‘Well, we were going to have a big marquee at my parents’ house. They’ve got a massive lawn so we could invite all our really good friends. But then when we started to make a proper list we ended up with a hundred and fifty!’
‘Wow!’ This could become my new, most overused word. Rachel has always dreamt of a small and cosy wedding, saying her vows surrounded by just her nearest and dearest. But one hundred and fifty people and a manicured lawn on the outskirts of Windsor? That is some leap.
‘So then,’ there is a dramatic pause, ‘Michael said he wants to show me off, and we can’t not invite everybody, isn’t he sweet? So, guess what?’
‘What?’ I daren’t guess, it might get me in trouble.
‘We booked Startford Castle!’
I’m confused. ‘The Startford Castle? But that’s, like, where, it’s like where celebs go.’ This was so not what we’d always talked about. This was the totally over the top type of wedding venue we’d taken the piss about.
I stare at Rachel. It’s like she’s morphing before my eyes into the type of girl we used to laugh about.
‘Well, it is my wedding.’ I detect a trace of huffiness in Rachel’s tone. ‘And like Michael said, I’m only going to do it once, and as Sal said, everybody will be watching and tweeting about it.’
I’m about to say, ‘they will?’ But I bite it back.
‘Stuff Sal for a minute, stuff everybody else. This is your wedding, Rach. It’s your day, the one you will remember. No offence, but nobody else who sees it on social media will give a damn a few weeks later.’
‘Tell it like it is!’
She is so not happy with me. I reach out, touch her hand and hope that the contact will show her that I mean well, that I want it to be right for her. That I’m saying this for all the right reasons. ‘I will! Sorry, but it’s what you want that’s important, Rach.’
‘This is what I want, Jane. I thought you’d be happy for me!’ She is frowning. ‘I know you hate weddings.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t—’
‘But I thought as my best friend you’d be able to put that to one side rather than just picking fault with everything.’
‘I’m not picking fault.’
‘You are! Look, I’m really sorry about what happened, you know I am. I thought you’d want to be involved. But if you can’t handle it and you don’t want to be here then just say the word.’
I can feel hot tears prickling in my eyes. ‘Rach, I do want to help you plan your wedding, honest, I’m so happy for you.’ I look her in the eye, hers are glistening, and I know mine are, too. ‘Maybe I’m not completely over things.’ I gulp, and blink to clear my vision. ‘And it is bringing it all back, but I’m so happy for you, really. I’m not anti-marriage, I’m not. Not for you.’ Her fingers tighten around mine. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to criticise. Honest, say you believe me?’
She nods. ‘I am sorry about what happened to you.’
‘I know you are, you saved my life after. You’re my best friend.’ No way can I spill my Michael-doubts now. There is no way she’d believe me, she’d just think I was trying to cause trouble between them. I try to steer us back onto safe ground. ‘It’s just it’s so different from what I thought you’d do, it’s so,’ I struggle for a word, ‘big?’
Rachel grins, her normal good humour restored. ‘I know, it’s amazing isn’t it?’
‘Totes.’ What else can I say? If that’s what she really wants, then it is amazing. I could have said lots of other words though, I’m not usually a ‘totes’ kind of person, but my brain has frozen. ‘But you are sure this is what you want and how you want to do it, Rach?’ I try and ignore the way her smile has slipped slightly again. ‘I mean, you always said you wanted to get married at a quiet little spot with just a few people …’ See, I’m my own worst enemy, the second we get back onto solid ground, I shake the tree again. Luckily, Rachel isn’t taking me too seriously.
‘Oh, God, that was when we were kids, Jane. This is now, this is real! Anyway, his mum talked to mine, then they insisted we should go the whole hog! Oh, Jane, you should see what the wedding planner came up, you’ve never seen anything like it, it’s going to be amazing.’ All I can think of is His and Her Beckham-style thrones, a million white doves and my bestie standing in the middle of it in the biggest meringue dress you’ve ever seen. With a tiara. I feel queasy again. ‘I’m so lucky!’
‘He’s the lucky one, getting a girl like you!’
‘Aww, thank you.’
We have a hug.
‘To be honest, we’ve not actually arranged that much yet, so I wanted to ask a massive favour …’
She pauses. I wait. The silence lengthens. It’s getting awkward.
Then I realise she’s waiting to be cued in.
‘Ask away!’ I am going to have to make up for my bad thoughts about the groom to be, I am going to throw myself wholeheartedly into helping my best friend arrange her wedding. I am, I am, I am!
‘Will you sort my hen party with Beth?’
Oh, shit. The hen party. The scene of my humiliation, the event I made a complete spectacle of myself at. If I never had to go to another hen party in my life I’d be happy.
Except I do have to. I’m Rachel’s best friend. I have vowed to throw myself into this in every way possible.
She’s waiting, so I nod and smile in what I hope isn’t a sickly way. ‘Of course.’ It comes out croaky, so I try again. ‘With Beth?’
‘Yes, Beth! I mean you know me so well, but I didn’t want to force the whole thing on you, ’cos I know how busy you are, and she pointed out she’s got lots of free time and she’s ace at organising stuff.’
This is code for what we both know – I am not a planner by nature. I wing it.
‘Beth?’ I get the ‘somebody else doing it’, but not the Beth bit. As in, the Beth with the baby so she can’t be a bridesmaid bit.
‘Well, she really, really wanted to. She said like, as she couldn’t be a bridesmaid she wanted to do something, you know, be involved. So she asked if she could do this. That is okay is it? I mean I know you’re my bridesmaid and …’
At least with Beth involved this will be nothing like my hen party, it will be totally alternative if I know her. This is good.
‘It’s more than okay. Beth’s cool, she will do a way more awesome job than I would.’ I pause. ‘But what about the baby? I thought that’s why she couldn’t …’
‘Well, like she said, she can do this at home, or online, it’s her kind of wedding present to us she said. Isn’t that sweet?’
‘Er, yes.’ Beth could never be described as sweet. But she has, as they say, got her shit together. Even if she doesn’t look like she has. Although, God knows how the baby happened. The shit without the together.
‘She’s going to come to the fitting, just to like …’
‘Tell us how pretty we look in pink?’
‘Sod off.’ Rach flicks the froth off her cappuccino in my direction. This place never did cappuccino last time I came, wow how it’s changed. ‘Beth’s our guest of honour.’
It is beginning to dawn on me though why Beth passed on the bridesmaid role. She is so not pink, flouncy, or slinky in satin. She’s more black leather and Doc Martens.
She is a laugh though, and if Rach tries to swaddle us in anything ‘icky, then if anyone can save us it will be Beth. With her potty mouth. And truth.
I sometimes wish I was more like Beth. Willing to say what I think, and to hell with the consequences, ’cos, you know it will work out for the best.
The clock on the wall suddenly catches my eye. Bloody hell, talking about swaddling. ‘Look at the time!’ That’s the thing with wedding planning, all of a sudden your whole life is controlled by the clock, driven by dates on the calendar. You’re caught on this treadmill of ‘stuff that has to be done’. That might explain why when mine stopped I felt like life had lost all purpose.
That, and the fact I was no longer going to be
a wife, potential mother, and house owner. I’d been about to take that giant leap into a new future and fallen flat on my face. My feet had been taken from under me and I’d floundered.
After I’d unpicked all the planning that had been in place.
‘Sugar,’ Rach downs the rest of her coffee. ‘We’re going to be late. Come on, come on. Oh, God, Debs will kill me!’
Debs, it turns out, owns the bridal shop. I know this because above the window it says ‘Deb’s Divine Dresses’. I expected something slightly different from a posh designer frock shop. I don’t know quite what, maybe Esmeralda’s Emporium, or Beatrice’s Bridal Gowns. Know what I mean? Anyway, Debs is at the door, and she is as lovely as Rachel said.
‘Come in, come in my lovely. The other girls are here, I let them try on one of those dresses you’ve been looking at while they were waiting. Hope you don’t mind? And I’ve opened the bubbly, we’re all set for some fun!’
I’m not sure I’m up to ‘fun’, but when the bubbles hit my nostrils I don’t feel nauseous, which is a definite improvement on how I felt two hours ago.
Then I try the dress on.
Chapter 16
We are the walking dead. ‘We look like a flock of Miss Havisham’s on a bad day, though I think every day was bad for her.’ I am definitely the winner in the looks-closest-to-a-zombie stakes.
There is nothing wrong with the dresses. The dresses are gorgeous. Beautiful figure-hugging satin sheaths that any bridesmaid would be thrilled to wear. But, right now, we are the problem. What was definitely a wonderful shade of ivory on the clothes hanger, is beige when it is draped over three pasty faced bridesmaids to be. On a good day, in the sun, we might look okay. Today, not so.
We need colour.
We are staring at our image in the vast wall to ceiling mirrors. You can’t not stare at yourself, there is no escape, they are everywhere. As are the bright lights.
Want to see how big your bum looks? Sorted! Want to see if you really look as green round the gills as your mother said in a slightly pointed tone as she tried to force cornflakes down your throat and you tried to refuse without needing to rush off and be sick? No probs.
‘I think we’re more Addams Family actually.’ Maddie catches my eye and giggles. If we’d not all had the hangovers from hell we’d be laughing our heads off. Though, saying that, if we hadn’t got hangovers we’d look a hell of a sight better.
‘Shh!’ Rachel, who is looking remarkably perky after her fry up compared to the rest of us, giggles.
‘You lot are going to have a whale of a time at the wedding!’ Debs is grinning at us, as she passes out glasses of bubbly. ‘Now, come on, gorgeous Rachel, let’s show this lot what a bride really looks like!’
Rach is ushered away, and we go back to studying our reflection.
Pale, wan and interesting does not say ‘wedding’, does it? Even if we are dressed in the ‘pastel soft tones to create the perfect dreamy backdrop’.
We don’t need ombre hues, we need a solid skin tone that will reflect in our faces and make us look human again.
The bridal shop is dazzlingly bright and white. We are all stood like rabbits in the headlights, eyeing up the complimentary chocolates as though we’re expecting them to attack.
‘How about these wonderful forest shades? They’re so natural.’ Debs has reappeared and is stroking a floaty dress that should say nymphs and woodland glen but is currently shouting out Appletini. Which is something I don’t want to think about right now.
It is making me feel queasy. Well, queasier.
‘Not green. Please not green, not today.’ Normally, green looks good on me. Today, it will merge in with my skin tone.
‘Who’s Miss Havisham?’ Maddie is frowning.
‘Some old sad spinster that Charles Dickens invented,’ says Sal, and Maddie raises an eyebrow. ‘English lit, remember?’ I don’t think she does, she wasn’t hot on lesson attendance. Well, she attended, but she didn’t really concentrate. She wrote love letters to Jack and practised her married-name signature. Which at the time seemed a way better use of her time, maybe in hindsight not so much.
‘Oh, God, I remember!’ That surprises me. ‘It was so romantic, and so sad. She was jilted and wore her wedding dress every day after that. And left the wedding breakfast and cake on the table.’
‘Stupid idea. It would have gone mouldy.’ Snarky Sal is back. ‘Cake doesn’t keep that long, does it?’
‘Maybe that’s what I should have done with mine.’
They all stare at me, shocked.
We don’t generally talk about ‘the wedding that never was’.
Even I stare at my reflection and am happy to see it is smiling back. The smile gets bigger as I look. I feel shit, but I feel strangely good about myself as well. In a mental, not physical way.
This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I am standing in a bridal shop, trying on dresses and I feel okay. Not about to burst into messy tears or feel the need to stick my head down the toilet. This is a good sign, I am going to be able to cope with the whole wedding thing, even if I’m still not so sure she’s picked the right groom. Minor point.
‘It was a real ball ache trying to work out what to do with three tiers of fruit cake.’
‘I thought it was four?’ Rachel shouts from the part of the room that’s been curtained off.
‘I smeared one all over his windscreen, remember? But I hadn’t got the energy to do another. It’s bloody hard work crushing fruit cake, all gritty and fruity and blobby. Sponge would have been a damned sight easier.’
‘Or cupcakes?’ Maddie is grinning mischievously. She’s got a sense of humour that I’ve never detected before. ‘Think of all that buttercream you could have shoved in his wiper blades and down every hole!’
‘I like that, I like it very much!’
‘What did you do with the dress?’ Sally is pressing a peach creation (which rather unfortunately reminds me of a cocktail I had last night) against her body.
‘The shop sold it for me.’ I shrug. ‘I suppose I could have shortened it and done a Miss H.’
‘She went the full monty, wore hers in all its glory.’ Says Maddie.
‘It must have smelled, nobody mentions washing it, do they? They don’t wash well, do they? Designed to be a one-off wear, no wash label included.’
‘Eugh. She didn’t wash it, was she mad?’ Sally is juggling her boobs about in her dress and tweaking it at the sides to see what it would look like if holding her breath was a normal state of play. Maybe it is for her, maybe she has the type of self-control that will sort stuff like that. Me? I’d rather rely on a corset, and the brute force required to lace it up tightly enough.
‘Yep, totally doo-lally. Spurned, heartbroken, bitter and revengeful. Bit like me.’
They all laugh.
‘You had a lucky escape, Andy was a twat.’ We all stare at Sal.
‘He turned her down.’ Whispers Maddie in my ear.
‘Ahh, makes sense. A woman scorned and all that.’ I whisper back.
‘At least he had impeccable taste, even if he was a bit of an idiot.’ She hugs me, and Sal eyes us up suspiciously.
‘I was not scorned!’ She gives Maddie the evil eye. ‘You’re just being spiteful. A woman scorned, ha, it’s you that—’
‘Don’t, please.’ Oh, Lordie, I’m not expected to be barrier like today, am I? You must be kidding, hungover and tired. I’d sink down on my knees and beg Sal not to be nasty, but I don’t think Debs would like it. Even though the carpet is pristine.
‘Well, bugger me, if it’s not the three wise monkeys!’
‘What?’ We all spin round, and nearly tumble – slinky satin dresses were not designed to spiral.
‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil!’ Beth cackles.
‘Beth!’ I find my voice.
‘Beth! Beth, you’ve got the baby!’ Maddie is second to recover.
Sal just shoots daggers.
Beth is grey arou
nd the edges, with dark shadows under her eyes that are two shades worse than mine. And a face white enough to match the towel slung over her shoulder.
‘Beth, Beth! Hiya! Isn’t it exciting!’ Rachel has stuck her head round the curtain and is waving madly. Then stops. ‘You’ve brought the baby!’
‘Oh, what a darling!’ Debs manages to shimmy past and drape a cover over the chaise longue diplomatically and is back with Rachel without missing a beat. ‘What’s he called?’
‘Joe.’ Beth smiles. ‘Sorry, guys, had to bring him. The sitter ran away ’cos he keeps puking.’ Beth slumps down on the plush chaise longue and grabs a glass of fizz, baby attached to her in a sling thing. ‘Which is what I’d like to do, if I had the bloody time. I’m telling you girls, God made you knackered after birth for a reason. It was so you didn’t have the time or the energy to go out and get shit-faced. I need a caffeine drip.’ She waves a hand randomly, blowing air kisses. ‘Loving the frocks, ladies!’
I am wobbly, hungover, and was sucking up caffeine like it is was a life-support system not long ago, but Beth makes me look like I’ve stepped off a catwalk.
‘Oh my God, enough about me,’ she stops her air-kissing and studies me, ‘you still really rock the casual look though, Janey babe!’ She gives me the thumbs up. ‘I could never pull off that just out of bed look, though you’ve got the perfect hair for it! Hasn’t she Rach? The bed-head hair babe.’ She laughs again, so much that the baby whimpers, so she stops abruptly.
I want to thump her – and hug her at the same time. It’s always been like that with Beth. She doesn’t always give people the best first impression, but underneath it she’s lovely.
‘I can’t believe it’s so long since we all got together, and you two are still like this.’ She points at me and Rachel and crosses her fingers. ‘I was dead jealous when we were at school.’
‘You weren’t?’ I really can’t believe that at all, Beth is not the jealous type.
‘Oh, yeah, sure I was. I never had a bestie like you two.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Sally is sounding spiky. ‘We were one big group, weren’t we? And,’ she stares at me, ‘some of us have drifted apart now, haven’t you?’
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