To sum up, Dan’s not the greatest fan. But the girls are obsessed by watching the wedding – by my dress, mainly, and of course my hair. Daddy was insistent that I should wear my hair – my ‘glory’ – down for the wedding and it did look fairly spectacular and princesslike, all wavy and shiny and blonde, with braids and flowers woven through it. The girls call it ‘wedding hair’ and often try to do the same with their dolls.
Anyway. So what usually happens is that we start the DVD, Dan absents himself and after a while the girls get bored and go off to play. Whereupon Mummy and I end up watching together in silence, just drinking in the sight of Daddy. The man he was. It’s our indulgence. It’s our tin of Quality Street.
Today, though, I don’t want Mummy and me to gorge on watching Daddy all alone. I want things to be different. Together and relaxed and more … I don’t know. Unified. Family-like. As we head into the drawing room, I put my arm through Dan’s.
‘Watch it today,’ I say coaxingly. ‘Stay with us.’
Mummy’s already pressed Play – none of us comment on the fact that the DVD was already loaded in the machine – and soon we’re watching Daddy and me stepping out of my childhood home in Chelsea. (Mummy sold the house a year ago and moved to this flat nearby, for a ‘new start’.)
‘I had the local paper on the phone yesterday,’ says Mummy as we watch Daddy posing with me for pictures in front of the Rolls-Royce. ‘They want to take photos at the opening of the scanner suite. Make sure you get your hair done, Sylvie,’ she adds.
‘Have you mentioned it to Esme?’ I ask. ‘You should do.’
Esme is the girl at the hospital who is organizing the opening ceremony. She’s quite new at her job and this is her first big event and almost every day I get an anxious email from her, beginning: I think I’ve planned for everything but … Even over the weekend. Yesterday she wanted to know: How many parking spaces will you need? Today it was, Will you need Powerpoint for your speech? I mean, Powerpoint? Really?
‘Dan, you are coming to the ceremony?’ Mummy says, suddenly turning to us.
I nudge Dan, who looks up and says, ‘Oh. Yes.’
He could sound more enthused. It’s not every day your late father-in-law is honoured by a whole hospital scanner suite being named after him, is it?
‘When I told the reporter everything that Daddy had achieved in his life, he couldn’t believe it,’ Mummy continues tremulously. ‘Building up his business from nothing, all the fundraising, hosting those wonderful parties, climbing Everest … The journalist said his headline would read, “A remarkable man”.’
‘It wasn’t exactly “from nothing”,’ says Dan.
‘Sorry?’ Mummy peers at him.
‘Well, Marcus had that massive windfall, didn’t he? So, not quite “nothing”.’
I glance sharply round at Dan – and sure enough, he’s all tentery. His jaw is taut. He looks as though he’s sitting here under total duress.
Whenever I spend time with Dan and Mummy, my sympathies constantly swing back and forth between the two, like some wild pendulum. And right now, they’re with Mummy. Why can’t Dan just let Mummy reminisce? What does it matter if she’s not 100 per cent accurate? So what if she romanticizes her dead husband?
‘That’s lovely, Mummy,’ I say, ignoring Dan. I squeeze her hand, simultaneously eyeing her warily to see if she’s going to start blinking. But although her voice is a bit trembly, she seems composed.
‘Do you remember the time he took us to Greece?’ she says, her eyes lost in memory. ‘You were quite little.’
‘Of course I do!’ I turn to Dan. ‘It was incredible. Daddy chartered a yacht and we sailed round the coastline. Every night we’d have these fantastic candle-lit meals on the beach. Crabs … lobster …’
‘He invented a new cocktail every night,’ adds Mummy dreamily.
‘Sounds fantastic,’ says Dan tonelessly.
Mummy blinks at him, as though coming to. ‘Where are you going on holiday this year?’
‘Lake District,’ I say. ‘Self-catering.’
‘Lovely.’ Mummy gives a distant smile, and I sigh inwardly. I know she doesn’t mean to look disparaging, but she doesn’t really get our life. She doesn’t understand living on a budget, or keeping the girls grounded, or taking pleasure in simple things. When I showed her the brochure for a French campsite we went to once, she blanched and said, ‘But, darling, why don’t you hire a lovely villa in Provence?’
(If I’d said, ‘Because of the money,’ she’d have said, ‘But darling, I’ll give you the money!’ And then Dan would have got all prickly. So I don’t ever do that.)
‘Oh, look.’ Mummy points at the screen. ‘Daddy’s about to make that funny little joke before you go into the church. Your father was always so witty,’ she adds wistfully. ‘Everyone said his speech made the reception, absolutely made it.’
I feel a movement beside me on the sofa, and suddenly Dan has risen to his feet.
‘Sorry,’ he says, heading to the door without meeting my eye. ‘There’s an urgent work call I should make. I forgot earlier.’
Yeah, right. I kind of don’t blame him. But I kind of do blame him. Couldn’t he put up with it for once?
‘That’s fine.’ I try to sound pleasant, as though I’m not aware he’s just totally invented this call. ‘See you in a moment.’
Dan leaves the room and Mummy looks over at me.
‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘Poor Dan seems a little tense. I wonder why?’
This is how she often refers to him: ‘poor Dan’. And she sounds so patronizing – even though she doesn’t mean to – that my pendulum instantly swings the other way. I must stick up for Dan. Because he has a point.
‘I think he feels … he thinks …’ I trail off, and take a deep breath. I’m going to tackle this, once and for all. ‘Mummy, have you ever noticed that our wedding DVD is quite focused on, well, Daddy?’
Mummy blinks at me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Compared to … other people.’
‘But he was the father of the bride.’ Mummy still looks perplexed.
‘Yes,’ I press on, feeling hot and bothered, ‘but there’s more of Daddy on the DVD than there is of Dan! And it’s his wedding!’
‘Oh.’ Mummy’s eyes widen. ‘Oh, I see! Is that why poor Dan is so prickly?’
‘He’s not prickly,’ I say, feeling uncomfortable. ‘You’ve got to understand his point of view.’
‘I do not,’ says Mummy emphatically. ‘The DVD represents the spirit of the wedding perfectly, and, like it or not, your father was the centre of the party. Naturally the videographers chose to focus on the most entertaining character present. Poor Dan is a lovely chap, you know I love him to bits, but he’s hardly the life and soul, is he?’
‘Yes he is!’ I retort hotly, although I know exactly what she means. Dan is really funny and entertaining when you get to know him, but he’s not out there. He’s not going to sweep three women on to the dance floor all at once while everyone cheers, like Daddy did.
‘What a ridiculous thing to mind about,’ Mummy says with just a trace of disdain in her voice. ‘But then, poor Dan is a little sensitive, especially about Marcus and all his achievements.’ She sighs. ‘Although … can one blame him?’ She’s silent for a moment, and her face becomes softer and more distant. ‘What you have to remember, Sylvie, is that your father was a remarkable man, and we were lucky to have him.’
‘I know.’ I nod. ‘I know we were.’
‘Of course, Dan has many fine attributes too,’ she adds after a pause. ‘He’s very … loyal.’ I know she’s making an effort to be nice, although clearly in her mind ‘loyal’ ranks several fathoms below ‘remarkable’.
We lapse into silence as the DVD plays on and a lump grows in my throat as I watch Daddy on screen, watching me marrying Dan. His face is noble and dignified. A shaft of light is catching his hair in just the right place. Then he glances at the camera and winks in that way he had.
And even though I’ve seen this DVD so many times before, I feel a sudden fresh, raw hurt. All my life, Daddy used to wink at me. At school concerts, at boring dinners, as he left the room after saying goodnight. And I know that doesn’t sound much – anyone can wink – but Daddy’s wink was special. It was like a shot in the arm. An instant spirit-lift.
My inner pendulum has stilled. I’m gazing speechlessly at the screen. Everything has fallen away to the sides of my brain, leaving only the headline news: my father died and we’ll never get him back. Everything else is irrelevant.
EIGHT
Next morning, my pendulum is haywire again. In fact, everything’s bloody haywire. I can’t possibly contemplate being married to Dan for another sixty-eight years. The last sixty-eight minutes have been bad enough.
I don’t know what got under his skin at Mummy’s place yesterday. Ever since, he’s been morose and broody and picky and just … argh. Last night in the car, on the way home, he started on a thing about how my family harks back to the past too much and it’s not good for the girls to keep dwelling. He even said did I have to mention my imaginary friend? What the hell is wrong with me mentioning my imaginary friend?
I know what Dan worries about, even though he won’t admit it. He worries that I’m unstable. Or potentially unstable. Just because I went and stood outside Gary Butler’s house that one time. And put one tiny little letter through his letter box. (Which, OK, I’ll admit I shouldn’t have done.) But the point is, that was a special case. I was in the throes of grief when I had my ‘episode’ or whatever we call it.