“What do you want me to do here?” he asked. That was a good question and one that I hadn’t given much thought to, but Arty didn’t wait for an answer. “As soon as we have a final date for the end of the dig, I’ll let you know, then we can go round and make a list.”
Then, he said, “I’ve been wearing the clothes you made all over the place. My girlfriend loves them as well. We wondered if you could make her one like the first one you made me, the red and yellow one.”
“Yes,” I said. “There’s loads of that material left. I’ll have to measure her. When can she come round?” They could have matching his and hers, I thought, with chagrin.
We arranged a visit for the following week, on a Mrs. Billings day, in case I needed help with the measuring.
I spent the rest of the day in a depression I kept telling myself to come out of. After all, Arty was nearly two decades younger than me and I was a married woman. He’d never suggested anything other than what we were doing, and I’d never expected anything different. But it had been such a change from the time I spent with James.
There was more bad news when Mrs. Billings arrived.
“Polly Thrussell’s boy’s been let go from your place,” Mrs. Billings said, as I poured the tea. “Have you got any positions here?”
After a minute I realized that “Polly Thrussell” was Mrs. Thrussellfrom the teashop, but I couldn’t make head nor tail of the rest of it. “From my place?” I asked.
“Lord James’s business,” she said. “He’s let them all go. All the ones that were left, most of them had their marching orders a while ago. Young Oliver Thrussell was working there.”
“Oh dear,” I said. “I don’t think we’re taking on here at the moment.”
“She’s going to be disappointed. I said there was always something needed doing.”
After that, things felt slightly awkward, and it was a relief at the end of the morning to finally see Mrs. B climbing into Mr. B’s van.
As they drove away the implications of what she’d said settled on me: He’d let all his office staff go. The Bentley was gone and the two-hundred-thousand-pound watch was gone. Whatever next?
***
James said nothing about the redundancies when he got home, nor did he mention the skirt I was wearing, made from hand towels and created especially to provoke him. He didn’t even comment on the crispy shredded breaded duck I presented him with—a new find. He said nothing. Nothing at all.
So I asked him about the redundancies.
“I’m tightening up the ship,” he said. “Getting rid of the deadwood.” Then he gave me a very strange look.
“But they were our wedding guests!” I said.
When James and I were ready to send out wedding invitations, we found that between us we had no friends and very little in the way of family to invite, but the church seated more than four hundred and the reception venue—Langley Hall—had room for significantly more.
So, James took out his BlackBerry and opened up his emails. “This is how you fill a church,” he said and typed “save the date” in the subject line. Then he wrote:
You are all warmly invited to the wedding of James William Dixon and Daisy “Daydream” Langley on Saturday, 17 May 2003, at 2 p.m., St. Anne’s Church, Upper Iffley and to the reception and evening event afterward at Langley Hall. Overtime will be payable to each attendee from 1.30 p.m. until thefreebar opens at 7 p.m. RSVP by 29 March 2003.
He pulled up contact groups from his address book, and invitations went out to the staff at James’s office and the contractors who carried out building maintenance. Then we sent paper invitations, with the same offer, to Mrs. Dobson, who was my first primary school teacher, the Crawford family, whom I used to babysit for, and Mr. and Mrs. Billings. In that way we filled the church.
In the run-up to the wedding, James was too busy to get involved with the preparations, he just instructed me to make it the event of the year and kept topping up the account he’d opened for the expenses. I went to all the dress fittings by myself, and I didn’t care. James offered the services of his mother, Mrs. Dixon senior, to accompany me, but strangely, we couldn’t find a time that would suit, even though we both had all day every day.
Anyway, I could tell whether the dress looked nice or not without an audience. I could have done with a bit of advice on whether to buy some kind of headwear or not—I was still new to unimaginable wealth and I didn’t know if it would be class or crass. In the end, I judged by the prices, assumed they were class, and bought adiamond-studded diadem. When I thought about it later, I realized nobody at the wedding was going to be able to naysay me. We were all pretty common.
I had a team to help me with everything else. I had a florist, an interior designer, a hair stylist, a makeup artist, the cake company, the caterers, a photographer, and we all really hit it off. In no time we were a little posse. We set up a messaging group, which was a new experience for me, called “Daisy’s Big Day,” and I found myself checking morning, noon, and night for their chatty little messages.
Your hair is going to look amazing, the stylist wrote.I can’t wait to see it with the dress and makeup.
I’m really excited for the photos, the photographer said.The house is such a great venue.
Are you going to take a pic of the cake?the baker asked her.
Of course!
Get the dress in the sunlight. I’m weaving silver thread through it, the dressmaker posted.
