She plonked a steaming mug of tea on the bedside table and gave me a playful poke beneath the bedclothes.
‘Well this is it then, the big day,’ she remarked needlessly, followed quickly by: ‘And for goodness’ sake get up. If you’ve got a hangover it serves you damn well right, but you’d better shake it off smartish. The hairdresser will be here in half an hour and then the flowers are arriving, and the car is coming for us at ten...’
I grinned at her and obediently began to hoist myself upright. I seemed to be surrounded by people who wanted to organise me, and Clem was another born organiser. She also thoroughly enjoyed a bit of a panic — although there was very little for her to panic about nor to organise in an operation managed by the Daveys. Still it was typical of her to do her best to find something.
In spite of, more than because of, her ministerings, I was washed, brushed, coiffured, fully clad in my ceremonial glory and all ready to go by 9.45. While Clem indulged in some last minute fussing over her own and my long-suffering niece’s bridesmaid dresses — simply cut in dark blue satin and very stylish — I quietly closed my bedroom door and took a last long hard look at myself in the full-length wardrobe mirror.
I had done my best not to make the classic mistake of getting married looking like someone else. Certainly my hair was its usual curly fluffball — if just a little bit sleeker and more controlled than usual thanks to the efforts of allegedly the best hairdresser in town — and one thing I had insisted on as the Davey machine had taken over my life was that I did my own make-up. I hadn’t wanted to resemble a Barbie doll any more than my police colleagues already considered me to be. Yet I did not entirely recognise the person looking intently back at me. If a frame had been put around me I could have been hung on the wall of a stately home. It was a strange feeling. Detective Chief Inspector Rose Piper was not a woman to wear a flowing designer wedding dress gleaming with embroidery and pearls. The future Mrs Robin Davey, however, was, it appeared. I was entering another world. His world. My life, I knew, would never be the same again.
My moment of solitary reflection lasted about a minute before Clem burst through the bedroom door.
‘Do you think I should ring the car company?’ she asked anxiously.
I glanced at my watch. Cartier. A gift from Robin.
‘It’s only ten to,’ I said. ‘They’re sure to be here.’
Thankfully the car arrived five minutes early or Clem may have blown a fuse. We were all to travel to Abri together on the helicopter, and the journey to the heliport we were using would take a maximum of 30 minutes at that time of morning. We were early there too. Ahead of schedule all the way. With the Daveys and my sister masterminding things there had never been much doubt about that.
Maude and Roger Croft-Maple were also travelling with us and were driving from Exmoor in their Range Rover to meet us at the heliport. We, unsurprisingly in view of all the unnecessary hurry, were there first which sent Clem into another paroxysm of panic which momentarily evaporated when she caught sight of the pilot, whom of course she had never previously met. The splendid Eddie Brown was wearing a dazzling white uniform decorated with gold braid. He looked drop dead gorgeous if a little bizarre. He took off his peaked cap with a flourish and bent forward in an exaggerated bow.
Clem spluttered. I expressed my admiration.
‘If I wasn’t spoken for I’d run away with you,’ I said.
‘You sure about that?’ he asked. ‘At the base they reckoned I looked like the president of an African banana republic and wanted to know where my toggle stick was.’ He flashed a grin every bit as radiant as his clothes.
‘Racist lot of bastards,’ I responded. I really liked Eddie and it was typical of him to enter into the spirit of things. The whole wedding was way over the top really, and his white suit was perfect for the occasion.
‘Where did you get the crazy outfit anyway?’ I asked.
‘Heard of Bermans?’ he asked.
I had of course. They were world-famous theatrical costumiers.
I began to giggle. The day really was getting off to a great start.
My sister was fussing again. ‘Where on earth is Robin’s mother?’ she asked for about the third time.
‘Darling, we are not actually due to leave for another twenty minutes and this is a private charter, not Gatwick Airport,’ I said, just as I spotted Maude and Roger walking into the terminal. He was in full morning dress and looked as if he was born to wear the stuff. She had on a deep purple silk suit with an almost ankle-length skirt, and a big wide-brimmed chocolate brown hat with a full veil. She teetered on what must have been five-or six-inch-heeled brown suede shoes — something of an achievement for any woman in her late seventies, and even more impressive for one who stood over six foot tall in her stockinged feet. With those shoes on Maude would tower over everyone at the wedding, including Robin, which had doubtless been her intention. I gaped up at her in open-mouthed admiration. Around her shoulders was draped a fox fur, complete with head. There was nothing politically correct about Maude Croft-Maple. I thought I had never seen anything quite so dramatic. She looked absolutely sensational and I told her so.
‘Nonsense,’ she said. The vowels even flatter than ever, I thought. ‘There’s only going to be one sensation today, and that’s you, Rose Piper.’
‘Just don’t stand in front of me for the photographs, that’s all,’ I ordered.
Maude beamed. I was pretty sure by now that she liked me, and I was glad of that because I had become immensely fond of her in a very short time.
I introduced her to my sister who looked even more flummoxed than she had before, for which, I suppose you couldn’t blame her. Maude was one flummoxing woman.
‘Very nice to meet you, I’m sure,’ said Clem, sounding a bit like our mother trying to be posh, and then carried on busily: ‘Now, shouldn’t we be off?’
I laughed at her. I was in such high humour. I had never felt better. This was going to be a day in a million, I reckoned, and I was certainly right about that.
‘I think we can safely leave our departure to Eddie,’ I admonished gently.
‘Well, of course,’ she wittered on, her face slightly flushed now. ‘I was only just thinking, you know, I don’t know how long exactly it takes, but the timing is so important isn’t it, and we wouldn’t want, would we...’
‘Clem, shut up,’ I interrupted her eventually, softening the rebuke by continuing with: ‘Incidentally you look bloody marvellous as well.’
She did too. Quite radiant. Flustered, yes, but her slight flush seemed to make her look all the more attractive. You’d have half-thought it was her wedding day. She beamed at me. If Clem had ever had any doubts at all about my impending nuptials she had never shown them, and she was possibly the only one of my friends and relatives about whom that could be said — except my mother, of course. Clem and I shared a standing joke that if there was one person who was even more ecstatic than her and me about the whole thing it was my bloody mother. The Hyacinth Bucket of Weston-super-Mare had reached the pinnacle of her social-climbing summit. Her younger daughter marrying the uncrowned King of Abri. Wow!
We took off smoothly into a perfect blue sky and headed west along the Bristol Channel. All of us fell silent during the short flight — even Clem. Everything was just so beautiful. The sun glinted on the dark mass of the sea highlighting the white crests of the waves. Seagulls wheeled lazily around us.
After a bit Clem could keep silent no longer and she grasped my hand and told me for the umpteenth time how happy she was for me. Then, as the island of Abri appeared on the horizon, Maude suddenly shouted: ‘Three cheers for the bride, hip hip hooray.’