What Fresh Hell

by Lucy Vine

  Thanks for this!

  Unforch I can’t make it to this now. Didn’t realise when I said yes that it meant definite yes.

  Ta,

  Fi

  From: Katie.Jacks@barclays.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Hey Lilah,

  Katie Jacks here again!!!! Don’t worry, my email isn’t re-sending the message again this time!!!!! I just wanted to say I realised the amount – £425 – was in your email, lol!!! Sorry about that lol lol! So just let me know your bank details and will transfer this weekend. I will set a reminder, lol!!!

  Katie xxxxxxxx

  From: Katie.Jacks@barclays.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Hey Lilah,

  Katie Jacks here again!!!! Don’t worry, my email isn’t re-sending the message again this time!!!!! I just wanted to say I realised the amount – £425 – was in your email, lol!!! Sorry about that lol lol! So just let me know your bank details and will transfer this weekend. I will set a reminder, lol!!!

  Katie xxxxxxxx

  From: Katie.Jacks@barclays.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Hey Lilah,

  Katie Jacks here again!!!! Don’t worry, my email isn’t re-sending the message again this time!!!!! I just wanted to say I realised the amount – £425 – was in your email, lol!!! Sorry about that lol lol! So just let me know your bank details and will transfer this weekend. I will set a reminder, lol!!!

  Katie xxxxxxxx

  From: NicolaBucan@carphonewarehouse.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Sounds great! Will send the money across in the next month or so. You’ll defo have it before we fly in October.

  Thanks x

  From: Katie.Jacks@barclays.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  OMG SORRY!!!!! I think it did it again!!!! That’s soooo weird?!!! Sorrrrrrrrrrry everyone!!! Lollllll!!!

  Katie xxxxxx

  From: SofiaMathes@clintonscards.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Hi Lilah,

  Sorry, I can’t make it anymore either.

  Hope you have a good trip! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! See you at the wedding!

  Sofia

  From: CarlieAnneHodkins@gmail.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  WHY AM I STILL IN THIS EMAIL CHAIN? I TOLD YOU I AM NOT THE RIGHT PERSON. I KNOW NONE OF YOU. I’M NOT COMING TO MARBELLA WITH YOU. TAKE ME OFF THIS GROUP.

  From: NicolaBucan@carphonewarehouse.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Oh, also, what’s the theme going to be? And is it a hotel we’re staying at? x

  From: Joely.Bolt@FatJoely.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Hahahaha, guys, all the info is in Lilah’s actual email and in the itinerary attached. READ IT PROPERLY AND STOP GROUP MESSAGING EVERYONE WITH DUMB QUESTIONS.

  Have just transferred the moolah, L-dawg. Thanks for arranging all this, you are a goddess.

  Love y’all,

  Joely x

  From: JessMarsh@snappysnaps.co.uk

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  Guys, PLEASE stop cc’ing everyone into your replies! IT just rang me to tell me off about all the personal emails clogging up the server.

  Thanks for sorting, Delilah, will transfer the money in a few weeks.

  Thanks,

  Jess

  From: CarlieAnneHodkins@gmail.com

  To: You

  Cc: 15+

  AUTOMATED MESSAGE: USER HAS BLOCKED THIS EMAIL ADDRESS.

  15

  ‘THIS IS FUCKING AMAZING,’ says Joely, unnecessarily loudly.

  ‘Shhh,’ I say, panicked, but she’s not listening.

  ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW INCREDIBLE THIS IS,’ she adds, and I chance a furtive look around us to see which relatives are giving us dirty looks.

  We’re at a Hindu wedding for our friend Ravi, and Joely is being way too loud about it. But she’s also dead right – it’s absolutely amazing. A spectacle to end all spectacles. Dazzling, colourful and enormous. But the word enormous doesn’t really cover it. It’s more like huge, expansive and gigantic, all rolled into one weird hugexpansigantic word. I’ve been gaping like a fish from the moment we got here.

  Proceedings were running quite late, but a few minutes ago the groom, along with his side of the family, all arrived at the temple, singing and dancing in the car park outside, before making their way in, to cheers from what must be about 800 people in one space. And because this is the world we live in now, everyone here is holding up their phone. It’s a sea of black, white and novelty iPhone cases as far as the eye can see, with every single guest filming the procession. Within minutes, I know my Facebook timeline will be full of the same video, filmed from a slightly different angle. And I will watch every single one of them.

  I’ve never seen anything like this and I feel very sheltered all of a sudden. It’s a good feeling, though, knowing I’m learning about other cultures and climbing out of my little white-person bubble. I’m seeing more of the world!

  Oh maaaan – that sounded really sheltered, didn’t it? Don’t tell anyone I said that thing about seeing more of the world, that was lame.

  The bride and groom are on stage now and we can’t really hear what’s being said. I don’t want to entirely blame Joely for that, because we are quite far back, but it is also mostly her fault because she’s being so noisily appreciative of everything around us.

  ‘LOOK AT THEM.’ She points now at the array of bridesmaids who are very many and all turn around to look at the woman who wants everyone to look at them.

  ‘YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR WEDDING JUST LIKE THIS, LAUREN,’ Joely shouts down past me at her cousin, who gives her a withering, disapproving look.

  ‘That would be completely inappropriate,’ Lauren says haughtily, before adding, ‘Stuff like that is called cultural appropriation, Joely. You need to get woke.’

  ‘WHAT THE FUCK DID SHE JUST CALL ME?’ Joely shouts in my ear, laughing, before leaning further over. ‘YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME?’

  Lauren rolls her eyes and Joely smirks.

  ‘Jesus, are we saying woke now?’ I murmur, but no one’s listening to me. I wish for a second that Will was here with me, but he had to work.

  When Joely turns back to me to talk again, I draw a line across my lips – the international sign for seriously shut the hell up or I will kill you where you sit.

  As if there was any chance that would work.

  ‘I went out with a south Asian guy last week,’ she muses, but her voice is slightly lower, thank God. ‘He was super sexy and we had a really good time, getting drunk and feeling each other up in a ’Spoons. But I think I ruined it when I got back to his house. I gave him a handjob in the living room and then wiped his stuff all over the sofa. He got annoyed, but – like I told him – it came out of him, it’s his property, why should I have to hold it?’

  I try not to giggle, but it bursts out of me. That image is too gross for words.

  A middle-aged white woman the other side of Joely leans over. She has been listening intently for a while now and can apparently hold her opinions in no longer.

  ‘If you keep giving away the milk, no one’s going to buy the cow, dear,’ she says primly.

  Joely snorts and replies good-naturedly, ‘Who are you calling a cow, lady? And whatever, everyone is more than welcome to my milk. It’s free range, organic and pasteurised. Plus, I have plenty to share and it’s not about to run out any time soon. Why shouldn’t I give it away while I can?’

  The lady looks shocked, but that only encourages Joely. There’s nothing she likes more than
being shocking.

  ‘I’m a socialist, see?’ she continues in her ‘helpful’ voice. ‘I like to share what I have. I don’t have much, but I do have milk.’ She laughs raucously and the woman tuts, furious. She turns away pointedly, her nose in the air, and there is a moment of wonderful silence, before she turns back, this time looking directly at me.

  ‘Your friend is very rude,’ she says and I swallow hard. She is pretty rude, there’s no denying that. Joely snorts again but doesn’t comment.

  The woman continues to peer at me over her glasses. ‘Do you give your body away to all and sundry too, or are you married?’

  I shake my head, fighting an urge to disassociate myself from Joely. It’s bad enough that I feel this desperate need to please my friends, but wanting to impress mean strangers who slut-shame random women at weddings is taking it too far. I need to get a serious grip on myself.

  ‘I . . . I am not married,’ I say, stuttering and trailing off. I don’t know how to answer the other part because sex with all and sundry – whatever that means? – actually sounds really fun and is a big part of why I’m so jealous of Joely.

  The woman tuts again. ‘But you’re – what? – about thirty-five years old? Pray tell why you’re not married yet?’

  Ouch!

  ‘I’m twenty-eight!’ I say, trying not to sound too upset, even though I am really, really upset. Thirty-five? I don’t look thirty-five, do I? Maybe it’s all the stress lately.

  She sniffs. ‘You need to start using moisturiser, dear. I started at twenty and I’ve hardly aged a day,’ she says as I politely avoid eye contact with her wrinkles. She keeps going. ‘And either way, thirty-five or twenty-eight – it’s all still too old to be this frivolous. I was married at twenty-one, back when young women were still ladies, and we did things properly. You better get a move-on because a wedding after thirty is terribly gauche.’

  I cock my head. Gauche? What is that? Doesn’t gauche mean left in French? Why is getting married after thirty left? What does she mean, like, left wing? Is this something to do with Joely’s socialist comment?

  ‘I have a boyfriend,’ I squeak, hating myself for justifying my life choices. Sitting between us, Joely tuts at me and crosses her arms. I know I’m betraying her by continuing to engage but I can’t help it. I need to persuade this woman that I’m not a lost cause. Please don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.

  The woman ignores Joely, nodding at me as she goes on. ‘Ah, I see. But he won’t get serious and pop the question? Unco-operative, is he? You need to lay down a few ground rules immediately. Men have to be led around by the nose, told what to do. They never get around to doing anything without being pushed into it. Tell this man friend of yours that you won’t live with him until he proposes. And then stop giving it up so easily – I know what you girls are like. Give him a deadline of Christmas to get the proposal done, and then you can put out again once you’re engaged, if you so wish.’

  Christmas?!

  ‘I already live with him,’ I whisper, feeling silly and angry and defensive. And then more words come out of my mouth in a rush, and I immediately can’t believe I’ve said it. ‘And actually, he already asked me to marry him and I said no.’

  Joely sits up straighter, as does Lauren on the other side of me.

  ‘What?’ they say at the same time.

  Oh.

  Shit.

  Shit shit shit.

  ‘Oh, well, I mean, not really,’ I add hurriedly. ‘It wasn’t a proper proposal, just a throwaway comment, just a Will joke, you know? You know what he’s like! He didn’t mean it.’

  Why did I say that? What was I trying to prove? This was not the way I wanted to tell them. And I didn’t even tell them – I told a fucking nosy stranger. Dammit, that was so stupid.

  Stupid stupid stupid.

  He didn’t even propose, not properly, it was just a laugh, designed to wind me up. He didn’t really propose!! A picture flashes through my brain of Will’s face when he saw me in that wedding dress. His excitement, and the hints afterwards, followed by the almost-row about wanting more from our future. If I’m being honest with myself, I know what that all meant. I know what he wants. But I don’t want to face it. I’m not ready to face it.

  This isn’t the right time for us to be thinking about any of that anyway – and not just because I’m not ready, but because things aren’t . . . they’re not right between us. OK, it’s more than that, they’re actively bad. In fact, things have been getting dramatically worse since that day in the car. I was supposed to make it up to him the other day with tickets to the premiere of a new Marvel superhero film. He’s been going on about it for ages and it seemed like kismet when Aslan offered me the tickets. Will was so adorably excited and seemed so happy, after weeks of being weird. I knew this mattered to him, I knew it was important, and I still messed it up. I got trapped in a wedding cake shop with Lauren and lost track of time. When I realised how late it was, I panicked. I tried to ring him but couldn’t get any service so I dashed across town in an Uber I couldn’t afford, running across a huge car park, only to find the cinema people wouldn’t let me in, which was so unfair. Just because I was a sweaty, shrieky madwoman, covered in cake and demanding entrance to a film that started an hour before . . . It’s outrageous and I will be writing to their head office.

  I sat in the foyer, sad-eating popcorn until Will eventually emerged. And predictably, he was heartbreakingly nice about it.

  I kept saying sorry and Will kept telling me not to worry, and because I’m not used to upsetting him, I didn’t know how to handle it, so I just kept on apologising. I knew I was being annoying, but I couldn’t stop. There was a point where I thought he was going to explode at me, and then my phone went and it was Lauren sending me pictures of alternative cakes. She was still in the bakery and she still hadn’t made a decision.

  But it was like that was my last chance with him. Everything’s been different since then and I hardly recognise us as a couple right now. Not that we’re arguing – we still can’t even have a shitting argument – but we’ve moved into another type of relationship existence. One where we live in separate universes. We barely bump into each other at all and when we do, we’re tip-toeing around. We’ve not spoken properly and we’re only seeing each other when we climb into bed at night. And even that tends to be at different times. He’s usually fast asleep by the time I get in after a long day of work, wedding chores, FU admin, complaining with Joely, and emotional maintenance with Lauren.

  I don’t know what to do, though. I know the problem is me and my schedule, but I’m still ignoring it. I keep telling myself that I just need to hold on a little bit longer, get through this busy patch, and then I can focus all my energies on him. We can spend all the time together in the world, fix things, do the travelling thing (what’s another couple of credit cards?) and maybe even talk about this future he seems to have mapped out for us. Just another couple of months and then I swear I will make it up to him. I really will, and if you can somehow hear these thoughts, Will, know that I’m really, really sorry about all this.

  And even sorrier that my apologies are mostly just happening inside my brain.

  ‘When was this?’ Lauren says sharply. ‘When was this “joke” proposal?’

  ‘Ohhh . . .’ I wave my hand, as if to shoo away the conversation. ‘Ages ago. Months ago. It wasn’t a big deal, really. I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t real and it honestly didn’t matter.’

  She relaxes a fraction but I can tell she is angry. I can’t tell if she’s annoyed about her proposal toes being trodden on or about being kept in the dark about something so important. I’m not sure. It could be either or it could be both. Joely, though, looks delighted.

  ‘What did he say exactly?’ she crows, and I feel Lauren re-stiffen beside me. ‘Tell me exactly the words he used!’ She leans in even closer. ‘How can it b
e a joke? You can’t jokingly propose to someone! Will is mad about you, Lilah. I bet he meant it really! You know what they say – there’s no such thing as a joke. What would you say if he asked you for real? Did you tell Franny? What did she say? I bet she told you not to do it, but you should totally say yes! Maybe you and Lauren could have a joint wedding!’

  She definitely said that last thing deliberately to stir, and I shake my head decisively. I’m trying to read Lauren’s expression out of the corner of my eye but she is blank-faced as I go on, as firmly as I can. ‘There’s nothing to say yes to! It’s not a thing. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. And even if it was a thing, I don’t want to get married now anyway. I’m not ready.’

  ‘Well, you’re a very stupid girl, if you ask me.’ The woman is still listening and she sighs aggressively now. I wonder again what she’s getting out of this conversation. She continues briskly: ‘You should’ve bitten his hand off. Proposals don’t come along every day, you know – especially for women your age. And that’s nonsense about being ready. Why on earth wouldn’t you want to get married? Every girl wants to get married. What else is there for you?’

  Er, work? Friends? Family? Fun? LIFE? I don’t say that, I just shrug helplessly.

  ‘Her parents are divorced,’ Joely interjects suddenly, apparently on the woman’s side.

  ‘It’s not that!’ I say, a little too loudly, and a few people in the rows in front turn around to glare at us.

  I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘It’s not that! I just don’t know if it’s what I really want at all. Why do we get married anyway? I love weddings, and I understand that having a party for everyone you know and care about is wonderful, but I’m not sure I want one for myself. It seems like a huge amount of stress and expense. If I had that amount of money lying around, I’d rather buy a house, redecorate or go travelling. Do something that excites me. I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in the sanctity of signing a bit of paper, and I think people and circumstances change too much to make a forever kind of promise like that. I don’t know where I’ll be or how I’ll feel in a year, never mind fifty. I just don’t get marriage. It’s meaningless.’ I feel Lauren shift uncomfortably next to me and I add quickly, ‘I mean, that’s what I think about marriage for me personally. I think it’s a totally brilliant thing to do if you believe in it. I don’t mean I’m against marriage altogether, I just mean . . .’ I trail off as someone in front of us turns around and angrily shushes us. My cheeks flame as I sink lower in my seat. Beside me, freezing cold vibes are coming off Lauren in waves.