Chapter 32
Erin doesn’t hide the fact that she’s upset at the thought of me leaving, and I love her for it.
‘I know I’m leaving too,’ she says. ‘I just want some things to stay the same. It feels like I’m walking on sand.’
We’re at the dining table, and I reach across and give her arm a gentle rub.
‘It’s not that I don’t get it,’ she goes on. ‘I do. It makes a lot of sense. I know that. It’s just… the thought of coming home in the holidays and you not being here.’
‘It doesn’t mean you’ll have to stay with your dad,’ I say, suddenly realising she might think that.
‘What do you mean? Why doesn’t it?’
I tell her everything then. About Julie moving in and her room still being her room.
And then I tell her about leaving the house to her in my will.
I wasn’t planning to, but I want her to feel secure.
To know that she’s secure, that she doesn’t have to worry about going home to a family who don’t see her properly.
After I’ve finished, she sits there with her mouth hanging open for a long time, not saying anything.
I don’t rush her. It’s a lot to take in.
‘I can’t let you do that,’ she says eventually.
I snort. ‘It’s already done, Erin. And anyway, why ever not? You know I don’t have any children and Dot’s got her own money and I can’t think of a better thing to do with it. Having said that, I rather hope you don’t get it for a long time.’
‘I hope I never get it,’ she says, looking me dead in the eye. ‘But thank you, Mabel.’
Ten minutes later, she’s finishing off her toast and dashing upstairs to shower before her shift, and I tell Dot I’m going to sit out in the garden, ask if she wants to join me.
We open up the umbrella for a bit of shade.
I never used the garden much, but since Dot’s been living here, she’s bought cushions to make the wooden chairs more comfortable and she’s planted all sorts, so I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like when things start to come into bloom.
‘This will all need watering later,’ she says. ‘When was the last time we had rain?’
I think back. Not yesterday, not the day before, I don’t think. It’s a bit too hot for me, but there’s a breeze, and that makes it bearable.
‘Do you like the heat?’ I ask her, realising I don’t remember from back when we were young.
‘This? Yes, I love it. Any hotter? No thank you. And even this is a stretch when you’re not sitting by a pool with a book and a cocktail in your hand.’
I try to picture her like that, at a hotel in Spain or Italy or somewhere. Perhaps we’ll visit John and Claudia in the south of France and find a pool to lie beside.
‘Dot,’ I say, ‘was there ever anyone else? After Peter’s dad, I mean.’ I don’t know his name and I don’t want to.
Dot fixes me with a look, and I wait for her to speak. I want to know everything about her. The good and the bad. ‘No. I think I could have met someone else, if it hadn’t been for that. But afterwards, there was just no way I was going to let anyone in. Until you.’
‘Until me.’ I think about what she’s saying, how if that hadn’t happened all those years ago, she might have been settled with someone else when I came looking for her. It’s strange, the twists and turns a life can take.
‘And if there had been someone else, would it have been a man?’
She knows what I’m asking. Some people like men and women, and for others, like me, it’s simpler than that.
‘I’ve been at war with myself for decades,’ Dot says. ‘Knowing deep down that I was attracted to women, but not knowing how that might look. I think Geoff always knew, and he gently nudged me towards lesbian friends of his a couple of times, but I was so fearful.’
‘You, Dot Brightmore, fearful! My whole life I had you down as fearless.’
‘I suppose I was in some ways, but in others, I was terrified. And then you appeared and it was just so obvious.’
‘What was, Dot?’
‘That we should be together. But also that I’d been waiting for you. That I didn’t want to just be with any woman. I wanted to be with Mabel Beaumont.’
That makes me smile. I sit there in the sun, my eyes closed, and a big, silly grin on my face.
* * *
When Julie comes round in the afternoon we talk about wedding things. She’s brought some magazines she picked up from somewhere and we look at flowers and place settings and she reminds me that I don’t know what I’m wearing.
‘Shall we go and have a look now, Mabel?’ she asks. ‘We could go into Trenton, I know there are a couple of bridal shops there.’
Why not? Dot says she’ll stay at home if that’s all right with me, and it is, so it’s just Julie and me.
I can’t remember when I last went to Trenton but Julie knows just where to park and then leads me straight to this little backstreet that has three bridal boutiques.
We go into the first and I’m not very hopeful.
It’s quite small and the woman who greets us looks a bit snooty.
But I couldn’t be more wrong. She introduces herself as Sheila and looks delighted when we say I’m the bride.
‘It’s in September, so there isn’t a lot of time for alterations and that sort of thing,’ Julie says.
Sheila says it’s not a problem, that she likes a challenge. She sits us down and we talk about what I like and don’t like.
‘I want to really feel like a bride,’ I say. ‘Because I’ve been a bride before, but now I’m marrying the love of my life.’
Sheila and Julie exchange smiles and I think for a moment that we’ll be inviting Sheila to the wedding at this rate.
She says she thinks she might have just the thing, asks what size I am, and then nods and disappears.
When she comes back, she has the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen.
Long and flowing, a champagne colour, with intricate beading and stitching on the bodice and a silky skirt.
Julie looks at me. ‘Well? Do you want to try it on?’
I nod, a bit lost for words, and Sheila leads me to the changing rooms, where she waits outside but says she can help me get it on when I’m ready.
When I’m stripped down to my underwear, I look at myself in the mirror, ask myself what I think I’m doing.
Should I be going for something prim and age-appropriate?
A suit, or a very plain dress? But then Sheila’s in there with me and she’s helping me into the dress and it feels as good as it looks, and when she tells me to look in the mirror I see a different woman.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, this is the one.’
Sheila laughs and claps her hands. ‘Not often I get it right first time, but when I do, it’s the most amazing feeling. Shall we go out there and show your friend?’
Julie cries, and I wonder whether Dot will, when she sees me.
I picture us, hand in hand, her in her dream dress and me in mine.
And I’m so glad Julie suggested this outing, because I’d been fretting about what I would wear, and now here I am, sorted.
After I get changed back into my clothes, which feel drab and boring in comparison, we talk about shoes and veils and handbags.
Sheila brings things to show us, but she isn’t pushy.
‘If you can come in next Wednesday, my alterations lady will be here. It fits you so well, Mabel, but there was a tiny bit of gaping at the chest. She’d be able to sort that out in no time.’
I look at Julie and she nods. ‘We’ll be here. Thank you.’
On the way back to the car, Julie says that she knew the moment she saw me that it was the right dress, and I say that I did too, and she takes hold of my hand and suddenly I want to ask her a question.
‘Julie, would you do something for me?’
‘Of course, Mabel. Just name it.’
We’ve stopped walking and we’re standing facing one another and I wonder if it’s silly, if she’ll laugh.
‘Dot has her sons, to walk her down the aisle,’ I say. ‘I’ve never liked the idea of being given away, but it’s nice to have someone to bring you from your old life to your new, I think, and I wondered whether that could be you?’
She claps a hand to her mouth. ‘Mabel, I’d be honoured.’
She grins and it’s contagious. I feel it spreading to me, and it feels like all the pieces are slotting into place. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘We couldn’t have imagined this, could we, that day you turned up on my doorstep?’
Julie laughs and takes my arm and we start walking again. ‘We certainly couldn’t, Mabel.’
I think back to that day. It wasn’t long after Arthur had died, and Julie appeared, saying she was my carer and it turned out that Arthur had set it in motion, paid for her to come every day for three months, once he was gone.
I was so closed off, so lost. I’d like to go back in time, tell that version of myself that things were going to get so much better, and that this stranger was a big part of that.
On the drive home, Julie chats away about this and that. And when we get there, I tell Dot I’ve found my dress, and she’s delighted.
‘Will you stay for dinner?’ she asks Julie. ‘I’m doing a cottage pie and I got a bit carried away. There’s enough for about ten and it’s only us and Erin.’
‘I’d love to,’ Julie says, and then she’s following Dot into the kitchen, asking if she can give her a hand.
And I stand in the front room for a minute, just trying to take in how lucky I am.