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Ninety Minutes Before I Do
Vivien fixed the dress. You could tell close up that the material didn’t hang smoothly, but crucially, Audrey wasn’t going to show the whole congregation her pants. In the mirror, Audrey saw a real bride. She looked elegant, poised, strangely ethereal. She’d had these recurring dreams over the last few months where she was a bride without a face, just a blur beneath a veil. But now here she was, in a dress, with a face – this was real. As she stood in front of the mirror, her mother came up behind her.
‘You look exquisite, darling. Consider my reservations dispelled, you can pull off this fabric.’
‘Thank you.’ Audrey reached out a hand to touch her mother’s arm.
When Clara went into the bathroom to do her own make-up, Vivien took the opportunity to revive the conversation she and Audrey had been having earlier.
‘Now, you mustn’t have doubts about Joshua. There’s nothing to doubt,’ Vivien said, leaning in and putting a hand on Audrey’s shoulder. ‘You complement each other so well. He’s so sensible, so grounded.’
‘You didn’t answer my question, about who the love of your life was.’
‘I think, if you’re lucky, you get more than one. Or maybe you’re luckier if one lasts you a lifetime, I don’t know.’ Vivien gave a childish shrug.
‘Did you have doubts before any of your weddings?’
‘Every time!’ Vivien cried. ‘Getting married is like skydiving. There’s always a moment before you jump out of the plane where you think, “What am I doing? I’m jumping out of a plane – I must be mad!” But then you jump and you’re glad you did. Unless you forgot to pack a parachute.’
‘What’s the parachute in this analogy?’
Vivien paused for a moment. ‘Mutual kindness. Don’t marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from, that’s what my aunt always told me. If a man isn’t kind to strangers, or at least respectful to his enemies, know that one day you might be a stranger to him, you might be his enemy. Joshua is definitely the sort of man you could be divorced from. That’s the highest compliment I can give him.’
‘The wisdom of Vivien Wey,’ Audrey said with a grin.
‘You get married enough times and you learn a thing or two.’ Vivien gave her daughter a wry smile. ‘Goodness, that reminds me, I have something for you.’ She turned away, going to her handbag on the bed and leafing through some papers inside. ‘I didn’t know when to give this to you. It was supposed to be last night, but then with your injury... well. I never know with these things.’
Vivien handed a creased envelope to Audrey.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s from your father. A letter for me to give you on your wedding day. He wrote it once he knew he wouldn’t live long enough to see it.’
Audrey felt herself welling up and put a hand across her mouth to stop herself from sobbing.
‘Don’t cry. You’ll smudge your make-up. It’s a happy letter, I’m sure, wishing you luck.’ Vivien reached out and wiped a finger beneath her daughter’s eyes, but Audrey noticed that there were tears in her mother’s eyes as well.
