Milla – my very favourite space cadet and wedding planner,
I’d meant to wake you before I left but looking down at you now, you’ve not long gone to sleep and you look too peaceful. And if I did wake you, I might not ever leave.
So instead I’m writing this, to say sorry – for running away and all my other blunders. And thank you – for the wedding, everything else, and more. And lastly, goodbye.
Six months is a very long time. I’m not sure I know enough about forgiveness or the state of my tortured soul to guarantee an outcome.
So, for now, all I can do is make you a promise – I’ll love you for as long as stars are above you, Milla Vanilla. I hope sometimes you’ll look up at them from your little attic porthole and think of me.
Yours forever, (in every galaxy),
Nic xx
‘Back at you, Captain Kirk.’ I’m whispering as I swallow back my tears. And just before the flood gates open I see his tux still hanging on the hook on back of the bedroom door.
Then I hear the distant slam of the huge front door, and as it sinks in that I’ve missed him by seconds, I bury my face in his pillow. As the distant sound of a car revs up the drive, I let the sobs come. As the engine note fades to nothing, my body convulses and I let my howls go free.
Chapter 38
St Aidan in July.
Reruns and rewinds.
Poppy was the one who came in and found me the morning Nic left, when she heard my sobs through the door. Then Immie whisked me out by the kitchen door, and back to my own comfy bed under the sloping attic ceiling so I didn’t have to face anyone.
And as I woke again later that day, after a sleep ruptured with tears and desperate re-runs in my head, it felt like I was leaving something very significant behind. It was about much more than crossing Poppy’s proverbial bridge. As Nic left, I waved away my old life too. And whatever happens, I owe it to Mum to smile no matter how sad and broken I feel inside. After the straight talking I gave Nic, it would be hypocritical of me to do anything else.
Then Bill and Ivy came back again bringing Abby with her arm in a sling and a bump on her head. And there were a couple of days of post-wedding excitement when the flat was bursting with flowers sent from Pixie and Ewan, and Pixie’s mum and dad. Both bunches were so big I had to borrow flower buckets from the basement to display them in.
Holly had filmed Pixie’s amazing and emotional walk down the aisle, and with Pixie’s permission, that was loaded to YouTube where it got loads of attention. Then we shared it across the Brides by the Sea and Brides Go Wild platforms too, and it also got picked up by the local press. Thanks to that and the blog we did about Pixie trying on wedding dresses, the hits and followers for Brides Go Wild literally did go crazy.
I have to admit, at least five hundred of those thousands of YouTube views of Pixie taking her first steps are mine. The first time I watched it was with the excuse that I had seen it all from the back not the front. Even so, it was gut-wrenching watching Pixie make her halting, yet amazing way down the aisle,All You Need Is Lovein the background, seeing all the guests’ eyes going wide as they realised the enormity of what she was doing. Ewan, looking so very proud and in love, Nic with tears streaming down his face. And then after it was over and she’s back in her chair, there’s me, fumbling to get her shoes on, and Pixie telling me to sit next to Nic. And just before the clip ends, there’s Nic with so much love in his face, stooping to whisper to me about the chocolate puddings. It’s impossible for anyone who knows Pixie to watch it without sobbing buckets, and it’s been the best excuse for me to be bawling my eyes out. Again and again.
Pixie FaceTimed me from her jet-skiing honeymoon near Newquay. What was meant to be a thank you call quickly moved on to Pixie first apologising, then going ape about Nic. Her saying ‘What a knobhead! I promise I’ll run him over then mash him!’ is great. But realistically, right now he’s well beyond the reach of Pixie and her studded tyres.
With the old life gone, I am here at the start of a whole other new one, with an unfamiliar landscape. One crowded with friends, all gently tiptoeing around me, delicately checking in to see how I am. But it’s one that’s filled with unexpected obstacles that fell me every hour, as reminders of Nic leap out from every crack between the cobblestones and alleyway end. Spring up everywhere from groomswear to the furthest rockpool out along the bay, where Merwyn and I still walk every lunchtime.
But it’s not just life that’s different; I’ve changed too. I’m not the same woman who tottered around in her six-inch heels, squeezing myself into pencil skirts and John Smedley jumpers because Phoebe told me to. This version of me wouldn’t have fallen apart over losing Ben, who should never have been mine to start with. But even though I’m grounded by my certainty that I had to let Nic go, it doesn’t stop my heart breaking. After throwing all my efforts at him and his quest, day and night, for five months, there’s bound to be a huge void in my life now that’s gone. Now he’s gone.
Two weeks after Pixie’s wedding, an envelope arrives with a koala bear on the stamp. Inside there’s a postcard with a picture of fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge. And on the back, Nic’s relaxed yet even handwriting, and the words:
Saw this and thought of you, Nic x
I prop it on the tiny table next to my bed. Then I move on with my next wedding fair. And getting together the copy for the glossy magazine to go with the fairs for the autumn, which I’ve decided I’ll go ahead with independently. The idea is, if I make sure I never stop, there’s less time to think. Less possibility of jerking to a halt every time I remember I feel like there’s a gaping hole in my side where someone wrenched my heart out.
As for Nic’s tux, I have to come clean – it’s still here waiting to be returned to his office. Sometime – when I’m far enough down the line that I no longer have to bury my face in it every night before bed, when I can pass the bedroom door where it hangs without stopping every time to breathe in his smell.
With any luck, the smell will fade to nothing around the same time I forget to stop and sniff it. Just like when I was grieving for my mum, so long as I’m patient and wait enough years, there will be a time when my heart will finally stop aching. When every little task I do doesn’t feel like it’s taking the same effort as if I were moving an elephant across the room.
Then, as July wears on and the season builds towards its peak, my own accidental groans that escape past my smile are masked by everyone else’s moans about the streets and the beaches being rammed with holidaymakers, and the lanes around Cornwall being clogged with what feels like one continual traffic jam. Lucky for me, having to set off for wedding fairs at an even earlier crack of dawn than usual fits in well with me waking up at stupid o’clock every day. For some reason, since Nic left there’s so much high-alert adrenalin coursing around my body, when I’ve had two hours sleep that seems to be enough.
And more good news – when Nic’s cash and bonus from Jess finally hits my account there’s enough to pay back my brothers the money I borrowed to finance the first Brides Go West magazine and the van renovations. With that debt cleared, I put it to Phoebe that it makes sense for her and Ben to buy me out of Brides Go West. Before July ends, I’m in Trenowden and Trenowden’s solicitors office by the quayside, on first name terms with George, going through the final contract agreements. In the end, it turns out that letting go isn’t hard at all; a couple of signatures is all it takes. And I’m free.
I’m throwing myself into the Brides Go Wild blog too, filling the pages with dreamy stories of lovely summer weddings as they happen. And little by little, if I say it often enough, I’ll be able to persuade myself that I’m doing fine.
But my favourite part of every day is at night, just before I go to bed, when I look out at the navy blue sky, studded with tiny, bright white stars. There’s the slivery splash of moonlight on the inky water, the arc of lights curving out around the bay, and if I open the little porthole window and lean out into the warm evening air, I can just make outSnow Goose’stall mast and rigging, etched against the night. And I try not to remember that the stars Nic’s looking out on are in a totally different sky. Because when I stand and will my love for Nic to travel into the night and right across the ocean, it feels less like he’s gone forever.
AUGUST
