Meekly, I stood up just as our door buzzed.
‘I’ll get it,’ I said, grateful for a distraction. Any distraction.
‘MORNING, DARLINGS!’ said Patricia, pushing past me into our room. She was wearing a purple tracksuit and a turban. ‘I can’t believe one of my daughters is getting married. How are we all? Did you sleep well? Mia, sweetheart, you look pale. Have you had any breakfast?’
‘No,’ Mia replied, her voice flat. ‘Could someone order me a coffee?’
‘I will,’ trilled Patricia. ‘And shouldn’t someone get in the shower? The hairdresser’s arriving any second. Florence, don’t just stand there. Why don’t you go first?’
‘I’m going,’ I said, relishing the prospect of locking myself in the bathroom for a few minutes.
The shower knobs were more complicated than a spaceship but eventually I’d sorted out the temperature and stood under the hot water, my head reeling. A lot had happened in a matter of minutes. No more Rory. As I bent over to shave my legs, I tried to gauge whether I felt sad about this. Did I feel like crying? I scrunched up my eyes, testing myself. Nope, not a single tear. My main emotion seemed to be a sense of liberation. For weeks, I’d been trying to convince myself that I was in love when, really, it turned out having the wrong boyfriend was way more complicated than not having a boyfriend at all. I opened my mouth to laugh in the shower and choked as the water hit the back of my throat, but this only made me laugh harder. I leant against the tiles for support, hysterical with relief.
Then I thought of Mia. Poor Mia. Her situation was more complicated. But she wanted to get married so much. Maybe a grimy stag-do blow job wasn’t a red line for her? She must love Hugo enough to overlook it, I reflected as I towel-dried my hair. It seemed strange but there’s no accounting for taste, is there? Even Piers Morgan is married.
Back in our room, a waiter had arrived with a trolley of breakfast. Plus two pots of coffee and a bottle of champagne. Patricia waved a glass at me when I emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.
‘Drink, Florence, darling? I thought we should.’
‘Already?’ I glanced at my watch; it was 8.02.
‘It’s a celebration. Here,’ she said, pouring another glass. ‘Just a little one.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, taking it with the hand I wasn’t using to keep my towel up. ‘What’s with the turban?’
‘Deep conditioning treatment. Oh, this is such a happy day. A happy, happy day. Ruby, you’re very quiet. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, Mum, stop fussing.’
‘Where’s Mia?’ I asked.
‘Having a bath with her coffee. Seems a bit nervous. Shall we put some music on? That might jolly everyone up.’
While Patricia fiddled with the television remote control, trying to find a radio station, I retrieved the seamless knickers I’d negotiated wearing with Mia, then knotted my pink dressing gown around my waist.
I threw myself back down on the bed next to Ruby. ‘You mentioned anything?’ I asked quietly while Patricia stood with her back to us. She’d knotted her pink dressing gown over the purple tracksuit. ‘Mother-of-the-bride’ was embroidered across it.
‘No, obviously not,’ Ruby muttered.
A few minutes later, there was another buzz on the door as Jaz, Dunc and Mel the make-up artist arrived.
Patricia opened the door. ‘Morning,’ she said, before pirouetting for them, her champagne glass in hand. ‘I’m the mother of the bride. Do come in.’
She stepped aside as Jaz and Mel wheeled in their suitcases of work tools and Dunc traipsed behind them.
‘Hiya, babe,’ she said, as I jumped up to hug her. ‘How we doing?’
‘All right, I think.’
‘Bridal party ready?’ she said, looking expectantly at each of us as Mia appeared from her room after her bath. She looked clean and pink-cheeked, not remotely like a bride who’d just watched a video of her groom ejaculate into another woman’s mouth. I briefly closed my eyes at the thought.
‘We’re ready,’ Mia said smoothly. ‘Can I get either of you a coffee? Or tea? Croissant? Champagne?’
‘Better not get started on the bottle yet otherwise you’ll look very odd going down the aisle,’ said Jaz. ‘But I’d love a coffee, thanks. Mel?’
She was laying out brushes and bottles of foundation on a side table. ‘Mmm, coffee, please.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Mia. ‘Flo, why don’t you get going with your hair? Let’s do make-up in here and hair next door.’
‘Sure,’ I said, leading Jaz through to Mia’s room. ‘Dunc, do you want to come and watch cartoons next door?’
He nodded and ran after us, jumping on the bed.
‘I don’t think so. Shoes off please,’ Jaz told him before turning back to me. ‘So, how’s it all been?’ she asked, before unzipping her bag. Out of it came round brushes, straight brushes, combs, hairdryers, tongs, straighteners, bottles, tubes and long cans of hairspray. I sat on Mia’s bed and quietly explained that morning’s revelations while she laid them out on the dressing table.
‘Fuck me, it’s like a wedding off Corrie,’ she said, once I’d finished.
‘Yeah. Little bit.’
She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘But Mia seems fine?’
I shrugged. ‘The show must go on.’
‘And you’re all right?’ she asked, unravelling a hairdryer cord.
‘Yeah, weirdly I really am. It’s like the thing I was most dreading isn’t that bad at all. I feel quite free.’
Jaz squinted at me from the corners of her eyes. ‘Really?’
I nodded. ‘Promise. I keep waiting to feel sad, for it to hit me. But maybe it won’t?’
‘Well, hallelujah!’ she said, reaching her arms into the air, the hairdryer cord dangling from one hand. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he was nice to look at. But he wasn’t the one for you. Why did he dress like that? And speak like that?’ Jaz looked down her nose and mimicked him with a snooty voice. ‘Oh hello, my name’s Rory and I’m much better than you. Don’t you know I’m going to be prime minister one day?’
‘How come you never told me this?’ I said, laughing and throwing a pillow at her.
‘Because you were so obsessed with him, and that list of yours.’ She made a moving mouth with her hand, snapping her fingers down against her thumb. ‘The list this and the list that.’ She dropped her hand. ‘I couldn’t tell you before, could I? I had to wait for you to work it out.’
‘Well I have now.’
‘Not all of it, I’ll bet.’
I frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Never mind. Sit here, we need to get cracking.’ She nodded at a chair in front of her.
‘Did Mia send you references?’ I asked.
‘Only about a million of them. We’re doing it half pinned back, wavy, with a couple of roses tucked into it.’
‘Exactly.’
Jaz got going with the dryer. I wondered how Harry was getting on with his babysitter. Eugene keeps a very tidy flat in Stockwell where you had to use a coaster if he made you a cup of tea, but I’d persuaded him to look after Harry for the weekend by asking him to be the kitten’s ‘godfather’.
Eugene’s entire head had turned maroon at this.
‘Me? Really?’ he’d asked, placing a hand on his chest.
‘Yes, you, absolutely. I know you’ll do it brilliantly.’
I’d carried Harry over in his basket the previous evening and Eugene opened the door waggling a knitted fish toy that he’d bought from the pet shop. I hoped the novelty of a fluffy ginger godson hadn’t worn off yet.
My thoughts slid to Zach and I looked at my watch – 8.48. He’d be in the air now, in an uncomfortable seat eating a frozen bread roll on his way to Buenos Aires. The idea of him travelling further and further away from London every second made me feel a pang of regret. We hadn’t communicated since the Christmas party. No call, no message from either of us to say goodbye. And knowing that he was now gon
e, that I wouldn’t see him on Monday or be able to shout at him for putting a mug on a book, made me feel bleak. I could ring him in Patagonia and apologize, say he’d been right about Rory, but perhaps that was too needy? I’d be all right on my own again. Always had been. Buck up, Florence Fairfax, moping after a man never helped anyone.
I was distracted from thoughts of Zach by the sharp pain of a rose stem stabbing my scalp.
‘Sorry,’ said Jaz, as I shrank my head into my shoulders. ‘But that’s you done. Will you send Ruby in?’
Ruby and I swapped places: she sat in front of Jaz, I held my face up to Mel in the other bedroom. Mia was having her photo taken by Pierre, the society photographer. Patricia was into her second bottle of champagne.
The average Briton takes forty-seven minutes to get ready in the morning, although I can be up and out of the door in my sensible shoes in fifteen. But oh, the long, torturous agony of a wedding morning. Nothing is done in a hurry. It took an hour for Mel to plaster my face with orange paint and coats of mascara so heavy that my eyelashes felt like butterfly wings.
Next up was Patricia. While Ruby and I lay on one bed watching The World’s Wildest Animals with Dunc, she bossed Mel about for an hour, then Jaz.
Meanwhile, Pierre took snaps of our shoes, of our bouquets, of our dresses in their hangers, of Patricia in curlers. He even photographed a tray of smoked salmon sandwiches that arrived as an early lunch. I tried to imagine who would care about this. Would one of Mia’s descendants look back on the salmon with interest? ‘Look! Here are the sandwiches that your great-great grandmother ate on her wedding morning!’ It seemed unlikely.
Several hours on, we slithered into our dresses, and helped Mia into hers while Patricia stood and shouted at us. She was wearing a pale blue dress and jacket from Catherine Walker because that was where her idol, Carole Middleton, had bought her mother-of-the-bride outfit.
‘CAREFUL! You’re going to get foundation on the neckline. Florence, pay more attention, help her with her arm. No, not that arm, the other one.’
‘You all right, Mia?’ asked Ruby, crouching at her feet as she fanned the folds of the dress out.
‘I’m perfect,’ she replied, smiling in the mirror. She wasn’t being immodest; she looked exquisite. The dress was made from a floral lace, with a tight bodice that fell into a wide skirt and trailed behind her. Tiny silk buttons ran up her back and its long sleeves. Jaz’s hands fluttered around her face as she made sure the veil, made from the same ivory lace, was secured. Mia stood quite still and continued to gaze at herself in the mirror while we fussed around her. This was the moment she’d been waiting for her whole life and clearly nothing, not even a dancer in a sparkly thong, was going to ruin it.
Patricia started weeping as Dad arrived.
He stood in our room and gazed at Mia for a moment then reached for both her hands. ‘I am so enormously proud of you.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Mia replied. She sounded robotic but I presumed it was nerves.
‘I don’t believe I’ve seen a more beautiful bride,’ said Patricia. ‘Nor will I again, probably.’ She let out another little sob and clutched her tissue to her face.
Dad glanced from Patricia’s champagne glass to the empty bottles lined up on the bedside table. Four of them now. ‘Patricia, darling, why don’t you go downstairs with the girls and Mia and I will follow?’
She nodded tearfully and Mel powdered Patricia’s face while Ruby and I gathered up our bouquets. They were cream roses, exactly like the ones poking into our heads, studded with red berries and wrapped with a piece of red ribbon.
‘Ready?’ Ruby said, looking from Patricia to me.
I nodded and Patricia sniffed.
‘OK, let’s go. See you down there, guys,’ Ruby said over her shoulder to Mia and Dad.
They took the lift (I walked down, trying not to break a sweat into the silk armpits) and we met again to wait in the corridor that led to the ballroom. Over Patricia’s sniffs I could hear the murmur of guests, plus the string quartet pumping out something classical.
‘Mum, this is a wedding, not a funeral. Get it together,’ ordered Ruby.
The corridor was decorated with tall vases of lilies and white altar candles. I imagined Dad escorting Mia along it and her train catching fire, so that she walked down the ballroom aisle with her dress in flames. That was all we needed.
The registrar, a round lady called Mary, hurried out to us from the ballroom. ‘Hello, hello, don’t you look lovely? You could be sisters!’
This momentarily halted Patricia’s snivelling. ‘Oh Mary, you are funny,’ she said, clearly delighted.
‘Are the others on their way?’ Mary asked.
‘Hope so,’ muttered Ruby.
‘Great stuff. I’ll wait by the door so give me a nod when we’re ready.’
Mary waddled back to the ballroom door just as the lift behind us opened to reveal Mia on Dad’s arm. Dad was in tears now too.
‘Henry,’ sobbed Patricia, ‘here, have my tissue.’
‘For God’s sake,’ sighed Ruby. ‘Sis, you look sensational. Good to go?’
She smiled nervously and nodded. We waited for our parents to wipe their eyes. Patricia was going first, making an entrance all by herself. I was next, then Ruby, followed by Dad and Mia.
‘Right,’ said Patricia, with a deep breath. ‘I’m ready.’
Ruby gestured at Mary by the door, who disappeared into the ballroom and suddenly the string quartet started playing ‘Ave Maria’.
‘Off you go, Pat,’ chivvied Ruby.
Patricia started walking with such oversized steps it was like watching a dressage horse.
‘Good luck,’ I whispered to Mia, before following my cantering stepmother.
I counted the window panes at the top of the ballroom as I walked down the aisle, trying not to feel intimidated by the eyes watching me. Stomach in, chin up. From the front, Hugo winked at me and I pretended to smile back but I fear it was more a grimace. Under the chandelier, his hair shone with oil.
Having reached the front row, Patricia, Ruby and I turned to watch as Dad and Mia came down after us. Even I welled up then, although I wasn’t sure whether the tears were for Mia or me. Her face radiated a level of happiness I couldn’t imagine reaching myself.
Beside me, Patricia was now openly bawling.
At the top, Mia flung her arms around Dad before they separated and he joined our row.
Mary looked out at the congregation with a wide smile. ‘Welcome, everyone, friends and family of Mia and Hugo. And what a special day it is here in this very beautiful hotel as we gather to celebrate this special moment for the couple. A couple of quick housekeeping notices and then I’ll get on with it because some of you look thirsty.’
Polite laughter rippled around the room.
‘Firstly, the bride and groom have asked that there be no photos while they exchange their vows, just to keep that moment sacred. But you may take as many photos as you like, and please do upload them to social media. There is a hashtag and it’s, hang on…’ Mary paused to look down at her notes and cleared her throat, ‘#MiagotHugoed, and you’re all encouraged to use that.
‘Now,’ she said, in a more sombre voice, ‘the place in which we are all met has been duly sanctioned for the celebration of marriages. You are here today to witness the joining in matrimony of Mia and Hugo.’
Here, Mary paused and gestured at the bride and groom in case anyone wasn’t sure which was which. ‘If any person present knows of any lawful impediment to this marriage, he or she should declare it now.’
Mary paused and her eyes swept the ballroom.
She smiled. ‘Marvellous. Now that’s done I nee—’
‘I do,’ said Mia.
Mary’s smile fell and she leant in towards Mia. ‘Sorry?’
‘I have an impediment.’
‘You, the bride, have an objection?’ said Mary, looking confused.
Beside me, Patricia had frozen in horror. ‘Darl
ing, are you feeling all right?’ She leant towards her daughter and hissed more quietly: ‘I think you might be having some last-minute nerves.’
‘Shut up, Mum,’ said Mia, before turning back to Hugo. He looked like he was about to soil himself.
‘You bastard,’ she shouted. ‘You miserable BASTARD.’ She started battering his chest with her bouquet. ‘No stripper, you said. NO STRIPPER! And then I’m shown a FUCKING video of you waving your penis around like a FUCKING LOLLIPOP.’
There were gasps behind me as Mary looked from Mia to Hugo like an ineffective boxing referee, her mouth gaping wide.
‘Mia, wait, I can explain,’ he yelped. ‘Ow! Mia, I’m sorry, listen to me.’
‘I’m never listening to you again, you fucking MORON,’ she carried on. There was another thud as the bouquet scored a direct hit on Hugo’s chest.
‘Henry, don’t just stand there, do something!’ said Patricia.
‘You pathetic WANKER!’ Cream petals floated to the carpet as Mia’s veil slipped down the back of her head.
‘Mia, darling, please listen to me. OW! That really hurts.’
‘Henry!’ Patricia snapped again at Dad, who was frowning at the unfolding drama as if trying to weigh up the most diplomatic way to solve it.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, come on, Flo,’ said Ruby, pulling me forward and stepping in between the happy couple.
‘Time’s up!’ she announced, trying to snatch Mia’s roses from her. ‘Mia, put those down. Stop it. Give them to me.’ Ruby wrapped her arms around Mia’s waist to pull her back from Hugo. ‘Flo, get the flowers.’
‘YOU TOTAL TOSSER!’ Mia screamed, throwing her bouquet to the ground as Ruby dragged her away and I stood, like a bouncer, holding one hand out at Hugo.
‘Let me GO, Rubes,’ said Mia. ‘It’s fine. Let me go.’
Ruby relinquished her grip and Mia took one last look at Hugo before gathering her lace skirt up in one hand and sweeping out of the ballroom. Ruby followed. I hurried after them as the stunned silence among the guests broke and excited chatter started.
‘Henry! Why didn’t you do anything?’ I heard Patricia wail, as the lift doors opened and I followed Mia and Ruby in. It wasn’t the moment to be fussing about stairs.
The Wish List: Escape with the most hilarious and feel-good read of 2020! Page 32