Chapter Thirty-Three #2
‘I envy her, you know.’ Trish looked into the middle distance.
‘I envy her that new start. She’s at the beginning, when everything feels possible.
But it doesn’t last, does it? The gloss quickly wears off and you realise that marriage is not all it was cracked up to be, not all you thought it might be, all it could be, and it’s bloody disappointing.
’ Trish took a long breath through her nose and pulled back her shoulders.
‘Anyway, we should get going, don’t want Iris wondering where we’ve got to. ’
‘Absolutely!’
Enya walked slightly behind Trish on the path, feeling more than a little saddened by her words.
The one thing she could say with certainty about her marriage to Jonathan was that it had bloomed into a beautiful, deep, loving friendship, which was more than she had ever thought it could be, and the only real disappointment was that he had abandoned her too soon.
‘There you are!’ Iris called.
‘Oh Iris! Oh, my goodness!’ Enya took in the stunning gown, which was long and draped and simple yet stylish, the folds of ivory silk falling as if contoured exactly to her shape. ‘You look stunning!’
It was an odd sensation, this beautiful girl who was in a short time to become her daughter-in-law, yet Enya viewed her with a certain detachment, admired her as she would any other beautiful bride, for she was indeed beautiful.
The fact was, she had met Iris only a few times, exchanged no more than a handful of sentences with her.
They were, in so many ways, strangers. Yet the way she had witnessed her talking to Holly, reassuring and including her, and how ecstatically happy she made Aiden, were indicators that led Enya to believe that in time they would become close. In fact, she was certain of it.
‘Doesn’t she just.’ Trish reached up into her sleeve with her fingers and fished out a cotton handkerchief with which she blotted under her eyes and nose.
The bridesmaids wore spaghetti-strapped slip dresses in a similar fabric, the colour of a blushing peach, dresses that were elegant yet without the delicate ruching and draping that gave Iris’s dress its structure.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Iris looked around; Trish did the same. Enya was only relieved by his absence. Bumping into him on the path earlier had been bad enough; she feared it would be that much worse to have to face him in company.
‘Who knows?’ Trish shrugged. ‘But my guess is, as he can’t be working on his boat, he’ll be online reading about his boat or watching tutorials on how to fix something on his boat or buying a part for his boat.’
‘Okay.’ It might have been her wedding day, but this didn’t appear to stop Iris from issuing calm and considered instructions to make sure the ceremony went exactly how she wanted it to.
‘Here’s the plan. Enya, you are going to walk with my dad, the two of you will pair up here, and follow the bridesmaids, who will follow Mum, who’ll be walking with me.
Aiden will be waiting with Jim by the celebrant at the spot where the ceremony will happen.
The guests will all be seated on either side. The chairs are in a slight arc.’
Enya felt light-headed, her mouth suddenly a little dry. She didn’t want to be disagreeable or seem rude, but...
‘I thought, thought your dad would be, erm, walking with you, to the, the service area.’ She heard the falter in her tone and so smiled to show that all was well.
‘I guess traditionally, yes, but Aiden and I discussed it, and neither of us wanted you to be on your own. I know this is a day of celebration, but I also know it must be a hard one without Aiden’s dad here.’
‘That’s...’ She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to politely suggest an alternative.
‘Don’t overthink it, Enya,’ Trish chimed, ‘it’s my honour to walk Iris up the aisle. She means the world to me and it’s symbolic, one of the last things I can do before she starts this new life with Aiden.’
With Trish’s upset fresh in her mind over not being invited to the registry office, and her admission over Dominic’s imminent departure, Enya felt well and truly backed into a corner.
‘Then when we get to the spot where Aiden will be waiting, Mum will stand back a little, but next to Aiden, so she can properly see me. You will stand back a bit, Enya, but next to me so you can properly see Aiden, Dad will be next to Mum. It’ll all become clear and Rhona, the celebrant, will be on hand to guide anyone to where they should be standing, and if it’s not smooth, it doesn’t matter, nothing does! ’ Iris beamed.
‘Well, look who’s decided to turn up?’ Trish sniped.
Enya turned to see Dominic. He was wearing a pale-blue linen blazer, almost the exact shade of her dress, navy chinos and a white open-necked shirt.
He looked fantastic and there it was again, that darned firework.
She thought about Frank scrolling property sites on his phone, Angela speaking overly loudly about the price of the house, any unpalatable topic to lower her mood, in case there was the faintest chance that her less than demure, less than mother-of-the-groom thoughts might be glimpsed in her face.
‘Sorry, Iris. I’m here now.’ Dominic addressed his daughter directly and the look on his face indicated he either hadn’t heard his wife’s dig or was a master at ignoring that kind of comment.
‘A minor emergency. Someone needed a pump for a flat tyre, I’ve been rummaging in the garage.
All sorted.’ He smiled at his girl. ‘You look...’ He shook his head, as if no words could adequately convey his pride, his love.
His voice filled the space. Enya looked right at him, damning the fact that just the sound of him was enough to fill her with a heady cocktail of desire, longing, and regret.
An unwelcome and potent mix. He might not be for her, Iris’s dad, Aiden’s father-in-law to be, but she would forever be grateful to the man who had both seen her and made her feel seen.
He would never know, and she could never convey, just what this had meant at a time when she so desperately needed to shake off her cloak of invisibility.
‘Right, Dad, so as I told you earlier, you are to walk with Enya behind the bridesmaids, Mum and I will go in first, it means Aiden and I get a second or two together just to take it all in before we start, and you know where to stand?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I know where to stand.’
‘Great. And also remember,’ Iris now addressed them all, reminding Enya of a teacher giving a last-minute instruction to her less than reliable students, ‘this is not a conventional wedding. There are no hymns, no singing, it’s not overly formal. We keep it fun, we enjoy the music.’
‘Some of which I’ve chosen.’ Dominic beamed, clearly delighted to have been given the task.
‘Yes, and I should warn you, Enya, that Aiden has picked some of his dad’s favourites too for this evening.’
‘Thank you for the warning. I went waterproof just in case.’ She pointed at her lashes, and noted how Dominic stood to one side, almost with his back to her, his head tilted as if he might just be employing the same avoidance tactic.
‘We nearly forgot the buttonholes!’ The florist Enya had seen earlier up a ladder now approached with a shallow box containing the small bunches of flowers.
They were neat and delicate, with fronds of whisper-thin fern to break up the white miniature roses, lilies of the valley and sprigs of elderflower that were tied with rough twine.
‘Can I leave you to it?’ She handed over the box to one of Iris’s bridesmaids and rushed towards the main house, suggesting a floral emergency that required her urgent attention.
Trish selected one and pinned it to her dress. ‘Do you need a hand, Enya?’
‘Oh, thanks, yes.’ She lifted her chin as Trish pinned one of the pretty little sprays on to her dress; the scent was glorious.
Dominic stood tall, as if he expected his wife to attach his. She did not.
‘Would you do the honours?’ He addressed Enya directly and held out his buttonhole.
She nodded and took the flowers from his palm.
Careful not to let her fingers anywhere near his.
Her shaking hand a giveaway. The only saving grace was that Trish and Iris paid them no attention.
Enya lifted his lapel, feeling the heat of his body near her palm, as she pinned the flowers into place.
‘There.’
She patted his jacket and let her eyes glance up towards his face. A face she hadn’t seen this closely since he had fled from her kitchen and she had stood there bereft, staring at the space he had occupied, as if the shape of him lingered still.
His expression, she feared, matched her own; it was that potent mix of longing and regret that, had it been expressed in music, would have been loud and building, a crescendo that carried you along with its passion and its beauty, a trailing rapture that could pierce her very soul.
Feelings that had the ability to floor her, to be her undoing, and her salvation.
A moment of connection, knitting all the strands of desire and roping her to him, this man who had come into her life in the most unconventional of ways and had turned things upside down.
‘Thank you.’ His voice held the distinct huskiness of all it tried to contain.
They stared at each other and in that moment, she knew that this was no infatuation, no glossy novelty that would wane as quickly as it had grown.
It was something deeper and more profound.
This realisation only served to pierce her heart, understanding that the facts had not changed, that Aiden and Iris were about to embark on a complicated journey with Holly’s baby at the centre of it and the last thing they would need was her confessing to her feelings for Dominic.
It felt cruel. She reminded herself of the advice she had given Holly: