony will take place in here.’

The smaller side room is built from pale-grey bricks that look as if they were hand hewn in days before machinery even existed. It’s been carefully restored to retain its tumbledown charm; straight away it reminds me of the chapel where Ross married Emily in Friends. Cast-iron candelabras hang from the lintels. They’re not lit today, but in my mind’s eye I can already see how spectacular it’s going to look, how it’s going to smell of trailing honeysuckle, how Freddie will wait for me right there at the front.

‘Still love it?’ Freddie says, squeezing my hand.

So much, I think. I turn to Victoria.

‘Would it be okay if we have a couple of minutes on our own?’

She puts her hands out to the sides. She knows perfectly well that I’m smitten. ‘It’s pretty special, isn’t it? Take as long as you need. I’ll be back in the bar when you’re ready.’

Freddie and I walk slowly along the aisle as the door clicks behind her.

‘Next time you walk down here you’ll be wearing your wedding dress,’ he says.

‘And you’ll be down there in your suit,’ I say. ‘Will you be nervous?’

He starts to laugh. ‘Er, no! Unless you’re getting cold feet and planning to leave me here on my Jack Jones?’

‘I promise I won’t,’ I say. I mean it more than he could ever realize, because I know all too well what it’s like to be the one left behind.

‘Will you be nervous?’ he asks.

I nod. ‘I’ll be nervous about a hundred things. Does my dress look okay? Will Elle try to tell Victoria how to do her job? Has Jonah forgotten the rings?’

We’ve reached the end of the aisle now, the place where countless other couples have stood and made their for-ever vows to each other.

‘Jonah won’t forget the rings, I won’t let him,’ he says. ‘And Elle will chill if she has a couple of glasses of champagne in the morning. She’ll be glad to be off-duty.’

He’s right, of course, they’re such minor worries in the grand scale of things. It’s so typical of him to not let all the small stuff worry him. He always insisted he’d take care of the honeymoon, but everything else was going to be my domain right from day one. And I never minded, as such, though it would have been nice for him to have at least faked an interest in wedding favours and table decorations. Dawn and I used to send each other links to things we spotted online, wedding readings and the like. There’s something about wedding planning that is just so pleasurably consuming; it’s joyful and full of hope, a state of delicious limbo. I wish I’d been able to experience it here – there’s so much about our upcoming wedding that I’ve no clue about. It’s strange thinking about Dawn’s wedding now, remembering that poignant last dance with Jonah as I stand here like this with Freddie.

He reels me in against him. ‘You’re going to be the most beautiful girl in the world in your wedding dress. I’d marry you right here, right now, in jeans, Lydia Bird. Except I’m not wearing my lucky pants.’

‘You’re an idiot,’ I laugh, not least because he doesn’t have any lucky pants.

‘Your idiot,’ he says.

‘Too right,’ I say, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. My nose is cold, but every other piece of me is warm. Freddie’s hands slide down my jean-clad backside and he lifts me clean off the floor.

‘I think you should kiss me like this on the actual day,’ he says.

‘Be a bit impractical in my dress,’ I say, locking my legs around his waist. He holds me there and looks me in the eye, laughing.

‘You should be ashamed of yourself, getting me going in a place like this.’

I hug him, really, really tight. He hugs me back, and for that one golden minute, I’m one hundred per cent happy.





Tuesday 25 December


‘Gin and tonic.’ Elle hands me a drink. ‘Heavy on the gin.’

She touches the rim of her glass against mine, in solidarity rather than celebration. We all knew that today would be hard; for a couple of days last week I wasn’t even planning on coming to Mum’s at all. Freddie and I never had that awkward tussle of alternating whose family we went to for Christmas Day, because his mum has spent the festive season in Spain for at least the last decade. Which made the thought of today even worse. I had a bit of a meltdown, truth be told. Christmas is just so in your face, isn’t it? On the radio, in the shops, on everyone’s lips. The worst of it is that I love Christmas. I’m a total sucker for the movies, the glitter, the food. I start celebrating in October, planning which movies to watch, writing endlessly changing lists of gifts to buy and meals to attempt.

Perhaps because Freddie was such a big kid, he really threw himself into the whole season, whipping everyone else up with him. Jonah texted me a photo this morning, one from their teenage years when Freddie bought them both ridiculous Christmas hats with flashing red bobbles. It’s silly and joyful, their fraternal bond brighter even than their hats. They were both only children, but in each other they’d found a brother. I called him quickly and it was good to hear his voice and feel able to tell each other how much we miss Freddie today. I cried my first tears of the day when he said he missed me too; he always used to come over to ours for Christmas morning bacon sandwiches. Jonah’s in Wales for Christmas this year, Dee has family there. I expect there’s an element of running away too, but I can’t blame him. I sent him back a photo of the bike Freddie bought me a couple of Christmases ago, because I’d once told him I always had Elle’s hand-me-downs as a kid. He hid it outside in the garden with a huge red bow on it. I felt about eight years old. I looked it too, delightedly trying out my new ride up and down the street along with two other shiny new bike owners, both of them under ten. I’m pretty sure my whoops were the loudest.