CHAPTER 27
Merry was looking at them with a very practised eye, I realised. This wasn’t a woman flicking through the racks with a vision of tiered romance and fluffy whiteness, this was someone with very clear ideas as to the ideal wedding dress. I turned on her.

“Miriam, you have been planning this for a while, haven’t you?”

Once more the blush, the dropped eyes, but the grin was lurking. “As soon as I realised where you were going, Annie, I was looking on the computer and in the shops.”

“And the rest of the story?”

She shrugged. “A woman can dream, can’t she? Look, it wasn’t just me playing imaginary dressing-up games with you; even Mam has noticed, our colouring, our hair, I was seeing me in you, and I dared to have a small dream, and of course, now, it is no longer beyond belief. Things have changed…”

She caressed her ring, smiling distantly, as I waited for her return to rational discussion. Shan was grinning, and I suddenly understood she had already worked out what I was going to say to Merry.

“Yes, Shan, you have something?”

“Yeah, I got something, and Merry needs to think, yeah. Merry, what’s Annie’s biggest worry? That people think she some bloke, yeah? Some man in drag, lahk. An’ there’s you, you dreaming of bein’ her, how you think she feel, a born woman dreaming of bein’ her, bein’ Annie? That a real compliment, innit?”

She looked up at me, quizzically, and I could read the question in her eyes: did I say the right thing? Did I sound grown up and sensible? Did I make the bigger people angry at me again? The fragility was there, but so was the suspicion of pride, that she might just have shown some maturity. I smiled.

“That is why I picked you as BFF, Shan. You can see through things to what matters, aye? Absolutely right, you are. Merry, only Eric has ever paid me a bigger compliment, and I am afraid you can never top that one, aye, as it involves love and marriage and stuff. Now, as you have put so much research into things already, what ideas have you come up with?”

“Ah, cuz, it’s all a matter of making the best of your best, if you catch my drift. Neither of us is exactly buxom, isn’t it?”

“Oy, woman, nothing wrong with my tits, two satisfied customers, aye?”

“Not my point, Annie. What I intended to say was that we are both girls of leg and length, not of chest and hip”

“You mean arse, don’t you? In other words our figures are not so much hourglass, more minute hand, aye?”

“We are much alike, Annie, and you are becoming more so, and I have it on good authority that our bottoms are not unacceptable to behold”

Shan smirked. “Yeah, Simon likes her bum, yeah!”

“Oh shut up, or I shall withhold the cake. Now, what worked well for Kirsty will obviously not do for us, yes? Kirsty is rather…endowed”

Her tone changed, and Merry almost whispered “I thought, if she turns too quickly, the momentum…she’d fall over”

“So what do you suggest, cuz?”

She straightened up, and with a schoolteacher’s nod said “Regency. High waist, bosom rounded, soft flare to the body of the gown. And I thought a close-fitting cap to the head, a very simple veil, so almost a Twenties look, apart from the bust. Pearls or similar to the cap, of course…”

“So you haven’t given this too much thought at all, aye?”

Her blushing was getting more frequent. I saw my cousin clearly, now, the lonely, shy, romantic girl, with standards set so high that nobody had ever satisfied them, seeing her life heading down the long and arid slope to spinsterhood. Then, bang, he is there, and the dreams are no longer impossible. I had to ask.

“Merry, are you, you know, hoping for kids?”

That schoolteacher nod once more. “The Good Lord will decide that, my dear”

“That wasn’t what I asked, was it?”

Shan was looking on with interest. Merry unwound a little. “Yes, to be honest, as I always strive to be, yes. I do want children, but, Annie, cariad, I never wanted to put you in that position…”

“Oh, love, there are lots of women who can’t, but most of us can love, and that is the important thing, aye? Shan, what would that make you? You are a sort of niece to me, aye, so what would that make Merry’s kids when she has them?”

Shan put some real thought into that one. “She your cousin, so that make me sort of wossit, second cousin removed stuff, lahk, an’ that sound silly, so…look, Merry, you my friend first, yeah, so why not I be an aunty? Sound better, lahk, sound, dunno, CLOSER, more love and stuff”

I had to go to the ladies’ just then, as my eyes had sprung a leak, and once I was settled again we started a structured search for the gown as described by Merry, and of course she had actually been looking up the shop we were in on the internet, and there it was, where her dreams met the designer’s and it was perfect. The fabric was in a variety of textures, and the bodice–the only word I could think of–the bodice was softness and sensuality made cloth, and of course we both had to try one on, which meant that Chantelle had to be included in the game, and the girl had been so completely right when she thanked Merry for her compliment. Three of us there, laughing, joking, feeling loved and pretty in the dresses we modelled for each other, and all three losing stains and demons that had perched on our shoulders whispering.

Unloved spinster.
Abomination and pervert.
Dirty little whore.

The sales girl was full of her own compliments, which made the day even better.

“So, which of you is the bride?”

Shan grinned. “That one first, yeah”

Merry laughed. “My cousin here in September. I am only recently engaged, so it will be a little later, and Little Miss Precocity there still has a few years of happiness to grow into her life before she is on this route”

The assistant was nodding. “Yes, I can see the similarities. That style does suit you both, as you have such lovely slim hips. I helped another lady with her gown some months ago, and she was very different. This style would not have suited her at all, she was a little more…”

She made a movement considerably in front of her own breasts, and Shan giggled. “She about this tall, big bum, yeah? Annie, we in the shop where Kirsty got hers!”

The girl was stammering “Oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t realise you knew each other”

I held up both hands. “Not at all, she is a close friend, and she looked lovely only a few days ago, aye? If you are the people who made her look so beautiful, that’s a definite recommendation to us to see what you can do, aye?”

In the end, there was really no contest. Merry’s eye had been spot on, and I could see myself in the exact gown. I paid a deposit, and the girl promised to have two dresses held, one in a twelve and the other in a fourteen, just in case. Then Shan spoke up.

“Annie, you forgot something, yeah?”

"Wossat, Shan?”

She giggled. “Well, we’s gonna have cake in a bit, yeah, but you gotta see about bridesmaids an’ flower girls…”

I must have winced at that, and our assistant just smiled. “We have a scheme for that. No need to buy, we rent”

She must have caught the looks rising behind our eyes, because she immediately assured us that she only meant the supporting cast.

“A girl’s wedding dress is not to be hired, certainly not from us, trust me.”

And two hours later, we finally slumped into the plush seats of a tea shop, and cake was selected and consumed as feet were rested. I had to make the point to the other two.

“Girls, a while ago, Eric and me, well, we had this woman, a sales assistant, and we were trying to get my wardrobe expanded, and she said something like ‘There are special shops for people like you’, and today, that girl, it was all woman stuff, aye?”

Merry sniffed. “But that is what you are, isn’t it?”

“Yes, love, but it’s like Shan said earlier, the acceptance is the thing. I have had a few moments, but today, well, can I just say I love you both?”

The paper napkins they give you are pretty poor for tears, so it was a good job that Merry had a supply of decent tissues in her handbag.