The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit)

by James, Margaret

‘The fifth of January?’ suggested Jack.

  ‘Let me see, my angel.’ Fanny clicked and tapped. ‘It’s a Thursday, isn’t it? Why would you get married on a Thursday?’ She glanced up and smiled. ‘No, don’t tell me, children. Let me guess. It’s the anniversary of the first time you two met?’

  ‘I can’t remember when we met. I don’t do those sorts of anniversaries, anyway. I think they’re a waste of time.’ Jack beamed back at Fanny. ‘It’s my thirtieth birthday, as it happens. I’d like it to be a special one.’

  ‘Oh, it will be, darling,’ Fanny told him, and again Cat felt she wasn’t there, as if she wasn’t part of this at all. ‘We at Supadoop Promotions, we’ll make sure of that. So, the fifth of January – that date is booked, all right?’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Jack.

  ‘You could put it in your diary, Cat,’ continued Fanny. ‘Then you won’t forget you’ll have to ask for that day off. If you tell him now, your boss should manage to work around it, do without you for a day, even though you have such an important, high-powered job.’

  ‘I won’t forget, don’t worry,’ muttered Cat as she stroked Caspar’s head.

  ‘Do speak up, my darling, or don’t speak at all,’ said Fanny. ‘When you make your vows, you’ll need to make them loud and clear, otherwise the mics won’t pick them up.’

  ‘The mics?’ said Cat.

  ‘We’ll be recording, sweetheart. Long before the ink on your certificate is dry you’ll be up on YouTube and on Facebook, to trail the next instalment of the show.

  ‘We’ll have to think about the honeymoon. It wasn’t in the package when we first set this thing up. But once all the sponsors have seen your pix, my loves, I’m betting they’ll be willing to push the boat right out.

  ‘Mauritius, do you fancy? The Seychelles? Oh, everybody goes to the Seychelles. So maybe we could send you somewhere rather more exciting, like riding with the nomads in Mongolia and staying in a special bridal yurt?’

  ‘A bridal yurt?’ repeated Cat. ‘You mean a tent?’

  ‘I mean a yurt, my angel, something made of hides of yaks and lots of gorgeous ethnic fabrics like you see in Liberty, not orange ripstop nylon. If you look at Twitter you’ll see yurts are trending and nomad chic is very in right now. Or do you fancy trekking in Namibia or Nepal? Or scuba-diving off the coast of Cape Town? We’d put you in a shark cage, obviously. We wouldn’t want the pair of you to come to any harm! I’m sure we’ll find a travel firm prepared to cut a deal, especially if cable is involved. There’ll be lots of close-ups, Cat, so don’t forget to wax. But coming back to nomads – what do you think of Finland, herding reindeer? That would make great telly, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It all sounds bloody brilliant,’ said Jack, and then he started fiddling with his hair, as if he were getting ready for his close-up now.

  ‘I’ll get darling Rosie to see about some photo shoots with nomads,’ Fanny told them, tapping on her keypad. ‘Let’s just have a little think – lots of beads and head dresses and skins and boots and folk embroidery? I’ll ring one of our stylists, we’ll discuss what she could do. Cat, my sweet, do you think you could be a Laplander? You have perfect Nordic colouring. Maybe we could get you into National Geographic or a similar British magazine?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ muttered Cat. ‘I’m sure I’d have to be a real Laplander, and I come from Sussex.’

  ‘We might have to fudge and hedge a bit,’ admitted Fanny thoughtfully. ‘But anyway, my lovebirds,’ she continued, ‘now we have to make some wedding plans. Where are all the menus? Where did Rosie put them? Do you have any preferences for times? Maybe you should aim to have the ceremony at twelve, and eat at two? Then anyone who can’t afford to stay at Melbury Court can still get home again.’

  ‘I’ve got the menus in my bag,’ said Cat, and handed them to Fanny. ‘I’ve brought along the other stuff, as well. I didn’t know if you would want it back.’

  ‘Thank you, darling girl. You seem to think of everything. I can see why you’re so indispensable at work.’ Fanny started flicking through the menus, a critical expression on her face. ‘I believe we said the orangery?’

  Thirty minutes later, as Cat and Jack stood on the busy pavement outside the Georgian terrace, Cat wondered if she’d dreamed the last two hours and would eventually wake up.

  If not, perhaps she ought to see a psychotherapist?

  She looked at Jack, the man she was supposed to love, the man she’d said she’d marry. ‘I still can’t believe you said that stuff about your birthday,’ she began.

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Jack.

  ‘I know you have issues, and that sometimes you feel the need to say outrageous things. But to say you wanted to get married on your birthday—’

  ‘Well, I do,’ said Jack. He shrugged and shook his head, as if he didn’t understand what Cat was going on about. ‘What’s so wrong with that?’

  ‘Jack, just think about it! A wedding is about two people, not about just one!’

  ‘You be nice to me, I’ll let you come.’

  Cat shut her eyes for three full seconds.

  But then she opened them, looked hard at Jack, and suddenly she found she hated him. Or didn’t hate, perhaps, but didn’t like.

  What was this relationship about? Where were friendship, trust, respect, affection? ‘God, I’ve been such an idiot,’ she sighed. ‘Jack, this wedding’s off.’

  ‘It’s what?’ said Jack.

  ‘You heard me – off, off, off.’

  ‘I don’t think so, sweetheart.’ Jack shook his head again. ‘You heard the lady. You signed her little form. Terms and conditions – right?’

  ‘She can’t force me to marry you.’

  ‘But she can sue you, honeybee. She can make your life a living hell. You annoy our Fanny, and you’ll soon be cutting up your cards. Your credit rating will be rubbish. You’ll be in debt forever.’

  ‘You mean we’ll be in debt.’

  ‘No, Cat – I mean just you.’ Jack grinned. ‘You were the one who entered Fanny’s precious competition, and you were the one who signed the form. This has nothing at all to do with me.’

  ‘Fanny wouldn’t sue me,’ Cat said, wondering how you sued somebody, what you had to do. Get a lawyer on the case, presumably, and write a lot of threatening letters on official-looking paper, frighten your opponent half to death?

  Fanny Gregory didn’t need a lawyer to frighten anybody half to death.

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t go to all that trouble,’ muttered Cat.

  ‘Oh, I bet she would,’ said Jack and smirked. ‘Old Fanny looks like she’d enjoy a fight.’

  ‘I need to think,’ said Cat, and she started walking down the street. ‘I want to be by myself a bit. I dare say you could find a room or sofa for the night?’

  ‘No problem, sweetheart. I’ve been thinking, too. It’s time I had a bit of space.’ Jack tossed his raven curls. ‘You know something, honeybee? You’re seriously messed up.’

  Adam had messed up.

  He was supposed to be in Wolverhampton this weekend, sorting out that staircase, or finding someone local who could sort it. August, he had said originally, to start on Mr Rayner’s strange but interesting old house..

  But then Mr Rayner phoned, cajoled and begged and pleaded, offered to pay him twice his fee, and Adam had agreed to make a start immediately.

  He was supposed to be in Dorset, too. So that was where he was right now, looking at the Venus, taking photographs and notes for when he went to Italy and could ask for some advice.

  He needed to be twins.

  He also needed someone who could run his virtual office, who could chase the subcontractors, source the raw materials, do the books and sort his diary out and get him to the places where he was supposed to be, when he was supposed to
be there, since he couldn’t seem to manage do to this himself.

  He’d never been much good at time and motion. He was always underestimating how much time it took to get from place to place. He forgot to factor in the hold-ups, the awful British weather, the motorway congestion, the dealers and suppliers who were late or didn’t come at all.

  In fact, he needed someone like Cat Aston, someone who could organise his time, his work, his life.

  Perhaps he could persuade her to do some stuff for him?

  Or would that not be a brilliant plan?

  They wouldn’t have to see each other, would they?

  Or not very often, anyway?

  A brilliant plan or not, now it had occurred to him it wouldn’t go away.

  Jack strode off up Edgware Road, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, and going God knew where.

  Cat turned east and started walking, thinking she had better start economising, and she’d better start to do it now.

  Jack was probably right, she thought, and sighed. She must be really seriously messed up. How else could she have got involved with somebody like Jack, with somebody so absolutely and completely selfish? A man who thought of no one but himself?

  Just physical attraction, she supposed. It had to be, for even when she was annoyed with him, even when he was behaving like a hundred different sorts of git, she was still drawn to him. Whenever he was near, her treacherous, stupid body wanted him.

  Jack must be some sort of roving magnet and she must be a heap of iron filings, following where he led. Well, she wasn’t going to be a heap of iron filings any more.

  How much money did she have in various old Post Office savings books and hardly-any-bloody-interest ISAs? No more than a couple of hundred, which was nothing, and she had the payments on the sofa to keep up. Unless the shop would take it back, of course, but she didn’t think this was a possibility. It was scuffed and marked in several places. So even if she cleaned it up, it wasn’t in as-new condition now.

  She hadn’t kept the magazine. She thought she could remember reading that the prize was worth an unbelievable twenty thousand pounds. Or was it thirty thousand?

  She didn’t have twenty thousand pounds. She didn’t know anybody who would lend her such a sum. She didn’t like to think about the sheer impossibility of raising thirty thousand.

  Oh, don’t be ridiculous, she told herself.

  Fanny Gregory couldn’t have spent twenty thousand pounds already. She could not have spent a tenth of that.

  Or could she?

  Cat really didn’t know.

  But at least one thing was obvious now.

  In fact, it had been obvious from the start, since Jack had first proposed. If you could call it a proposal. No woman with any sense at all would want to marry a man who had proposed like Jack. Just what had she been thinking?

  Last year, they had spent a long weekend at Cat’s ancestral home, as Jack had called the fake-beamed Tudorbethan link-detached in the golf club belt of small-town Sussex.

  Cat’s mother had cooked a piece of beef and made a sherry trifle. Cat had warned her in advance that Jack did not like beef. He also hated puddings, and he wouldn’t eat them.

  At eleven o’clock on Friday evening, Cat’s father put the television off and sent them both to bed. He’d looked at Jack and told him there was to be no creeping along the landing in the night.

  Jack had crept – or rather stomped and crashed – along the landing, anyway.

  They’d somehow got through Saturday at the golf club, where Jack had fooled around and mucked about, charmed all the ladies in the clubroom, and got right up the noses of the men.

  Cat’s father had been livid.

  They’d left on Sunday morning, walked straight into a pub and started drinking.

  Or Jack had started drinking, anyway.

  Since Cat was going to drive them back to London in a pickup from the yard and didn’t want to lose her licence or destroy the pickup – Barry would go mad – she stuck to lemonade.

  ‘Hey, honeybee,’ he’d said, as he’d knocked back his second pint, ‘if you and I got married, I would be your old man’s son-in-law. Then I’d have a claim on all his money, if he’s got any money. I reckon that would really piss him off.’

  Cat had been annoyed with both her parents for making things so difficult for Jack. ‘It’s just as well you’re not the marrying kind then, isn’t it?’ she’d said.

  ‘I might be!’ Then Jack had pretended to be outraged. ‘So I’m not good enough for you, is that it?’

  ‘You’re lovely and I love you.’

  ‘Why don’t we make it legal, then?’

  ‘You’re serious?’ said Cat, astonished.

  ‘Yes, why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Okay,’ she had replied. She’d been both pleased and flattered to be chosen by such a handsome, sexy, charming man. ‘I’ll marry you. So do I get a ring?’

  ‘Yes, when I can afford one.’ Jack had shrugged and grinned. ‘But you might have to wait a while.’

  ‘That’s all right, whenever.’

  ‘But in the meantime, honeybee …’

  Jack had found a piece of silver paper from a chocolate wrapper in the pocket of his jeans.

  He’d made a ring and slipped it on Cat’s finger.

  So they were engaged.

  She stumbled on down Oxford Street, hardly noticing that she was buffeted and shoved by all the people flowing past.

  What had she been thinking, she asked herself again. Married life with Jack would be a nightmare. It would be the Zackie Banter Show, starring Jack and Jack alone.

  She wouldn’t be his partner on life’s journey. She wouldn’t even be his blonde and glamorous assistant in stiletto heels and fishnet tights. She would be his cleaner, sexual services provider, washerwoman, housekeeper and bank.

  But, in the meantime, what was she going to do about the money? How much would it be? How much had Fanny Gregory disbursed, as she had put it? Who was going to lend her what she owed the bloody woman?

  A loan shark, she supposed.

  Or could she ask her father?

  She shuddered at the prospect of talking to her father, who would say he’d told her so, even though he hadn’t told her anything at all, because she hadn’t dared to break the news of her engagement to her parents. On reflection, this was just as well.

  When she got home, she got straight on the phone to Fanny Gregory, who didn’t seem surprised to hear from Cat.

  ‘So you and Jack, you’ve definitely changed your minds?’ she said, sounding like a high court judge about to send you down for life with no chance of parole.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ Cat replied. ‘We won’t be getting married after all, so now I need to know—’

  ‘I’ll call you back ASAP,’ said Fanny, and hung up.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Cat. She pulled a face, remembering her mother’s favourite saying – or one of her mother’s favourite sayings, she had a lot of them: courtesy costs nothing.

  While she was waiting for her nemesis to get in touch again, she fetched a block of chocolate from the fridge.

  But, far from giving her a serotonin rush, the chocolate merely made her feel sick. It tasted absolutely horrible, like a lump of cocoa-flavoured soap.

  She spat it in the bin.

  ‘I’ve spoken to the runner-up,’ said Fanny twenty minutes later, cutting in as Cat apologised again, as she tried to discover what she owed. ‘She was thrilled to win the luxury weekend in Barcelona, which you will remember was our super second prize. So she was in ecstasies to know she’s won the wedding, after all. What’s more, my angel, unlike you and Jack, she and her fiancé are in a position to proceed.’

  ‘Fanny, about the money,’ Cat said, for she wanted �
� needed – to know the worst of it. ‘Please can you let me know how much I owe you?’

  ‘I don’t have all the paperwork to hand.’

  ‘Well, when you do, please could you contact me? I’ll need to make arrangements.’

  ‘Of course you will, my angel,’ said Fanny Gregory crisply. ‘I’ll do my sums and then I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Fanny. I mean, for all the trouble I’ve given you, the messing you around and all that stuff.’

  ‘Well, sweetheart, as I say, I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘I’m also sorry about Jack.’

  ‘Yes, the lovely Jack,’ drawled Fanny. ‘Quite a charmer, isn’t he? I can understand why you were smitten.’

  ‘When do you think I’ll hear from you again?’

  ‘Give me a breather, darling. I need to get this new show on the road and hope it’s really going to happen this time.’

  Then the phone went dead.

  So Cat called Tess.

  ‘What do you mean, the wedding’s off?’ demanded Tess. ‘I’m in serious training! I’ve been doing all these exercises for the upper arms so I’ll look good in sleeveless. But now you’re telling me that I won’t be a bridesmaid after all?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tess.’

  ‘I should think so, too.’

  ‘But Tess, you never liked him. You never wanted me to marry Jack. You said he was a scumbag and he wasn’t worth my tears.’

  ‘I fancied being a bridesmaid. I’ve never been a bridesmaid and soon I’ll be too old for it.’

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

  ‘I can’t see how,’ sighed Tess. ‘Cat, it looked so lovely, that Melbury Court Hotel – the rooms, the grounds, the fountain, especially the fountain.’

  ‘Yes, it was fabulous.’

  ‘There were even peacocks on the lawns.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cat regretfully.

  ‘I’m so into peacocks.’

  ‘Tess, I’ve said I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ said Tess. ‘Do a bit more grovelling and serious self-abasement and I might forgive you in about a hundred years. I tell you what,’ she added, ‘I’ll come round to yours about half seven with a couple of bottles of that nice Chilean red. Tesco’s got it on at three for two.’