White Wedding Read Free

up there.’
    ‘I’ve nothing better to do either,’ added Bel.
    ‘Okay, then,’ said Max. ‘Bel, since this is your official hen night, totally shite as it is, I think we ought to have a toast.’
    ‘Oh yes, we must toast you,’ agreed Violet, raising her glass. ‘ To our lovely new friend Bel.’
    ‘To Bel, may your wedding day be one to remember for ever.’
    Bel raised her glass and chinked it against theirs. ‘I think I can safely guarantee that it will be,’ she nodded with a syrupy smile.
    ‘What the heck is that mother of the bride wearing?’ laughed Violet, catching sight of a huge woman on the television in a banana-yellow-and-white spotted dress that barely covered
her knickers. The woman’s spray-tanned skin was the colour of a teak sideboard. ‘Do you think your mum would dress like that, Max, if you really do have a gypsy wedding?’
    ‘There’s no “if” about it,’ Max said. And once Max had spoken, it would happen – and on no small scale. Max by name and max by nature. When Max put a plan
into action, nothing stood in her way.
    She sighed, drifting back into the fabulous world of the young traveller brides. All Stuart’s plans for a small no-fuss registry-office wedding had been blasted into oblivion that evening.
In place of the intended simple suit already hanging in her wardrobe, she was going to source a dress like no other. She saw acres of net and fairy lights that lit up as she glided down the aisle.
She saw a sugar-iced palace cake, Kew Garden-sized flower displays. She imagined herself spray-tanned not so much to a sun-kissed mocha shade but to sun-shagged mahogany, and waving to passers-by
in a carriage led by a team of white horses.
    Bel watched the gypsy bride posing for photographs, her dress and flowers filling even a wide-angled lens. As mad as it appeared, it was still a real wedding, for a real bride in real love with
her man.
    As for Violet, she gulped at the emotion in young gypsy Margaret’s face as she turned to kiss her handsome floppy-haired Joseph. They looked truly besotted with each other, which was just
as well because they were expected to be together for the rest of their lives. Marriage was for good. Till death us do part. Or maybe even for eternity. An ice-cold shiver accompanied that
thought.

Chapter 2
    ‘Where have you been until this time?’ Glyn called, leaning out of the open window.
    ‘What are you doing, still up?’ Violet raised her hand to wave a small goodbye to the taxi driver then she entered through the security door, taking the stairs at no rushed speed up
to the first-floor flat. Glyn was waiting to greet her dressed in his faithful blue dressing gown, which had been voluminous on him when he bought it last year but now had barely an overlap of
material at the front.
    ‘You know I can’t sleep until you’re back home safely. There are so many nutters out there. Doesn’t help that I’ve just been watching a Crimewatch special
about a rapist on the loose in Sheffield.’ He ushered her in through the door and helped her off with her coat.
    ‘You worry too much, Glyn,’ said Violet, as he leaned over and kissed her cheek, all smiles now that she was safely back in his world. Once upon a time she used to melt thinking
about how much he cared and worried about her.
    ‘I’ve just put the kettle on.’
    Violet knew that kettle would have been on a constant boil for at least an hour in readiness for her return.
    ‘Want some toast as well?’
    ‘No, thanks. We had a Mexican at Bel’s. I’m full to bursting.’
    Glyn stuck his head near to her face and sniffed. ‘I know, I can smell the garlic. Lucky for you I like it second-hand.’ He grinned and tweaked her cheek, then went back to the job
of brewing a fresh pot of tea. She noticed he had a huge plate of biscuits waiting on the coffee table as well. These days his life seemed so food-orientated. She often wondered if he was trying to
fatten her up so much that she