Two Weddings and a Baby (35 page)

‘You know, we have to go in there at some point, otherwise Jed’s going to take it personally,’ Ruan said. ‘I don’t think they usually marry people when the bride is standing outside of the church …’

‘I’m sorry.’ Tamsyn took a deep breath and looked at her brother. ‘I’m sorry, I was just taking stock, working out how I came to be standing here on this day in this frankly stunning Regency-inspired Tamsyn Thorne organza gown about to get married to the most amazing man I’ve ever met.’

‘Does it matter how?’ Ruan asked her. ‘You’re here, and that’s what’s important. And I don’t just mean
here
, taking a really long time to make your way up the aisle, but I mean here, in Poldore. Home again. Now if I can only find a way to lure Mum and Keira back for good, I’ll have a complete set.’

‘You don’t want the twins living permanently in Poldore,’ Tamsyn assured him. ‘What that storm did to the town, it’s nothing compared to what destruction they can bring.’

‘Seriously,’ Ruan said, ‘it’s good to have you back, sis.’

‘It’s good to have you back too,’ Tamsyn said. ‘And thank you for giving me away.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Ruan chuckled as they entered the church at last. ‘I’ve been waiting all my life to get rid of you.’

It was Kirsten, dressed in a simple rose-coloured, knee-length bridesmaid’s dress that Tamsyn had designed for her, who was waiting with her flowers, as she walked into the church. Tamsyn had asked her sisters if they would mind not being bridesmaids, because she wanted the wedding to be as simple as possible, and they had been really rather glad to get out of the duty. In the end she’d asked Kirsten, because Mo was not big enough, and because since she had got to know the girl in the last six weeks, they had become friends, despite the age difference, which Kirsten liked to tease her about as much as possible, and it turned out that she had a flair for design, not to mention needlework. She had virtually made the dress she was wearing herself.

‘You look like you might throw up,’ Kirsten told her as she handed her the flowers, arranged especially by Keira.

‘Really? I was going for luminous and serene,’ Tamsyn whispered.

‘Oh yeah, that’s what I meant,’ Kirsten assured her. ‘Seriously, you look lovely, and all of the Poldore girls are totally pig-sick about me being your bridesmaid, plus Ben texted me this morning to see if I fancied a coffee. What do you think? Should I go?’

‘I think I’m getting married, and that we should discuss your love life a bit later,’ Tamsyn suggested.

‘Totally,’ Kirsten nodded, falling into place behind Tamsyn, who hooked her arm through Ruan’s to steady herself.

And there he was, waiting for her at the end of the aisle, and Tamsyn discovered that Ruan had to slow her down at bit, as she was rather trotting up the aisle to be at his side.

‘You look stunning,’ Jed whispered, taking her hand. ‘And you’re here. I’m so glad that you are here.’

‘Of course I am,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Where else would I be, but at your side?’

With lots of love and thanks to my brilliant team at Ebury who works so hard on my behalf, especially my wonderful editor Gillian Green and the lovely Emily Yau. Also Amelia Harvell and Louise Jones.

Thank you to my agent and friend Lizzy Kremer; also to Harriet Moore and Laura West; and all at David Higham Associates, who I feel very lucky to be represented by.

Once again, a warm thank you to the people of Fowey, Cornwall, where I wrote a good deal of this book, and especially to the staff at Fowey Hall Hotel who are always unfailingly kind and brilliant, and bring me cream teas in a constant stream. Thanks especially to Robin Ashley who gave me some help with constructing a corset out of thin air!

Love and thanks to my lovely family, who let me go to Cornwall to eat cream teas and write a book: my husband Adam and my children Lily, Harry, Freddie, Stanley and Aubrey, who are inspirational, wonderful and delightful – not to mention exhausting.

Read on for a sneak peek at

The uplifting and beautiful novel about mothers and daughters

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Greg is looking at me; he thinks I don’t know it. I’ve been chopping onions at the kitchen counter for almost five minutes, and I can see his reflection – inside out, convex and stretched – in the chrome kettle we got as a wedding present. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, checking me out.

The first time I noticed him looking at me like this I thought I must have had something stuck in my teeth, or a cobweb in my hair, or something, because I couldn’t think of any reason my sexy young builder would be looking at me. Especially not on that day when I was dressed in old jeans and a T-shirt, with my hair scraped back into a bun, ready to paint my brand-new attic room – the room that marked the beginning of everything.

It was the end of his last day; he’d been working at the house for just over a month. It was still really hot, especially up there, even with my new Velux windows open. Covered in sweat, he climbed down the newly installed pull-down ladder. I gave him a pint glass of lemonade rattling with ice cubes, which he drank in one go, the muscles in his throat moving as he swallowed. I think I must have sighed out loud at his sheer gloriousness because he looked curiously at me. I laughed and shrugged, and he smiled and then looked at his boots. I poured him another glass of lemonade and went back to my last box – Caitlin’s things – yet another box of stuff I couldn’t bring myself to throw out and that I knew I’d be clogging up the garage with instead. It was then that I sensed him looking at me. I touched my hair, expecting to find something there, and ran my tongue over my teeth.

‘Everything OK?’ I asked him, wondering if he was trying to work out how to tell me that my bill had doubled.

‘Fine,’ he said, nodding. He was – is – a man of few words.

‘Good, and are you finished?’ I asked, still prepared for bad news.

‘Yep, all done,’ he said. ‘So …’

‘Oh, God, you want paying. I’m so sorry.’ I felt myself blush as I rooted around in the kitchen drawer for my cheque book, which wasn’t there – it was never where it was supposed to be. Flustered, I looked around, feeling his gaze on me as I tried to remember where I’d last had it. ‘It’s around here somewhere …’

‘There’s no hurry,’ he said.

‘I had it when I was paying some bills, so …’ I just kept wittering on, desperate, if I’m honest, for him to be gone and for me to be able to breathe out and drink the half bottle of Grigio that was waiting for me in the fridge.

‘You can pay me another time,’ he said. ‘Like maybe when you come out with me for a drink.’

‘Pardon?’ I said, stopping halfway through searching a drawer that seemed to be full only of rubber bands. I must have misheard.

‘Come out with me for a drink?’ he asked tentatively. ‘I don’t normally ask my clients out, but … you’re not normal.’

I laughed and it was his turn to blush.

‘That didn’t quite come out the way I thought it,’ he said, folding his arms across his chest.

‘You’re asking me on a date?’ I said, just to confirm it, because the whole thing seemed so absurd that I had to say it out loud to test I’d got it right. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, you coming?’

‘OK,’ I said. It had all seemed so perfectly plausible to him: him and me, ten years between us, going out on a date. ‘Why not?’

That was the first time I noticed him looking at me, looking at me with this sort of mingled heat and joy that I instantly felt mirrored inside me, like my body was answering his call in a way that my conscious mind had no control over. Yes, ever since then I’ve felt his looks long before I’ve seen them. I feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, and a sense of anticipation washing over me in one long delicious shudder, because I know that soon after he looks at me, he will be touching me, kissing me.

Now I feel his hand on my shoulder and I lean my cheek against his fingers.

‘You’re crying,’ he says.

‘I’m chopping onions,’ I say, putting down the knife and turning round to face him. ‘You know that all Esther will eat is Mummy’s homemade lasagne? Here, you should watch me make it, so you know the recipe. First, chop the onions …’

‘Claire …’ Greg stops me from picking up the knife again, and turns me towards him. ‘Claire, we have to talk about it, don’t we?’

He looks so uncertain, so lost and so reluctant, that I want to say no – no, we don’t have to talk about it, we can just pretend that today is like yesterday, and all the days before that when we didn’t know any better. We can pretend not to know, and who knows how long we might be able to go on like this, so happy, so perfect?

‘She likes a lot of tomato purée in the sauce,’ I say. ‘And also a really big slug of ketchup …’

‘I don’t know what to do or say,’ Greg says, his voice breaking on an inward breath. ‘I’m not sure how to be.’

‘And then, just at the end, add a teaspoon of Marmite.’

‘Claire,’ he says with a sob, and draws me into his arms. And I stand there in his embrace with my eyes closed, breathing in his scent, my arms at my side, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. ‘Claire, how are we going to tell the children?’

This is the bracelet they gave you in the hospital – pink because you are a girl. It says: ‘Baby Armstrong.’ They put it on your ankle, and it kept slipping off because you were so tiny, a whole month early, to the day. You were supposed to be an April baby. I had imagined daffodils and blue skies and April showers, but you decided to be born one month early on a cold wet Friday, Friday 13
^th
, no less, not that we were worried about that. If anyone was ever born to overcome bad omens it was you, and you knew it, greeting the world with an almighty shout – not a cry or a wail, but a roar of intent, I thought. A declaration of war.

There wasn’t anybody there with us for a long time. Because you were early, and Gran lived far away. So for about the first six hours it was just you and me. You smelled sweet, like a cake, and you felt so warm and … exactly right. We were at the end of the ward and we kept the curtain closed around us. I could hear the other mums talking, visitors coming and going, babies crying and fussing, but I didn’t want to be part of it. I didn’t want to be part of anything ever again except for you and me. I held you, so tiny and scrunched up like a new bud waiting to flower, and I just looked at you, slumbering against my breast, a deep frown on your tiny face, and I told you it was all going to be fine, because you and I were together: we were the whole universe, and that was all that mattered.

I’ve just got to get away from my mother: she is driving me mad, which would be funny if I wasn’t already that way inclined. No, I’m not mad, that’s not right. Although I feel pretty angry.

It was the look on her face when we came out of the hospital appointment; the look she had all the way home. Stoical, stalwart, strong but bleak. She didn’t say the words, but I could hear them buzzing around in her head: ‘This is so typically Claire. To ruin everything just when it’s getting good.’