The Vintage Summer Wedding Page 20

  Roger looked slightly taken aback for a moment, huffed a breath and then went to say something else, ‘Well I don’t know—’

  ‘I do.’ Anna cut him off. ‘I know. And so do they. I think that’s all that matters.’

  She watched Hilary make a face at Roger, eyebrows raised, and both of them tuck this away for discussion later on in private.

  The sun dipped behind a cloud and Anna felt herself shiver, the only jumper she had was fluorescent-green-and-yellow leopard-print and had been the last remaining in the box. She’d slept on it on the way back and it was now scrunched in her bag. As Hilary prattled on about god knows what to Seb, Anna put the champagne in her hand down on the floor, the celebration suddenly seeming over as reality slipped back in. She pulled out the jumper and pulled it on over her head.

  ‘My my,’ Roger snorted, ‘Wait while I get my shades.’

  ‘Dressing like one of the kids now, Anne.’ Hilary gave her a little shake of the head. ‘Whatever next?’ She raised a brow at Seb.

  Anna swallowed, pushed her hands into the pockets of the jumper and didn’t look up.

  ‘Well, now all this nonsense is over I suppose you’ll get back to the wedding planning,’ Hilary soldiered on. ‘I’m assuming you’ve done something? I still get calls every day and I still don’t know what to tell them. I mean, I assume there is still going to be a wedding…’

  Anna looked back over towards Hermione and her dad, wondered if she could just walk over and join them. Leave Hilary just standing there, her voice like a fist punching straight into the exhilaration of the day.

  ‘Mum. Leave it,’ Seb muttered.

  Anna turned back to glance at him, wondering if she’d heard him right.

  Hilary leant forward. ‘I’m sorry, Seb, did you say something?’

  Did he say something? Anna wondered. Had he actually said something to stop his mother?

  ‘I said, just leave it,’ he said again, through clenched teeth.

  ‘Leave what?’ Hilary asked, bemused. A little laugh on her lips.

  ‘Just back the fuck off about Anna and the wedding. OK!’ he snapped.

  ‘Don’t you swear at your mother,’ Roger said sharply.

  ‘I’ll swear at who I like. At the moment your input isn’t needed and it’s not helping. We’ll let you know what’s happening and when. In the meantime,’ Seb paused, some people near to them had turned to watch. Anna couldn’t breathe. ‘I’d appreciate it if you took a step back and let Anna and me handle this. OK?’ He looked at them like they were his pupils as he spoke to them with an authority Anna had never seen in her life before.

  ‘Well, I…’ Hilary started but then stopped. ‘I’m shocked. Seb, I’m shocked by your tone.’

  He held up a hand. ‘That’s enough. It’s over, the subject is closed. That’s it. We can discuss it again some other time.’

  Roger’s brows drew together in a frown. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Well, it seems you…have it under control.’

  Anna could feel the people around them still half-listening as they pretended to carry on with their own conversations. Her heart was thudding in her ears.

  ‘Very well, Sebastian.’ Hilary straightened her blouse. ‘You know best, of course. I wouldn’t want to be thought of as someone who interferes. It’s your and Anna’s day. I look forward to getting my invitation.’ Her cheeks had flushed under her rose cream blush, ‘If that is, we’re still invited,’ she added, and then touched Roger on the arm, their signal to leave.

  As they stalked away to their car, Seb exhaled, ran his hand over his forehead. Anna just watched in awe.

  ‘I shouldn't have sworn. Fuck.’ He made a face, ‘I just fucking wish I hadn’t sworn. That’s all she’ll remember. I wouldn’t have sworn with the kids. Argh, I’m so annoyed.’

  Anna was still reeling. Filling up with adoration like a jug of orange squash. ‘I thought…’ she started.

  ‘Why?’ He turned her way, raking a hand through his hair. ‘Why? Why did I have to swear?’

  ‘I thought it was amazing,’ she said, in almost a whisper.

  ‘You did?’ Seb said, taken aback.

  She nodded.

  ‘But it would have been better if I hadn’t said fuck, yes?’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t care either way. I thought it was amazing.’

  She watched a little smile pull at the corners of his lips. ‘You did?’ He nodded his head. ‘I suppose it was pretty good.’

  ‘Miss!’ Lucy shouted from across the square, ‘Come and look at this.’

  Anna glanced over to where Lucy, Matt, Peter and Mary were practising some balance formation that looked highly precarious. ‘I’d better go,’ she said, angling her head in their direction.

  ‘Of course.’ Seb nodded. ‘Hey, have you seen who’s with Jackie?’

  ‘No.’ Anna shook her head, looked across the square and saw Jackie, sipping champagne out of her plastic cup, standing with a tall guy, hands in his pockets, beaky nose and gold-rimmed glasses, but attractive in an Internet-millionaire type way. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Smelly Doug.’ Seb angled his head with a smile.

  ‘Oh my god!’ Anna held her hand up to her mouth. ‘She met up with him?’

  ‘More than once, apparently. He’s seemingly seduced her with his Porsche and a day trip to Paris.’

  ‘Wow.’ Anna nodded, impressed. ‘Maybe it’s not all bad out there,’ she said, looking back at Seb with a shrug.

  ‘Maybe,’ he replied, a little more serious.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she added, as she heard a shriek from the Razzmatazz quartet currently clambering over each other.

  ‘Yep.’ Seb nodded.

  Anna started to walk away and then glanced back. He was watching her, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, the expression on his face unreadable.

  She ended up staying in the square for ages, at least another hour, while Razzmatazz had photos taken and the journalist from Nettleton News, a fairly depressing man with bad skin and a terrible suit but a sweet smile, wanted an interview.

  As the journo tucked his Dictaphone away and said, ‘I think this’ll make a nice piece,’ Anna’s dad walked over, his hands behind his back, and stood next to her.

  ‘You did good,’ he said.

  ‘Well I suppose it was about time I did something right,’ she said with a shrug.

  ‘I told you it was there, didn’t I? The bit you got from me.’

  ‘OK, don’t get too cocky,’ she said with a raise of her brow.

  He laughed. They stood side by side watching as Lucy and Clara tried to teach Hermione how to twerk.

  ‘You still getting the money off your mother?’ he said, as if it didn’t really mean that much, as if this was just casual chat. ‘You know, for the wedding?’

  Anna turned to look at him, he stayed looking forward, smiling at Hermione’s terrible attempts at twerking.

  ‘Because I was thinking, I could sell my car. You know, if you wanted another option.’

  She thought of her dad’s red vintage Mercedes, his absolute pride and joy. The car that had been polished every week in the garage since before she was alive. The only thing he owned of any value whatsoever. She thought of the money she’d sunk into The Waldegrave wedding, the crap she’d wracked up on her credit cards, the expensive wine she’d drunk in expensive bars in Bermondsey, the designer clothes she had wrapped in tissue at the back of her wardrobe. And half that car, Anna, half that bloody car, that’s mine. That’s ours. Do you know that?

  She felt her face soften into a smile. ‘I don’t want you to sell your car, dad.’

  He glanced her way, ‘You’re sure?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I just…’ He swallowed. ‘I’d just like to be there. I don’t have to give you away or anything, but I’d just like to be there, you know, to watch.’

  She pressed her lips together, felt the prick of tears in the corners of her eyes and couldn’t reply. So she just nodded. And he
nodded. And they both went back to looking at Hermione.

  Still dressed in her leopard-print sweatshirt, her gold lamé leggings stuffed into her bag, Anna finally made her way to her car. All the kids were still gallivanting about the square doing impromptu renditions of their act to whoever would watch, a couple of parents were standing around chatting, but most people had edged their way over to the pub and were standing outside, sipping bitter under the hanging baskets.

  She’d been invited to join, officially welcomed into the abode by Babs who’d even said she’d bring the good wine out, but Anna had shaken her head. She was exhausted. ‘Too much excitement for one day,’ she’d laughed.

  ‘Well we’ll see you soon,’ one of the parents had said, waving a hand. ‘Loving what you’ve done to the shop, as well. Very nice. Very London,’ he’d said with a joking drawl.

  Anna had nodded, not quite sure what to do with all this pally chatter, and then turned away and walked towards her old hatchback.

  There was a flier stuck under the windscreen wiper, which she leant over to pull out and scrunch up but, just as she did, she saw that it was written on lined paper with perforations down the side.

  Sitting in the driver’s seat, she flattened the paper ball out on her thigh and read it.

  Man-cave-dwelling hero seeks stunning heroine for love, passion and possible marriage. I am a hugely intelligent, handsome, loyal lonely heart with GSOH and a very impressive Assassin’s Creed score on PS4 (in some cultures this ranks high on the list of desirable attributes). Sometimes makes mistakes and occasionally poor at admitting when he is wrong, but handy in the bathroom, garden and recently prone to bouts of shockingly impressive machismo. WLTM girl of my dreams.

  If interested, please join me for dinner. My current residence is just to the left of Primrose Cottage.

  [for man-cave read shed]

  [for mistakes read life-changing fuck-ups for which he will never be sorry enough]

  [for impressive machismo, read you ain’t seen nothing yet!]

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The garden path twinkled with tea-lights, their flames flickering gently in the almost still air. The cherry tree to the side of the house sparkled with pinpricks of fairylight like a Christmas tree, the glistening unripe fruit shiny like baubles. Anna wondered whether she should go in and get changed, re-do her hair and make-up, but the door of the shed was ajar and she could just see a little table all set up, a candle burning down in the centre, and Seb sitting in a deck chair, reading a book with a glass of wine on the table in front of him, waiting.

  She didn’t go into the house to change, but instead followed the path of the fluttering flames and knocked gently on the wooden slated door.

  ‘Hello?’ she whispered, suddenly nervous.

  Seb looked up from his book and seeing her, jumped up, shutting the paperback clumsily. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you could come.’

  ‘Well, I—’ Anna hovered on the threshold, peered round to see what he’d done with their common-or-garden shed. All the tools were pushed to one corner, a rusty hoe leaning against a spade and fork, the Flymo hanging from a hook above them. All the shelves had been cleared and swept, and held a mish-mash of his stuff ‒ a couple of paperbacks, a cactus that he’d saved from her over-watering, his washbag, his teaching certificate in a frame and next to that a picture of her. A terrible photo of her on holiday, her shiny, sun-burned face smiling wide, that she always grimaced at because it made her face look fat but he loved because she looked so happy.

  A pot was boiling on the Calor gas stove, plates were laid out on the summer table which he’d covered in an old sheet, one with tiny embroidered pink flowers on the edges, and wine was dribbling with condensation in a plastic bucket of ice. Next to the candle he’d filled an old mustard glass with wild poppies and ears of wheat from the field over the path, the wafer-thin petals bobbing and dancing iridescent in the flicker of the candle light.

  ‘I’m Seb,’ he said, tea-towel over his shoulder, hand outstretched. ‘I can’t believe you responded to my advert. Look at you! How lucky am I?’ he smiled, denting the creases at the corners of his eyes.

  Anna started to say, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ But stopped herself. Instead she took a couple of steps forward so she was in reach to shake his hand, ‘I’m Anna. I was really touched that you thought of me, you know, that you thought I fitted your criteria.’

  ‘Well I’ve seen you around the village.’

  ‘You have?’ she said. Her hand was still warm in his.

  ‘I could hardly miss you. You’ve created quite a stir. Seems suddenly everyone’s buying antiques and signing up to dance.’ He let her hand go and turned to stir whatever it was simmering on the hob. ‘I’ve even heard you’re moving into adult classes.’

  She snorted. ‘Well, never say never.’ She watched his shoulders rise and fall as he laughed at the very idea of it.

  ‘I had heard that you were engaged,’ he went on. ‘But the wanker fucked it up.’ His back still to her, he shook his head. ‘What a doofus, who’d let you go?’ he said, turning and without meeting her eyes leant over to pick up the wine bottle. ‘I only have white, I heard you don’t drink red.’

  ‘You certainly did your research.’ She nodded as she took the small, chipped glass he proffered, then said, ‘I was as much to blame, you know, for the break-up. I was in a funny place.’

  He paused as he was topping up his own glass. ‘You still there, do you think?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I hope not.’

  Seb nodded and took a sip of the white wine misting up his tumbler. Anna did the same, it tasted of elderflower and summer days by the river.

  When he pulled out an orange-and-brown flowered deck-chair for her, she sat down and waited a little nervously while he faffed about with the food. She felt self-conscious in her fluorescent jumper, worried that she might say something wrong and mess it up, but then he turned round from the stove, looked at her, his lip caught between his teeth, slight panic in his eyes, and said, ‘I made this soup thing and, to be honest, it tastes fucking awful. So I don’t know… Do you want to maybe…’ She wondered if maybe he was nervous, too. ‘Just eat crisps and drink wine?’

  Anne hid her smile behind her hand as she nodded. ‘I really like crisps,’ she said.

  He put his hand on his chest and said, ‘Me too!’ And she laughed. Then she felt her body relax, her shoulders drop, her muscles lose their tension. She pulled a cardboard box over and put her feet up on it.

  As he shook out a couple of packets of Walkers Ready Salted, a packet of Quavers and then, to his delight, found some cheese and Jacobs crackers at the back of the shelf, Anna realised what his diet had mainly consisted of out here in the shed. Laying the various bowls on the table, Seb paused and said, ‘I’m sorry about the other day, when you asked me for dinner. I don’t know why I turned you down. I think I was still angry and really ashamed of myself.’

  She swirled her wine round in her glass, watched the liquid slosh to the rim, and shrugged. ‘It was probably a good thing.’ She looked up at him and went on, ‘I don’t think it would have gone very well.’

  ‘Not like this.’ He winked, holding out a flower pot of crisps.

  ‘Nothing like this.’ She said, stuffing a couple into her mouth. ‘God, I’ve already had a Burger King today. What am I becoming?’

  ‘Yeah, good job you’re going to New York, you don’t want to get fat in the country,’ he said, and it was a joke but, as soon as he said it, they both paused, halted like startled animals.

  ‘I don’t know—’ she started.

  ‘No, wait.’ He waved his hand, ‘I’ve practised this, so let me say it. I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t need to be here, Anna. I don’t need to be anywhere. Christ, I don’t care where I am, but the thing is,’ he swallowed and said, ‘I really care who I’m with. And I like being with you. You’re a pain in the arse sometimes, but that’s why I chose you.’ He did
a little laugh under his breath, like that was the favourite bit of his rehearsed speech. ‘I don’t want an easy life. I want an interesting life. And I want you to have the most interesting life you’ve dreamt of, so...if you would have me, I would very much like to come with you.’

  ‘You would?’ she asked, watching the way his mouth moved in the candlelight.

  ‘Of course I would.’

  Anna nodded into the silence that followed. Then she reached forward and ran her finger up the edge of the candle, picking at the globs of dried wax that had dribbled and set down the side.

  ‘I suppose my main fear, Anna, is that I can never give you what you want.’ Seb paused, as if summoning the courage for what he wanted to say next. ‘That I’ll never be enough.’

  She paused. Felt the dribbles of warm wax gather and stop, bulging out where her finger halted their progress. Then, her eyes fixed on the flame, she took a breath in through her nose and said, ‘I wasn’t too tall to be a dancer.’

  ‘I’m sorry, what?’ Seb said, confused, as if his great admission had been misunderstood.

  ‘I just said that I was. I made it up. It was the best excuse I could come up with for why I failed.’ She plucked off the belly of wax drips and squished them between her fingers. ‘But now I think I’ve finally realised that I was living someone else’s dream and I never gave myself the chance to put it down and pick it up again and make it my dream.’

  She glanced up, reluctant to look at him. Seb had leant forward, his elbows on the table and was watching her. ‘I always thought you were about the same height as Darcey Bussell,’ he said with a laugh.

  Anna felt her lips twitch. Then she told him about Lucinda Warren and their dance off and her mother and the roses and he sat back, his arms folded across his chest, holding in a remark about her mother that he knew would annoy her because whatever happened she would always defend her because she knew the depth of how unhappy she had been and how deep the wound inflicted by her father had been.

  ‘I loved it.’ Anna sighed, ‘I loved the ballet but, after that moment, those flowers all over the floor and the look on her face, I just completely severed it. I left.’ She crossed her hands in front of her as if that was it. ‘Left it completely. And now I find that Lucinda was fucking the bloody judge.’ She snorted a laugh through her nose. ‘I think that I have been trying to be better all this time, to be the best and I never really realised that good was good enough.’ She looked up at him and smiled, plucked her leopard-print jumper away from her chest, ‘That’s something to thank Razzmatazz for!’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘A bunch of bloody misfits teach me what I’ve been legging it from all my life.’ He snorted a laugh. ‘I think though…’ she said, going to fiddle with the candle again but he reached over and caught her hand, held it in his, ‘I think I’ve finally caught up with myself.’