Mother of the Bride (20 page)

‘We need to talk,' he said slowly. Amy noticed he had not brought home his bag. Like a zombie, she followed him into the sitting room.

Dan paced up and down the wooden floorboards.

‘I don't think we should get married now,' he said firmly.

‘What do you mean?' she demanded, her stomach lurching. ‘Do you want to delay the wedding? Put it off for a few weeks?'

She could feel hysteria rise, threatening to engulf her, as if she had been hit by a tidal wave and was being swept under.

‘No, Amy, I want to call the whole thing off. I'm not ready to get married to you at the moment.'

‘That bastard Liam has put you up to this!' she cried furiously.

‘Liam has nothing to do with it,' he said patiently. ‘Liam was actually trying to persuade me to go ahead with things. No, this is totally my decision. I've had all weekend . . . more, to think about it. Funny, when you are out there on a board in the water on your own, things become clearer.'

Amy sat staring at the glass coffee table, tempted to kick it or fling it and have it break into a million pieces, to shatter it like her heart.

‘Why didn't you say something?'

‘I should have said something earlier, but you were so caught up in all the arrangements that I just didn't know what to do.' He ran his tanned fingers through his hair. ‘Every time I did try to say something you just kept on going . . . it was like a big juggernaut powering ahead and I had no control or say over it.'

‘Dan . . . I'm so sorry. I never wanted you to feel that way.' She sobbed. ‘I love you.'

‘I know,' he said, softening and giving her hope. ‘I love you, too, but I still don't think we should get married . . . not till we both feel it is right.'

Amy sat stunned on the couch, not knowing what to say or do.

‘I'm going to stay with Liam for a bit, give you time to sort things out. Maybe we should wind things down for a bit . . . just see how it goes.'

Amy felt like she couldn't breathe. She had to get up and go to the balcony window for air, trying to suck it into her lungs.

‘I'm sorry, Amy, honest, I am.'

She fiddled with the ring on her finger.

‘Do you want it back?'

He didn't answer her, and, wordless, Amy slipped the diamond off her finger and put it on the coffee table between them.

They both stared at it, and Amy watched as almost in slow motion he picked it up and held it.

‘It's still yours,' he said, holding it in the palm of his hand.

‘Well, you keep it, then,' she said. ‘You paid for it.'

He reeled, as if she had punched him, and she wondered when they had started being so cruel to each other.

He slipped the ring into his pocket, and Amy was immediately filled with regret, noticing the pale circle on her ring finger and aware of the gaping hole that had been torn in her heart by the man she had thought she was going to marry.

‘What will we say to people?'

‘I don't know,' he shrugged. ‘Whatever you want to tell them is fine with me.'

She sat totally still as Dan went to the bedroom and grabbed some clothes from the wardrobe: his good jacket and trousers and a few shirts and ties.

‘Dan, please don't go. We can work things out,' she begged, losing control and standing up in front of him, like a small child trying to block his escape.

‘I'll talk to you in a day or two,' he said calmly, sidestepping away from her. ‘Take care of yourself.'

She stood like a statue for half an hour after he'd left, listening for the sound of his door key, the door reopening, imagining that somehow she had made a mistake, dreamed this, and that Dan would walk in and hug her and kiss her and never let her go . . .

Amy sat in the apartment as it got darker and darker, too shocked and scared to move.

It felt like she had been in some sort of accident: a head-on collision with some huge vehicle which had left her broken and battered and unable to stir. She was like a bird that had been hit by one car and sat waiting for another to come along and finish it off.

She was breathing; she could hear the raspy gasp of her breath, and feel her heart beat, but hadn't the courage or energy to move or do anything but sit there.

The bedroom seemed miles away, and she somehow pulled the woollen throw from the back of the couch over herself and huddled there as hour after hour passed.

She heard the sound of midnight sirens and lonely middle-of-the-night cars, busy taxis, grinding street-cleaners and bin lorries, and gradually the rumble of early-morning traffic. She ignored it all, just sat there.

Her mobile rang somewhere in her handbag in the bedroom . . . she ignored it.

Dawn's first light gradually forced its way into the living room, sneaking over the balcony and through the curtains, and she
retreated to the bathroom, where she was violently sick. She sat there as wave after wave of nausea washed over her. Eventually, clammy and exhausted, she staggered to the bedroom, where she fell into bed and the glory of oblivion.

It was late afternoon when she finally woke: to the dreadful realization that Dan was gone and their wedding plans had just been some silly dream that she had believed in.

What was she going to say? What would she tell people? How could she explain that she had let the man of her dreams, her soulmate, slip through her hands because of her own crass stupidity?

She longed to turn back time to last weekend, to pack her bag with her wetsuit and togs and jeans and fleece hoodie and join Dan and his friends. To walk the beach, surf, swim, play! To have the wind whip through her hair and cover her with sand, Dan and herself making a game of kissing and rubbing it away at night in the little house overlooking the beach!

‘No . . . noo,' she cried, frightening herself with the moan that escaped her.

Her phone rang again. She reached for it, hoping that Dan's name would come up. There were a load of missed calls and text messages but nothing . . . absolutely nothing from him. Pain assaulted her again, and she ran to the bathroom.

She barely recognized the girl staring back at her in the mirror: she was a mess, eyes red-rimmed, nose snotty and streaming, skin ghostly white, hair all over the place. She looked mad, crazy! Back in bed she curled up, wanting to die. Wishing the pain would stop and that she could break free from it.

The phone rang again. It was Jess.

‘Amy . . . I've been trying to get you all day. Are you OK?'

Good old Jess, who always knew when something was wrong with her, when she was upset or frightened or scared.

‘No!' she blurted out, beginning to cry. ‘Dan and I have broken up. The wedding is off.'

She could hear Jess's shocked intake of breath.

‘You've had a fight,' Jess said calmly. ‘You'll get over it!'

‘No, Jess, it's over,' Amy bawled, breaking down. ‘He's gone to stay at Liam's . . . I don't know what to do.'

‘I'll be there as quick as I can,' Jess said, putting down the phone. Amy could imagine Jess grabbing her car keys and going out to her green Golf and driving determinedly to her apartment.

Thirty minutes later she opened the door for Jess, who seemed to take the situation under control almost straight away, putting on the kettle and opening the curtains to let some light and air into the place.

‘Sit down!' she ordered in her teacher's voice. ‘You need a cup of tea and something to eat.'

Jess made her eat soft fingers of buttered toast, and sweet milky tea laden with sugar. ‘You've had a shock,' she said.

Amy's mouth felt dry as she tried to speak and recount, step by step, what had happened the night before. And her refusal to go to Lahinch with Dan, and the litany of cancelled nights and days and weekends that had built up over the past few months.

‘Am I that bad, have I been such a cow to Dan because I wanted everything to be perfect for our wedding day?' she anguished.

‘You have been obsessed with the wedding,' Jess said carefully. ‘It's as if nothing else mattered to you for months. Maybe Dan felt even he wasn't that important to you any more, you had got so caught up in it all.'

Amy howled again.

‘I still love him, Jess, I love him so much.'

‘I know you do. And I'm sure Dan still loves you, too. It's just that you have got yourself into a mess.'

‘Why didn't I go away with him?' Amy sobbed. ‘If only I could turn back time.'

‘OK, you should have gone with him,' Jess agreed, taking Dan's side. ‘But I'm sure Dan will get over it. Everyone knows he's mad about you.'

‘Not any more,' Amy whispered in a small scared voice.

Jess put her arms around her.

‘Have you told your mum and dad yet?'

Amy shook her head slowly.

‘What will I say to them? They both love Dan as if he was their son already. They'll be heartbroken!'

Jess knew that Paddy and Helen O'Connor were delighted with their future son-in-law and the upcoming wedding, and she could understand Amy's reluctance to tell them.

‘I don't think you should stay here in the apartment on your own,' Jess murmured aloud. ‘You are welcome to come and stay with me, or I can drop you back home to your parents' place.'

Amy tried to think straight. This apartment was actually Dan's. He had bought it two years before they had even met, and shared it with one of the guys he was studying accountancy with. She had moved in about a year after they started dating.

Pre-Daniel she and Jess and two other friends had shared a house in Ranelagh for two years, but once she had moved in with Daniel Jess had decided she'd had enough of renting and sharing. She'd bought a place of her own: a renovated, quaint red-brick cottage near the canal in Harold's Cross. With its tiny courtyard garden and an open-plan living room and kitchen it wasn't very big, but Jess did have two bedrooms. Amy couldn't bear the thought of facing home, and the massive upset of her mum and dad's bewildered questions and need for an explanation.

‘Please, Jess, can I stay with you?' Amy whispered.

‘Sure,' said Jess, giving her a big comforting hug.

The two of them flung a few of Amy's things into her bag, and she grabbed her make-up and shampoos and toiletries from the cabinet
in the bathroom. She was trying not to cry as she closed the door of the apartment and followed her best friend to the car.

The tears came again as she left the apartment behind. Jess said nothing and kept driving, the news on the car radio blaring as Amy tried to compose and calm herself.

In Harold's Cross Jess settled her in front of the gas fire with her pyjamas on and a big blanket wrapped around her. She gave Amy a bowl of pasta with chopped-up rashers in it.

‘You have to eat!' she bossed, passing her a glass of red wine.

Amy's stomach flipped, and she found herself talking and talking as she sat there with Jess patiently listening.

‘Jess, what am I going to do without him?'

‘Amy, I'm no expert, but I do know Dan loves you. OK, so you've had a massive bust-up and really hurt each other,' she said, trying to be consoling, ‘but I think in time that you'll get over it, get back together again.'

‘You do?'

‘Honestly, I do. I can't see you living your lives separately. You both love each other far too much.'

‘Oh, Jess. I hope that you are right!' Amy sniffed. ‘But what am I going to do about the wedding? It's only a few weeks away!'

‘You are going to have to tell someone,' said Jess pointedly. ‘Because if the wedding is really being called off you will have to start cancelling things.'

Amy felt overwhelmed at the thought that things could be finally over with Daniel. She burst into hysterics and cried and cried. She blew her nose and tried to get her breath back as Jess passed her a box of tissues.

‘You have to tell your mum and dad,' Jess advised, serious. ‘Phone them tonight. They deserve to know.'

Amy thought and thought about it, deciding that she'd definitely wait until tomorrow to break the bad news to her parents and family, just in case Daniel changed his mind and phoned
her and this nightmare she was caught up in somehow resolved itself.

‘I'll do it tomorrow,' she promised, praying that this was just some weird kind of bad dream, and that in the morning she would wake up and things would be miraculously back to normal again.

The minute Amy stepped through the front door Helen O'Connor knew something was seriously wrong with her daughter. She could see the utter misery written all over her face. Jess, good friend that she was, came in with Amy, holding her hand as if she was six years old, and signalled for Helen and Paddy to sit down on the couch. Then Amy, almost in a whisper, began to tell them the bad news.

‘What did she say?' asked Paddy, straining to hear.

‘Amy, are you telling us that your wedding to Daniel is off?' Helen couldn't control the quaver in her own voice.

Amy nodded, so upset that she could hardly get a breath, let alone speak.

Jess, sitting near her, filled them in quickly on how she had phoned Amy and, discovering what had happened, called over and had taken her friend back to her place the previous night.

‘Thank you, Jess,' said Paddy. ‘You've always been a good friend to Amy. Helen and I appreciate it, and everything that you have done.'

‘We're friends,' Jess said, tears welling in her own eyes. ‘But I think I should go, let Amy talk to you alone. I'm around if you need
me, OK?' She hugged Amy before discreetly letting herself out the front door.

Helen sat holding her breath, not sure what to say.

‘Yes, it's off!' shuddered Amy, hunched forward on the armchair in the sitting room, her fingers gripping the red cushion as if it was a lifesaver. ‘Daniel says that he doesn't want to go ahead with the wedding.'