Chapter Twenty Carys
Transcript of a video from Reality TV content creator @missgoss
Okay, so I looked up the sales records of that house that they’re all staying at which you can see in the image behind my head, and you won’t believe who owns it.
Zoom in on that name. Know who that is? Only the showrunner: Richard Lee Aldridge!
This is just his house! Feels like the UK season of Wedded Bliss cost about twenty quid. What do we think about that, Blissfuls?
I walk through the villa, and she’s there at every turn. In the pool. In the kitchen. Waiting for me on the sun loungers, where I left her last night. Doesn’t she understand that I need to keep clear of her?
She starts to disappear down the garden, running through the lush green foliage, and I run forward, chasing her.
‘Carys?’
‘Dolly?’ I shout. ‘Dolly! Wait for me.’
Why won’t she just stay here? Why won’t she talk to me? It would be easier if she spoke to me.
She turns back to me and I swear she’s wearing fewer clothes than she was a moment ago.
‘Dolly?’ I call.
She finally stops running. Her lips fall open, and I’m really going to kiss her again and—
In a shock of white light, reality pours in. And there is Patrick.
‘Shit!’ I shout, leaping back and whacking my head on the headboard. At the same time, he jumps back so I narrowly avoid headbutting him in the nose. ‘Shit shit shit! Sorry!’ I cry.
Patrick looks at me like I’m a horse about to buck.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he says, and I realise he must have flipped up my sleep mask. ‘Is your head okay?’
‘Yeah,’ I grumble, thankful that my sleep mask is as thick as a blackout curtain and managed to cushion my bump a little.
He dares to come closer now I’ve stopped flailing round like an insane thing. ‘You were shouting. I was worried you were having a nightmare.’
My cheeks burn with embarrassment. Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God.
‘What… what was I saying?’ I ask.
‘You kept saying slow down, wait for me, stuff like that,’ he says, now perched fully on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you feeling alright? You look a little flushed.’
He puts the cool back of his hand against my raging hot shame skin.
‘I think,’ I croak. ‘Migraine. I got up in the middle of the night and was feeling kind of funny.’
‘I thought something was up. I couldn’t wake you earlier so I just left you to sleep in longer.’
I sit upright, and the movement makes me swoon.
‘You’re probably still postdromal. Take it slow,’ Patrick asks, keeping his voice sweet and low.
I wince as I nod, for full effect.
I don’t have a migraine. I have post-meltdown brain ache and a heap of embarrassment that I was having a sexy dream in our not-quite-marital bed about the woman I kind of cheated on him with.
‘I’m going to go get you some crêpes. Do you think you could eat?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, though I don’t really know if I could stomach them.
I find an ear plug tangled in my hair; the other has vanished into the ether.
Patrick leaves, but doesn’t close the door behind him.
‘Hey, lovely,’ Reb calls from the doorway. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Hi, Reb,’ I say, waving half-heartedly.
God, it really is bright in here. I don’t have to try hard to pretend I have a migraine because I can barely see.
‘Do you have time for a temperature check?’ Reb asks, and when I don’t immediately answer she adds, ‘You know, just to check you’re doing alright?’
Oh God. I told Dolly I was autistic last night, didn’t I? Has she told someone? We had a truce, didn’t we?
Or did production somehow hear what I said? Fuck, I didn’t consider that there might be cameras outside.
I try not to react, but honestly my un-masked facial expressions are pretty flat so she probably thinks I haven’t moved a muscle anyway. ‘What’s this about, Reb?’
Reb looks at me like I might be a bit stupid. ‘Babe, you can only seem to open one eye at a time.’
She’s not wrong. I swap which eye is open, and in doing so open both, just to see if I can, but two is far too much. ‘Oh… yeah.’
‘This is your second migraine this week, and I know this environment can be quite stress—’
‘No, no,’ I say, waving my hands. ‘Honestly, I think it was the wine last night. White wine sometimes hits me the wrong way.’
‘Okay, I’ll make a note so no one serves you any. Save your poor nice head. Do you think you can manage filming today?’
‘Mmhmm. What are we doing?’
‘I’m not really supposed to say,’ she says with a sigh. ‘But it’s a challenge. Competitive. Whole lot of you.’
‘Is it physical?’
‘You have to stand up.’
‘I think I can handle that.’
‘Good. Good. Okay, I’ll get you some painkillers, yeah? I’ll send them back with Patrick. Oh. Sorry, can I?’ Reb reaches forward and, with a bit of fiddling, plucks something out of my fringe. Upon seeing what it is, she practically throws it into my lap. ‘Oh, err, it’s an ear plug. Right.’
Poor girl looks ready to vomit. ‘Okay, I’ll leave you in Patrick’s capable care, but do shout if you need more meds later, okay?’
I give her a thumbs up she doesn’t even see, because she sprints out the door.
What a mess. I pick out the crusty bits from my eyes.
I think I can safely assume I wasn’t overheard admitting I’m autistic. She didn’t even mention mental wellbeing, so I guess the migraine excuse works.
But that dream. Dolly shows me one bit of kindness and I start picturing her in her underwear. God, what’s wrong with me? I mean, arguably a lot of things but specifically in this instance, what is going on? I’m supposed to hate her. Am I just some perve who gets horny for kindness?
Patrick returns with a plate of crêpes before I can spiral too much, plus a glass of water and some paracetamol all balanced on top of a big book thing. Even I know that paracetamol is not going to touch a true migraine, but it’ll take the edge off my situation at least.
I neck the meds quickly, trying to ignore the chalky taste of the tablets.
‘Thanks for this,’ I say, eyeing up breakfast.
‘Ah, thank Malachi and Warren. They kept them warm for us.’
He’s already rolled them up for me, lemon and sugar, and I try to be nice and say thank you, even though I’d rather have done it myself as I bet the balance is off. Most people don’t put the best part of a lemon in theirs.
‘So, production were handing out catalogues of all the wedding venues and options for us to go through on camera. Do you think you’d be up for that before the challenge?’
That explains the binder resting by my feet. I’m not sure I’ve got the brain for wedding planning today, but I don’t think I’ve got a choice either.
The first not-sour-enough crêpe is claggy, and I have to unstick it from the roof of my mouth before I can reply with an unconvincing sure.
But then he asks me a question that makes my brain go completely blank.
‘When you were a little girl, what did you imagine your wedding would be like?’ he asks sweetly, stroking the long bits of my slept-on hair. ‘I want you to have your dream wedding.’
I shove another bit of crepe in my mouth to buy myself some time.
The simple truth is that I am not sure I ever dreamed of a wedding. I knew I wanted to be married and have a partner, but I’ve never been able to picture the event itself.
That seems like the socially unacceptable thing to say to the man you’re about to marry. But I spent so much time as a child trying to make sure I was Doing Human Right at every step that I didn’t have much space to dream ahead.
Even when I was with Mike, I was more focused on being a good girlfriend in the moment than imagining the next stages of our lives. I love planning, but there were just too many variables when it came to building a life towards a specific event with one person.
It is somewhat impossible to imagine a future where someone loves you unconditionally when you can barely stomach yourself.
When I was small, I was so angry that I kept getting things wrong, being wrong, and not knowing why I kept fucking things up.
I wasn’t an angel – I said some things to people that I realise in hindsight might have been true but not kind – but even when I was kind and lovely, it didn’t always work.
I had to adapt, fit myself into being the right person for every relationship.
Carys Cadwallader is a different person to everyone.
My family and friends and colleagues will probably watch this show and all agree I’m acting differently, but the how and why and true version of me will vary for all of them.
I think my sisters know the most truthful version of me.
My parents know… someone who could be small and quiet and passive.
It’s not lost on me that the version that Dolly has met is closer to the real me than the person I am around Patrick. She’s even seen the spikier, unpalatable versions I never let anyone see.
That’s the thing about masking; it’s survival by splintering. Instead of a whole personality, I have a handful of wood chips.
There’s only so long I can get away with chewing this quickly disintegrating crêpe. What would he want to hear? Does Patrick want a wife who knows what to ask for, or demand, even? What’s a middle ground between the truth and whatever that could be?
‘I couldn’t imagine the event without the person,’ is what I manage to come up with. ‘A wedding is about two people. So what I want is what we want.’
Patrick takes it in, nodding slowly, and I worry for a second that he’s disappointed. Eventually he says, ‘You thought all that as a little girl?’ He laughs but not unkindly, and kisses me on the top of my head. ‘My sensitive girl.’
Well. He’s not wrong.
Conversational masking is back in full gear, and I turn the question back on him. ‘What about you?’
Patrick blinks in a machine gun splutter, followed by an awkward cough. ‘Well. I mean. Yeah, I thought I’d get married before,’ he says in a strained voice.