by Claire Frost
What are you most looking forward to about married life?
Having the kind of relationship my best friend has with her husband. They’ve known each other for a long time, so I know it will never be quite the same for us, but I hope that twenty years down the line we both still love and respect each other as much as they do. They’ve taught me how important it is to support each other in a partnership and that you can each bring something different to the marriage to make it a success. The other thing I’m most looking forward to is having another excuse to go to the chippy for sausage and chips all the time – yay!
Hannah x
Chapter 12 Hannah
‘Toby’s definitely coming out of his shell a bit, isn’t he?’ Hannah smiled a few days later as they both sat at their desks in the Save The Date office. ‘I was surprised he was so brave in his answer about the awkward question.’
‘Yeah, I noticed you ducked out of that one a bit.’ Her friend rolled her eyes.
‘Well, you shouldn’t have asked us such difficult questions, then! Don’t forget that the world and his wife are reading our answers. I was trying to be amusing, although I think Toby is probably funnier than I am if his blogs are anything to go by, which hopefully they are. Are you all right?’
‘What. The. Actual… Han, you are not going to believe this email,’ Jess replied.
‘What, Elton John has offered us sole use of his LA mansion as well as his private jet so we can fly our friends and family out to California and have our reception there?’ Hannah deadpanned.
‘Not quite, but almost as good.’
‘What, George Clooney has offered us sole use of his country pad in Berkshire and said we can even use the swimming pool and private cinema if we want?’
‘Han! Your knowledge of celebrity homes is worrying – you haven’t got any restraining orders I need to know about, have you? No, this email is actually better than that. And before you take another guess about some other A-lister’s private residence, it’s nothing to do with celebrities, well, not really.’
‘Not really? What do you mean not really? It either is an invite to hobnob with the rich and famous or it isn’t. Come on, tell me, I’m about to burst here. And this better be good now you’ve built it up so much.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry, it is,’ Jess replied smugly. ‘How about an all-expenses-paid honeymoon to St Lucia?’
‘You’re not serious? Really, Jess, that’s really what that email says? I don’t believe you, let me see.’ Jess turned her laptop round and Hannah stared at the screen. ‘Oh my god, it really does say that! But do you think this Esmeralda person who sent the email is real? Esmeralda Miller sounds like a made-up name to me.’
‘Well, she seems kosher enough, and she has a St Lucia Tourism Agency email. But I’ll give her a call and check it all out if it makes you happy. Did you read the bit where she said she’d read your blogs and thought St Lucia would be right up both your and Toby’s alley because, as well as all its amazing beaches and bars, you can drive into volcanoes, go ziplining and do diving and snorkelling; well, in any time you have left when you’re not “getting to know each other better”!’
‘Jess, she most certainly didn’t say that last bit, only you and your dirty mind felt the need to add that on!’
‘All right, Little Miss Pure And Innocent! Although as Toby brought up the question, so to speak, in his letter, how are you feeling about the wedding night itself? You managed to dodge the question when Sara asked you in the Lakes and I tried to get you to answer it in your blog, but I’m not letting you off the hook that easily.’
‘Toby has made me feel better about things actually. And as we get closer to the wedding, I’m more and more convinced that I’m going to “just know” like G-ma always says she did with Gramps. We’ve called this whole project #marriedatfirstswipe after all, and I’m so here for the fireworks. And if I feel the fireworks, then who knows what might happen on our wedding night!’ She grinned. ‘But before you ask, I won’t be texting you with an update as soon as I wake up, no. God, I’ve never known anyone quite so interested in my sex life! Anyway, back to the free holiday thing – and in fact, free everything thing. Are you sure we should be saying yes to all of these offers? I love a freebie as much as the next person, but it does feel a bit weird when it’s my wedding we’re talking about.’
‘Of course we should be saying yes. You would love to go to St Lucia and unless you have a stash of cash you’ve been keeping very quiet about for the past few years then I’m guessing you can’t afford to go to St Lucia. This gives you the chance to do it – and, more importantly, the chance to do it with your brand-new husband. All you have to do is put out a few posts on the Save The Date social channels and then write a blog about it when you’re back, and bob’s your uncle, fanny’s your aunt – fnah fnah! – and bingo, you’re chilling out in the St Lucian sunshine with your beloved!’
‘Well, when you put it like that…’
‘I’m almost tempted to ditch dear Toby and marry you myself if it means a week on a Caribbean island, Han!’
‘As much as I love you, Jess, I think I’ll stick with Toby,’ Hannah laughed. ‘God, I don’t know what’s got into you but you’ve gone all hyper about the wedding. Here’s me trying to be all chill despite crapping myself when I think too deeply about it, and here’s you all crazy and overexcited!’
‘I’m just overexcited for you two to actually meet,’ Jess said, tapping her feet against her chair. ‘I keep picturing both of your faces when you finally see each other on your wedding day.’
‘And what does my face look like in these daydreams?’
‘Happy. Very happy.’ Jess nodded hard.
‘And Tobes?’
‘He is gazing in wonder at the beautiful woman walking towards him and can’t stop himself from smiling!’
This made Hannah smile too. ‘Do you think he’ll mind me calling him Tobes? I like the sound of it,’ she added.
‘I’m sure you can call him anything you like when you’re “getting to know each other”, my friend! All right, I’ll stop with the inverted commas.’
‘I still feel weird about the fact we’re engaged without actually being “engaged”. I don’t even have a ring,’ Hannah said a little sadly, glancing at her empty left hand.
‘You’ll have a beautiful wedding band in a few weeks, don’t you worry! And hopefully he’ll have a good eye for jewellery for birthday and Christmas presents and just-because gifts for the next thirty years. It’s a man’s job to buy the woman gifts all the time, I think.’
‘Er, Jess, the 1950s called and asked for their outdated views back! Come on, you buy Tom presents.’
‘Well, only to make sure he buys me something in return.’ Jess shrugged. ‘After twenty years and a shared bank account, we don’t really do surprises anymore, sadly.’
‘God, you make it sound like romance has shrivelled up and died!’ Hannah laughed.
Jess’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Are we still going to your mum’s for lunch tomorrow? I’d forgotten I’d said I’d come with you until I checked my calendar earlier.’
‘How could you forget your lunch date with Joan of Bark?’ Hannah said, using the nickname she and Jess had secretly coined in their teenage years when it seemed all her mum did was shout at Hannah. ‘She texted me this morning to inform me she’d been to M&S and bought one of their expensive salmon and broccoli quiches in your honour.’
‘Gosh, well, I shall make sure I am suitably gushing about my salmon and broccoli quiche tomorrow. I don’t want Joan thinking I’m ungrateful.’
‘Don’t worry, she’ll save all of her smiles and simpers for you, as usual. God, between her and G-ma over the years, it’s like you’re their close relative not me!’
‘I’m not sure I’m quite the golden girl anymore, now I’ve led you towards the dark side of getting married to a stranger.’
‘Don’t you worry, I told her it was all my idea and I had to practic
ally force you to click through hundreds of photos of hot men until you found the hottest of them all and matched him with me.’
‘I have to tell you, Han, there were quite a few men for whom the word hot was not really invented and I still had to click through all their photos. And some quite strange reasons why they wanted to apply to take part in a blind-date wedding.’
‘Online dating is a scary place, Jess, and that’s before you realise most people don’t even look half as hot in real life as they do in their less-than-hot photo. Although, of course, the Save The Date app is better than the others,’ she added quickly.
‘Well saved, my friend. And it certainly is better than the others now we have so many new sign-ups. And anyway, you don’t have to look at another dating app ever again – well, except for your job, obviously – now you have your Toby-to-be.’
‘That’s true,’ replied Hannah, perking up immediately. ‘The last few weeks have been so busy, I haven’t had a second to think about the fact I’m not spending every night swiping left through hordes of tedious men until I find one who isn’t quite as predictable as the rest.’
* * *
As Hannah made her way to her mum’s house the following day, she wished Jess hadn’t had to go to some reading assembly at the twins’ school first and could have driven them over to Joan’s herself, or at least made the bus ride there less depressing by sitting next to her instead of the slightly unkempt but very talkative old man currently snuggled up to her. She even got off the bus a stop before she needed to in order to get away from him, reasoning the extra exercise would do her good, especially as she was failing to curb her Chunky KitKat habit that she’d promised herself she’d get under control the day after she’d been dress-shopping with Jess. Except as the bus pulled away, the drizzle began, and it wasn’t long before it had become more of an insistent soaking. Of course, Hannah didn’t have an umbrella with her, even though she’d gone into Marks & Spencer the other day with the express intention of buying one. Instead she’d come out with a three-pack of black tights and some Percy Pigs. And she’d forgotten to bring her mum anything to say thank you for lunch, unless a single pink sweet shaped like a pig and covered in fluff from the bottom of her bag counted. She decided it didn’t.
She made her way past the terraced houses stacked neatly in tight rows, and on through the streets slightly further out with their bigger semi-detached properties, until she reached the road where she’d grown up. She knew she was lucky to have had a mostly happy childhood in relative middle-class bliss, but she also knew her mum had been very lucky to keep the house in the divorce settlement that followed. She’d managed that mainly because her anger and bitterness at the split meant she was like a dog with a bone and Hannah’s dad had no fight left in him, plus he had already moved on with his now-wife Charmaine – and in fact moved in with her.
Hannah closed the gate and softened a little as she saw how pretty the garden was looking. One of Joan’s passions since her divorce (other than slagging off her ex-husband and his new family, obviously) had been gardening, and the sight of the bright and blooming flowerbeds round the front lawn was so joyful that Hannah couldn’t help but smile. She clonked the door knocker three times and then used her key to let herself in before shouting, ‘It’s just me, Mum,’ into the house. Immediately, she was hit by a swell of music that sounded like an orchestra was playing a concert in the hallway, and she had to wait for almost a minute in the entrance to the kitchen until the violins died down and a flute played a jaunty solo before she could shout again, ‘Hello! It’s me, Mum!’
‘Gosh, Hannah, you gave me quite a fright there sneaking up on me!’
‘Hi, Mum, lovely to see you, too,’ Hannah replied, plastering a smile on her face and brushing her mum’s cheek with a kiss.
‘Jess is still coming, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, don’t worry, she’ll be here soon. Though don’t forget it’s me who’s your dear daughter, not Jess!’ She attempted another smile, this time through gritted teeth, then took a subtle deep breath. ‘So, how have you been, Mum? I haven’t seen you for a fair few weeks.’
‘Yes, the last time you were here was when you dropped your little bombshell, wasn’t it?’ Joan replied, busying herself with the oven gloves. ‘I can’t say I’m happy about the situation, but your brother and even lovely Julia seem to think it’s a good idea, and as he says, at least it’s dear Jess who’s matched you with this Toby man, and we know she has good taste in husbands – how is Tom, by the way? He’s such a lamb, he really is. And your father says you’re sure about what you’re doing so his view is we should be supporting you, so it looks as though I’m outnumbered anyway.’ Having finished her speech, Joan also finished poking at the quiche in the oven, then stood up and switched on the kettle. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
Hannah gazed at her mum, her mouth open in astonishment, and it took her a few seconds to respond. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said eventually. ‘Did you say you’d spoken to Dad?’
‘Yes, he called me last week and said we should have a chat about you – and Scott and gorgeous Leo, obviously – so we did. This quiche is almost ready, do you think Jess will be here soon?’
The knocker tap-tapped just as she’d finished speaking, and Hannah trotted gratefully down the hall to let her friend in. ‘Mum’s being a bit weirdly okay about the wedding,’ she whispered as Jess closed the door behind her. ‘Wonder boy and Julia are apparently all for it, and Dad called her to talk about it and she actually seems to have listened to him. It’s odd.’
‘But good odd, so let’s just go with it,’ Jess whispered back. ‘Joan, so lovely to see you! Have you lost weight? That dress looks gorgeous on you. Thank you so much for having us over for lunch, it makes such a nice change from a boring old ham sandwich at our desks!’
‘Oh, Jess dear, you are too kind. And we can’t have you wasting away all the time on plain ham barms, especially when you have those adorable children and handsome husband to look after. Now, sit down, I’m just making some tea and then we’ll have some quiche and salad, and I’ve even got some of that Victoria sponge from M&S I know you like so much.’
‘You do spoil us, Joan!’ Jess grinned.
‘You, she spoils you,’ Hannah mouthed at her friend while her mum poured them all a mug of strong tea.
‘Although I expect you’re watching your weight, aren’t you, Hannah?’ her mum continued. ‘I remember I was so sick with nerves in the weeks leading up to my wedding day I could barely eat a thing, and my dress actually ended up being a bit too big on the day.’
‘I don’t think I’ll have that problem!’ Hannah laughed. ‘I’ll make sure I save a bit of space for cake, don’t you worry. This looks lovely, Mum, thanks,’ she added as they all sat down at the kitchen table. ‘After we’ve eaten I’ll show you the dress I bought if you want. I’ve saved the link to the website in my favourites.’
‘Has Hannah told you about all the little extras we’ve managed to line up for the big day?’ Jess asked, turning to Joan. Hannah tried to shoot her friend a warning frown, but she had already started counting things off on her fingers. ‘The flowers are being provided by this amazing boutique company in Manchester who’ve worked with everyone from Instagram stars to glossy magazines, the cake is going to be made by the geeky one from Bake Off a couple of seasons ago – you know, the one who made that amazing seven-tier mirror-glaze cake but was rubbish at the technicals so went out a few weeks before the final? No, well, believe me, he is so talented. And we’ve got a second cake made entirely from cheese that a local deli are doing. What else, oh yes, we’ve got favours being provided by a lovely little artisan gin company, and a massive balloon arch, which is going to look so cool. Then there’s the photo booth and the small tree people can hang their messages to the bride and groom on, plus we might have a chocolate fountain!’ Jess sat back in her seat looking very pleased with herself, though Hannah noticed Joan took a second to arrange her face into a smile.
r /> ‘Well, you’ve definitely been very busy!’ Joan managed to say. ‘But it all sounds ever so expensive. Do you think you really need all of these favours and whatnot?’
‘Well, that’s the best bit.’ Jess beamed at her. ‘We’re getting them all for free!’
Joan frowned and turned to look at her daughter. ‘I don’t understand. Why would these people not want payment for things they’re providing for your wedding?’
Hannah knew that frown meant more than just confusion – she could sense her mother’s disapproval starting to build, which was never far from the surface when it came to her anyway, so she adopted a bright and breezy tone she definitely didn’t feel. ‘Don’t worry, Mum, we do pay them, just not in money in their bank accounts. We’ll be mentioning them on Save The Date’s social media and thanking them on the blog, and that way they get loads of exposure and their perfect audience will see them being talked about on Instagram and Facebook. Believe me, that’s worth far more than actual cash nowadays!’ she ended with a light laugh. Joan continued to frown.
‘I still don’t think I understand. Are you saying that you’re trading these “extras” for some words on Facebook and the website? So you’re effectively selling your wedding day to every single one of these companies who want to give you things?’
Hannah glanced towards Jess with a pleading look, but her friend merely grimaced and said, ‘I’m just nipping to the loo, won’t be long!’ leaving Hannah to face her mum on her own.
She tried to calm her annoyance and instead reassure Joan. ‘I know it sounds weird, Mum, but that is how lots of things work now. People make whole careers out of mentioning products on their Instagram accounts and they make millions of pounds out of it.’