The Bluebird Café

by Rebecca Smith

  And John Vir would have been pleased if she’d remembered to, if she hadn’t used the bag with the map for the next customer.

  The Brookeses and the Clouds were together at last. Lucy and Paul couldn’t keep them apart any longer. There were no potential homes to look over, but they could still offer advice on pension plans and savings for the baby. ISAs vs. Baby Bonds. Maggie Cloud and Jane Brookes were engaged in a secret guerilla war. Who would be favourite granny? There were also names to be discussed.

  Paul and Lucy hit on the clever plan of only making public the most preposterous suggestions (Teague, for instance), so that when the real candidates were announced they would be gratefully accepted without criticism.

  The Clouds and the Brookeses spent the night before the wedding at the Dolphin Hotel, grand for Southampton, and near the registry office. They met, by accident, in the lift on the way to breakfast, and had to sit together. The women agreed over their fresh fruit salad and natural yoghurt that the Dolphin would have been a jolly good venue for the wedding reception; but of course Lucy and Paul’s simple DIY plans to hold it at Bluebell Cottage were very charming. The men had Full English Breakfast, and did nothing but grunt.

  Meanwhile, at Bluebell Cottage everything was ready. With the restlessness of pregnancy, Lucy had it all finished by 8 a.m. She had put Paul in charge of drinks and moving furniture. He had just popped down to the Badger Centre, a few hundred yards across the Common, to borrow a few more chairs and quickly check some newts. Lucy was lying on the bed, sobbing.

  Abigail and Teague parked their ancient Saab under the trees in Cemetery Road, and set off for Bluebell Cottage carrying presents, two bottles of champagne, a Le Creuset casserole and a brass door knocker of a badger.

  The wedding invitations with the injunction ‘No presents – but please bring a bottle’ meant that people brought loads of champagne and presents, and Lucy and Paul acquired more stuff than many couples with very long wedding lists at John Lewis. The whole process could be repeated in a few months for the baby shower.

  They spotted Paul unlocking the Badger Centre gates. Teague stayed to help him carry the chairs and gave him a nip of brandy. Paul checked the display hive too. All was well.

  Abigail knocked on the cottage door, feeling like someone with a walk-on part in a fairy story. Eventually, Lucy opened the door, her face as pink and puffy as a marshmallow. Tears and progesterone.

  ‘Lucy! What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you want to marry him?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, you don’t really have to.’

  ‘But I want to.’

  ‘Don’t cry. Oh, I suppose you have to cry. Have a drink. Are you allowed?’

  ‘One wouldn’t hurt. But I don’t want one. A cup of tea …’

  Abigail hugged her and put the kettle on. ‘Remember those Quiet Life tablets we took all through finals? I could go and get you some? But you’d better get ready, you’ve only got an hour and a quarter. Show me your dress!’

  Lucy hadn’t told Paul of her reservations about the text of the civil wedding ceremony. ‘I know not of any reason why I should not be joined with A in matrimony.’ Something like that. And then: ‘I, B, take you, A, to be my husband.’ It sounded to Lucy the same as ‘Might as well then’. She could imagine it being part of a ‘What are you driving now?’ conversation between men at the reception. ‘Well, gets you from A to B, and that’s all you need.’ Perhaps they should have done some research into alternative wedding services, scripts and venues.

  The knot was tied, the confetti thrown. It was everybody back to Bluebell Cottage.

  ‘Well, that went with a hitch!’ Lucy joked to all the guests. Everyone loved her dress. In the photos she would look like a sepia tint against a line-up of classic navy blue outfits. During the ceremony she had felt the baby moving, a little fish flipping over and over.

  Abigail was filling up people’s glasses. The foil was off the food. Lucy had made blackberry ice cream and dozens of tiny little pies, and lots of pretty, fragrant things to eat. Everybody was happy. Paul headed for the kitchen for more drinks.

  ‘Champagne and ginger beer!’ Lucy called after him.

  The ginger beer was ready for the wedding. The bottles had stood on the cool stone floor for three weeks. No one had touched them, and when Paul picked one up, went to tuck it under his arm and reach for another one, it exploded. Glass cut the air, smashing into another bottle and another bottle. A flying stopper hit Paul on the temple and he fell back against the door and down the step, arms up, legs stretched out. And that is how they found him. An X.

  Lucy stroked his hair. His head was in her lap. Fennel sat at his feet.

  ‘Paul, Paul,’ Lucy said softly, as she tried to bring him round.

  ‘Let me at him! I was in the League of Friends!’ Mavis elbowed her way through the concerned guests. ‘He’s out cold,’ she told them. ‘I’d better give him the kiss of life.’

  ‘No thanks, he’s still breathing,’ Lucy said quickly.

  ‘This’ll help then,’ Mavis countered. She tipped her glass of champagne over Paul’s forehead and on to Lucy’s dress. ‘Don’t like the stuff much. Bubbles get up my nose. Repeats on me.’

  ‘He might need an ambulance,’ said Lucy. (Was this really her wedding?) But the bubbles had got up Paul’s nose, and he spluttered and choked himself awake. ‘Get a cloth please, someone.’

  One fluttered before her and she wiped some of the stickiness away.

  ‘Velvet does get the most unshiftable watermarks,’ Soo Sholing told her. ‘You’ll need a jolly good dry-cleaner to restore that pile. I wonder if a silk dupion would have shown it.’

  ‘Ease of stain removal wasn’t really top of my list when I was choosing it,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Pity.’

  Abigail and Maggie Cloud (reassured that her son was out of danger) swept up the broken glass and wiped ginger beer from the pantry walls and floor.

  ‘I think they were about to paint in here anyway,’ said Abigail. ‘No need to bother with the ceiling.’

  Maggie rolled her eyes at the ceiling. It was certainly in need of redecoration and more than a little cobwebby in places.

  ‘Who is that woman who ruined Lucy’s dress?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Oh, Mavis.’

  ‘Is she one of Lucy’s relatives?’ Maggie Cloud was very concerned. Would this person now be a fixture at family gatherings, have constant access to her grandchild?

  ‘I don’t know why she’s here really,’ said Abigail. ‘She probably wasn’t invited. Or she’s to do with the Badger Centre now. I think it might have been open invitation to all of Paul’s volunteers or something …’

  James Cloud had helped his son to one of the beechwood steamer chairs that had arrived as wedding presents. Paul reclined, flanked by relatives, telling everyone that he was fine, although he did feel very odd and very embarrassed. He wasn’t aware that feeling slightly stunned was a normal reaction to getting married. He lay blinking in the sunshine. Lucy was holding his hand with uncharacteristic devotion.

  I’ve got to go, Lucy, Paul, hope you feel better. I’ve got some copy to file for tomorrow. Hope you won’t mind, just a little piece.’ Soo Sholing kissed the air near them. ‘Lovely wedding.’

  ‘Won’t you stay for some cake?’ Lucy asked. Soo Sholing had forgotten that you were meant to stay at least for the cake. ‘Never mind. We’ll save you a bit.’ She would also miss Lucy forgetting to throw her bouquet.

  Soo Sholing picked her way across the garden, hoping that she wouldn’t get too much mud on her new ankle-strap shoes. She had never been one for ‘outdoors’. She was soon on the path back to the car park where she rang the newsdesk on her mobile. It was hardly front-page stuff, but a nice little story all the same.

  ‘When are you doing the cake?’ Lucy’s mother asked. ‘You don’t want people to start going before you do it.’

  ‘Now, I gues
s,’ said Lucy. ‘If Paul feels up to it.’

  ‘Oh, I can cut it,’ said Paul.

  ‘And I would like a quiet word,’ Jane Brookes added.

  ‘It’s a bit late for wedding night advice, don’t you think?’ joked James Cloud, rather lewdly, Lucy thought.

  ‘It’s not that,’ Jane Brookes said, as she slipped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and they walked towards the back door. ‘I am so proud and pleased for you. It’s lovely here. I was just wondering. That Mavis person who poured champagne all over you, she isn’t one of Paul’s aunts or something, is she? Surely she isn’t a relative?’

  ‘Just Badger Centre,’ said Lucy. ‘Don’t worry.’

  The rest of the Badger Centre volunteers, the committee and Cllr Doon had spent the reception sitting outside on some groundsheets, which they must have brought along themselves. Gilbert was with them, steadily eating. They were taking it in turns to go foraging in the kitchen for more food and drink. Lucy’s teas would go like hot cakes at the Badger Centre.

  At last the wedding cake was carried out and cut to muted cheers and applause and cries of ‘Speech! Speech!’

  ‘Just thank you all so much for coming and helping to make our day so happy,’ said Lucy. She turned to Paul, but he didn’t want to add anything.

  It began to get dusky and cold. Abigail and Teague lit citronella garden flares and stuck them in the flower beds.

  ‘Bit dangerous, that,’ said Mavis. ‘Come on, Gilb, time to go. You going our way as usual?’ she asked Cllr Doon.

  ‘Pleased to, my dears,’ was the kind reply. The ribbon of guests, of hats and bags, and some half-empty bottles began to unfurl across the Common.

  Abigail and Teague went round the garden with binbags while the Brookeses and Clouds loaded the dishwasher.

  ‘Glad they saved this from the café,’ said Jane. ‘I wish I’d had one when Lucy was a baby.’

  Lucy and Paul sat under the stars in the new chairs. The News was going to print.

  BRIDEGROOM CHEATS DEATH

  IN WEDDING DRAMA

  Southampton bridegroom and father-to-be Paul Cloud had a lucky escape at his own wedding reception when he was knocked unconscious by flying ginger beer bottles. The celebrations almost came to an abrupt end when some bottles of the non-alcoholic, home-made drink exploded.

  Soo Sholing, our Women’s Page Editor, who was a guest at the wedding reception, said: ‘Paul, who is manager of the Badger Centre, the city’s flagship nature reserve, had just married Lucy Brookes, who writes a cookery column for my page. The party was in full swing when Paul went to fetch some more drinks.

  ‘The next thing we knew was a few big bangs. I thought it was fireworks going off at first. We all rushed into the kitchen.

  ‘There he was, knocked out, with some cuts from flying glass. He’s making a good recovery.

  ‘It could have been a lot worse really.’

  A Note on the Author

  Rebecca Smith was born in London in 1966. She lives in Southampton with her husband and three children, and is working on her second novel.

  First published in Great Britain 2001

  This electronic edition published in August 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © 2001 by Rebecca Smith

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

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  is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781408837382

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