Page 80 of The Ghost of Exes Past

Then it starts, the constant knocking at the door. I pull the bedsheets tight around me as I stumble over cushions littering the floor after being tossed from the bed. I rub my eyes wearily as I open the door, still adjusting to the light of the winter sun filtering through the windows. We’d forgotten to shut the curtains last night.

It’s Jules at the door, here to help me get ready.

For my wedding day. With Timothy. Right. Shit.

‘Aye, love!’ she squeals at the state of me. I bring my hand to my hair and notice I can’t pull my fingers through it, it’s so knotted.

‘Bring me back to life, please, Grandma,’ I say, peering behind me to the mirror. I half-expect to see Jake in the reflection, but instead it’s just me, my makeup smudged and lips pale. I rub my head and drag myself towards the bathroom, bedsheets trailing behind me as Jules whizzes around the room, a gust of energy and excitement.

‘Great party last night, eh, hen?’ Jules says, noting the half-drunk bottle of whisky on the coffee table. She marches around, picking up pillows, last night’s dress, and knickers from the floor. I cringe.

It’s then that I notice. Outside – it’s white. Snow.

I rush over, both hands to the window, fumbling to open it as the bedsheets fall open. It’s actually settled, the snow. My breath steams up the glass as I scan the surroundings. The whole of Whitby is muffled under it. The rooftops, the pirate ship docked in the bay, the many gravestones on the churchyard clifftop – all of it blurred and softened and still. The abbey in the distance now looks like something from Narnia, instead of Dracula. The sky behind it is the particular white of an English winter morning that isn’t quite dawn and isn’t quite day – just a pale, held breath of light. The cold whips my face and chest but I don’t step back from it. I let it come in. It smells of salt and something mineral, the sea turning itself over anew.

I almost spot him then, standing there in the snow under the oak tree below. Jake, looking up at me from the grounds. But I blink and he’s gone.

Just the courtyard and the snow, unmarked.

I laugh weakly, shaking my head.

I finally got it, then, the white wedding I always dreamed of.

‘You’ll freeze,’ Jules says behind me.

I leave the window open for a few more seconds anyway, the cold coming in sharp, and I breathe it in until my eyes water. Then I pull the window shut and turn back to the room.

Timothy will be pleased. He knows how much I wanted this.

After a shower, a scrub, and a lot of tap water downed (note to self: why does water in Yorkshire taste so much better than in London?), I’m sitting on the stool in front of the dressing table. It wobbles underneath me, feeling somehow a little less stable than it did yesterday. Jules stands behind me, curling my hair.

‘Do you remember, sweetie, how I used to do your hair before school sometimes?’

‘I remember.’ I smile up at her reflection.

‘You always looked like a wee gremlin who’d been dragged through a hedge … And now look at you,’ she says, welling up.

I feel fourteen again for a moment. Except I watched fourteen-year-old me last night. I’ve watched every version of me, stumbling around, convinced she knew what she was doing. Now the only thing I know is that I’m doing my best with what I’ve got.

‘He always said you’d have the most beautiful wedding.’

‘Who did?’ I look up to her reflection in the mirror.

She stays focused on my hair. ‘Your grandad, of course. Said it when you were about seven. Every time you put on a fancy dress.’ She exhales, not quite a laugh. ‘His beautiful Belle, he’d say.’ I pinch my arm under my robe, willing myself not to cry.

Neither of us says anything for a moment. I reach up and put my hand over hers, where it rests on my shoulder. She gives my fingers a quick squeeze and that’s that. A deep breath, then back to the curling. I’m back to the mirror, blotting my lipstick.

‘He’d have ironed that suit three times this morning. Would have driven everyone absolutely daft.’

I laugh properly. ‘He really would have.’

The curling tong hisses.

‘Are Mum and Dad okay? Are they down there already?’

‘Your mother has been ready since half past six,’ Jules says, wrapping a strand of hair around the barrel of the tongs. ‘She’s on her third coffee and has already cried twice.’

I can picture it now: Mum unable to sit still, flapping around, offering everyone tissues when in fact it’s her who needs them most. She did offer to help me get ready but I convinced her to focus on herself, insisting that I needed a calm presence in the shape of Scottish Grandma to help me this morning.