The Wedding Diaries (25 page)

Me: You had me at ‘
Kiki!
’ I get it.

Thom: This wedding will happen. You need to just remember who we are.

I brought him through a bowl of apple crumble and custard (his favourite comfort food) and sat down on the floor to rub his feet. I waited a couple of minutes before saying, ‘All I know is, I am the best. Wife-to-be. EVER.’ Thom just said, ‘You’re an idiot.’

June 12th

Shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

OoooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

This is what happens when everything seems to be working. This is what happens when you think it’s allllll sorted. That everything will go according to plan and you can start dusting off your hands and relaxing.

You start making apple crumble and saying you’re a brilliant wife-to-be, and the next thing you know, there IS NO WEDDING. This has not been a good day. Is this diary about to become not a record of my happy marital plans, but a final memorandum before the last days of the human race? Because THAT IS WHAT IT’S BEGINNING TO FEEL LIKE.

I called Redhood Farm’s recommended caterers today, to ask if they might be able to do a cheaper menu for us than the one we’d discussed. They couldn’t. In fact, they so couldn’t, they asked if they could help me find another caterer, as they’d had a request on that same day for a much bigger event and thought it might be better for me to work with a smaller, more affordable catering company. They fired me. My wedding caterers fired me. Writing this down again, can this really be right? With an awful sense that this probably wasn’t the day to do this, I rang my dress shop next. The beautiful, beautiful dress shop. The dress shop full of lovely ladies and plush sofas. The dress shop which has since closed down. Obviously.
Obviously
. With the magical symmetry of threes, the phone rang as I was calculating whether to cry in bed, or go the whole hog and throw myself into the Thames. It was Mary from the cake shop! Of course it was! Checking that I still wanted my five-tiered fruitcake. In a fit of hysterics, I wailed that I didn’t want fruitcake and hadn’t ordered fruitcake. She suggested that maybe I should go elsewhere. I said I didn’t have time to find anyone else. Sweet Mary told me with all the charm she could muster that this wasn’t her problem. I fired her. I realise
now
this was evil Monica’s evil, evil revenge for the Mutton Lamb muttering and even if I’d got a cake out of them, it would probably have had raw rabbit hearts or something inside anyway. So we were now cakeless, dinnerless and dressless. And neither Susie (napping, the lazybones) nor Thom (who knew?) were picking up.

When Thom came home from another mystery outing I was sitting shell-shocked on the sofa. He prised the March edition of
Martha Stewart Weddings
out of my clenched fingers and asked if everything was OK with my dad. Yes, I said, unable to get beyond my pain. Susie? Is it your sister or the baby? Your mum? I was beginning to feel faintly ridiculous by now, so my subconscious decided to compound the matter by sending me flouncing out of the doorway screaming, ‘No, it’s MY life and it’s RUINED and this WEDDING is OVER!’ Because nothing makes you feel better than behaving like an eight-year-old.

He had the enormous good sense to leave me to stew in my own foolishness, coming in later to offer me food. Always wise.

Thom: I’ve cooked some deeeeelicious pad thai. But I couldn’t find any salt – can I have some of your tears for it instead?

Me: How can you be so cruel? If you weren’t so handy around the house I’d have found myself a loveless relationship with someone who cared as much about this wedding as I do.

Thom: That person doesn’t exist, Kiki. And let’s take a look at dinner before we start talking about my cruelty and your lovelessness.

Me: Hang on – what’s that ridiculous poker face you’ve got going on there? Is that … is that a
pun
alarm going off? If I walk into the kitchen and there’s one of your ties on a notepad, there’s going to be a serious talk, young man.

Thom:
Would
I?

He would, and he did, even sprinkling chopped peanuts delicately over his construction. Pad tie. Brilliant. But, smart man, he swiftly fished out the real meal and we sat down together to slurp noodles and mull over the future of our wedding.

Thom: Kiki, what are we going to do?

Me: I think … I think that we’ve got no caterers, we’ve got no cake, and I’ve got no dress.

Thom: Do you still want to get married?

Me: Very, very much, Thom. To you in particular, ideally.

Thom: Then I think we should. If you can bear it, we can make this the best wedding in the world, which it always would have been since you will be marrying me.

Me: No, uh-uh –
you
will be marrying
me
. But I suppose you’re right about everything else. I just need a few days to mourn The Wedding That Wasn’t.

Thom: I understand, Kiki. [whispering] I’m so sorry for your loss.

When I came to bed he’d taken some black tights from my drawer and tied the bridal magazines with a giant mourning bow. He’d also wrapped a black hairband around his upper arm. I can see he’s taking my grieving very seriously.

TO DO:

Try to pretend that money doesn’t matter

Research whether joblessness is likely to result in groom eating all of the wedding cake

Research whether joblessness is likely to result in groom eating all of the wedding guests

Research how this wedding is even going to happen without a dress, food or money

Check Thom really is OK

June 18th

A fabulous date from Thom’s diary to lift our spirits after the last few weeks of terrible luck. He bundled us off to the station this morning, carrying a huge rucksack and reminding me too late of all the things I’d probably try to bring if he didn’t make us leave so early. At the station, he presented me with a thermos of tea and a crossword book for the journey, and we spent a happy hour bickering over capitals of the world and possible cryptic solutions. When we got off the day had turned from a grey just-out-of-winter dawn to a here-comes-summer morning. And, even better, we were at the seaside for it. Joys. We spent a perfect, lazy day, sitting on a rug and talking, occasionally heading to the water to cool our feet, then back to the rug for more bites from the picnic Thom had brought and to talk about nothing: what we might do at the weekend, how my work was, what he’d heard from his old colleagues about the place now. When we headed back to the station and ate our fish and chips on the platform, from the paper, we were exhausted from the sea air in all the best ways.

I do feel better than before. Thom’s still tying black mourning bows around everything – I opened the fridge this morning to find a long black sock bound around the milk – but I think this will work out. We’ll find that money from somewhere. It will be nothing like the Nose Nuptials: I want ours to truly be something special. Thom suggested photocopying our faces with Polka Dot’s equipment and pasting them onto balloons to give our ceremony the personal touch.

But I am worried that Thom really is having a breakdown. He’s still getting up with me each morning, putting on his suit and heading out to the tube. When I ask where he’s going he wiggles his eyebrows mysteriously, denying any interview but saying he’ll keep me posted. Is he like those jobless Japanese salarymen who don their smartest suits to sit in the park and feed the pigeons for eight hours a day?

TO DO:

Focus on venue – ask Redhood Farm for other caterers and cake makers

June 19th

Thom’s mum rang last night. She said they’re both so worried about him.

Aileen: Kiki, you know he’ll never tell us anything. Is he OK? Are you? Can you afford your rent? Do you need any help?

Me: We’re OK, thank you. I worry about him too—

Aileen: Is he sleeping? Eating anything?

Me: He’s eating everything. He hasn’t had an appetite like this for years. And he sleeps like a baby. I’ve had to start keeping a knitting needle by the bed to prod him when he snores.

Aileen: So why are
you
worried, Kiki?

Me: He just seems so
normal
. He seems …
happy
.

Aileen: Do you think he might just
be
happy?

Me: I suppose it’s not beyond all possibility.

Aileen: But you can keep a roof over your heads? You’ve got food in the fridge?

Me: We have, thank you. It’ll be tight, particularly with the wedding, but we’re not in any danger of having to move in with Mum and Dad.

Aileen: Oh, I wish we could help you more, Kiki. It’s terrible being all the way over here when something like this happens. I can’t tell you how much worrying I do. Sometimes I feel it’s all I can think about—

Alan: [in the distance] Aileen, the jacuzzi’s waiting!

Aileen: [giggling] Well. You can’t worry
all
the time, can you, love?

Me: You go. Or I’m flying over there and getting in there before you do.

God, that seems like a nice life right now. If one more thing goes wrong I’m going to bloody do it.

June 25th

I called Redhood Farm to ask if it was possible to get any more discount. No, they said. Fair enough, I said. But could we have a tiny bit longer to pay off the balance? No, they said, it’s due by Friday, or we keep your deposit
and
you lose the venue.

That was on Monday.

It’s now Saturday.

They won’t give it back.

They say it was in the contract we signed, that they are permitted to keep the deposit against the likelihood that they can’t fill the date with another party. So, with my lost dress payment, that’s over £4,000.
£4,000
. That’s over a thousand morning coffees. Or a lifetime of Lancôme mascaras. Or most of our wedding fund. Or our entire honeymoon. I don’t know what to do. Thom’s got no job and we’ve just lost £4,000 and it’s two months until our wedding and we don’t have
anything
. Oh GAAAAAAAAAAAA.

TO DO:

Swap vitamin skin pills for cyanide pills (probably fine, as I would never remember to take them anyway)

June 26th

I woke in misery this morning, so asked Thom if he’d come with me to the park. We took some stale bread and took turns trying to land pellets on the back of the birds in the pond, until one of the park wardens suddenly arrived behind us and tutted loudly. I was laughing so hard that Thom had to guide me away.

Thom: Thanks for that, Keeks.

Me: For getting you barred from the pond?

Thom: No, for the walk. I have a nice time with you.

Me: I’m sorry about your job, but I am glad that I’m a girl who can still show you a good time.

Thom pulled me into a headlock and said not to worry my pretty little head about big man issues like jobs. I tried to give him a Chinese burn and he chased me out of the park, all the way home.

June 29th

Jacki came in today to have a first look at her finished book after her long honeymoon. We’d arranged to send over the twenty books requested in her contract, but she said that we’d all worked so hard on it that she wanted to be with us together when she finally saw it.

She came into the office clutching a giant bottle of champagne, tottering on enormo-heels and hugging all of us. I led her to our meeting room where Judy the Intern had spent the afternoon putting up balloons, streamers and fetching a vast white cake with ‘Jacki and Leon – Together Forever!’ in pink icing across the top from the bakery round the corner. Jacki actually gasped when she saw what we’d done – rather gratifyingly, I thought – but then looked in danger of bursting into tears, so I busied her into the room and got started on popping corks and congratulating her. The book itself was gorgeous – a matt satin mint-green hardback with a funny-but-gorgeous photo of Jacki in a veil on the front and a potted CV on the back (‘Jacki Jones: model, soap actress, popstar … and now bride?’) and a few juicy hints of all the details she’d managed to cram inside. I doubt anyone would believe that she’d written the whole thing herself (with a little help), but I know what a labour of love (ha!) it’s been for her. And the book is just like Jacki herself – commercial, beautiful, funny, and top quality. Everyone was huddled in twos and threes with copies of the book, admiring Pedro’s photography and the lavish wonder of the pages and pages of wedding extravagance, even though we’d all been looking at it ever since it came in a few weeks ago. All of this stuff, all of this beauty, all of these snaps of this perfect, precious day – Jacki will only have this once, with her flawless occasion documented for all time, while I will have … what? Some supermarket confetti at the local register office? A home-made cake with a holiday snap of us Blu-Tacked to the top? One of my holiday dresses with a ‘my other dress is a wedding dress’ badge on it? I’m fully aware there is something ridiculous about this, but, bloody hell, I WANT MY WEDDING.