Anne
Don’t think I’ve told you much about Serena’s sister Bink yet. Bonkers as a barrelful of baboons. Completely, certifiably loony.
Nevertheless, she inspires extreme loyalty in a handful of friends who seem willing to put their lives on hold to look after her through life’s many demanding vicissitudes. One of these being Nick: pure gold, utterly devoted to Bink and a very close friend.
Nothing more, you understand. Which, given that he is nearly twice her age and has two teenage children - and she is bright, beautiful and in her twenties (and, as I’ve indicated, utterly addled in the upper storey) - he would be the first to say is probably appropriate.
Anyway, Bink is going to be Serena’s bridesmaid. Not the Maid of Honour or Chief Bridesmaid, since we discovered that, according to Debrett’s, “The chief bridesmaid must, first and foremost, be a calm and collected presence who will reassure the bride.” As Bink is about as calming and reassuring as Hurricane Katrina with a hangover and several stubbed toes, the Maid of Honour organising Serena’s hen party and so on is their younger sister, Rosalie. Aged nine.
Bink is going to be Serena’s Other Bridesmaid.
Which, most people would understand, involves a spot of dress fitting from time to time. Bink hadn’t anticipated this, so it came as a bit of a shock and has caused an inordinate amount of stress, organisation, tranquillisers and so forth.
This is partly because one of her current neuroses this year happens to be committing to anything at all whatsoever, even a friendly trip down the road to Serena’s Best-Dressmaker-Ever-You-Must-Try-Her Melanie, at http://www.weddingworkshop.co.uk/. It took us four months to get Bink just to meet Melanie, once, at Christmas, thus causing her a week of panic attacks.
Just before Easter, at huge sacrifice to her peace of mind, Bink met Melanie again for her first fitting. Her gown, as designed by Melanie and Serena together, is going to be so exquisite that Melanie says Bink could get married in it herself - if she can’t cope with the stress of any more fittings for her own wedding when the time comes.
Yesterday, Bink asked if she could have a word with me. Serena and Christian were home for Bank Holiday Monday so we were taking advantage of this to have a prolonged and painful session with the guest list. “How long will doing that take?” Bink asked us.
“About three months,” I said. I promised to extricate myself so she could have a few minutes of my time.
When I came to find her, she seemed to have changed her mind. She was clearly very uncomfortable.
“Just give me an idea what it’s about,” I suggested.
“I don’t want Serena to know. Not yet.” Eventually she confessed, “It’s about my dress.”
That was as much as she could manage in one session, so we postponed our chat for a while and tried again later in the kitchen, when we could manage to get it to ourselves.
"How much have you spent on my dress so far?" she wanted to know. I gave some non-committal figure, considerably below the truth. “I want to support her and be there for her,” she continued unhappily. “I just can’t wear that dress. Do you think she would mind,” she asked, “if I wore a trouser suit or something?”
She would be heartbroken, of course. “She won’t mind at all,” I said gaily. “She just wants you there and happy.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Bink had loved the design at Christmas. She had said so, spontaneously. What could be the matter?
“You’re not thinking of a sex-change?” I hazarded. Anything possible, with Bink.
“Oh, I’m not ready for this conversation!” she exclaimed miserably. “Please don’t tell Serena or Christian. I don’t want anyone to know. Just tell Shaun.”
She blurted and spluttered a few more times, and then it came out.
“I’m pregnant.”
My word. Ok. That’s all right. Nobody dead or anything.
“Ah,” I managed kindly. “Who’s the father?”
“Why does everyone want to know that?” she wailed. “Nick asked me too.”
Not Nick's then.
“Well, it’s quite important,” I explained. “Is he someone you want to spend your life with? Will he be involved with the child’s upbringing.”
“No. Not at all.”
“A mistake then?”
“Totally,” she said sadly. Bink is the most passionately pro-life person I’ve ever known. I saw her future, and even more so mine, becoming more and more complicated over the next fifteen years. “I didn’t want it to be like this. To bring up a child on my own.”
“You are not on your own, Bink,” tears stung my eyes. “We are in this with you. All of us.” Meaning me, of course.
“Tell Shaun will you? Now? Please.”
I called him out of the drawing room, while Bink went back upstairs. To my dismay, he said, “It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
More complicated. I can cope. Ben’s coming out, I deduced immediately. Why, oh why do our lives always have to be so challenging?
“Nick spoke to me this morning,” Shaun went on. “He wants to propose to her.”
Impossible. We agreed. His life will be over if he signs up to looking after Bink for the next sixty years.
At this point they both entered the room together.
“Look,” Bink said, thrusting an explosion of sparkles under my eye, winking ominously from her left hand.
“Oh Bink,” I said, and hugged her. What else was there left to do?
“Look at it, do!” She took it off. Funnily enough, it wasn’t quite as beautiful as it had seemed through the fog before I put my spectacles on. But still very, very big. And there. Indubitably, two weddings to organise now.
I looked at it more closely.
Inside there was a little sticky paper label, with yesterday’s date on it...
I won’t repeat the language I used to them both, no.
Two results of this little witticism I will report back, however. One. For the rest of the evening, I wanted to be sick. Ben poured me a very large whisky and everyone else had to make the dinner.
“Christian,” I said. “When you come to breeding, take your time. No hurry at all. Give me another whisky.”
I have perpetrated some darned good April Fools in my time. On my father, in youth. Since marriage, on my husband. Never yet had one played on me. Let alone two. There were indications enough. Why would anyone go all the way to Cambridge, on a Bank Holiday - as Bink did - to visit a "clinic" with a made-up-on-the-spot implausible name, when you could walk into Boots for a pregnancy test? Thing is, I may not have explained properly yet but Bink is completely off her rocker screaming nuts, so anything becomes kind of credible, in a frightening way that subdues reason over the years.
Two. I honestly don’t care, now, if the marquee falls down, Serena’s dress goes up in flames, the flowers wilt, Serena and Christian don’t let me invite any of the guests I want, or anything else whatsoever. Bink is not having a baby. More to the point, she will fit into her lovely dress that we've taken so much trouble over.
What else could possibly matter?
It was the fastest answer to prayer I’ve ever had in my life. I hadn’t started praying yet.
I have been given the next twenty years of my life back, just like that. Easter present from God.
Do what you like, everybody. What do I care?