Chapter Nineteen
Sunday 8th December
Ashleigh – 34 Tilgate Road
‘I’m going to be monopolising the living room for a little while okay?’ Ashleigh called out to her nan, who was in the kitchen with the radio on. It was playing old songs from the fifties and sixties and occasionally a Christmas one would come on, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters making everything sound like it should be fuzzy and warm at the edges like a black and white film.
‘Why is that?’
‘Beth’s coming over, remember? I’ve got to do her measurements for the wedding dress, so I’ll need some room.’
‘Your designs are ready then?’
‘As they’ll ever be.’ She took a deep breath and then the doorbell rang. Beth was outside wearing a bright yellow mac with the hood pulled up, looking decidedly wet and cold. ‘Oh my God, I thought you were going to drive over?’
‘I did. This happened to me as I walked from the car.’ Beth laughed and came inside, toeing off her boots to leave them by the doormat and unbuttoning her mac.
Ash took her coat and hung it up over the top of the radiator by the door. ‘You look like you could do with a big cup of tea.’
‘Oh, that’d be so good…like this big?’ Beth held her hands out as though she was holding a tree trunk rather than a mug.
‘I’ll see what we can do. Make yourself comfy.’
Ashleigh went into the kitchen to find Nan was organising a tray with three mugs of tea, sugar and milk and a tin of biscuits. ‘Oh, thank you.’
‘You don’t mind if I sit with you, do you? I haven’t seen Beth for ages.’
‘Of course not, Nan, it’s your living room. I’ll take that.’
‘Don’t be daft, Ashleigh, I’m not a doddery old woman.’
When they went back in, Beth was in the armchair with its back facing the window and Simon was on her lap, trying to lick rainwater from her face.
‘Urgh, no, Simon. Down. Sorry.’ Ash picked up the dog and set him on the floor while Beth got back to her feet, brushing the dog hair off herself. The tea tray rattled onto the coffee table behind them.
‘Hello, Beth, how are you?’ Nan came up beside Ash, as she continued to nudge Simon gently out of the way with her foot.
‘Christine! I’m good, how are you?’ Beth and Nan hugged and they all sat down, doling out biscuits and tea. ‘I probably shouldn’t be eating these before I get measured, should I?’ Beth considered the bourbon biscuit between her fingers grimly.
‘Why?’
‘Shouldn’t I be starving myself so I look all waif-like and princessy?’
‘But you wouldn’t look like you then, would you?’ Nan said.
Ashleigh cringed and threw an apologetic look at Beth. Luckily, her friend knew just what her nan was like and smiled back at her. ‘I think what Nan meant was you are fine as you are. Who would you be doing it for anyway? For Nick, for the guests or for yourself?’
‘Well, not Nick – I know he’s perfectly happy with my figure. And so am I really. I mean, I feel happier eating biscuits than not, anyway. Particularly when I’ve got so much stressing me out. So, I suppose…for the guests?’ She curled her lip. ‘Which is stupid, isn’t it? You’re right.’ She crunched down decisively on the biscuit.
‘Itisstupid. All this commercialism again. Why must every wedding be a great production where the bride and groom look like they stepped out the pages of a celebrity magazine, and the guests are treated to a festival of horrors, when all they really want to do is have a piss-up.’
Beth laughed. ‘It gets hard these days to figure out what I’m doing because I want it to be special, and what I’m doing because I’m ingesting all this Instagram and Facebook stuff which istellingme that I need x, y and z to make it special.’
‘It’s like Christmas. The true meaning gets diluted because of consumerism; they just want you to keep buying stuff. That’s how they make money. They make you think that by having something you’ll be happier.’
Ash laced her fingers around her mug of tea and thought of what Olivier said about the celebrations. He’d compared Christmas and weddings too, but in a completely different way – how it wasn’t necessary but it was fun. Ashleigh wished she could figure out where she stood on the argument. She supposed more on the fun side really, because Beth wasn’t spending masses on her wedding, but she was still celebrating and sharing it with her family and friends. There was a middle ground between being a consumer sheep and a misery guts wasn’t there?
‘I’m already very happy.’ Beth smiled.
