Chapter 11
Brides by the Sea, St Aidan, Cornwall
Small but perfectly formed
Thursday
It’s Thursday afternoon, and having withstood the aftershocks of Salvador’s news breaking around the village on Tuesday, Tia and I are in the office at the shop, using the lull before this weekend’s influx of brides to catch our breath and talk things over.
‘So, Mum remortgaged her bit of the house months ago without mentioning a thing to any of us then passed the money straight on to Sav because he convinced her it would get him back on track, and he promised he’d pay her back within the year.
She won’t be seeing any of it again, but it could have been worse.
He’d originally asked her to put up the whole house as security for a larger loan, which would have been way more devastating. ’
Tia winces. ‘Poor Sav. He always stretched to the max.’
It’s generous of her to be sympathetic. ‘He always kept his margins narrow. Then bank rates went up and materials prices soared… It’s dog-eat-dog in the property world.’
Tia’s shaking her head. ‘How about your mum? Will she have to sell the house?’
I blow out a breath. ‘Not if we all club together and help with the repayments. At least this explains her obsession with nomad blogs.’ I let out a sigh. ‘She’d spent twenty-five years building up that equity and now she’s back to zero.’
Tia sighs too. ‘She’s not the only one who’s going to have to readjust.’
My heart is bleeding for everyone, but especially for Tia. ‘You were this close to the wedding of your dreams. How can you be so calm?’
‘I’ve got to suck it up like everyone else.’
‘How’s Thom taking it?’
Tia shrugs. ‘The only way he can. Being relieved we’re not hit as badly as some people. Comforting himself with the thought that if it ever happened again, he’d recognise the signs, and pull out sooner.’
I hesitate to say the words. ‘And the wedding?’
She sighs. ‘We were mainly desperate for that so we could move on and try for a baby. It wouldn’t feel right splashing out on a wedding now, even if we did have the money.’ She looks at me slowly. ‘Are you okay? I presume Sav robbed the Bank of Maeve, too?’
I nod. ‘I had less to take, but he stung me anyway. At least this way I feel slightly less like I need to crawl into a hole and never come out.’ I pull a face. ‘This puts my work at the shop in a whole new light. I’m so grateful I’ve got it. I’d be in serious trouble without it.’
She hesitates. ‘There is some good news…’
‘What’s that?’
Tia smiles. ‘Jess is delighted with the photos you sent through from Tuesday. She had me make up a montage for the website, and she’s already had some of the pictures blown up to hang in the shop.’ She opens up her laptop and brings up the photos. ‘They look great on a bigger screen.’
‘We were lucky with the light.’ I lean in for a better view. ‘We look very three-dimensional and alive outside.’
The tap of loafers on the bleached wood floorboards tells us Jess is joining us. She comes in, pushes back her linen jacket, rests a hand on each hip and nods at the screen.
‘Hopefully these awesome pictures will go some way to compensating for the disaster your brother has wrought on the entire community and your family, Maeve.’
As I sink into a gilded Louis Quatorze chair, Tia squeezes my arm. ‘Don’t mind Jess, she likes to tell it how it is.’
Jess carries on. ‘Don’t either of you be disheartened; a fall will often bring spectacular opportunities in its wake.’
Tia puts her head on one side. ‘Like you starting this shop after your divorce, Jess?’
Jess laughs. ‘When you’re at the bottom, the only way is up.’ She hesitates for a second. ‘The trick is to recognise when you’re sitting on gold, and you certainly brought us that going out around town, Maeve.’
As Poppy, the shop’s cake maker, who lived in Tia’s flat years ago, appears in the doorway in her Barbour jacket we all sit up expectantly, then slump again when we see the cake containers she’s carrying are empty.
Poppy looks at our faces and laughs. ‘Those expressions! Cake’s coming tomorrow.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘I just popped in to see how you’re doing, Tia? If there’s anything Rafe and I can do to help, we will.’
Tia gives a grimace. ‘Thank goodness your venue offer prompted Thom to tell me how bad things were, before the rest of the village found out first. It’s funny how, a few days on, the celebrations we’d been working towards for years feel completely over the top.
Like they belong to someone else’s life rather than ours. ’
Poppy looks at Tia. ‘You’re only catching up with the wider trend. At one time weddings were our life blood at the farm, but these days we mostly do well-being retreats and fitness courses.’
Jess nods. ‘I can vouch for that. My partner, Bart, used to have six highly exclusive weddings a year on his country estate, and was booked up years in advance; this year we’re only moving out for one.’
Poppy nods. ‘Since the pandemic people want different things.’ She smiles.
‘Our shop photographers, Holly and Jules, will tell you, some of those tiny lockdown weddings, with fifteen socially distanced guests and no receptions, were some of the most heartfelt they’ve ever photographed.
That showed people you don’t need a hundred and fifty guests for a wedding to be meaningful. ’
Jess nods. ‘I remember the rules changing and having to close the shop, and brides dashing in to get their dresses with minutes to spare.’ She looks grave.
‘At Brides by the Sea we have always been about delivering perfection across the whole wedding, whatever the size, however long it lasts, but those minute weddings were simply about the love.’
Poppy puts her arm around Jess. ‘It’s not often we hear you sounding emotional.’
Jess gives a sniff. ‘We’ve always tried to offer a whole range of bridal associations with Poppy’s farm, Comet Castle, and the Manor. What truly upsets me is that all these years later when so many couples want small, we still haven’t found a tiny venue to partner with.’
Poppy nods. ‘Modern couples are very discerning; they’re always looking for more, especially when they’re looking for less. A small corner of a bigger venue doesn’t cut it.’
Jess shakes her head. ‘Sad to say, with Salvador wreaking his financial havoc across the southwest, more couples than ever will be binning their guest lists and begging for a “barely there” wedding.’
I stare at Tia. ‘That isn’t you?’
She agonises. ‘If it means I can be Mrs Shepherd this decade not next, then why not?’
I’m looking at Tia. ‘Mum’s friend’s daughter married in a disused bus shelter on a shingle beach in Bournemouth, but I’m not sure I’d want that for you. Wherever you get married has to be beautiful.’
Jess gives a snort. ‘As if we’d partner with anything less, Maeve!’ Her gaze fixes on me. ‘In fact the answer to our proverbial prayers has been hiding in plain sight all along, right under our noses.’ Jess beams at me. ‘Your photos around St Aidan revealed it.’
I’m replaying Tuesday morning in my head. ‘It’s the gallery, isn’t it? And the deck! Those glorious views of the water, it has to be!’
Jess turns to Tia. ‘Run the “Brides around St Aidan” slideshow you made yesterday, and we’ll watch together.’
Poppy and Jess step in behind us, and photos start to flash up onto the screen.
The haunting, honky-tonk piano notes in the background seem to come from another time and as we watch the first frames of Tia and me in our sweatshirts stepping from the shop and out onto the mews, window shopping for wedding dresses, I murmur, ‘What’s the music?’
Tia smiles. ‘“She’s a Rainbow” by the Stones.’
Poppy laughs. ‘All the way from 1967, and still a perfect fit.’ She lowers her voice. ‘They’re fabulous photos, the fun you’re having leaps off the screen.’
As we get to the photos inside the bakery, I shift on my velvet cushion. But just as I’m bracing myself to run, we’ve swept through to us in our new dresses, doing selfies over Jaggers’ cocktails.
I let out a silent ‘phew’, and Poppy gasps. ‘Ahhh, the Sardine Club! How many summer days did we spend there as kids?’ And then her voice softens. ‘How amazing are you in those ruffles, Maeve?’
Tia’s arranged the photos so they’re a mix of me wandering on the sands and close-ups of my hair blowing, with the reflection off the water in the background. In the next frame, my very own beach hut appears.
Poppy claps her hands. ‘Windflowers! It’s so iconic!’
Tia nods. ‘I never noticed how far away from the others it was until I took these photos.’
Then Tia appears on screen, serene in simple white linen, making her way up the steps.
As the slides flick through, she’s framed by the beach hut window looking out along the sands, and then there are close-ups of her inside, and then the last one I took of her, standing in the doorway, framed against the sea. The last notes of music come to an end.
Jess’s eyes are shining. ‘So what do you think, Maeve?’
I say the first thing that comes into my head. ‘I love that song so much. Shall we watch it again?’
Jess gives a cough. ‘I mean about your beach hut making the perfect wedding venue! The bride and groom can walk in along the sands, and the registrars and guests can access it by car from the lane behind.’
Poppy carries on. ‘There’s space for a signing table and a few extra chairs, people can sit on the storage benches along the side, and you can have deckchairs and rugs on the sands for later.’ She carries on. ‘Some calico bunting, a lantern or two, some white daisy posies, and you’d be good to go!’
Jess is staring at us. ‘Is it exquisite enough to use for Tia’s barely there wedding?’
I look sideways to Tia, who is scraping away a tear but nodding slowly.
I’m desperate to give her the wonderful day she deserves, but I have to be realistic with my promises.
‘By the time I wade through the council permissions, Tia and Thom will be pensioners.’
Poppy’s eyes are shining. ‘We’ve done this before at the farm, Maeve. We know the system inside out.’
Jess is purring. ‘I’ll get Bart’s lawyers onto it straightaway. They’ll sort it in a twinkling.’
My heart plummets. ‘I can’t afford solicitors.’
Jess raises her eyebrows. ‘No one’s suggesting you do this alone. It’ll be a partnership with the shop. We’ll each do the bits we’re comfortable with.’
I give a sniff. ‘It sounds like an awful lot of work for one wedding. Even if it’s the most important wedding of all,’ I add, seeing the flash of hurt in Tia’s eyes.
Jess is beaming. ‘That’s the beauty of it. It wouldn’t only be for Tia. Your beach hut would become our Brides by the Sea affiliated mini venue.’
I’m frowning. ‘You really think people would go for this?’
Poppy smiles at me. ‘If you don’t try, you’ll never know, will you?’
Tia is grasping my fingers. ‘I’d love it for us. And it might bring in income for you, too.’ She’s looking into my eyes. ‘I’m guessing you wouldn’t mind if it meant you could help out your mum a bit more?’
Jess beams. ‘We’ll both take a cut of the takings while we help you start up, and then review going forwards. Poppy and Tia will vouch, I’m meticulously fair.’ Her smile widens. ‘All I really want is a tiny venue nearby to offer brides, so they’ll come to us for their dresses too.’
Poppy’s smiling. ‘Sera’s already working on a simple seashore range and it’s lovely.’
Tia’s eyes are pleading as she searches my face.
‘I know it’s hard for you, Maevey, and you might not want to share your beloved hut, but Thom and I will be grateful to you forever if you can find it in your heart to agree.
And I promise we’ll all have your back if you decide to take it forward to more weddings. So please say you’ll give it a try.’
What else can I do? My best friend is begging, and it may well help my own financial crisis.
For one time only I need to ignore my own – disproportionately huge – fears of the unknown, and woman the eff up.
My heart is pounding, and every bit of oxygen in my lungs has disappeared, but I pull Tia into a hug and whisper, ‘Okay. Yes. Let’s do it. ’
Jess pats my arm. ‘Brilliant. Now that’s settled, let’s move on to the real business of the morning!’
She’s interrupted by the shop bell ringing, and a horribly familiar voice calls from the entrance hall.
‘Anyone home?’
I frown at Tia. ‘Lando’s still in town?’
Tia pulls a face. ‘Prepare yourself for another shock, but this next idea could take care of your cash worries for the rest of the summer.’
I’ve always been motivated by happiness not money. But right now, it suddenly seems as if I may not have that luxury anymore.