Life After Lunch

by Sarah Harrison

  I continued along the corridor and knocked on Steph’s door.

  ‘Come.’

  My cousin was lying on the bed in her petticoat, reading one of the guest-bedroom books, a Sherlock Holmes omnibus. She didn’t look half as ready for her wedding as Emma did. But then, she was always smart and well groomed, so perhaps it was just that she looked the same as usual.

  ‘I thought I’d come and say hallo.’

  ‘That’s nice of you. I’m sorry not to be down there doing my bit, but I really can’t face it.’

  ‘I don’t blame you.’

  ‘How is everyone?’

  I sat down on the dressing-table stool. ‘ Raring to go.’ She closed the book and tossed it to the end of the bed. ‘My mother is driving me absolutely crackers.’

  ‘I gathered.’

  ‘Oh God, did you meet her? Was she tearful?’

  ‘No, not at all. But she did imply that you were a bit scratchy.’

  ‘May I be frank?’ I spread my hands in invitation. ‘You got the better deal, mother-wise. Diana is so savvy, so clued up. She really is a dream. But my mother is such a stupid woman.’

  ‘I’m terribly fond of her,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Steph moaned and closed her eyes. ‘Yes, you would be. Everyone is. What a dear, what a sweetie – what an idiot!’ She opened her eyes again and hoisted herself up against the bedhead. ‘People are fond of idiots. They’re such a comfort to the rest of us.’

  ‘You’re being awfully hard on her.’

  ‘I’m speaking as I find, for once, Laura. What I can’t tolerate is her coming on like the doting mother of a tremulous virgin just because I finally decided to tie the knot.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising,’ I suggested. ‘ She missed out on Ros’s wedding, and she wants to make the most of this one.’

  ‘Christ, I tell you …’ Steph came over to where I was sitting, opened her handbag and fished out cigarettes and lighter. ‘You don’t, do you? I’m beginning to wish I’d opted for small, streamlined and secular.’

  ‘We’re all terribly glad you didn’t. This is the social highlight of our year.’

  ‘Hmm … ‘She took a deep, contemplative drag. ‘ Want to see the dress?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  It was beautiful – a waterfall of shot silk and beading, elegant and ageless, with long, graceful sleeves and a little round, beaded cap, with no veil.

  Steph held the skirt out with one hand, and let it fall with a swish. ‘Not too girlish?’

  ‘Not in the least. I adore it. You’re going to knock everyone’s socks off.’

  ‘Monty’s too?’

  ‘Monty’s specially.’

  She sighed. ‘Laura, may I be honest?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘What the hell am I doing?’

  ‘Getting married to the man you love. Because you want to.’

  ‘I don’t know if I do.’

  A lot, I felt, rested on the tenor of my response. Why me? I thought. Me of all people? Anyone less equipped for the part of Wise Woman of the Wedding would at that moment have been hard to find.

  ‘Of course you do,’ I said briskly. ‘You’re sensible to have taken your time, lived plenty of life – it’s a mature decision.’

  ‘I don’t even know if I love Monty.’

  ‘Oh.’ I took this as my cue to leave. I was halfway to the door when she asked: ‘ You’ve been a long time wed – can you recommend it?’

  I think it was the only time in my life when, called upon for an aphorism, I managed to come up with one.

  ‘Marriage,’ I said, ‘is for the bloody-minded.’

  At one o’clock Anthea dished up the shepherd’s pie and David cracked open the bubbly. Steph came down, briefly, and allowed herself to be made much of. Then Becca, Ros and the bridesmaids trooped off to the annexe and the rest of us went upstairs to change.

  I was wearing the expensive suit I’d bought back in the spring, with a white hat with a turned-up brim and a bow at the back. Glyn put on the hired morning dress in which he looked terribly handsome. He caught me looking at him and flashed me a quick shrug of a smile.

  ‘Do you think we’ll be able to take jackets off later?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps. Much later.’

  ‘How was Steph when you spoke to her?’

  ‘Nervous.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t be, taking the plunge at her time of life?’ He was concentrating on his tie in the mirror. ‘The time to marry is when you’re young and ignorant. Like we were.’

  There were a couple of dull-eyed news photographers outside the church, and the church itself was packed. Anthea, Caro and Anthea’s crack team of flower ladies had created a fragrant bower of white and gold. Of the four ushers, two were household faces – a home affairs correspondent and one of Monty’s newsreader colleagues – one was a teenage nephew of the groom, and the fourth was Jasper, (with Etoman rising). He handed us our engraved orders of service and slotted us into a pew near the front, with my parents.

  ‘Can I help you do that?’ asked Amos.

  ‘I think this is one I have to do on my own, mate.’

  ‘Come on,’ said my mother, ‘you can help me blow up my cushion.’

  I couldn’t resist whispering to Jasper, ‘The last time we were all at a wedding together was ours – do you remember that?’

  ‘Do I ever. You made me wear breeches.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay, I forgive you – I had an absolute blast. And I know I was a little sod.’

  Verity, praying, blushed on hearing this. She was looking exceptionally pretty in her green Oxfam dress and coral beads. She had tied a long scarf round her head, with the ends hanging over her shoulder. The effect was rather Russian and romantic. I caught Glyn looking at her with an expression of gentle pride.

  Becca and Ros were accompanying the bridesmaids, David the bride. In the pew immediately in front were Anthea, and Brian with his son Brett. Someone – his father perhaps – had made him wear a navy double-breasted blazer, and light blue trousers like a golfer’s. I could only hope that this was such accepted wedding gear for the young in Canada that Brett wasn’t embarrassed by it. But the back of his neck, beneath fiercely short hair, was rather red.

  Glyn was leaning across Verity and Amos, listening to my mother. He straightened up and whispered in my ear, ‘ Best man’s a Harley Street gyni, according to Diana – do you think there’s any significance in that?’

  ‘Hardly. I don’t think kids feature anywhere in Steph’s plans.’

  ‘Who said anything about plans?’ said Glyn. This made me want to laugh. I concentrated madly on the order of service, like pressing your lip to stop a sneeze. It was the usual non-churchgoers stuff – ‘O perfect love’, ‘God be in my head’ and – bizarrely – ‘Abide with me’. Perhaps Monty was a football fan.

  I looked across at him. He looked elegant and rather pale, next to his best man, who was sitting with his arms folded and his crossed legs sticking out into the aisle. The gyni was heavily built and jowly, with curly grey hair and the complexion of a bon viveur. I was sure he had a fleet of feisty ex-wives, and that he’d get roaring drank at the reception. He reminded me strongly of Patrick.

  Becca arrived, accompanied by a wave of ‘Eclat’ and a collective intake of breath. ‘Budge up.’

  ‘All well?’ I asked. ‘How’s Sinead?’

  ‘Loving it. You’ll see in a minute.’

  ‘Are they on their own out there?’

  ‘Mum, please. Ros is with them. And the bloody vicar.’

  Verity dipped her head to speak to her sister. ‘Becca—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look incredible.’

  Becca glanced down at herself. ‘ What, this old thing?’ But I could tell she was pleased. She did look incredible. Her simple, brief black suit fitted like a skin. Perilously high black ankle-strap sandals that were no more than a six-inch stiletto, a leather sole and
two wisps of strap, enhanced her long, tanned legs and displayed perfect red-painted toenails. The suit had short sleeves, but in a theatrical touch she wore little black silk gloves with a frill at the wrist. Her hair was up, and instead of a hat she wore a flirty black silk nonsense – I think my mother would have called it a ‘shush’ – which perched on her brazen topknot like an exotic butterfly.

  Caro came fussing up the aisle, pretty and wispy in pink and grey. ‘Is she here?’ asked my mother. Caro shook her head and mouthed, ‘On her way.’ She looked across at Monty, who raised a hand in salute. He didn’t look well.

  ‘He’s not good enough for her,’ whispered Glyn. ‘ What do you reckon?’

  ‘Ssh …’

  ‘Now where’s he going?’

  Monty had murmured something to the gyni, and was now walking discreetly, head bent, down the side aisle. The merest rustle of muted, sympathetic laughter carried round the pews.

  ‘It’s funny, but he doesn’t look like a curry-and-lager man to me,’ said Glyn. ‘Maybe the best man led him astray.’

  Amos asked, penetratingly: ‘When’s it going to start?’

  ‘Very soon,’ said Becca.

  ‘Is that who’s going to marry Steph?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s he gone?’

  ‘I don’t know – sit still! He’ll be back in a minute.’

  Monty was not back in a minute. He never came back.

  He walked out of the church only five minutes before his bride was due to arrive, collected the honeymoon tickets (as we later learned) from his hotel, and went to the aptly named Thai island of Phuket, whence he was never seen again.

  It was all in the papers and – it had to be said – Steph never put a foot wrong. Nothing became her like being left at the church door. In interviews she came across as wry, cool, philosophical and curiously sexy. Seeing that pictures of her were going to be taken, she had the good sense to throw her bouquet high in the air and look up at it, so if there were any tears they weren’t visible. For a few days she became a kind of female ikon, the embodiment of the strong woman taken in by a weak man, and well shot of him. She seemed not pathetic, but sensible and dignified, maintaining her integrity in the face of what the tabloids called ‘Every Woman’s Nightmare’. She never said she hadn’t loved Monty, she never said a word against him – except that if that was what he was going to do, it was better that he should do it now rather than later. When asked about the dress she said it was far too good to waste, and she would be dyeing it black and wearing it to all the Christmas parties … What a woman! What style, what class! Not a dry eye in the house.

  Probably only I, in the whole world, could detect the small exhalation of relief in her voice, and the tiny glimmer of gratitude in her eye.

  The worst time was the waiting, not knowing. A full half-hour went by before any serious collective doubts arose. Even when the gyni got up out of his seat and strode down the aisle for a recce, he was wearing a smile, and we all chuckled discreetly in acknowledgement of the fact that he was doing his job. A couple of minutes later Caro followed. The organist got a bit desperate and began to play ‘Love Changes Everything’, which seemed a rather unwise choice, and Becca and Glyn got the giggles. My parents began to feel stiff and stood up in the side aisle, my father perched on the corner of a pew-back as though it were a shooting stick. Amos and Verity began to play ‘ Stone, Scissors, Paper’ and everyone began to talk, the noise level swelling gently but inexorably, like a school assembly when the head’s been called away. Brian and Brett turned sideways and craned their necks. Emma actually got up and went into the transept where she stared quite shamelessly over our heads at the south door while talking on her mobile phone.

  Anthea leaned over the back of the pew in front. ‘ What the blue blazes can be going on? Surely she can’t be getting an attack of the vapours – a woman her age?’

  ‘Laura said she was like a cat on hot bricks before lunch, didn’t you?’ remarked Glyn.

  ‘No I didn’t. I expect something’s happened to the car.’

  ‘I’m going to find out,’ announced Becca, rising from her seat and stalking down the aisle. Amos clambered over the rest of us and pelted after her.

  Another ten minutes inched by. Glyn said, ‘It makes me wish I’d brought my personal stereo. I’ve got a pile of demos I could be listening to.’

  ‘Here comes your daughter back,’ said Anthea.

  Even if Becca had been intending to be discreet, which from the expression on her face and the swing of her shoulders seemed unlikely, we were never to know because Amos beat her to it, screeching to a halt and announcing fortissimo, ‘He’s done a runner! Uncle David said the little sod’s done a runner!’

  Susan, when I told her, was ecstatic.

  ‘No! How sensational! All my life I’ve dreamed about being present when something like that happened, but I never have! I want to know everything – everything!’

  I did my best. It needed no embellishment. And because my deepest instinct told me that the events of that afternoon constituted a cock-up rather than a human tragedy, I didn’t feel bad about playing up the laughs.

  I explained how Caro had swooned, and disappeared between the pews … how Glyn and Brian had carried her out of the church in a bizarre echo of the night Glyn and I first met … how Emma had made half a dozen phone calls in ten minutes … how Verity had knelt down and prayed … how Brett had suddenly perked up and passed round a tube of extra strong mints. I described how Anthea whispered ‘ Bastard!’ and then used her best pony-club voice to tell everyone there’d been a change of plan … how my mother was heard to murmur thank God she hadn’t fallen for a more expensive hat, and my father looked at his watch and said what was the score now – home in time for tea? How I didn’t want to seem too curious, but eventually went outside and found Caro recuperating against a flying buttress, Steph drinking from David’s hip-flask and telling the weeping Ros to cut it out or else, Nadine doing cartwheels, Becca directing the salivating news photographers to take pictures of Sinead for Liam with her instamatic, Brian and David conferring in a sensible, manly way and Glyn, tie loosened, hearing the confession of the gyni.

  ‘I saw the piece in the papers,’ gasped Susan. ‘What a rat! What an absolute shit! He’ll never cast news in this town again.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, ‘I shouldn’t think he will.’

  ‘And your cousin – she sounds like Joan of Arc or something!’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. But she did handle it awfully well.’

  ‘Brilliant …’ breathed Susan reverently. ‘Any woman who can turn a situation like that into a photo opportunity gets my unbounded admiration.’ She took a gulp of whatever it was she was drinking. ‘And your daughter – that was your daughter, with the legs – she ought to be starring in a skinflick with Brad Pitt, I had no idea she was so stunning!’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said modestly. It was clear that whatever Monty’s shortcomings, my family’s brief connection with him had propelled me into the full glare of Susan’s approbation.

  ‘Would she like a job?’ asked Susan. ‘ I’m not kidding – she can be on my team any time she likes.’

  ‘She’s got a shocking temper,’ I said.

  ‘So have I.’

  In all the excitement there was something I’d forgotten to mention to Susan, but I put that right now.

  ‘One other thing,’ I said.

  ‘Tell me – I insist!’

  So I told her how, just as David was explaining to everyone that they could come back to Ponderosa anyway because it was okay with him if it was okay with Steph, a yellow vintage Rolls had drawn up at the lychgate, quite upstaging the burgundy Mercedes in which the putative bride had arrived.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Glyn. ‘A log-jam of brides.’

  But it was more surprising than that. The driver was a long-haired man in a denim shirt – Mad Max. The passenger door opened and out got Josh. He was wearing his usual black jeans an
d T-shirt, and wicked small round sunglasses with blue lenses.

  ‘Relax everyone, I’m here,’ he announced to a largely uninterested audience as Mad Max pulled regally away. It was pretty obvious to me that our son had been on the dope, all the way down. ‘We got the job done so I thought hey, why not? Mum, Dad – aren’t you going to welcome the prodigal?’

  There was something quintessentially English about the way we all carried on regardless. The party back at the Ponderosa was even wilder and more riotous than it would have been had the wedding ceremony been performed. Everyone let rip, and a good proportion were as drunk as skunks. The caterers and the Tuney Loons carried out their appointed tasks with unshaken professionalism. I think everyone was conscious of participating in events on the strength of which they’d be dining out for months or even years. Steph was whirled from partner to partner all night. Brian succumbed early, leaving Ros to soak up the attentions of the gyni who (unsurprisingly) turned out to be celebrating his decree nisi. David worked the room expansively, telling those who admired his calm that he expected Anthea’s bloody horseflesh to pay for all this. Becca broke a score of hearts by dancing almost exclusively with her children and taking Brett under her wing for a night he would never forget. The spaced-out but still articulate Josh sat on a table and generously allowed a succession of gorgeous older women to believe that they had the gift when it came to wayward youths. Emma, hat on but shoes off, was all over Glyn like a cheap suit, and periodically asking, ‘May I fuck your husband?’

  ‘You’re trusting,’ said Ros through a mouthful of Coronation Chicken.

  ‘Not really – it’s the drink talking.’

  ‘In vino veritas,’ remarked Ros sagely, as if she’d just made it up.

  At one point, while the gyni attempted to teach everyone Texan line dancing (he had attended a symposium in Fort Worth in July), Anthea took a group of us over to the stables to admire Morgan Misty III.

  ‘You should see the original to appreciate your painting,’ she said.

  Verity, Jasper, Amos, Sinead, the parents and I followed her. As we left the unwedding party behind, and the Loons retro-rock gave way to the soft clop and blowing of the horses in the darkened yard, the glowing marquee with its shadowy dancers looked even more like something from another planet.