Miranda's Wedding Chapter 6.
With her hands still damp from picking up ice-cubes, Andy carried through two full glasses of scotch, for she reckoned she needed some Dutch courage as well. She pushed down the study door handle with her elbow and stepped inside. Miranda was obviously waiting for her, but standing at the window looking out into the blackness of the back yard. Her whole body was rigid with anger.
Andy knew there was no point in prevaricating.
"I did try to call you. I did. All day. And last night I wanted to talk, to tell you the bad news, but there was just no time . . . . "
Miranda turned on her heel and flashed her eyes at Andy, who secretly thought, "Oh, she is magnificent when she's angry, but so scary!"
"Oh, so at least you now think it was bad news? I would have thought you were ecstatic, the way you rushed off with Emily to cook up this ridiculous scheme. Apparently according to the woman at the inn it's a done deal!"
"Miri . . . "
"Don't Miri me! I'm not a child, even though you obviously think you can treat me like one!"
"Miranda, darling. Stop! Here have a drink. Sit down and rest your feet, and let me explain!"
"Stop being so bloody condescending! I am in charge of you, not the other way round! Anyway, I've cancelled the whole idea. Emily and Serena may do as they please, but they are not invading our wedding!"
"Miranda! Why are you like this? You're being unreasonable."
Andrea's attempts at studied calm and rationality sent Miranda up through the roof. She flipped right back into dragon lift-off mode, and also forgot for a moment that there were children asleep above their heads. She actually shouted at Andrea.
"How dare you speak to me like that? Is it unreasonable to expect my fiancée to show some loyalty to me, to pay me the courtesy of maybe asking how I would like things done? Is it too much to hope that we don't share the day with a violent ex-con drug dealer, who almost destroyed my childhood and sent one of my best friends to jail?"
"What? What the hell are you talking about now? Have you gone quite mad, Miranda?"
As Andrea tried to pass her a glass of scotch, Miranda hand went up in a violent gesture of despair and there was a sound of crashing glass as she accidentally pushed the drink out of Andy's wet fingers. It fell with a resounding crash of broken glass and alcohol and ice-cubes were tossed against the wall. They dripped down forlornly onto the recently installed beautiful blue carpet.
It was at that point that two very frightened little faces came bursting through the door, along with a distraught puppy who had already started barking at all the commotion.
"Mommy! Andy! What's the matter? Are you fighting?"
"Oh please, please don't fight! We can't bear it!"
The twins ran into the study in their pyjamas. Caroline hurled herself sobbing at her mother, while Cassidy rushed over to protect Andy, whom she imagined was being assaulted.
"Mom, don't hurt Andy! Whatever she did, don't hurt her! She's sorry. I'm sure she'll say she's sorry. Don't be angry with her!""
Miranda and Andy stared at each other in horror, and realised they appeared to the twins to be in the middle of a classic scene of domestic violence. The children's terror immediately altered the dynamic between them, and they acted together to reassure them that no-one was hurting anyone. The glass of scotch falling and breaking had just been an accident.
They both sat down on the two seater sofa and each pulled a twin onto their laps.
"Sshh, hush, we're so sorry darlings. Andy and I were only talking. The glass slipped, that's all. Really, we're fine."
"Completely fine," added Andy, smoothing Cassie's curls back from her anxious little face. "Everyone has disagreements sometimes. Remember how you nearly pulled Caroline's hair out that time you thought she'd stolen your book."
"Are you going to pull Mommy's hair out?"
"No darling, every hair on your Mom's head is precious to me. We love each other, very, very much. We would never hurt each other."
"But we've never heard you quarrel before," said Caroline, "not ever. Mom sounded really angry, just like she used to be when Stephen came in drunk and smelling of trollops."
Andy had to hide a smile. Wherever had Caroline picked up that word?
Cassie's lip quivered. "Don't you love each other anymore? Is it our fault?"
Miranda bit her lip. She now blamed herself for the whole row, and her anger towards Andrea had turned into acute feelings of guilt. It was unforgiveable to frighten her children like that. She put her arms round them both and held them close.
"My sweet girls. I'm so sorry. I just wrongly blamed Andy for something which wasn't her fault at all. We do love each other, completely, and we certainly both love you just as much as well. Of course it's not your fault. Now I'm glad you've woken up, because it means that I have the great joy of taking you both back to bed and tucking you in. Let's go upstairs together." She stood up and the girls stood with her, embracing her fiercely. She could tell they were still very anxious and upset.
"And I'll clean up the glass. Be careful no-one steps in it," said Andrea, calmly and lightly following Miranda's cue. "Matilda will help me."
Caroline smelt the whiskey and turned to her mother with a very stern look. "You must stop drinking, Mommy! Daddy has, so why can't you?"
Andy felt the need to explain. "That was my fault, darling. Don't blame your Mom. I just poured her a drink because I knew she'd come in tired and frustrated, that's all."
"Alcohol solves nothing!" said Caroline, quoting her paternal grandmother.
"Absolutely right, dear. It won't happen again. We promise."
"So are you going to get married? Or is the wedding all off now?" demanded Cassie, still not convinced.
"It's absolutely going to happen. If Andrea will have me."
"Which of course I will. What else am I going to do with the rest of my life?"
"Good," said Cassie. "Because Uncle Nigel is coming round tomorrow, and I want to ask him if I can change my bridesmaid's dress for a pair of designer pants. Why do bridesmaids always have to wear sissy dresses? That's what I want to know!"
Absorbing that startling question, Miranda shepherded her girls out of the door and Andy was left to clear up the mess in the study. When they'd all gone, she took a long swallow from her own glass of scotch.
Despite what they'd said to reassure the children, she knew Miranda and she had had a serious row, and the kids were right. It was the first time they'd ever seriously quarrelled. She knew there was more to say, much more, but where to begin? And what had Miranda been going on about, talking about drug-dealers of all things? Without realising it, she must have touched a very raw nerve for Miranda to fire up like that.
Matilda, the puppy looked up and cocked her fluffy little head on one side, as if she was asking the same questions.
"I know sweetie, I know. Now let's get a cloth and bottle of spray and clean up Mommy's beautiful study before she comes back."
Miranda stayed upstairs for a good forty minutes, presumably to settle her daughters and reassure them again, and again, that she hadn't meant to hurt their beloved Andy. But when she came back downstairs and met Andy, in the family room this time, it was obvious that she'd also showered and changed out of her day clothes, and was now in her nightgown and robe with bare feet thrust into the fluffy slippers Andy had given her as part of her Christmas present.
The dragon had completely flown, and she looked smaller, warmer and completely vulnerable. She walked towards Andy with tears in her eyes, and Andy drew her in and held her tightly, with tears in her eyes as well. They sat down together on the larger sofa in the room, and Andy pulled Miranda's head down against her shoulder and kissed her hair.
"Sweetheart, I am so, so sorry!" she said. "Of course I should have asked you, well, told you, first of all. I just got carried away with problem solving. You know, like at Runway, when we tried to smooth the way in front of you. You never knew half of the disasters which happened on the way to every issue. And of course Emily was distraught and thought, quite rightly, that you would put her on a BBQ and turn the flame up, so we were searching for a solution, that's all."
Miranda held her quietly and tried to explain why she'd been so upset. Now though, she wasn't really so sure herself, except that she hadn't eaten for nearly twelve hours, and was still exhausted after taking five flights in three days.
"I did know about most of the disasters," she said quietly, as a preamble. "Even if I didn't let on. I always had to watch Emily like a hawk. If there was anything to misunderstand, you could guarantee she be there first in line."
Andy chuckled. "Like when she was trying to work out who you were dating, and sent me off to spy on you?" *
"Yes, exactly. But one crucial thing, Emily hasn't understood at all, is the fact that I know her father only too well from my teenage years. I recognised him immediately at the Christmas party.** "Bobby" Charlton, the nastiest spiv in South London, who corrupted half the kids at my school, and got my foster-brother sent down for drug-dealing when he was simply acting as one of his runners, that's who the Reverend Charlton is."
"What?! My God, Miranda! And you confronted him at the party? Wow, no wonder he stopped persecuting Emily and Serena for being gay. But we all thought, as she does, that he's simply a retired Anglican vicar!"
"I know, Bobby told me he found Jesus in prison, and turned over a new leaf, but in his case, it would have had to have been a whole damn forest floor, come to that. He apparently married after he was released, and then went off to train to be a priest. He thought I'd shop him, but I rose above his level. But I did urge him to come clean to his daughter, which he obviously hasn't done yet. And you know, just thinking about him makes me feel sick. It was one of his henchmen who raped me and caused me to have an abortion when I fourteen."***
"Bloody hell. Do you think he knew at the time, or even remembers?"
"I think he's conveniently forgotten if he did know. But now do you understand better why I don't really want to share our wedding with him?"
"One hundred percent."
"I sort of had a flashback when I heard from the woman at the Inn all about your shiny new plans. But I'm so sorry I was angry and shouted at you tonight."
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you either. Right through your amazingly stressful day."
"That was my fault. I'm an idiot. I should have remembered to charge my phone."
"No, that's my job, part of looking after you. I should have made sure. My fault."
"Let's not fall out over who's most to blame. It was just a sequence of accidents. But it was horrible to see the twins so upset. I hated the way they immediately referenced it back to Stephen."
"Yes, oh and darling, they told me something very sweet, and very surprising at breakfast this morning, though with everything that's happened today it feels like a month ago . . . "
"What?"
"While they were at my parents, they did hear about the tabloid and page six gossip about your divorce, from a school friend who texted them. And they think it was their idea to take my parents camping, so they wouldn't be upset by it all! They said they were so happy you were away in Italy, so you didn't learn about it either. Aren't they adorable?"
"Totally. I truly don't deserve them, or you."
Miranda snuggled closer to Andy, and then turned her face and kissed her on the lips, firmly and possessively. Having done that, she said, "Now, gorgeous girl, I will tell you what we will do now. We will both go up to bed before mid-night strikes, and we will make very gentle, very restorative love until we go to sleep, (which may only be six minutes, mind). And tomorrow, we will sit down together after breakfast and talk through the wedding problems quietly and constructively. I don't want to ruin Emily and Serena's big day any more than I want to ruin ours. We'll find a middle way."
"We will. That's a brilliant scheme darling. Just one thing . . . "
"What?"
"I am going to make up a plate of cheese and crackers for you to have before we begin any love-making. I can tell you haven't eaten much all day, and your blood sugar spikes make for very dangerous bedfellows."
Miranda sighed, and smiled ruefully.
"How well you understand me, as I've said so often, more than I do myself."
"So we're good?"
"We're good. Now come with me, sweetie, and I will show you a very good time to make up for my foul temper. Oh and by the way, Geoff and Cindy's baby is adorable. He made me feel quite broody, even at fifty!"
"Wow. Would you like another child?"
"No, but I'd like to give you one, as soon as you want."
"Let's get married first. I'm very conventional like that."
"OK. Well, what are you waiting for? Are you getting me those crackers and Camembert this year or next?"
"Yes Miranda, I'm getting them now. Let's go. And in case anyone asks, I love you to the moon and back. O.K.?"
"Ditto."
And the day ended as sweetly as it had begun, after all.
*As told in 'Clued UP'
**As told in 'The Spirit of Christmas'
***As told in 'Miranda's Enchanted April'