My Life On a Plate

by India Knight

  ‘We’ll work something out,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry.’ Then: ‘Let’s go,’ pushing the children out of the door.

  There’s somebody else’s confetti on the steps of Chelsea town hall. The steps are pastel with it: tiny dots of baby pink, powder blue, chick yellow. We race up the stairs and follow the Weddings sign to the registrar’s office.

  They’re all there, waiting outside. Flo sweeps Charlie into her arms. ‘I’m going to shower this boy with kisses,’ she says, to his embarrassment and delight. Evie scoops Jack up and whoops her congratulations when he says, ‘Hello, Auntie Evie. I do standing-up wee-wees.’

  Max is here, and Tom, and Max’s children, judging by their nice teeth – a man and a woman, both looking alike – blond and wheaten – being friendly and introducing themselves to everyone. There are fifteen of us, all in all, including friends and witnesses.

  Robert rushes in a few seconds later.

  ‘Daddy!’ the boys scream, flinging themselves around his neck.

  ‘Hello, my darlings,’ says Robert, squeezing them tight. ‘I’ve missed you. I’ve got presents for you.’ He looks up. ‘Hello, Clara.’

  ‘Hello, Robert,’ I say, kissing him hello. ‘How’s tricks?’

  ‘Not wildly different from the way they were when we spoke yesterday,’ he grins. ‘But great.’ He stands up, one child on each arm, nearly collapsing under the weight. ‘I still love the work, which is good, and I still love Paris.’

  ‘We love it too, don’t we, boys?’

  ‘Oui! Oui!’ the children squeal, and then collapse into a predictable heap of giggles.

  Robert’s company pays for us to take the Eurostar to Paris twice a month for the weekend, with Robert coming to London the other two weeks. Sometimes I don’t go, but send Helena, our longed-for, lovely au pair instead. Helena has changed my life. And I know the boys love her, because they tell me so.

  ‘I did a standing-up wee-wee!’ Jack tells Robert, bursting with pride.

  ‘And did you remember to shake-shake?’ asks Robert, showing no sign of his customary fastidiousness.

  ‘Robert!’ I say, astonished. ‘How do you know about shake-shakes?’

  ‘I do wee-wees too, you know,’ he laughs.

  ‘I used to wonder what you did in the bathroom,’ I tell him, smiling at the recollection. It feels a million years old.

  ‘I shook-shook,’ says Robert. ‘And I’m teaching Jack to shake too.’ He kisses Jack and ruffles Charlie’s hair. ‘They’re really the sweetest boys,’ he says. ‘You’ve done a very good job, Clara. I’d never really noticed before.’

  I smile at him. ‘Thanks.’

  Kate looks amazing. She is wearing a long, scarlet, sculpted column of a dress. There is a garland of wild roses in her glossed, shining hair. She walks, very slowly, towards us, holding her head very high, and comes to a stop by the children. She reminds me, not for the first time, of Audrey Hepburn in a couture gown.

  ‘Good morning. What do you think?’ she asks.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ says Jack. ‘Like the queen.’

  ‘The queen?’ says Kate. ‘I am not a German midget, darling,’ she tells Jack, ‘with a housewife’s face. Am I?’

  ‘No,’ says Jack. ‘I meant the queen in a story. The Snow one.’

  ‘Much better,’ she smiles, kissing his head.

  ‘You look divine, Kate,’ says Flo.

  ‘I’m so proud of you, Kate,’ says Evie, who is, I can tell, not going to be able to contain her wedding tears for very much longer.

  ‘Wow!’ says Robert. ‘That’s the best wedding outfit I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Hello, Robert darling, deserter of daughters,’ says Kate. ‘Do you think? I thought oyster, or maybe greige, but so gloomy, those colours – better suited to carpets, I think. In boarding houses. Run by women with very large breasts and unsupportive bras. Still,’ she says, looking around her and beaming megawatt smiles at her friends and relatives, ‘I didn’t want to go too Whore of Babylon either. But I think the final result is rather chic, don’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ says Robert. ‘It’s divinely chic.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Kate. ‘I utterly agree. Now, where is my groom?’

  ‘Here,’ says Max, who has appeared from nowhere in an impeccably crisp morning suit. He embraces her. ‘You’re a vision, Kate,’ he says, with tears in his eyes. ‘And I love you.’

  Kate leans her Nefertiti-shaped head on his shoulder. ‘Don’t be intimate in front of the children,’ she says, but very kindly, as she slips her hand into his.

  Evie has started weeping, and I must say I’m feeling a little moist-eyed myself.

  The ceremony over – no, Robert and I didn’t catch each other’s eye and shudder, quickly, with regret – we pile into waiting taxis, thoughtfully preordered by Max, and race to the church for the service of blessing. Two hundred guests will already be seated inside. I know from earlier that the red of the peonies with which Evie, Flo and I decorated the church will be glowing pinkly in the mid-morning sun. We walk down the path, a higgledy mass of hats and heels and flying hair.

  Sam Dunphy is leaning against a tree, morning-suited, smoking a cigarette. The children spy him first, and race, arms outheld. By the time I reach him, they are holding on to his legs and begging him to hop.

  ‘Oh, please hop,’ says Jack. ‘Please hop with us.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Charlie, ‘please. No one ever hops with us,’ he adds, making a tragic face. ‘Not a soul hops.’

  Dunphy grins, and hops a couple of elegant hops to their excited screams. ‘Hello, Clara,’ he says, when we are close enough. ‘And Robert. Hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ I say, and stroke his arm with one finger in greeting.

  ‘Hello again. Nice suit,’ says Robert, shaking hands.

  ‘These are my sisters, Evie and Flo,’ I say.

  ‘Ooh,’ says Evie. ‘Clara, you total sauce. Oh, er, hello.’

  ‘Evie!’ says Flo. ‘For God’s sake. Hello. She has no manners, poor thing. I’m Florence. Conceived there, you know. Very romantic place. Made the parents madly frisky.’

  ‘Really,’ says Dunphy, grinning easily. ‘It’s great to meet you both. And where’s Kate?’

  ‘She’s in the last car, she’ll be along in a minute.’

  ‘Evie,’ says Flo, ‘and Robert, and Mr Dunphy, why don’t you all go in? Me and Clara need to discuss arrangements.’

  ‘Oh no, no, we don’t,’ I say, knowing what’s coming up.

  ‘Yes,’ says Flo, shooing them away. ‘We do.’

  They wander off down the path, Robert and Dunphy chatting animatedly.

  Flo grabs me by the arm. ‘Clara,’ she says, not unlike Kate. ‘Facts. Information. Goss. Tell. Spill every bean.’

  ‘There isn’t much to tell,’ I say feebly, wishing Kate would hurry up.

  ‘Kate said he was heaven, and he is,’ says Flo.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘What are you doing introducing people to Kate at this early stage? Are you passionately in love?’ She pauses for breath and gasps theatrically. ‘I’ve just thought, Clara! Oh, God. You might be on the rebound. Oh, no.’

  ‘I didn’t introduce him. I introduced his friend Christian a couple of months ago. He just sort of appeared for coffee. And I am not rebounding, thank you.’

  ‘The one she calls “Christian-My-Brother”?’ says Flo.

  ‘That’s the one.’ I laugh. ‘ “Christian-My-Twin”. I knew they’d get on.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  Flo sighs. ‘If you’re not rebounding, are you, as I said, passionately in love? Is it madly sexy all the time and do you have to say, “Easy, tiger,” because he’s always going grr grr with, you know, sexiness?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘And maybe not.’

  Flo sighs.

  ‘Don’t sigh, Flo. I don’t need anyone to go grrr grr. I have my life back. I wake up and I want to laugh. And that’s why I’m happy. And now we have
to go in.’

  ‘How glamorous,’ says Flo, completely ignoring me. ‘You could get divorced and married in the same day.’

  ‘I could not!’ I say. ‘We haven’t even slept together.’

  ‘No!’ says Flo, goggle-eyed. ‘The sweetness! Like old people in films.’

  I suppress the urge to giggle. ‘I like him, Flo. He’s my friend. He’s the children’s friend. Kate asked him today. And that’s all.’

  ‘The romance!’ says Flo dreamily.

  ‘Don’t jump the gun, Florence, and stop talking in exclamations.’

  ‘What about darling Robert?’ says Flo.

  ‘Darling Robert is blissfully happy. And he says he likes Dunphy. And I don’t see any reason not to believe him.’

  Kate’s cream-coloured Bentley pulls up outside.

  ‘Madly late,’ she shouts. ‘But sweet Father Bernard won’t mind. Is everyone inside?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We’ll go in now.’

  ‘Is your boyfriend here?’ asks Kate, stroking the nape of my neck like she did when I was a child.

  I sigh. ‘He’s not…’ I start saying.

  Kate gives me a look.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I say, kissing her cheek for luck and taking her hand. ‘Now let’s get you married.’

  ‘Fourth time lucky,’ says Flo.

  Which is, of course, always a possibility.