The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(68)

‘Okay,’ I say, shaky-fingered as I pick the silver-and-white ribbons open.

Inside there’s a square red-velvet box, worn to threadbare on the corners. When I open the lid, I find a small, familiar marcasite peacock brooch looking up at me with flinty green eyes. It’s of very little financial value but worth a great deal to Mum, and to me too. It was my gran’s favourite, worn to every wedding, christening and funeral. I have a distinct memory of falling asleep on her lap at some family party or other, tracing the raised feathers of the peacock with my fingertip as my eyes closed. When I think about it now, I can almost smell her perfume, even though I can’t have been more than five at the time.

‘It was the first gift your grandad ever gave your gran, she was about sixteen,’ Mum says.

Elle touches the brooch lightly. ‘She wore this at my graduation. I can see it now pinned to that purple suit she used to like.’

Elle herself wore Gran’s watch on her wedding day, another priceless family piece of little financial worth. I sometimes notice her wearing it at family things.

Because I’m too misty-eyed to reliably answer, I pass the box to Dee on my other side to have a look. She does her best, but without the memories of it pinned to our gran’s lapel on high days and holidays it probably isn’t the most impactful sight.

Dawn takes an obliging glance next and hands it on to Julia, who eyes it briefly.

‘Some people won’t have anything to do with peacocks inside their house,’ Julia says, brutally honest as usual, passing it round the table to Lucy. ‘Believe they’re bad luck. I brought a single feather home once and my mother went straight outside and put it in the bin.’

‘Oh,’ I say, yanked straight out of my sentimental fug into fear of anything that might bring ill fortune my way. I’m anxious not to do anything in this life that might beckon my other world closer.

‘There’ll be nothing left for me by the time I get married,’ Lucy grumbles. ‘Not that I wanted that anyway,’ she curls her lip at the brooch, ‘but that’s not the point.’

Auntie June usually bites her tongue around Lucy; she obviously realized early on that the path of least resistance is the easiest option with her only daughter. Not tonight. ‘Don’t worry, darling, you can have her false teeth, she was very fond of those.’

In the small silence that follows, we all look at Lucy, too afraid to laugh.

‘No, she can’t,’ Mum says. ‘I gave them to the charity shop. They were in her good navy handbag.’

I laugh so hard that the strawberry condom bats me in the eye.

It’s after eleven, I’m a glass or two beyond merry, full of hoisin duck, and it would appear that I’m dancing on a table in The Prince of Wales. I guess it was inevitable we’d end up here, just as it was inevitable that Freddie’s stag party would do the same thing. The hen party whittled down to a coop of three after the restaurant; Dawn and Julia shared a taxi home, and a still-frosty Lucy was designated driver for Mum and Auntie June, leaving me, Elle and Dee to wind our way through the doors of The Prince just after half past ten with a Destiny’s Child-like confidence. I don’t know which of us would be Beyoncé. Not me, for certain. But what we lack in talent we make up for with enthusiasm as we lead the pub in a rousing chorus of ‘All the Single Ladies’. I don’t actually know the words beyond the chorus, but it doesn’t really matter because no one else here does either. Elle is waving her arms over her head, Dee is doing a shoulder shimmy as she stabs at her ring finger and Freddie is shouting that he’s putting a ring on it in exactly two weeks’ time. Part of me recoils at being referred to only as ‘it’; when I say as much, Freddie blames Beyoncé and hauls me down off the table.

‘Nice dress,’ he grins, setting me down.

‘You think? Not too grown up?’

‘You are all grown up now, Lydia Bird.’ He touches the lace neckline of my dress. ‘It’s different on you, but good different.’

Yes, I think, it’s different. Jonah appears, switching the empty beer bottle in Freddie’s hand for a fresh one as he dips in and swerves the condom to kiss my cheek.

‘Great singing up there,’ he lies.

‘Mind the …’ I say, gesturing vaguely towards the veil and its various appendages.

Jonah shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe you actually wore it.’

‘You knew?’

He reaches out and taps the condom packet. ‘Stapled that one there myself at midnight last night.’

‘From your wallet?’ Freddie laughs. ‘Hang on to it, Lyds, it might be worth something at the Antiques Roadshow.’

I screw my nose up, not impressed. Obviously I appreciate the effort Dee has made, ably assisted by Jonah. I’m grateful too that Freddie and co have ended their evening here tonight rather than in town, a last-minute scale-down because Freddie is needed at work tomorrow to prep for an important new client. It’s all very hush-hush, someone they’re wooing in the hope of poaching them from under their closest rival’s nose. He lives for that thrill, so much so that he’s prepared to curtail his own stag night in order to be the most prepared person in the room come Monday. Another life tip cribbed from Barack Obama, no doubt.

Half an hour later and Jonah is on the piano, Elle is in a distant corner on David’s knee and Dee is leaning against me in that I-don’t-think-I-can-stand-independently way that suggests she’s had enough to drink.