The Stag and Hen Weekend

by Mike Gayle

  ‘She’d have nothing to gain.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Yaz. ‘Give me the phone and if it’s something you need to know I’ll tell you.’

  ‘And have to spend the rest of the day trying not to read meaning into your every action? No thanks.’ Helen gave in. ‘Okay, I’ll read it and deal with the consequences.’

  With the whole table watching her intently Helen manoeuvred her thumb into position but it refused to press the button that would reveal the contents of the text.

  ‘I just can’t do it,’ she said.

  Before Helen could voice her opposition Yaz snatched up the phone, opened the text and smiled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ teased Yaz.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘It’s not bad news.’

  ‘So what does it say?’

  Yaz handed the phone back to Helen and as her eyes locked on the screen she wanted to smile and cry at the same time.

  Ros leaned in to take a peek. ‘What does it say?’

  Helen wiped her eyes. ‘It says: “I love you Spoonface.” ‘ With bated breath her friends waited for an explanation. ‘It’s the pet name Phil gave me years ago.’

  Yaz laughed. ‘We gathered that. Why Spoonface?’

  Helen shrugged. ‘He made it up and it stuck. He only ever calls me it when I’m sad or moody or worried. It’s his way of relieving the tension.’

  ‘And what’s your pet name for him?’

  ‘I’ve never felt like he’s needed anything other than Phil,’ said Helen quietly

  ‘Why does everything have to be so difficult?’ she said eventually. ‘Why can’t things be straightforward?’ How desperately she had wanted to receive some form of communication from Phil and now that she had, it just made things worse.

  ‘What should I do? Reply or leave it?’

  Yaz spoke first. ‘Leave it. He won’t think anything of it.’

  ‘But I always reply. What if he calls?’

  ‘Just ignore it. There could be a million and one reasons why you didn’t take the call.’

  Helen wasn’t convinced. ‘I should call him.’

  ‘And say what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you said yourself that you’re the world’s worst liar.’

  ‘Then I’d better improve,’ said Helen snatching up the phone once again, ‘because right now I’ve not got much choice.’

  Clutching her phone, Helen headed across the terrace towards one of the benches overlooking the river.

  The afternoon sun was fierce and Helen felt her brow dampen with perspiration. A middle-aged couple stood watching their two young children skimming stones across the surface of the water. Helen envied them. She wished she could be enjoying the pleasant surroundings and the beautiful weather without a care in the world instead of having to make a telephone call which could completely wreck everything she held dear.

  She called up Phil’s number and was ready to press down on the call button when the phone rang. She checked the screen.

  ‘Hi, Mum, everything okay?’

  ‘I’m fine, sweetie. I’ve just finished washing up and thought I’d call you before I go and have a sit in the garden. Are you having a nice weekend?’

  ‘Yes, it’s great. The weather’s beautiful.’

  ‘And how have those treatment things been?’

  ‘Wonderful. Really relaxing.’

  ‘Are you okay? You don’t sound like your usual self.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Helen quickly. ‘Just a bit tired. We had a late night and I still haven’t recovered.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be having late nights this close to the wedding. Not if you want to look your best for next Saturday. The week before I married your father I was in bed for nine o’clock every night.’

  ‘And every day you were up at six for your morning constitutional.’

  ‘Left out of Granny’s house, all the way along Spencer Street, right again at Larch Crescent, all the way along Radcliffe Street and back home in time to make Granddad’s morning brew. Did me the world of good. You should try it.’

  Helen laughed. ‘I’ll add it to my list, Mum.’

  ‘Anyway, the reason I’m phoning is that I’ve had a call from your cousin Joe to say that he and his girlfriend can’t make it because she fractured her ankle and he’s got to look after her. I told him he should come on his own because there was no point in you and Phil losing the money on two meals but he wouldn’t hear of it. Anyway, I mentioned it to your auntie Sue and it turns out that her Andrew who said that he couldn’t come actually can. I told her that it would be too late in the day to be getting new place cards but Sue insisted that he wouldn’t mind. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good. I’ll call Sue now and let her know. Love you sweetheart.’

  Helen had a million things she wanted to say. Everything from how she still wanted her dad to walk her down the aisle through to being sorry for never quite being the ordinary daughter with the ordinary job that she knew deep down her mum wanted her to be.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Helen. ‘I’m sure.’ She rung off.

  The urge to call Phil had gone. Her mum had saved her and while it had raised problems of its own that she would have to face during the coming week, for now at least she felt strangely calm.

  Feeling more buoyant now, Helen returned to the table.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Yaz.

  ‘I didn’t make the call. Chickened out and took a call from my mum instead. You’ll be pleased to know however that my cousin Andrew and his girlfriend are coming to the wedding that isn’t happening in lieu of my cousin Joe and his girlfriend.’ Helen sat down. ‘This is really going to be a kick in the teeth for Mum when she finds out it’s not happening.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Yaz. ‘I thought my mum would give me a hard time about Simon and me separating but she didn’t say a word. She just listened and gave me a hug afterwards. And if I know your mum she’ll be the same. That’s the thing about mums: whatever you do, whatever you say, at the end of it they are always on your side.’

  Helen sat down and looked at the food on her plate but only managed a mouthful before pushing it aside.

  ‘I know it sounds mad but part of me wishes that I hadn’t booked this week off work. I can’t think of a better way of coping than by having a show to do. When I’m at work nothing else matters and I’m in complete control. It’s just real life where I struggle to cope.’

  Yaz grinned. ‘You know what you need to lift your spirits? Chocolate, more champagne and a group threading session.’

  ‘Is that what you swapped the wedding makeover thing for?’

  ‘Yeah, when I called the spa the girl started reeling off what else we could have for the same money and the second she mentioned threading I was like, ‘let me stop you there’.

  Helen raised her hand to her eyebrows. ‘I’m booked in at a place in town to have mine done on Thursday.’

  ‘Well now you can cancel it and put the money towards something more useful like that last-minute holiday you’ll be needing.’

  Helen sighed. ‘I thought about that, too, but what would be the point? Being away from home would make me miss Phil more, not less. At least if I’m here I can see friends, visit my parents or go flat-hunting.’

  ‘You do what you’ve got to do,’ said Yaz, ‘but at least you’ll be doing it with professionally shaped eyebrows.’

  It was twenty-five past two when they walked, for the final time, into the spa reception. While the rest of the girls took a seat Helen and Yaz made their way over to the desk to book in.

  ‘Hi,’ said Yaz, ‘we’re the two-fifteen group threading session. Sorry we’re a bit late, but we’ve had a complete nightmare of a day.’

  The girl smiled. ‘That’s fi
ne. Can I just take your name?’

  ‘Mrs Collins, Yasmin.’

  The receptionist looked at her computer screen. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have anything in that name.’

  Yaz and Helen exchanged puzzled glances.

  ‘Okay, how about Helen Richards?’

  The receptionist glanced again. ‘Got it,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Helen Richards, 2.30 p.m., wedding preparation hair and make-up session.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Yaz firmly, as she wondered whether there was no booking this hotel could get right, ‘it’s a group threading session. We were booked in for the other thing but I called this morning and was told that it would be no problem to swap it.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no record of that.’

  ‘Great,’ said Yaz. ‘Well can we cancel it now and do the threading thing instead?’

  ‘The beauticians who do hair and make-up are specially booked in. You could cancel the session but I’m afraid you’d lose the fee. What would you like to do?’

  ‘Looks like we’ve got no choice,’ said Helen grinning at her friend. ‘So I say let’s pimp this bride!’

  18.

  When Yaz had initially sold the idea of the wedding makeover to Helen she had promised it would be a ‘bit of a laugh’, which Helen took to mean that the chances of her emerging with hair like a drag queen and make-up like Coco the Clown were high. Helen had sat at enough department store counters having make-up consultations and, in her younger days, had her hair cut by a sufficient number of student hairstylists to know that there were few mistakes that couldn’t be rectified by a quick wash and blow dry or half a pack of Johnson’s baby wipes. But in all her years of haircuts and makeovers nothing had prepared her for what she saw when after the best part of an hour of being prodded and poked, the older of the two stylists, a tall woman with red hair, announced to the room, ‘I think we’re done,’ and held up a mirror.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Helen couldn’t think of a response. Her mind had gone blank. Fortunately Yaz was on standby. ‘You. Look. Amazing!’

  Helen took in her reflected image as the rest of the girls chipped in with enthusiastic comments of their own while they took pictures with their phones. Helen tried to identify a flaw that she could point out for her friends to laugh at, but there were none to be found. These two women, skilled in the dark arts of blow-drying and make-up had performed a miracle, transforming taking an exhausted Helen into a dewy skinned ingénue. Her hair, her skin, her eyes, her lips, everything was exactly the way that she had always wanted to look but never managed to achieve.

  ‘I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t even look like me.’

  ‘Oh please!’ said the younger stylist, a dark-haired girl with deep brown eyes. She looked over at Yaz. ‘Is she always like this?’

  Yaz nodded sombrely. ‘Always.’

  ‘There’s just no pleasing some people.’ She looked over Helen’s shoulder and smiled. ‘For the record: you looked amazing before we started. All we did was cross a few T’s and dot a few I’s. That fiancé of yours is a lucky man.’

  It was a harmless comment given the context and wouldn’t have affected Helen had the makeover been the disaster she had been expecting, but with it being so remarkable, it served as another painful reminder of the mess in which she found herself and tears threatened.

  Embarrassed to be behaving like some hormonal teenager, Helen led them out to reception where they handed in their luggage tickets to the concierge and prepared to leave the hotel for the last time.

  ‘My house is going to look a real dump in comparison to this place,’ joked Yaz as they walked towards the car park. ‘Twenty-four hours from now I’ll be knee-deep in the ironing basket and this will seem like nothing more than a very good dream. A taste of honey really is a dangerous thing.’ She covered her mouth in horror. ‘I didn’t mean you . . . I meant—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Helen, ‘and you’re right. For people like me it’s about as dangerous as it gets.’

  They said their goodbyes and headed off to the various vehicles that had brought them to their destination. Helen, Yaz, Lorna, Dee and Kerry, reluctant to be the first to leave, waved the rest of the girls off before loading their own luggage into the back of Yaz’s people carrier.

  As Yaz started up the engine and changed CDs Helen looked over to the spot in the car park where just a few hours earlier Aiden had said all those amazing things. Never had she felt so conflicted.

  ‘I just want to do the right thing,’ said Helen aloud. ‘Do the right thing and know that it’s the right thing.’

  ‘Well if you find out how to do that,’ said Yaz turning down the music, ‘make sure to bottle it and we can go into business flogging the stuff to mugs like you and me.’

  It was five o’clock as Yaz pulled up in front of Helen’s house having already dropped off the others at Kerry’s. Helen looked up at her home, a late Edwardian four-bedroom terrace in the centre of West Bridgford, with a mixture of trepidation and delight as she recalled the first time she and Phil had visited the house with the local estate agent. It had been part of a deceased estate and if she had been under any illusion about why it had been on the market for so long and priced so reasonably, all had become clear the moment they smelled the musty air, saw the vile woodchip wallpaper painted a sickly shade of orange and peered along the hallway into the kitchen where a pigeon was sitting on top of a disassembled moped.

  Helen had hoped it would improve, that some quirky detail or original feature would capture her imagination and make her fall in love with the unlovable but there had been no such moment. The house was dark, dank and depressing and even though it was some sixty thousand pounds cheaper than similar sized houses in the road Helen felt that, even if they could get the price down by another ten thousand pounds as they had discussed, it would still be overpriced for what it would require to turn it around.

  Phil had wanted it though. Leaving the house grinning like an idiot at all the potential he could see, he was talking about loft conversions and full-length kitchen extensions and knocking out walls and adding RSJs. Helen had tried desperately to share his vision, but no, she just couldn’t see what he was seeing.

  In the end Phil had left the decision in her hands. Yes, he loved the house but if she couldn’t imagine them living in it then they would simply rent for a little while longer and carry on searching until they found something that spoke to both of them with equal clarity.

  Torn between trusting her own judgement and wanting to please Phil, she had struggled for over a week with the decision and only when they received a call from the estate agent to say that the vendor had received an offer from another couple did Helen finally make up her mind. That same afternoon they made an offer, which was accepted.

  Over the months that followed as the guts of the house were ripped apart by builders and reassembled with the help of architects, Phil would often ask her what had changed her mind and Helen would always tell him that she didn’t know, she just had a feeling.

  Helen began unloading her luggage wishing that the same feeling would return. All she wanted was to be sure. To be convinced that a day wouldn’t come when she wished she had chosen a different path.

  ‘Are you going to be okay?’ asked Yaz as they hugged goodbye.

  ‘Never mind me,’ said Helen. ‘It’s you I’m worried about. If you need anything this week, promise you’ll call, okay?’

  ‘Only if you promise to do the same.’

  Helen stood on the pavement waving as Yaz pulled away before making her way along the front path to the door. As she reached in her pocket for her keys she heard her next-door neighbours’ front door open.

  ‘Afternoon, Helen,’ said Mrs O’Brien cheerfully. ‘Lovely weather we’re having isn’t it? How was your weekend away? Was it what you were expecting?’

  Helen smiled. ‘Not really, Mary. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.’

  Stepping over the threshold Hel
en picked up the post from the floor. Most of it was junk mail or flyers from local takeaways. Tucking it under her arm she reached for the control panel of the burglar alarm, entered the code and then slipped off her flip-flops, walking barefoot through the kitchen to the fridge. She poured herself a glass of mineral water then sat down on one of the stools at the kitchen counter and began sorting through the mail.

  There was little to get excited about: a couple of bills, a form from the tax office and a remittance statement from her agent for some voiceover work she had done in London a few months earlier.

  Seeing the remittance statement started Helen off on a train of work-related thought: the meeting with her accountant that she needed to arrange, the task of getting her website updated and a million and one other things that she had been putting off until the wedding was out of the way.

  She picked up a Biro and then, scanning the counter for something to write on, a notepad lying next to the microwave. She was about to begin scribbling down the mother of all to-do lists when she looked down at the pad and saw what was written there:

  I, Philip Michael Hudson, choose you, Helen Leah Richards. I choose you to laugh with, I choose you to cry with. I choose to make my home with you. I choose to stand by you shoulder to shoulder against whatever obstacles come our way. I choose to comfort you when you are low. I choose to celebrate with you all of your successes. I choose to make you warm when you are cold. I choose to love you ’til I die. (And when I’m gone I’ll choose to love you still.) I choose to be your confidant and lover. I choose to be your friend. Your buddy. I choose to make you smile. I choose you first above all others. I choose to share all I have and all I’ll ever be because you make me what I am. But most of all I choose you, dear Helen, to be my wife, my life, my all. And I’ll choose you to the end.

  The sun had long since disappeared as Helen arrived at East Midlands airport and made her way towards Car Park 6. Leaving her car in the nearest free spot Helen walked to the bus stop for the transfer pickup along with a couple in their twenties and a young family with a small baby.