The Big Little Wedding in Carlton Square

by Lilly Bartlett

  ‘I’d like to see Uber pull this off,’ he says.

  ‘Are you ready for the party?’ asks Daniel. But he stops me as I go for one of the taxis. ‘Not yet.’ He nods at Kelly.

  ‘Right, you lot!’ she bellows. ‘Pay attention. Hey, I’m talking here.’ I just get my hands clamped to my ears before she lets rip with her signature whistle. ‘Listen up. You all know the drill. Anyone who doesn’t fancy a walk, please make your way to a taxi.’

  ‘A walk?’ I look at Daniel. ‘We’re walking?’ I was totally bluffing about that. My Ma-nearlies will never make it.

  He shakes his head and points. ‘We’re not walking.’

  That’s when I hear the clippety clop of hooves. Two huge white horses with matching plumes of feathers on their heads are walking briskly up Bow Road. The carriage behind them is streaming with a riot of silky cloths. The ramrod-straight old man driving the horses looks very officious in his black top hat and long coat. The carriage slows to a stop right in front of the hall.

  ‘That’s for us?!’

  ‘It is,’ says Daniel. ‘Apparently it’s an East London tradition.’

  I shoot a look at Kell, who just winks.

  Daniel kisses me while some of the guests make their way to the waiting taxis. ‘You’ve done so much, everything, really, for our wedding, Emma. I wanted to do something for you.’

  ‘He’s been in on it all, Em,’ Kell says. She catches my look of alarm and shakes her head so slightly that only I catch it. He doesn’t know about our shortcuts, then. ‘He’s just acted like he was clueless. At least, I assume it was an act. You were so disappointed when the chauffeur fell through that when he asked me about getting a horse and carriage for you, it was perfect. Since, you know, it’s an East London tradition anyway.’

  The only East London tradition I know of that involves a horse and carriage is when someone dies. One of the Kray brothers notably came through the borough in one on his last tour, as it were.

  ‘And here’s the other tradition!’ Daniel cries as people crane their necks to watch the commotion.

  It’s the vicar. He’s wearing a top hat and tails and walking with his piano, which is being pushed along on wheels by four of the phone stall boys. ‘Emma, darling, how marvellous!’ cries Philippa. ‘A mobile piano for our parade!’

  Del is playing as he walks, a jolly tune that I recognise. One of the phone stall boys breaks off from his wheeling to hand out leaflets amongst the crowd, though my side doesn’t need them. They’re singing already.

  ‘What’s this?’ Daniel asks, trying to get a look at the papers.

  ‘Lyrics!’ booms Philippa. ‘We get to sing!’

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Billings,’ Dad says in my ear. ‘I hate to interrupt, but I think your carriage awaits.’

  I let go of Daniel’s hand to throw myself into his arms. ‘What about your carriage? Will you take a taxi?’

  ‘And miss walking with my daughter on her wedding day? Not a chance.’ He gestures to Mum, who’s got his wheelchair waiting. ‘We’ve both got wheels.’

  Everyone starts off, some in front of the horses, some behind or to the side. Daniel has to boost me up to the seat. We can just squeeze in beside the driver, who I now recognise as a regular at Uncle Colin’s. ‘Congratulations,’ he says. ‘I’m honoured to be part of your day.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Daniel has his hand in mine, but his head is swivelling around to take it all in. There must be nearly two hundred of us holding up the traffic all along Bow Road, but the police are redirecting the cars away from this impromptu parade. Loads of bystanders have their phones out to record the event. I don’t blame them. I’d gawp too if I saw a horse-drawn carriage in the city. ‘This isn’t a wedding carriage, is it,’ I murmur to the driver when Daniel’s attention is on the crowd around us.

  The gaily coloured cloths are carefully draped. Anyone who glimpsed underneath would soon realise that this peculiar carriage is only high enough for a person to lie down inside. And they might wonder why it’s got windows on the sides and only opens from the back. It is meant to carry a person along one of life’s milestones, but that milestone isn’t a wedding.

  The coachman shakes his head. ‘I had a job this morning. Lucky they didn’t want to keep all the flowers.’ He gestures to the pile of arrangements on top of the carriage. ‘Mrs Ishtiaque decorated it for you. I gather those silks are some of the family wedding sarees.’

  ‘Where is she?!’ I glance around looking for the Ishtiaques’ bright clothes, but all around me is a riot of colour – sarees and summer dresses and African prints.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Daniel asks.

  ‘I need to find Mrs Ishtiaque. I need to tell her something. Can you stop the carriage, please?’

  ‘I’ll come with you, darling. She’s there next to the piano.’

  ‘No, thank you, I need to do this alone. I’ll be right back.’

  I clamber down from the carriage and head toward our singing vicar. I can’t let Daniel know how horrible I’ve been.

  ‘Mrs Ishtiaque, thank you for decorating the carriage,’ I say above the vicar’s tune. ‘With your wedding sarees!’ She grasps my hands. Her entire face is smiling with such happiness for me. That makes me feel even worse. ‘I’ve been unfair to you, Mrs Ishtiaque. I never should have refused your food. I… I lost sight of what’s important. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Emma, my love. I am understanding. I wanted to impress my mother-in-law too. It is natural.’

  ‘But it’s wrong! I acted like I’m ashamed of…’ I almost say ‘you’, but that makes me sound so awful I can’t even say it. ‘…where I come from, and I’m not.’ I look around. ‘I’m so proud of where I’m from. I love your curry, and I love you. I’m sorry.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Do you think my feelings are changing for you with one refusal of my cooking? Your auntie is refusing me for years and I still love her. Now, go enjoy your wedding. We will be seeing you there!’ She kisses me firmly on the cheek and pats my behind as I turn back to the carriage.

  ‘Mrs Ishtiaque decorated the carriage,’ I tell Daniel as I climb up so that we can make our way to Carlton Square. ‘I just wanted to thank her. For everything.’

  People come out of their houses and lean from upstairs windows as we turn off the main road and disturb the peace and quiet of their neighbourhood. It’s not every day they see a horse-drawn carriage and a singing vicar on wheels. The wedding guests stream into the square under fluttering bunting, which festoons the gates and nearly every tree and box hedge.

  When I thank the coachman he tells me that his next job today won’t be as fun as ours. ‘He’ll be riding in back, I take it?’

  The coachman nods. ‘As soon as the food’s unloaded.’ He hoicks his thumb behind him.

  I turn to look over the back of the carriage and sure enough, Doreen and June are directing the boys to pull out the big trays of food. I didn’t realise we were a travelling buffet.

  Our families are already inside the square, but I notice that everyone from the market is milling around outside. ‘Please, won’t you come in?’ I say. ‘I’m sure there’s plenty of food and drink.’ I feel bad now for not inviting everyone I’ve ever met in my entire life.

  But there’s a chorus of polite ‘No thanks’. They all need to get back to the market. Saturday is a big shopping day and they can’t lose the income. Which makes it all the more touching to think they took the time to meet us at the town hall and escort us here.

  The square is beautiful as Daniel and I walk under the bunting to the cheers of everyone we love. ‘You are quite amahzing,’ Daniel murmurs in my ear. ‘Look at everything you’ve done.’

  But I haven’t done all this. I’m as surprised as he is when I look around. We don’t need the tent after all – there’s barely a cloud in the sky – but it looks so pretty in the middle of the square. It’s sitting over the tables that are set up for our dinner, and fluttering with dozens of coloured ribbons. I was afraid when PC
Billy Bramble offered that it’d be a knackered old bit of canvas, or some horrific colour, but it’s pristinely white. From a distance it looks like the side flaps are blue, but they’re rolled up with the fine weather.

  Billy has put his walkie-talkie away and is surveying the crowd with evident pleasure. ‘That tent is perfect, thank you!’ I tell him. ‘If it gets cool later, I guess we could roll down the sides.’

  A funny look crosses his face. ‘I wouldn’t do that. Keep them rolled up, okay? I borrowed them from work. The logo is on the side.’

  ‘Well, no, I don’t want you getting into trouble. Of course not.’ I tap the side of my nose. ‘Our little secret.’

  ‘Yeah, plus it might freak some people out knowing they’re eating in a forensics tent.’

  ‘They’re what?’

  ‘Crime scene tents. Yeah, of course. Why else would the Met have tents? Just keep the sides rolled up.’ He taps the side of his nose and strolls away.

  I stare at the tent. It really is pretty. I’ll just pretend it’s never been erected over dead bodies.

  Most of the crowd has drifted to where the vicar has set up his piano. ‘This is so lively!’ Lady Mucking says over the chorus of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’. ‘What great fun.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect anything less from my daughter-in-law,’ says Hugh, hugging me from the side. ‘Do you know, that’s the first time I’ve ever said that?’ He smiles. ‘Daughter-in-law. I like it very much.’

  ‘Hello, isn’t this great?’ Kell says to Hugh and Lady Mucking as she comes over. ‘What a day, eh?’ Then in my ear. ‘We have a problem.’

  I keep the smile plastered to my face as a million scenarios race through my mind. ‘Will you excuse us?’

  ‘She’s the woman of the hour!’ Lady Mucking says, linking arms with Hugh to join in the singing.

  ‘It’s the champagne,’ Kell says, steering me to where Jez is cringing behind the fish van.

  ‘It’s not right, yeah?’ He pulls off another cork. It barely manages a gentle puff, let alone a pop.

  It’s definitely not right. It’s supposed to fizz. That’s why it’s called fizz! I know I sound hysterical, but we haven’t got anything else besides beer and soft drinks. I can’t see the Dames and Ladies swigging lager from pint glasses instead. ‘We can’t serve that. It’s got no fizz, Jez, no fizz!’

  That champagne is supposed to be the one thing that’s sophisticated about today.

  ‘Calm down,’ Kell says. ‘It’s still alcohol, right? There must be something we can do with it. Colin!’ She waves him over. ‘What would you do with shit white wine? The champagne’s flat.’

  ‘How flat?’

  ‘Dead on arrival, mate.’

  Uncle Colin hardly hesitates. ‘You could add soda water for spritzers.’

  I shake my head. ‘A spritzer is just watered-down wine. It’s got to look like it’s on purpose. Jez? This is your fault. Can’t you think of anything?’

  ‘What’s that Spanish drink me mum goes spare over? That’s made with shit wine, yeah? Red, though.’

  Sangria, of course! Colin sends Jez to the market for loads of fruit. ‘Don’t worry, Emma, it’s your day. I’ll mix up the batches as soon as Jez gets back.’

  ‘Where’ve you been hiding?’ Daniel asks when I find him again. ‘Everyone is loving the shell game! Let’s have a go.’

  Shell game? I can’t think what he means till I see the fishmonger’s son standing behind a small TV table giving it all he’s got with the cockney patter. ‘Come on, mate, yer not spendin’ yer in’eri-ance ’ere. It’s only ten pahhnd, gehl, so ’ave a butchers and lay yer houses. All it takes is a tenner and twenty-twenty minces. Step up, step up.’ He catches my eye and winks.

  ‘It’s a confidence trick, right?’ Harold’s wife Miriam murmurs to me as she watches him shuffle the shells.

  ‘Yeah, it’s just pretend.’ Then more loudly, ‘He’s not keeping anybody’s money. It’s just a game for the wedding today. Otherwise we’ll get the Old Bill round to nick ’im.’

  He looks very disappointed to hear this, but the crowd loves it.

  Standing there in the leafy square listening to our vicar on the piano and watching the bunting waving in the breeze, it’s easy to forget we’re in the city. It could be a sunny village green. ‘This is so perfect,’ I tell Daniel, leaning in for a kiss. ‘And I think your side are really getting into the East London traditions.’

  Jacob and Seb are leaning on Del’s piano singing a duet while my mother-in-law throws down ten pound notes at the shell game like she’s in Vegas. Cressida’s got her arm linked through Auntie Rose’s as she chats with her ladies.

  We hear our names being shouted a few minutes later. Everyone is waving us over to one side of the square.

  I clap my hands to my mouth when I see it.

  ‘Emma, you did it!’ Daniel says, hugging me. ‘You said the chocolate display was impossible.’

  But once again, I didn’t do anything. Zane’s standing beside the fishmonger’s barrow, which is streaming with ribbons and laid out at one end with glasses filled with fruity sangria, a red-and-white stripy straw sticking out from each one. The other end is heaving with tiers of chocolate-dipped strawberries on a huge see-through tower, like a Christmas tree. It looks really familiar. It’s not from our house… maybe the market? Shoes! It’s Stacy Boyle’s Perspex shoe tower that she uses to display her most wonderful finds.

  I kiss Zane’s cheek. ‘This was you?’

  ‘Me and your dad dipped ’em all,’ he says. ‘They couldn’t let all those chocolate samples go to waste. There’s some smack flavours, but they’ll be good with the strawberries.’ Turning to the crowd, he says ‘Aaiight? Lucky dip! Guess the chocolate flavour.’

  The crowd descends on the sangria and strawberries.

  Even though things are buzzing all around us, it feels like Daniel and I are in a little bubble of calm. We’re carrying on different conversations with our friends and family, but we’re connected to each other. The peace flows between us through our clasped hands, a look or a smile. It’s true what they say. This is the happiest day of my life so far.

  ‘The bar is open!’ someone shouts. Another cheer goes up when everyone catches sight of it.

  ‘Isn’t that clever!’ Philippa says when she sees the two-foot tall sign mounted on top of Kell’s fish van. B-A-R is spelled out in white flowers, wrapped with fairy lights. The van has had a bunting makeover too, and the whole display window is filled with pint glasses nestling in ice.

  ‘Wasn’t that lucky?’ Kell says to me, pointing to the sign. ‘Your carriage’s morning ride was called Barry.’

  ‘Those are funeral flowers?!’ I hiss so Daniel doesn’t hear.

  ‘Just the first three letters. The old gent pitched in by pitching over. Cheers.’ She raises her pint when Cressida comes over with two of Philippa’s friends.

  ‘Where are you putting gifts?’ Cressida asks as I kiss the blonde frozen-faced women beside her.

  The women are clutching large wrapped boxes and cards. Those won’t last an hour out here.

  ‘This way,’ Kell says smoothly. ‘There’s a table that’s all set up in the tent. I’ll show you.’ She turns to me. ‘It’s all decorated.’

  ‘Barry’s surname wasn’t “Gifting”, by chance, was it?’ I murmur to Kell.

  ‘No such luck,’ she murmurs back. ‘This way, ladies!’

  I grab Daniel’s free hand – he has sangria in the other – and drag him to the tent to see what they’ve done.

  The sight makes me catch my breath. Daniel throws his arms around me as we stand together taking it all in. ‘Emma, darling,’ he says, ‘I’m really overwhelmed by all this. Well done!’

  The vicar’s long wooden tables are draped nearly to the grass with Mrs Delaney’s antique Belgian lace. The patterns might be different on every table, but that just makes it more interesting. All the plates and cutlery sparkle and our mismatched serviettes add to the romance. But wha
t’s really spectacular are the little pot plants that Uncle Barbara and Zane got from the park. Half a dozen sit on each table, tumbling riots of colourful blooms that couldn’t be more perfect.

  One of the phone stall boys is standing guard beside the gift table at one end. His dark suit is too big for him.

  The guests eye him warily. ‘Security, ma’am,’ he says in a terrible American accent. I notice he’s got an earbud in. He’s probably listening to Capital FM, but it does make him look official. ‘The rest of the detail is outside, ma’am,’ he says to me.

  ‘Roger, got it. Over and out.’

  Kell smirks, but the guests are buying it.

  One of the women says, ‘Ooh, I see, they’re actors! Is he the Secret Service?’

  ‘No, dear, they’re “protection”,’ says the other one. ‘They’re everywhere in the East End. Don’t you remember the Kray brothers?’

  ‘Then why has he got an American accent?’

  They go off debating who he’s supposed to be.

  They seem to think this is all a performance. And I guess it is, in a way. As I scan the square, I try to see it through Daniel’s eyes. The bar isn’t Kelly’s fish van. It’s a vintage drinks truck like you see at music festivals. The tent’s not covering a crime scene but a purposefully shabby chic dinner venue. And we rode here in a carriage fit for royalty, not a hearse.

  We just might pull this off!

  ‘Isn’t that the prawn man?’ Daniel gestures to the bar. ‘Marvellous! Emma, you’ve thought of everything. I’ll get us some. I’m Hank Marvin for some prawns.’ He looks so proud of his cockney slang.

  I didn’t invite the prawn man. Word is obviously spreading that there’s money to be made here today. But the guests are queuing to pay two quid for this slice of East London life and couldn’t look happier. Everyone looks happy. Whenever I catch Dad’s eye he raises his pint to me. He’s in his chair now, thankfully. Mum’s woven ribbons through the wheels. Dad thinks it’s over the top, but he hasn’t taken them off. Auntie Rose has started helping her ladies lay out all the food.