Provence
A few days before my middle daughter’s Oxfordshire wedding this summer, my youngest announced that she and her fiancé, who’ve been together for years, were getting married within weeks. They’re moving abroad and bringing their wedding forward would help, she said. Two daughters married in less than a month. Mrs Bennet would be proud or envious.
On hearing the news I panic-booked an easyJet flight to Edinburgh for the day before the youngest’s wedding, only to realise it got in at midnight, just 12 hours before the ceremony, and had to abandon that and rebook for the previous day. Usually the journey to Nice airport takes an hour and 20 minutes but there’d been heavy rain and flooding, and two hours in the satnav ETA advanced beyond the possibility of catching the flight. In stationary traffic I booked another with Lufthansa via Amsterdam. It cost £350 – money I couldn’t spare – but I had no choice.
From the A8 near Cagnes I saw the Edinburgh flight. It climbed into the sky near the beach which Cyril Connolly’s perpetually hungover character in The Rock Pool, Naylor, describes as where, ‘fetid waves of sunburn oil lapped tidelessly on the sand’. I don’t agree. With little money or leisure, I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve visited the beach in the past five years and generally only see the Mediterranean from a distance where it glistens and shimmers with elusive promise.
Anger at bureaucratic mistakes is a luxury I don’t allow myself. But at check-in, after the woman told me (wrongly) that I would have to pay another £350 and possibly, because of delay, miss my new flights, I almost wept. Forty minutes later, the sprint to the gate and joy at making the first flight made the Lufthansa stewardesses look like goddesses.
The morning of the wedding, I lay in my daughter’s bed watching her sitting at the dressing table brushing her hair. ‘You’ve missed a bit, may I?’ Brushing her long strawberry blonde hair took me back to her school days when every morning I’d style it in pigtails. The days I could get her to school that is, because she preferred it when it was just the two of us and she could sit on my knee in front of the Aga. Sometimes she feigned illness to stay at home. One such Monday, when she was about seven, I’d had enough and despite her pallor (sometimes aided by talcum powder, she told me years later), I insisted on her coming with us to school.
I parked as usual near Govan underground station. By the time we got off at Hillhead she was quieter than usual and looked a bit green. I caved in and after dropping the others off took her back on the underground. In Govan we walked hand in hand 200 yards across the car park and got in the car. As I turned the key she leaned forward and vomited all over her blazer, jumper, pinafore, scarf, socks and shoes – and the seatbelt and footwell. The clothes were fine after cleaning but because of the smell, the car had to be traded in. While these memories flitted through my mind, her adult face in the mirror radiated happiness but her expression became that of the small girl, youngest of three, both resigned to and enjoying the momentary attention of having her hair brushed. She looked up. ‘Are you crying, Mumma?’
‘What would you like to listen to while you get dressed?’ ‘“Tiny Dancer” reminds me of you taking me to school.’ I’m not an Elton John fan but enjoy this song. Determined not to cry and risk mascara disasters, I helped my ‘blue jean baby’ slip into her white silk dress. Later a friend, Anna, arrived and we opened a bottle of champagne. Anna and I fussed over the bride; her lovely dress and hair, chic birdcage veil. Earlier than expected at 11.25, the taxi turned up. The journey to the Abbey is only a few minutes. We would arrive 20 minutes early and asked the driver to do a few circuits with the meter running.
He turned: ‘I can’t do that! I have too many bookings.’ Anna and I pleaded: ‘But she’s getting married. It’s normal if we’re early to drive around a bit.’ ‘She’s not the only one getting married today,’ he said in a difficult-to-place accent. ‘Please? We’ll give you a good tip…’ ‘I can’t!’ he said. ‘My sister died in America this morning. I shouldn’t be working!’ This silenced us for a moment. ‘How awful. We’re terribly sorry.’ All we wanted now was for the journey to end. ‘Let’s get out here at Gabriel’s and nip in for a quick drink. It’s close enough to be manageable in our shoes,’ I said. The taxi driver stopped; he was still fuming. We stood stunned on the pavement for a moment, none of us knowing what to say, before we tried the door of Gabriel’s. It was locked. Anna said: ‘Abbey Bar round the corner.’ A woman stood at the threshold. She had a proprietorial aspect about her so we explained what had happened and asked if we could come in. ‘Ah’m just the cleaner, we’re no’ openin’ till 12,’ she said, ‘but ask Ursula there, she’s the boss.’
Soon we were locked in and Ursula handed us a gin and tonic each. ‘What an arse, ’magine saying that to youse today,’ she said. Twenty minutes later we walked to the Abbey and greeted people with more merriment than we intended. ‘Do you think everyone will think I’m a dick walking down the aisle to “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”?’ ‘No!’ I said, hurrying in before the Cavaillé organ struck the opening chords.
Comments