by Olivia Ryan
‘What’s the one thing, Kate?’ asks Emily mildly.
‘Just that I’m not. I’m not really the bride.’
‘Has she had a couple of drinks already, Em?’ mutters Suze. ‘What’s she on about?’
‘I’m not the bride,’ I say, a bit louder. ‘Not any more. I didn’t want to tell you all, you see, and spoil your weekends. I’m not going to be a bride, because there isn’t going to be any wedding. It’s off.’
I look around at the sea of astounded faces. Their mouths are all open, their glasses all hovering, like mine, in mid-air. Mum looks like she’s going to cry. Lisa’s shaking her head. Emily’s frowning at me, panic in her eyes. I take a large gulp of my wine, and bang the glass down, making everyone jump.
‘The wedding’s off,’ I repeat. ‘Sorry. Maybe I ought to explain.’
‘Yes,’ says Lisa, putting her hand on Mum’s, both of them trembling visibly. ‘Yes, Katie; an explanation would be a good idea, I think.’
I want to tell her not to worry about the wedding dress. She can sell it.
KATIE’S STORY
It’s not that I don’t feel bad for them all. Of course I do. Look at Mum – she’s devastated. I knew she would be; why do you think I’ve put off telling her? All that planning: the church, the reception, the flowers, the photographer and the printed invitations. It’s all been cancelled. We’ve lost deposits left, right and centre. Mum paid for some of it but I’ll pay it all back to her. Bad enough losing your daughter’s wedding day without losing half your life’s savings on it too.
And look at Emily’s face. I know what she’s thinking.
No, Emily – it’s nothing to do with what you told me last night. Of course it’s not. That just made it even worse – finding out that you knew there was something wrong between Matt and me even before I did. If you’d told me, maybe I’d have called off the wedding sooner than I did. Maybe I’d have cancelled the hen weekend. But is that what you would have wanted? The way I looked at it was – we all deserved a good weekend away so why should I ruin it for everybody? Soon enough to come clean when it’s all over.
So now they all need to know what happened. And where do I start? How far back do I go? Back to the beginning? The story of Katie and Matt. In my mind, it becomes a popular paperback romance.
Katie and Matt.
They loved each other passionately. But could their love stand the test of time?
Apparently not. No need to read to the end, really.
I’ve spent so much time wondering when it all started to go wrong, I’ve almost driven myself mad. The rows about Prague were just the catalyst. Being so angry about Prague, if I’m honest, almost came as a relief. It finally gave me a chance to turn on Matt and shout at him. I’d wanted to do it for weeks – maybe even months! – but I hadn’t had a reason. If I’d suffered from PMT it might have been better: at least I could have had a good screaming, crying session, let it all out (whatever it was), and then made my excuses. Hormones. Women have used them as an excuse for bad behaviour since the beginning of time, haven’t they. What excuse have men got?
If you want to know what was wrong between me and Matt, I’ll tell you: nothing. We’re perfect together. Perhaps we should have bickered, like other couples do. We should have had disagreements, irritations, things that drove us mad about each other. We should have snapped at each other when we were in bad moods, or sulked and not talked to each other for days. Look around you – that’s what normal people do. Normal people who get married, have kids and grandkids and live to a ripe old age together: the reason they manage it is because they’ve seen the very worst of each other and decided to put up with it. I don’t believe those ninety-year-olds you read about in the local paper who celebrate their diamond wedding anniversaries and try to tell the world they’ve never had a cross word. They only say that because they’ve got Alzheimer’s and they can’t remember what they had for breakfast yesterday, never mind the fights they had when they were newlyweds sixty bloody years ago.
Emily and Lisa have always been right about me: I’m too romantic. I found someone who was so perfect for me, we couldn’t even find anything to argue about. We couldn’t bear to be apart. Yes, it was wonderful. It was what I’d dreamt about, all those years, reading Mills & Boons under the duvet with a torch when I was a teenager. It was romantic, it was exciting, it was… do you know what? I think it was beginning to get on our nerves. I think it was a good thing we started to argue.
If I tell you that during the last few months, in the lead-up to the wedding, I’ve been feeling like an over-inflated balloon, I’m not just talking about my waistline and the tightness of the wedding dress. It’s as if all the little bubbles of happiness and excitement about Matt, about our relationship, our love for each other, our life together – had filled me up so full to the brim that I was already about to explode. Then I was pumped up with stress about the wedding, the wedding, the wedding. The church, the caterers, the flowers, the bloody dress. When Matt told me about Prague it was as if he’d found exactly the right pin to burst my balloon. Thank God! I let off steam with my anger and suddenly, our relationship stopped being perfect. We were arguing and bickering like any other couple. I was terrified. What was happening to us? We weren’t supposed to be like this. We were nearing the most important chapter in our story and I’d suddenly lost the plot!
All the time, Emily was trying to reassure me. Don’t worry, love – it’s normal. Everybody gets stressed out just before their wedding day. It’s only nerves. You’ll be fine. And all the time, she was hiding something from me. She’d noticed something wrong with Matt and she’d actually gone out of her way to ask him about it – without telling me. Oh, I suppose she thought she was helping. I suppose she thought she was going to get him to see the error of his ways; make him cancel the ten days in Prague and take his mates for a sedate weekend on the Isle of Wight instead. And we’d all live happily ever after.
I knew it was about more than that. I knew he wasn’t happy; but then again, neither was I. I’d even asked him outright whether he was seeing anyone else.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he flared. ‘We spend our entire lives together! What opportunity would I have?’
‘So it’s only the opportunity you’re lacking? Not the intent?’
‘Katie, for God’s sake! I am not having an affair and I don’t intend to have one! What are you talking about?’
‘Something’s wrong.’
‘Yes. It is.’ The look he gave me was very pointed. It was saying: And what’s wrong is that you’ve turned into someone who accuses me of having an affair.
‘We never used to argue like this.’
‘You never used to be suspicious and distrustful.’
‘I’m not! I never have been! But something’s wrong.’
We talked ourselves round in circles. It got us nowhere. All the air had finally come out of the balloon and I felt as flat as a bloody pancake. So maybe we did fall in love too quickly, too passionately. And maybe the ending was going to be as sudden as the beginning, after all.
Last Saturday, when he was leaving for Prague, I came home from Mum’s and found him sitting in the flat in silence, a cold cup of coffee beside him, his holdall zipped up and his passport lying neatly on top of it.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked automatically.
He held out his arms for me.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said again, going to sit down next to him but ignoring his outstretched arms.
He dropped them to his sides. He looked defeated, as if he’d spent the whole day searching for something and had finally given it up for lost.
‘I need to tell you something,’ he said, without looking at me.
‘What?’ A hot lump of panic was forming in my throat.
‘The trip to Prague. It’s not exactly a stag.’
This didn’t make any sense. I shook my head and frowned.
‘We’ve cancelled the stag. It’s just me and Sean now.
None of the others are coming.’
‘Why?’ I shook his arm, trying to make him look up at me, but when he did, I regretted it, because the look in his eyes frightened me. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I just want to get away – on our own – me and Sean. I want a chance to think. To think things over, Kate. Quietly.’
‘To think what over?’
There was a long, long pause. I didn’t need him to answer, obviously. I could fill in the blanks myself. I found myself wondering whether any other men went away with their best friends for ten days before the wedding to talk over their doubts. It seemed quite bizarre. How many doubts must a person have, to talk about them for ten days? I could sum mine up in less than ten minutes.
‘I’ve got doubts too!’ I said aloud, my voice wobbling with the shock of what I was saying.
It had only just struck me. Of course I had doubts. Why had I taken so long to admit it?
‘You have?’ said Matt, the surprise in his voice mixed with something else that took me a moment to recognise. Relief.
‘Yes. I thought it was just nerves. Pre-wedding nerves.’ I laughed – an inappropriate, unnatural laugh that sounded even to my own ears dangerously like hysteria.
‘And it’s not?’ he asked, cautiously.
‘I’ve kept telling you something was wrong. I couldn’t work out what it was. Maybe…’ I looked up at him, suddenly feeling a bright spark of hope in my heart. ‘Maybe it’s just that we’re not ready for this, Matt. If we’ve both got doubts about the wedding…’
‘We ought to talk about it?’ he said, sounding about as enthusiastic as if he’d suggested hopping barefoot over a bed of hot coals.
‘No. I mean yes, of course we should have talked about it. But we got caught up in it all, didn’t we. And now there isn’t time. You’re going off tonight with Sean. And I’m going off on Thursday with the girls. It’ll be too late when we get back.’
I looked at him expectantly, almost excitedly. He was frowning, not understanding me, and who could blame him? Maybe I’d flipped.
‘Too late for what? We can still talk when we get back, Kate.’
‘Not too late for talking. Too late for cancelling the wedding. It’s probably too late already – we’ll lose our deposits on things but that’s too bad. Don’t worry. I’ll sort it all out while you’re away. I won’t tell Mum, though. Let’s not tell anyone. I think that’s best. I don’t want to upset them all yet. Wait till we both get back, then we’ll have to…’
I was babbling. The sense of relief that had washed over me as soon as I’d diagnosed that the problem wasn’t us – it wasn’t me, it wasn’t Matt, it wasn’t an affair and it wasn’t even Prague – it was the wedding – was so exhilarating that all I wanted to do was wipe the slate clean of the wedding completely, as soon as possible, have a good time on the non-hen weekend and the non-stag holiday and get back to being girlfriend-and-boyfriend-in-love with the least possible fuss.
Except that Matt probably thought I was on the verge of a complete breakdown.
‘You don’t mean it,’ he said, his face pale with shock.
‘Why not? You’ve got doubts, I’ve got doubts, we shouldn’t be getting married. Easy. Cancel the fucking thing.’
‘Katie, you’re sounding very… hyper. I’m not sure…’
‘Well, I’m sure. We were happy before this whole wedding circus took over. Let’s turn the clock back to then.’
‘It’s not that easy. You can’t turn the clock back. Things change. Things happen.’
‘What do you mean? What things happen?’
He shook his head. He looked tired, exhausted even. I’d noticed he hadn’t been sleeping very well.
‘Have you had these doubts for a long time?’ I asked him quietly.
He shrugged.
‘And are they just about the wedding?’ I added, almost in a whisper. ‘Or what?’
No response. Not even a shrug this time.
‘Or about me?’ I managed to squeak like a frightened, wounded poor little mouse, just about to be squashed, just about to have all the life splattered out of it. I held my breath, closed my eyes and waited for the blow.
‘No,’ he said, after far too long a pause. ‘Not about you.’
We looked into each other’s eyes then. I found myself thinking that if this had been a romantic novel he would have kissed me. But he didn’t.
‘Just about the wedding,’ he said, nodding to himself as if to underline it. ‘You’re right. That’s it.’
‘Then it’s settled. The wedding’s off.’
Matt went off to Prague looking worried and uneasy, and I immediately went into a frenzy of cancellations. I made a list and ticked it. It was almost more exciting than arranging the thing in the first place. I made the phone calls, trying to sound upset about it. Church, hall, caterers, photographer, cars, florists. They all gasped with surprise and said how sorry they were. How awful for me, so close to the date. And unfortunately, did I realise that the deposit was non-returnable? A new thought struck me. Maybe I should have kept the bookings for the hall, the caterers, the cake and the flowers after all and just had a hell of a party. A non-wedding! I laughed out loud to myself at the idea and realised I was feeling happier than I had for a long time. Or perhaps I’d just completely lost my marbles. Who laughs while they’re cancelling their wedding? Only crazy women, surely.
I knew, of course, that all my friends and family were going to be shocked and upset, but I really didn’t want the weekend in Dublin turned into a wake. So I kept it a secret – from everyone except Jude. Well, I had to tell someone or I was going to collapse with the weight of it. Jude was the obvious choice, living in a different country from everyone else, and because we’d be sharing a room over the weekend away. Anyway I knew I could trust her to keep it quiet – she’s just not the blabbermouth type.
‘Sure and I’ll get to be your bridesmaid some other time, Katie. No need to worry at all about that on my account,’ she teased me gently, having pretended to recover from her initial shock.
‘Ah, shit – the Pledge! Jude, I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you some other way.’
‘Away with you and your nonsense, you know I’m only pulling your leg. That’s the last thing in the world you have to worry about; we were only children at the time and silly enough to believe in happy endings, were we not?’
‘Yes. And unfortunately, I’m still silly enough, Jude.’
By the time we left for the hen weekend, I’d done everything except for sending out the cancellation notices to all the guests. The uninvitations, as I thought of them. Katie and Matt regret to inform you that for personal reasons, their wedding on 21st May has been cancelled. Maybe I should say postponed. It sounded kinder. But then they’d be expecting a revised date. Katie and Matt regret to say… Maybe I shouldn’t use the word regret. No time for regrets. Katie and Matt are pleased to announce that they’ve dumped the wedding idea and are carrying on living in sin. Hmm. Might upset a few aunts and uncles. In the end I settled on: Katie and Matt are sorry to tell you that we’ve called the wedding off. However we are still together and we hope to see you all soon. There. Sorry about the disappointment, everyone. Sorry if you’ve bought new frocks and special hats and wasted your money on wedding presents. But at least you know we’re not crying over the champagne. I printed out the uninvitations on the computer, addressed all the envelopes and stacked them up ready to send out when I got home. After I’d told Mum and Lisa. That was going to be the hardest part.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
As it turned out, the hardest part was keeping up the façade while we were away. Acting as the bride-to-be, going along with all the dressing-up and the silly games, getting drunk with my best friends and having to remember not to spill the beans and ruin the party. Being apart from Matt for the longest time ever, and beginning to wonder. Didn’t he hesitate just a little too long when I asked if his doubts were only about the wedding, not about me? Didn’t he look
confused and anxious, instead of relieved and happy, when I said we’d call off the wedding and go back to how we were before? Why? Was there something else wrong? What was he spending ten days talking to Sean about?
You see, Emily?
You see now why I was so upset with you? Why I wanted to hit you?
You’ve confronted me with my own fears. You didn’t know I’d called off the wedding. But you knew my boyfriend was confused and upset about something. You knew it before I did. And you didn’t even tell me!
ABOUT GOODBYES
If I’d made an announcement that there was an unexploded bomb in the bar and it would go off as soon as the next person spoke, I couldn’t have brought about such a stunned and complete silence. Even the people on the next table are silent. They must have been listening.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, beginning to sound like a parody of myself. If I apologise much more I’ll probably cease to exist at all. Like I’m apologising for even breathing, for even living, certainly for even being here in Dublin celebrating my forthcoming non-existent nuptials with some of the closest people to me in the whole world, who didn’t think I was capable of such lies and deception. I hang my head.
‘You should have told us,’ says Emily, her voice shaking with shock.
‘You should have waited till we got back,’ says my mother, barely containing her anger. ‘It would have blown over. People have arguments. People always have doubts before the wedding, but…’
‘But what, Mum? They should still go ahead? Like you did?’
She flinches, and I immediately feel cruel and start to apologise again.
Lisa looks at me in surprise, and I remember she still doesn’t know Mum’s wedding story. I shake my head at her: Take no notice of me. I’m upset.
