‘I’m sorry, Gwennie.’ Adam had decided he’d give Jules a break tonight. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen it.’
‘I just thought I’d ask.’ Gwennie shrugged inside her fluffy towelling dressing gown. ‘A bloke’s bloke like you – of course it’s not your sort of thing.’
Saturday, 11 June
‘What are you going to wear?’ demanded Jack.
‘My plain black office trousers and my purple long-sleeved top.’
‘But I hate that purple top. What about your denim miniskirt and your new green vest with lace on it? The one that shows your boobs off? They’re both good on you. They make you look like one hot sexy lady.’
‘Fanny will hate them, trust me,’ Cat replied. ‘She’ll tell me they look common and I look common, too.’
‘You’re not dressing for some bossy bitch,’ retorted Jack. ‘You’re my girl and you should dress for me.’
‘Jack, I am a modern, independent working woman and I dress to please myself.’
‘You’re dressing to please Fanny Whatserface, or so it seems to me. Why have you put your hair up? You know I like it loose.’
‘It looks less messy up,’ said Cat. ‘It isn’t hanging all over my face and making me look like some sort of hippy. Jack, don’t start a row.’
‘Go and put your denim skirt on, then.’
But Cat wore her plain black office trousers and her purple long-sleeved top. Jack sulked all the way to Fanny’s office, muttering that if anybody saw them they’d think he was dating a headmistress or a psychiatrist.
Rosie met them at the door. She took them up to Fanny Gregory’s huge, palatial office. This was on the second storey of a Georgian house near Marble Arch, the beating heart of London.
But up here the noise of traffic was so muted that they could all hear each other breathe.
‘Hello, Cat – we meet again,’ said Fanny.
She was sitting at a great big desk which had nothing on it except for a new softly-humming laptop and the latest version of a very expensive mobile phone. The beautiful black greyhound was sitting at her side, looking at the visitors with interest and possibly amusement in his amber eyes.
‘Hello, Fanny,’ Cat said. ‘Hello, Caspar, good to see you. Fanny, this is Jack.’
‘Ah, the elusive bridegroom, our paths converge at last.’ Fanny sent Rosie off to make some coffee then she looked Jack up and down. ‘I must let you into a little secret, Mr Benson,’ she continued. She leaned across her desk to shake Jack’s hand and flash a vast amount of cleavage as she gazed into his eyes. ‘When you didn’t come to Dorset, I began to wonder if you actually existed.’
‘As you see, I do,’ said Jack, flashing back the most enormous, thrilled-to-meet-you grin. ‘Please call me Jack,’ he added. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t meet up sooner, but I’ve been away.’
‘You do stand-up, don’t you?’ As Cat stood there bemused, Fanny simpered like a teenage schoolgirl meeting Justin Bieber or his just-as-gorgeous twin. ‘Gosh, I can’t imagine anything more frightening! It must take such nerve, such guts, such raw, determined self-belief, to get up there in front of all those people, tell them jokes and get them laughing. What a talent you must have! But I can see you also have charisma, Mr Benson – Jack – and that’s what really counts. I’ll bet you knock ’em dead!’
‘I do my best,’ said Jack, and smirked. ‘But this stand-up business – it’s full of hopeless hopefuls trying to make it, even though they haven’t got a chance. I have to fight for every gig. I have to prove myself against a hundred wannabes—’
‘All the same, you get out there and win.’ Fanny laughed a merry little laugh, and twisted one stray, clearly very expensive auburn curl around an index finger topped with a sharp, red nail. ‘At Supadoop Promotions, we’ve been thinking of branching out a little – maybe taking clients from the worlds of sport and showbiz. Do you have an agent, Jack?’
‘No, I don’t.’ Jack leaned across the desk and stared deep into Fanny’s cleavage. ‘But I’d really like one, especially one as go-getting and versatile as you. I think we could—’
‘Ahem,’ said Cat.
‘Oh, Cat, my darling – we’re neglecting you!’ Fanny stopped ogling Jack at once. She took a big green folder from a drawer. ‘Okay, my angels, sit down and listen up. We lost a bit of time while Jack was up in Manchester, and so we’re on a tightish schedule now. Rosie, at long last, my love – what have you been doing? Pour the coffee, will you, sweetheart, then you can go home. Do we have any of those vegan-friendly, bran-rich biscuits left? The ones that man from Cheshire wanted us to try to sell to Fortnum’s?’
‘Yes, we do,’ said Rosie. ‘I tried to give them to the cleaning lady, but she said she’d rather have a Jaffa Cake, or something with a bit of taste to it in any case. Caspar doesn’t fancy them at all. If you don’t like them either, there are Garibaldis and some chocolate wafers in the tin.’
‘What do you mean, a tightish schedule?’ Cat asked Fanny, feeling anxious now.
‘Monday, photo opportunity at half past ten, ideally in Hyde Park,’ said Fanny briskly. ‘Let’s hope the sun comes out. Cat, wear something filmy, floaty, flirty – floral, if you’ve got it, prints are very in right now. Or don’t wear that horrid purple top and those ghastly polyester trousers, anyway. You’ll look like a bank clerk or a funeral director, darling heart, and that won’t do at all. I’ll have Rosie sort out a few outfits, keep some things on standby.’
Fanny paused for breath and then she carried on again at ninety miles an hour. ‘The kind of look I’m thinking now is rosy-cheeked and dewy-eyed and kissable. Perhaps with bedhead hair? Well, not too styled and formal, anyway, nothing like you’ve pinned it up today, it’s too severe. You look like an unsuccessful Russian dominatrix, angel, or a stern librarian, not a girl in love – and this promotion’s about love, romance and fun, fun, fun.
‘Jack, you must be hunky, sexy, gorgeous. But don’t worry, darling, you’d look gorgeous in a bin bag. We’ll need to cut your hair, so don’t be late. I’ll have a stylist bring some clothes, just in case yours turn out not to be exactly right. But, from looking at you today, I honestly don’t think there’ll be a problem.
‘Tuesday, we’ll be having lunch with editors from women’s magazines. In the afternoon, we’ll kick around publicity angles, make some calls and see who’ll pay for what. The wedding gown’s included in the package, obviously. But I’m hoping the designer will agree to make the bridesmaids’ dresses, do an all-in deal. So fingers firmly crossed.
‘Wednesday morning, we’ll be seeing a literary agent who’s trying to get a book deal, and in the afternoon a guy from cable. He loved your pictures, darlings, and he’s thinking of a series, maybe following you both around as you prepare for your big day.
‘We’ll maybe get a special wedding chair for you to sit in while you do your one-to-ones to camera, video-diary style. You know the sort of thing – like in Big Brother? Yes, of course you do. But in this case no one gets evicted, ha ha ha. The producer said—’
‘This television stuff, it’s definitely going to happen?’ interrupted Jack.
‘Yes, of course, my darling – that’s the plan! So a book will make a perfect tie-in. But don’t worry, Cat. We’ll pay some hack to write it. I know just the one. She freelances for some extremely tedious provincial magazine. She wants to be a novelist and win the Booker Prize. But it will never happen, unless they change the rules and give the prize to someone who can get a hundred clichés on every single page. She’ll be very happy to write your book for cash-in-hand and see your names on it.
‘Do you like these biscuits? I think they’re rather dry. They need more syrup, butter, or more something, anyway.’
‘They’re okay,’ said Cat.
‘But they’re not right for Fortnum’s. Selfridges might take them, or possibly John Lew
is – gift department, pretty boxes, pix of dear old biddy busy cooking in some old-style kitchen? Snow-white pinny – cameo brooch – grey hair – big, beaming smile? I’ll tell Rosie to get on to it. Anyway, on Thursday—’
‘But I can’t take all this time off work,’ objected Cat.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Fanny, I have a full-time job. I have responsibilities. I can’t swan off to lunches, photo opportunities and whatnot. I can’t say to Barry—’
‘One moment, sweetheart,’ interrupted Fanny, who had suddenly gone all gimlet-eyed. ‘Somewhere, Cat, I have your entry form. Yes, here it is, and I see you’ve signed to say you’re willing to accept all Supadoop Promotion’s terms and all our conditions?’
‘But I didn’t mean—’
‘So – in the event of winning, you agreed to make yourself available for all publicity, all photo opportunities, all interviews that Supadoop Promotions might arrange?’
‘Did I, Fanny?’
‘Yes, my love, you did.’ Fanny pushed the entry form across the desk to Cat. ‘You also said that if you couldn’t meet these obligations, and if any monies had been disbursed – that means spent, my darling – by Supadoop Promotions, you would reimburse the company – and that means pay me back. You signed there, my angel, do you see, right on the dotted line.’
As Cat stared at her signature, dashed off so carelessly so many months ago, she thought she might be sick. ‘How much have you spent, then?’ she enquired.
‘I’d have to work it out, but I’d say the high four figures easily, or maybe even five.’
‘Anyway, you don’t need that job,’ said Jack.
‘Of course I do!’ cried Cat.
‘You don’t.’ Now Jack’s arms were folded and one foot was tapping crossly. ‘Listen, Cat, this is an opportunity. This whole thing will generate a mass of great publicity for me – I mean, for us. I’ll be on television, for fuck’s sake! But all you can do is mutter about your boring job and your responsibilities. Cat, you’re not the CEO of eBay. You’re not running Microsoft. You work in a scrap yard, selling junk.’
‘My salary pays the rent,’ Cat told him sharply.
‘You mean I’m some sort of parasite?’ Jack was glaring daggers. Fanny Gregory looked at Cat and pursed her lip-glossed lips. ‘Cat, you set this up,’ said Jack. ‘You entered this fantastic competition. So why are you trying to pull out?’
‘I’m not trying to pull out!’
‘That’s how it looks to me.’ Jack scowled. ‘Do you want to marry me?’
‘Jack, you know I do.’
‘Then help me, won’t you?’
‘But I can’t afford—’
‘It’s crunch time, honeybee.’ Jack turned to look at Fanny. ‘Give us a couple of minutes on our own? I’ll talk her round.’
Fanny Gregory stood up. ‘You mind you do, my darling,’ she said crisply. Then she turned to Cat. ‘I’ll be back in five and by then, my nightingale, I’ll hope to hear you sing a different song. Caspar, angel, come with me.’
They heard her clacking down the passage. It sounded like her Manolos themselves were seriously brassed off.
‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ Jack demanded furiously.
‘I might ask you that same question!’ Cat glared back at him. ‘When you asked me to marry you, I assumed it was because you loved me!’
‘I do love you, Cat, and well you know it!’
‘So that was why you said it wasn’t working? Why you disappeared into the night and didn’t call and didn’t text and didn’t e-mail for what was it, two months? Or was it more?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Did you think of me at all? Did you wonder what I might be feeling, if I might be worrying about you, if my heart was breaking, if I could sleep at night?’
‘Stop dragging up the past!’ cried Jack. ‘Stop opening old wounds! They’re history, and now we need—’
‘We need to go straight home and talk this through.’
‘But Fanny Gregory, Cat – she’s gone to all this trouble.’ Now Jack looked like a five-year-old who’d had his sherbet fountain snatched away and chucked into a bin. ‘We can’t just walk out of here. Surely you see that? Fanny really wants to help us. She would be so hurt—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jack!’ exploded Cat. ‘She isn’t doing this because she loves us and wants to make us happy! She’s done a deal with the Melbury Court Hotel! She’s been busy schmoozing with the women’s magazines! She’s sucked up to a literary agent and a cable company! This whole charade – it’s about making loads of dosh for Fanny Gregory! It isn’t about us!’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This is about my life,’ said Jack. ‘This is about me getting my big break. If you’re so selfish and short-sighted and so mean you can’t see that, perhaps I shouldn’t marry you after all.’
‘But do you want to marry me?’ Cat looked at Jack and met his eyes, the eyes she loved. Or thought she loved. ‘It seems a bit extreme, to go to all the trouble of getting married if it’s just to further your career. Why don’t you go to bed with Fanny Gregory, instead?’
‘I don’t want to go to bed with Fanny! The woman is a hideous old slapper! She’s a greedy bitch with plastic jugs and nasty orange hair!’
‘A greedy slapper, eh? Or somebody who really wants to help us? Why don’t you make your mind up? A minute or two ago, you said—’
‘I know what I said!’ Jack glared. ‘God, I sometimes wonder what I ever saw in you, and I—’
‘The feeling’s mutual, Jack.’ Then Cat thought – sod all this. Sod Fanny Gregory and her tightish sodding schedule, and sod Jack Benson, too. She grabbed her bag, stood up to leave.
But Jack caught her hand and then he pulled her down again. He took her by the shoulders and gently, very gently, he turned her round to face him.
As if one of his switches had been flicked, his gaze became conciliatory, kind. ‘I’m sorry, honeybee,’ he said. ‘My darling, I love you. I want to marry you, of course I do. I want to go to bed with you – and only you.’
‘Do you, Jack?’
‘I do, my darling, my precious honeybee.’
Then Jack smiled the charming smile that Cat had always loved, the smile which had bewitched her from the start, from the night she’d met him in that grubby pub in Kilburn, where she and Tess had gone to meet two guys who didn’t turn up.
He’d been doing a set for half a dozen bored, indifferent regulars. The sort who had their special chairs rubbed smooth by sitting on them for a hundred years, who played with the same dominoes every night.
They’d more or less ignored him.
But Cat had thought, what nerve, what courage, to get up on that stage all by yourself. I couldn’t do it in a million years.
As he’d wound up his act to sparse applause, Tess had winked at Cat. ‘His stuff was rubbish, but he looks quite fit,’ she’d said. ‘I love those corkscrew curls. They make him look like Beethoven.’
‘Beethoven?’ Cat had not been able to take her eyes off him. ‘Do you mean the dog or the composer?’
‘No, I mean the poet. So maybe I mean Byron? Did he have loads of curls? Or was it Shelley? Oh, who cares? Let’s go and buy him one and cheer him up.’
‘All right,’ Cat had agreed.
So that was what they’d done.
The chemistry had been there from the start. Jack had gone home with Cat that very night. But this was months and months ago, and what had happened to that chemistry?
She didn’t know.
‘What the hell’s the matter with you now?’ demanded Jack.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You look as i
f you’re miles away.’ Jack’s tone grew sharp again. ‘We have to sort this out,’ he snapped. ‘So let’s call Fanny back in here and tell her we’ve made up. Then we can book a date.’
Cat dragged herself back to the here-and-now. Did she really want to marry Jack? She thought she did. She was almost sure of it, in fact. But was almost sure enough? Well, it might have to be …
‘You’ll sort the time off work?’ asked Jack.
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘What’s more important, your precious job or us?’
‘Of course it’s us,’ she told him. ‘You can go and call that woman, Jack. I’d feel such an idiot, standing in the passage, shouting Fanny.’
It seemed Jack didn’t want to stand there shouting Fanny either, because he went to look for her instead, leaving the door wide open.
He was away for ages.
But at last they came along the passage.
Jack was grinning like he’d won the EuroMillions Lottery. Fanny was patting at her hair and smirking enigmatically. Caspar padded silently at Fanny’s six-inch heels, giving Jack some very dirty looks and baring all his sharp, white teeth.
Fanny sat down at her desk.
Caspar chose to sit by Cat and lay his fine dark head upon her lap.
But Fanny didn’t seem to mind.
‘All sorted out, my angels?’ she enquired.
‘Yes, all sorted out,’ said Jack, giving her his special, big-eyed charm-the-ladies grin, the one that melted knicker elastic at five hundred yards, that made you want to take him home and mother him and do several other things most mothers never did. Or shouldn’t, anyway.
‘So, first of all, we have to set a date,’ said Fanny, tapping on her keyboard. ‘Cat, do you have anything in mind? Most days in November are available. Nobody gets married in November unless they’re in a hurry. Or they’re trying to do it on the cheap and they don’t want anyone to come. The weather’s always horrible, and guests don’t want to drive for miles in rain and sleet and snow. But I see December’s filling up.’
The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) Page 12