Love in Transit

by Jana Aston

  Rena and I have been ushered into a dressing room to be primped and remade up as blushing brides, and we’ve just been fleetingly visited by Roberto, the pouffe-haired, perma-tanned host.

  ‘He’s… err, a bit full-on, isn’t he?’ Rena says, sitting perfectly still while Natalie, the make-up artist, applies a second coat of mascara.

  Natalie pauses, wand in the air. ‘That was actually quite calm by his standards.’

  I reach for the coffee someone finally pressed into my hands a few minutes ago and wish I had access to Rena’s contraband brandy. ‘If that was calm, we’re in trouble,’ I say. He was in here for all of ninety seconds, in which time he managed to crow wildly about my disgusting dress, ask if either of us were allergic to peanut butter directly on our skin, and check if we had a fear of dark enclosed spaces or extreme heights. He didn’t fill me with optimism, especially as he shouts everything at least ten times louder than he needs to and claps at inappropriate times. He left after producing a pen from his top pocket like a tiny twirling baton and making us sign paperwork waiving all rights to a claim if anything goes wrong. Like we lose a limb or die, or something.

  ‘Have you met the other team yet?’ I ask Natalie.

  She pulls an imaginary zipper across her lips. ‘I’m not allowed to say a thing about them to you, or to you about them.’

  ‘Which means yes?’ Rena guesses, her coal-dark eyes gleaming.

  Natalie looks as vague as she can manage and shrugs. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Do they have better dresses?’ Rena’s competitive streak is already alive and kicking.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Natalie says after a loaded pause, although the look she gives my frock suggests that she finds it hard to imagine how anyone could have found worse. She offered me an egg-yolk yellow sash to tie around my waist when I arrived because she said a pop of colour might help. I think she was taking the piss.

  A balding, sour faced guy in a headset pops his face around the door. ‘Ten minutes, don’t be late this time,’ he says, tapping his watch and fixing Natalie with a death stare.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ Rena mutters as he swishes the door shut.

  ‘Probably spurned at the altar and hates the sight of anything wedding related,’ I hazard.

  ‘Or wants to be the host, not the clipboard boy,’ Rena quips.

  ‘Or maybe he just wishes I’d finally put him out of his misery and answer his wedding proposal,’ Natalie says slowly, and we both look at her, surprised by the revelation.

  ‘He asked you to marry him? Is he, like, your boyfriend?’

  She nods, and huffs. ’Six months, he’s been waiting now.’

  ‘You’ve kept your boyfriend waiting six months for an answer to his wedding proposal?’ Rena whispers, slapping her hand over her heart. ‘How could you? My Bryn tells everyone that the thirty seconds it took me to say yes felt more like thirty days.’ She shakes her head. ‘Which means that your poor… what’s his name?’

  ‘Sean,’ Natalie mutters.

  ‘Your poor Sean has waited the equivalent of about five hundred years for your answer! What’s keeping you?’

  You’ll have to excuse Rena’s bluntness. She’s a fully paid up bridezilla just now, her world is one big whirl of napkins, flower sprays and potential honeymoon destinations. The idea of someone not being keen to join the great veil or no veil debate comes as a shock.

  Natalie lays down her blusher brush slowly. ‘There’s stuff about me… stuff he doesn’t know.’

  I’m intrigued enough to lean in. ‘Such as?’ I really want her to confess to being a serial bank robber, or secretly packing a penis beneath her denim cut-offs and neon stripey leggings ensemble.

  ‘Such as he doesn’t believe in sex before marriage. He thinks I’m still a virgin.’

  Oh. Rena and I both gaze at Natalie, unsure how to respond.

  ‘And you’re… not?’ Rena says, eventually.

  Natalie nods. ‘I’ve had more men than I’ve got fingers.’

  It’s a bit weird this, because we don’t know Natalie at all and we have literally three minutes until we’re due on air, but I get the feeling that she really needs someone to talk to.

  ‘Look, it’s no big deal,’ I say. ‘Just tell him. Everyone’s entitled to their past.’

  Rena nods. ‘Or just say nothing and squirt fake blood on the sheets on your wedding night. They sell it in the Halloween aisle.’

  Natalie looks as if she’s going to say something, and then the speaker over the door crackles and someone, our pantomime dame host by the manic tone, booms out that we’re needed on stage for curtain up in thirty seconds.

  ‘Go, go, go.’ Natalie crosses to the door and opens it, looking slightly embarrassed by her personal revelations. ‘Forget I said anything.’

  ***

  ‘Right then, right then, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Forever and Always, the brand new game show that can literally change your life!’

  Rena and I are hovering nervously behind a partition awaiting our cue, which in this case is Sean-the-Unwed throwing us a thumbs up from his spot in the wings. Things are made slightly easier by the fact that the show isn’t being filmed in front of a TV audience. It can’t be, because we’re playing the game for the next forty-eight hours and we were told to bring our passports just in case. Beyond that we’re clueless, and I’m starting to feel cold prickles of panic crawl up the back of my knees.

  ‘Umm, Reen…’ I whisper.

  She turns to me, and she knows exactly what I’m going to say and pre-empts me with one of her friendly pep talks. ‘Don’t you fucking dare bail on me Connie Delaney or I’ll snap your neck like a twig.’

  It’s blunt, but it does the trick. After twenty years of friendship, she knows how to get the best out of me.

  ‘I just wish we knew what we’re going to have to do, that’s all,’ I say, even though what I’d actually been about to say was let’s do a runner.

  ‘Where’s the fun in that?’

  Sean-the-unwed flaps his hand wildly to get our attention and signals in no uncertain terms for us to shut up. By that, I mean he holds up a blackboard on which he’s written SHUT THE FUCK UP in massive letters.

  ’No wonder she doesn’t want to commit,’ I whisper, and he shoots us a murderous look that suggests he can lip-read. Or maybe it’s the mics clipped to our dresses.

  ’Shit, he’s just said my name,’ Rena breathes, and then it’s all systems go because it’s time.

  Ladies and gentlemen, game on.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Want to see who you’re up against today, Team Bride-A-Licious?’

  Roberto’s grin is so wide half of it is in Wales as he rolls out the team-name he forced on us five minutes ago, but somehow his smile doesn’t make him look cheery or trustworthy. He reminds me of the child-catcher; as if he’s offering us a big swirly lollipop laced with arsenic.

  Nonetheless, we nod, and I swallow down the ball of nerves as the spotlight hits the partition screen on the other side of the stage. I feel Rena’s hand sneak into mine amongst the folds of my skirt as we both stare at the screen and pray that the other brides aren’t Oxford graduate geniuses who also just happen to be built like rugby players. At least we’d look better in our dresses, I think. Or Rena would, anyway. It’s a mark of how truly bad my dress is that I’m not even sure I could trump a burly rugby player in drag.

  ‘Brides, meet the grooms, aka Team SexyRevs!’ Roberto makes an exaggerated hashtag with his fingers as if he thinks he invented the gesture. I roll my eyes, right before what he actually just said sinks in.

  Grooms? Grooms? Hold the fucking line, caller, no one told me that was one of the options! I thought we were on a level playing field against a couple of other women, not two strapping men in clearly fake dog collars. They saunter towards us, cocksure, and as I stare at Rev HotPratt, he throws me a subtle wink to let me know he was onto me from the get-go this morning. He knew perfectly well why I was wearing this hideous wedding dre
ss on The Tube.

  ‘Rena, Connie,’ Roberto sweeps his arm out towards us, and then his other arm towards the new arrivals. ‘Meet Brad and Ryan.’

  It’s a good job it’s not live TV, because Rena rolls her neck as if she’s on Oprah and gawks at Roberto, clearly pissed. ‘No one told me guys were allowed on the team. I’d have bought my fiancé.’ She glances over her shoulder at me as an afterthought. ‘No offence, Con.’

  I try, and fail, not to be offended. This bride thing is turning her into a headcase.

  ‘Brad’s fiancée couldn’t make it, last minute sickness bug,’ Roberto tells us, unfazed, then leans in and covers his mic with his hand to hiss at Rena. ‘We’re lucky her fiancé agreed to step into the breach, or there wouldn’t have been a show at all, so smile and suck it up, buttercup.’

  An evil thought occurs to me. ’Is there any chance they could wear wedding dresses, in the interest of added humour and fair competition?’

  Roberto strokes his chin as if he’s thinking it over, until the costume manager appears and yells, ‘Where do you think I’m going to get wedding dresses for two six foot men? Unless anyone has Liberace’s phone number, I suggest sticking with the plan!’

  ‘Liberace’s six foot under, darling,’ Roberto snarls cattily, and then smiles at the camera and slips straight back into his host-with-the-most role; the most teeth and the most fake tan, anyway.

  ‘Okay, so this is how it’s going to go down, folks. Rena, you’ll be safely tucked away with Brad in command HQ, and Connie, you’re going toe-to-toe down on the ground out there with Ryan.’

  At this point, I don’t even know which one is Brad and which is Ryan, and I don’t have a clue what he means by down on the ground. Oh my shit, are we wrestling? I go cold. I death-grip Rena’s hand and mutter, ‘I don’t like this, I want to go home,’ under my breath. Which would have been fine if I wasn’t wearing a mic, but as I am, my little girl whisper echoes around the stage like something from a creepy horror movie.

  Rev HotPratt laughs, and murmurs directly into his own mic.

  ‘Taxi for Little-Bo-Peep please, taxi for Bo-Peep. She’s lost her sheep and her nerve. She probably left them on the Hammersmith and City Line.’

  I subtly flick him the V’s as the camera crew laugh, and he smirks right back at me. Right. Okay. I give myself a silent five second pep talk along the lines of ‘pull yourself together, you stupid cow,’ and paint a huge smile on my face.

  ‘Hold that taxi,’ I laugh. ‘My nerves are steel steady.’ I put my hand out in front of them to show how steady it is, then pull it hastily back in again because it’s not doing me any favours. ‘There’s only one place I’m going, and that’s right onto the winners podium.’

  Rena looks at me sharply out of the corner of her eye and mutters ‘dial it back, you sound deranged,’ right into her microphone, making someone off set sigh about how they’re never gonna cut this shit together into a show worth airing. I see their point, as does Roberto because he claps his hands loudly and fires us all a shut-the-fuck-up look.

  ‘Settle down now, kids. Rena, Brad,’ he tugs the guy closest to him by the hand and stands him beside Rena. Rev HotPratt isn’t the groom then. ‘One of you guys is gonna win your dream wedding at the end of this, but the fact is that you’re both getting hitched, and that’s something to celebrate, right? So what you guys are gonna do is head on up to Control HQ, where you’ll be in charge of guiding your respective team mates through the games to win the wedding package. Pretty simple, huh?’

  Rena and Brad nod, which well they might, given that they’re being stashed away in the safe and luxurious control suite. The screen behind Roberto shows us Control HQ in all its recliner-chaired, food and drinks on tap glory. It’s safe to say it’s not going to be a stressful forty-eight hours for those guys.

  ‘I guess I won’t need my passport after all,’ Rena laughs prettily, but she does at least shoot me an apologetic look. I shake my head to convey a silent threat.

  Oh, you’re going to need your passport afterwards, sister. You’re going to want to get as far away from me as possible, as fast as possible.

  Roberto reaches for my hand to haul me across the front of him, and for a second I hold onto Rena as if I’m a lamb to the slaughter being wrenched from its mother.

  ‘Come now,’ he laughs, squeezing my hand hard enough to crunch my bones. Pure child-catcher, right there. ‘Connie, Ryan, you two should think of yourselves as mortal enemies from here on in.’

  I slant a glance at Ryan as Roberto shoves me next to him, and he shoots me with an imaginary gun and then blows on the barrel.

  ‘Funny,’ I mutter, as Sean-the-Unwed hovers on the edge of the set.

  ‘Okay you two, Sean’s waiting to whisk you off to an undisclosed location, and Rena and Brad, you two are going to head up to Control HQ to make yourselves comfortable. Don’t worry, it’ll all become clearer as we go along,’ he says, probably because all four of us look less than convinced by the whole thing. Splash TV is a pretty recent set up, and they’re fast gaining a reputation for being maverick; a little bit out there. That’s all very well if you’re watching it on TV, but not so much fun when you’re the one taking all the risks.

  The cameras are still rolling as Ryan and I are ushered off the stage through a back corridor, and they follow us all the way out of the rear door of the building as we’re pushed into the backseat of a waiting limo. I say pushed literally - this dress wouldn’t go through the door until someone, probably Sean-the-Unwed, gave my ass a good shove and I landed face down in Ryan’s crotch.

  He glances down. ‘Well, that’s a bit forward, but while you’re there…’

  I heave myself upright, mildly embarrassed and unexpectedly aware that he’s hung like a horse.

  ‘In your dreams,’ I grumble, tugging the top of my dress up because my boobs are trying to make an unscheduled escape. Rena is sleek and built like a racehorse, whereas I’m one of those more than a handful kind of women who can’t leave the house without a good bra for fear of a Janet Jackson style wardrobe malfunction.

  ‘You may well be,’ he says, conversational. ‘It’s been a while since a girl was direct enough to attempt to fellate me through my trousers. Call me prudish, but I’d prefer it if you kissed my mouth before my cock. Buy me a beer, even. What kind of man do you take me for?’

  He looks at me, all fake priss and dog collar, and I somehow feel dirty, as if I’ve made an inappropriate pass at the local vicar over tea and biscuits.

  ‘Piss off.’ I look out of the window as we stop-start our way through the back streets of London. I’ve no idea where we’re headed, and the driver slid the security glass up as soon as he started the engine, so I don’t think he’s going to enlighten me.

  Slumping back and closing my eyes, I start to wonder if I’m going to make it through the weekend alive, or without killing Ryan.

  Chapter 4

  We’re in a cabin in the woods. The limo dropped us at a business airfield somewhere in the city, then they flew us blindfolded in a chopper, and now I’m in a cabin in the woods with Reverend Ryan, and I’m kind of terrified. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

  ‘Well, this is weird,’ he murmurs, bending slightly to look out of the window. ‘Do you think one of us has to murder the other, and the last one standing is the winner? Because if so, I’m just going to get it over with now and take your head off with that axe out there.’

  I decide that despite our circumstances, I don’t feel especially threatened.

  ‘Or maybe I’ll just plunge a carving knife between your shoulder blades,’ I smile and then shut up again because the TV screen above the fireplace has just flickered into life of its own accord.

  Seconds later, Roberto’s over made-up face appears, and I bite down the urge to tell him that the camera has given him a couple of extra chins. Rena and Brad are either side of him, and she starts waving like a mad thing when she sees me. I raise my hand back, slightly
less enthusiastic because she’s reclining in a La-Z-Boy drinking a glass of fizz and I’m in a wedding dress in a hut in the middle of nowhere with someone threatening to chop my head off.

  ‘Welcome to the arena!’ Roberto bellows. ‘Make yourselves comfortable, kids, you’re going to be there for some time! You’ll see that there are cameras in every room except the bathroom because even we draw the line at watching that, right?’ He twinkles at the camera, and I consider peeing on the carpet like a fox just to make a point.

  ‘What do we need to do?’ Ryan says, joining me in front of the screen.

  I don’t like the way Roberto laughs. ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘Wait for what?’

  He doesn’t answer me, just throws me a jaunty wave as the screen blinks off again.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t creepy, at all,’ I say, plonking my ass down on the sofa. The hooped underskirt of my stupid dress pings up in front of my eyes, and I swear I feel like ripping the thing to shreds as I grapple to hold it down. Why didn’t they let us bring a change of clothes? Because it’s far more hilarious to see me struggle with whatever challenges they’re going to throw at us wearing this ridiculous dress, of course. It’s all right for Ryan, he’s in jeans and T-shirt. Aside from a one-inch paper collar, he’s dressed for action. I, on the other hand, am appropriately dressed only for sitting on a tuffet. I don’t even know what a tuffet is. God, he must be feeling pretty darn confident right now. He has every reason.

  ‘Coffee?’

  He’s in the kitchenette, opening cupboards and running water.