Chapter Forty-Six
Kivi
A blue-arsed fly barely covered it when it came to describing herself on the day of the wedding.
There was so much to do. Both brides were getting ready on opposite sides of the house – Cass in the guest lounge and Felicia in Room Four – and Kivi was madly dashing between them, checking they were both okay.
Cass was facing the day with her usual placidness, but Felicia – Heather – wasn’t faring so well.
Which was no wonder, given that she had four other alters living in her head, two of whom (Coral and Daniella) were being very vocal in their opinions about everything.
Over the course of the planning, they’d carefully orchestrated it so that there was something for all the alters (including rainbow confetti, requested by five-year-old Kylie), but Kivi left Felicia’s room two hours before the service with an earful from Daniella.
Daniella had definitely gone the most ‘Bridezilla’ out of all of them, although from what Kivi had been told, Daniella’s pedantic nature was mostly borne out of anxiety about the whole shebang.
She left her in the care of Mabel, who was wearing a big badge with ‘Mother of the Bride’ emblazoned on it, and went outside into the back garden to see how the set-up was going.
Eva and Anastasia were chatting nineteen-to-the-dozen as they set up the chairs in the gazebo.
It was a very small ceremony, so there were only twenty wrought-iron chairs to set out, but each one had to be painstakingly wrapped with autumnal garlands and then set in a neat two-row semi-circle with a gap down the middle.
The brides themselves would stand underneath a wooden arch that was entwined with autumn leaves of all different shades.
It had already fallen over once, but the wind that had blown throughout the UK the night before had just about rolled over the sea, leaving a near-perfect late-September day in its wake.
It seemed relatively sturdy now that Victoria had duct-taped some weights to each end.
Nobody would be able to see that said weights were two hefty bags of brown rice from Kivi’s pantry.
And even if they did see, they probably wouldn’t care.
Beyond the arch, the stage was being set up.
Well, Kivi called it the stage, but it was really just a roll-out carpet upon which the choir could stand and all be on one level.
The singers had been surprisingly good-natured about singing at a wedding to which they were not actually invited.
There was afternoon tea being held afterwards, but it was in Kivi’s dining room, with only enough room for the twenty actual guests.
But that was a testament to how loved and respected Cass and Felicia were.
And probably also to the persuasive powers of Jean and Petra.
Jean was presently battling with the carpet, which didn’t want to stay down in one corner (that would probably warrant another bag of rice to hold it down), while Petra was running an extension lead from Kivi’s annex to the keyboard.
Victoria was standing behind Jean offering advice – probably not able to get down there because of her back.
That was a testament to how Anastasia’s love had softened the headmistress – eighteen months ago, she wouldn’t have been seen dead at an event like this, much less helping with the set-up.
Satisfied that everything outside was going as well as it could, Kivi returned inside and went into the kitchen.
They were doing an afternoon tea because Cass and Felicia were catching a late-night plane to Singapore for the first leg of their honeymoon (ultimately ending up in New Zealand, where Cass’s mother was born).
The caterers that they had so painstakingly picked had dropped out at the last minute – something always went wrong, she remembered telling Saskia that.
Luckily, John from the bakery (Felicia’s boss) had stepped in to collaborate with Kivi, and between them they had produced all the fixings of afternoon tea for twenty.
John had supplied cakes and bread, and Kivi had been up at the arse-crack of dawn making sandwiches and bridge rolls.
The scones – plain and cherry – were defrosting, and looking at them made her smile, remembering with fondness the day she had chargrilled a batch while lost in crush-filled thoughts about Saskia.
The madness of the day had actually stopped her from thinking about Saskia.
But now she had a moment to pause, and the sadness kicked in.
Their relationship had undergone a lot of strain over the last couple of months.
Saskia’s mum, soon-to-be-stepmum and brother had been loveliness itself about their relationship, but for some reason, Saskia had also told her homophobic father.
That had gone about as well as expected, and it had thrown Saskia for a loop, to the extent that Kivi had almost taken the train up to Derbyshire in the hope that seeing her in-person would remind Saskia that their relationship was worth it.
Luckily, Saskia’s mum had given her head a wobble and persuaded her not to end things, but Kivi’s trust and confidence in her had been shaken.
Things were improving, slowly, but Saskia had opted out of coming to the wedding.
She said it was due to an urgent work meeting, but how many work meetings happened on a Saturday?
And how many work meetings were so urgent that they were unable to be moved?
Kivi hadn’t pushed, but it had cemented the feeling that their relationship was on a downward trajectory.
But that was a problem for another day. Today was about Cass and Felicia, and their relationship, which despite all its own trials and tribulations was on an upward trajectory.
When she walked back out five minutes later, Victoria had left Jean to fight the carpet on their own, and was poking experimentally at a Bluetooth speaker.
She wasn’t the most technically-minded of people, but she seemed to be giving it a fair shot.
Kivi helped her set it up, and played the first track that came up on shuffle as a test, meaning that the garden was drowned with MC Hammer’s ‘U Can’t Touch This’.
Victoria scrabbled to turn it off, but in her haste ended up pressing the volume-up button.
Eva and Anastasia leapt to their feet and started dancing wildly to the upbeat music, and the laughter that their impromptu jive caused brought some much-needed lightness to Kivi’s stomach.
This was by no means the biggest or most elaborate wedding she’d ever put together, but it was the first one in seven years and the brides were also her friends. Nothing like high stakes.
But, by some miracle, by ten to twelve everything was set up.
The carpet had been wrestled into submission, and thirty choir singers were standing in three neat rows, warmed up and ready to go.
The celebrant, a kindly woman named Joanne who had really taken the time to get to know Cass and Felicia over the last couple of months, was in position.
The brides were dressed and ready to walk down the aisle together, having decided against having bridesmaids due to the small nature of the wedding.
All twenty guests were in situ, all except Mabel and – well, Kivi, who had a chair at the end of the back row so she could escape quickly.
All that was left to do was for Cass and Felicia to have their ‘first look’ – caught on camera by Sharmaine, a local photographer – in the foyer of the guest house, and then get themselves up the aisle.
And that they did. With the voice of Cass’s mum Eulalia Gray, singing her tranquil hit Piece Of Paradise, in the background, the two brides walked arm-in-arm up the aisle.
Their outfits were a mixture of traditional and quirky: Cass had rainbow roses in her bouquet, while Felicia had a small train that shimmered in shades of white, pink and orange.
Kivi knew that they’d both consulted Saskia privately via text for this advice.
Their rings were not gold, but platinum – an increasingly popular choice these days – and as they slipped them onto each other’s fingers, the smile that spread across both their faces brought tears to Kivi’s eyes.
The two were already legally married, having gone down to the registry office with a couple of witnesses the day before, but now they really looked the part.
Wife and wife. Kivi only realised then how much she’d longed for the same for herself, with Saskia.
But there wasn’t time to dwell. The choir treated them to a moving performance of Always All My Love, again by Eulalia Gray, and then the ceremony was over and Kivi was dashing back into the kitchen to get the tea urn boiling.
The guests would mingle in the garden for a while before proceeding inside for their afternoon tea.
Eva tried to help, but Kivi sent her back outside.
There was a curious rage boiling up inside her, and she felt that one accidental wrong move from her sister would send it shooting out, like a cork popping out of a champagne bottle.
Like clockwork, the afternoon rolled on.
The piles of food disappeared as the hungry guests attacked them.
Sharmaine flitted around, taking photographs from every possible angle.
Kivi’s watch told her that she’d hit her ten-thousand step target somewhere on her many journeys between the kitchen and the dining room, but it was worth it to see the joy on Cass and Heather’s faces.
All of Felicia’s alters had made an appearance over the course of the afternoon – with even the normally distressed Autumn seeming relatively happy as Cass explained to her what was going on – but it was Heather who came to visit her in the kitchen, thanking her profusely for everything she’d done.
“Cass is just chatting with Sharmaine,” she said, leaning on the doorjamb. She looked tired, but radiant. “That girl is a marvel. And so are you, Kivi Chadwick. It’s like you reached into our heads and knitted our visions into reality. ‘Thank you’ could never be enough.”
Then Cass appeared beside her, slipping an arm around her wife’s waist. Kivi’s stomach twisted, remembering that she’d never quite had that easy affection with Saskia. They hadn’t gotten to that stage. She pushed it down, trying to focus on what Cass was saying.
“Most people are taking their leave now,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want us to stay and help clean up, Kivi?”
“At your own wedding?” Kivi’s eyes narrowed, but she hoped she sounded light-hearted. “You’re not serious. Get yourselves back home and ready for the airport. I assume you’re not going like that.”
“No,” Heather laughed. “Saskia put together a couple of outfits for us to travel in. She said it’s still our wedding day, so we should wear special clothes.
We were wondering whether we could get changed upstairs again?
Otherwise we’ll be walking through the village in our wedding dresses, and Veronica from the pub will probably have an apoplectic fit! ”
The mention of Saskia tightened Kivi’s throat, but she used all her willpower to sound normal. “Of course! Pop yourselves upstairs and get changed. And don’t even think about trying to help. I have two perfectly good hands, and I’ll use them both to my full advantage.”
“Make that four,” said a voice from the door to the annex.