The Wedding Diaries (21 page)

Rose: Kiki! Oh my God! Are you OK? Why didn’t you call? Bunny would have come to pick you up. She ended up driving.

Me: [teeth chattering too hard to talk]

Rose: Are you cold? Why did you walk? Come in, come in! Fleur, can you get Kiki some towels?

Helen: She really needs to get out of the wet clothes – there’s no point getting the towels wet if she’s still soaking.

Rose: Kiki, drop your bag, come in, come in, just – no – don’t hold on to your bag – just –
give
it to
me
—

Despite my arms being frozen around it and my lock-jawed attempts to explain why it needed cradling, Rose prised the bag from me and dropped it onto the hallway’s flagstones. There was a muffled crack, and we all watched a burgundy stain spread across the bag’s fabric. And through all my clothes. What a perfect first impression to give to all these new people.

Rose took me to the bathroom, turned the shower on and gave me a stack of warm, fluffy towels. I stood under it until I could feel my limbs again, then wrapped myself up in giant towels from head to toe. Waddling down to the living room, I saw the five of them snuggled on two huge sofas, watching
Grease
, my least favourite film of all time. Rose saw me, and shuffled over, introducing each of the others and leaving a nice space between her and bony little Helen for me to sit. I thanked her and said I was going to get dressed first. Rose looked at me apologetically. ‘Oh Kiki, I’m so sorry. I had a peek in your bag and it looks like the wine got into everything. I’m sure we can lend you stuff for now, though. Come with me and I’ll find you something to sleep in.’

Almost two hours and several dreadful musical numbers later, I was on the sofa in Rose’s too-small pyjama trousers and Bunny’s oversize Wham! t-shirt. I stank of red wine, since Helen had kindly just stuck my wine-sodden underwear on a hot radiator, without putting them into the washing machine on even the briefest of cycles. I went back to the bathroom and hand-washed what I could of my wine-y luggage, leaving my underwear and t-shirts dripping over the shower rail and taking a deep breath before heading back to
Grease
. Finally, finally, the film was over, and I asked the group which room was mine. Greta suddenly looked awkward, while Rose looked shattered. ‘It’s such a pain,’ Fleur said apologetically. ‘It seems there was a misunderstanding when we booked – although there’s room for six, there are only five bedrooms. The sixth bed is the lounge sofa bed.’ I turned back to the giant sofas, squashed and sweated into beyond all recognition by six grown women squirming and slouching. Helen then walked in with a smile and a pile of incredibly expensive but amazingly scratchy wool blankets. ‘Here you go. Up early for the market!’ She sneered at me and sniffed the air conspicuously. ‘Mmm, boozy,’ she whispered. ‘Sleep
well
!’

I’ve struggled with the sofa bed, but something’s gone awry and it won’t fucking fold out. I’m just lying along the sweaty, squashy sofa cushions instead, with my head at a 90-degree angle to my spine and my feet on the other armrest. It’s like a fucking dog bed. I’d better get under the scouring-blankets, if I don’t want them to find me dead in the morning, blue with hypothermia, clutching my wedding planner. That would not be a cool way to go. Better luck tomorrow.

April 30th

I woke up at 6.30am when the chickens next door started calling to one another. My bed smelled like warm red wine gravy and I ached all over from sleeping scrunched up against one arm of the non-functioning sofa ‘bed’. Wrapping myself in the least scratchy blanket, I limped to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, rearranged my clothes on the radiators and cleaned myself up for the day of relentless, grinding fun ahead of us, before getting some top-notch grade-F TV watching in: some politicians interviewing one another apparently with zero signs of humanity between the pair; a fading celeb having breakfast cooked for her by an aggressively cheerful chef; some cartoons; a Paul Newman and Robert Redford film.
The Sting
! Joy. Slightly unexpected joy, but joy nonetheless. I tucked myself under the pub-smelling wirehair blankets and settled in for my clothes to finish drying and the others to wake up. By the time of the final scene, I was utterly immersed, despite having seen the film hundreds of times. A shot rings out and an impossibly handsome Robert Redford falls to the floor, while in the ensuing chaos, Robert Shaw is whisked away from his half-million dollars. I heard someone behind me. ‘He’s not really dead,
actually
.’ I looked over my shoulder, appalled. Naturally, it was Helen, back again with the sneer on her face like it had camped there overnight. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, as cheerfully as I could manage, ‘I’ve seen it before.’ She reached past me to the remote and flicked the TV off. ‘Well, you don’t mind missing the end, then. Everyone’s getting up now, so maybe we can get breakfast?’ I stared at her for a few seconds, feeling like I’d been transported back to school somehow to face the meanest girl in the year, and shuffled to the kitchen to get out the cutlery and crockery. Half an hour later, I started hearing other people stirring. Helen had spent the whole time on the sofa, flicking through
Vogue
, occasionally looking over at me on the other sofa while I read my book, and sighing. Helen suddenly disappeared and reappeared moments later fully dressed and ready in dark designer wear, followed by the rest of the group. I was still in my borrowed pyjamas, but leapt up ready to dress while everyone was eating breakfast. Apparently Rose and the rest didn’t eat breakfast, so they stood around in immaculate outfits while I pulled on some damp underwear and some warm, damp jeans. I was ready within a few minutes, in time to hear Rose saying to Helen, ‘Thanks for getting all this stuff out anyway. It was really thoughtful of you.’ I scrunched my face up and scowled at Helen, muttering, ‘Dick,’ realising too late that Greta, one of Rose’s friends from her office, was behind me. But she just walked past trying not to laugh.

Since Bunny (a nickname, obviously; real name ‘Clytemnestra’. Holy cow) had her car we decided to squeeze into it for the drive to the market. It was a ten-minute journey of agony, as I was squeezed against Helen and every bend in the road made her sigh dramatically, followed by little
ouch, oof
noises. The poor little butterfly. I was attempting to fold my own body into itself, but there was only so far I could go in sitting on my own knee. There remained some points of contact between us and they
burned
. Eventually we got to the appointed field: ‘Gloucestershire’s biggest antiques market every other Saturday!’ Of course –
of course
– this weekend was not one of the weekends it fell on. Of course. The other five got out of the car, and rooted around the gate as if there might be a secret door to the antiques fair if they looked hard enough. Reassured that I really had fucked up, they wheeled about to stare at me, as I sat balled up in the back of the car feeling sicker and sicker. Then Greta laughed and said something to the others, and four of them came back to the car smiling. Rose said, ‘We really don’t need to spend our money on this now anyway. Not when I have access to Nick’s bank account next month.’ There was a moment when I wondered if she was serious, then with a cold shrug I realised she was. Greta turned to me, flaring her nostrils slightly and tilting her head infinitesimally at Rose. Then she said, ‘How about we go to Langton and kill some time until lunch?’ All back in the car, Helen had managed to manoeuvre herself to the other side of the back seat, so I was actually allowed to pull air into my lungs without Helen’s gale blowing down my ear. In Langton, things were quiet, but the local museum was open and a whole street of my favourite shops: chemists, charity shops and sun-bleached homeware stores. I felt a gush of misery within me for Rose’s terrible hen and Helen’s total bloody-minded awfulness, but Fleur, a sweet girl from Rose’s schooldays, gave a theatrical gasp when she saw the museum’s sign. ‘Hold your horses – a teacup museum? I. Am. In. Heaven.’ We filed in and paid our £1.50 each, and tried to drag out the two rooms for as long as possible by playing Favourite Cup, Cup You’d Most Like to Break, Cup You’d Give to Your Mum, Cup You’d Marry (tenuous hen game number four hundred and twenty-nine) and If I Were a Cup I’d Be … I chose a cup with two handles and a large walrus moustache; Greta went for one that looked like it had melted in the kiln; Bunny and Fleur both went for mugs that would not have looked out of place in my grandmother’s display cabinet; Rose picked one with a large rose on – seriously – and Helen simply said she needed to find our restaurant and walked out of the museum. Greta called after her, ‘If you don’t get your hand stamped, you can’t come back in!’ and even Rose laughed.

We finally conceded defeat and went to find Helen, who was standing outside the museum with a thunderous expression. ‘I found it,’ she said, pointing across the road to the Lampley Hotel. We were seated in the velvety dining room within minutes, and the waiter came with a bottle of champagne before we’d even cracked the food menus open. Bunny had recommendations for us all, having been here before with her grandmother, and gave lavish descriptions of the cheeses, the pâtés, and the fruity duck mousse.

Me: I have
got
to try that duck mousse.

Helen: Will you be
able
to afford it?

There was an intake of breath from everyone else when she said this and I let out a quick sigh of fury and shock. Helen is such a fucking …
plum
.

The food was as delicious as Bunny had said, but the mood was slightly cowed by Helen’s furious eating, biting mouthfuls from her fork like a cross fox in DKNY. A meal that should have lasted for two hours in the right company was over after forty-five minutes, as we all refused dessert and hurried outside before we infected the other customers with Helen’s menacing temper.

Next stop was the spa. Everyone was extra sweet to me, mostly because Helen was being so deranged but also because I suspect they were just nice people, and I was touched, but whatever tiny chamber of my heart might have been in this whole weekend was beginning to crumple away. I wanted a giant Band on the Run, a clean, flat, human (not dog) bed, and no Helen snarling in my face. Was that too much to ask? As we changed into our swimming costumes and thick white robes, Greta noticed my flagging spirits and came over. Putting her arm around my shoulders, she addressed the group. ‘Good news, folks. My mum’s old college buddy owns this place, and has given us all a free treatment each. Ta-dah!’ She turned to me. ‘Kiki? First dibs?’ There was a pointed coughing from Rose and Helen, and Greta swiftly added, ‘After the bride, of course,’ but squeezed my shoulders in solidarity. From our six possible treatments, Rose had taken the facial and left me with a massage, a floatation treatment, a hand treatment, a leg wax, or a manicure. I took the massage, thinking it might knead my sofa-bed knots out, and the list passed around the group. Helen and Greta agreed to toss for the final appointment, which saw Greta take a manicure and Helen left with leg wax. I felt triumphant as we filed to the booking desk to fill in the paperwork for our treatments, but when we sat back on the armchairs, white puffy robes making me feel sleepy and good-natured, I felt really bad for Helen’s pointy little disappointed face. When our names were called, I said, ‘Helen – do you want my massage? I feel a bit sore anyway and might go in the sauna instead.’ There was a brief flash when she looked like she might thank me, but instead she nodded and said, ‘Fine, if that’s what you want.’ Greta shook her head at me and even Rose looked embarrassed but I didn’t really mind. I cancelled Helen’s wax, picked up all the
Vogue
s and a stray
Empire
that had somehow made its way in, and made myself a comfy nest on one sofa while the others disappeared off. Forty minutes later, they began emerging from their various treatment rooms, comparing soft faces and hands and coconut-smelling limbs. There was a crash and a muffled roar from Helen’s room; the door flew open, and a giant nectarine rolled out, pinky-orange and round and furious. It was Helen. Through a tiny, puffed mouth, she hissed at me, ‘
You
…
did
…
this
.’ I looked around at the others, stunned. How could her fruity transformation be anything to do with me? ‘Oh God,’ said Rose. ‘Your allergies. What happened? Didn’t they know?’ Helen lifted a bloated arm and pointed her chubby finger at me. ‘No,’ she said, ‘they
didn’t
know because
someone
was
so kind
that they gave me
their
appointment. They had her details instead of mine. How
could
they have known that I was allergic to almond oil? Only someone who
knows
me would have that kind of information.’ The finger was still pointing at me, and I was starting to feel like she might come and push it into my eye socket.

‘Jesus, Helen, I
don’t
know you. I hadn’t even met you before last night!’ It didn’t help, and Helen waddled away with another muffled roar while Rose, Bunny and Fleur chased around after her like fruit flies as she swatted them away, enraged.

Greta: Shit. That did
not
go well.

Me: Yeah. But think how delicious the juice will be when we squeeze her.

Greta: [silence]

Me: Too soon?

Greta: No, I’m just enjoying that mental image.

We found the others again later, minus Helen who had been sitting in the ice room for the last forty-five minutes in the hope that it would reduce the all-over body swelling. Rose said that the in-house medical team had looked at her and reassured them that Helen would be back to normal in the next four to five days. She also said that Helen really didn’t want to see anyone right now, and her boyfriend was driving from High Wycombe to pick her up.