The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(75)
Saturday 20 July
It’s raining. It’s six thirty on Saturday morning and rain is beating against my bedroom window, the remnants of a tropical storm rumbling its way across the Atlantic from the Caribbean. I’m in bed and today would have been my wedding day. Today is still my wedding day, somewhere in a world beyond my own. Is it raining cats and dogs there too? Are we all huddled in Mum’s kitchen in our dressing gowns, looking out of the window, coffee mugs in our hands, cursing the rain-clouded skies? Or are we eating a celebratory early breakfast around the table together, not giving a hoot about the weather because it’s my wedding day, and if needs be I’d marry Freddie Hunter in my jeans in a hailstorm? I hope it’s that one.
My family have gone with the ‘don’t mention it’ approach in the run-up to today. Elle’s at work; this is her final wedding at the hotel before she goes on parental leave. She’s eight months pregnant now and trying not to let her bump protrude into the edges of people’s wedding photographs. Stef, who I’ve still to meet properly, has taken Mum away for the weekend. She made an absolute song and dance about telling me and Elle, suggesting that she was going to the Lakes and that by some unholy coincidence Stef had booked to go to the same place at the same time, so they’re travelling together to save on petrol. Even David, who never comments, had to raise the newspaper to eye level so Mum couldn’t see him laughing.
Jonah left for LA a couple of days ago too, so all the major players in my now non-existent wedding are busy doing other things. Life’s weird like that, isn’t it? Today would have been full of wedding-related things for everyone: Mum pinning buttonholes on with her rollers in, Jonah nervously checking the rings were still in his pocket, neighbours nipping out into the street in their slippers to wave us off to church. And because none of those things are now going to happen, today has been filled with different things: work and the Lakes and LA, like a shelf in a shop being restocked for a new season. The only person who hasn’t refilled the day with something else is me. I don’t need to, because I’m still going to my wedding.
Saturday 20 July
My dress is so very incredibly beautiful. I’m standing in front of my mother’s bedroom mirror, ready to go, alone and transfixed by the woman gazing back at me. I don’t know what time it is, if I have minutes to spare or I’m running late as usual; either way I need a little more time to gather myself together. Someone has styled my hair over one shoulder, loose waves and twists intricately interwoven with fine plaits. I raise my fingertips to touch the twisted wire circlet of silver stars across my forehead; it looks as if it tumbled from the night skies. My dress isn’t white: it’s delicate shades of seafoam silk overlaid with net so gauzy I’m almost terrified to move. More tiny stars shimmer on the gown when I turn one way and then the other. God knows where I found it; it’s part mermaid, part moon goddess, ethereal and mesmerizing. I run my fingers over the bodice and find my gran’s marcasite peacock pinned at my waist.
‘The car’s just pulled up, Lydia, love.’
Mum appears behind me in the doorway trying to fasten one of her favourite pearl earrings. She looks amazing in a Jackie O-style boat-neck dress in a deeper shade of seafoam with navy accessories.
‘Carol Middleton’s got nothing on you,’ I say, smiling through a film of tears because I now know how my mum looks on my wedding day.
‘And you knock spots off Kate and Meghan.’ She walks forward and holds my hands; I notice her perfect nude manicure and the familiar liver spots she’s tried every cream under the sun to get rid of.
‘Ready to go?’
I nod. ‘Think so.’
‘Come on then.’ She gives my hands a final squeeze. ‘The sooner we get you married, the sooner I can get my hands on a gin and tonic.’
It isn’t raining here. When Elle helps me out of the car, the skies are the lavender blue of French shutters. Her dark hair is in a chignon at the nape of her neck and she’s lovely in a strapless Mediterranean-blue dress. Victoria, the wedding organizer, is on hand trying to help too; for a brief moment I feel as if she and Elle are in a tug of war and I’m the rope. Elle’s eyes meet mine and I wink to subtly remind her she’s one of the wedding party rather than in charge of proceedings today. I see the reluctance in her eyes as she concedes to Victoria. She can’t help herself; she’s a born organizer and this has brought out her competitive side.
‘Is he here?’ I ask.
Victoria laughs. ‘Of course. Everyone’s inside waiting for you.’
The barn basks in the honey-gold sunshine, its huge doors fastened back to reveal glimpses of the interior as we head towards it. It looks a million times better than all of those staged wedding spreads in the glossy magazines, rustic and romantic and us, filled with flowers and creamy lit candles in the deep shady window recesses. I can smell honeysuckle and pine needles, and I can hear music I can’t quite identify, and my heart is beating out of my chest with longing to see Freddie at the altar.
When we reach the entrance, Mum moves to one side of me and Elle to the other, and we link hands. I don’t think we’d planned on walking down the aisle as a three, but I can’t stop gripping Elle’s hand so that’s how we proceed. My mum, me, Elle. It was just the three of us for so many years; around the breakfast table before school, Saturday evenings squished on the sofa fighting over the remote, piled into Mum’s bed when one of us couldn’t sleep. It’s absolutely as it should be that we make this walk as a three today.