Then it was Hamish, who stood and dutifully read through his list of ‘thank yous’. To Pete and Karen, to his own parents, to his best man and ushers, to the caterers and to the flower ladies, to the ‘adorable’ pageboys. To his ‘new wife’ – cue cheers from around the marquee – and he also thanked me. ‘I know Lex couldn’t have done it without you, Pols, so thank you.’ And then he added: ‘And she’s newly single, chaps, so form an orderly queue!’
At this, there was another ripple of laughter and various laddy cheers. I wanted to crawl underneath the table and die. Here I was, trussed up like Widow Twankey, essentially being tendered for market.
Finally, Ed stood to make his speech. I squinted up at him. Could I snog him? It was sort of traditional, the maid of honour getting it on with the best man. But Ed was a bit short for me.
I looked across the marquee and spotted Joe in animated conversation with Laura from the hen. Then I saw Bill on her other side and gazed at him, trying to catch his eye, but he was talking to Lex’s cousin Hattie. At least his lip had stopped bleeding.
Then I also spotted Callum on another table. He winked at me, so I obviously immediately blushed. Really cool, Polly, well done.
‘And Hamish said, “I’m more of a breast man myself!”’, said Ed, to raucous laughter. ‘But then, suddenly, those days were over when he found Lex. So, ladies and gentlemen, once more can we please all be upstanding for Mr and Mrs Wellington.’
Everyone duly stood, starving by this point, raised their glasses for the 234th time and sat back down. I was so hungry I could eat my own head.
‘So, newly single, eh?’ said Ed, leaning towards me.
I reached for a bread roll.
Pudding was mini brownies and shots of Espresso Martini. ‘See it off,’ said Ed, an expression I loathed, but I picked up the shot glass and knocked it back with him. I was definitely not snogging him. Then, from behind us, the music started. We craned our necks to see Hamish lead Lex on to the dance floor. ‘You give me fever,’ trilled Peggy Lee, as Hamish lifted his arm for Lex to twirl underneath.
A minute or so later, Lex made a face at me from the dance floor, which I knew was the cue. ‘Everyone on,’ I said, encouraging those around me on to the dance floor. ‘Come on.’ I found Joe in the throng, took his hand and he led me into the middle of the dance floor and started rolling me around.
‘Have you spoken to Bill?’ he shouted over the music.
I shook my head. ‘Not really. Is he all right?’
‘Yeah. Think so. It’s for the best,’ said Joe, throwing me out with one arm.
‘But I’m confused, what’s actually happened? Last time I spoke to him they were moving in together?’
‘Not sure really, I think he just freaked out,’ said Joe.
‘And you’re all right?’ he said, as I twirled under his arm.
‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Just checking,’ said Joe. ‘Bill mentioned Jasper was here so I thought I should ask and—’
‘Can we not talk about him right now?’ I said. ‘Let’s just get drunk.’
Around us, Hamish was dancing with his mother, Lex was jumping on the spot, holding up her skirt, while various hens danced in a circle around her and Karen was doing something extraordinary with one of her nephews. Poor boy. Imagine having to slut-drop with your aunt.
‘Who’ve you got your eye on anyway?’ I asked Joe. I knew there would be someone.
‘Narrow field tonight. But there was a cute waiter around earlier so I might nip behind the scenes in a bit.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘’Course you will. Right, that’s probably enough of this for a bit. Shall we get a drink?’
‘Yup,’ said Joe, so we headed for the bar, where barmen were doling out Espresso Martinis as fast as they could make them. Weddings are bizarre. One minute everyone’s in the church, whispering their prayers on their knees like a devout bunch of Quakers, the next they’re elbowing one another out of the way for a cocktail.
Joe passed me a Martini and we moved out of the way. ‘Where’s Bill gone?’ I said, scanning the dance floor. ‘I keep trying to find him.’
‘Dunno,’ said Joe, then he squinted at me. ‘But what’s wrong with your face?’
I lifted a hand to my cheek. ‘Nothing, what do you mean?’
‘Your eyeliner’s gone a bit… off-piste,’ he said.
‘Oh, probably the dancing. I’ll go sort it out. But if you see Bill, will you tell him not to move because I want to talk to him.’
‘Sure,’ said Joe.
My make-up bag was in the house so I dodged various dancing bodies, the floor sticky with spilled Espresso Martinis, and left the marquee. As I walked across the lawn I saw Uncle Nick, puffing on a cigar coming towards me. ‘Oh, Uncle Nick, thank you for earlier. And sorry.’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I put him in a taxi and that was that.’
I half smiled, half grimaced at him.
‘And you’re OK?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Just need to go and sort my face out.’
‘You go and do that,’ he said. ‘And when you come back, we’re hitting the dance floor.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘See you in a sec.’
‘It might give me a heart attack but we’re hitting the dance floor,’ he repeated, over his shoulder, as he walked back towards the marquee, a trail of cigar smoke in his wake.
Inside the house, I went up to my attic room to find my make-up bag. I could feel the thumping of the music from the marquee. Doof, doof, doof, reverberating through the floor.
I looked in the mirror. It was like Marilyn Manson was staring back at me. And I’d got some sort of oily stain on the maroon dress just under my chin; it was shaped like Wales, I thought, scratching at it. Not that I was wearing this dress ever again anyway. Straight to the charity shop. Although even they might baulk at it.
I tore a strip of loo roll and started wiping underneath my eyes. What was Jasper even thinking, turning up drunk and crashing the wedding? What a scene. I still couldn’t process it. Was there a tiny bit of me that was pleased to see him? I looked at myself in the mirror. ’Course there was. But, I told myself sternly, as I reached into my make-up bag, there was more of me that didn’t want to see him.
I jumped as a floorboard creaked behind me.
‘Can I come in? Joe said I’d find you up here.’
It was Bill.
‘Jesus, you gave me a fright.’
‘Yeah, I can see that from your face.’ He smiled and then winced and put his hand to his mouth.
‘Serves you right,’ I said, slowly running my kohl along one eye. ‘I’m sorry though. Is it very sore?’
‘Yes, it bloody hurts. All for defending you and for absolutely no thanks.’ He sat on the end of my bed and fell backwards on to it.
‘I didn’t ask you to behave like you were some sort of extra in a Guy Ritchie film. To get into a fight. But thank you, very chivalrous.’
Bill didn’t say anything.
‘Anyway,’ I went on, leaning into the mirror to dust some powder under my puffy eyes. ‘Can we talk about Willow? What’s happened? You all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t right, it turns out.’
‘What do you mean?’ I looked at him through the bathroom door.
‘Well, I think I was trying to force it. Trying to make it right. Trying to imagine our life and I guess I thought that settling down with Willow was what I wanted.’
‘But you didn’t?’ I was confused. ‘So why did you ask her to move in?’
‘Oh God, I dunno. It felt like I should,’ he said. ‘And she was dropping hints.’
‘How’s she now?’
He shrugged. ‘All right. Moved out. I think she knew too, deep down. And I’ve told her she can keep Crumpet.’
‘Why did you suddenly realize it wasn’t right though?’ I went on. ‘Or did you know that from the beginning? I sometimes think you know. If I’m honest, lookin
g back to when I first met Jasper, there is no way that was—’
‘For God’s sake, Polly!’ said Bill, loudly.
‘What?’
‘That guy is such a fucking bell—’
‘I know, that’s what I’m saying. You never listen to me. I just fell for the whole thing. The whole being swept off my feet by someone who owns a castle like it was some sort of fucking film. I mean, what a cliché…’
‘Pols,’ said Bill.
I carried on, I was warming to my theme. ‘I mean, no wonder you all knew it would go wrong. No wonder you were all talking about it behind my back—’
‘Polly…’
‘I mean, what on earth did I think was going to happen? That we were going to get fucking married and I’d spend the rest of my life hanging out with people like… like… Barny Kitchener? I mean—’
‘POLLY!’ yelled Bill, sitting up on the bed.
I fell silent, staring at him.
‘Can you… just… stop talking. Just stop. For one second. Just stop. I don’t want to hear another word about people called things like Barny. Can we have one moment of peace where your mad, exhausting, unbelievably overanalysing brain just shuts up?’
I frowned at him, make-up brush frozen in mid-air. ‘Why are you being so mean? What is wrong with everyone today?’
‘I’m not being mean, I just need you to be quiet.’ He stood up.
‘Oh, hang on, wait for me. I just need to do my bronzer.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said.
‘Two ticks,’ I said, brushing my nose with powder. Why was it always so shiny? There were wells in the Middle East that produced less oil than my nose.
‘I’m not going yet because I want to do this,’ said Bill. He was suddenly beside me in the bathroom. And then he moved my make-up brush out of the way and kissed me. On the mouth. Not a friend kiss, a man kiss.
I dropped the brush in surprise.
‘Bill, what are you… ?’ I said, pulling back from him. ‘I mean… you’ve got a split lip…’
‘Polly Spencer,’ he said, ‘can you just be quiet for two seconds?’
And I was about to ask him if he’d gone mad but I didn’t have the chance because he kissed me again. And I didn’t pull away this time or interrupt him because I realized it felt kind of right. Better than right. Maybe a bit like when Marianne kissed Colonel Brandon for the first time. Strange, but sort of familiar. Weird, but kind of great. I felt goosebumps along my arms as Bill put his hand on the back of my head to pull me closer to him. I wanted to laugh – I was snogging Bill! – but I thought now was probably the time to be serious. And suddenly I knew, standing there in that hideous dress, kissing my best friend, it was him. It had always been him.
SIX MONTHS LATER…
‘MUM, COME ON, WE’RE going to be late. Don’t worry about Bertie, he’s fine. Let’s get going.’
‘Darling,’ she said, kneeling in front of me, tying a polka-dot bow tie around Bertie’s neck, ‘it doesn’t matter if we’re late. It is tradition for a bride to be late.’
There had been much discussion about Bertie’s bow tie. More discussion about the bow tie than anything the rest of us were wearing. Mum found the bow tie on Etsy, which had warranted a phone call to my new office, a shiny glass building just off Tower Bridge where Nice News was based. ‘Mum, I can’t talk now,’ I’d hissed down the phone when she’d called me to discuss it. ‘I’m writing a story about a human rights lawyer.’
Bill’s friend Luke had offered me a job as a writer for his website two months before, so I’d left Posh! and started a more serious job where I didn’t need to know who the heir to the Duke of Portsmouth was or what kind of dog breed was the most fashionable. Now I spent my days researching and interviewing stories for the site – some serious (‘Meet the Headmistress Who’s Turned Around This Struggling Academy’), some less serious (‘What Flavour Hummus Are You?’). Last week I’d had a viral hit with a piece headlined ‘How Posh Is Your Bathroom?’, so my time working for Peregrine hadn’t been entirely wasted.
Finally, Mum stood up again, Bertie’s bow tie attached. ‘There,’ she said, smiling down at him. ‘Very smart.’ Bertie looked embarrassed.
‘Seriously, come on. We’ve got to get going,’ I said, looking at the kitchen clock. ‘The car’s been waiting for ages.’
‘Let me just check my lipstick.’ She glanced in the mirror at herself. Her hair had nearly all grown back so she looked like she did before being ill. She looked like Mum.
‘Your lipstick is fine. Come on. Seriously.’
‘Darling, you’re very tense.’
‘I know, I’m tense because we’re going to be extremely late and the congregation will all die of old age. Come on.’ I made a chivvying gesture with my arms at her and nodded towards the front door. ‘Let’s go, let’s go, time waits for no man. Or woman, in this instance.’
‘OK,’ Mum said. ‘Honestly, Bertie, she’s being very grouchy today, isn’t she? And today of all days. Right then…’ She made for the stairs humming ‘Here Comes the Bride’, Bertie trotting behind her, then turned around at the top of them to face me.
‘Oh lord, what now?’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Nothing. I just wanted to say I never thought this day would come and…’ Her voice started wobbling.
‘Mums, don’t cry, you’ll get it all over…’
She held a hand up. ‘Polly, please let me have this moment. Everyone can wait.’
‘All right.’ I bit my lip.
‘All I want to say is, well, life can feel difficult at times, can’t it? Jolly difficult. But we’re all right now, aren’t we? And I’ve never been so proud of you and I can’t remember a time I felt this happy and…’ Her voice cracked.
‘Mums, come here.’ I reached my arms out for her at the exact moment she lost it. She’d only cried openly with me once since her diagnosis, the day she’d called me at Posh! with her results. It felt like she’d been storing it all up for now, I thought, hugging her. I wanted to fully share this emotional moment, but, also, a little bit of me was worrying that she was getting lipstick on my dress.
‘That’s enough,’ she said, pulling back a few moments later. ‘We should be going, come on. Oh, Polly, love, look at the time! You should have told me. We’re going to be awfully late.’
It was the perfect December day. Freezing but clear, the air so crisp your breath hung in it. Reverend Housley was standing outside the church. She beamed as our car pulled up and reached for the passenger door to let us out: Mum first, then Bertie, then me.
‘Susan! Polly! Well, this is a happy day, what a happy day. You look sensational, both of you. Oh, such a happy, happy day!’ If a human being was ever to explode with excitement, I mused, looking at the vicar bounce from one foot to the next in her cassock, it would be her.
‘Don’t start, Vicar, we’ve already had a little cry this morning,’ said Mum.
‘Of course, of course,’ said Reverend Housley, still smiling. ‘Now,’ she forged on, ‘everyone’s sitting inside and waiting. So, if you’re ready, then let’s get cracking.’
We nodded.
‘Ready, Bertie?’ said Mum, looking down at him. He still looked embarrassed about the bow tie.
‘Terrific. I’m going to go inside and you wait here until the music starts. Then, show time.’ Reverend Housley beamed again then hurried inside.
‘Right,’ I said, smiling at Mum and offering her my arm. ‘Let’s get you married.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Come on, Bertie, off we go.’
So, with Mum on my right arm and Bertie on his lead walking beside her, we walked into St Saviour’s as the organist, a friend of Joe’s from the academy, started playing Handel. There had been weeks of deliberation over the music, Joe patiently scrolling through Spotify at Mum’s flat, playing different pieces again and again as she declared they were ‘too quick’, ‘too slow’, ‘too dramatic’, ‘not dramatic enough’, ‘too sad’, ‘too jaunty’,
and so on.
‘This isn’t a barn dance, Joseph,’ she told him at one juncture, whereupon Joe said Bertie needed a walk in Battersea Park and took him out for half an hour of solitude.
As I walked down the aisle, I caught various people’s eyes. It wasn’t a big crowd. Mum and Sidney had only invited their ‘closest people’ to the blessing. But they were mostly my closest people too.
In a pew on the left stood Hamish with a protective arm around Lex, enormous already even though she was only five months pregnant. (The only way we can have sex these days is doggy style and nobody tells you that, do they? It’s not in any of the books, she’d emailed me earlier that week.)
Up ahead was Sidney, smiling shyly from behind his spectacles at the top of the aisle.
As we neared him, I saw Joe, sitting in a pew on our right, smiling, eyes closed, swaying theatrically to the music.
And then, along from Joe, in the same pew, was Bill. My plus one. An actual, real-life plus one. He wasn’t swaying. He was looking at me, grinning. I’d heard people before say, ‘One day I woke up and realized I was in love with my best friend,’ and I’d always thought, what a total moron, how did you not realize that years earlier? And yet, here Bill and I were, grinning at one another like teenagers. And I thought back to what Mum had said earlier in her flat and decided I’d never been this happy either. Then Bill winked at me, which very nearly ruined the moment. Idiot. But at least he was my idiot.
My Colonel Brandon, it turned out.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’m sitting in the Lake District as I write this, staring at a blank Word document on my laptop with the word ‘Acknowledgements’ written at the top of it. I feel like I’ve got to make an Oscar speech and I’m about to forget someone. I’m so sorry if it’s you I forget. I didn’t mean it. Honest. You were also very important. Perhaps just slightly less important than the people I’ve managed to remember below.
Firstly, an enormous thank you to my agent, Rebecca Ritchie, who emailed me some time ago saying had I ever thought about writing a book. I remember walking down the Earl’s Court Road when I got the email on my phone and I didn’t sleep that night because I was so excited. Well, she’s been incredibly patient because a mere 37282 years on, here we are. A book! Becky, to borrow a phrase from Paul Burrell, you’ve been my rock. And my sounding board. I’m stupendously grateful.
The Plus One Page 31
