Chapter 24
Over the next few days, there’s a flurry of activity. Dot sets the divorce proceedings in motion, and Erin finishes her exams. We get on with the jigsaw. We also have a lot of video calls with Hayley and Sean, and we get excited about every little aspect of our wedding.
On the morning of Erin’s final exam, Dot suggests we take her out for lunch to celebrate.
Erin says we don’t know the results yet, and that celebrating might be jumping the gun, but I tell her we’re celebrating the effort she’s put in, regardless of the results.
We’re celebrating the fact that she’s faced this thing, the hardest exams she’s done in her life, despite having recently lost her mum.
I tell her she shouldn’t play down how brave she’s been, and she nods then, and agrees.
Dot chooses an Italian restaurant in Overbury that I’ve never been to, and she drives us there.
‘This is so nice,’ Erin says as we get settled at our table.
And it is. It’s small, with a simple jug of flowers on each table and lots of natural light.
‘How did you find it?’ I ask Dot.
‘Patty. It’s one of the many places Harry’s brought her.’
We haven’t seen much of Patty, and I make a mental note to call round there.
A waiter brings us bread and we order gin and tonics, with just the tonic for Dot.
‘How do you feel?’ I ask Erin. ‘It’s a big step, finishing with school forever.’
Erin tears at a piece of bread while she comes up with her answer.
‘I used to hate school. I went through a phase, I think I was about thirteen, where I’d do anything to get out of going.
Used to pretend I was ill, and when that stopped working, I’d leave in my uniform and then get on a bus to Overbury and spend the day trying not to be seen by anyone I knew.
It was around the time I was realising that I was a lesbian.
I wasn’t like the popular girls, and they pounced on that and were shitty to me.
I’d had these friends and then suddenly all anyone cared about was which boy liked them.
‘Anyway, I had this teacher for art, Miss Race. She must have seen I was struggling and she just took me under her wing. She didn’t make a big thing of it, she just used to let me spend lunchtimes in the art block and she’d talk to me about music and politics and just treat me like an adult.
I think if it wasn’t for her, I would have got out of there as soon as I could and not looked back.
That thirteen-year-old version of me wouldn’t have believed I would voluntarily stay on to do A levels. ’
‘Is she still there, at the school?’ I ask.
‘No, she moved away a couple of years ago. Changed my life, though.’
I think about how, sometimes, it doesn’t take so much to change a person’s life. Sometimes all that’s needed is a nudge or an ear. And people don’t always know how much of an impact they’ve had. This Erin in front of me, we might not have met if it hadn’t been for this teacher’s support.
‘To Miss Race,’ Dot says, lifting her glass.
Dot and I choose pasta dishes and Erin has a pizza, and everything is delicious.
Arthur and I didn’t eat out like this, not really, and I don’t know why.
If I’m honest, I suppose we were both a bit nervous of trying different types of food.
We’d always go for a pub lunch, something familiar.
But what a world of flavour we missed out on.
‘Have you been to Italy?’ I ask Erin.
‘No,’ Erin says. ‘We always went to France or Spain on holiday.’
I know Dot has, and when we ask her to tell us about it, she talks about sun-drenched coastal drives and eating pizza on town square steps, and I wonder whether she was with her boys, or Geoff and Rupert, but she doesn’t say.
If we live to be one hundred, Dot and I, I’ll never tire of hearing about the life she lived without me.
The choices she made, which were so different to the ones I made. The places she’s been.
We all have tiramisu for dessert, and when a waiter clears our scraped-clean dishes, Dot asks a question I wasn’t expecting.
‘Do you do wedding catering?’
The waiter is very tall and not much older than Erin. He peers at Dot. Says he’s not sure but he’ll send the manager over. The manager is Italian, and he comes and kisses us all and asks Dot who the lucky man is.
‘I’m the lucky woman,’ I say, and Dot takes my hand under the table and squeezes it.
You can tell he wasn’t expecting that, but he recovers well and starts taking us through the options for catering.
‘Could we have this exact tiramisu?’ I ask.
‘Of course, madam.’
We pay the bill and leave, all of us caught up in the idea of an Italian feast at the wedding. The more we plan, the more real it becomes in my mind. What was once just a vague idea of Dot and me making our promises to each other is starting to have colour and depth.
‘Do you have anything to get back for?’ I ask Erin.
‘I’m free as a bird,’ she says. ‘Why? Is there somewhere you want to go?’
I look from her to Dot, an idea forming. ‘How about doing a bit of dress shopping, while we’re in Overbury? There are a couple of bridal shops down near the cinema.’
‘Don’t you need an appointment for that sort of thing?’ Erin asks.
‘I imagine you do on a Saturday afternoon, but we might be lucky on a Tuesday.’
Dot grins. ‘I’m game.’
‘Definitely,’ Erin agrees. ‘I am totally in.’
At the first boutique, the woman is a bit sniffy.
Says she does usually prefer people to make an appointment.
Dot looks pointedly around the empty shop before asking politely whether she could possibly squeeze us in.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Erin stifling a laugh and have to look away before I join in.
The woman softens a bit, and leads us to a corner which is clearly reserved for older women.
There’s a part of me that wants to argue against this, to insist on being shown everything a twenty-five-year-old bride would be, but I know I’d look ridiculous in some of those dresses and that, really, this is the right place for us.
‘Are you bothered about seeing each other’s outfits before the big day?’ Erin asks.
I look at Dot and she looks at me.
‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘I’m not really one for superstition.’
‘Me neither,’ Dot says.
There’s nothing we like enough to try on, so we try our luck in the next place, which is bigger and just as empty.
Here, we’re treated like royalty, the young shop assistant exclaiming with joy over us finding one another so late in our lives and taking this step.
She doesn’t steer us to old lady corner, either.
She spreads her arms wide, taking in all the dresses in the shop, and asks what we have in mind.
Meanwhile, her colleague brings us glasses of prosecco.
Dot chooses something to try on first, and the assistant takes her into the dressing room while Erin and I sit and wait for her to emerge.
And when she does, it’s all I can do to keep my composure.
It’s a simple dress, but a proper wedding gown all the same.
Scoop-necked, long-sleeved, with a floral pattern across the bodice.
The assistant passes her a bouquet of flowers to hold, and I feel tears threatening.
‘Oh Dot,’ Erin says, and I’m glad she does because I can’t say a thing.
‘Well,’ Dot says, ‘I didn’t expect it to be quite this easy, but I think this is the one for me.’
The assistant squeals and I nod, blinking furiously, and it’s settled, just like that.
It’s a different story with me. I try on three dresses, all quite different in style, and none of them are quite right.
Dot says I look wonderful in all of them, but I can see in her eyes that she agrees we haven’t found it yet.
Still, finding her dress is a good start and we leave feeling light and excitable.
The shop assistant tells me they have some new styles coming in in a couple of weeks, and also writes down a few other places we might like to try.
‘I hope you ladies have a beautiful wedding, and a happy ever after,’ she says, waving us out of the door. We’ve paid a deposit for Dot’s dress but it needs some slight adjustments, so we don’t get to take it with us.
‘Do you want to try one of those other places?’ Dot asks me.
None of them are very far away, but they’re all a drive.
‘No, let’s get home. We can do it another day.’
‘I can’t believe we went out for lunch and sorted out the catering and one of the wedding dresses,’ Erin says.
And I can’t, either. All the way home, I think about my first wedding.
How I let my mother take the lead on most of the decisions, how her ideas were all about keeping things plain and not being showy.
There wasn’t much money, and Arthur and I had no idea what we wanted, I don’t think, so we just followed along.
And as a result, the day itself wasn’t really anything special, and it certainly didn’t reflect me in any way.
It could have been anyone’s wedding, the bride and groom almost an afterthought.
This wedding will be different in every possible way, I think. Dot and me right there at the centre of it, our personalities reflected, our love celebrated. It’s how it should be. How it always should have been. And this time, I’ll be marrying the right person, too.