Page 24 of Summer on the French Riviera
‘Midsummer’s day is only about three weeks away, we could hold it then. Give us time to meet a few more people and organise things.’
‘As long as you don’t turn it into a fancy-dress party,’ Gabby said.
‘Now, there’s an idea.’ Elodie laughed and pulled out her phone to check the calendar. ‘Midsummer day is in the middle of the week this year, so how about the Saturday the week before. Gives us two weeks to organise things. Plenty of time.’
Harriet got as far as saying ‘No’ to the idea of fancy dress, when the rest of her words were drowned out by lots of car horns blaring non-stop. ‘What on earth?’
‘Sounds like a wedding,’ Gabby said. ‘They’ll all be on their way to the reception.’
‘Ooh, exciting. I love weddings,’ Elodie said, jumping up. ‘I’m going to have a look.’ And she ran through the house and out to the front gates.
A white vintage convertible car was leading a slow parade of cars around the grass roundabout. The bride and groom were smiling and waving happily as a couple of people threw rose petals over them. In the car behind, three teenage bridesmaids were laughing and giggling together. And all the time, drivers of the following cars were sounding their horns. It was all over in less than five minutes as the cars left the impasse and made for the main road.
Elodie went back into the villa and re-joined Gabby and Harriet out on the terrace.
‘The bride looked so happy,’ she said, flopping down onto a chair. ‘The bridesmaids too. I’d have loved to have been a bridesmaid when I was little, but nobody ever asked me.’ She was quiet for a moment, remembering how she and her school friends, Carole and Beth, had promised to be each other’s bridesmaids when needed. Carole had got engaged at Christmas, but would she remember the promise the three of them had made now that Elodie lived in France?
‘That’s not true. You have been a bridesmaid,’ Harriet said.
Elodie glanced at her. ‘No, I haven’t. I would have remembered. Anyway, how can you possibly know. You haven’t been around for years. Oh sorry,’ she said. ‘Gabby would probably have written and told you, I expect, but I wasn’t.’
‘No, she didn’t write to tell me,’ Harriet said. ‘Because I was the bride. You were my bridesmaid when I married Todd.’
The intense sudden silence that enveloped all of them at Harriet’s words exploded in Elodie’s head, like a bad migraine, as she stared at her mother. The silence hung in the air for half a minute before Elodie spoke. ‘I was your bridesmaid? So why did you and Todd not take me to Australia with you?’
Harriet closed her eyes. Why, oh why, had she entered into a conversation about bridesmaids? This was no easier to answer than any of the other questions Elodie had voiced.
‘Because he didn’t want to bring up another man’s child,’ she said quietly. ‘And he didn’t really like children, never wanted any of his own.’
Gabby stood up. ‘Harriet, I need you to help me fetch something from the garage. Elodie, please wait here.’
Elodie gave a shrug. ‘Whatever.’ Her brain was positively buzzing with Harriet’s words as she tried to drag up a memory that she was sure didn’t exist. She knew she’d been four years old when Harriet had left, other people had memories from that young age. Why didn’t she? Harriet had no place in her childhood memories at all. All her early memories had Gabby in them, not her mother. Gabby, who waited patiently at the side of the slide in the park as Elodie climbed up again and again. Gabby, who hugged her when she fell over and scraped her knees. Gabby, who cuddled her on her lap and read stories. Gabby, who promised never to leave her.
She must have been about six years old when she saw a bridal group outside St Saviour’s church posing for photographs. The bride was wearing a white dress with lots of layers and to Elodie she looked like Cinderella going to the ball. Two children, about Elodie’s own age, were standing in front of the bride. The boy had a proper grown-up suit on, but the girl, oh, the girl’s dress made Elodie gasp. It was a pale pink miniature version of the bride’s dress with a few less layers. It was in that moment the desire to be a bridesmaid had been born in Elodie. She wanted to wear a dress just like that. Only blue, she didn’t much like pink. She remembered that moment quite clearly.
But it now appeared that she had been a bridesmaid two years earlier, to her own mother. An event she had no recollection of at all. Not even of wearing a fancy dress, which she must have surely? Fancy dresses were a prerequisite of being a bridesmaid.
Elodie wrapped her arms around her chest and closed her eyes. If she had been at the marriage of her mother to Todd, how could she have forgotten such an important event? One that was to have such an impact on her own life. There must be some sort of memory lodged somewhere in her brain.
Elodie opened her eyes as Harriet and Gabby returned. Harriet was carrying the unopened box from the garage and she placed it on the ground by Gabby’s chair.
‘I think it’s about time we unpacked this box,’ Gabby said.
‘Why? What’s in it?’ Elodie said truculently, unfolding her arms.
‘Lots of memories.’ Gabby’s voice was quiet as she bent down and pulled open the flaps on the box. ‘Memories we need to talk about.’
She began to take things out of the box and lay them on the table. Folders, sketchbooks, loose photographs, misshaped pottery pots, a photograph album, old birthday cards with childish handwriting on, Beatrix Potter books, a copy ofPride and Prejudiceand some Enid Blyton books that had belonged to Harriet and which Gabby had read to Elodie.
Harriet reached out and picked up a folder with her name on it. ‘You kept my school reports,’ she said, flicking through the papers.
‘Of course. Elodie’s are in here too, somewhere. Ah, here’s what I was looking for.’ Gabby lifted a white drawstring cotton bag from the bottom of the box and pulled it open. Elodie and Harriet watched in silence as she carefully took something flat wrapped in tissue paper out of the bag. She gently unfolded the tissue to reveal a child’s summer dress. Pink with daisies scattered over it.
Elodie gasped. ‘I remember that dress. Why on earth did you keep it? Can I see it properly?’
Gabby didn’t answer the question but nodded and handed the dress to Elodie before reaching for the photo album that was on the table.
Elodie sat there touching and staring at the dress while her head started to pound again as a memory emerged from the fog of her brain. She vaguely remembered Gabby buying it for some occasion, telling her the day she wore it she had to be a really good girl for mummy’s sake. Why, why was it such a special day? The answer refused to come. The more she tried, the more her head hurt.
