shoulder straps and a deep V-neckline. But Ruby was shorter than me and had a more heaving bosom. She was going to look like a fairytale nymph in her dress while I’d look like a drag act.
Hilda looked at us expectantly on the sofa. Nobody moved.
‘Come on, girls,’ chivvied Patricia.
‘I can’t stand up until I’ve had my coffee,’ said Ruby.
Embarrassed by my family and not wanting to annoy Hilda, I stood, pulled the curtain of the changing booth behind me and started undressing.
‘Any word from the chaps in Prague?’ Patricia asked loudly as I peeled down my jeans.
‘No,’ said Mia. ‘Florence? You heard anything?’
‘Nope,’ I shouted back, while I scowled at myself in the mirror. Naked but for my knickers, bra and socks. Not a good look. The only messages on my phone that morning had been from Zach, a series of them sent at 1 a.m. in reply to my photo of Harry.
Hello, how come you’re up so late?
Oh, Mia’s hen. I remember now. Hope it was… fun?
Hey also, there’s a new Quentin Blake exhibition on in Dulwich tomorrow which I thought I might check out if you feel up to it?
Curtis the counting caterpillar research?
But no worries if not.
I’d read them while lying in bed, staring at the screen for so long it kept going black, but I wasn’t sure what to answer. The idea of going to an exhibition on the weekend with Zach made me feel uneasy. Rory was my boyfriend. Rory was the one who loved me. And I couldn’t gallivant off to an exhibition, anyway, because I had to try on this unflattering dress. In the end, I sent one line back, using the dress fitting as an excuse, and said I’d see him in the shop the next day.
I unzipped the dress from its plastic sheath and held it over my head, letting the silk slide down my body.
‘How’s it going in there?’ demanded Patricia.
I turned to look in the mirror again. The light bounced off my lumpiest bits – my hips and the curve of my belly. And my bottom looked enormous. I might as well slap a ‘wide load’ sticker on it and reverse out of the cubicle making a beeping sound.
Hilda whipped back the curtain and I turned to see them all frowning at me.
‘Perhaps, with a better bra?’ ventured Hilda.
‘Turn round,’ instructed Patricia, circling a finger in the air.
I turned.
‘Mmm,’ Patricia went on, ‘definitely a better bra.’
‘And no knickers,’ said Mia.
‘What?’ I shrieked. ‘We can’t wear no knickers.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s your wedding. We can’t go down the aisle of Claridge’s commando. What if there’s leaking?’
‘Oh, Florence, really,’ said Patricia, wrinkling her nose.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Ruby.
‘I do!’
‘Florence, do stop fussing,’ said my stepmother, as Hilda stepped forward and adjusted my dress while the others watched over their coffee cups. She pinned it at the back and along the right side of my body to stop it gaping around my chest, but the silk still didn’t look right because it was pulled more tightly across my stomach. Oh, too bad. On the day itself I’d be carrying a small posy of roses so I could always try and hide my belly behind that.
Hugo and Rory were supposed to come back to Kennington that night. Mia had said it would be fun, that we could order a takeaway and all have it on the sofa, united in our hangovers. But in the end Hugo arrived home by himself.
‘You just got out of prison?’ said Ruby, laughing at him from the sofa. She and I were watching Grand Designs while Mia plucked her eyebrows upstairs.
‘No,’ he said hoarsely, leaning against the doorframe. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve never seen you look worse. What did they do to you?’
Hugo flinched as if in physical pain. ‘This and that. Where’s the wife?’
I shuddered. He’d only started calling her that recently but it irritated me every time.
‘In her room,’ said Ruby.
Hugo trudged upstairs and she looked across at me. ‘I thought Rory was coming back?’
‘He was but he’s got to work,’ I said, staring at a message on my phone. Darling, heading to mine as I need to do some work on this European summit before tomorrow. And I couldn’t possibly see you like this. I need to wash Prague off me. Speak tomorrow? R
‘Borrr-ring,’ said Ruby. ‘Hey, since you’ve got your phone out, do you wanna see what we want from Deliveroo?’
She embarked on a ten-minute soliloquy about whether she felt more like pizza or Chinese while I