Kate's Wedding

by Chrissie Manby

  Melanie shook her head and tried to rush on. Keith grabbed her arm.

  ‘No. Wait. Mum, I’ll call you back.’

  He finished his call.

  ‘It is you. I knew it was. I saw you across the room. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I dressed the bride.’

  ‘I sit next to the groom at the Boleyn.’

  ‘You still support West Ham?’

  ‘To the end.’

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you.’

  ‘Funnily enough, I thought I would see you. I thought I did see you this morning, when I was driving through Southampton. I thought I saw you on every street I turned down. I started hallucinating you in that red coat.’

  ‘Can’t fit into that any more,’ said Melanie.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Keith. ‘You look fabulous.’

  ‘Middle-age spread,’ Melanie muttered.

  ‘You look fabulous,’ Keith repeated. ‘Always have done. Always will.’

  They smiled at each other in silence. The silence stretched until it started to become uncomfortable.

  This is it, Melanie said to herself. We’ve got nothing to say to each other beyond hello.

  ‘I was just calling my mum,’ said Keith. ‘She’s not been well. I’ve got her up in London with me. I was going to bring her down here today so she could visit some of her old friends, but she wasn’t feeling up to it, so I’ve left her with . . .’

  ‘Your wife?’

  Keith laughed at that. ‘My next-door neighbour. Retired nurse. They’ll have spent all day yakking. I’m still a sad old singleton, as my niece calls me.’

  ‘You mean Nikki?’

  ‘The very same. She’s at university now. She’ll be pleased to hear that I saw you. You were always her favourite auntie.’

  ‘I should have kept in touch.’

  ‘No, you’re all right. She understood. It was difficult, I know.’

  Ian’s best man swayed past Melanie and Keith. He paused and slung his arm round Keith’s shoulder.

  ‘If you’re single,’ he said to Melanie, ‘you could do far, far worse than this guy, Keith Harris. You’ve probably heard of him. You know he used to work with Orville.’

  ‘Leave it out,’ Keith begged.

  ‘I’ve already had him,’ Melanie quipped.

  ‘Wahey!’ The best man made an obscene gesture and tottered off.

  ‘Sorry about that. I met him on the stag night. He seems like a decent bloke really. Got three kids.’

  Melanie nodded. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose we ought to go back in there. They’re taking the coffee round. It’s been nice to talk to you.’

  ‘You too.’

  Melanie made to return to the dining room.

  ‘Better call my mum back,’ said Keith.

  ‘Sure. Give her my love,’ said Melanie, which was the most ridiculous thing she could have said. There was not much love lost between her and her former mother-in-law. It had been a reflex comment. She hoped that Keith wouldn’t think she was being rude. Making a point. Her cheeks burning with embarrassment, Melanie decided against going back to her table for now. Instead, she followed a sign that led her out onto the golf course. Walking through the gardens, she sighed at the relief of the cool air on her face. Her encounter with Keith had left her with all sorts of conflicting feelings.

  He had been friendly. That was all. He hadn’t asked if they might stay in touch. He didn’t want to build a friendship with her. Melanie admitted to herself that she didn’t want to build a friendship with him. She had hoped, as she tried to work out from his Facebook profile whether he was still single, that there might be something else left. A spark. For all his saying that she looked fabulous, Melanie very much doubted that Keith was telling the truth. He worked in London. He was probably surrounded by beautiful young women all day long. Melanie imagined what might be going on in Keith’s head. Maybe seeing her had finally convinced him that their divorce was a good thing.

  Oh, and she still had to go back into that room and possibly see him again.

  By the time Melanie got back to her table, the coffee had been served and cleared away, and staff were trying to persuade the guests into the bar so they could set up the dining room for the evening disco. Melanie grabbed her jacket and was making for the exit when Kate caught her arm.

  Chapter Sixty

  ‘Thank God I’ve found you,’ said Kate. ‘Look, I know I promised I wouldn’t use you as the hired help today, but apparently we’ve got to dance soon and I’ve forgotten how to hitch the back of the dress up. Mum’s all fingers and thumbs. Tess has had too much to drink, as have Anne and Helen.’

  ‘Of course I’ll do it,’ said Melanie. ‘Come into the ladies’ room.’

  With her expert eye, Melanie quickly located the invisible loops of fishing wire and matched them to the transparent button. It took her less than a minute to hitch up Kate’s skirt so that she was ready to take to the floor.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kate. ‘And thank you for everything.’

  She gave Melanie a hug.

  ‘I don’t know what I would have done without your pep talk the other day. I really didn’t know who else to talk to.’

  ‘I don’t think I said anything useful.’

  ‘You said a lot of things I needed to hear, and you made me feel heard in return. That was important.’

  Melanie sniffed back a tear.

  ‘Oh, don’t you start as well!’ said Kate. ‘I’ve had people crying over me all day.’

  ‘It’s just lovely to see two people who really deserve it getting together.’

  Kate hugged her again, and Melanie rode the urge to tell Kate what had really brought tears to her eyes.

  ‘I’m so glad you changed your mind,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Ian sent me a letter,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve got it here in my little bag. It said everything I needed know. Do you want to read it?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s private.’

  ‘I’d like you to read it. You’re the only person I properly confided in. I want you to see this letter because it gave me a jolt. He stuck it through my parents’ door at one o’clock in the morning. I saw him sneaking away. I thought he’d left me a “Dear John”.’

  Melanie unfolded the paper and began to read.

  Dear Kate,

  It’s the day before our wedding. I don’t know about you, but I’m totally full of nerves. I just managed to burn a third round of toast.

  I know that I haven’t been the world’s best fiancé. I suppose I didn’t really think much about what the job meant. I knew that I loved you and I wanted to marry you. I didn’t think beyond the engagement and the ring except in some vague happy-ever-after way, where you and I lived in a big house with our beautiful children. I didn’t think about how we were going to get there.

  I don’t think I appreciated how much stress the whole wedding thing would put you under. I went along with the big wedding because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I realise now that you felt bullied into changing our plans, and if I had been less accommodating and insisted we stuck to what we planned in the first place, you would have had less to deal with. On top of your mother being ill. I know I handled that badly. I suppose it was because we hadn’t been together very long. I thought that it would be more stressful for your parents to have me around than not. I made the wrong decision. I’m sorry.

  Kate, I am a novice at this whole relationship thing, but I want to get it right. I want to grow to understand what you want and need without you having to tell me, but while I’m still learning, please bear with me. Please have the patience to tell me again and again. I can’t stand the thought of losing you because you’ve given up trying to make me understand. To understand and to love you for the rest of my life are my reasons for being here.

  I can’t wait to see you tomorrow morning. If, after all this waffling, you decide you’re still going to turn up at the ceremony, you will make me the happiest man i
n the world.

  Yours for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and promising to make you a cup of tea every morning until I’m too old and tired to lift the kettle. My love for ever,

  Ian

  ‘Oh, Kate, that’s just beautiful.’ Now Melanie could not hold back the tears. So much of the tone of that letter was familiar, so much like something Keith might have written.

  ‘Thank goodness I didn’t just run away on Thursday. I was so close, Melanie. So close I can’t tell you. Now, promise you won’t go anywhere until after we’ve danced. I’m sure I’m going to put a heel through my skirt.’

  ‘You will be fine,’ Melanie promised her. ‘But I will stay.’

  The first dance had always been Melanie’s favourite part of any wedding day.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Kate let Ian lead her onto the dance floor. She stood alone in the middle for a moment, bathed in a spotlight, while Ian gave the DJ his instructions. Kate really didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t have a great deal of faith in Ian’s taste in music. She could only hope that he wasn’t going to expect them to take their first dance steps as man and wife to Madness’s ‘One Step Beyond’. Ian returned from his conversation with the DJ with a big smile on his face.

  Kate put her hands on her hips and gave him a comical pout that made the assembled guests laugh.

  ‘What is our first song, anyway?’ she asked.

  ‘I told you, it’s a surprise. You have to trust me, and you have to let me lead. Just this once.’

  Kate would never have guessed the song that Ian chose. She’d told herself that they didn’t really have ‘a song’, but this particular song was perfect. With the opening bars, Kate was back at the first moment she heard it. They had been sitting in Ian’s flat after their fourth date. They still hadn’t kissed at that point. In fact, Kate was beginning to wonder if they ever would, or whether Ian would pluck up the courage to tell her that he didn’t think it was worth pursuing their acquaintance any further. In retrospect, remembering that evening in his flat, Kate wondered how she could ever have thought Ian wasn’t that into her.

  The CD he chose to put on was The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow. He asked Kate if she had ever listened to their stuff before. She had, but the only Elbow song she really knew was the one that talked about having grounds for divorce.

  ‘This track is much better,’ said Ian.

  He played ‘Mirrorball’. And during the second verse, he kissed her.

  Kate had almost forgotten how, in the week after their first kiss, she had hummed that song constantly. It was the perfect soundtrack to the way she was feeling right then, speaking as it did of that moment when you realise that someone is going to be important to you, that moment when you realise that one person has the ability to change your life for ever. In a good way.

  As Ian took her into his arms on the dance floor, Kate felt tears well up in her eyes. Her throat tightened. How had she ever considered throwing what they had away? He was the love of her life.

  ‘Everything has changed,’ said the lyrics. And it was true.

  Epilogue

  Back in 1981, Melanie and Keith had made their first dance as a married couple to Kool & the Gang’s ‘Celebration’. It was one of the biggest hits of the previous year and had remained popular ever since, in a cheesy sort of way. So Melanie wasn’t surprised when the DJ put ‘Celebration’ on the turntable right after Kate and Ian took their first dance. It was something to liven the party up after the beautiful melancholy of Elbow’s ‘Mirrorball’.

  What did surprise Melanie was that within seconds of the opening bars of Kool & the Gang’s biggest hit, she felt a hand on her waist.

  ‘Come on,’ said Keith. ‘I do believe this is our song.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Can’t a man ask a beautiful lady for a dance?’

  ‘But I haven’t danced to this in ages.’

  ‘I’m sure the moves will come back to you. I won’t take no for an answer.’

  Dancing with Keith, it was as though the years just fell away. Though they had become virtual strangers to one another, some memory of their relationship persisted in their limbs. Keith twirled Melanie as he had twirled her when they were just twenty-one. Melanie couldn’t help but smile. And then she started laughing.

  ‘This feels like Fate,’ said Keith, ‘you being here tonight.’

  ‘I looked you up on Facebook the other day.’

  ‘I’ve been stalking you via the Bride on Time website for years. Can I have your number?’

  Melanie nodded.

  ‘It would be good to get together and talk properly, you know, and then . . .’

  ‘And then what?’ Melanie asked.

  Keith didn’t know. Neither of them knew what the future might hold, but dancing together for the rest of the evening certainly seemed like a good start.

  Something else had a good start at Ian and Kate’s wedding reception: Kate’s old boyfriend Matt found himself spending the night with Gina, the office manager. She was still by his side a year later, when his divorce came through.

  Ben was horrified to hear that Diana had gone to the cathedral after all. As far as he was concerned, he had given his fiancée plenty of warning that he would not be waiting for her at the altar. How was he to know that the letter he had silently pushed through her mother’s letterbox at two o’clock in the morning would be buried under a pile of junk mail and find its way into the recycling bag without ever having been read? He could only imagine Diana’s fury as she barged into the nave to discover that Ben’s side of the place really was empty. He knew his family wouldn’t be there, of course. He’d told his mother that the wedding was off via text message. Ben’s sister had promised him that she would tell the rest of his party to stand down. Ben assumed that, having read the letter, Diana would be doing the same for her guests.

  As it turned out, Diana was carried from the cathedral on a stretcher. The wedding might not have happened, but Diana’s guests had certainly witnessed a spectacle, as promised. While Susie accompanied her daughter to the hospital for a check-up, Dave corralled the guests onto the buses that had been specially hired to take them to the reception, where they ate the food and drank the champagne that Dave had already paid for. And why not? Dave wasn’t going to get any of the money back.

  Meanwhile, Diana’s mother demanded a summit at her house, where Ben would explain himself in person. That was never going to happen. As soon as Ben let the thick cream envelope, pinched from work, slip through Susie’s letterbox, he was outta there. Prior to even delivering the ill-fated letter, he had packed a couple of suitcases and loaded them into the back of the car. He headed straight from Susie’s house to Gatwick Airport, from whence he caught the first flight somewhere sunny, which happened to be Majorca. He had two weeks off work and a fistful of credit cards. He was going to stay well out of the way.

  At some point, Ben knew, he would have to return to Southampton. Though he had dodged signing on the line of a marriage certificate, having bought a house together, he and Diana had at least as many material possessions to divide as any couple who’d been married for five years. For now though, Ben didn’t care. He was starting a new life.

  Diana, meanwhile, was plunged into something approaching hell. The television coverage of her runaway unicorns meant that she couldn’t possibly hope to get over her embarrassment quietly. The papers wanted to know the identity of the bride in the carriage. They wanted to know whether she had gone ahead with the wedding after all. When they discovered that Diana’s hell-ride had been topped by a jilting, they had a field day. Diana was quickly dubbed ‘the unluckiest bride in Britain’. Nuptialsnet was abuzz for months with Diana’s humiliation, kept alive by juicy snippets from Nicole, posting as ‘Anon’.

  Six months later, Ben left his job and he left Southampton. He accompanied Lucy to see her family in Sydney and never came back. Prior to his departure, Diana and Ben had managed to s
eparate their assets fairly amicably. Diana kept the house, of course, since her father had paid for it. She did, however, have to go back to work to pay the bills. Feeling deeply humbled, she took a job as a personal assistant to a divorce lawyer.

  Diana’s notoriety as Britain’s unluckiest bride began to fade and eventually she was eclipsed by a bride whose cathedral-length train caught fire as she walked up an aisle lined with flickering tea lights. (That bride had to strip to her knickers to avoid going up in flames. She escaped with minor effects of smoke inhalation, but the church burned to the ground and her fiancé took it as a sign from God that they should not be married.)

  About a year after her big, fat wedding fiasco, Diana started to count herself lucky for having dodged a bullet. A jilting was infinitely better than a divorce, as her boss kept reminding her. He should know. He’d presided over several hundred and had been through two of his own.

  Now that she needed to work for a living, Diana surprised herself by coming to take pride in her job. She was not the clueless airhead she had allowed herself to be. After two years as a PA, she trained to be a paralegal. She volunteered at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and was especially keen to help women who had handed over control of their lives and their finances when they embarked upon doomed relationships. As a result of all this enlightenment, Diana took quite some persuading when her divorce-lawyer boss, with whom she had fallen passionately in love, finally asked her to marry him, three years later.

  ‘Can we get married in a register office?’ Diana asked.

  As for Kate and Ian? Well, of course they lived happily ever after.

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to my agent Antony Harwood and everyone at Hodder who worked so hard to bring this book together in double-quick time. Especially Carolyn Mays and Francesca Best, who read the first draft during their Christmas holidays, and Laura Collins for her eagle-eyed copyediting. An author could have no better team.