Well Groomed

by Fiona Walker

Suddenly he started to laugh too. ‘But I always carry my card in the correct pocket of my ratcatcher, darling.’

  Casting the map aside, Sally smiled. If she had levelled the same accusation at him a fortnight ago, he would have bitten her head off and retreated into an indignant sulk.

  She tilted her head towards him as they sped along the lane that led back to Fosbourne Ducis. ‘You know Lisette’s been invited to this wedding, don’t you?’

  He shrugged, slowing down at a turning point to let a Land-Rover get past.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Do you?’ He glanced across at her with his wary yellow eyes.

  ‘A bit.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But I guess we have a lot to thank her for.’

  ‘I hope that’s supposed to be a joke?’ Matty still had his foot on the brake as he gazed at her.

  But she nodded, eyes bright with belief. ‘If she hadn’t tried so hard to persuade me that our marriage was over, I might still believe it. Instead, I realised how far down my roots have grown since we married and how irretrievably entwined in yours they’ve become.’

  ‘You didn’t take much persuasion to uproot and rush down here as I recall,’ Matty pointed out, but his tone was gentle and teasing rather than accusatory. They had talked this through many, many times over the past week.

  ‘And I missed you like mad,’ Sally sighed. ‘Lisette’s commitment to any one thing lasts about as long as it takes to shoot a film – she finds it as easy to leave a man as a hotel room, and usually in the same total mess. Even if it weren’t for the children, I simply can’t do that to you, and the easier she told me it was, the more I missed you and wanted to make our marriage work, rather than make myself work.’

  Matty started to smile. ‘I suppose the fact that she thinks I’m an all-out failure isn’t such a bad thing either. Before she came along, I was the only one allowed to think that. Wallowing in self-pity isn’t nearly so much fun when someone starts calling you a self-pitying jerk.’

  ‘Did Lisette really call you that?’ Sally looked indignant. ‘The cow!’

  ‘You called me that, actually.’ He grinned. ‘But it was only when she started luring you away to The Ivy every day to help her lunch a thousand shits that you called me anything at all. Before that you only ever called me into the kitchen for supper. The moment Lisette-your-teeth-on-edge came on to the scene, you developed terminal termagancy.’

  Sally stretched back to tickle Linus who was just waking up on the back seat with a groggy, grumpy wail.

  ‘Lisette didn’t really take me to The Ivy on her important business lunches.’ She bit her lip guiltily. ‘I only said that to get at you. Mostly I just hung around her office feeling surplus and gossiping. That’s why it’s my fault that Tash has probably lost the ride on her best horse.’

  Matty’s face tightened at the mention of his sister’s name. ‘The blushing bride – and no wonder! Niall has a lot of groom for improvement too. How they can go through with this bloody ridiculous wedding at all is beyond me. It might be the biggest organisational triumph of my mother’s life, plus a huge media exercise for Lisette, but they’ll make one another miserable. Both Niall and Tash have always been pathetically eager to please. Anyone else would have called things off weeks ago. Knowing them, they’ll probably wait until they’re at the altar to have second thoughts.’

  ‘You don’t really think that, do you?’ Sally gasped.

  ‘I’d like to.’ Matty started driving towards the farm again. ‘And I don’t think I’ll be the only one who’ll be crossing their fingers and hoping Niall forgets his lines for once in his life when it comes to “I do”.’ He chewed his lip and thought briefly about Zoe Goldsmith.

  ‘So by that I take it you haven’t had a last-minute change of heart about handing the ring to Niall?’ Sally smiled sadly.

  ‘No. I might be a new man, but I’ll never be a best one under these circumstances.’

  She sighed. ‘I wonder who Niall’s got after all?’

  ‘Rory Franks, I think.’

  ‘That hell-raising louse?’ Sally looked horrified. ‘Talk about “with this vice ring I thee wed”. He’ll have pawned it to buy a gram of coke by now.’

  ‘He’s been in re-hab, apparently.’ Matty slowed down as a deer dashed across the road. ‘So he says, anyway.’

  ‘Then he’s a re-habitual liar.’ She muttered. ‘When Rory Franks sneezes, half of Colombia comes out of his nose.’

  ‘In that case, I think we should drop in at the forge, don’t you?’ Matty sighed.

  At Fosbourne Holt House, the rows were starting to fill up, especially on Niall’s side of the hall where a large contingent of his raucous family was already ensconced, chattering, laughing and scrapping as they passed around sweets, hip-flasks and a creased copy of the Sporting Life. One uncle had already borrowed Hugo’s mobile phone to put a bet on the one-forty at Newbury.

  It was still over half an hour before the ceremony was due to begin, and as yet Tash’s side of the hall resembled the auditorium of a regional theatre box office flop with just one or two seats taken up by old friends and eager locals.

  ‘You don’t think her family’s found out what’s going to happen, do you?’ Gus muttered to Hugo in an undertone. ‘Alexandra swore she wasn’t going to tell a soul.’

  ‘She’s certainly told an arsehole.’ Hugo glanced around anxiously. ‘I wouldn’t put it past James French to have fucked this thing up deliberately out of spite. He hasn’t stopped grumbling all week about recouping the cost. It’s not as though he’s paying a penny towards the wedding now – he just can’t resist getting at Tash. Apart from the divine Alexandra, her family are almost as hellish as mine.’

  ‘Who is paying for all this?’ Gus whispered.

  Hugo grinned. ‘Niall.’

  ‘But he’s totally strapped for cash, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not since the horse he owns a half-share in won twenty grand at Badminton.’ Hugo winked and then groaned as he looked towards the door. ‘Shit! I think Tash’s family is finally arriving. Here’s Cass-tration. You deal with her, Gus.’

  He hastily tried to hide behind a vast arrangement of lilies as he recognised a familiar figure in a hat like a blue chiffon beehive, which exactly matched her floating sky blue chiffon empire-line dress. But fluttering a couple of blue-pearlised eye-lids, she had already spotted him and was trotting up on two sky blue satin pumps. She looked like a huge Wedgwood tea-pot on the move.

  When Gus gallantly sprang forward to intercept her, she simply brushed him to one side with a blue patent leather kelly bag and kept going.

  ‘Hugo, isn’t it? Cassandra – you must remember? Tash’s aunt.’ She puckered her lips and aimed for his cheek with the same expression as someone frantically sucking the last fizzy pop out of a can with a straw. ‘We holidayed together with Alexandra at Champegny a couple of years ago. And, of course, I’ve seen you at darling Sophia’s social functions several times.’

  Hugo flashed a noncommittal smile. ‘You look wonderful, Cassandra. And this is Marcus, isn’t it?’ He peered at a pasty-looking youth wearing a garishly striped velvet trouser suit, with a face full of double-topping pizza acne and straggly hair hidden under a shapeless black cottage loaf hat.

  Cassandra let out a ringing laugh that set his teeth on edge.

  ‘Always the joker, Hugo.’ She gave him a wise look. ‘This is Sooxiee.’ She pronounced the misspelling with distaste. ‘Marcus’s girlfriend. And this is Marcus – my youngest son. You remember Hugo, don’t you, darling?’

  An identical acned youth wearing pretty much the same get-up as his girlfriend – with the addition of a drooping rose in his buttonhole – shuffled up behind them, giving Hugo a cursory nod. Hugo gave a cursory nod in return.

  ‘Marcus is at Manchester now. He’s reading European fiscal law and monetary incrementals,’ Cass announced proudly.

  ‘Sounds riveting,’ Hugo muttered. ‘I must ask my local library to reserve a copy.’

  �
�I want to sit in a row with enough space for Sophia and Ben,’ Cassandra insisted as he moved them up the aisle.

  ‘What about your husband?’ Hugo asked carefully, worried that Pa Hennessy had croaked recently. He remembered that Marcus’s father was knocking on in years and had a gouty leg.

  ‘Michael? Oh, he’s parking the car. He can go anywhere – better near the back as he insists on singing incredibly badly at these things. I can’t believe Tash has hooked someone quite so – successful as Niall.’ She hated to admit to people being famous, considering celebrity distasteful. ‘Can you, Hugo?’

  ‘Niall’s a very lucky man.’ Hugo flashed a wary smile and thrust a service sheet under her nose.

  ‘But, my dear,’ Cass’s voice dropped to a hush-hush breath, ‘he’s bound to be unfaithful. All these film types are. They’re forever being exposed for it in the gutter press – or so my char tells me. We only read the Daily Telegraph, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ He backed off hastily. He was in a cold sweat now, certain that the whole idea was doomed to failure.

  In a bedroom at Lime Tree Farm, two women were ignoring the shrieks of impatient, dolled-up children coming from the next room and concentrating on a far more pressing dilemma as they prised and squeezed and forced flesh beneath fabric.

  ‘I’m sorry, Penny, I simply can’t wear this corset thing. It’s far too tight. I’d pass out from oxygen deprivation before I got through Niall’s five christian names.’

  ‘What are we going to do then?’ Penny’s eyes widened. ‘The dress simply won’t do up without it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got one I could borrow?’

  The first thing Niall did when Sally and Matty walked through the door to the forge was offer them a drink.

  ‘A drink?’ Matty’s eyebrows headed rapidly towards his hairline and he slid Sally a knowing look. But the next moment Niall was lunging into the kitchen to fetch a half-full cafetière.

  ‘Do either of you take sugar? Only I don’t think we have any.’ He started slopping it into two mugs, trying not to get splatters on his trailing shirt-cuffs. ‘I just went over to the farm to borrow some cuff-links, but Tash’s mother was so frantic to throw me out before I bumped into the bride that she handed me a pair of gold earrings by mistake.’

  He was dressed in just his shirt, trousers and braces, with no waistcoat or cravat. The jacket from his morning suit was slung over the back of one of the cast-iron chairs, and a pair of glossy shoes was sitting on a polish-smudged rectangle of newspaper nearby. Glancing down, Sally realised Niall wasn’t even wearing socks.

  ‘I can’t find any that match.’ He followed her gaze with an apologetic grin. ‘I don’t suppose you’re any good at tying cravats, are you?’

  Laughing, Sally set about smartening him up. ‘You are hopeless. I thought this was the best man’s job?’

  For a moment Niall caught Matty’s disapproving eye, but he said nothing.

  ‘I think the best man’s a little the worse for wear,’ Matty muttered sourly, looking down to where Rory Franks lay stretched out on the sofa like a teenager after his first drink binge – all floppy-haired, bruised-eyed good looks and charm mixed with an almost pathetic depravity. At least forty, he had been to more parties than a hired tuxedo, worked his way through more drugs than a small NHS hospital, and broken practically every law at least twice, yet was far too charming to dislike. He possessed the sleepy decadence of someone who should know better if only they could remember. His thickly lashed gaze crept over to the new arrivals and he shot them both a big, sleepy wink before closing his eyes.

  ‘My best man’s already at the hall,’ laughed Niall. ‘Rory’s only here to give me immoral support. He says he’s my bestial man.’

  Matty let out an anxious sigh. ‘Niall, it’s not too late to—’

  ‘Don’t even try to persuade me to change my mind,’ he butted in, lifting his chin as Sally tied his cravat for him.

  ‘But you’re only going through with this because you’ve been pressurised into it!’ he exploded.

  Niall’s huge, dark eyes regarded him thoughtfully. ‘And you want to pressurise me out of it, I suppose?’

  Glaring at him, Matty said nothing.

  ‘There’s only one person who’s put me under absolutely no pressure at all recently.’ Niall’s voice shook as he spoke. ‘She’s stood by me quietly and supportively throughout the past few hellish weeks, and – instead of bullying or manipulating or panicking – she’s stayed calm. She didn’t tell me what to do. She’s never once told me what to do. Yet having her around, seeing how strong and firm and kind she is, has caused me to do things for myself instead of other people. She’s made me realise that, just sometimes, the only way to help other people is to be selfish yourself. And today I’m – we’re – planning to do something that’s entirely selfish, that’s entirely for us. The fact that it will also make a lot of other people very happy doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter about the pressure we’re under any more, d’you see? We’re doing this for us. We want to do it.’

  ‘You do?’ Matty still looked highly sceptical.

  ‘Yes!’ Niall laughed. ‘It’s been practically impossible to let people know what’s been happening, and this seemed the perfect way to come clean. I can’t wait to be asked if I’ll take her hand in marriage. It’ll be the most moving moment of my life.’

  ‘You sound very sure.’ Sally was leaning back and staring at him in amazement.

  ‘I am. I’m also so bloody scared, it’s just taken me ten minutes to do up each button on my shirt.’

  ‘I guess there’s not a lot I can do to dissuade you then, is there?’ Matty sighed. ‘Since you’re so determined to take a stable hand in marriage.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Niall winked. ‘I don’t suppose you guys could give us a lift to the wedding? Only I don’t think Rory’s up to driving and I’m far too nervous. If you really don’t think I should be doing this, Matty, you can always groomnap me.’

  Sally didn’t like the way his eyes flickered.

  ‘I’m driving,’ she said hastily. ‘And if we don’t get going soon, we’ll be following the bridal train there. Do you know where this house is, Niall?’

  He nodded. ‘Sure, angel. There’s a little ford about a mile away from here – it’s right next to that, behind a bloody great wall. You can’t miss it.’

  Forty-Four

  * * *

  IN THE LONG HALL at Fosbourne Holt House, Niall’s mother and father were arriving very noisily, having brought their presents along with them. Thankfully Ma didn’t seem to recognise Hugo as the slack hotelier when she bore down on him.

  ‘Ah – here’s a person, so he is!’ called Ma O’Shaughnessy, a terrifying fifteen stone of muscle in a tent dress with red wine stains on the collar. ‘Can you hold on to this for us, child?’ With unstrained ease, she handed over to Hugo a huge parcel which almost broke his back. ‘Are we right or left now?’

  ‘Right.’ Hugo looked around for somewhere to put the parcel. It weighed a ton.

  ‘Case of Bushmills.’ Ma winked at him.

  ‘That’ll go down well.’ Hugo smiled, knowing that Niall had been on the wagon for the past fortnight without lapsing. He had even stuck to orange juice at his stag night.

  Pa O’Shaughnessy, who was twice as tall as Ma but a third the width, tugged the collar of his shirt with a nicotine-stained finger and grimaced. ‘Jesus, I can’t wait to take this ting off. Sure, Niall’d not mind if I wasn’t wearing this neck-tie ting during the ceremony, would he? I wore the dratted article last time he got married, so I did.’

  ‘You’ll wear it, Daniel O’Shaughnessy, or you’ll not touch a drop of liquor this afternoon, do you hear me?’

  He hastily left his collar alone and groped for his tobacco tin.

  Leaving them in Gus’s capable – if shaking – hands, Hugo heaved the Bushmills to the back of the room and hid it behind the grand piano, where Roger Allice was trying to pla
y some lightweight Bach between blowing his nose.

  ‘Bloody hay-fever,’ he cursed. ‘When I played at the Royal Festival Hall last month, I was crying throughout. The audience thought I was moved to tears by the music, but they’d stuck me next to a huge pot of lilac.’

  Hugo wandered off to ask around for some anti-histamine tablets, carefully avoiding Ted and Franny who had both just rolled up reeking of Calvin Klein One. Franny was wearing a red second-skin rubber dress that emitted puffs of talc from the neckline when she sat down and strained over her ample bosom like cling film stretched over two apples. Pa O’Shaughnessy, who was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette in the front row, almost swallowed the plastic roses on his wife’s hat as he craned around to gawp at her.

  Outside, Beetroot was now guarding Rufus’s lager cans so officiously that she wouldn’t let him anywhere near for a cooling swig.

  He fanned himself with his top hat and watched as the Cheers! photographer danced around the arriving hordes, snapping madly. Beyond the wall, the tabloid paparazzi had attracted a group of minor stars who were trying to make sure they were snapped before they went into the house.

  ‘I was in that episode of Casualty where Baz and Charlie had a clinch over an artificial lung, remember? My ribs had been crushed when a parachutist landed on me?’

  Having shown two more O’Shaughnessy arrivals to their seats, Hugo retired to an ante-room at the rear of the hall to swig from his mug of lukewarm coffee and sneak a cigarette, leaving Gus to cope alone for a moment.

  ‘This could be an all time bloody cock-up,’ he told the best man. ‘That prat from Cheers! has just spent five minutes photographing Niall’s brother, thinking he’s Johnny Depp. I hope to Christ Niall turns up – he’s cutting it finer than Rory Franks’s cocaine.’

  ‘They’re on their way. Niall called on the mobile twenty minutes ago to say he was out of bed, he’s lost his cuff-links and the washing-machine door at the forge has stuck so he can’t get his socks out. I still think I should have stayed with him.’