I Heart London

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘Is that the dress?’ Mum trotted over, almost breaking into a run. ‘Ooh, I’ll get Jenny. We need to try it on right away, just in case.’

  ‘Just in case what?’ I wailed. ‘There is no just in case.’

  ‘Just in case,’ she repeated, legging it back into the garden to grab the wedding-planner-slash-bridesmaid-slash-stylist-slash-know-it-all. ‘Wait upstairs!’

  ‘This is all your fault,’ I screeched at the top of my lungs half an hour later, I’m not entirely sure at who, when I finally accepted that the dress was not going to fasten. We’d greased the zip, I’d tried on Spanx, I’d breathed in so hard I thought I was going to crack a rib, but it just wasn’t going to work. There was a good inch of open zipper and no amount of sobbing, Lurpak or elasticated underwear was going to change that.

  ‘We can fix this,’ Jenny promised. ‘You can’t actually see the zip. We just need to pin you in.’

  ‘I don’t want to be pinned in,’ I whined. ‘It’s my wedding dress. I want it to fit. Why doesn’t it fit?’

  ‘Just don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,’ Jenny threatened. I dropped my chin and realized why she was so good at her job. She was scary when she needed to be. ‘I promise we will make this work. And I promise I will kick that hipster-chick’s ass for effing up the alterations.’

  I dropped onto the bed in my too-small dress, feeling like a heifer. Maybe we shouldn’t have had that pizza. So far, I had a dress that didn’t fit, shoes I couldn’t walk in and a brass band interpretation of Rod Stewart’s greatest hits. Brilliant.

  ‘Jenny?’ came a voice up the stairs. Louisa had arrived. And from the sound of it so had Grace. She was the only one wailing louder than I was. ‘Can you come down here? I think there’s a problem with the cake.’

  Jenny gave me a stern look and vanished downstairs, leaving me with my mum. I tried not to look too distraught. It was only the cake. It wasn’t the dress. As long as we fixed the dress and nuked the band, things would work out just fine.

  ‘You’ve got to expect a few little hiccups,’ Mum said, still fiddling with the zip on my dress. ‘It’s not going to make any difference. You’re still going to have a lovely day, and you’ll be married, and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed half-heartedly. ‘That is all that matters.’

  We sat in silence on the bed for a moment before it all got too much for her.

  ‘I’m going to go and see what’s going on with that cake,’ she said, patting me on the back.

  I stood up and stared into the floor-length mirror. The dress was still beautiful, maybe even more beautiful than I remembered, but the fact that it wouldn’t fasten was all I could think about. It wasn’t so obvious that you could see it, but I just knew. It didn’t sit quite as well as it had on Monday, it didn’t move as well. At least it was the right length.

  I sat back down on my bed and waited ten minutes before losing my temper. I wanted to know what was wrong with the cake. I wanted to know why no one was hanging out with me. I wanted to know why the bloody brass band was still playing. Enough was enough. I wriggled out of the straps of the dress and twisted it round so I could get at the cursed zip. But it didn’t move. I pulled on it as hard as I dared − nothing. Not a millimetre up or down. I was stuck. Determined not to panic, I pulled my blue NYPD hoodie over the dress and made for the stairs.

  ‘I mean, it is a cupcake,’ Louisa was saying diplomatically over the sound of Jenny’s angry yelling. ‘And it does make a statement.’

  ‘I think it’s quite interesting,’ Mum agreed. ‘Very striking.’

  ‘I don’t give two shits what you thought you were doing,’ Jenny was screaming at God knows who. ‘I asked for a cupcake wedding cake. I sent you an email. That email had seven different photographs of cupcake wedding cakes, and this is what you came up with?’

  Opening the kitchen door, it all became clear. Mrs Stevens had made me a cupcake wedding cake. Literally. Instead of a tower of little frosted cakes, there was one giant cupcake the size of a small car, smothered in enough icing to give a blue whale diabetes, with a bride and groom cake topper perched in the middle of it all. Well. It was something.

  Jenny was marching up and down the kitchen bellowing into her phone. If we were in New York, Mrs Stevens would never work again. As it was, I imagined she’d feel terrible for a couple of days and then get right back on with taking her Christmas cake orders.

  ‘Yeah, I know my number was out of order, but you had other numbers.’ Jenny was starting to turn a very worrying shade of red. ‘And a brain, right? You do have a brain? And eyes? And you thought this was a good fucking idea?’

  ‘Sorry, Angela.’ Louisa bounced Grace up and down in her arms. She at least had the decency to smile at me.

  ‘All right ladies.’ A bright white flash went off and blinded everyone in the kitchen. ‘My name’s Damien. I’ll be your photographer for the day.’ Another flash, this time right in my face.

  ‘Damien? Of course you are.’ I held out my hand, hoping it was in the general vicinity of his, too blind to know for sure. ‘I’m Angela.’

  ‘Nice outfit, Angela.’ He shook my hand and then turned to shoot a picture of my mum and Louisa with the cake. ‘And nice cake.’

  ‘Oh, I say.’ Mum held out a hand to ward him off. Grace did not like having her picture taken and started to cry immediately. ‘I think no photos for a moment?’

  ‘Yeah, things aren’t going that smoothly right now,’ I rubbed my eyes and blinked several times. ‘Maybe you could take some pictures outside or check the lighting or something?’

  ‘If I’m honest with you,’ Damien replied, still shooting off his flash every five seconds, ‘I don’t do weddings. I’m more editorial-focused, more, uh, there and then type stuff, you know? But I took this job as a favour to a friend of a friend, so I’d rather, you know, be where the action is. I like to stick my camera right in the middle of it.’

  I had a paparazzo for a wedding photographer. Brilliant.

  I was about to tell him exactly where he could stick his camera when Jenny hung up on Mrs Stevens with a ceremonious ‘Go fuck yourself, lady’, which I was certain would see my mother barred from the WI, and put her arm around my shoulders, guiding me away from the man with the camera.

  ‘Angie, honey.’ She sounded considerably more calm when she spoke to me than to septuagenarian neighbourhood bakers, even if she still looked absolutely frazzled. ‘Let me talk to the man with the camera. You go back upstairs and take that mother-fucking dress off before I hit you, OK?’

  ‘It won’t come off,’ I hissed. ‘The zip is buggered.’

  Click. Flash.

  ‘A touching moment between the bride and her maid of honour.’ The photographer looked down at the screen on the back of his camera. ‘Nice.’

  ‘Maid of honour?’ Louisa said. ‘Jenny’s your maid of honour?’

  ‘No,’ I replied quickly. ‘You’re both my maids of honour.’

  ‘You can’t have two.’ Jenny folded her arms and gave Louisa a look I did not want to see. ‘You just can’t.’

  ‘Fine, then Grace is my maid of honour.’ I grabbed the baby out of Louisa’s arms and she stopped crying. ‘See? Now me and my maid of honour need calm. You two stop bickering.’

  Click. Flash.

  ‘Can you stop taking pictures of us?’ Jenny asked as politely as possible. ‘Also, you’re late.’

  ‘But I’m dead good,’ he winked. ‘Trust me − by the end of the day, you’ll love me.’

  ‘By the end of the day, Auntie Jenny will probably have given him one,’ I whispered to Grace. She giggled. I giggled. And then she threw up down my jumper.

  ‘You too, Grace?’ I pouted at the spew-covered baby in my arms. ‘You just got demoted back to flower-girl.’

  ‘Give her here.’ Louisa took back her bundle of joy. ‘Let’s get you upstairs and get you ready.’

  For the next hour, we pretended I didn’t have a giant bun for
a wedding cake, that my dress wasn’t knackered and smelling of sour butter and baby sick, and that everything was going to plan, just like any other wedding.

  Jenny did my hair, I did Louisa’s, and no one touched Jenny’s because it was already perfect. After the hair, it was make-up. Somehow, Jenny managed to melt away any imperfections that might have been lingering and make me look every inch the blushing bride. It took half a MAC counter and enough brushes to repaint the Sistine Chapel, but I didn’t care. I looked like me, only much, much prettier. My hair curled around my shoulders in loose waves with a few strands pinned back from my face. Between my glowing skin and a simple half up and half down do, I looked like I’d just come back from a very fashionable jog. It was a good look. Damien snapped at us as we fussed around, laughing and generally attacking each other with lip gloss. It felt good. It felt how weddings looked on TV, and I was relieved.

  ‘Oh, we have to do your something old, something new!’ Jenny grabbed Louisa’s arm. ‘Do you have it?’

  ‘I think Annette has them all.’ Louisa stuck her head out of the door and bellowed my mum’s name until she came running up the stairs.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ she asked, panting for breath and resplendent in her DVF dress. It was awkward to admit it, but she looked hot. My dad was onto a winner.

  ‘We were going to give Angela her presents,’ Louisa mumbled under her breath, as though I couldn’t hear her. ‘Something borrowed, something blue, you know?’

  ‘Oh, I thought you’d seen the nonsense with the lights,’ she said, relieved. ‘I’ll go and get them.’

  ‘Nonsense with the lights?’ Jenny was up and at the window as fast as fast could be, and that was no mean feat as she was already wearing her Jimmy Choos. ‘Oh Jesus.’ She turned and bolted for the door before I could ask what was wrong.

  ‘Right.’ I pulled my puke-stained sweatshirt back over my dress and picked up my heels. ‘I’m going to find out what’s going on.’

  ‘Ange, don’t.’ Louisa tried to stop me, but since her arms were full of baby, she was at a disadvantage and I managed to sweep by.

  The garden was in chaos. The florists were running scared and the big burly men were all shouting at each other. Every ten seconds their colourful language was punctuated by an almighty cracking sound, followed by the tinkle of falling glass. It took me a couple of moments to work out what was happening, but eventually I figured out the problem. The lighting man had hooked his lights up to the generator that the sound man was using and blown the circuit. Now the lights were popping one by one and showering the garden in glass.

  ‘Fuck a duck,’ I breathed. Definitely wouldn’t be going out there barefoot now.

  Jenny had lost it. She wasn’t just shouting at the contractors, she was now actively pushing and shoving them. Despite being half their height and a quarter of their size, I still fancied her in a fight. I turned back into the kitchen, only to be blinded by Damien’s flash.

  ‘Take a shot of this,’ I said, giving him the finger. And he did. And then he laughed.

  ‘I don’t care!’ Jenny was screaming. ‘No, I don’t know what the EU safety regulation is on this, and no, I don’t care whether or not you’re going to get electrocuted. Just fix my fucking lights!’

  And then something scary happened. She started to cry.

  ‘I can’t do this.’ She covered her face with her hands and made a strange mewling sound. ‘I can’t. I can’t believe it but I can’t do this.’

  ‘Jenny, don’t.’ I hung out the door and waved for her to come over for a hug. ‘It’ll work out, really.’ I had no idea if it would. Every second we stood there, my heart sank lower and lower. The garden was a disaster zone and the electricians had already perched their barely covered arses on lawn chairs and were opening up some sort of butty. I couldn’t get married in the middle of this unless we were going to pass it off as a theme wedding. And that theme was Paranormal Activity 1, 2 and 3.

  ‘No, it won’t.’ She looked down at her perfect bridesmaid’s dress and then tilted her head back to prevent her mascara from running. ‘I should never have told you I could do this. No one could do this. I’ve ruined your wedding because I’m an asshole.’

  ‘Jenny, really, don’t.’ I was this close to losing it completely. If Jenny couldn’t keep it together, what chance did the rest of us have?

  ‘I’m gonna go see what I can do.’ She looked as devastated as if it were her own wedding day that was hanging in the balance. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  If there was one vital thing I’d learned from Jenny, it was that when things went to shit, we drank. I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne, popping the cork without ceremony and drinking from the bottle. Because that was what I did now.

  ‘These pictures are going to be amazing,’ Damien said, clicking away. I didn’t care any more. What else could go wrong? We were ten minutes away from having to have my wedding in the front room. I wondered if the caterers could serve fifty people on a three-piece suite. And actually, where were the caterers? Maybe James had been right, this was a terrible idea. But what could I do now? My mum would be heartbroken if we cancelled. The family were all on their way. Sadie had flown in. James was here. Craig, Graham, Delia, Jenny, everyone. And Alex. What would Alex think if I sent him a quick text to say I’d changed my mind? I couldn’t call it off now, even if the voice in my head was whispering louder and louder with every heartbeat ‘This is wrong. This is wrong.’ When things went this badly, it was a sign.

  I leaned against the open fridge in my wedding dress, covered by a filthy hoodie with my shoe straps slung over my wrist, and held the bottle up for Damien to get a good shot. Drinking really did help, I didn’t care what anyone said. Sometimes the answers were at the bottom of a bottle.

  ‘Angela, put that bottle down!’ my mother shouted from across the room. ‘This instant.’

  ‘No,’ I said defiantly. ‘Shan’t.’

  ‘I know you’re upset right now, but think about the baby,’ she said, whipping the bottle out of my hands. ‘Honestly, don’t be so selfish.’

  ‘Why is it selfish of me to drink champagne because of Grace?’ I was totally nonplussed. ‘She’s on a bottle, I know, but not the bottle.’

  ‘Not Grace.’ She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it − you’ve made that abundantly clear − but your dad and I know. You don’t have to pretend. You can stop lying − it doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Pretend? Lying?’

  ‘We know you’re …’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant?’ I screeched. ‘I’m pregnant?’

  Click. Flash.

  I wanted a copy of that photo.

  ‘Yes.’ She looked at Damien with a face like thunder. ‘To be honest, you haven’t done a terribly good job of pretending otherwise, no matter what you might have told us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I demanded. I wanted that bottle of champagne back quite badly.

  ‘Angela, you’ve had morning sickness every day, you haven’t been drinking − until now – and we both heard you talking to Louisa about having an American baby.’ She had certainly written herself quite the convincing story. ‘Your dad even said he talked to you about it. And, you know, you both agreed to this wedding very quickly.’

  ‘That’s because we’re stupid, not pregnant!’ I grabbed the bottle back and took a drink. ‘I cannot believe you thought I was pregnant. Is that why you pushed this? Is that why you wanted us to get married this weekend?’

  ‘I know it’s old-fashioned, but it’s never a good idea to have a baby out of wedlock,’ she said with a familiar self-righteous tone. ‘And you got engaged. You knew that.’

  ‘But I’m not pregnant,’ I reiterated. ‘Really, honestly, not even a little bit knocked-up. See?’

  To prove my point, I gave the bottle a dramatic glug.

  ‘Absolutely one hundred percent foetus free.’
>
  And then I had to push her out of the way so I could throw up in the sink. Never shotgun a bottle of champagne on an empty stomach.

  ‘Really?’ She looked half relieved, half heartbroken. ‘You’re really not pregnant at all?’

  ‘I don’t think you can be a little bit pregnant.’ I ran the tap for a glass of water. Brita filter jug be damned. ‘I’m not pregnant. Thank God.’

  ‘Oh, Angela.’ Mum settled on relieved for just a moment. And then remembered we were in the middle of the most shambolic wedding set-up known to man and flipped straight into panic mode. ‘Oh, Angela.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, sipping my water. ‘This is happening.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to,’ she said quietly. ‘If you don’t want to go through with it, you don’t have to.’

  ‘But it’s your birthday and you’ll be so let down, and we’ve spent so much money and everyone will be let down, and I can’t,’ I rambled. ‘It’s not just the wedding, it’s your birthday party. What about Uncle Kevin?’

  ‘Angela,’ she smiled. It helped. ‘Your Uncle Kevin will cope. We haven’t spent so much, and I’ve got a feeling Jenny is going to negotiate us out of the lights. And since the caterers haven’t shown up, that shouldn’t be a problem. I will be eating cake for every meal for the next months, but since when was that a bad thing?’

  She was right about that, at least.

  ‘And don’t worry about my birthday. All I wanted was for you to come home. I wasn’t even going to have a party if you weren’t coming. I bloody hate half the family. More than half the family. It’s only six months since Christmas. Why would I want to see them again so soon?’

  I sipped water again and looked around. The war zone of a garden. The car crash of a cake. The shit-show of a dress.

  ‘Say the word and I’ll take care of all of it.’

  I held the glass tightly, cool condensation running over my fingers. ‘I just need a minute.’

  She walked over to me and rested her hand on my shoulder. I held my breath, waiting for the slap. This was altogether too grown-up and considerate a conversation for us.