The Wedding Countdown

by Ruth Saberton

  Wish nods and jasmine petals snow softly onto my upturned face.

  ‘I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you struggling with that photocopier. Remember, on your first day at GupShup?’ He shakes his head. ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about you since.’

  ‘You saved my neck that day,’ I recall. ‘Although just for the record I could have probably sorted it myself.’

  ‘Mills,’ Wish sounds serious and I notice how tired he looks. There are blue smudges under his eyes and his cheeks are shadowed with stubble. ‘Do you think you could stop joking for a moment? I know this must come as something of a shock but do you think you could ever feel the same way? Could you come to love me one day?’

  I can’t help it. I start to laugh like a pagal as shock and joy and the stress of the last few hideous weeks overwhelm me.

  ‘Wish,’ I gasp when I get my breath back, ‘if you only knew how I’ve been dreaming about hearing you say that! I’ve loved you from that moment too and do you know what?’ I sober up suddenly as I look into eyes that blaze with tenderness and love. ‘I’ve loved you for every minute of every day ever since.’

  ‘Phew,’ smiles Wish, and out pops the dimple, ‘that’s a relief!’

  ‘But what about Minty? What about your engagement?’

  Wish shakes his head. ‘We were never engaged, Mills. Some nurse got the wrong end of the stick, rang The Sun and before I knew it I was engaged. But I never, ever asked Minty to marry me. I called things off that evening you had dinner with Raza. I was on my way back to find you when I had the accident, and the rest…’ He shrugs. ‘Well, the rest is history. By the time I’d plucked up the courage to tell you how I really felt you were engaged to Subhi.’ His eyes cloud. ‘I didn’t know how I would bear it.’

  I’m yanked back to reality. ‘Subhi! What about him? And my parents?’

  ‘What about your parents, eh?’ says a familiar male voice from behind me. ‘Were you ever going to tell them how unhappy you really were?’

  I whip round and either I’m having a weird trip or my parents, Sher Rahim, Ophelia West, Jamal and my two best friends have joined us. Mummy-ji is crying and Ophelia offers her a hankie from her Mulberry bag.

  No prizes for guessing which celebrity’s arrival caused havoc at the hotel.

  ‘Daddy-ji? You know about this?’

  My father smiles. ‘Yes, Amelia, I most certainly do. Young Darwish has explained how he feels. I take it you feel the same way?’

  ‘Oh yes!’

  ‘I thought as much,’ my father tugs his beard. ‘I can see why. He’s a fine young man. Well, you have my blessing.’

  ‘What about Subhi?’ I whisper. ‘You’ve given your word.’

  ‘Let’s just say that Mutti’s word and mine have cancelled themselves out without having to be broken. Due to the slight change of circumstances–’

  But I still don’t understand. Yes, my circumstances have changed but what about Subhi? Isn’t he going be angry about being dumped on the day of his marriage?

  ‘Subhi will still be married,’ continues my father.

  ‘Dad! I can’t marry Subhi! I love Wish!’

  ‘I’m not telling you to stop loving Wish, not when he has flown halfway around the world to plead his case,’ says my father.

  ‘Islam strictly forbids polygamy for girls!’ I point out in case Dad’s flipped and thinks I can marry them both.

  My father chuckles. ‘Astaghfirullah! The very thought! Don’t worry, Amelia beti. No one will be breaking any halal laws if I can help it.’ He laughs softly. 'It’s very simple really, beti. Subhi is more than happy to call the marriage off. It appears he too loves somebody else and has done for some time. Apparently his feelings are reciprocated.’

  ‘Sana!’ I gasp.

  My father nods. ‘When Darwish arrived at the hotel yesterday and told me how he felt, I was honour-bound to speak with Subhi first; if Subhi still wished the marriage to go ahead then Darwish gave me his word he would leave at once.’

  No wonder Dad was impressed.

  ‘But Subhi jumped at the chance to marry Sana,’ says Wish. ‘Thank goodness!’

  ‘So the change of circumstances means Subhi will now be marrying Sana instead. Your aunt’s gone shopping for Sana’s wedding lehenga and she’s over the moon,’ finishes my mother. ‘Everybody’s happy!’

  I glance at Wish. Happy doesn’t even come close.

  ‘Now if all of you don’t mind,’ says Wish, ‘there’s something I’d like to say to Mills. Alone.’

  Like mist in the sunshine our friends and family melt away, strolling through the flowers until I can no longer hear their laughter and chatter.

  Wish and I are alone and I haven’t felt this nervous since I opened my A-level results.

  He smiles at me and then drops to his knees. Right on cue fountains all around us burst into life, but Wish is too busy fumbling in his pocket to notice. Is that a glimmer of a diamond that I see?

  Wish gently takes my hands in his.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, looking up in surprise. ‘What’s happened here?’

  ‘False nails,’ I explain. ‘Mine were disgusting.’

  ‘Yours,’ says Wish firmly, ‘were perfect. All of you is perfect. Never change, Mills. I love you just the way you are.’

  ‘OK!’ I squeak, hardly able to think straight because his forefinger is stroking the henna patterns. Wow! If he can make me feel like this just from touching my hand then what will it be like when he…

  Focus Mills, focus! I think the guy’s going to propose!

  Wish clears his throat.

  ‘Amelia Ali, I love and totally adore you. You’re my world. But I have to know, will you do me the honour of marrying me and becoming my lawful wedded reading partner?’

  I smile at him, a real smile this time and one that I know will be plastered across my face until my dying day. Wish, my best friend, my soul mate, and the one true love I always dreamed of looks up at me, his eyes sparkling with love and hope and desire.

  And there’s only one answer, isn’t there?

  ‘Wish,’ I say, and as I speak I feel weightless with joy, ‘just try and stop me! The quicker the better too as far as I’m concerned. I’ve had my fill of time-wasters this year.’

  ‘From now on,’ Wish says huskily, ‘I promise we won’t waste a second.’

  I stand on my tiptoes and brush his lips with mine. ‘Wish Rahim, that’s the best suggestion I’ve ever heard! Why wait? Let’s rearrange my marriage straight away!’

  THE END

  Chapter 1

  You have insufficient funds to complete this transaction

  Please contact your branch

  The neon letters dancing across the cashpoint screen couldn’t have looked more complacent if they’d been flicking V-signs and pulling moonies. Although it was a sweltering June day, the kind when Londoners go mad picnicking in Hyde Park, Andi Evans was glacier cold. As the man queuing behind her cleared his throat irritably and the hot sunshine beat down, she stared at the screen in disbelief, her blood freezing from her insides out and spreading a chill of dread to the tips of her fingers and toes.

  Insufficient funds? How on earth could there be insufficient funds in her personal account? Andi was always in credit and, unlike her sister Angel (who was probably single-handedly to blame for the economic downturn), she was never overdrawn. Not even as a student and certainly not now as a fully paid-up member of the adult world with rent and bills to pay, as well as supporting an actor boyfriend who rested so frequently he could double for Sleeping Beauty. No, Andi Evans always kept on top of her finances. She had to.

  So what on earth was going on?

  Fearfully she glanced back at the screen just in case she had been mistaken. Maybe the pressure of work and an evil boss was getting to her more than she’d realised? That must be it. The strain of working so hard and this morning’s big row with her boyfriend, Tom, had all been too much. She was seeing things.

  Whipping off h
er sunglasses, Andi gave her eyes a quick rub – but when she returned her attention to the screen the message was still there, a baleful lime rebuke that made her feel sick.

  You have insufficient funds to complete this transaction

  Andi shook her head. There was no way she could possibly be overdrawn. Today was payday and her salary, together with the five-hundred-pound buffer she always kept in the account, meant that she had more than enough cash. Add to this a thousand-pound over-draft facility and it was impossible that she didn’t have any money. What was going on?

  With a growing sensation of dread she pressed the balance only key and, seconds later, had to clutch the ATM for support.

  Over two grand in the red?

  WTF?

  Andi’s every cell was paralysed with disbelief. Had somebody cloned her card? Or hacked into her account? Maybe the cashpoint had made a mistake? Even machines were allowed off days, weren’t they?

  “Excuse me, love, but some of us would actually like to use that machine before we die of old age.”

  The impatient words snatched her back to the present. Mistake or not, she couldn’t spend the next hour staring at the ATM. Apart from the fact that this wouldn’t explain the mystery of her missing money, Andi only had thirty minutes before she was due back at her desk and slaving over the latest bunch of recalcitrant figures. She didn’t dare be so much as a nanosecond late back either, because then Zoe, her boss from hell, would have even more of an excuse to make her day a misery. There was no way Andi wanted to give her any extra ammunition. She wasn’t sure what she’d done to make her new boss hate her so much, but from the first day Zoe had tottered into the office on her skyscraper heels and with her Cheddar Gorge cleavage on display, she’d gone out of her way to make Andi’s life a misery. Fortunately Andi enjoyed her job, which made it bearable; accounting might sound dull to most people, but there was a simplicity and beauty to balancing figures that she found hugely satisfying. The other thing keeping her sane was the fun email friendship that she’d struck up with one of her latest clients. She’d been dealing with the finances for the flotation of the Internet security company he worked for, so they’d been in touch regularly. She didn’t know his real name only his title at the firm, which was Project Manager B. Similarly he only knew her as AE, but it didn’t matter though; Andi enjoyed chatting with him online and PMB’s funny emails just about compensated for the endless sarcastic comments from her boss. It was rather sad that talking online to a total stranger was the highlight of her day, but Andi preferred not to dwell on that thought too much.

  “Quit,” was always Angel’s answer whenever the topic of Andi’s unhappiness with her boss was raised. “Tell the silly old cow to stick it up her bum, and do something else. Take a chance.”

  But Andi didn’t dare take a chance. Or more accurately she couldn’t afford to take a chance. She needed her job. Tom hadn’t worked since an episode of Holby City six months previously (he’d played a demanding patient, with alarming ease) and somebody had to pay the rent on the flat in Balham. And if that someone was her at the moment then she knew it wouldn’t be forever. Like Tom always said, his big break was probably only just around the corner. Just what and where this corner might be was something of a mystery, though. Andi had a nasty feeling that it could well be a corner very far away. Maybe Australia? Or perhaps on the moon? She was beginning to worry…

  “I said, are you going to stand there all day, or what?” The man behind was really impatient now. “Some of us do have other things to do, you know!”

  Muttering a hasty apology, Andi cancelled her transaction and retrieved the card. Maybe she’d accidentally used the wrong one? Perhaps Tom had placed his in her purse for safekeeping or something and because she was so stressed she’d used it by mistake? That would make sense. It wouldn’t be unlike Tom to have an overdraft that made the National Debt look small.

  And neither would it be the first time he’d kept this from her…

  Andi stepped aside and let the man behind take her place. Then, slowly and hopefully, she turned the card over. Please, please let it be Tom’s. They shared a PIN – to make things easier, Tom had argued. She lived with him, after all, and she loved him, didn’t she? Then what was there to worry about? Didn’t she trust him?

  The sun was hot on her pale skin and heat rose from the pavement, but Andi remained icicle cold. Of course she trusted Tom. They’d had a row this morning, just a silly row because yet again he’d forgotten to pay their rent, but it hadn’t meant anything. He said he’d left the cash in a taxi and that people made silly mistakes all the time, which was fair enough. Look at her right now getting their cards confused. It was an easy mistake to make. She’d laugh about it in a minute.

  Or at least she hoped she would.

  The card lay flat in her palm. Miss Miranda Evans, it read. There was no mistaking it: her name was emblazoned right across the plastic in raised metallic letters. This Maestro card was undoubtedly hers, as was the emptied bank account.

  Andi had the hideous sensation that she was descending very fast in a lift. This couldn’t be happening. She was good with money. Stingy and mean, Angel called her, but then Angel could afford to have a more carefree attitude when there was always a big sister on hand to bail her out. Who was there to rescue Andi if the rent was due and she’d blown it on a handbag instead? Or if she’d maxed out her credit cards and couldn’t make the minimum payment? Their father, Alex, lived abroad with his wife – he had sold the family home shortly after Andi and Angel’s mother had died – and couldn’t be expected to stump up money whenever Angel got economically sidetracked by a designer frock or the latest must-have shoes. Save a postcard or two, their father was pretty useless at keeping in touch. Not that this was anything unusual. He’d been exactly the same when his daughters were in boarding school. Holidays had been spent with housemistresses or the pitying mothers of friends; plays and prize-givings had seldom been attended, and birthdays had been rather sad affairs. Such was the life of children of a globetrotting diplomat. Andi and Angel’s father had paid the school fees, bought the tuck and then carried on as usual, moving from one glamorous embassy to another. No wonder she had, as Tom had put it earlier, “control issues” when it came to money.

  Do I have issues with finances? wondered Andi. If she’d had any money left, a few sessions in The Priory might have helped answer this question. Now was probably not the best time to start thinking about her father. The point was that she only had herself to rely on. Nobody else was ever going to appear and bail her out; that was for certain. Unlike Angel, whom people seemed to fall over themselves to help, Andi had always been seen as the grown-up one, the sensible big sister who could always be relied upon. It made her feel about as exciting as a paint-drying test run in the Dulux factory, but old habits died hard. Today she had only taken a break from the office, and the huge pile of work that was going to take her half the night to complete, because Angel had phoned in floods of tears. Her latest credit card had been refused, Angel had told her, and she desperately needed some cash just to tide her over until payday. She was going to sell her Gucci lookalike bag on eBay tomorrow! She could pay Andi back by next week. Please? Please!

  As usual Andi had caved in. She’d promised her sister she’d help, just this once more, and had left her desk – much to the displeasure of Zoe who, pointedly eating her wrap at her desk, had warned Andi that she needed to be back on time. Running down the Haymarket in the blazing heat had been almost enough to give Andi a heart attack, but add to this the stress of finding all her money vanished into the ether and she was now a near-certain candidate for the local casualty department. Angel might have to wait. Normally the Bank of Big Sis was pretty reliable but today it was unexpectedly closed for business. Maybe she’d check once more just in case it was a technical error?

  Stepping back into the queue, Andi wondered whether Tom would know what was going on. Tom was charming and silver-tongued but he was as much use with finan
ces as chocolate was for making teapots. In fact he was so ostrich-like when it came to ignoring calls from Barclaycard and hiding bank statements that she was considering buying him a pile of sand and suggesting he just stick his head in for a bit while she paid the bills again and cut up his cards. Fishing out her mobile from her leather satchel, Andi attempted to reach him, but her call went straight to answerphone. Typical. He was probably deep in Loose Women and oblivious. She’d try again later.

  Andi sighed. Between them her sister and her boyfriend left her juggling everything. She was so good by now that Cirque du Soleil could have snapped her up, which was a far cheerier prospect than spending hours in the office with Zoe making snide comments and giving her the most difficult clients. Most of the time Andi credited herself with doing a pretty good job of holding everything together, but sometimes it might have been nice just to lean on somebody else and ask them to share the burden.

  “All yours again,” said the man who’d stepped in front. He was stuffing twenties into a wallet. Andi’s heart plopped into her shoes. So the machine was dispensing money then. There went the vain hope that it was broken.

  Tucking a stray curl of red hair behind her ears, she forced herself to take a deep breath and to start again. In went the card and with shaking hands Andi punched in her PIN. One balance request revealed exactly the same information as before; this was followed by a swift checking of her savings account and then her credit-card balance with paper slips, just to put the awful truth into writing.

  Andi leaned against the wall to stop herself from falling over. It was at times like these she wished she hadn’t been such a swot at school, preferring to bury her nose in the library; if only she’d slunk around the back of the PE huts with Angel and the others to read illicit Jilly Coopers and learn to smoke. Andi had never had so much as a drag in her life but right now she could have killed for a nicotine hit.

  Right. Standing here worrying wasn’t doing any good. She had to find out what on earth was going on. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes until she had to be back at her desk. Just enough time to nip into the bank and talk to somebody. Standing out here stressing wasn’t going to achieve anything. She was more than capable of sorting this out. It was bound to be a silly admin error on the bank’s part, that was all – nothing that a twenty-nine-year-old, (moderately) successful career woman couldn’t resolve.