Kissing Toads (16 page)

‘Look, I want two bridesmaids, and she's my official best friend. She's very high-profile right now—'

‘I don't care. I can't stand her. She's pushy and common and dumb and her tits are fake—'

‘
Of course
her tits are fake: it goes with the job. Anyhow, everyone has fake tits nowadays.' Except me. ‘You've only met her two or three times. Give her a chance. After all, you're having that awful Darius Fitzlightly as your best man, and
I
can't stand
him
. He's got two convictions for cocaine-dealing and he would have gone to prison for forging his ex's signature on a cheque if his dad hadn't bailed him out. If I can put up with him, the least you can do is get to know Brie before you condemn her.'

I'm a much stronger person than Alex, and in the end he agreed to a bonding session, just the three of us. I intended to make sure it was in the kind of club where celebrities would come up to Brie and fuss over her, since I knew Alex would be impressed by that. I also committed Roo to babysitting the dog, confident she wouldn't let me down.

The next morning, I rang to tell her so.

‘Fenris?' she echoed. ‘Alex has a poodle called
Fenris
?'

‘He's not a poodle, he's a bichon. He doesn't have a silly haircut. D'you know what Fenris means?'

‘He was a giant wolf in Nordic legend,' Roo explained on a note of suppressed laughter. ‘He bit off the hand of the god Tyr.'

‘They had a god called Tyre? You're making that up.'

‘Nope. Tyr was the god of war. Fenris was so ferocious he had to be chained up with a magic chain. They said he would break free on the Day of Doom.'

‘Those bloody kids. Saddling a puppy with a name like that. It's a hell of a lot for a bichon to live up to.'

‘Satire?' Roo suggested.

‘They're too young for satire. Probably just stupid.'

‘Maybe they thought he'd grow bigger,' Roo said. ‘A
lot
bigger.'

She wasn't keen on puppysitting, but I wheedled and eventually she agreed.

It was Brie who proved to be the stumbling block. When I rang her mobile, she was in Capri. A weekend at a health spa, she explained. ‘There are these amazing baths, and they cover you in mud and exfoliate everything and give you massages. They're putting warm stones on my chakras right now. One of the Roman emperors used to come here – Tiberius I think they said – and we all know how fit the Romans were.'

‘He went to Capri,' I said, ‘but I don't think it was for his health.'

Alex had a point, I reflected. Brie was dumb. I might not know about Nordic wolves, but I knew about Tiberius on Capri.

I would have to think of some other way to end hostilities between her and Alex.

On Saturday morning, Roo and I went to see Maddalena Cascara. Her Bond Street boutique contained about three items of clothing and five assistants, including an incredibly glamorous black guy who did nothing but open and close the door. We were shown upstairs to a private apartment especially for celebrity fittings, where Maddalena herself welcomed us in a swirl of lurid silk and waist-length bronze hair. It didn't suit her, but when you are that rich and well-connected you can go beyond fashion into the realm of eccentricity, and bad taste is mysteriously transformed into unique personal style. Particularly if people suspect you have the contacts to get your critics strangled in dark alleyways. She bristled with mascara, gleamed with lip gloss, and had the kind of killer tan you can only get if you start sunbathing in nappies. Somewhere underneath was the short, rather dumpy Calabrian peasant of her genes, but no one ever said so. Her PR claimed she was thirty-two, which might have been true if PRs were capable of telling the truth. Killer tans are very ageing.

A minion opened champagne while we air-kissed and I introduced Roo.

‘Brie de Meaux's going to be my other bridesmaid,' I said, ‘but she couldn't make it. She'll look okay whatever style we choose. The important thing is that the dress looks really fantastic on Roo.'

Maddalena promptly seized her by the shoulders, twirled her round, then cupped her face between fingers with two-inch gilded nails. ‘
Bellissima
!' she declared, predictably. ‘The face is the mirror of the soul. You have
una cuore gentile
– a gentle heart. It shines from your eyes. I will dress you to show this – your sweetness, your gentleness. You will follow Delphinium up the aisle like an angel behind a goddess.'

‘I'm not gentle or sweet,' Roo said, horrified. ‘I've worked in television for years.'

Maddalena paid no attention, appropriating a champagne flute and thrusting some sketches at me with the flourish of a silken sleeve. I saw a dress which clung and flared and flowed, combining the medieval look with enough touches of indecency to grab the headlines. In front the skirt was cut away and scooped up just off centre to show plenty of leg, while the strapless bodice scalloped low over my breasts and chiffon sleeves fell off the shoulder. Behind, the dress stretched out into a train, embroidered with a vast design of art nouveau flowers. No doubt, Maddalena was a genius.

‘Heavy silk,' she said. ‘Warm white, I think, not cream or oyster. Everyone does oyster. You have the complexion to wear white. The flowers will be in iridescent pastels, like a rainbow. When you split the white light, you have
tutti i colori
. So it will be with this dress. There is profound philosophy behind my art.'

‘What about the veil?' I said, ignoring philosophy. ‘I must have a veil.'

‘Of course. We will match it to the sleeves. It will be as gossamer, a spider's web – a wisp of air, a drift of mist. It will come to a point and be weighted with a single pearl . . .
there
.' She tapped a nail on one of the drawings. ‘I will make you a bride the world will talk of for a month – a year. A fashion landmark.'

‘Fabulous,' I said.

‘It's a bit over the top,' Roo murmured.

‘Exactly. I
want
over the top. Otherwise you're just trapped between the virgin and the meringue.'

‘More like an exploding pavlova,' Roo muttered, but fortunately Maddalena didn't hear her.

‘I
like
it,' I hissed.

‘Sorry,' said Roo. ‘You know you'll look great whatever you wear.'

Which was nice, if not quite the answer I wanted.

We moved on to discussion of the dress for Roo (and Brie). Maddalena sat drawing rapidly on a large sketch-pad, peeling off a sheet every time the result wasn't to her satisfaction. A line here, a line there – rip – discard – start again. The effect was impressive even if the final version lacked detail or definition. ‘We want to echo the lines of the bride's dress, but simplify,' Maddalena announced. ‘Less cleavage, no leg, the same sleeves, though not so long.
Per colore
, we take the rainbow from the flowerdesign, but deepen it. Blue, mauve, pistachio,
rosa
. A single orchid motif embroidered down the back of the skirt – a colour contrast for the chiffon. It will be
meraviglioso
. You will see. A goddess in silk and starlight; an angel in rainbow flowers.'

‘Two angels,' Roo reminded her.

‘Brie won't be very angelic,' I said, ‘even in one of your dresses.'

‘I design for
you
,' Maddalena told Roo. ‘Brie de Meaux, she is pretty, but that is all. I have seen her clothes. She has no
stilo
, no class. I dress her as I dress a doll. With you, I dress your soul.'

‘Th-thank you,' Roo stammered, clearly unnerved. Knowing Roo, she preferred to keep her soul out of sight, but Maddalena had a point. You should dress for your inner self, not just your outward appearance.

We refilled our champagne and turned the subject to shoes and jewellery, then to general wedding matters. Maddalena held forth with all the authority of someone who has already notched up two or three marriages. ‘They did not last long,' she admitted. ‘Being married, it is very boring. I am not, you understand,
molto domestica
. But the wedding – ah, the wedding is romantic, magnificent. I had wonderful weddings. When a man ask me to marry him, always I say yes – for the sake of the wedding. I cannot resist. To wear a beautiful dress, to go to a church, a synagogue, a mosque and swear eternal fidelity, to be the centre of attention, princess for a day – ah, how can any woman say no to that?'

‘If I ever get married,' Roo remarked afterwards as we sat down to a late lunch, ‘I'll wear jeans, if only to prove I'm doing it for love, not romance. Not that my marrying is very likely just at the moment. If at all.'

I sensed the spectre of Kyle at the table, and determined to exorcise it. ‘You will,' I said. ‘And don't you
dare
wear jeans. I'm supposed to be your bridesmaid too, remember? Fair's fair.'

‘You may have a long wait,' said Roo.

Unselfishly, I abandoned wedding talk to get back to the series and how the auditions were going for the minor roles. I was concerned about who would play Alasdair McGoogle, my on-screen lover. ‘If there's no chemistry between us,' I pointed out, ‘the whole thing simply won't work. I can't appear opposite a total nonentity. I need a guy with charisma.'

‘Charisma costs money,' Roo said. ‘Crusty's tightening the budget on this one.'

‘Orlando Bloom,' I mused. ‘I know, too famous – but someone like that. Someone really gorgeous, whom I can actually fancy.'

‘Orlando Bloom,' Roo murmured. ‘I'll bear it in mind.'

Back at the mews, Alex had bought me an Easter Egg. It was two feet long, sashed in pink, nestled in a silk-lined basket and surrounded by miniature eggs in matching bows. It was a lovely lavish gesture even though I discovered later he had used my credit card to pay for it, since he was up to the limit on his own. Eating it would totally ruin my figure, but I had no intention of doing so. I would show it off to my friends and then donate it to any children who came to hand.

Romance, I felt, was back on the menu. Since I'd arranged for Roo to puppysit, Alex and I were able to go out to dinner, starting with drinks in the Sanderson Bar and eating at the Wolseley where we could bump into lots of C-list friends and everyone could see how idyllically happy we were. I told Alex all about the castle and how sweet HG was, especially to me, and having to be charming to Nigel and the importance of the historical re-enactment for my career. He got interested and forgot to sulk about being left out, contenting himself with being mildly peevish each time HG's name came up.

‘You know lots of actors,' I said. ‘Can you think of someone really gorgeous to play Alasdair, the guy who's in love with me?'

‘
I'm
the most gorgeous man you know,' Alex pouted.

‘Well, someone
nearly
as gorgeous as you,' I said tactfully. ‘I've got to be madly in love with him, too, and if he isn't gorgeous it won't be believable.'

‘There's Jace,' Alex said, referring to his friend Jason Knight, who's good-looking but chronically out of work. ‘He's resting.'

‘He's always resting,' I pointed out. ‘He's spent practically his entire career resting. I thought he was working behind the bar at the Groucho?'

‘There's nothing wrong with that,' Alex said. ‘Lots of successful people have worked at the Groucho. Sienna Guillory was a waitress there.'

‘I daresay, but it's not exactly acting.'

‘He's been in lots of stuff,' Alex said. ‘He did a commercial for electric razors only last year, and he was in that open-air production of
The Dream
with me for charity – Shakespeare in the Park. You remember. Everyone said his Bottom was amazing.'

‘It was before I met you,' I reminded him. When men get into long-term relationships they tend to forget things like when it started and your first date and just assume you've always been there. Which is sweet, in a way.

‘I was Lysander and what's-her-name from
EastEnders
was Titania,' Alex reminisced. ‘The critics were horrid about her but we made a fortune for famine relief – some country in Africa – only what's-her-name insisted on presenting the cheque to the vice-president personally, and he did a bunk with it to the South of France.'

‘That's always happening with aid,' I said wisely. Myself, I don't know why they can't simply bulk-buy something really fattening, like Mars Bars, and just drop them on the villages. That way nobody would get a chance to embezzle the money, and Mars Bars don't go off, so it wouldn't matter that they don't have fridges. I sometimes think these aid people must be really impractical.

Of course, the chocolate would go a bit sticky in the heat, but if you were starving I don't think you'd be picky about that.

Alex was still going on about Jace's amazing Bottom and his own moment of glory as Lysander. He's done a bit of acting but it's too much like hard work – ‘Imagine being stuck in a show running six months in the West End when you want to go to St Trop or Mustique' – and he prefers to be one of the movers and shakers, with projects in the pipeline and lots of expensive lunches. That doesn't interfere with his life so much. I was thinking about that and half listening to him chatter when I had my brainwave. Or rather, the first part of my brainwave. The second part came later.

‘
You
could do it!' I said. ‘You could play Alasdair McGoogle!' Alex hasn't exactly got charisma but he's so beautiful he doesn't need it. And he'd look fantastic in period clothes.

Pity it was the Victorians and not something more dashing.