‘Yes!’
There was a great roar of cheering and when it had all calmed down, Jay spoke again.
‘Tonight?’ he said.
I looked at him – then back at Ham, and suddenly it all made sense. The huge marquee. The filming. Daisy’s sparkly shoes. The bloody maypole.
Ham threw back his head and roared with laughter. It was a total set-up. But this time I couldn’t even be cross with him.
‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘Yes, I will.’
I wasn’t going to let Jay Fisher slip through my fingers again.
Of course, we couldn’t actually get married there and then – there are forms to fill in, identities to prove, bans to be read and all that, before you can get legally hitched – but we had a symbolic wedding, conducted by the Druid priest, under a bower of fruit-laden apple branches in the centre of Ham’s big top, with all my family and dearest friends there to share it with us.
I had to hand it to my father, I thought, as he walked me up what I could now see was the aisle – a straight gap from the top table to the bower – he might have been a shocking old control freak, but as Jay said, he was a hell of an operator. He’d got his big wedding without me having to get legally married. It was very clever and now I was stuck with it, I had to admit, all the details were perfect.
Darling Daisy was my bridesmaid, in her terrible sparkly shoes, Jay was resplendent in black tie, and I carried the floral centrepiece from Ham’s table as my bouquet. Alex was Jay’s best man and my ring was a free gift from one of Daisy’s princess comics. Suited me.
I was even, I realized, wearing something old and blue – my dress, the one I’d had on the night I met Jay. Suddenly the new knickers made sense too, and Chloe insisting I borrowed her beautiful pearl drop earrings, to look my best ‘To impress the film-maker’, she’d said – and there he was again, I realized, happily filming as we made our vows. Nothing had been left to chance.
And that wasn’t the end of it. When we left the big top to go over to the hay barn for the dancing, the two bearded men and several more of their ilk were skipping merrily around the maypole. I laughed so much I couldn’t walk, so Jay picked me up and carried me.
The only aspect of the big fat bogus wedding Ham had thrust upon me that I refused to go along with was a bridal waltz – carried away as I was with the lark of it all, I still had my limits.
Instead, I introduced Jay to the hectic delights of Strip the Willow and other exhausting reels and country dances – during which I was happy to notice that Alex and Tara seemed to be glued together, totally ignoring all the bits where you were supposed to change partners, and just dancing with each other.
Then, while everyone was caught up in the frenzy of the ceilidh, Jay and I quietly made our exit, and walked through the moonlit garden together, just savouring the moment.
I said nothing as he led me down across the orchard, round the pool, through the walled kitchen garden, into the house by the back door and out again through the glass doors at the front – clearly, he knew the plan of the place as well as I did – then past the marquee and down to the summer house at the end of the lawn.
I lay on the slatted wooden seat with my head in his lap, looking up at him and still marvelling that he was even there – let alone pretend-married to me.
‘Hello, Mrs Non-Fisher,’ he said, stroking my hair. Then he got a more serious look on his face.
‘Er,’ he continued, with unusual hesitance, ‘you see, the thing is, Mrs Non-F – I’ve got one little thing I have to tell you. I hope you’re not going to be mad I didn’t do it before I got that plastic ring on your finger.’
I just smiled up at him and kissed the ring. What else could they possibly spring on me? I wondered, glancing around to see if there was a camera rolling.
‘Will you mind being married to an impoverished architecture student?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked him.
‘I quit,’ he said. ‘I’m not the heir any more. I had plenty of time to think about it while I was hiding out at my mom’s place and she totally supports my decision. She encouraged me. I told my dad just before I came over here. The Hippo can have the lot, all the money and all the hassle. I mean, I should get to keep my trusts, although he could fight me for all of it, if he felt like it, and darling Jaclyn will certainly want him to, but I don’t care. He can have it. I just want my own life – and you.’
I sat up and wrapped my arms around him. As un-wedding presents go, it wasn’t exactly conventional – but from Jay, it was the best I could have asked for.
‘You’re not disappointed, are you?’ he asked me, sounding sincerely concerned.
I shook my head and smiled at him.
‘Just as long as you understand that I’ll have to get a job to support us…’ I said.
Cents and Sensibility Page 37
