Chapter Ashleigh Brett and Remy Hughes 1995 Aged 33 #4
‘Well, you might have to forgo the whole thing if everyone starts yacking up. The kids are sick.’ Remy pulled a face that suggested even saying the words was torturous.
‘That’s why I’m being weird, that’s why I’m sitting over here, keeping my distance, and why Midge, Harper and Soph are confined to barracks. I don’t want everyone to get sick!’
‘What do you mean, sick?’
‘I mean, vomiting in the bin sick. Throwing up in the bath sick! A bug maybe, I don’t know, but they’re clammy, clingy, and poorly.’
The awful possibilities filled her mind. ‘Shit!’
‘Not yet, but . . .’
‘Poor Soph. She was so excited about wearing her dress!’
‘I know, and she still might be able to. We’ve got a whole twenty-four hours for her to perk up and feel better. It’s like that with these things that fly around school; one minute they’re at death’s door, the next they’re driving you mad with their energy and demands for Pop Tarts.’
‘Oh God! I don’t want everyone getting ill. That would be the icing on the bloody cake!’ The reality of what that might mean struck her then: poorly guests, empty seats, the beef carpaccio going to waste. ‘We can’t let anyone else get it!’
‘Well, gee, thanks, Ash, for making me and my kids feel so welcome. You think I want to spend the night in a strange room with the kids throwing up? It’s a nightmare!’
Ashleigh winced. The idea of spending time in any room with kids throwing up was abhorrent.
Remy was a natural at parenting, and Ashleigh loved her nieces, she really did, but having seen Remy struggle up close, she wasn’t entirely sure motherhood was for her.
In fact, given the idea of so much disruption to the lovely life she and Archie shared, at thirty-three she was almost certain it wasn’t for her.
She and Archie had always been relaxed, leaving the idea of parenthood up to fate, almost. It had taken all of her courage to tell him that if they didn’t get to hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet, she was more than okay with that.
He had kissed her on the mouth and told her she would feel differently if it happened. Maybe he was right.
‘Well, gee, thank you so much for coming and for all your support!’ she sniped.
‘Jesus, Ash!’
‘Jesus, yourself!’ she fired back. Her sister just didn’t get it! So much planning had gone into this wedding – for it all to fall at the last hurdle would be the final bloody straw. It was enough that Guy had said what he had. Now this!
‘Tony would probably bang our heads together if he was here.’
‘Oh, Rem! I wish he was.’ And just like that they were back to being friends; it was how it was with sisters, with twins. The flare of discord and the instant forgiveness.
‘He said he was going to send a filthy telegram just so it had to be read out at your reception by one of Archie’s Old Cliftonian pals.
I told him not to, although it would have been funny.
’ Remy made out to unfurl a piece of paper and put on an affected voice.
‘Darling Ashleigh, we were so glad to hear that you finally got the all-clear from the STD clinic and that the new in-laws never found out about the time you tied up their son and spanked—’
‘Ashleigh?’
‘Oh!’ She was aware that she’d shouted, as if the volume might erase any lingering echoes of her sister’s inappropriate joke. ‘Elaine! Everything okay?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ The woman, holding her generous gin and tonic aloft, her thin lips set, eyed her twin with suspicion. ‘Just wondered if you knew where Archie was?’
‘No! I really don’t!’ She smiled and spoke as sweetly as she was able. ‘But if I had to guess, maybe playing golf, or in the pub, out with the dogs or catching up with old friends?’
‘Are you quite all right, Ashleigh?’ her mother-in-law-to-be asked without a hint of jest.
‘I think maybe I’m a little tired and there’s probably a bit of pre-wedding jitters setting in.’
‘Right.’ Elaine nodded and downed her gin. ‘Well, I’ll say to you what my mother said to me the night before my wedding.’ Ashleigh waited with bated breath for the advice. ‘Buckle up!’
She watched the woman turn on her heel and make her way back into the house.
‘I’m scared of Elaine,’ Remy whispered.
This too made her laugh out loud.
‘We’re all scared of Elaine,’ she admitted. ‘No one more so than Dickie!’
‘I’d come over there and give you a big old hug if there wasn’t the slightest chance that I might infect you.’ Remy smiled at her.
‘I’d like that,’ she confessed. ‘The hug, not the infection.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Course you can.’ She sat back against the sun lounger and took a deep breath.
‘Why now, after you’ve been together for how long?’
‘Thirteen years, nearly fourteen.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, why after all this time? I thought you were happy with the vast engagement ring and the idea of marriage. You even named the business Fitch!’
Ashleigh looked at the huge diamond that she barely noticed anymore. ‘It made sense. I knew I’d be a Fitch one day. The truthful answer is, I’m happy as we are, not that getting married won’t be wonderful, it will! But I’ve been, I don’t know, bit scared, I suppose.’
‘Scared of what, Mrs Fitch?’
‘It’s hard for me to put into words, Mrs Hughes.’ She gave a nervous laugh.
‘Try.’
Ashleigh swallowed and kept her voice low.
‘I want to be Mrs Archie Oxton Fitch. I want that more than anything.’ She thought of the night of the ball when they’d been no more than kids, when he’d first told her that he loved her, and how she had dreamed of becoming his wife.
‘I guess, I never thought it would require so much effort, or be so involved. I kind of wish it could just be Archie and me, somewhere quiet. Does that make sense?’
‘Oh, it does, my love. It really does. It worked for us.’
‘I get it now, Rem.’ She smiled at her sister, with a mixture of admiration and envy. ‘I love him. I can’t wait to be his wife, to be someone.’
‘You are someone, Ash! You’ve always been someone! Please don’t ever put your happiness in the pocket of someone else! I mean, I love Midge, I adore him, but even I don’t do that.’
‘It’s easier for you though, isn’t it,’ she ventured.
‘What does that mean?’ Remy stared at her.
‘I mean, you don’t have to live how I do.’
‘How do you live? What are you talking about? And you haven’t answered the question. What do you mean, that you’re scared?’
Ashleigh took her time in responding, doing her best to get the wording just right. Glancing around to make sure they were alone.
‘Scared because I spend a lot of my time waiting for discovery! Waiting for someone, Archie, Mum, Dad to find out that I didn’t take the entrance exam, that it wasn’t my scholarship, that it was yours, that I’m a fake!’
‘Don’t be so crazy! Surely you can’t still think about that, not after all this time! You’re not a fake, Ash, you’re remarkable. You have your own business, you and Archie have that great big whacking expensive bloody house that you’re renovating, you have a lovely, lovely life – you have it all!’
‘Do you ever think we should tell people, come clean and not have to worry about it coming out?’ It was, for Ashleigh, a conflicting thought, equal parts wonderful and terrifying.
She dreaded the thought of it, yet guessed it would mean she no longer woke in the early hours in a cold sweat, having dreamed of discovery and banishment from her lovely, lovely life.
‘No!’ Remy almost shouted. ‘I don’t! That would be bonkers, like taking a massive sledgehammer and smashing up our lives!
Can you imagine what it would do to Mum and Dad?
It was a long, long time ago, it’s dead, buried, and telling people would only make it a big deal!
I’ve lied too, don’t forget. Midge would find it hard that I’ve never told him, and he has enough on his plate right now. ’
‘What’s he got on his plate?’ Her sister’s words worried her.
‘Just life, Ash! Life without the safety net of in-laws with a cazillion quid in the bank and a big old country house you can escape to if the going gets tough!’
Her sister’s words were as hurtful as they were dismissive.
It had taken a lot for her to raise the topic, and yet Remy wouldn’t even entertain the conversation.
But it was her truth. She didn’t want Archie marrying a fraud and was torn as to what to do about it, not wanting him to leave her because she was a liar, not ever, but also wanting there not to be any secrets between them.
It was a paralysing and complex dilemma.
‘There they are!’
Ruthie and Dennis made the interruption and came and sat next to them.
‘Are you getting excited, love?’ Ruthie beamed.
‘A bit, Mum, yes.’ She kept her nerves to herself, aware of how much her parents were loving the whole affair, especially staying here at Mulverton, which even had more spare bedrooms than Mrs Jenkins’.
‘You should see the size of our room!’ Her dad whistled.
‘It’s bigger than our lounge! Can’t wait to go to bed and run around it!
Plus, your mum’s put a box of Maltesers in my suitcase.
Reckon I’m all set.’ He chuckled. ‘I was going to save them, but it’s my birthday coming up and so I’m bound to get more. Not that I like a fuss.’
She and Remy smiled at each other. It was nice, the way her parents did these lovely, small things for each other.
‘Where’s that wifey of mine?’ She heard Archie’s voice calling and recognised that his vowels were lubricated with alcohol.
‘I’d better go and find him!’ She didn’t want her parents to see him sloshed, knowing he had a tendency to be a little open, enough to make even Remy’s fake telegram seem tame. ‘Back in a mo!’
‘Ah, love’s young dream!’ Her mum clapped with delight.
Ashleigh made her way through the garden room, heading towards the kitchen, and there he was, her love, her fiancé. And just the sight of him . . . She ran and he rushed towards her, and they met somewhere in the middle. His grip on her was fierce, as he lifted her up and held her against him.
‘Can we run away, just me and you? Let’s go to Vegas and come back married!’ he whispered into her hair.
‘I wish we could’ – she kissed him hard on the mouth – ‘but your mother has ordered the flowers. And the string quartet is booked.’
‘You’ve been my wife since the day I met you. I love you, Ashleigh, and I always will, for ever and ever and ever. And even that won’t be long enough. I just love you! You’re under my skin and inside my bones!’
He spun her around and she closed her eyes, happy!
For the first time that day, truly happy, in his arms, his words lodged in her heart.
Maybe Remy was right. Why would she take a massive sledgehammer and smash up their lives?
Nothing else mattered, not taking an exam when she was a little girl, not her mother offering all and sundry a Mint Imperial, not even the wrong-coloured napkins.
Nothing.