A Groom With a View

by Sophie Ranald

  “Stop!” I bent over the table, laughing so much it hurt. “I don’t know what he’s going to do. But I’m sure he’ll work something out. There’s masses of time still, we haven’t even booked the venue yet. And anyway, this is supposed to be a wedding planning summit conference, not a mass piss-take.” I hiccupped and took another sip of wine, then started to giggle again.

  “Not booked the venue? Pippa, I know you’re relaxed about these things but surely you need to get something sorted soon?” Callie looked alarmed. “I’m your chief bridesmaid, assuming you don’t sack me off and appoint a cousin, and it’s my job to worry about stuff like that.”

  “Well, you’re not allowed to worry about cousins or venues. You can worry about. . .” I racked my brains. “The hen night! Aren’t we supposed to go clubbing in Newcastle, and we all wear tiny skirts and hold-ups with the tops showing and no coats, and then pictures of us appear in articles about binge drinking?”

  “No, that’s not how it works,” said Phoebe. “You’re going to do it the posh way. You book a week in Ibiza at a villa with a private chef and a yoga instructor and a beautician coming in every day to give us massages and manicures, then you tell your friends it’s going to cost two grand each and we have a massive falling out because none of us can afford to go.”

  Because of having to help out her mum caring for her dad, Phoebe can only work part-time as a teaching assistant, and is consequently skint almost all the time. Still, I thought, two grand for a hen weekend was bonkers in anyone’s book.

  “Do people really do that?” I said.

  “You bet they do,” said Callie. “I’ve been to six hen parties in the past year. One was trying on lingerie and drinking champagne at Victoria’s Secret in London, one was a weekend in a country house with a chef, a yoga teacher and three beauty therapists. The other four were abroad: Paris, Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Magaluf. That’s why I couldn’t have a proper holiday last summer, I’d used up all my annual leave on hen do’s.”

  “Blimey! I’m definitely not up for doing that,” I said. “What’s the alternative?”

  “You can do something that proves how cultured you are,” Phoebe said. “Last year that’s what they all seemed to be about. Sarah had a salsa class for hers. Rosheen did a thing where we all had to make soap, it was a bit like being on The Apprentice. Lisa’s was an Italian cookery course. That was a good laugh, wasn’t it, Callie?”

  “I think it’s fair to say I’ll pass on the Italian cookery,” I said. I hate to admit it, but I was feeling a bit jealous that Callie and Phoebe had been to all these hen weekends and weddings that I hadn’t been invited to, and had all these mutual friends who I’d never met – Sarah, Rosheen, Lisa, the Victoria’s Secret girl and all the rest of them. Callie was my best friend, but it was beginning to feel a bit like Phoebe was Callie’s.

  That sort of thing is supposed to stop when you leave school, isn’t it? But I couldn’t help feeling both sad and slightly annoyed that the friendship I’d carefully kept alive through Facebook and email and text messages and regular nights out, either in London or in Southampton, was being eroded. When Callie advertised for a flatmate to help her pay her mortgage after she split up with David, and Phoebe moved in, I’d been really pleased that the two of them got on so well, and that there was someone to go with Callie to the pub and help mend her broken heart and stop her sending late-night, drunken texts to David. I’d welcomed Phoebe as a third member of our group, the one slightly on the outside, but now it was me feeling like the sad newbie.

  “I’ll let you decide,” I said. “Make it a surprise. I’ll give you Katharine’s email address, I know she’ll have loads of ideas but they’ll probably all be completely over the top, so feel free to ignore her. I just want something small though. And no Italian cookery classes. Oh, and I don’t want Erica to be there.”

  Callie burst out laughing again, and we speculated for a bit about the awfulness of having Erica along on my hen night.

  “Anyway, we have to find a venue and finalise a date,” I said. “We haven’t even got that far yet, Nick’s starting to get quite stressy about it. He’s got this long list of stuff that he calls Wedmin, which we have to follow without deviation. He found it in Inspired Bride. And finding a venue is top of the list. So we’re going to see this Brocklebury Manor place tomorrow, and stay the night there.”

  “Oooh, fabulous!” said Callie and Phoebe in unison.

  “Bless Nick, he thinks we need to have regular romantic interludes in the run-up to the big day, to keep the passion alive,” I explained. “Apparently Inspired Bride recommends it. I don’t think we need help keeping our passion alive, to be honest, but I’m well up for romantic weekends away.”

  “Awww!” Callie hugged me. “He’s lovely. You two are so good together.”

  “He’s a keeper,” Phoebe agreed, and they both beamed at me like proud parents, and I beamed back, suddenly struck by how lucky I was to have Nick, and how fragile and precious our happiness was.

  “Nick’s all right,” I said lightly. “I’m quite glad I didn’t let him get away in the end.”

  People think – well, Erica thinks – that it was me who dumped Nick, but it wasn’t really. I almost didn’t go to London, in spite of being offered a place at Westminster Kingsway to train to be a chef, because I didn’t want to leave him. So it ended up with Nick having to do the dumping.

  I’ve never cried as much as I did that night, sitting with him in my bedroom and listening to him tell me it was over. I’m not proud of it, but I actually begged him to change his mind. He wouldn’t.

  “Pippa, you’re eighteen,” he said. “It’s been incredible, you’re wonderful and special, but we need to move on. A long-distance relationship won’t work. It’s finished.”

  “But I love you!” I sobbed.

  He wiped the tears off my puffy, blotchy face with his thumbs and held my hands. “I don’t love you,” he said gently. I realise now that it was the only thing he could say in order to make me let him go. I hoped it wasn’t true that he’d stopped loving me, but I knew he wasn’t going to change his mind. He got up and left, saying a polite goodbye to Mum and Dad, got on his motorbike and roared off into the night (the story would be much better if it had been a Harley but it wasn’t, it was a beat-up old Honda). I cried solidly for about a week and then dusted myself off and went to London with my shiny new chef’s knives. It took me a while to get over what had happened, but eventually I did, and turned my focus towards learning to cook, having a good time and shagging anyone who’d stay still for long enough to let me.

  It took almost three years and although I hadn’t forgotten Nick, I was more or less over him. Then, at the end of a particularly brutal shift, some of my hard-drinking colleagues announced that they were heading out to Soho to catch the last set of an awesome new band. I wanted nothing more than to get the night bus home to my grotty digs in Archway and snatch four hours’ sleep before work began the next day, but I had a reputation as a party animal to uphold. So I didn’t say no even though I had no make-up on and my hair smelled of roast beef.

  The club we went to was a wall of smoke and sound. We fought our way through the sweating crowd to the bar and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels between the six of us (back in my cheffing days I could properly hold my drink). And Tom and the lads were right – the band was top. I took my glass and moved towards the stage to get a closer look at them and there, unmistakeable in spite of having grown even taller and grown his hair even longer, was Nick. I remember thinking with a brief pang of jealousy how much nicer his hair was than mine, then imagining how it would feel falling over my face when we fucked.

  I decided immediately that I wasn’t going to let him get away again. I’d found him, he was mine, and I’d keep whatever secrets I had to in order to keep him. This sounds like the kind of romantic bollocks I had no time for, then as now, but it was honestly as if everything stopped, suspended, while I stood by the stage willing him to notice me, not
ice me, notice me! Then he said something to Iain, standing next to him with his bass guitar, and they played the opening chords of Beautiful Day. I knew than that he’d seen me too. It was the song that had been playing the night we first met, and that was the start of us being together again. It wasn’t quite as simple as that, but it was the start nonetheless.

  “So, the website says it’s a moated medieval manor house,” said Nick, as we heaved our bags into the back of the taxi (actually, he swung his in quite easily and I heaved mine – travelling light has never been one of my core competencies). He opened the door for me and then scrambled in himself, pulling out his iPad.

  “The foundations of Brocklebury Manor date back to the thirteenth century,” he read, “when it was first occupied by the De Vere family. The house has played a role in some of the key events of the past eight hundred years, having been used as a place of refuge by the embattled blah blah. . . Wars of the Roses blah, Mary Queen of Scots blah. . . Do we want to know all this?”

  “Not really,” I said, shifting up close so I could see the screen. “Let’s see what it says about the food.”

  “Okay, but don’t read over my shoulder, it’s annoying.” He kissed me.

  “I’m not reading, I’m just looking,” I said. “Come on, go to the food bit.” I pointed at the screen.

  Nick elbowed me in the ribs. “Patience! Right, here we go. Brocklebury’s head chef is Hugh Jameson – Huge Amazon, great name – who trained with Marcus Wareing before spending six years travelling the world, working in some of the top kitchens in Australia, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. This international exposure has given Hugh’s cuisine a truly global flair, allowing you to derive culinary inspiration for your special occasion from the finest blah blah. Doesn’t say anything very much, does it?”

  “Not much, but if he worked with Marcus he must know his stuff. Let’s look at the pictures of the bedrooms again.”

  “Hold on, I think we’re here,” Nick said. “Isn’t that the maze they were going on about? And there’s the moat, complete with ‘our pair of unique black-feathered swans’. Don’t know what’s unique about them but they’re kind of cute. Why don’t I carry that, Pippa, it looks massively heavy. You take mine.”

  When Nick’s excited, he can’t stop talking. I followed him up the stone steps, framed by a lichened balustrade, and into a hallway with a huge, glittering chandelier suspended from the high ceiling and a staircase branching off in two directions in front of us. In the centre of the room was a shiny round table with an enormous flower arrangement on it, and the scent of roses filled the air.

  We stood for a second, drinking it all in and wondering where to go. Then a pretty dark-haired woman in a grey suit came clicking over to us on her high heels.

  “Mr Pickford? Welcome to Brocklebury Manor!” she said. “I’m Imogen, the events manager. We don’t have a check-in desk here, because we like to keep everything totally informal and relaxed. We want our guests, especially our wedding couples, to feel as if this house is their home for the time they spend here. So if you’d like to leave your bags and coats, they’ll be brought up to your room in a few minutes. And if I could just swipe a credit card for any additional expenses during your stay? That’s lovely. Now, would you like a tea or coffee or something from the bar or shall we get straight into the grand tour?”

  “Maybe a Diet. . .” I began.

  “The grand tour, definitely,” said Nick.

  Imogen paused, smiling.

  “Let’s do the grand tour then. My fiancé and I are really looking forward to seeing it all.” I realised it was the first time I’d referred to Nick as ‘my fiancé’. It sounded weird. It made me feel old.

  “Lovely,” said Imogen. “We’ll start here in the Great Hall, which is the bit most couples like to see first, because that’s probably where your exchange of vows will take place. If you’d prefer a religious marriage, there’s a chapel in the grounds that can comfortably accommodate eighty guests. However, the Great Hall has room for two hundred, so many of our couples choose to solemnise their marriage here. This is the oldest part of the house, and these are regarded as amongst the finest examples of mullioned windows in southern England. But as you’re having a winter wedding, you’ll be more interested in the fireplace! Despite the height of the ceilings, this room is always wonderfully warm, even in February. Now if you’d like to follow me through to the drawing room, where many of our couples choose to have their post-ceremony champagne and canapés, or tea and scones, or perhaps even mulled cider and roast chestnuts – Hugh will talk through all the catering options with you when you meet him. . .”

  The tour took almost an hour. We were shown the formal gardens, where many happy couples chose to pose for their photographs if the weather was fine. We saw the dining room, which could accommodate two hundred guests for an informal buffet or eighty for silver service. We had a look around the spa, where I and the other ladies in the bridal party might like to indulge in some relaxing pampering before the big day. We saw the ballroom, a Regency addition to the house, where the newlyweds and their guests would dance the night away. We even had a peep into the downstairs cloakroom, where presumably those guests who had overindulged in the canapés, four-course wedding breakfast, cake designed by the in-house pâtissier, and late-night bacon butties or cheese toasties could retire to vom copiously in opulent yet comfortable surroundings. And finally we were escorted to the bridal suite.

  “Fortunately, the bride and groom who had their wedding here yesterday left early for their honeymoon. They’re off to St Lucia.” Imogen lowered her voice confidingly. “Jenny and Greg. Such lovely people, it’s been a delight working with them for the past two years. But then all our couples are special! Now, it’s up this little spiral staircase, in the medieval turret, which is just so romantic – I think it’s my favourite room in the house! Most of our brides stay here the night before the wedding too, so you can have your getting-ready photos here, because, as you see, it’s really quite enchanting.”

  Imogen held open the iron-studded wooden door, and waved us inside. The evening sun streamed in through the leaded windows, which overlooked the rose garden, sweeping green parkland, a graceful silver S of river and, in the distance, hazy blue hills. The four-poster bed was draped with chiffon curtains and covered with a white duvet as puffy as whipped cream. The free-standing bath had massage jets and mood lighting for that in-room spa experience. There was a lounge area where we could enjoy a final glass of champagne or a late-night snack before retiring for the night, because you’d be amazed how many happy couples are too excited to want more than a mouthful on the day.

  “I’ll leave you two here,” Imogen murmured. “If there’s anything at all you need, just press the bell and your personal butler will be with you shortly.” And she tiptoed out, closing the door as softly and discreetly as if we actually were about to consummate our marriage.

  I flopped bonelessly on the bed on my back and bounced briefly upwards before being enfolded in exquisite softness.

  “I’d fucking kill for a Diet Coke,” I said.

  Two hours later, I’d had my Diet Coke and a lovely long soak in the bath, making a big dent in the Molton Brown toiletries. I’d painted my nails a rather fabulous shade of mint green and straightened my hair and put on makeup and a sparkly top over my jeans, and Nick and I were sipping champagne in the drawing room while we perused the dinner menu. He kept looking up from the squashy leather folder and gazing around the room, and every time he did, he’d get this huge, excited grin on his face.

  “It’s fabulous, isn’t it, Pippa? Isn’t it fabulous?” he kept asking.

  “Totally fabulous,” I agreed. “I love the. . . er. . . art. Who do you think that painting’s by?”

  “Turner.” Nick identified it within about a nanosecond. Although he studied graphic design and his party trick is being able to identify more than two hundred fonts on the basis of an uppercase G and a question mark, he knows lots about painting
too. “And that’s a Cunningham over there, that drawing of the hare. But anyway, Pip, what do you really think? Fabulous, isn’t it?”

  “Nick, it’s beautiful, it really is. I’m so excited about tasting the food. Our room’s gorgeous and you were so clever to find it.” But it doesn’t feel right, I wanted to say. It doesn’t feel like us – or not like me, anyway. I belong at the other end of places like this – behind the scenes, swearing and sweating and showing off my mad knife skills with the brigade in the kitchen. Not out here with the guests – the guests who we used to mercilessly mock for asking for their steak well done or ordering ketchup to put on their sea trout.

  “We have some canapés for you to enjoy with your drinks,” said the handsome Spanish waiter, putting down a square of slate and topping up our glasses. “This is a grouse-liver bonbon, and this is a shot of celeriac velouté with a Sussex crumble crisp. Your table is ready whenever you’d like to come through to the dining room.”

  I took another gulp of champagne and ate my bonbon. It was delicious. Nick watched me expectantly. “It’s lush,” I said, “that’s a technical term.” And he looked as proud as if he’d made it himself.

  “And how about this? This soup stuff? And the whatchamacallit crisp?”

  “Sussex crumble,” I said. “It’s a cheese. It’s gorgeous.”

  “Pippa, I’m so pleased you like it,” he said. “I was really worried you wouldn’t. I was worried things wouldn’t be right.” To be fair to Nick, I do have form. He’s banned me from ever ordering steak when we go out for dinner because I send it back if it isn’t cooked right, which it hardly ever is.

  “Well, they’ve got seven courses left to fuck up,” I teased him. “So shall we go through and let them get on with it?”

  But they didn’t fuck up any of the courses. Everything was perfect, even the steak I insisted on having in order to put Hugh Jameson through his paces. We ate every bit of all the dishes on the tasting menu, plus the little random palate-cleansers and pre-desserts that weren’t on it. Afterwards, replete with food and drink, we went for a wander in the moonlit rose garden and watched the black swans drifting on the moat, their heads tucked under their wings. We found our way to the centre of the maze and Nick kissed me and said, “I’m so glad I’m marrying you, Pip. I still don’t know how we decided but I’m glad we did.”