The Almost Wife: An absolutely gripping and emotional summer read Page 3
‘God, how mortifying,’ offers Jessie finally, her cheeks flushed and her armpits starting to prick from the sweaty embarrassment of it all.
‘Jessie, if I may call you that now?’ asks Helen. ‘You are looking at three of the most beautiful wedding gowns I myself have ever seen – the sort of gowns that frankly most girls can only ever dream of wearing. If you didn’t shed a tear or two, I’d think there was something wrong with you, darling.
‘Let’s just look at the dresses for now, see what details you might like to change, talk about timescales and whether you would like to try anything on from the broader collection here. And Jessie, please remember that every single bride-to-be before you has at some point shed tears in my company – every single one, without exception. You’ve just got yours out of the way nice and early.’
There is something in the way that Helen’s words make Jessie flush a little more that suggests she might already be unpicking the complex character of Ms Jones – and she can’t help but feel satisfied that an appointment that started so negatively has finished with a hint of the progress to come.
* * *
Six exhilarating appointments later, Helen is turning The White Gallery sign to closed, activating the over-complicated alarm system she always feels is so unnecessary in this village and climbing the stairs back up to her home, weary but proud of what she’s achieved today. As she closes the door that leads into the small but homely lounge with its open fire and small fold-out antique dining table just big enough for two, the familiar feeling of dread begins to build in her again. She kicks off her shoes, wriggles her toes free and heads straight for the small kitchen and the much needed kettle, knowing full well that it’s going to take more than a cup of Earl Grey to fight off the impending feeling of loneliness that is creeping up inside her.
Helen’s double bedroom is just across from the lounge and from where she is standing in the doorway of the kitchen she can glance through to it. There, hanging on the picture rail is the taffeta wedding dress she wore thirty-five years ago when she married Phillip, the love of her life. Even now – three years, eleven months and six days after she buried him – she still can’t bring herself to put it out of sight. Phillip’s silk handkerchief from the day is still tucked in to the bodice of the dress. On the evenings when she’s really struggling to cope, Helen takes that precious piece of silk to bed with her. But the smell of him has long since faded, unlike the pain she still feels so acutely from losing him.
3
Dolly Jackson
Five months to go
Another bound-to-be-boring day at work begins as Dolly slides into her desk chair, fifteen minutes late and hoping not to be noticed by Rich, the obnoxious boss of the public relations agency she has barely worked at for the past two years. No chance.
‘Nice of you to join us, Dolly,’ he bellows self-righteously across the grey open plan office so that every one of her colleagues lifts a head to gawp. ‘What was it this time, another dress fitting? Sorry we’re getting in the way of all your wedding planning, but in case you’ve forgotten we’ve got several crucial pitches this week – and everyone else managed to get in on time.’
‘Oh drop dead,’ Dolly mumbles under her breath, raising her eyes to the sky and exhaling loudly.
She looks at the patchwork of Post-it notes stuck all over her computer screen – each one covered in random, hurried scrawls, intended to remind her of a hundred urgent jobs she needs to get done before Rich works out quite how far behind she is. Call Daily Mail news desk, Email Green & Black’s chocolate re: missing samples, Chase printers for late delivery, Book meeting room for new client visit – interspersed with the far more exciting wedding ones that she uses to drag herself out of the work-hating fug several times a day; Honeymoon: Sri-Lanka or Bali? Confirm menus with Willow Manor, and Book facial. Then, in pride of place at the top of the screen, on the only pink Post-it note and written in shouty capital letters, the challenge that gets her out of bed every morning. Get wedding featured in Brides magazine!
Dolly slumps a little lower in her chair, praying that Rich – or ‘The Dick’ as he is unaffectionately known in the office – will just bugger off for now, leaving her to waste another morning achieving very little indeed. Glancing at a half-finished printed presentation that should have been on The Dick’s desk a week ago, Dolly lacks all motivation to even turn on the monitor in front of her. She looks at her watch and notes it’s a whole nine hours until she’ll be turning this thing off again. Joy.
‘Ignore that tosser and get stuck in to this,’ beams Emma, Dolly’s ever upbeat colleague, as she plonks an enormous cheese and ham filled Pret croissant in front of her. ‘Come on, one’s not going to kill you. I’ve nailed two this morning already, the hangover demanded it!’
Hilarious as she is, Emma is also one of those unfathomable women who either doesn’t realise her belly is escaping over the waistband of her trousers, or doesn’t care. Either way, she’s the perfect visual deterrent that will stop Dolly eating that Pret doorstop of a breakfast – despite the fact that she can think of nothing more she would rather do. She so envies Emma’s lack of concern. If she likes it, she eats it. If Dolly likes it, she generally denies herself it.
‘Oh, thanks Emma, that’s exactly what I need. I’ll wolf this down and then deal with The Dick,’ Dolly lies.
‘No problem,’ chirps Emma. ‘Are you coming on Thursday night? A load of us are going to the new bar opening on Mercer street. It’s half-price cocktails for the first hour, so obvs we’re getting there early. Don’t be late or there’ll be drinking forfeits!’
‘Sounds amaze.’ Dolly’s second lie of the morning. ‘Count me in!’ Make that three.
She watches Emma grin, her friendly deed of the day done, turn on her heels and retreat back to her own bland side of the office leaving Dolly to deal with the fresh-from-the-oven pastry smell that is wafting agonisingly up her nostrils. She wants nothing more than to sink her teeth into the croissant’s comforting softness – just like every other woman in the office appears to be doing right now – washing it all down with a giant sugar-fuelled caffè latte. The smell is almost intoxicating and a starving Dolly can feel her mouth start to water and her stomach rumble – scream, more like – for something that it might actually enjoy ingesting.
Checking that Emma is already on to cheering up the next victim of Monday blues – and there are plenty to choose from in this dump – Dolly drops the pastry enemy into the bin where it belongs. Deception complete. The bitter green juice she hastily blended in the NutriBullet – an unappetising combination of spinach, kale, celery and ginger – is still churning around her gut, making her feel queasy. She tries not to think about how she forced every mouthful down, eyes clenched, nose blocked to the sour stench, focusing on the fact that it’s three of her ten-a-day ticked off before she is even barely awake. But so much for energising her; Dolly feels exhausted from last night’s usual Sunday food-prepping routine, making meals for the week ahead so she isn’t tempted by the likes of the giant evil Pret pastry now taunting her from the bin. While her fiancé Josh was reclining on the sofa with a slice of pepperoni pizza and a copy of GQ – stealing ideas for his next photography shoot no doubt – Dolly dirtied every utensil in their white gloss IKEA kitchen. Five hours cooking, cooling and decanting bland food into individual-portion-sized Tupperware. Then freezing the braised fennel, ginger polenta, cashew celeriac soup, cauliflower couscous, hemp-seed pesto with miso brown rice, quinoa-stuffed courgette and enough nasty juice to keep her going for a month. She could have done it quicker if Josh hadn’t demanded her attention every two minutes with shouts of, Where’s the remote? Any chance of another beer? Dolly, grab my phone from the bedroom will you! So used to having assistants run around after him at work, he often finds it hard to adjust to normal boyfriend behaviour at home. Her best friend Tilly has been telling her to kick him into touch for months, but like most of the other things on her to-do list, she just hasn’t got aro
und to it yet.
Now is it any wonder her overworked and underfed body is craving some illegal carbs? What it’s actually getting is a small tub of grey sludge that Dolly pulls out of her bag: the almond and chia seed breakfast she also made last night. Another meal to be endured not enjoyed. And that bin will have to move, the bloody pastry aroma isn’t giving up. Just as Dolly is trying to work out how she can surreptitiously swap her bin for someone else’s, the voice of doom reaches her.
‘Get that skinny little butt of yours in here Dolly,’ The Dick cackles from the safety of his glass cube. ‘I’ve got a job that has your name written all over it.’
Saved from the breakfast sludge at least, Dolly drags herself out of the chair and across the room in the direction of The Dick’s office, noting how everything about her appearance this morning says, I don’t care. Her honey coloured hair is slicked back into a childish ponytail, while a less than made-up face had to settle for just two products this morning; a Laura Mercier tinted moisturiser and a slick of Tom Ford lip gloss. Dolly’s cute Mui Mui skater dress needs to be introduced to an iron and her Kurt Geiger black ankle boots are scuffed and in need of some polish. Dolly knows she is letting herself down. Her wardrobe at home is straining under the weight of gorgeous designer dresses and accessories but they all seem wasted on this place. The more disheartened she becomes with the job, the less effort she makes with her appearance and the worse she feels.
Walking at a snail’s pace, she registers the room’s cheap, grey carpet tiles, long ago stained by coffee that no one can be bothered to clean off. Some are lifting at the corners, others have been replaced over the years with tiles of a different colour, creating an accidental hopscotch game on the floor. She passes four rows of modular desks with partitions built just above eye level to restrict any unnecessary human interaction, everyone already hard at work in their enforced cells. She also knows without looking that her name is a long way down the list of high performers that The Dick has written on a giant whiteboard on the wall near his office. Designed to terrify rather than inspire, this is his way of publicly outing anyone who is underachieving on the team. Dolly can’t help sneaking a look as she moves past it and sees she is second from bottom, just above the new girl who joined last week. The TV ticker tape, another one of The Dick’s name and shame devices, is also up and running already this morning. Dolly hates this particularly cruel system, which reveals to the entire office the length of time each individual spends on the phone every day – as opposed to online wedding planning. Lots of time talking bullshit with prospective clients is considered good, anything less than two hours a day means a dreaded visit to The Dick to explain why. The numbers from the previous Friday are still there for all to see. Dolly has managed a grand total of thirteen minutes’ phone time.
When Dolly tells people she works in PR she knows they’re immediately imagining days filled with creative brilliance – sparky people bouncing clever ideas off each other, winning business without even trying. Not the cookie-cutter prison where she spends her days and certainly not the dusty Klix coffee machine she’s passing now, noticing the pile of plastic cups that it spewed on to the floor last week that even the cleaner can’t be bothered to pick up. Now Dolly is at the other side of the room, the only one lined with windows, she can peer out directly into the neighbouring 1950s high-rise office block. It’s the same as all the others on the grim outskirts of Cheltenham before you get to the lovely Georgian buildings the spa town is known for. Behind the same wonky grey venetian blinds, Dolly can see a similarly depressing Monday morning scene is unfolding on this dank and overcast March day. The layout next door is almost identical except, she notices, for the faces of much older women than her who are working there. She’s twenty-nine, she consoles herself, still time to escape and as soon as this wedding is out of the way she knows she must. She lets out a long, low groan and turns to face the door of The Dick’s office, clocking his latest motivational poster, the one he hangs here every week to rally the troops. Last week it read, You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take but, as it’s Monday morning, he has replaced it with this week’s offering: Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire. Such a wanker.
‘I wish he would,’ Dolly mutters to herself, wondering if hitting the fire alarm might be a good substitute… it would at least get her out of the meeting she is about to have. Shuffling into his office without bothering to knock or even raise a false smile, Dolly can see The Dick is wearing his usual white shirt, top three buttons undone, leaving it gaping open so his chest hairs are inappropriately airing themselves in public. The sharp cut of his The Kooples suit might look cool on a man not in his late forties or one that is in better shape than the unshaven mess she is looking at now. Dolly pulls at the back of one of his cheap plastic off-white chairs – ready to sit down and hear her fate…
‘Don’t get comfortable Dolly, this won’t take long,’ says The Dick. ‘Last week when you were busy swanning around wedding venues or something, this agency picked up the new Couture Cupcake business, who are now selling out of Harvey Nichols and Selfridges in London. As you know, they are the largest maker of bespoke cupcakes across America with the marketing spend to prove it. There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t love a cupcake and last week a Kardashian was seen scoffing one so getting them on all the right Instagram feeds should be easy enough – even for you. What I need on my desk by first thing tomorrow morning is tasting notes on the whole lot – that’s twenty-six varieties – a name for each and a well thought through strategy of the coverage we can guarantee them. Don’t mess this up Dolly, it’s the biggest win we’ve had in a long time.’
Running the next twelve hours on fast forward through her mind, Dolly can see three issues that are going to ensure she will indeed mess this up.
No. 1: She has scheduled a double hit of high intensity interval training after work tonight that will leave very little time later for writing the tasting notes and strategy.
No. 2: She has a dress fitting at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning at The White Gallery, which she is yet to tell The Dick about, having decided at the time she booked it that she’d simply blame bad traffic for her mega lateness on the day.
No. 3: These cupcakes, she remembers from the pitch research she has done, contain 700 calories each. That means she is walking out of The Dick’s office with a box containing more than 18,000 calories. Never. Gonna. Happen.
Dolly carries the box back to her desk, dropping it clumsily onto her keyboard – who cares if they break, she has no intention of tasting a single one of them. In fact, they are all destined for the giant recycling bin at the back of the building where no one ever goes because who cares about something as progressive as recycling around here? Dolly reaches down to the bin beneath her desk, hesitates for a moment, then scoops the croissant back up out of it, greedily eating half in three big hungry bites. Then she picks up the phone, dials her home number and waits for the answerphone to click in. As it does, she places the receiver on her desk, where it stays until lunchtime. That ought to get her daily phone time up a bit. Then it’s on to far more important business – she emails The White Gallery to confirm tomorrow morning’s appointment. The Dick will just have to do one!
4
Emily Hamilton
Five months to go
Another legendary Sunday lunch – or The Sunday Summit as it is now known in Emily’s family home – is about to begin around the Hamilton’s dining room table. The best Wedgwood china is out, some freshly baked bread is already sat in its basket in the centre of the mahogany table and two bottles of her mum Gloria’s favourite Pinot Grigio are chilled and ready to pour. The unmistakable smell of Pledge polish, mixed with a generous dose of Shake n’ Vac, is competing for prominence with the roast chicken aroma that is now filling the entire house.
‘Tell me you’ve done the roast parsnips with maple syrup, Mum?’ begs Emily, knowing full well she has. Her mum’s Sunday roasts make m
ost people’s Christmas lunch look a bit lacking in effort.
‘Of course, why would you even doubt me?’ comes the quick response. ‘Emily, can you ask Dad to stop printing handouts and gather everyone? I’m about to dish up.’
Emily loves these get-togethers, when everyone from her family and Mark’s gather around her parents’ enormous dining room table in the comfortable family home on the rural outskirts of Oxford where she grew up. Yes, she is about to tuck into her mum’s mountain of roast chicken, goose fat potatoes, Delia’s cauliflower cheese plus at least another four vegetables – all swimming in proper lumpy homemade gravy. But it is also their fortnightly wedding planning catch up – something her parents instigated the moment she and Mark announced their engagement – and as usual her dad Bill is printing an actual agenda and positioning a notepad and pencil at everyone’s place setting. The retired lawyer in him just loves the need for some extreme administrative organisation. Emily is dressed for the occasion – one of communal gluttony – in a pretty floral cotton wrap dress from Topshop with, crucially, an adjustable belt. She isn’t about to let something as annoying as being full get between her and a good dollop of her mum’s homemade bread sauce.
‘OK people, we have a lot of ground to cover today, so enjoy the spread – thank you, Gloria – and then we’ll get cracking,’ Bill announces, completely unnecessarily, thinks Emily. With only five months to go until she and Mark tie the knot, everyone is well versed in The Sunday Summit routine. Emily and Mark sit in their usual position at one head of the table, her mum and dad are at the other end. Also joining their party today are Mark’s just-as-excitable parents John and Barbara, as well as Emily’s eighty-three-year-old grandmother Joyce, Mark’s younger sister Janet and their next door neighbour Philippa.