Chapter 11.

The days were ticking away too fast for their comfort but the last days of breezy April had tipped over into a benign and balmy May. It was indeed becoming the beautifully scented lilac-time which Andy had wanted for her wedding.

Nigel reassured Miranda that all the wedding clothes, including her little surprise for Andy were virtually ready. They had decided that she should wear the blue silk gown right through the morning to the two preceding weddings, and then go backstage to do a secret change just before her own nuptials. It would be a cute little tease, and Miranda was up for anything which would catch Andy on the back foot and bring a lovely blush of surprise to her face.

It was a face she adored more every time she saw it, and her nerves and fears that something dreadful would happen to prevent their marriage were finally subsiding. Following her children's demands, there had been no more recourse to the contents of the whiskey bottle on the top shelf, and Miranda was slowly beginning to relax. Well, just a bit, anyway.

Then her dearest, and as far as she knew, her only brother Charles rolled into town, flying all the way from Melbourne via Los Angeles with his precious cello on its own seat next to him. He was early for the wedding, but she was delighted to see him, along with his music buddy George, and happily accommodated them both in the top floor guest-rooms of the town-house. They had so many lost years to catch up on, and delighted in each other's company.

Charles and George were booked to give some master-classes for the final year students at the Juilliard School, so they would be busy for several days. But at their first family dinner together, Charles casually dropped a bomb-shell which would affect everyone present, including his adoring ten year old nieces.

"Miri, you know we did those DNA tests back in February, to confirm we are siblings".

"Hmm-hmm." She was tucking into her steak and determined not to speak with her mouth full.

"Well, on the back of that, I found a website which traces all registered relatives a person might have with the same DNA, and guess what, I've found us a heap of first cousins!"

Miranda swallowed, took a sip of water, and then her eyes opened wide with astonishment. She said, "Never! Who can they be? Oh wait, could they be our mother's older brothers' offspring? The ones who emigrated to Australia back just after World War Two?"

"Yes, I think so. But listen to this, Miri, two of our uncles definitely went to Australia, and lived in the Melbourne area, less than fifty miles from I was brought up! But one joined the navy, went round the world and ended up not in Australia, but settling here in America!"

"Never! " At this point Andrea was getting excited, and joined the conversation. "This is like a novel! Do you know anything about the American cousins, where they are?"

"Yes, the family history site I used located their birth certificates, and I have to tell you they are a big family! One of them has already started researching their ancestors from their end, and just this week, she answered a posting I made, trying to trace them."

"A woman? Where?"

"She and her family live in Boston. In fact all her eight brothers and sisters were born in the Boston area, and are still there! They have all married and have children and even some grandchildren of their own. Their father was Mick McCarthy, born in Lewisham, London in 1932, definitely our mother's older brother."

"Was?"

"Yes, he died five years ago, but his widow is alive and well."

Miranda was stunned into silence. From believing all these years that she was alone in the world, that no living soul could be related to her, she now realised she might have a bigger tribe of extended family members than Andrea did, or her ex-husband Geoff.

But she remembered how rough her grandmother had been. Maybe her sons were equally churlish and these new cousins might just be brutes, or even criminals, not the sort of characters she wanted hanging round, or influencing her children.

"So, what else have you found out? Do we know what sort of people they are? Would we want to get to know them?"

Charles laughed at his sister's veiled snobbery, but he understood her caution.

"I've only been in email correspondence so far, with this one cousin, Evelyn. But she sounds nice, and is very keen to meet us."

"You told her about me?"

"Only in the vaguest terms, no details. But here's the thing, she told me she has twins, as have two of her brothers. I told her I'm a twin, and my sister has twin daughters, that's all I said. But isn't that crazy? Obviously there is a very strong twin gene running through our family!"

Miranda suddenly had a horrible feeling, not that she wouldn't like the cousins, but that they might all be homophobic and despise and reject her for being gay. She wouldn't let them near her girls or Andy if they were. But it was not something she wanted to discuss in front of the children.

"Let's chat about this later," she said, indicating the presence of little pitchers with big ears, so they all finished their steak supper in thoughtful silence.

Then Andy jumped up and fetched the dessert she'd made. It was rhubarb crumble, from an old recipe from her Scottish grandmother on her father's side, and quite exotic for New York, where rhubarb in the spring was considered a real delicacy.

"Yummy yummy!" announced Caroline, as she put her spoon into the crunchy topping. "This is good. Will you teach us how to make it, Andy?"

"Of course I will. Here, have some pouring custard with it."

And she beamed at Miranda. "You too, darling? Or would you prefer ice-cream?"

Only Miranda picked up the wicked allusion to some recent bedroom antics they'd enjoyed, involving vanilla ice-cream.

"You know what I'd like, darling," she said, with a perfectly straight face. "But some custard as well would be nice. Thank you."

"Where did you learn to do this, Andy?" asked Cassie.

"Oh I inherited it. It's a family recipe."

"I didn't know you can inherit recipes," mused Caroline. "Is it like red-hair?"

"What recipes have you inherited, Mommy?" chipped in Cassie. And she looked so intensely interested that Miranda felt she should come up with something immediately.

"Roasted apples, like we had at Thanksgiving!" she answered. "I inherited them from the orphanage."*

"Oh, yes, of course." But Cassie was obviously puzzled, though she was too sensitive to her mother's feelings to follow up the question. Miranda's early years for the most part still remained a mystery.

When the twins had gone upstairs to bed, Miranda quizzed Charles in more depth about his recent research.

"Have you told Harry?" was one question she asked and Charles replied that yes, he had, and their nephew was very enthusiastic about following up the trail with him.

"He and Hannah say they are coming to New York in the next couple of days, and suggests he and I go up to Boston together, to look up all these McCarthys. That will save you any possible embarrassment. We can do an initial reconnaissance mission."

"Thank you darling. That will be a great idea."

Miranda was relieved. Being even a small-scale celebrity had its problems sometimes, although she didn't think her notoriety in the fashion world was anything like the international fame among serious musicians which Charles had. Besides him, she felt her work seemed very silly and frivolous.

While the others were talking, Andy was following up earlier conversations with Emily through a session on facetime. She was worried about the mention of private detectives earlier, and also wanted to know how the news of a third wedding on the same day had gone down.

She was very relieved to see that her old colleague had taken the news about Hannah and Harry joining the merry throng of would-be newlyweds with surprisingly good grace, as had Serena.

Although as Emily pointed out, there were some things one had to accept as given in this world, and one was, "If Miranda asks you to do anything, always say 'Yes' without question." But she had also met Hannah at Christmas, and really liked her. She dressed much better than Andy did, anyway, and her hair was always immaculate. Emily liked that about her.

It also meant that her wedding wouldn't be the first on the day, so any problems would be sorted out before she walked up the aisle with darling old Dad, the highest and driest old homophobe in Hampshire. She still had no idea what Miranda had done to stop him ranting on about her relationship with Serena, but he hadn't uttered a peep since Christmas, and had even muttered something about meeting the costs of their section of the day. That was a surprise!

No other British relations were coming over, for apart from some cousins of her late mother, they didn't seem to have any nearest and dearest. Her Dad always claimed he was an orphan, and never encouraged any more questions. He was unknowable on so many subjects, and never had been the sort of father to take one on his knee and tell stories of the good old days.

Emily had been at boarding school from the age of eight, the year her mother first developed cancer, and had buried her feelings of abandonment and loss by becoming obsessed with fashion and how one looked to one's peers. Her vision was set firmly forwards, not back into family stuff which instinct told her probably wasn't that positive.

Serena, on the other hand, remained in a semi-permanent state of hysteria about her father, step- mother, and all her younger siblings rolling into town. They, along with a full array of domestic staff and nannies, as well as some aunts and uncles, were renting a huge villa on the Massachusetts coast for the week before the wedding and wanted her there with them, so she supposed she would have to go and abandon Emily in their New York apartment.

She hated doing this, especially as she just couldn't take to the Revd. Charlton, and knew how bullied Emily had been by him in the past. She didn't want to leave her alone with him.

"Don't worry, Seri, he's going to stay with his 'elfy' girl-friend in the Bronx."

This comment was a reference to the weird red and white striped leggings the woman had worn underneath a blue leather mini-skirt to Miranda's Christmas party. She too had a gay child, a large young woman in her thirties, who was the girl-friend of a police officer Miranda and Andy knew, although how they had first met, Emily could never figure.**

It was a tangled web, but what astonished Emily was how attracted her father obviously was to this brash New Yorker as soon as they met, and commiserated with each other about the probable lack of grandchildren. She was the absolute opposite to Emily's mother, who had personified good taste and British reserve. So if any Brazilian detectives came looking for information, she had nothing to tell them.

Emily mentioned this to Andy in passing, but then moved on to where they were planning to honeymoon, the US Virgin Islands, far away from anyone they knew. Just her and Serena. It would be bliss.

"You really do love her, don't you?"

"Of course, like crazy, like you and Miranda."

"We are lucky then, aren't we?" And Emily willingly agreed. Then she moved on to the fascinating subject of her wedding dress, and whether Andy could be trusted to behave properly as her bridesmaid.

"Come over lunch time tomorrow," she ordered, "and I'll take you to try your dress on."

"I'm happy to do it, Em, but will I have time to then get ready for my own wedding?"

"Of course you will. Seri can do your make-up and I'll organise your clothes and shoes. Miranda will understand. She knows only too well that you are just as likely to put something on inside out if left to your own devices."

Andy laughed out loud. Emily obviously remembered the day early on in her illustrious career at Runway when she had indeed once rolled up to work in the morning with a Tee shirt on inside out, by mistake.

It was an incident the clackers never let her forget, and Miranda had ordered her into her office and made her strip off and change it round while she stood, arms akimbo, in front of her. At the time she'd been mortified, but now, looking back she realised Miranda had relished the fun of seeing her fumbling assistant half naked and at a complete disadvantage. It might be fun one day to repeat the floor-show and see if Miranda reacted any differently.

Then, just as she and Emily closed down their conversation, another message flashed up on her IPad. It was Hannah, communicating from the gate at Tokyo airport. "Taking off within the hour! See you tomorrow!"

Andy went to find Miranda.

"Will Cara mind if we convert her bedroom into another double guestroom?" she asked. "Our friends from Japan are flying in as we speak. The countdown has begun!"

Miranda was just standing in the drawing-room gazing at Andy's portrait.

"Have I ever told you I love you, Miss Sachs?"

"Yes Mrs Priestly, on the odd occasion. But I wanted to ask you something. What shall we be called as a couple, after we are married?"

"Don't you want to keep your name, as a writer, if you start to make it famous?"

"No, definitely not. I want to be known as your wife. I was just meaning, should we be Priestly-Sachs, or Sachs-Priestly?"

"Which do you prefer?"

"Priestly-Sachs."

"Very well."

Miranda spoke quietly, but inside her heart was bursting. For some strange reason, Andy's willingness to formally link their two names together filled her with more joy than was reasonable. It would mean that the whole world would instantly know they were a couple. Yeah! She did a mental high five, but then moved swiftly on.

"And about the guest room, I'm sure Cara won't mind. She only uses the room as a convenience or in case of emergencies. She'll tidy away her things and even make the bed up for us when she comes tomorrow, she's such a good person."

"And she can come to the wedding?"

"Of course. In fact all of our guests have answered positively. It's going to be bigger than the Met Gala at this rate. The road into Provincetown is going to have tailbacks as far as Boston."

Andy grabbed her by the waist, twirling her round and started singing, "Oh, we're goin' to the chapel, and we're goin' to get married . . . ."

And another day drew to its sweet close.

*As told in 'Who do you think you are?'

** As told in 'Cuffed'.