A Groom With a View

by Sophie Ranald

  “How are things?” I’d said gently, as you do to the recently bereaved or newly single.

  “Great!” Callie said. “God, it’s just such a relief that it’s all over. Such a weight off my mind! Poor David, I feel shit for hurting him, but I so made the right decision.”

  I sat down and poured myself a glass of wine, and Callie went on, “You know, the last few months, we’ve been arguing quite a bit and it’s been horrible. All the time, this atmosphere in the flat, because either we’d just had a row or we were about to have one. And now he’s moved out and it’s, like, bliss. I’ve bought new curtains and new bedding with hummingbirds on, and it’s tack-tastic but so pretty. And I let David take the fridge so I could buy a new pink Smeg. You know how David always wanted everything to be beige?”

  I said, “God, fridge envy! I’d kill for a pink Smeg but Nick would never let me. Maybe I should dump him so I can have one too.”

  Callie laughed. “I’ll let you come and visit mine,” she said. “It’s a fridge of beauty. And you can sit on my new gold chesterfield.”

  “Gold chesterfield! I could cry with jealousy! How fabulous, I’m so pleased you’re happy, Cal.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am. Only I’m also a bit skint. Gold chesterfields don’t come cheap, you know. So I put an ad on Gumtree for a flatmate and I’ve found someone.”

  When Callie decides to do something, she doesn’t hang about. “Cool! What’s she like?”

  “Her name’s Phoebe. She’s the same age as us, and she’s a teaching assistant and she’s got mad ginger hair. She’s really pretty. She seems like good fun, too. You’ll meet her soon, I expect.”

  “When does she move in?”

  “It was meant to be the day before yesterday,” said Callie, “But there was a bit of a drama with her dad.”

  And then she’d told me a bit more about Phoebe’s situation, and how she got the sense that Phoebe was absolutely desperate to leave home, partly because she was twenty-six, after all, and partly because her dad was a total tyrant.

  So it wasn’t hard to imagine why, just as much as Callie would be confident of her friends’ and family’s reaction if she told them she was in love with another girl, Phoebe would dread her father’s. And that the other option, the nuclear one of just walking away, wouldn’t be an option for Phoebe, because her mother would be left behind to cope with him alone.

  I turned all this over in my mind, until eventually I fell asleep again, only to be jerked awake by my phone about half an hour later. Nick had set the alarm for me so I had enough time to pack.

  I dragged myself out of bed and immediately Spanx appeared and started twining himself around my ankles and yowling, so I topped up his food bowl before having a shower and doing my face, aiming for the ‘jet-setting celeb chef’ look, but ending up with ‘murder victim pulled from sewer after three weeks’. Then I went into our bedroom to unearth some summer clothes.

  Although Erica was still away, the room felt like it was hers. It smelled of the herbal skincare stuff she used, and more faintly of the green tea she drank every morning. The curtains and the window were closed and the heating turned up high, so the room was stuffy and hot. It had been like this for ages, I thought angrily. Our gas bill was going to be astronomical.

  I dragged my suitcase out from under the bed and opened the wardrobe, releasing a fresh blast of the Erica miasma. For a second I stood, frozen. Where the hell were all my clothes? It had all been normal when I’d packed for my first trip, now everything had been moved. What the fuck was going on?

  “Nick?” I yelled, then remembered he was out, and reached for my phone. His number went straight to voicemail. Where was he? And what had happened to my stuff?

  I returned to the wardrobe and tried to assess its contents in a calmer frame of mind. The hanging rail was full of the drapey linen tunics and trousers Erica wears, in various shades of cream, stone and oatmeal. On the shelves were folded scarves, knitted jumpers and shawls. She hadn’t had this much stuff when she arrived – clearly she had been shopping and run out of space. I looked up and saw, on the top shelf, an unfamiliar row of bin liners. I hefted one of them down, dropped it on the bed and ripped it open. Sure enough, out spilled my summer clothes.

  There was my violet silk Monsoon dress, tangled up with the vest tops I’d bought at Selfridges in the sale and not worn yet. There was the swishy knife-pleat skirt I’d lusted after on Net-a-Porter for weeks before Nick bought it for my birthday, except its pleats weren’t so knife-like after being rolled up in a ball. There was the yellow hat I’d worn to Iain and Katharine’s wedding, squashed beyond recognition. And everything stank of mothballs.

  I picked up my phone again, stabbing inaccurately at the screen until I managed to dial Nick’s number. This time he answered.

  “Hey, Pip! I’m right outside the. . .” and then I heard his key in the lock and his digital and real voices saying together, “door.”

  I ended the call and threw my phone on to the bed. “Could you come here a second?”

  “What’s up?” Nick said, sticking his head round the door.

  “Look at this,” I said. “Just look. What the fuck has your mother done with all my stuff?”

  “Er. . . packed it away, I guess,” he said. “She mentioned that she could do with a bit of extra space, and I said it was fine for her to shift a few of our things.”

  “Except she hasn’t shifted ‘our’ things, has she? She’s shifted my things. And crammed them into bags and now they’re unwearable, and I have. . .” I looked at my watch, “about twenty-five minutes in which to pack for two weeks away in thirty degree heat. Why the hell did you tell her it was okay? You knew I was going away.”

  “Pippa, I didn’t realise she was going to. . . I was distracted, okay?”

  “Distracted doing what? Looking online for table napkins in the right shade of white?”

  Nick flinched as if I’d tried to slap him. “Yeah, probably I was doing something to do with planning our wedding, Pippa.”

  “You know what, Nick?” I tried to speak calmly. “It really is beginning to feel to me like absolutely everything in my life has been taken over by this bloody wedding and your fu- your mother.”

  We stood and glared at each other from opposite sides of the bed. I had a horrible feeling that this row wasn’t going to end quickly and easily, with one of us saying sorry. Nor could it end in raw, angry making-up sex, because there simply wasn’t time. What there was time for was for us to goad each other into causing maximum hurt. And it had already gone too far for me to back down, apologise and try to defuse what I’d said.

  “Pippa, this ‘bloody wedding’ is what you wanted, in case you’ve forgotten. Do you think I like poncing around florists and cake designers on my own, trying to second-guess whether you’d prefer fondant or buttercream? Do you think I like having to cram all my real work into about four hours a day and turn down invitations to pitch for new business because they clash with my meeting with the videographer? Do you think I like having to reassure my mother constantly that she’s welcome in my home when you treat her like a leper?”

  “What the hell do you mean, I wanted it? Nick, I didn’t want any of this shite. I didn’t want three hundred of your distant relatives who I’ve never met turning up and getting pissed at our expense. I didn’t want the dance classes and the conjuror and the tomato fucking soup. It was all your idea.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he spat. “You came home the day after we got engaged with about ten glossy wedding magazines. You’ve not said a word about wanting anything different, just yes Nick, no Nick, three bags full Nick, as long as I’m doing the work and Mum’s picking up the tab. And then you can’t even be bothered to be civil to her. This wedding is meant to be a celebration of our love for each other, Pippa, but right now I don’t even like you very much.”

  And then he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Although part of me wanted to go rushing after him and carry
on with the row, there was a small, sensible part that was extremely glad he’d gone, because I honestly don’t know what I would have said if he’d stayed.

  I sorted quickly through the bags of clothes and extracted some of the less mangled and noxious-smelling things, packed them in my suitcase and left the overflowing bin liners on the bed. They’d been Erica’s idea in the first place – let her sort them out when she got back from Yorkshire. Then I went back into the living room, where Nick was sitting slumped on the sofa, almost horizontal, his chin on his chest, watching the football.

  “I’m going now,” I said.

  “Right. Have a good trip.”

  “Yeah. I’ll call you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I carried my bags down the stairs and started walking to the Tube. Then I thought, what if the plane crashed? What if I got malaria and died, or Nick got stabbed to death by some random nutter, and I hadn’t even kissed him goodbye? Abandoning my heavy suitcase outside the corner shop, I sprinted back towards the flat, and when I was halfway up the first flight of stairs, I met Nick, running down. We squeezed each other in a huge hug, and Nick said, “Come home safe, Pip.”

  I said, “I’ll try.” Then I said, “Nick, have you been in touch with Bethany?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  Nick didn’t lie – he never lied. But now he was. I knew it, but I didn’t know why.

  I turned away, ran back to where I’d left my bag, got on the Tube and sobbed all the way to Heathrow. One sweet woman asked me if I was okay, and a couple of creepy blokes said, “Cheer up, love, it may never happen,” but mostly people just ignored me, and I was glad they did.

  By the time I’d checked in and got through passport control and security, I’d managed to stop crying, and I had time to wash my face and put on some makeup, and buy supplies of wine gums, water and glossy magazines for the flight, before rendezvousing with Guido at the departure gate as we’d arranged.

  When I got there, he was on the phone. “No, I’m not doing this just to hurt you. Please, Florence. You’re making it worse for yourself. I’m sorry, but we can’t go on the way things have been. I meant what I said last night, I’m not going to change my mind. And I really can’t listen to this now, Florence, I’m about to get on a plane. You’ll be okay. Call your mother.” He disconnected.

  “Evening, Pippa. Excited? Good. That’s our boarding call now.”

  We walked up the stairs and into the chilly aircraft. Guido went one way, to the luxury of first class, and I went the other, to the relative squalor of business. Guido’s African Safari, I reflected as I fastened my seatbelt, might be the best thing that ever happened to the world of food, but it looked like having a horrible tendency to put the kiss of death on relationships.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  From: nick@digitaldrawingboard.com

  To: info@okayontheday.co.uk

  Subject: Wedding insurance policy number 489X435NG1A

  To whom it may concern

  I purchased the above policy from you in November last year. I’m getting in touch to clarify your T&Cs on cancellation – I’ve tried to get through to you on your Freephone number without success, so I’d be grateful if your representative could call me on the number below to talk through what exactly is and isn’t covered in the terms of the policy.

  Thanks and kind regards

  Nick Pickford

  I was standing with Sibongile under a shadecloth awning by the side of a road. The awning kept the sun off us, but it didn’t protect us from the fierce heat reflecting off the tarmac and radiating from the red-hot coals that filled the barbeque a few inches from my face. I pushed my hair up under my baseball cap and watched as a minibus taxi pulled up in a haze of dust. About twenty people spilled out – women laden with shopping, children with school bags and scooters, men in suits and, finally, Guido.

  “I’m here in Soweto,” he told the rolling cameras, “where Vusi Mbeki has made a name for himself and his fantastic street food. Vusi’s food cart” – he gestured, and the cameras panned to the van next to us, where a tall young man in a Lacoste polo shirt and low-slung jeans was turning sausages and burgers on the grill, grinning cheerfully, bantering with his diners and seemingly impervious to the heat – “pulls in hundreds of customers every day, and I’ve come here to find out why.

  “What first attracted me to Vusi’s food is not only that it’s so iconically African, but that it spoke to me of my childhood. Really? Street food in Soweto, reminding me of the cuisine of Italy? It may seem unlikely, but it’s true.”

  One of the crew passed him a paper plate laden with sausage, maize porridge, rich red sauce and a vast white bun. It looked delicious – just the kind of thing you’d want to eat at the end of a night out, if you were somewhere very cold. Guido took a big, squelchy bite.

  “Good,” the director said.

  That was Sibongile’s and my cue to spring into action. We passed up trays of the sausage we’d made earlier, vats of braised onion and marinara sauce, a large bowl of polenta and a platter of sourdough rolls. Guido took his place in the van next to Vusi.

  “Okay?” said Guido.

  “Okay,” said the director.

  “You see, the rustic food people queue to eat here on Chris Hani Road made me think of Italian peasant food. So I’ve prepared my take on Vusi’s specialities, and we’re going to see what his hungry customers make of it. South African boerewors is not that different from the luganiga sausage my nonna used to make when we slaughtered a pig every autumn – a wonderful ritual that was as much a part of my childhood as herding goats in the hills and hunting for truffles on my way to school. Her sweet sausage was seasoned with fennel, garlic, rosemary, thyme and sage, and I’ve brought these flavours into a beef sausage – a boerewors – along with the traditional South African spicing of coriander and a hit of chilli. The maize porridge – ‘pap’ – which is a staple food here, loved by rich and poor alike, is the African version of the polenta I adored as a boy – and still do! But I have to watch my figure now, not like you young men.” He gave Vusi a matey dig in the ribs, and Vusi laughed obligingly.

  I don’t know whether our Italian/South African sausage hybrid went down well with the crowd, some of whom were Vusi’s regular customers, some paid extras, and some random members of the public who’d turned up with the unerring instinct people all over the world have when there’s free food going. But soon, whether out of politeness or hunger, people were tucking into Guido’s boereworsimmo rolls and polenta pap with every appearance of enthusiasm. It was a wrap.

  “Bravo!” Guido clapped Vusi on the back and they exchanged the complicated handshakes that seemed to be de rigeur here – I’d asked Sibongile to demonstrate the right way to do them several times, and still not got the hang of it. “Now, back to the hotel for a shower. We’re filming the fine dining scene this evening.”

  God, I thought, this was only our first day, and I was dead on my feet. The long flight, on which I hadn’t managed to sleep at all, the heat and the gnawing anxiety about Nick, about Bethany, about Katharine and Iain, which I couldn’t manage to shake off, had left me feeling flat and unfocussed.

  “Get some rest this afternoon, Pippa,” Guido said as we climbed into the wonderful chill of our air-conditioned car, “And you too, sweetheart.” I saw Sibongile bristle. “It’s been a busy morning, and we’ve got a long evening’s work ahead.”

  He wasn’t kidding. It seemed I’d barely closed my eyes after sinking with relief on to the gorgeously comfortable bed in my mercifully cool bedroom, when my alarm jerked me awake and it was time to get in yet another taxi, this time to the five-star Sandton Heights hotel.

  “I was surprised and delighted,” I could hear Guido telling the cameras as I carefully pipetted drops of butternut squash purée into a calcium bath, “when I found high-end restaurants here in South Africa as good as anything in Milan, Paris or London. Here at Kaya, flagship restaurant of the ne
w Sandton Heights hotel, Alice de Jong and her team have melded uniquely African flavours with the sophisticated molecular techniques found in top restaurants all around the world. The dish that put Alice on the map is Knysna oysters served with spheres of. . .” I tuned him out, forcing my hands to keep steady as I painstakingly squeezed out blob after identically sized orange blob. Next to me, Sibongile was doing the same thing, only her blobs were green.

  “Excuse me,” a voice behind me broke my concentration, and my hand jerked, sending an amoeba-like orange ooze into the water. “Could you tell me where I can find Mr Falconi?”

  I turned around, ready to administer a bollocking for interrupting us when we were preparing for service, and point out that Guido was in front of the cameras, and interrupting him would be an even worse idea. But I was silenced by a dazzling smile from the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

  I mean, seriously. You know how some people are so stunning, it’s like they belong to some sort of superior master race? Like they’re a higher level of Thetan, or whatever the bullshit theory is that Scientologists have? That’s what I thought when I saw him. He wasn’t very tall, not nearly as tall as Nick, and he had a sort of sculpted leanness, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist under his grey and white striped shirt, and long, elegant legs in tailored charcoal trousers. His hair was dark blond and artfully messy. His eyes were the most amazing colour – almost golden – and his teeth were dazzlingly white and straight. He looked like some mad scientist had taken Orlando Bloom, Michael Fassbender and Chris Hemsworth, mixed them together and made a new man using only the best bits. Such was his overpowering glamour that I didn’t even particularly care that my hair was a state, I wasn’t wearing any makeup and my chef’s whites were smeared with butternut squash. Even if I’d spent three weeks being starved at a health farm and then several days being given the full treatment by Gok Wan and a team of celebrity stylists, and left looking so good that none of my friends recognised me, he would have been out of my league, and I knew it.