by Low, Shari
My One Month Marriage
Shari Low
This book is dedicated to my aunt, Liz Murphy Le Comber, an incredible woman of strength, substance, wisdom and talent who will always be the yin to my yang.
To Rachel and Eleanor Le Comber, who are just all kinds of awesome. I adore you both.
To the memory of my uncle, Dr Steve Le Comber, who will be forever be the missing link in our family and our Trivial Pursuit team.
And as always, to my menfolk, J, C & B… Everything, always. X
Contents
You are cordially invited to meet the bride and groom’s family and friends…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Acknowledgement
More from Shari Low
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
You are cordially invited to meet the bride and groom’s family and friends…
The Bride – Zoe Danton, 33 – strong, driven partner in the cutting-edge marketing company, The B Agency, still tender after being dumped by the love of her life.
Tom Butler, 31 – Zoe’s business partner (present tense) and the man who broke her heart (past tense).
Chrissie Harrison, 31 – Tom’s childhood sweetheart and mother of his twelve year old son, Ben.
Roger Kemp 44 – hotel chain owner and client of The B Agency. Married to Felice, 26, a model who last smiled sometime in the nineties.
Sister of the Bride - Verity Danton, 34 – an exercise-obsessed primary school teacher who works with kids and doesn’t even pretend to like grown-ups.
Ned Merton, 32 – Verity’s colleague, friend and the object of her affections. She just hasn’t told him yet.
Sister of the Bride – Yvie Danton, 31 – the youngest sister, a nurse on the geriatric ward of Glasgow Central Hospital, funny, kind, caring and the best friend that everyone should have in times of fun and crisis.
Charge Nurse Kay Gorman, 35 – Yvie’s best mate in and out of work. A single parent, raising her son, Chester, 6.
Dr Seth McGonigle, 38 – socially awkward and perfectly formed orthopaedic surgeon, married to the head of cardiology.
Carlo Moretti, 30 – Yvie’s friend and waiter in the whole Danton family’s favourite Italian restaurant, owned by his father, Gino.
Sister of the Bride – Marina Danton-Smythe, 35 – the eldest sister, a wealthy helicopter mum who runs her family’s lives with military precision.
Graham Smythe, 35 – Marina’s husband of thirteen years, a wealthy banker, who has somewhere along the years changed from being her dashing Alpha male to a workaholic bore.
Oscar and Annabelle Danton-Smythe, 12 – Marina’s phone-obsessed twins.
Mother of the Bride - Marge Danton Walton Morrison, 53. Now on her third husband, Derek, 55, and it already looks like he’s going to have as much marital success as their father, Will (divorced in 1999), and Marge’s second husband, Gregor (divorced 2008).
Father of the Bride - Will Danton – Marge’s first husband and father of the Danton sisters.
1
The Four Sisters – Present Day: Sunday, 2 p.m.
I’m in one of those unofficial clubs that no one really wants to be in. You know, like the ‘Association of People Who Got Jilted at The Altar’. Or ‘The Secret Society of Dumplings Who Let Online Scammers Empty Their Bank Account Because They Believed They Had A Long-Lost Uncle Who Left Them Millions In His Will.’
In this case, I’m Zoe Danton, the latest fully paid up member of the ‘Collective Of Fools Who Had Marriages That Lasted For Less Time Than A Four-Part Mini-Series.’
A month. Thirty days to be precise.
It’s not even as if I have the folly of youth as an excuse. Thirty-three years on this planet is long enough to learn some vital life lessons. For healthy oral hygiene, always floss morning and night. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. If you get caught in a riptide, swim parallel to the shore. Pot pourri has no purpose. And if you’re getting married, ensure that it’ll last longer than the flowers you carried up the aisle.
Otherwise, you’ll be me, the idiot who is sitting on her wide plank, oak floor, consumed by fear that the local newspaper will use my story as a human-interest feature, surrounded by gifts that I need to return. Except the cocktail shaker. That one’s already open and in use.
‘Do you feel like an idiot?’ Verity asks, handing me a drink that’s so pink it could very well be radioactive. She was the first member of the Sister Emergency Service to respond to my text and rush over to my city centre Glasgow flat. I hope she kicked the bin bags containing the last of my short-lived husband’s things on the way in to our marital home. Actually ‘marital home’ is a stretch. It’s my flat, a one bedroom waterfront apartment in an eighties block on the city side of the Clyde, and even though he’s lived with me for the last year or so, I realise now that it always felt like he was just visiting. Maybe that should have been a hint. So, to answer Verity’s question, did I feel like an idiot?
‘No,’ I lie, only to be met with her raised eyebrow of cynicism. I capitulate like an eight year old caught spray-painting the school toilet walls. ‘Okay, of course I do. I mean, even Kim Kardashian’s shortest marriage lasted seventy-two days. It’s a sad day when I make worse life choices than a reality show star who built her career on the size of her arse.’
I take a sip of… ‘What is this?’ I ask, when my taste buds throw their hands up, at a loss as to what they are faced with.
Verity shakes her head, her deep red ponytail swinging as she does so. Even on a Sunday morning, in the midst of this traumatic episode in our family’s history, she still looks great. My elder sister has been on this earth for fourteen months longer than me and something happened in those fourteen months that gave her a level of physical superiority that the rest of us could only aspire to. She’s one of those women who has visible cheekbones and naturally fiery, thick long red hair, so you could pretty much put her through a car wash and she’d come out the other end, sweep her hair up in a messy bun and look fabulous. Even more annoying, she has absolutely no awareness of this. Her appearance and personality are the complete opposite of each other. On the outside, fierce, bold, striking. On the inside, restrained and the most conservative of us all. Now she is shrugging. ‘No idea. I just put a bit of everything in the fridge into the cocktail shaker. There’s gin, cream, raspberry juice, pineapple—’
‘I don’t have pineapple juice,’ I interrupt.
Verity doesn’t break stride. ‘Crushed pineapple from a tin… you’ll find it lurking at the bottom of the glass. Vitamin C has so many benefits…’
‘Will it preven
t me marrying dickheads in the future?’
She glides right over that. ‘No, but it does help with the absorption of iron, decreasing blood pressure, combatting heart disease and…’ Off she goes into full education mode. This is what happens when one of your three sisters is a primary school teacher. Not only is she relentlessly organised and can calm a class of stroppy eight year olds with some kind of Jedi mind trick, but she has a remarkable memory for facts and an absolutely pitch-perfect technique for delivering them.
Unfortunately, in this case, her pupil has zoned out. What does it matter what is in there? As long as it contains alcohol that will reduce my feelings of general crapness by even one degree, I’m game.
There’s a crash at the door.
‘What have I missed?’ Yvie wails as she enters the room, balancing several plastic bags and a tray giving off a distinctly ‘lasagne’ aroma on her forearms.
I swallow a slither of pineapple. ‘Just some rampant self-pity, wails of regret and general pathetic wallowing.’
My younger sister nods thoughtfully. ‘All just as expected then. Will lasagne help? Jean, one of the cleaners on the ward, made it. She says it’s her ancient, traditional family recipe, but she’s from Paisley, has no Italian ancestors and has never been further than Great Yarmouth on her holidays, so I have my doubts. In saying that, I’m starting the diet tomorrow, so no point letting this go to waste.’
Dropping the bags on the floor, she wanders out in the direction of the kitchen clutching the lasagne, the stiff blue trousers of her nursing uniform rustling as she goes. The youngest of the four of us, Yvie is a nurse on a geriatric ward at Glasgow Central Hospital. When I’m in my dotage, there’s no one else I want to look after me. Although, I’m hoping that she’ll tend to my every need on the fourteenth deck of a cruise ship floating around the Caribbean, rather than in an aging Victorian building on the edge of the city centre with a bird’s-eye view of the nearby motorway. Still, she loves her job and nursing is what she has always wanted to do. Even when we were kids, she got an undeniable thrill when one of us needed emergency first aid.
I hear the sound of the oven door banging shut, before she re-enters with a glass of radiation pink. ‘I took some of this from the cocktail shaker,’ she informs us. ‘It looks suspiciously like something I’d prescribe for acid reflux. Right, what’s the latest? Married anyone else since I saw you yesterday? Divorced yet? Engaged again?’
I refuse to rise to her innocent-faced sarcasm, instead going for dry threats and indignation. ‘If you carry on like that, I’m going in to work.’
‘It’s Sunday,’ Verity points out, always one to insert facts into the equation.
‘And I hate to point out that your job was at the root of this whole debacle in the first place,’ Yvie adds, following it up with, ‘Jesus, my bra straps are killing me. Did I mention I’m going back on the diet tomorrow?’
‘You did. Is it the same one as last week? And the week before?’ Verity teases.
‘Not sure, but right now I’m hoping I lose nine and a half stone of smug older sister,’ Yvie fires back. She takes no cheek from anyone and I love her for it.
‘I thought you were embracing your curves?’ I enquire, confused.
‘That was last week. This week, I want to book a holiday, wear a bikini and I’ve realised that to feel good about that I’ll need to lose the equivalent of a small dinghy in weight in a month and a half. Starting right after that lasagne.’
I don’t argue. Only a fool would get in between Yvie and her ever changing body-confidence issues.
‘Anyway, I preferred it when we were revelling in your disaster of a life,’ she tells me. ‘Where were we?’
‘Where were we?’ It’s like an echo, only said in a voice that is sharper than the other three in my living room. Marina, only her head and neck visible round the side of the door, is the oldest of the four of us and the designated grown-up. She’s the kind of woman who makes lists, has a pension plan and who knows the difference between a vintage bottle of plonk and something off the shelf at Lidl.
‘Yvie has just pointed out that my job was to blame for all this.’
‘Yes, well, she’s not wrong. At least at the start. Although, to be fair, you did take an unfortunate situation, handle it badly, then let it descend into a complete roaring balls-up,’ Marina concurs before her head and shoulders disappear and I hear the sound of her clicking heels fading as she heads down the hall to the kitchen. I’d bet my last pound that she is carrying a bag containing sushi and hummus – she considers healthy food to be the only option, even in a crisis.
Yvie gestures to the door. ‘See? Even her Highness agrees. I finally feel validated as an adult.’
I ignore the playful barb. Successfully negotiating life with three sisters is fifty per cent love, thirty per cent tolerance and twenty per cent dodging the ever-changing dynamics between us.
Especially, in this case, as they both have a point. My job, first as sales director, then latterly as partner of Glasgow marketing company, The B Agency, definitely contributed to my current situation. If I hadn’t worked there, I wouldn’t have met Tom. I wouldn’t have fallen in love. He wouldn’t have broken my heart. And then I wouldn’t have gone on to screw up my life so colossally that I’m now contemplating eating dodgy lasagne while wondering what I am going to tell my mother when I return her generous wedding gift of a lavish, smoked glass beaded chandelier. Granted, it is lovely – in a blingy, wear sunglasses because it’s so bright it could cause eye damage, kind of way. But the fact that I live in a flat with low ceilings transforms it from an ostentatious decorative statement to a concussion risk.
But back to the point. Yvie and Marina are right. If I worked anywhere else – the Civil Service, Top Shop, NASA – then none of this would have happened.
And to quote everyone in the entire history of the world who ever messed up, I just wish I could go back in time and change so many things.
In fact, right now I’d settle for just understanding what has happened to my life because there are still so many questions. So many uncertainties.
My phone buzzes and I stretch over a ceramic planter in the shape of a pair of wellies (from Auntie Geraldine – she has a picture of Alan Titchmarsh on her kitchen wall) to retrieve it from the table beside the sofa.
Marina’s heels click into the room and in my peripheral vision I can see that she slides elegantly into the armchair by the window, plate of sushi in hand.
The name at the top of the notification makes my anxiety soar. Roger Kemp. Sadly, no relation to anyone who was ever a member of Spandau Ballet. Or that slightly scary bloke who played Grant Mitchell in EastEnders and now makes documentaries about criminal gangs and serial killers.
With a shaking thumb, I swipe open the message.
Roger Kemp is a friend and client, the director of a hotel chain that employs our agency for all its marketing needs. After the proverbial hit the fan, I’d asked him for a favour. A slightly underhand, confidentiality-breaching, possibly borderline-illegal favour. With a bit of luck, the bloke that makes the documentaries about true crime won’t find out about it.
I’d asked Roger to check on who paid for a room in one of his hotels last weekend, on the night that my husband broke his vows only thirty days after making them. You know, that fairly insignificant one about being faithful in good times and bad. You see, I know it wasn’t my husband because he’d put his credit cards in my handbag that evening, so it must have been someone else. The other woman.
The thought forces me to take another swig of the unidentifiable pink cocktail.
Anyway, the favour I’d requested of Roger would mean asking someone in his financial team to pull up the credit card records and sharing the sordid details with me.
Now I stare in disbelief at the answer, typed right there on the screen of my phone.
This didn’t come from me and I’m sorry – the name on the credit card was Ms Danton.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
One for each of the three of my sisters. And yes, I’m aware that I’m not yet in possession of the facts, but right now, I don’t feel like being balanced and reasonable.
The idle chit-chat in the room stops as each of my sisters, Marina, Yvie and Verity, spot my expression and realise that something is very, very, wrong.
Marina, always direct in any situation, is the first to react.
‘Oh God, what now? What is it?’
Without even realising what I’m doing, my gaze goes from one of them to another as I speak.
‘I just need to know…’ I say, my voice low as I struggle not to choke on the words. ‘Which one of you slept with my husband?’
2
Zoe – Eighteen Months Before
Princes Square, a gorgeous shopping centre on one of the busiest streets in Glasgow, had always been Zoe’s favourite place for a pre-festive lunch. On the Friday before the chunky bloke in the red suit and beard was scheduled to arrive, and despite a mighty hangover from the annual work’s Santa Shindig the evening before, she knew – just absolutely knew – that this was going to be her best Christmas ever. Oh yes, it was all going so well. She’d worked her arse off to become sales director at The B Agency, an up-and-coming marketing company that was based in uber-cool city centre offices. She was madly in love with Tom, one of the two founding partners, and the most thoroughly decent, not to mention cute and sexy guy she’d ever known. Life was great. Actually, it was spectacular. That afternoon, as Tom and Zoe rose in the glass lift of the upmarket, luxury shopping and dining emporium, climbing the height of a beautiful, cone-shaped, ice-white tree that soared from the ground to the fourth floor of the stunning atrium, she was positively oozing happiness.
