Page 17 of The Woman Who Said Yes

Now I know what she means. Boyfriends crashing out at her place, hungover and grumpy the next morning and expecting endless cups of tea. Assuming that, as a fiercely independent woman, she wouldn’t care when they showed up late for dates, or not at all. I remember Harry leaving her waiting for over an hour in Hyde Park with the picnic she’d bought, then complaining about the basicness of the sandwiches, like he’d expected nothing less than a Fortnum & Mason hamper. ‘And having them act like I was never enough,’ she goes on. ‘Working in a “silly industry”, apparently. Making me feel stupid⁠—’

‘You are so not stupid!’

‘Remember when Harry said that? That I should think about doing something worthwhile that exercised my brain?’

‘I know! The bloody nerve…’ I’m aware of how complex Eva’s job can be. Her brain is exercised plenty.

‘And Giacomo suggesting that he could tag along as my assistant on that Miami trip?’

I laugh dryly. ‘He’d have been a lot of help.’

‘I know. And the thing is, it’s different with Dom. I don’t feel like I’m carrying him, Andie. He doesn’t care when there’s no food in my fridge and the milk’s off and he never takes the piss out of my clothes.’ I nod, remembering the guy who’d said, ‘Aren’t you going to change before we go out?’ when she was standing there all party-ready. ‘Dom has a full, busy life,’ Eva adds, ‘and I have mine, and he’s not trying to improve me. He just laughs when the flat’s full of clothes and there’s nowhere to sit down.’ She fixes me with a look. ‘You know I don’t give a fuck about expensive jewellery.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘So it’s not that. It’s not any of the material stuff. It’s just…’ She breaks off, and her cheeks redden. ‘He seems to think I’m brilliant, just the way I am.’

‘Because you are,’ I exclaim.

‘Well…’ She shrugs, laughing now. ‘It’s nice to feel this way. And he makes me feel like this – that I’m okay! And he loves me and I know it’s not just the sex or any of that. He’s in it for the long term…’ The long term’s overrated, I want to tell her, but of course I don’t. ‘The other thing,’ she concludes with a big, sunny smile, ‘is that no one’s ever asked me to marry them before.’

Oh my God, you’re a wonderful person, and the fact that you’ve never met anyone who’s appreciated your uniqueness doesn’t mean that you had to say yes. That’s what I want to say, but I can’t. Instead, as it’s clearly all systems go wedding-wise, I make a firm decision to change my attitude about Dom.

All that matters is Eva’s happiness. As long as he doesn’t hurt her or let her down, I’ll force myself to like him – in the way that I finally came round to the idea of Brussels sprouts. All my life I’d loathed them, until Sam had me and Eva over for a pre-Christmas dinner a couple of years ago. Instead of boiling them to soggy orbs, he’d braised them with butter so they were nutty and sweet and absolutely scrumptious, and now I could eat a bowlful done that way, all by themselves.

The talk turns to bouquets and buffets. Everything is to be delightfully casual: flowers from Eva’s friend who has a stall nearby. Tasty bits to pick at over drinks but nothing flash. The croquembouche will be the main event, their honeymoon a few nights away in a little boutique hotel in Sussex. My own wedding to Phil was a more formal affair: registry office, but with a proper sit-down dinner because his mother insisted that we’d look ‘cheap’ otherwise. It was a memorable day, but I can’t say it was fun exactly. Somehow I’d also been barraged into agreeing to have a terrible covers band – four guys Phil had met in police training – and I never felt that my in-laws thought me quite good enough for him.

As I leave Eva’s, I remind myself that at least she has always had the gumption to do things her way. She is a bold and adventurous woman who – crucially – has managed to scramble through life to this point without anything terrible happening. And here I am, fretting like a mother who’s caught a whiff of booze on her teenage daughter’s breath.

Eva is sixty years old, I remind myself. And Dom is basically sprouts. I can’t braise him in butter but Eva adores him, and somehow I’ll force myself to love him too.

10

That’s what I’m telling myself as I leave Eva’s flat. To see the positive in all of this.

Dom is not one of Eva’s usual alluring but ultimately disappointing flakes and that, surely, is a good thing? The early evening is pleasantly warm and everything is bathed in a golden light. It was a little shabby around here when Eva moved in, but now the sixties blocks have been spruced up, their grounds landscaped and prettily planted. The once grimy old boozer on the corner looks fresh and inviting with bright green paintwork and cheery window boxes.

At the independent bookshop, a lavishly tattooed man is carrying the wooden sign inside. Next to it is a vintage shop, almost impossibly narrow, as if squeezed between its neighbours. I glance in through the window to see neatly ordered rails and shelves of hats and bags and accessories. Lured by the glow of granny-type table lamps, I venture in.

‘You’re still open?’ I ask the young woman behind the counter.

‘Yes, take your time,’ she says with a smile, and I start to browse the rails. For the wedding I’m still thinking that slippery green Vinted dress might be an option, if it ever arrives. But there’ll be photos, and these will be widely shared and float about in the ether for evermore. I’ll stumble across one, in 2047: irrefutable evidence of my flouting of the exposing-of-flesh rule for the over fifties. While I’m confident that the dress isn’t perilously plunge-cut – we’re only talking arms – I’m thinking now that it might be wise to have a cover-up, just in case. A cape, perhaps, or some kind of shawl? If that won’t make me look like an ancient lady selling potatoes. I realise that buying some kind of shrouding layer before I’ve even tried on the dress is doing things back-to-front – like Eva agreeing to marry Dom before she’s even been invited to his house. But it’ll be good to have options.

‘Anything you’re looking for?’ the woman asks. I explain my dilemma, and she flits about, selecting a short black velvet cape embellished with coils of silvery stitching. Then, murmuring, ‘This could work – and this’, she picks out a fluffy deep blue bolero-type item, and what I’d have called a pashmina back in the late eighties.

‘Thanks,’ I say, studying each piece in turn.

‘What shade of green is your dress?’ she asks.

‘Hang on, I’ll get the picture.’ I fish out my phone and go to my orders and show it to her.

‘Oh, that’s gorgeous,’ she enthuses. ‘So elegant, and that colour will really suit you.’

‘You think so?’ Having gained the approval of a cool twentysomething, I feel better already.

‘Definitely,’ she says, and impresses upon me that the black velvet option would work perfectly.

‘I’ve never worn a cape,’ I admit, as if this is somehow remiss of me.