LITMIR.BIZ

       Prologue Sarah

       July 1981

      It was Doris’s idea of course. Back then, everything tended to emanate from Doris. Beautiful, dappy, gorgeous Doris, with her brown ringlets, blue eyes, infectious giggle, and cute American accent. She was the glue that bound us all together. Like Sid the sloth in Ice Age, Dorrie was the sticky stuff that kept us together. Without Doris we were nothing. And even then we knew it.

      ‘It’s on, it’s on,’ she said, proudly brandishing the control of her parents’ state of the art Beta Max video machine. Though of course we didn’t say state of the art then. Nor did we realize that Doris’s parents, ahead of the trends as ever, had invested in a bit of technology that was going to be obsolete in a few short years. At eight years old, we were still marvelling at the idea of being able to watch our favourite TV moment of the year, again and again. And I was still pinching myself that I had been allowed to enter the inner sanctum of Dorrie’s vast mansion. Ever since she’d arrived at our school from America, like some exotic creature from another planet, Dorrie had fascinated me. I had longed to be welcomed into her life and now here I was.

      ‘Go straight to the kiss,’ Caz demanded, her dark eyes bright and concentrated, her hands thrust into her pointy chin, while her dark scrappy hair flopped over her face. She was always the most impatient one.

      ‘No, we have to watch it all,’ Beth was most emphatic on that point. Her serious, pale little face peeped up between two dark plaits. ‘I didn’t get to see it because my mum and dad are anti-royalsomething.’

      ‘Royalist,’ interjected Doris.

      ‘They don’t like the Queen,’ said Beth. ‘So I wasn’t allowed to watch any of it.’

      Silently we were all amazed at this. All term we’d talked about nothing but the wedding, about what she’d wear and who the bridesmaids would be. We’d even had a day off school to watch it – Doris’s mum and dad had taken her up to London and they’d camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral and seen her go into the church and everything – and poor Beth hadn’t seen any of it.

      ‘Lucky Mom and Dad videoed it then, isn’t it?’ said Doris. ‘Now sssshhh.’

      We all settled down on the beanbags and cushions, stifling giggles as we passed popcorn to one another in the room that Doris’s American professor dad called the den. Doris’s house was like nothing the rest of us had ever seen. We all lived in the suburban centre of Northfields, near our school, whereas Doris lived on the more countrified and posher side of town. Her parents had money but believed in state education, and as our school had the best reputation in the area, they’d sent her there.

      You had to walk down a gravelly drive before you arrived at a massive house with ornate pillars, and a vast oak front door. The lounge was so big it could have fitted the whole of the downstairs of my house in, and the dining room had a table that seated twenty. And Doris’s dad had his own games room in the basement as well as a study, from where he would absentmindedly emerge from time to time to ask us how we were doing. Upstairs were five or six bedrooms and en suite bathrooms for every bedroom. Imagine that. Even Doris had one.

      For me who shared a tiny suburban three-bedroomed semi with my parents and two much older brothers, it seemed like a fairy palace. I still couldn’t believe I was here. Doris was the most popular girl in the class. I had been thrilled when she chose me to be part of her gang. Being Doris, she’d generously allowed me to bring my best mate, Caz, along too and, together with Beth, the four of us were developing into firm friends.

      It would have been easy to hate her, with her ringletted beauty, her film star mother, clever professor father, and her amazing house, but somehow, it was impossible to dislike Doris. She was kind and generous and funny, and hid her cleverness (inherited from her father) under a carefully cultivated dizzy blondeness – except of course, she wasn’t blonde. I was the blonde one and frequently felt at a disadvantage to the other three who always seemed to be quicker and cleverer than I was.

      The posh voice of the commentator was describing the guests as they arrived and pointing out Prince Charles waiting with Prince Andrew for Diana to arrive. We all oohed and aahed as the carriages pulled up bearing the Queen and Prince Philip.

      ‘I have to have that dress when I’m a bridesmaid next year for my Auntie Sophie in Switzerland.’ Doris paused the tape so we could ogle the bridesmaids, who to our eight-year-old minds just looked perfect in their ivory white dresses, with puffy sleeves, full-out skirts and pale gold sashes. The little ones had flowers in their hair, and I longed for a pair of pretty white shoes just like theirs. After some critical discussion, we all agreed that Doris was much prettier than India Hicks (our favourite bridesmaid), and would suit the dress better. It never even occurred to me to think about any of us wearing the dress.

      ‘Why is it always you?’ Caz burst out furiously. Her untidy black hair tumbled over her dark eyes, and two bright points of red flamed her cheeks, her attitude spiky and pugnacious, as ever. ‘Why can’t the rest of us get to wear that dress? Just because you’re rich and we’re not!’

      ‘That’s not fair!’ Doris leapt up and shouted. ‘Don’t I always let you have my stuff and invite you over?’

      ‘So you can feel good,’ spat back Caz, eyes blazing, ready as ever to take on the world. ‘I know you only have me here because you feel sorry for me.’

      ‘That’s not true,’ said Beth, timidly. Ever the peacemaker, she could never bear any of us fighting. ‘Caz, I think you should say sorry.’

      As Caz’s best friend, I felt duty bound to take her part, though I didn’t think she was being fair either. As the prettiest, richest one of us, and the only one who was going to actually be a bridesmaid, I felt that Doris was quite within her rights to lay first claim to India Hicks’s dress. I might have felt jealous of someone else, but I couldn’t feel jealous of Doris, who generously shared all that she had with us. I had only just become accepted into her circle and I was loath to do anything to get me ejected from it. But Caz and I had been friends from the first day of St Philomena’s primary school, when something about her uncared-for appearance tapped into my innate need to look after people. I had to stick up for her.

      ‘Doris, you do usually take charge,’ I said reluctantly. Like Beth, I always hated confrontation. And a part of me seethed that just as I’d got to being accepted by Doris, here was Caz trying to muck it up for me again. As she always did. I loved Caz to bits, but why did she have to be so angry all the time?

      ‘Do I?’ Doris looked stricken, her blue eyes filling with tears, and I felt even worse. ‘Gee, I don’t mean to. I’m really sorry, Caz, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

      Seeing her lower lip begin to quiver, and tears dangerously start to wobble down her cheeks, Caz softened uncharacteristically. Perhaps even hard as nails Caz couldn’t resist Doris’s charm.

      ‘It’s OK,’ she said sulkily. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you either.’

      Relieved that everything had gone back to normal, Doris ran to the huge kitchen and produced ice creams for us all as we settled down to watch Diana finally emerge from her carriage, arranging the voluminous train as it blew in the wind, to more oohs and aahs and squeals from the four of us. She stood up to go up the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral and we squealed some more, as the dress was revealed in all its puffed-sleeve, huge-skirted glory.

      ‘That dress,’ I breathed, ‘is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

      ‘She’s just like a fairy princess,’ said Beth.

      ‘It’s so romantic,’ I said. ‘I hope my wedding day is like that.’

      ‘I’m going to have

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