Four Bridesmaids and a White Wedding: the laugh-out-loud romantic comedy of the year!

by Fiona Collins

  ‘Heidi might be wonderful.’

  ‘And I might be the Dalai Lama.’

  To be honest, JoJo’s heart had also sunk at the sight of Heidi – she was not sure how much of a workout her mind would get with this young pup at the helm – and Vanessa and her gang also looked distinctly unimpressed. If Vanessa had been hoping for the return of an orgasmic love guru, she was clearly going to be very disappointed. Heidi looked like she could barely trigger a ripple on a bowl of water.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies,’ Heidi squeaked, once they were all seated, ‘and welcome to Mind Gymnastics. Please sit pair paar.’

  ‘You what?’ called out one of Vanessa’s mates.

  ‘Cross-legged.’

  ‘Not crossed-legged again!’ moaned Sal, from the row behind. ‘I still haven’t recovered from this morning. And are you sure you’re qualified for this?’

  ‘Of course I am!’ said Heidi proudly, extending her neck and looking all proud. ‘Six months’ training and two online courses.’

  ‘Perfect,’ muttered Sal.

  ‘Which discipline are we doing?’ asked Vanessa. Not the one you were hoping for, thought JoJo.

  ‘A hybrid. So, can we get started?’ Heidi looked slightly agitated.

  ‘Let’s just go with it,’ said Wendy, from the mat beside her, and JoJo admired her optimism. ‘Maybe we’ll learn something.’

  The strains of what sounded disturbingly like Katie Melua started drifting over from an iPod speaker sitting on a little table under the oak tree.

  ‘Oh God, kill me now!’

  ‘Sal!’

  JoJo got the giggles. She couldn’t help it. It was very funny. Who needed the Glamour Pamper Package when you could have this much of a laugh? It had all been a laugh, so far, she realised, on this hen weekend – against the initial odds. The hideousness of the assault course, the randomness of Trust Exercises, the trials of hot yoga . . . So, it wasn’t exactly what they’d signed up for, but it had been fun. She was becoming really rather glad she’d ticked the wrong box, actually; she hadn’t had such a giggle in ages and the more fun she had, the less she thought and was bothered about work. Tamsin, to her right, appeared to be enjoying it too – she had the biggest grin on her face. She had a lot of fun, too, when not super-glued to her phone. Were they both finally getting some sort of balance right?

  ‘Please close your eyes and centre your being,’ said Heidi. ‘Focus your attention on the area between your eyelids, at the top of your nose.’

  Eh? JoJo had no idea what that meant. She closed her eyes and promptly went cross-eyed – that couldn’t be right. She giggled again.

  ‘I’ve got a headache already,’ she heard Wendy say, from next to her.

  ‘I can’t find it!’ complained Rose.

  ‘It’s harder to locate than the bloody G-spot!’ protested Sal.

  Now JoJo really lost it; she burst out laughing. They all did . . . the lawn was filled with the reverberations of a dozen laughing women.

  ‘Ladies!’ admonished Heidi. ‘Please concentrate. And you must take this very, very seriously if you are going to reap the benefits for mind and body. Silence please.’ They all contained themselves enough to stop laughing. ‘Now, close your eyes again. Remember, they are the windows to the soul. In order to find your soul, you must shut the windows. And now, focus – focus the mind and meditate on any occasion of Great Delight.’

  What did that mean? JoJo closed her eyes, then opened them again. She took a quick surreptitious glance around her. A lot of the women had smiles on their faces already. An occasion of great delight . . . she definitely knew what Vanessa was thinking about! Wendy looked blissful, too, hopefully reflecting on Frederick’s proposal, and not that time she and Steve got hammered on cheap cider and ran round the Arts Centre at Warwick shouting out Bros lyrics at the top of their voices. Rose looked peaceful and enigmatic – she could be thinking about anything . . . Jason, Paul, who knew? Tamsin looked positively beatific – thinking about those fleeting moments with her boyfriend maybe? And Sal had a wicked smile playing on her lips – Niall, JoJo bet.

  JoJo closed her eyes again.

  ‘That’s any occasion of Great Delight,’ Heidi repeated.

  JoJo really concentrated. Ah, yes. Here she was. The morning Constance was born. That April morning with the surprisingly hot sunshine coming through the windows of the maternity unit, and the surprisingly short labour. And her precious baby, lying on her chest and looking at her with blinking, all-knowing eyes, as JoJo sat up in the hospital bed. It hadn’t mattered that Nick wasn’t there; she didn’t care that he’d left them and never wanted to meet Constance. She had her baby daughter, they had each other now and that was all that mattered. She remembered just gazing at Constance and seeing everything, there in her eyes. JoJo had done it; JoJo was complete. And the ray of sunlight streaming through the hospital window and bathing them in almost biblical light simply confirmed it: JoJo was in heaven.

  ‘Good,’ said Heidi suddenly. JoJo opened her eyes; she was back in the present and Constance was no longer a baby, but a seven-year-old child. They still needed only each other, but JoJo had a new baby, too, her business, and she orchestrated her life to accommodate both, down to every second: Constance went to a lovely childminder every day after school, until six, and every Saturday – JoJo’s busiest day in the shop – Constance had precious Auntie Millie time, time they both declared fiercely they would never give up even if JoJo gave it all up and became a regular, working-week nine-to-fiver. She wondered what Millie and Constance were doing today . . . making something crafty probably, or painting the hell out of some huge sheets of sugar paper. She missed her daughter. Sundays were their day . . .

  ‘Close your eyes again,’ said Heidi. JoJo shut her eyes again. ‘Breathe deeply—’ JoJo breathed deeply ‘—and imagine how you feel at your most loved, your most protected, your most safe and relaxed.’ OK. JoJo tried to concentrate, to get back into that dream-like state. The sunshine, the warmth and love. Her most loved? Being with Constance, obviously. Her most protected and safe? Well, she protected herself and kept herself safe – by keeping her heart busy and out of reach. So, she guessed she felt at her most loved and protected when she was at home with Constance in Maida Vale, just the two of them. JoJo put herself there. They were baking, in the kitchen. The smell of shortbread filled the air and made them both smile. JoJo pulled Constance in for an impromptu, floury hug . . .

  Heidi continued. ‘Imagine being in the arms of the person who makes you feel that way. The person, stronger than you, bigger than you, who wraps their arms and their love around you and makes all your cares and worries drift from your being . . .’

  Oh. Hang on a minute, what person? JoJo didn’t have anyone like that! Bigger than her? Heidi meant a man, didn’t she? Right. JoJo felt affronted. Heidi was horribly endorsing the age-old stereotype of the big, strong (possibly hairy) man who rescues women. How bloody sexist! Well, JoJo didn’t have one! She didn’t need a ‘Rescuer’ to make her feel safe and relaxed!

  JoJo snapped out of any reverie she may have been in and risked opening one eye to look around at the group again. Oh, they were all in the arms of a big strong man, all right, especially that Vanessa! Disappointingly, Wendy, Rose, Sal and Tamsin all looked transported into a state of bliss. JoJo just hoped they were with the right men, in their dreams. And the most relaxed was Heidi herself; she had her eyes closed too, and was well away, a big grin on her face and her shoulders swaying from side to side.

  JoJo closed her eye again in disgust. She didn’t need a man. She hadn’t needed a man for a long, long time; they were highly overrated. She’d never let a man anywhere near her since Nick and nor had she wanted to. The men who had dared to approach (in a bar, in a coffee shop, in the local Waitrose; it did happen) had all been sent off with a curt ‘no thanks’ and a slight flea in their ear. She didn’t have time to date; she barely even noticed men – they were simply not on her radar
. The only things on her radar were Constance and work. OK, she could maybe try to add a little more fun to her life, as this weekend was showing her, but men? No. A strong woman didn’t need a man; she knew that. Everyone should know that!

  ‘That’s it,’ urged Heidi, and JoJo could hear the smile in her voice and it made her incensed with rage. ‘Feel those big, strong arms wrapped around you and let your body succumb to joy, in a most primeval way.’

  JoJo almost laughed out loud. Joy? Primeval? Sexual, more like. She knew exactly what Heidi was getting at. How ridiculous. JoJo had not succumbed to joy, in that way, forever and nor did she want to. That sort of joy was for mugs.

  ‘Sal’s asleep,’ came a whisper from Wendy, from her left. JoJo opened her eyes and looked behind her. There was Sal, eyes closed, her head bouncing on her neck. She’d start snoring in a minute, JoJo knew. Oh, this was funny. Very funny. Her disdain at Heidi’s sexist guidance melted away and she started giggling again.

  ‘Oi!’ Rose prodded Sal in the ribs.

  ‘Wah?’

  ‘You’re asleep!’

  ‘Oh sorry,’ said Sal, yawning and looking round her. ‘I nodded off.’

  ‘Try to pay attention,’ said Heidi, in as stern a manner as her high, doll-like voice would allow. ‘And no whispering, please, you’ll upset the chakras.’

  ‘Sorry.’ JoJo turned back to face Heidi, to a lot of muffled snorting from the row behind.

  ‘We’re now going to practise tantric breathing.’

  ‘Wahey!’ shouted Sal. ‘Is Sting here? Where’s Trudi?’ JoJo flicked her head round again to spy Sal pretending to scour the area for them.

  ‘This has nothing to do with s.e.x.,’ scolded Heidi, spelling out the word like a prudish schoolmarm. She’d changed her tune, thought JoJo; their mind mentor had shrugged off the sexual arms of the big, strong man and now sounded really cross. ‘This is breathing only. Regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energising and will help with stress-related problems from panic attacks to digestive disorders.’ She sounded like she was reading from a script. She probably was; one she had copied off the internet. ‘So, take a deeeeep breath in, feel yourself softening, yielding, and then take a sloooooooooow breath out, expel your energy into the world, feel your very cells, your essence, mingling with that of others . . .’

  JoJo gave it a whirl; they all did. It was hard to master at first, and felt highly ridiculous, but then it became quite nice, really, all that slow breathing. In and out. In and out. It was relaxing. Until Sal started mucking around and breathing like a constipated heifer.

  ‘OK,’ said Heidi, once they had done that for a while. ‘I hope at least some of you—’ glaring at Sal ‘—took some deep cleansing sensations from that, the releasing of the spirit, the spiralling of the energies of love. You’re welcome.’ She paused for a moment, and bowed her head. What was she doing? Receiving gratitude from them? JoJo wasn’t sure she was grateful. They waited what seemed like an age. Finally, Heidi lifted her head.

  ‘The last stage of our transformation today,’ she said, standing up and making a steeple with her fingers, ‘is rhythmic chanting.’

  ‘Oh, here we go,’ said Sal, to general laughter. JoJo didn’t care what they were asked to do, by now, to be honest; at least the session was short and nearly over.

  Heidi ignored the doubters. ‘Chanting,’ she continued, ‘is a spiritual discipline designed to improve listening skills, sensitivity towards others and general well-being. I believe it to be an exercising of the soul’s Love Muscles.’

  ‘Ha ha!’ Sal again.

  Heidi was getting very good at ignoring Sal now. She didn’t even glance her way and carried on speaking. ‘The chant we will be using this morning,’ she said, ‘is “Jehi Vidhi Hoi Naath Hit Moraa Karahu So Vegi Daas Main Toraa”, which means “O lord, I am your devotee. I don’t know what to do. So do at once whatever is good for me.”

  There was silence under the oak tree as everyone took this in. Katie Melua had finished warbling now; all that could be heard was the gentle swishing of the breeze in the trees and a duck, probably enjoying a leisurely swim on the lake, quacking in the distance.

  ‘I’ll never remember all that!’ spluttered Vanessa. ‘I always had trouble remembering the Brownie Guide promise – that’s going to be impossible.’

  ‘It is ridiculous!’ protested Wendy.

  Tamsin, fully participating in all the exercises up until now, also looked unimpressed.

  Sal was in stitches.

  ‘It’s a lovely sentiment,’ said Rose, ‘but it is quite long. Have you got anything else?’

  ‘Shall we just stick to “Oum”?’ suggested a voice. A male voice. All heads whipped round – Vanessa’s probably the fastest. Damn, it was Steve! What was he doing here? He was all suited and booted and looked dangerously handsome, JoJo thought. His hair had been slicked back with some sort of product; his face looked like it had seen a slick of moisturiser. Wendy’s face was flushed and stricken, but she quickly plastered a weak smile on it and tried to look above suspicion.

  Steve walked over to Heidi and stood beside her, looking out over everyone. He gave Wendy a brief wink. What was it with all these winking men at this place? thought JoJo.

  ‘OK,’ said Heidi, looking bitterly disappointed. ‘“Oum” it is.’

  And so, for fifteen minutes, they sat crossed-legged on their mats and chanted ‘Oum’ over and over again while Heidi paced slowly in front of them. It all got rather out of hand towards the end. One of Vanessa’s friends started shouting it; Vanessa began singing it in an appalling operatic soprano; and Sal and Rose were generally taking the mickey, until they suddenly went into a strange version of ‘Ooh, Sometimes,’ by Erasure, changing the ‘Ooh’ to an ‘Oum’. Heidi was puce with annoyance. She was definitely a teacher who had lost control of the class.

  Steve stepped towards her, in his immaculate suit. He put his arm round her shoulders so proprietorially her head was virtually stuck in his armpit.

  ‘I’m not sure this is really working out, Heidi,’ he said. ‘I’ve been watching these sessions since you started them. We may have to strike Mind Gymnastics from the programme.’

  There was a mumble.

  ‘I know you did the training, Heidi, but it’s really not working.’

  More mumbling.

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to do a full post-session assessment and get back to you.’

  Heidi wrenched her head free, stormed over to the table and switched off the iPod, then threw her class a thoroughly disgusted look and fled.

  ‘She looked so disappointed,’ said JoJo, as they all got up from their mats. Vanessa and her gang peeled off, giggling something about going for cocktails to get over it. ‘Perhaps we should have tried harder.’ She was still a little disconcerted by the whole big strong man thing, and all that joy, to be honest, but Heidi had tried her best; she felt quite sorry for her, being embarrassed by Steve like that.

  ‘Oh, pish!’ snorted Sal. ‘It was rubbish. There’s no point giving the girl false praise. She’s like one of those saps on The X Factor whose family have told them they’re great, for years, only to watch as their special snowflake gets totally humiliated on the telly. Best for her to find out now.’

  ‘Yes, I agree,’ said Steve, walking over to them. ‘I’ll talk to Heidi again later. I think her talents can be better employed elsewhere, though she really wanted to give it a go. I try to encourage all my staff,’ he added, ‘in whichever direction they desire. I’m that kind of a boss.’

  He was verging on David Brent territory, thought JoJo, though she wouldn’t dare say so and definitely not to Wendy, who was gazing at Steve with a rapt look on her face. She obviously thought Steve’s chiding of poor Heidi was a demonstration of absolute kindness.

  ‘I can see that,’ Wendy simpered. ‘It must be wonderful to be under you. I mean . . . working for you.’

  Sal started laughing. ‘Oh, Wen
dy,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You’d be hilarious if you weren’t so tragic.’

  Steve didn’t seem to take any kind of bait. He said nothing, just thrust his hands into his pockets and walked with them. JoJo wondered what on earth Tamsin thought of Sal’s ‘tragic’ comment. She couldn’t have been blind, could she, to Wendy’s simpering act, and she surely hadn’t fallen for the line that Steve and Wendy had been simply good buddies? Their history was written all over Wendy’s face!

  Luckily, JoJo realised, Tamsin had pulled her phone from the pocket of her hoodie and was now studying her emails or something. Perhaps Wendy had got away with it.

  The group all walked together towards the house.

  ‘Rafting is it, later on?’ Steve asked, as they walked. Wendy had dropped back since Sal’s remark; she now strode slowly at the back of the pack, her head down.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Sal. ‘I’m knackered.’ She stifled a yawn and JoJo looked at her curiously. Really? She’d had a nap at lunchtime and this afternoon had hardly been strenuous . . .

  ‘You’ll love it,’ he said, ‘out on the lake, the breeze in your hair. Which reminds me. I have an invitation for you girls.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Wendy, from behind them; JoJo could almost see her ears waggling. Wendy quickened her pace and lo and behold she was back beside Steve again.

  ‘Yes, Hammington, I’d like you all to come to the party tonight, as my guests. All five of you.’

  ‘Really! Do you mean it?’ exclaimed the bride-to-be. ‘But we’re on the wrong package!’

  ‘I’m the boss,’ said Steve. ‘I can overrule packages, so yes, I do mean it.’ He smiled at Wendy, benignly, but JoJo worried his intentions weren’t benign at all. ‘It starts at eight. I remember how you girls like to party. Right, I’ve got an appointment, got to get going.’ He started doing that walk-jog thing that only men do, to show they’re super important and there’s something super critical they really have to attend to, and bounded ahead of them. JoJo watched Wendy watching him, as he headed for the entrance to the restaurant.