by Lucy Dickens
This makes Mara sound sarcastic, but she really isn’t. She had this probably genius, definitely anally retentive, idea a few years back that any time we all needed to discuss something important we should do it via a video conference during working hours. And we all need to get creative with the meeting subject lines so they sound too boring and realistic for anyone else to want to join, should they get wind of it. That way, in spite of our various busy jobs and lives, it’s blocked out in our calendars, everybody knows they need to attend, and ‘nobody can lie and say they have something better to do’.
‘Okay,’ I start. But I don’t quite know where to start.
‘You said it was about the wedding, is there something we can do?’ Mara prompts, using the camera as a mirror and adjusting her suit jacket.
Marissa starts singing Bruno Mars’ ‘Marry You’ and I know I need to do what I always do with my family: blurt it out like a big cowpat and see how they all think it should be cleaned up.
And so I say, ‘I’ve cancelled my wedding. Matt and I aren’t going to get married any more. At all. Now or never. To each other, anyway. We’ve broken up.’ My voice cracks at the end, just a little, worsened by the stunned silence from the others.
They’re all agape for so many seconds I begin to think my connection has frozen and start muttering curse words at my Wi-Fi until Gray growls in true big brother fashion, ‘What did he do?’
‘Nothing, really, well something. Well, it’s more what he wanted to do.’
‘Oh Charlie,’ Mara waves her hand around. ‘Don’t worry about that, all guys want to do that at some point, just say no if you’re not into it. No need to be so dramatic.’
‘I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing,’ I clarify quickly.
‘What happened?’ Benny asks, pulling a T-shirt on.
‘He …’ My voice wobbles, my eyes mist, and that lump wiggles up my throat. I really thought I was cried-out but seems not. I put my face in my hands, breathing through it, wanting to have a clear conversation with my family. I can feel them all watching me, but when I look up I see compassion and patience. Even Mara doesn’t seem to be getting twitchy about keeping the meeting to schedule. Marissa’s put her fingers near the camera lens like she’s reaching out to touch me.
I can do this. ‘He told me – well, actually, he told me and all of our friends at the same time – that he wanted to sow some wild oats before we got married.’
They all gasp.
‘He wanted a break, to make sure he wasn’t missing out on anything,’ I continue. ‘He said we’ve never been with anyone else and maybe we should make sure first.’
‘Told you he was a twat all along. I’ve always said it, haven’t I?’ says Gray.
‘Graham!’ Mara scolds. ‘So what did you say?’
‘I said that I already was sure and if he wasn’t then we clearly aren’t on the same page any more.’
‘I’m so sorry, Charlie,’ says Marissa. ‘Do you think it’s just cold feet? Last-minute nerves? Shall I give him a ring?’
‘He didn’t seem nervous, in fact, he seemed quite pleased with his great idea.’
‘When did this happen?’ asks Benny.
‘The day before yesterday.’
I slept on the sofa that night, it hurt too much to lie next to him. We spent twenty-four hours walking around in a daze, avoiding phones and emails and the outside world. One of us would switch on the TV and the other would watch next to them for a while before wandering off to another room. It’s like we both hoped the other would change their mind and we clung to this self-inflicted cooling off period before we took any steps towards cancelling the wedding. To be honest, though, as much as part of me wanted Matt to realise he was an idiot who’d made a mistake, the damage was done. He wasn’t all in, and I was; you can’t come back from that.
‘So anyway,’ I conclude, ‘that’s my news. Wedding’s off, and I just wanted to let you all know first.’
There is silence for a moment more before Graham pipes up and asks, ‘Out of interest, had you already paid for the hog roast, and if so, what were you planning to do with it now?’
That opens up the floodgates for all four siblings to start throwing in their thoughts and opinions and questions.
‘You should be happy. You realised this about your relationship before it was too late. I know it hurts now but ultimately you should be happy.’
‘Are you kidding? She wasted so much time on him, she should be furious right now.’
‘I think you should make him do all the cancelling of the wedding plans.’
‘Anything that can be refunded make sure you’re the one who is getting the cash.’
I let them go on for a while, everything they’re saying is what I’ve already had rattling about in my own head since we broke up. I love my family, but it can be exhausting listening to all of that noise. I say my goodbyes and promise to call them all again very soon to let them know what’s going on, and then close the lid of my laptop.
Almost immediately, Benny calls my mobile. ‘Hi, bro.’
‘Hi, sis. Just wondered how you were really doing?’
My little brother and I are the closest, funnily enough, both quieter than our other siblings but happy to be enveloped in big crowds and go with the flow. ‘Honestly … I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach, and the head and the fanny, and like it keeps happening again and again every time I think about it or think about him with … but anyway, I’ll be okay. You know what though? I’d love to talk about something else. Tell me about this epic night, did you kiss any girls?’
‘No,’ he says shyly, and I settle down to listen to him talk all about uni life, and for an hour I don’t think about heartbreaks or honeymoons.
A few days pass and I’m at my mum’s house, which I’ve moved back into while I figure out what the heck I’m going to do next. She fixes me a tea while I hover around the kitchen table where all my wedding planning bumph is spread out.
I hang up the phone. ‘Bollocks.’
‘No luck?’ Mum asks.
‘The flowers themselves I can cancel, but they say they can’t take back the vases because they’ve been painted.’ I look at the corner of the room where a stack of fifteen mottled vases, each two-foot-high, are piled on top of each other. Months and months ago I was shopping with Brienne and we passed the florist in town, who were selling a bulk load of these vases on the cheap as part of a clearance. Brienne had convinced me they would make spectacular centrepieces and we could paint them whatever my colour scheme was going to be closer to the time. We staggered home with fifteen of the things, probably too many for the number of tables, but better to be safe than sorry. Now I was sorry.
I hurumph as I flick through a stack of magazine cut-outs of table arrangements, everything from rustic countryside casual to dripping diamante Real House-wives-style bling. ‘I don’t think half of these were even cut out by me. I mean look at this one, I would never have done an all-white minimalist table, that’s totally more Mara’s style than mine. What’s it even doing here among all this crap?’ As you can tell, I am delightful company right now.
‘Your sister was probably just keen to share her ideas,’ Mum says, diplomatically. ‘At the end of the day, the things you went for were what you and Matt wanted, weren’t they?’
‘I don’t know,’ I sigh, looking back over at the vases, painted a sultry purple. They weren’t really my style, if I’m honest. But do I feel that now because they’re tainted with the wedding that never happened? I get up from the table and wander over, picking one up. ‘How would our guests have even seen each other across the table with these things in the way? They’re the worst vases in the entire world.’
‘Okay,’ Mum says and starts making me another cup of tea.
With every scrap of paper I find, every entry in my wedding planning notebook I’ve written, every phone call I have to make, the gravitas of cancelling The Big Day grows. The break-up is something that st
ings from within its own little compartment, but separated from that is my wedding, which took a long time to plan. So many details and arrangements and decisions over the course of the past year, which are now having to be knocked down one brick at a time, but rapidly, and I’m trying to beat the deadlines and read the fine print to the point that it feels like I’ve locked myself in an escape room. If I don’t get out of every commitment, I might end up standing in a hotel conference room in a wedding dress, on my own except for a couple of guests who didn’t get the memo in time, and a chocolate fountain. And these pissing vases.
‘What do you reckon I could get for these vases on eBay?’ I ask Mum. ‘Some other bride and groom might want a job-lot of them, mightn’t they?’
Mum takes the vase out of my hand and pulls her glasses down from the top of her head to look at it. ‘I think you’d have to specify that they’ve been painted … was it washable paint?’
‘It was glass paint.’
‘Hmm. So not wash-offable?’
‘No,’ I take the vase back off her. ‘What are you saying? Don’t you think they look good?’
‘Somebody might love them.’
I stand up and grab my coat. ‘Right. I’m heading over to the hotel.’
‘The Crumble?’ Mum asks. The Crumble is – was – my wedding venue.
‘Yep, I need to speak to Cecily in person and find out what the options are.’
‘Do you want me to come? Or call Matt for you and ask him to meet you there?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I’ll go on my own. Thank you, though.’ Cecily is – was – my wedding coordinator at the Crumble. She hasn’t been answering her phone to me often in the last couple of weeks, which is irking in itself, but more than that I need to get out on my own for a while and get some fresh air.
Mum gets a big kiss plopped on her cheek from me before I go, though. ‘Thanks for being brill, Mum. I’ll pick us up some doughnuts on the way home.’
It’s surreal to be standing in the lobby of the Crumble. I’ve been here many times in the last year, but with less than three weeks to go before the wedding, the next time I expected to be here was the afternoon before, when we were going to be allowed to start decorating the conference room.
I can almost picture how it would have played out. The sofas to the right of the reception desk would have been straining under the weight of boxes being unloaded from cars in front of the hotel. Bridesmaids and groomsmen would be deployed to move them into the conference room. Matt’s parents and my mum would have been coordinating because Matt and I would keep being distracted by the familiar faces of our guests arriving to check in for the weekend. I’d be in jeans and trainers and joking about how I was so shattered that ‘I might just wear this tomorrow’. Matt would be forgetting everybody’s name, instead calling each person ‘mate’ or ‘m’dear’.
But today it’s quiet, a drizzly Tuesday at the beginning of April not being an enticing time for a flurry of tourists. I head to the sofas and take a seat, remembering the time I came here and decided it would be my wedding venue. Well, we decided.
And by ‘we’, I don’t mean Matt and me.
2 June, last year
Sunday morning, 10.20am
‘How did this turn into the social gathering of the year?’ I asked with a laugh, shutting the car door behind me. Matt was driving, using his dad’s car, while his parents locked up their house behind them. While we waited for them to finish faffing in and out, remembering that they needed tissues, did the cat have enough food, were the windows closed, I looked out of the back windscreen. The car behind ours was my mum’s, which contained her, Mara and Benny. Gray was on a work trip in Germany, and Marissa in Paris, but the others had trailed home for a few days around work and university, so had invited themselves along for a day of wedding venue viewings with Matt and me.
Mum had then suggested we involve Matt’s parents.
Matt’s parents had got their neighbour Evie over when I called, so now she was in the backseat too, his folks not wanting to be rude.
Brienne was also home with no real plans, and wanted to come for a nosey, and that meant she was also joining the convoy. Daisy got wind of this and jumped on an early-morning train from London, and Brienne’s brother Calvin had a massive crush on Daisy since he saw her in one of my Instagram posts, so he came too, for ogling purposes.
So that was eleven of us heading to four different venues today. I was already looking forward to takeout pizza with just Matt later on that evening!
‘Where are we going?’ asked Evie as Matt pulled away in the car, the others behind us.
‘We’re going to look at wedding venues,’ Matt’s father Paul explained, in a loud voice.
‘For who?’
‘For Matthew and Charlotte. They’re getting married next year.’
‘Oh, are they? Where?’
Matt’s mum Fay changed the subject (slightly). ‘What’s the first stop, kids?’ she asked me.
I looked at my notepad, though it was all in my head if I’m honest, like a million other ideas and thoughts that had been swimming about since Matt proposed a couple of months ago. ‘We’re heading to the furthest away one to begin with – the barn conversion I was telling you about.’
The place looked lovely in the pictures, but also bloody expensive and we’d need to put on transport for everyone since there was nowhere to stay for miles around. We were also viewing a stately home, a field, and a hotel.
Arriving at the barn we were met with problem number one: parking. There was space for two cars beside the barn, the third needing to park a ten-minute walk away, downhill. We got over this now by squeezing in and double parking, but already I saw Mara’s eyebrows raised.
The owner appeared in snazzy Joules wellies and a headscarf. ‘Morning … everyone! The Bulverton wedding?’
Matt and I stepped forward. ‘Yep, I’m Charlotte, this is Matt.’
‘Fab, let me take you into the main attraction.’ She led us, all of us, along a gravelly track lined with loops of fairy lights, towards an imposing barn. ‘We had a wedding here yesterday, actually, and the party aren’t coming to take away their things for another couple of hours. The cleaning team – which is included in the price – have done their bit so it’s not messy, just lived in.’
She stood in front of the high double doors, the wood stained a dark brown, and gave us all a smile like she knew she was about to hear a chorus of gasps.
Opening both doors at the same time and standing aside, she was right. Inside it looked like a wedding venue you’d see in a magazine – pretty string lighting accenting the beams in the high ceiling, long oak tables decorated with lines of white candles and lilac petals, white swathes of fabric floating beside the windows, wildflower bouquets hanging down from the ceiling and a chandelier made of antlers lighting up the whole room with a soft amber glow. Boxes sat neatly on the white tablecloths containing stacked place settings and leftover party favours, and cleaned champagne flutes sparkled in a group on the wooden bar.
The owner said, ‘We offer a complete package with catering, cleaning, loos, post-wedding accommodation for the bride and groom, and can add on a photographer and decorating assistance for an extra fee. I think you have the prices in the email, and they’ll vary a little depending on your total guest count. I’ll leave you to have a look around but will be outside if you have any questions.’
The woman left, and Fay said, ‘It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?’
‘Very pricey too,’ answered Matt.
‘Matt …’ I said. ‘We did know that before we came and we said we’d keep an open mind.’
He was right though. It was way too expensive and we shouldn’t have even been looking at it, but when we’d first got engaged Brienne wouldn’t stop going on about this place because she’d worked here once when she was a waitress at school. It had stuck in her mind and she thought I’d love it.
‘What do you reckon?’ she said, gripping my arm.
<
br /> ‘It’s lovely,’ I agreed. ‘But, I don’t know, it’s a long drive and I hadn’t really thought about long tables instead of round ones …’
‘The long tables are great,’ said Daisy, joining us.
‘Do you think? I’m not sure about this place,’ said Mara and Daisy shook her head. She’s always been a little intimidated by my big sister, always acting like Mara is the general manager and she’s a lowly temp who feels she should agree with everything Mara says.
‘Testing!’ Matt’s dad found a microphone on the other end of the barn. ‘Good sound system!’ he boomed.
‘Mum, what do you think of this place?’ I asked, sidling over to her.
‘It’s certainly charming.’ She looked at me, puzzled for a moment. ‘Is it you though?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, and turned to Matt, but I could see he wasn’t keen because he was studying the woodwork like he wanted to think of something to say about it.
‘What did she say about toilets?’ he said, instead.
‘They’re included in the price,’ I answered. ‘I assume they have those fancy Portaloos.’
‘I wonder if we could get a discount if we went for non-fancy Portaloos. I’ll ask her.’
‘No, Matt—’
‘Excuse me,’ he called, and the owner popped back in. ‘If we brought our own Portaloos, like the ones they have on building sites, would we be able to get a discount?’
She explained that no, we’d have to use their state-of-the-art mobile facilities but I saw that her confident assurance that we would snap the place up had faded just a little.
‘I really like it,’ I said to her. ‘Thanks ever so much for letting us pop in for a look. We’ll have a think and let you know.’
Back we all went to the cars and it was on to the next venue, the stately home, which had a Cluedo vibe that Matt loved, and he started banging on about how we could have a murder-mystery themed wedding. This place, with the stone walls and rich mahogany fabrics, got a nod of approval from Mara, Benny, Matt’s parents and Calvin, before Daisy said it gave her the creeps and Calvin defected to being on the ‘no’ side.
