by Holly Bourne
Jessica does look pretty as she walks past our row. Gorgeous. Demure. Her arms thin enough at the top to wear that strapless dress. She grins inanely like she’s in a dream. She clutches her daffodils to her chest and smiles some more as she ends a decade of worrying that this moment would never happen to her. I smile as widely as I can as she passes, but she doesn’t notice me, and I feel a small twinge at not being important today. Her wedding gown is tasteful and expensive and pure, pure white. When she reaches the front and Tim admires her in all his I-can’t-believe-how-lucky-I-am glory, I get a sudden flash. Of Jessica when she was twenty-seven – after Jamie broke up with her and she self-medicated with gin and casual sex for over a year. But still she wears white. Who needs a hymen when you can spend £2,000 on white lace? Jenny Packham can metaphorically sew you back up again.
Oh, I am a cynic. I know I am a cynic. But it never lasts.
Yet again, the ceremony starts and I buy into each and every beautiful moment. I find myself almost crying. God, the way Tim looks at Jessica. Like she’s a shiny penny, like she’s the answer to everything, like she’s a goddess. His eyes moisten with tears as he stumbles over his vows. Jessica is equally smitten, clutching at his hand like he’s holding the necklace from Titanic or something. When it’s time for the reading, a friend of Tim’s stands up and nervously makes his way to the microphone.
‘I’d like to read a piece from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin,’ he says, before coughing and starting.
Dee kicks me under the chair. ‘Shot!’ she whispers.
I’m about to roll my eyes when it starts. Tim’s friend tells us how love is a temporary madness. By the time it ends – with the part about a couple becoming one tree, not two – I’m almost crying again.
It is a really annoyingly good reading.
My thoughts are with Tom for the rest of the ceremony. Thinking of him, imagining him at our wedding. What his face would look like standing at the end of an aisle. He’d wear green because it would bring out the colour in his eyes and I wouldn’t wear white to make a statement. I pick which nice memories he’d use in his speech about me. Captain Corelli has made me feel better about us. I realise I am silly to think love can stay like it is in the beginning. Yes, some of our leaves have fallen but they fall for everyone. We’re not broken, we’ve just been together for six years. This is what everyone is like after six years, right? Less sex and more box sets. Simmering resentments replacing surprise mini-breaks. The registrar lady announces Jessica and Tim husband and wife and we all cheer and clap as they kiss in a way that will look good in photographs. And I really can’t cry. Not here. Especially not with Dee next to me.
We get to the boring bit where the couple have to sign all the paperwork. We turn and talk amongst ourselves while the violinist screeches out some sophisticated tune. Feeling less shy with one another than we did before the service. Jessica and Tim and the public declaration of their love has united us, has melted the ice. We now also have the extra conversational prompt of agreeing on how lovely the ceremony was.
Dee turns and says, ‘Well that was relatively painless, though we now have to drink at least two shots.’
Eventually the happy couple emerge. The photographers go berserk as they scramble to get the best snaps of the couple walking down the aisle: the money-shot moment. We all stand and jostle with our phones to also try to get a good photo to post online. Jessica and Tim walk very slowly, aware of all the phones and how they only have one chance to get this moment documented. The photographer even asks them to stop in the aisle, and they comply and smile and look at one another with so much love in their eyes. Then Jessica turns to the photographer and asks, ‘Did you get that? Or do you want us to do it again?’
*
We mill around for ages while tux-decked waiters constantly ply our glasses with champagne. We are led to a gorgeous conservatory and we twirl and mingle and ask the waiting staff what is on the silver plates they offer to us.
‘A poached quail’s egg with Scottish smoked salmon on brioche.’
‘Prosciutto and celeriac twists.’
‘Roast beef blinis with crème fraiche.’
Dee has one of each spread out on her hand like it’s a serving platter. ‘You never see a bowl of Twiglets, do you?’ she asks. ‘And I think I speak for everyone here when I say a bowl of Twiglets would be pretty welcome right now.’
There’s only one vegetarian canapé – a ‘kebab’ of a baby tomato, buffalo mozzarella and a single basil leaf. I hunt them down like a determined spinster at the countdown to midnight. I manage to find three, which isn’t enough to absorb the huge quantities of champagne Dee tips down my throat.
‘This glass is for Captain Corelli, this glass is for the hilarious James-Bond-themed seating plan I’ve just spotted. We’re sat next to someone called Nigel by the way. Who the holy fuck is called Nigel in this day and age? Imagine calling a tiny little baby “Nigel”?’
We speak only once to Jessica, as she comes in to frantically thank everybody for coming between her epic photoshoots on the lawn. I introduce her to Dee, though they’ve met before at my thirtieth birthday. We chorus that she looks so beautiful and compliment her on her dress. She says thank you while her eyes scan the room over our shoulders, looking for other people she needs to speak to. Lots of people come up and congratulate me on my success. ‘You’re the writer, aren’t you?’ ‘My niece loves your book.’ ‘Have you thought about turning it into a film?’ I blush and say, ‘Oh no, it’s nothing really.’ Playing humble, but feeling so much better that they’ve said it.
A Thai-style chicken kebab platter does the rounds so everyone has bad breath for the next hour until we’re called in for dinner. I make my excuses and go to the bathroom to run my hands under cold water.
I send a message to Tom.
Tori: Wedding lovely. How was the podcast? Love you xx
Countless glasses of champagne later and I’m sitting at a table called ‘Octopussy’. Dee and Nigel get on surprisingly well and I’m looking desperately at the teeny-tiny square of puff pastry that is my vegetarian option.
‘Oh yes, being a primary school teacher is great,’ Dee enthuses, tossing back her cascade of auburn hair. ‘I only do the younger years. No SATs or premature puberty thank you very much. I just like getting paid to play in a sandpit.’
‘Dee?’ I ask her back. My voice is more slurred than I thought it would be. ‘Can I have your bread roll?’
She nods without turning and I pounce on it, rip it to shreds and stuff it into my mouth. I tune out for a while, the wine making my mouth dry and my head fuggy. I stare at Andrea and Olivia sat on the other side of the table, telling Steven hilarious stories from secondary school that I’m sure he’s already heard. Andrea’s recovered from the slight of her child not being welcome and looks ten times drunker than I am. She pours wine like it’s the elixir of life, spilling half a bottle of white onto the pressed cream tablecloth then howling with laughter.
‘So, what do you do?’ Nigel’s friend asks me, because what else can you talk about after you’ve exhausted how you both know the couple (he’s Tim’s mate from uni).
I tip some sharp white wine down my throat. ‘I’m an author. Hey, are you going to eat your bread roll?’
‘Oh wow, an author,’ he says, like they always say. I can’t remember his name already. ‘Anything I’ve heard of?’ he asks, like they always ask.
‘It’s a self-help memoir called Who The Fuck Am I?’
I wait for the look of disbelief that he’s actually heard of it.
Oh yep. There. There it is.
‘Oh, I’ve even heard of that.’
My grin could turn Medusa to stone. ‘Crazy world, isn’t it?’
He’s now talking about how he has always wanted to write a book, and you know what I really need to do is sell the movie rights, that’s where the money is, and he wishes he had time to write a book, and then time passes and the speeches have started.
I will Je
ssica to speak. Please speak please speak please speak. Please get out of your fucking chair and fucking say something. You have a Master’s degree. Please speak please speak please speak. But she doesn’t. She sits there in her Jenny Packham and wipes her eyes delicately when her dad tells her how proud he is and she smiles demurely when Tim drops the big, ‘And I cannot tell you how beautiful you look today.’ Dee extracts herself from Nigel long enough to turn and tap my glass. I sigh and tip yet more acrid wine into my hungry body. The best man does the joke about the prostitutes in Amsterdam and all the men from the stag cheer ‘whey’ and I think about how many prostitutes in Amsterdam are actually illegally trafficked and repeatedly raped by their pimps but I don’t think you’re allowed to bring that up at weddings. Then it’s all over and the bad dancing has started.
And I am alone.
And I am drunker than I should be.
And I am starving. So starving.
There must’ve been a first dance but I can’t really remember it. Dee and I spent fifteen minutes in the loos together, giggling as we took selfie after selfie. She grabbed at my shoulder and her eyes hardly focused and she asked, ‘So, is Nigel cute or am I just drunk?’
‘It’s a little bit of both.’
That was enough of a green light. They’ve been sprawled over each other since, leaning their heads close to be heard over the music. I’ve had to join in this little circle of naff dancing with Andrea and Olivia. It’s dark and the children have been allowed to arrive. They’re skidding all over the dance floor in their mini tuxes from Next and everyone is saying ‘Oh, aren’t they sweet?’ Andrea has her baby on her hip as we step-tap-step-tap to ‘High Ho Silver Lining’. At some point, a red-faced Jessica storms past us towards the DJ booth, muttering, ‘He’s not keeping to the agreed playlist!’
I’m outside and it’s freezing and there is a message back from Tom.
Tom: Glad the wedding is going well. Podcast good. Love you too. X
I find myself scrabbling with my keys, punching out a reply.
Tori: It’s not ‘Agadoo’ without you. Love you so so much. Love you xxxx x xxx See you tomorrow love you xx x x
My stomach is gnawing itself and my mouth is watering to the point that I really think I might actually be sick. A brainwave! I find a delivery app and order a pizza to be delivered to the front gate of the hotel. A vegetarian supreme. A large. Oh, yes, go on, a bottle of coke too. No one need ever know. I pull myself back to the dance floor in search of Dee, to tell her where I’m off to. I only see the back of her head. Her head that is kissing Nigel’s head. Right there in the middle of the dance floor. With disco lights flashing off them and children pushing past them so they can stand right in front of the exciting smoke machine. I feel a melancholic pang. Because even though she will wake up and regret this in the morning it certainly looks like fun just for now. I can’t remember the last time I kissed Tom. Proper kissed Tom. With tongues and heady abandon, like teenagers who aren’t ready to have sex yet. I’m outside in the cold again and my heels plunge into the grass as I stumble towards the gate. I’m so glad I’ve ordered pizza. A hog roast has just been rolled out – the guests drunkenly flocking to the speared pig. An upgrade from the kebabs of only ten years ago – but at such a cost. I twist my ankle and swear under my breath. I stop under a tree and pull out my phone to see if Tom has replied. He hasn’t. I re-read his other message and he did say ‘I love you too’. Yes, it was perfunctory, but some people go their entire lives without anyone saying that to them, even once.
I am lucky.
I am so, so lucky.
God, I’m lonely. So lonely.
I sit down in the grass. My dress sucks up the dew, turning the red chiffon to damp clumps, but I don’t even care. I scroll through the photos of Dee and me, looking for the best one. The photo that can encapsulate everything I want the world to think I am. Funny and pretty and carefree-but-sophisticated, but not taking myself too seriously. I stumble on one where I’m pouting in just the right amount of piss-taking and actual attractiveness. Dee could look better. She’s squinting slightly and there are other photos from this sequence where she is the one who looks better. But she looks nice enough that she can’t tell me to pick a different one. I scroll through filters and add a vignette to hide the fact we’re just in some toilets.
I caption it: Oh my F*ckers, with friends like these there ain’t nothing, NOTHING, you can’t do. #FemaleFriendships Forever #MyBestFriendIsMyPlusOneTonight #YesIDidA ShotThroughMyF*ckingEyeball
I hit publish and slump back in this wet grass, waiting for the likes to come in. For my phone to come alive. I like how I look in this photo. I like the person this Tori is. This Tori has friends and a life and she doesn’t care and she has fun and don’t you wish you could be her?
I wish I could be her.
Through the haze of champagne and through my dry mouth that is only getting dryer, I’m able to comprehend that I *am* her. I am that person, and I do have friends, and I do have a life, and I do have fun. That is not a lie.
It is the truth.
But if it’s really true, then why am I so desperate to share it?
I blink into the arriving headlights and wobble up towards the front gate – wanting to apprehend the delivery guy before he reaches the venue. I try to brush the mud off my dress but know it is probably ruined. Which isn’t the end of the world, because you never wear the same dress to a wedding anyway, do you? I rummage in my clutch bag for some cash and stagger towards the source of the light. I wave to stop the car.
The pizza guy gets out with his hot bag. ‘Delivery for Victoria?’
The smell hits me and brings back a thousand memories. Of my first boyfriend, Johnnie, who used to deliver pizzas around our town. Who used to pick me up after his late shift and drive me to a car park somewhere and go down on me in the backseat and I had to pretend he was good at it.
‘That’s me,’ I tell the teenager, reaching out for the warm box that smells of my youth. I hand him the money and he doesn’t make any comment about the weird location of this delivery. God, this boy even looks like Johnnie did. They’ve got the same hair, the same way of slouching as they walk. I suddenly want to tell this seventeen-year-old pizza boy that he reminds me of my first boyfriend. But I am thirty-one and that would be pathetic. So I say thank you and tip him and watch him climb back into his car.
I wait for him to reverse out of the ornate gateway, the thud of music throbbing from his crap Peugeot. Then I cross my legs under me, balance the pizza box on my lap and eat the entire fucking thing in the dark.
Month Two
Review of Who The F*ck Am I? Summer Edition Tour
****
The Queen of the quarter-life crisis, Tori Bailey is not afraid to tell people the truth. The gritty, expletive truth about the pressures on young women and the must-must-must narratives thrust upon them. This tour will not disappoint fans looking for a hilariously brutal account of Tori’s early twenties and how they led her to write the bestselling Who The F*ck Am I? There’s nowhere she won’t go. Whether it’s ripping the merciless piss out of unpaid internships, inadequate cunnilingus, or the time she verbally assaulted a smug yogi, Tori does not bend to what society expects of her. This tour is a giddy empowering reminder that you shouldn’t either. However, as Tori’s readers grow older, it’ll be interesting to see what she has to say about the next chapter in their lives. I’m sure I’m not the only fan who was disappointed that her ‘new book’ was just a re-jacketed edition of her original with an added foreword. Take it as a compliment Tori when I say, ‘we want f*cking more!’
Tori: Has sent a link http://guardian.co.uk/who-the-fuck-am-i-tour-review
Who is this fucking bitch?
Dee: Oh my GOD. How DARE she give you a glowing review in the Guardian? LET’S BURN DOWN HER HOUSE.
Tori: ‘I’m sure I’m not the only fan who was disappointed that her “new book” was just a summer edition.’
Tori: IT WAS THE SAME B
OOK TITLE WITH THE WORDS ‘ADDED FOREWORD’ ON THE COVER. IT WASN’T EXACTLY MISLEADING!
Dee: I refuse to offer you emotional support for this.
Tori: Can you offer me wine? Tonight?
Dee: I’m not drinking! The brats at school have given me horrid lurgy bug of HELL. But coffee? I can certainly do coffee? Tomorrow morning?
Tori: Yes to coffee! You can tell me all about your latest date with Nigel.
Tori: I will never get bored of the fact you’re dating someone called Nigel.
Tori: Nigel
Tori: NIGEL
Tori: Nigel Nigel Nigel Nigel Nigel
Dee: Meet you at the Lido cafe at eleven? I hear the coffee there is very photogenic.
Tori: OK Nigel.
Dee: I hate you by the way.
Tori: Sorry Nigel.
*
We have to wait for a table. Of course we do. The coffee here looks good when you take a photograph of it from above. People queue for that kind of thing now. It’s a good way of filling their feed with proof they are an interesting person who drinks grown-up artisan coffee. But it’s a pretty enough place to wait, watching the swimmers flop up and down the lido in their wetsuits. Enjoying the pool being mostly empty as May shows no sign of getting warmer anytime soon. Dee and I both take photos of the pool, even though we’ve been here a gazillion times before and took photos of it all those times too. Eventually a flustered waitress shows us to a tiny table near the giant windows. We order overpriced coffee and a stack of pancakes to share.
‘Christ my boobs hurt today,’ Dee moans, clutching at them. ‘I can hardly wear a bra.’
‘Period due?’
‘Yes, tomorrow. It’s bollocks. It means Nigel and I won’t be able to have sex for five whole days. We’ll break our rhythm.’
The coffee arrives and it does, indeed, look marvellous. I hate myself as I take out my phone and take a quick photo of it. And yet I do it anyway. And it’s not like everyone around me isn’t doing exactly the same thing.
