My Fake Wedding (Red Dress Ink (Numbered Paperback)) (13 page)

I jump away.

‘Anyway,’ I say.

‘Right,’ he says simultaneously.

Then we both look at each other.

‘Sleep.’

I
wake up next morning
with a jackhammer thumping in my temples from last night’s champagne. Sam’s side of the bed is empty. Groaning, I scuffle downstairs, where George, wearing nothing but white Jockey shorts and a pair of pink marabou-trimmed slippers, is standing in the kitchen stirring sugar into a big cup of coffee.

‘All right?’

‘Hanging.’ He tosses his head back and points at his eyes to show how bloodshot they are. ‘My breath’s absolutely minging. Still, better show willing, I suppose, darling. Here you are.’ He thrusts a glass of champers into my hand.

‘God. Already?’

‘Hair of the dog, darling. Hair of the goddamn dog. Ohmigod.’ He suddenly gets up and stares out of the window. ‘LOOK.’

‘What?’

‘He’s here. The darling’s only bloody well here.’

And with that, he runs out into the front yard in his undies and, slap bang in front of Poppy’s mum and dad and other assembled guests, he gives a slightly bemused
David a great big hello hug. And, somehow, much to my surprise, it all makes me feel a bit weird. A bit like I used to feel when Jake and I went to see some soppy film and it got to the end and I suddenly found I was sobbing my eyes out. And not because it was sad or even particularly happy or anything, but because I knew Jake and I simply weren’t like that, and probably never would be.

Well, we certainly won’t be now, so there’s no point even thinking about that. But, as I watch David and George hugging and twirling each other around in the yard, it suddenly strikes me…

‘He loves him,’ I say out loud to myself. ‘George really loves him.’ It’s a first. The only person George has ever loved until now is himself. And I can’t help feeling a little bit jealous. I know it’s childish but I know it means I’ll get a lot less attention from George from now on. Of course, I pretend not to care, taking the piss out of them both and announcing how disgusting it is that they’re so cheesily in love.

Janice gets up late. She’s got a face like a smacked bum again. I expect it’s the thought of wearing that terrible dress.

‘Jasper not here yet?’ I ask her.

‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘He’s coming to the service. Had to work this morning, stuffy old bugger.’

‘Your father, dear?’ Poppy’s mother hands her a cup of English Breakfast tea.

‘Boyfriend,’ Janice corrects her.

‘Same age,’ carps George.

‘If you say so.’ Janice throws him a look. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘You said he was sixty-odd.’

‘She means her father, stupid.’ I glare. ‘Not Jasper.’

There’s a clamouring at the door as the little drooling dog from last night and a large golden retriever bark at someone coming in. It’s Sam, of course. The minute I see him, my tummy flips over at the thought of our closeness last night. He made me
feel safe. But then I notice that, following behind him, is the dreadful Pussy creature from last night.

Good old Sam. He’ll never change.

‘We’ve been for a walk,’ a fresh-faced Pussy announces to the assembled company, smiling at Sam as though they’ve been best friends all their lives.

‘Can she stop pouting?’ David snipes and I laugh delightedly. Now I remember why I liked him so much in the first place. His ability to be sugar and spice and slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails all at the same time is really rather charming. And suddenly, the fact that I so completely failed to bonk him really doesn’t matter in the slightest. He’s so nice, I’m finally able to forget my total humiliation.

I run around all morning making sure the food preparations are well and truly underway. Sam and David insist that I go to the church service, which is what Poppy wants. They’ll keep everything ticking over until I’m back. George says he’ll come to the church with me. He loves a good wedding, he says. Privately, I decide that this is because he wants to get out of doing any more of the work but he’s already been such a help, in his own way, that I can’t really forbid him from coming. Instead, I bite my lip and say nothing as he plonks his granny’s jewel-encrusted tiara at a skewiff angle on top of his number two crop, straightens his shrimp-pink cravat and sticks a gerbera in his lapel. Then I hoick my tights out of my bum and we link arms, wandering past the canalside pub where lots of the guests are enjoying a pre-nuptial pint, and along the lane to the village church.

Poppy arrives fashionably late, setting my tummy off on its own peculiar spin cycle of nerves. What if Sam forgets to open the red wine? What if David doesn’t put the oysters on ice so there’s nothing for people to nibble on when they arrive? Will they remember to take the smoked salmon sandwiches out of the fridge in time? What if the puddings boil dry? What if I’ve forgotten something? What if…

‘Calm
down.’ George puts a steadying hand on my arm.

The organist warbles through the opening bars of Handel and the bride and bridesmaids, a flotilla of strawberry and cream, sail down the aisle on a carpet of blood-red rose petals.

‘Oooh.’ George nudges me in the ribs. ‘Will you look at Janice? Oozing all the glamour of a Robin Reliant.’

‘Shhhh,’ I hiss, as the woman in the pew in front, whiffing of mothballs and sporting a hat shaped like a Walnut Whip, turns round and glares at us with eyes like boiled sweets. I press my teeth together to quell the bubble of nervous laughter frolicking around in my windpipe and stare down at my toes, which peep, violet with cold and with chocolate-painted toenails, from ridiculous girlie heels. Oh for a pair of clumpy Timber-land boots. I’m freezing my goddamn tits off in here. I have to keep tweaking my nips to make sure they’re still on.

Seb is standing by the altar, a great big shit-eating grin on his face. As Poppy reaches his side, he takes one of her tiny hands in his, and the vicar tactfully motions for Janice to stand to one side because her bum bow is blocking everyone’s view. Janice spends the rest of the ceremony with a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle, while George enjoys himself hugely, singing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ in a stupid falsetto voice to get attention, sparking up a fag during ‘Jerusalem’ and stage-whispering ‘Clunk! That was the sound of my tits dropping off through boredom,’ at various intervals during the sermon.

Privately, I’m just glad I’ve come to my senses. Oh yes, it’s all very romantic. And a year ago, I’d have probably been pea-green with envy as Seb, a tall, dark, handsome cliché in his top hat and tails, and Poppy, fragile, elegant and looking as though she’s about to dance the Waltz of the Snowflakes in a simple sheath of pure white silk, dotted with thousands of tiny iridescent beads, sign the register as the choir choke their way through a dubious rendition of ‘Pie Jesu’. I’d have probably been so swept up in the romance of the whole thing, I’d not even have noticed the cold, which is now turning my nips to Jelly Tots. I’d
have been wishing fervently that this pomp and ceremony was all for my benefit. Fantasising that the two toddling flower girls, sweet rosebuds in ruby velvet dresses, and the older bridesmaids, skinny and plain as clothes pegs next to Janice’s big hair and sweater girl curves, were here to support
me
. Dreaming of my own petal-strewn aisle and blizzard of heart-shaped pink confetti. And as the happy couple emerge into the churchyard, where crocuses the colour of creme egg yolks peep through the grass, I thank God I’ve realised marriage has all the appeal of a freshly whipped dog turd.

I mean buggery bollocks. It could have been me and Jake back there, signing our sanity away in a flourish of Bic biro.

Jake.

OK, so if I’m perfectly honest, I still get a fuzzy, feedbacky sort of feeling in my tummy whenever I think about Jake. Especially when I remember he’s got a sprog on the way. That puts rather a different spin on things. If I did want him back—which of course I don’t—there’d be a whole new person to consider.

At least I found out about the poisonous sod before it was too late. But Perfect Poppy and Seb are a different story. How can they be sure they’ll be perfectly happy for the rest of their perfectly pristine lives? Sebastian, after all, is a bloke. He has a penis. So who’s to say that, even while vowing publicly to keep himself— Sebastian Willoughby Gentle—only unto Poppy Cassandra Latimer as long as they both shall live, he hasn’t got one hand in his pocket, fingers crossed as he adds silently, ‘Until we get back from Aruba, or Antigua or Acabloodypulco, wherever it is she’s decided we’re going, when hopefully I’ll have enough of a tan to talk that Monica from Accounts right out of her Janet Reger thong.’

I sneak away from the church as the bridal party pose for photos by the beribboned archway, poking my tongue out at Janice as I go in a clumsy attempt to make her laugh. I fail. She’s as miserable as sin. Back at the house, I’m hugely relieved to
find that, with George out of the way, David and Sam have done a brilliant job with the arrangements. The oysters I shucked seconds before I left for the ceremony are piled globbily onto silver trays, and platters of miniature smoked salmon and brown bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off have been placed, according to my instructions, at regular intervals around the barn. I reckoned that people would get less off their faces on fizz if they had something inside them before they drank too much. Sam, ever the PR man, has done me proud with the decorations. The barn is aglow with hundreds of flickering church candles, adorning every table and windowsill, casting romantic shadows across the old stone walls. In the centre of the room stands a stone pool, once used for cows’ drinking water, now a mass of silver and gold floating candles and anemone heads in imperial purple and deep crimson. Thirty or so round tables cluster around the pool, each covered in a different coloured silk cloth; olive green, peacock blue, gold, silver, crimson, indigo, forest green. More candles, this time in wrought iron candelabra, stand in the centre of each table, lending a gothic atmosphere to the proceedings, and bowls of red roses, for love, their heads bunched tightly together to form a deep crimson mass, are on every surface. The plates and glasses, which Sam has somehow produced, like the shopkeeper in
Mr Benn
, as if by magic, provide the finishing touch. Iridescent and coloured like jewels in turquoise, emerald, ruby, sapphire and amber, they set everything off perfectly. Tiny silver and gold angels are entwined around the backs of wrought iron chairs and golden boxes of my homemade heart-shaped chocolates, silver sugared almonds and chocolate-covered ginger are on every guest’s plate.

‘It’s perfect,’ I breathe, a lump coming into my throat. ‘Absolutely perfect. Thanks, Sam. And David. You’ve done wonders. Thank you both, so, so much.’

Cue hugs all round as I take in their penguin suits, worn specially for the occasion. They both look gorgeous and I’m relieved to find that Sam is
acting completely normally. George, of course, refuses to change out of what he’s already wearing. He might have to act like a waiter for the day but that doesn’t mean he has to bloody well look like one. I slip into a simple black dress with spaghetti straps and pull my hair back into a fat orange plait to keep it out of the food.

‘You’re not wearing that.’ Sam, fastening silver cufflinks, comes along the landing as I emerge from my room.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s perfect. You’ll upstage the bride.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘I mean it. You look great.’

‘Do I?’

‘You do.’

‘I’m shitting myself.’

‘You’ll be fine.’ He hugs me and, for a flash of a second, I feel all funny inside again. But when I pull away he’s smiling at me. ‘Good luck, Simpson.’

‘Good luck yourself. You’re the waiter. Oh, and if you accidentally slop soup into the ladies’ laps, please try to restrain yourself from asking if you can lick it up. It’s not quite the thing in polite circles.’

Sam slaps my back playfully. People begin to filter into the barn from their walk from the church. Ladies in flowery hats, swathed in head-to-foot crimplene. Men in suits, pinned to their wives’ sides and looking as trapped as pockets of wind after dodgy vindaloos. Exhausted fathers. Elegant mothers. Eligible bachelors. And lots and lots of blondes. Busty blondes. Beaky blondes. Blondes in cream to outdo the bride and blondes with sunbed tans and hatfuls of dyed turquoise feathers, all filter in, greedily grabbing glasses of champagne and chattering like chaffinches. For the next hour, Sam, George and David, bristling with manic energy, flit from barn to kitchen and from kitchen to barn, pouring drinks, handing round oysters, sprinkling Tabasco, squeezing
lemon wedges and doling out salmon sandwiches, while I panic and fret over the preparation of the starters.

‘Christ, will you look at that.’ George, coming back for more sandwiches, tuts loudly as a woman in her mid-thirties proudly hands round a fat, pink child of about six months for people to coo over. There are so many children around that the atmosphere is thick with the scent of follow-on milk, rather than the heady cocktail of pheromones I’ve been hoping for, but I can’t afford to think about that now. I’ve got a meal to serve.

‘Bloody breeders making a point,’ George goes on. ‘Yes, yes,’ he scoffs. ‘Isn’t it lovely? What a shame we can’t all have one. You know she really oughtn’t to flash it around like that. Someone’ll steal it if she’s not careful.’

‘It’s a baby,’ I point out, handing him another bottle of champagne and waving him in the direction of a crowd of rugger buggers with their drinking heads on. ‘Not a Lotus Elan.’

‘And the mother’s common as cheap chocolate,’ he snarls. ‘She’s got those horrible slag wellies on. Look.’

George has a thing about the wearers of knee-high boots. He can’t bear to look at them. Thinks it says something about their personal hygiene. Or lack of it. God knows why.

Back in the kitchen I get trays of plump crab cakes out of the warming oven and arrange them quickly on plates with peppery rocket, purple lollo rosso and dollops of zingy tomato and chilli jam. There’s just time to mop my sweaty top lip, then it’s the veggies’ turn. Goat’s cheese and sundried tomatoes in crisp, filo pastry for them. As the boys serve them, I check on the lamb medallions slow-roasting with sprigs of rosemary and whole garlic cloves in Poppy’s mum’s Aga. I chop fresh mint, baste roast potatoes and toss cubes of pancetta and blobs of butter into green beans. Drizzle fat yellow peppers, red onions, fennel bulbs and garlic with generous lashings of oil. Flinch as a recently arrived Jasper, unseen by Janice (beaming now that she’s shed her ladybird costume and is slinking around in a shimmering silvery-green
party dress) flips me a wink, gives my arse a quick pinch and wishes me luck.