Here’s Looking At You. Mhairi McFarlane
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she was quite a rowdy skanger when she got a drink in her. Marianne said Clare with wine was like a Gremlin with water,’ Aggy said. ‘She used to show clients her bikini-line tattoo that said mama is forever in Sanskrit and our boss had to tell her to stop because the older ones haven’t heard of vajazzling yet and she could upset them.’
‘What does mama is forever mean?’ Anna asked.
‘Her mum died of an aneurysm in Bluewater. It was a tribute.’
‘A tribute in the form of writing on her fanny? Who wants that? Mum, would you like me to get RIP JUDY down there?’ said Anna.
‘I can’t say how I’d feel if I’d died,’ her mum said. ‘I think I’d rather have a memorial fig tree at St Andrew’s.’
‘So that’s a pass to this one?’ Sue interjected, desperately.
Anna felt a whisper of remorse that Judy wasn’t sitting next to someone who’d do firework show gasps of ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at the gowns, but to some extent you played the role that fell to you in a family. There was no question Anna had pulled the voice of reason straw in hers.
People often reacted with disbelief that Judy was their mother, firstly because she was youthful-looking and expensively blonde-streaked for her fifty-something years. And secondly, what with coming from Surbiton, entirely un-Italian looking. She was inordinately proud of her daughters’ continental heritage and made a point of using their full names. Their father, funnily enough, was less of a fan, pronouncing Aureliana and Agata as ‘not traditional’.
‘Your mother goes and registers these fooling names behind my back, saying it was her hormones! She does this twice! Can you believe it?’
Anna certainly could believe it. It was also very like her dad to let her mum have her way.
‘Mum. How is Aggy paying for all of this?’ Anna said in a low voice.
‘She has a good salary. And savings. And Chris has money.’
‘Not that much money. Do you not think this might be getting out of hand?’
‘You only do it once. I know it’s not your sort of thing, but it’s her special day.’
Anna bit her tongue. She’d have a quiet word with her dad instead. The family had two distinct factions: Anna and her father’s more sober self-containment, and her mother and Aggy’s silliness. As Aggy changed again, Anna feared Sleeping Beauty was the start of a very long hike around London’s upscale dress shops.
There was a loud shriek from the changing rooms.
‘Has her false leg fallen off?’ Anna said.
Sue appeared, only her head poking through the brothel curtain, wreathed in stagy drama.
‘We’ve got something rather special here,’ which Anna took to mean, I think she’s about to buy this, so stay on bloody message, bitches.
Aggy walked out wearing a sheepish smile and what was obviously The Dress. It had a full Tinkerbell skirt in glistening layers of raggy tulle and a strapless, thimble-sized bodice, which Anna wouldn’t have been able to wrestle her ribcage inside. Aggy looked like she should be onstage in a ballet, and rather wonderful.
‘Oh Agata!’ Judy said, bursting into tears and jumping up to hug her.
‘S’amazing, Mum,’ Aggy sniffled. ‘I feel like a princess.’
Anna stayed put and let her mum’s raptures subside while she poured the last dregs of the cava into her glass.
‘Don’t you like it?’ Aggy called to Anna.
‘I do. I’m toasting a job well done. You look like you’re really getting married in that. And only the second dress. Good going. Honestly, you look beautiful. It’s “big wedding” but it’s tasteful.’
Aggy twirled and pinched at layers of the skirt, letting them drift back down. ‘You know how they say when you meet The One, you know? I’ve just met the one.’
After sufficient cooing, sighing and ogling had taken place, and an elated Sue had dashed off to find the paperwork, Anna asked how much it was.
‘Three,’ Aggy said.
Anna’s mouth made an ‘O’.
‘And a half,’ Aggy added. ‘And another 250. It’s £3,750. Veil not included.’
‘Gordon’s alive, Aggy! Four grand on something you’re going to wear once?’
‘Don’t you like it?’ Aggy pouted.
‘I think you look amazing, I think you could look amazing for half that though. A large proportion of the amazing is you. Like Sue said, you’d look lovely in most things.’
‘Hmmm,’ Aggy twirled again. ‘Mum?’
‘You look like Audrey Hepburn! Or Darcey Bussell in The Nutcracker!’
‘Soon you’ll need to be a safe cracker.’
Aggy giggled.
Anna was in a bind. If she counselled against the expense of this dress any further, they’d simply question her motives. She’d be accused of letting bitter spinster wrath wreck Aggy’s happiness. Nevertheless, Anna genuinely felt no unsisterly envy. She’d need to want to marry someone before she could seriously covet a wedding. She couldn’t put the gown before the groom.
‘I’m going to make sure single men come to the wedding. For you,’ Aggy said, as if her mind was running along similar lines.
‘Yes. You should get out and see people, Aureliana,’ their mum said, as if this was the moment to finally address her elder daughter’s agoraphobia.
‘I meet people!’ Anna said.
Aggy was twisting her hair into a chignon and pouting, angled towards a mirror. Judy bustled off for a confab with Sue.
‘I went to a school reunion,’ Anna said.
‘Did you?!’ Aggy said, hand slipping from hair and jaw falling open, reflection momentarily forgotten. ‘Why?’
‘Thought I’d face my fear. It was pointless, as it turns out that fear didn’t know my face. Seriously Ags, not one of them twigged who I was. I don’t know whether to be pleased or not. Michelle says it’s proof I’ve left it behind for good.’
‘Did you see … any of them?’ Aggy said.
‘Er … oh. James Fraser?’ Anna said, with a hollow little laugh.
‘James Fraser?! What did he say?’
‘Nothing. He didn’t know who I was either. Still so far up himself it’s unbelievable. I felt like saying to him, you know you were only a hero when you were sixteen? Now you’re nobody.’ Anna surprised herself with the vehemence in her voice.
‘Real talk. Is he still totes bangable?’
‘Depends on whether you like cardigans and cancer of the personality.’
‘Aw, does he look like Elmer Fudd now? No way!’ Aggy placed a hand on her hip and turned, with difficulty in the fantasy dress.
Anna smiled.
‘He remains vile and arrogant but also still good-looking, which is all that matters, obviously.’
‘I simply need to take a deposit!’ Sue said, emerging again, triumphant, their mother in tow. Aggy demanded their mum bring her Alexa handbag.
They left, showered in Sue’s love, with Anna feeling distinct unease at her sister’s spendthriftery.
After hasty goodbyes outside in the miserable weather, with their mum having to rush to catch her bus to Barking, Anna tried to reason with Aggy.
‘You