Chapter 2 #2
‘Give me the outdoor any day, but there isn’t enough demand for a gardener around here to make a living from it, so I have to give priority to the other.
All going well though, I should have this place ready for planting in the spring.
Think about what you want in terms of beds and lawns and paths and whatever.
You have a good acre and a half to play around with, so dream big. ’
They were already dreaming big, she thought, about as big as they could go. ‘Would you help us to plan a garden?’ Neither she nor Damien had a clue.
‘Sure, if you want me to – but do have a look online, plenty of ideas there.’
Her first house, her first garden – and presumably her last house and garden. Whatever happened here, however their fortunes went, she couldn’t imagine them ever leaving Chance House.
And soon, her first and only wedding.
Just before noon they pulled up outside the priest’s house.
‘Phil,’ he said, shaking Lydia’s hand. ‘Delighted to meet you, and looking forward to joining you in holy matrimony with this boyo.’
‘You don’t mind that I’m an outsider?’
‘Well now,’ he said, ‘I thought you two were the new residents of Chance House. Did I get that wrong?’
‘Only since yesterday.’
‘Yesterday’s good enough for me. I’m assuming you’ve been baptised into the one true faith?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ever been excommunicated?’
She laughed. ‘No.’
‘Any active marriages you’ve forgotten about?’
‘None.’
‘And you have your course done, so we’re sorted.’
He didn’t look like a priest. His hair was shaved too tightly for her to be sure of its colour, but she thought reddish brown. His skin was pale and lightly freckled, his eyes a deep blue. His jeans met a pair of hiking boots. A tattoo of ivy trailed from a sleeve on to the back of his hand.
He made coffee that smelt like toasted nuts. ‘Try the ginger biscuits – home baked by a lovely parishioner. They’re always trying to fatten me up.’ He took one and dipped it into his cup. ‘Lydia, I hear you’re a yoga teacher.’
‘I am.’ She wondered how he felt about something that had originated in a different faith. ‘I hope to run classes from the house when it’s ready.’
‘So I believe. You must let me know when you’re advertising – I’ll be happy to put a notice in the church porch.’
‘That’s very kind, thank you.’ No objection then. She decided she liked him.
She might even start going to Mass again.
*
Bit by bit, their wedding plans took shape. Damien’s brother Tom was to be best man. Tom and Marian’s son Jack, recently turned five, would act as page boy, carrying the rings Lydia and Damien had bought in the town.
Brona, of course, would be bridesmaid. She professed herself charmed at the idea of this last-minute wedding, but Lydia wondered what her friend privately thought.
Brona had married Shaun in a castle in the midlands, with around two hundred and fifty guests.
The wedding had taken place over two days, and featured a household-name jazz band and a champagne brunch, and had to have cost a small, or not so small, fortune.
Kathleen had raised no objection to the unconventional wedding.
Even though Lydia hadn’t lured Damien to Dublin, she still felt the strain between herself and her almost-mother-in-law when they met, but on hearing their news Kathleen had simply said, It’s a bit different, but if that’s what ye want, I suppose we’ll go along with it, and that had been that.
Damien didn’t seem to have noticed his mother’s coolness towards Lydia, and she felt to point it out would put him in the middle of the situation so she said nothing, and went on hoping that time would soften Kathleen’s attitude.
As the days passed, having failed to find the café open anytime they tried, they drove out to the small farm owned by its proprietor. ‘She keeps goats and ducks,’ Damien told Lydia. ‘She sells eggs and cheese in the café. Moved here from Germany years ago, been here as long as I can remember.’
The farmhouse kitchen was old and shabby and cluttered – yellowing newspapers piled on a wooden bench, a jumble of egg boxes on the table, threadbare towels draped on chair backs – but it was also warm, thanks to an enormous range that dominated the room.
Greta looked somewhere in her late fifties. Handsome, blue-eyed, high-cheekboned. Dark hair streaked with grey, its choppy cut making Lydia wonder if she’d done it herself. She wasn’t exactly grim, but she wasn’t given to smiling either.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will make a carrot cake for your wedding.’ Taking reading glasses from her pocket, uncapping a fountain pen to write in a notebook she’d taken from a drawer. ‘What date? How many people? One tier or more? Cream-cheese icing, or something else?’
All her questions were cake related. She didn’t enquire about the venue, or ask whether they were having a church ceremony.
She didn’t offer congratulations. She told them to call for the cake the day before the wedding, and gave them a wedge of goat’s cheese to take home, wrapped in greaseproof paper.
‘If you like it, you can buy more in my café,’ she said, meeting Lydia’s gaze head on. It sounded like an order, and Lydia didn’t dare ask what the café’s opening hours actually were.
‘She’s very direct,’ she said on the way home.
‘Direct is the word. Does exactly what she pleases, but she’s fair and honest. People have great time for her around here.’
‘What about cake for the ones who come later?’
‘That’s being taken care of by our pastry chef.’
Denny the taxi driver agreed to act as photographer. ‘He mightn’t be able to come back to the house,’ Damien reported. ‘There may be an airport run – he’s waiting for it to be confirmed. If it is, I’ll have someone else lined up to take over.’
‘Who?’
‘Surprise.’
She suspected that meant he hadn’t found a stand-in yet, but she let it go.
Everyone would have phones. Plenty of photos would be taken, and some might even be worthy of an album.
With every day that passed, she found herself more willing to go with the flow.
As long as they were doing things differently, why not let everything be different?
The musicians were booked, a trio that played a regular Thursday night gig in the smaller of the village’s two pubs. Marian sorted the flowers with her florist friend, and agreed to decorate the dining room on the morning of the wedding.
‘Right up my alley,’ she said. ‘Susan will give me a hand – she’s good at that kind of thing too.’
‘Remind me who Susan is.’ Lydia had heard the name, but couldn’t remember who it belonged to.
‘My boss. The school principal.’
Yes. Trestle tables and folding chairs.
Ten days before Christmas, Lydia went for a wash and blow dry at the village’s tiny hair salon, feeling a stab of guilt.
For the first time in years she wasn’t using Caroline, her Dublin hairdresser.
As she was paying – half the price of the salon where Caroline worked, and a nice blow dry – she asked the woman, who’d introduced herself as Marge, if she’d do her wedding day hair.
‘I’m not wearing a veil, so I’ll just need a nice updo, and my bridesmaid will want the same.’ She hoped to God Brona would be happy with Marge.
‘I’d be delighted,’ Marge replied. ‘Congratulations – we’re all thrilled that Damien’s getting married.’
‘Thank you – and would you be able to come to us?’
‘I would indeed. You’ll be at Chance House?’
‘That’s right.’
She was getting used to how everyone around here knew who she was before she told them.
They also knew where she came from, where she was living now, and the family she was marrying into.
The woman behind the counter in the hardware shop knew, and so did the young girl in the chemist, and the man holding the lollipop stick outside the school.
Everywhere she went, she was introduced to herself: ‘You’re the yoga teacher from Dublin,’ or ‘You’re Damien’s fiancée from Dublin.’ To all she was the newcomer from the big city, with different clothes and a different accent. She must stick out like a sore thumb.
She didn’t mind. The friendliness she’d noticed from the start was everywhere. Everyone except Greta congratulated her on the upcoming wedding – it hadn’t taken long for that news to spread – and all of them told her their names, and she promptly forgot them.
It was early days. It would take time to settle in.
She did wonder if they’d be as welcoming if she wasn’t marrying a local man.
Damien seemed to know literally everyone, even the young kids.
Would she ever feel as embedded in the community as he was, not having been born there? Again, time would tell.
Finally, all the wedding preparations were in place, apart from Lydia’s dress.
I’ll sort you out with something, Marian had promised.
I’ve got lots of possibilities in my wardrobe.
Lydia had agreed, liking how it fit in with their unconventional theme, and how a borrowed dress would cut down further on the cost of the wedding – but the day before she was to be kitted out, she opened the apartment door to Marian and a woman she hadn’t yet met.
‘Hope you don’t mind us showing up unannounced,’ Marian said. ‘This is Susan, the school principal.’
Marian’s boss. She looked as likely a school principal as Father Phil did a priest. She was around Lydia’s age, with a tangled mess of dark curly hair.
Her lips were painted the same shade of orange as the stripes in the grey tunic Lydia could see through the gap of her opened coat.
One nostril was pierced; a tiny blue stone winked there. She held a carrier bag.
‘Come in,’ Lydia told them. ‘I was planning to drop into the school to thank you for the promise of tables and chairs.’
‘You’re very welcome. I love the sound of your wedding, so spontaneous. Mine took over a year to plan.’
They followed Lydia into the kitchen. ‘Damien out?’ Marian asked.
‘Gone to work.’
‘Just as well.’ Susan set her bag on the table. ‘I hear you’re in need of a dress.’
‘I told her I was dressing you,’ Marian said, ‘but she wanted to show you something.’
Susan slid the bag across the table to Lydia. ‘Just have a look. You mustn’t feel under pressure.’
‘Wow, that’s . . . very kind of you.’ Lydia stepped forward, terrified it wouldn’t be to her taste, and she might offend by refusing it – or worse, feel she had to wear it.
She reached in and lifted it out and held it up.
‘It’s raw silk,’ Susan said. ‘I came across it in a boutique in Lanzarote over the summer. I didn’t have any occasion in mind when I bought it, but I couldn’t resist it. I haven’t worn it yet, but I’m happy to let you be the first wearer, if you like it.’
‘I told her you were about the same size,’ Marian added.
It was lilac. Three-quarter sleeves, with a fitted top and a gently flared skirt. Its neck was scooped, with a small V in the centre.
‘Side slit,’ Susan said, ‘and look.’ She turned it around and Lydia saw the line of tiny covered buttons travelling all the way down the back. ‘They’re just decorative – there’s a concealed zip.’
Lydia examined it silently. The fabric was nubby and soft. It was light as a feather. She held it against her and it fell to a few inches above her ankles. She’d be frozen solid in it.
She loved it. She loved everything about it. Lilac was one of her favourite shades.
‘Could I try it on?’
‘Sure.’
In the bedroom she hurriedly shed her clothes and stepped carefully into the dress.
The zip went up easily. She stood before the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door and looked at her reflection, blinking back tears that were suddenly there.
And when she returned to the kitchen, feet bare, both women smiled.
‘Ah look. It’s perfect on you,’ Susan said.
‘And I have a gorgeous cherry-red wrap to keep you warm,’ Marian said. ‘The colours would be wonderful together.’
And just like that, Lydia was ready to get married.