stood out from the rest. He was tall, good-looking, had an intelligent air about him and was smartly dressed. Cait was immediately attracted to him.
Heading straight for the part of the bar where he was standing, she purchased drinks for herself and her two friends and she turned purposefully towards him so that she could break the ice by asking him to excuse her. Her ploy worked a treat and moments later she was deep in conversation with him, her two friends with two of his associates. Within twenty minutes Cait had gleaned Neil’s name, how old he was, what he did for a living, and was able to calculate his future prospects. She also learned that he lived with his parents in a good area and, the most important bit of information to her, that he had no girlfriend at present. To her relief, she knew she had at last found her man, someone suitable and also someone with whom she knew she could fall in love. She couldn’t believe her luck.
Before the two groups of friends went their separate ways Cait had charmed Neil into asking her out on a date the next evening. All she had to do now was pray he fell in love with her and wanted to make her his wife. She knew a proper woman pandered to her man, made him feel like the most important person in her life, was constantly at his beck and call, organised every aspect of his life for him. Well, that was the way her mother treated her father, and he lapped up the attention. Confident that Neil would too, that was how Cait always acted with him.
Five months into their relationship, one evening while they were at a Chinese restaurant, she’d misconstrued a comment Neil made and believed he had asked her to marry him. When Cait broke the news to her parents on arriving home that evening, she had hoped that for the first time ever they would find it possible to lend her some support, especially her mother. Perhaps Nerys would help her organise her big day, like other mothers were delighted to do? Instead, while her father sat coddled warmly in a blanket on the sofa, never taking his eyes off the television, her mother’s reaction was to offer lukewarm congratulations, tell Cait not to expect any help from her as all her time was commandeered by caring for her husband, and then return to reading her book. There was no mention of their contributing to the wedding or how much money she could spend on her special day. This troubled Cait. She wasn’t in any position to fund it on her wages and nor could she expect Neil or his family to pay for it. This customarily fell to the parents of the bride, as far as she was aware. She therefore assumed her parents would step in.
It wasn’t until the bills started to arrive a month or so later that a fuming Nerys informed her daughter that she had no right whatsoever to be spending money that wasn’t hers. Just because she had decided to get married did not mean her parents would automatically pay for everything. Thanks to her selfishness a trip to a special clinic in Switzerland, which would greatly have improved her father’s poor health, would now have to be put on hold. Nerys didn’t seem to consider the fact that Cait had known nothing of this planned trip. But at least she wasn’t ordered to cancel all her purchases. Thankfully the ceremony and reception were paid for, her dress and the bridesmaids’ dresses, the flowers and transport. Cait strongly suspected this was because her mother would not run the risk of diminishing herself in the eyes of several high-class business people in town by cancelling her daughter’s orders.
She became so wrapped up in the arduous task of perfecting her wedding preparations without any help from her mother or her two friends, who always seemed to be busy, and also trying her best to finance these little extra touches out of what little she had left from her own weekly wage once she had paid her dues at home, that she had failed to notice her intended husband was becoming increasingly preoccupied and distant from her as the date for their wedding drew closer.
Learning that the man she loved and had planned to spend the rest of her life with didn’t feel the same about her was devastating