Welcome to your life, p.1
Welcome to Your Life, page 1
WELCOME TO YOUR LIFE
Bethany Rutter
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Copyright © Bethany Rutter 2022
Jacket design by Caroline Young © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Jacket illustrations: Shutterstock.com
Bethany Rutter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008469948
Ebook Edition © March 2022 ISBN: 9780008469962
Version: 2022-02-17
Dedication
For anyone who’s ever held themselves back
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Bethany Rutter
About the Publisher
1
Hiding out in a branch of Harvester on a roundabout, a huge glass of wine in one hand and one of those long ice-cream spoons in the other, is not how I thought I would be spending my wedding day. But today hasn’t really gone the way I planned at all. The problem isn’t the wine or the ice cream – those are fine – the problem is that it’s 12:15 p.m. and the ceremony is meant to start in fifteen minutes. Not only am I not there right now, I’m not going to be there.
I fear I am fucking up very badly. I just don’t do this sort of thing. It’s so not Serena Mills.
The dream I had last night was probably the start of it. Or at least, the start of it today. I dreamed I was in a car with my fiancé Alistair and the car had crashed off a bridge and it was flying through the air in slow-motion. I had time to open the door and jump out, but Alistair was holding my hand and telling me not to, that it would all be okay if I just waited it out. So I stayed in the car and braced for impact, and just as we hit the water I woke up. On my wedding day.
I’m not really one for reading too much into dreams. They’re just the subconscious’ way of working things out. I know that. I tried to tell myself when I woke up in that hotel room that the water didn’t symbolize our marriage – that it symbolized liberation. Or maybe it symbolized nothing and it was just water. It was just a bad dream. I gave myself a few minutes to recover, just staring around the hotel room, basking in the warm late summer light coming through the blinds, the way it hit the silky, blush-pink dress hanging on the back of the door. My wedding dress.
9:05
‘I’m getting married today,’ I said out loud to the empty room. But it still didn’t sound real to me. It felt so improbable. But a lot of things felt improbable – it felt improbable that Alistair and I had been together for ten years. It felt improbable how handsome he was, how tall and gently muscular, how sharp his jawline was, how green his eyes were. It felt improbable that he was so reliable when the girls at work all complain about flaky men ghosting them on dating apps. It felt improbable that I’d managed to fall into such a stable, secure life with him, without really trying.
A text came through from my sister.
Are you SURE you don’t want me to do your make up?
Melanie kept trying to find excuses to do wedding things with me – she thought I wasn’t being wedding-y enough, but I thought I was being just the right amount. I quite like doing my own makeup – so there was no need to interrupt her morning routine with my sweet little niece. And my sister always manages to wind me up; I love her, but she’s uniquely gifted at getting on my nerves. Always overstepping. And besides, my sister and the rest of my family are staying in a completely different hotel, marginally less fancy than here.
I started wondering what Alistair was doing right then, at home a few miles away. I could picture him perfectly, the way he combs his silky, voluminous hair in front of the mirror, the way he angles his face to shave. I didn’t need to be there to know exactly what he was doing. I know him too well. Absolutely no mystery there after ten years. But that’s to be expected, right?
I had a couple of hours until I needed to be at the venue – this beautiful old stately home outside a nearby village – but I knew that time would slip away from me if I didn’t get a move on with my various grooming tasks. I rang down to reception to order a room service breakfast. Since today was … was meant to be … a special day, I decided it was allowed. Before I hung up, I remembered to book a taxi to get to the venue for twelve, which, let’s be honest, was probably a request I should have put in last night. God, the idea of ringing my parents or Melanie and asking if they could come and pick me up was too mortifying. It was enough to contend with their disapproval that I hadn’t booked some extravagant vintage car with a ribbon tied to the front.
10:20
After a shower and a hair-wash, I put on a sheet mask and watched a member of a girl band making meringues on a cooking show until my breakfast arrived. I should probably have interrogated more deeply the thought which went something like, ‘Ah, this is so nice. I wish I could do this all day.’ But I didn’t. I ate my eggs Benedict with great joy, before realizing I had made a mistake with the black coffee which was undoubtedly going to stress me out even more. Not that I was stressed. I wasn’t stressed at all. I was fine, I told myself. But even if I wasn’t, maybe it was okay that I was feeling a little, let’s say, highly strung. You’re not meant to be relaxed on your wedding day.
OMG Serena are you even awake?????
Another text from Melanie, which, alas, I couldn’t avoid replying to.
YES I’m awake! I’m doing my own makeup so please don’t worry about coming all the way over here with Coco, I’ll see you at the venue.
I instantly worried that I hadn’t been sufficiently festive so followed it up with a bride emoji and turned my phone face-down on the bedside table. Everything is fine, I told myself. And I am getting married today. Which meant I needed to get on with my makeup.
The wedding has been a great excuse for buying a ton of nice makeup. As I buffed the blusher into my cheeks and shaded my eyes with varying degrees of taupe and brown, I felt pretty satisfied with my ability to make myself look nice. The thought of someone flapping around me this morning was unbearable, even if they would have been able to apply false eyelashes for me – truly the pinnacle of event makeup (and well beyond my skillset). Until the ceremony, I just wanted to be on my own. I wonder if that was some sort of warning sign.
11:15
It was time. I decided I must put it on. The Dress. My wedding dress. The dress in which I was going to marry Alistair. It’s a really fucking nice dress. I struggled to find something I liked, something that felt right, something that wasn’t too depressing among the few plus-size bridal options. Then my friend – well, my and Alistair’s friend – Irina sent me a link to the pattern for this one. And I put all my dressmaking knowledge, all my time and energy and brain power and fine motor skills into making it.
It’s a floaty-sleeved maxi dress with a deep, plunging V-front and I really do look (at least) a million dollars in it. It’s blush, rather than white, which, according to my family isn’t ‘very bridal’, but it’s the twenty-first century and what can I say – I’m an evolved modern woman.
I slipped it on carefully, making sure not to drag it over my makeup, and looked at myself in the wardrobe mirror. Yes. This was indubitably a look. My blonde waves had air-dried in the most perfect way and rested elegantly against the fine georgette fabric. My makeup had come together beautifully, down to the rosy pink lipstick. And the dress.
The controversial thing about the dress is not just that it’s pink. It’s that it fits me. It fits the body I really have, not the body my family (more specifically my sister) assumed I would have by this specific date. My decision not to do a mad wedding diet was … well, let’s just say it was noted. Not just because I was opt
As I was gathering up my lipstick and room key and phone and cash to pay the taxi driver (realistically I probably don’t need my Boots Advantage card at my wedding but, you know, just in case), I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized that between the tumbling blonde hair, the muted lipstick and the slightly nineties-cut dress, I looked like a fat Sarah Jessica Parker circa Sex and the City. Like I said, a look.
11:59
The hotel phone ringing snapped me out of my trance. I walked round the bed, nearly tripping on the hem of my dress which would have been absolutely the last thing I needed.
‘Hello?’
‘Miss Mills? Your cab is here.’
‘Thanks so much, I’ll be down in a second.’
I hung up, my hand still on the receiver. I breathed in, held it, breathed out. I’d been doing that a lot lately. Feeling kind of dazed and with a sensation that all of this was happening to someone else rather than me, I picked up my clutch bag and headed downstairs.
This is it. It’s go time, I remember thinking.
Before I could leave the room, I heard my phone vibrate which made me jump, which then made me realize I was maybe more nervous than I thought. It was, of course, another text from Melanie.
Are you en route?
I replied saying I was just leaving, which was plenty of time. It was like she thought I wasn’t going to turn up, like she needed to hold my hand through the whole thing because I couldn’t manage it myself. Turns out she was right.
So I made my way down and nodded politely at the receptionist, and I went out to the front of the hotel and there was a ruddy-cheeked, stocky middle-aged man in a grey polo shirt leaning against the car, checking his phone.
‘Are you here for me? Serena?’
‘Serena Mills to Audley Hall,’ he said cheerily, looking up from his phone and slipping it into his pocket.
Ever so carefully, I got in the car, making sure I didn’t trap the bottom of my dress in the door. And away we went.
I think this was when things started to go really, really wrong.
We sat in silence for a moment, which was nice. But then the driver noticed the silence and turned the radio on. It had just passed the half-hour and the tail end of the news blared out. The weather reporter said it was going to be a beautiful day – twenty degrees in early September. I couldn’t in my wildest dreams have expected a more perfect day for my wedding.
‘Off to a wedding?’ He looked back at me in the rear-view mirror.
‘Yes,’ I said, with a cheeriness I didn’t really feel, without adding that it was actually my own wedding. I should have been jumping at the chance to talk about it, bask in the glory of my ‘Special Day’.
‘Feel like I spent half the summer driving people to and from weddings there! Audley Hall’s beautiful, especially on a sunny day like today. It could still be summer now. Your mates have got great taste in venues. Some of them around here are a bit expensive for what you get but that’s a really lovely spot.’
‘Mmm,’ I said. He seemed like a nice man, but I just couldn’t relax. I worried he thought I was being cold. ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ I added, as cheerfully as I could manage.
‘You should have a walk around the lake if you get a chance,’ he paused. ‘Beautiful.’
I nodded, weakly, wondering why I hadn’t outed myself as The Bride, why I wasn’t saying that I knew the lake well, having been there on at least two occasions for viewing and planning meetings. ‘It sounds lovely.’
A moment of quiet. ‘I love a wedding, me,’ he said warmly, which broke through my nervousness a bit and made me smile.
‘Are you an old romantic at heart?’ I asked.
‘Old? Me? Never!’ he scoffed. ‘But yeah, you could say that. I’ve been married to my wife for forty-one years. Barely spent a night away from her in all that time.’
‘Wow!’ I said. ‘Forty-one years. That’s … incredible.’
‘We were pretty young when we got married, but I just knew. I just did. And turns out I was right.’
‘How …’ I began, my mouth dry. ‘How did you know?’
‘You just do, you know? You’ll know it when the time’s right. You’ll know what I mean.’ He paused for a second, staring straight ahead with his hands on the steering wheel. ‘I suppose it was because I was always excited to see her, you know? But like I could count on her. Safe, you know? And nothing’s changed. I still feel excited to see her.’
‘That’s important, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘The excitement?’
‘Well, yeah,’ he said, furrowing his brow. ‘It’s not about big romantic gestures, though. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is that when I come home after driving people around all day, I’m excited at the thought she’ll be at home in her slippers watching The One Show and I’ll get to make her a cuppa and chat to her. It might not be, you know, exciting all the time but having that feeling that you are excited. I think that’s one of the best things about being married.’
Ten years is a long time to spend with someone, especially someone you met when you were a teenager. Relationships grow and change with time, I know that. It would be stupid to think it would feel the same now as it did ten years ago. But all of a sudden it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Because I knew this man I’d only just met was right and I knew more than anything that I hadn’t felt like this about Alistair in years. Whole years.
But what if I never meet anyone else? What if I never again meet someone who loves me, who wants to spend the rest of their life with me? What right do I have to be ungrateful for Alistair? And do I really want to face the fucking brutal world of dating as a fat woman?
Jesus. That is not a good enough reason to get married!
I stared out the window, watching the hedges go by, the fields beyond them, completely shell-shocked. If I’d understood this six months ago, or even a year from now, that might have been okay. That might have been manageable. But not today. Not on my wedding day.
I knew, not even that deep down, that this was more than pre-wedding jitters. This was full meltdown territory.
The opening of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ by Tears for Fears started playing on the radio.
‘You all right, love?’
I snapped out of my catatonic daydream. ‘Yes. No. Could you let me out here, please?’ I said, sensing my moment. We were coming up to a roundabout with a Travelodge and Harvester off one of the exits.
He looked concerned, peering over his shoulder at me. ‘Are you sure? We’re only about halfway there. Do you want me to wait if you’re not feeling well?’
‘No, that’s all right.’
I rummaged around in my clutch for the cash as he pulled into the car park in front of the Harvester. ‘I’m so sorry for messing you around,’ I said, my breathing ragged as I realized what was happening: I really was running out on my own wedding.
I pushed the money at him over the back of the passenger seat and thanked him profusely, although I didn’t specify that I meant for changing the course of my life rather than driving me to this car park. He looked confused and a little worried but let me go anyway, leaving me in the little car park. I didn’t know what to do next. I had no idea who to tell or where to go. All I knew was I was not getting married today.
I stood under the too-warm-for-September rays for a moment, in my blush-pink dress and my heels, heart pounding, scared to death of what I was doing but mostly feeling absurdly free. I turned my face up towards the sun and let myself have those seconds, before deciding on the small matter of what to do next.
