by Jessie Jones
But hen nights aren’t for partners. They’re for the girls.
‘Bloody hell, I wish Cristian would piss off and let us get on with it,’ Hannah wailed, flipping her phone shut.
‘What’s up now?’ Emily asked, sitting down and lighting a post-coital fag after her multiple orgasm with Mr Muscle. Clear head? Rubbish – she only smoked when she was drunk.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ Hannah said, giving me a sweet smile.
‘Don’t give me that,’ I said. ‘He wants to know where the next stop is so he can join us, doesn’t he?’
‘However did you guess?’ Hannah said.
‘You didn’t tell him, did you?’ Emily screamed.
‘No way!’ Hannah screamed back, adding another scream because the next tray of drinks had arrived.
‘Right, this is the last round and then we’re off,’ Emily announced.
‘Off to where?’ I asked.
‘That’s for us to know and you to find out,’ Fran said.
Fran was a hairdresser at the Spa Space. She also had alopecia. Incredible. A hairdresser with no hair – anywhere! She was brilliant. She didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. ‘You women with hair are the ones I feel sorry for,’ she’d tell us. ‘I never have to wax, shave or pluck anything. At all. Ever.’ Tonight she was wearing her favourite pink bobbed wig and she looked fantastic.
‘Come on, drink up,’ she said, thrusting a glass into my hand. ‘Things to do, blokes to shag.’
‘Talking about me again?’ Archie said, appearing in front of us.
‘Arrgghh!’ I screamed. ‘Who invited you to my hen night?’
‘Nobody. I popped in for a beer with a mate. This is his local.’ He grabbed an empty stool and sat down. ‘So you’re getting married, Dayna. I’m shocked.’
Did he look just a little bit sad or was I too drunk to see straight?
‘Who is he, then?’ he asked.
‘Cristian. He’s Rooomanian,’ I slurred.
To his credit, he didn’t say anything snide about gypos or squeegee merchants. He just said, ‘Lucky guy. I’d better get a round in by way of congratulations.’
He did a quick headcount and headed for the bar.
‘He is gorgeous,’ Hannah said when he’d gone. ‘Is he an ex?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I slurred casually.
‘Mmm. He reminds me of Russell Crowe in Gladiator,’ Fran said. ‘All hard and skinhead-ish and a bit scary.’
Well scary, I didn’t say.
He reappeared with another tray of drinks and handed them round. Then he sat down and pulled his stool close to mine. ‘Can’t believe you’re getting hitched, Dayna,’ he said.
‘I know, me neither,’ I admitted drunkenly. And, you know, the pub was really noisy and as he talked I had to lean in really close to hear him and he smelt really nice and I leaned in closer because I really needed to know if it was Paco Rabanne or Hugo Boss and our lips completely accidentally sort of brushed … But, honestly, it was only for a few seconds … Five, maybe … Definitely no more than a minute. And I did the right thing. I pulled away first.
Mostly because Hannah was shrieking, ‘Oh my God, Dayna, stop snogging Russell Crowe! Cristian’s just walked in!’
My heart nearly stopped. Had he seen us? Would he be furious? Would the wedding be off?
‘Only joking,’ Hannah laughed.
And, of course, so did I. Very nervously.
But, oh, that kiss … Which wasn’t a kiss at all. Nothing more than an inadvertent brush of the lips. Possibly with tongues.
‘Come on, Archie, let’s go get this game started,’ a voice said.
‘What game?’ I asked, looking up at the voice.
‘Card game. My place. I’d invite you, but looks like you’re busy. For the rest of your life,’ the newcomer said with a laugh.
I didn’t laugh back. I couldn’t. I was speechless.
The man turned away to round up the rest of his mates. I looked at Archie and said, ‘You’re going to that guy’s house to play cards? But who is he?’
‘Ben. He’s a scaffolder. He puts work my way and I do the same for him. Good bloke.’
‘Really?’ I asked stupidly. ‘And you play cards with him?’
‘Look, you can come if you really want to. I should warn you, though, it’s a ten-quid minimum.’
‘But …’ I couldn’t get the words out.
‘But what?’
‘He’s black!’
‘Jesus, keep your voice down, Dayna,’ he said, looking around nervously. ‘And anyway, so what if he is? He’s a good bloke, solid.’
‘But you hate –’
‘I never said that,’ he replied, cutting me off. ‘Well, not in those exact words. Look, you know what I think about … certain issues, but that doesn’t mean they’re all bad. Ben’s OK. More than OK, actually. Do you know what he did for me one time? There was this skip contractor based in Wembley, but they were trying to muscle in round here. Right dodgy outfit, run by a Greek – you know what they’re like. Anyway, he was undercutting me big-time and he was putting pressure on Ben to …’
Why do men think their jobs are as endlessly fascinating to us as they are to them? Before I glazed over completely, I stopped him and said, ‘Let me get this straight, Archie, you and this Ben, you’re friends?’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ he said.
‘Good, that’s all I needed to know,’ I said, kissing him again, but only briefly this time because I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.
Oh, and because Emily had grabbed my arm and was dragging me out of the pub. Apparently we were behind schedule.
The next stop was the Green Man. We had one drink there and moved on to the Red Lion. Then it was the Duke of Wellington. Then the King’s Arms and the Queen’s Head … Or was it King’s Head, Queen’s Arms … I was losing track …
The last venue was a club called Juice. I’d never heard of it and none of us had ever been there, but Kirsty and Ruby were waiting at the door to make us feel at home. Yes, that’s right, it was a lesbian club!
Kirsty looked amazing. She was wearing a black PVC mini and a big black string vest over a black bra. All the better to show off her tummy – she was six months pregnant and flaunting it. I’d spent an evening with her a couple of months before and she’d told me all about it. About how Ruby had jacked in her brilliant new job up north and come back to her. To celebrate being reunited, they’d tossed a coin to see which one would get pregnant. Kirsty won. Or lost. I wasn’t sure how she was looking at it. When I asked her who the father was she got out the turkey baster. She even tried to give me a demonstration, as I recall.
She might have been crazy enough to knock herself up with a kitchen utensil, but she wasn’t irresponsible. She hadn’t had a drink since the pregnancy test, but that didn’t stop her and Ruby from plying their hetero guests with enough alcohol to keep a Club 18–30 holiday going for a week. I thought we were drunk when we arrived at Juice, but, no, we’d just been warming up.
I don’t remember much about our time there to be honest. Just disconnected incidents, not necessarily in the right order. I recall a circle of big, butch dykes forming around Fran and me on the dance floor. They were all cheering wildly and urging us on and it was brilliant. Honestly, I never knew I was that good at dancing. Then there was the moment when the scary dominatrix of a manageress marched me to the side of the club and ordered me to stop exposing myself. Honestly, though, I have no recollection of pulling my top up. And, for God’s sake, even if she was right and I did do it, what was this club she was running? It was full of lesbians. Hadn’t they seen breasts before?
And I really don’t know how I ended the night handcuffed to a pipe in the loos. Possibly I’d flashed my boobs again and the dominatrix had decided to match words with action. Who knows? I do know that by the time Kirsty had managed to find the key I’d passed out. Hen night over.
Thanks, Emily, because it was the most fun I’d ever had. I think. If only I could re
member.
As boss of my hen night and therefore in charge of my welfare, Emily somehow got me back to her mum and dad’s house. We spent the next day in recovery. We didn’t surface until lunchtime and decided, for old times’ sake, to go to the caff down the road for a fried breakfast, the way we used to when we were teenagers – a week away from my wedding, everything I did had an air of one-last-time about it. But when we turned the corner we discovered that Dino’s Café had miraculously morphed into Minnie’s Nail Parlour. God, had it really been so long?
We were determined to get our nostalgic fix of saturated fats, so we schlepped a couple of blocks to Joe’s, which we knew did really good sausages and didn’t charge for extra toast. Except Joe’s had somehow become the Olive Grove, an air-conditioned, over-priced deli with fancy metal tables. We went in and ordered freshly baked bagels filled with low-fat mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes. Sod nostalgia. We were starving.
‘God, just think, a week from now you’ll be Mrs Antonescu,’ Emily said as we stuffed our faces. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing it first. Max and me have been together way longer than you and Gel Head.’
Somehow Simon’s nickname had got around and, like the gel, it had stuck.
‘Emily!’ I scolded.
‘Sorry, you and Cristian.’
‘Well, you and Max were engaged before us,’ I said. ‘It’s not my fault you haven’t set a date yet.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘So, why haven’t you set a date yet?’ I asked.
She gave me a little shrug. ‘You know how busy he is. It’s really hard to find a window and … You know.’
I didn’t challenge her but I was thinking that the delay had nothing to do with Max’s impossible workload and everything to do with Emily. She’d followed him halfway round the planet, but when it came to making it legal, settling down for ever and ever, she was the same as me – i.e. scared shitless. Was it just the idea of marriage that was terrifying or was it the thought of marriage to the particular guys we’d chosen?
Very good question.
‘We could do a Thelma & Louise and just run away,’ Emily said from nowhere.
‘Too late for that now.’
‘It’s never too late,’ she said, narrowing her eyes. ‘Fancy getting into Max’s Merc and just driving?’
‘He’d hunt you down and kill you. He loves that car more than you. Anyway, I’m done with running away.’
‘Well, I couldn’t do it really,’ she said. ‘Max and I are …’
‘Max and you are what?’ I asked nervously. I always got a bad feeling when Emily couldn’t finish a sentence.
‘Look, the reason we haven’t set a wedding date is because he’s had an offer. His old employers want him back. They’re opening a new office and they want him to oversee the whole thing because he did it so brilliantly before.’
I knew it. She was buggering off again. But maybe it wouldn’t be that bad this time. Maybe it would be to somewhere close enough for a weekend visit. Paris, say, or Watford. ‘Where is it, this new office?’ I asked.
‘Osaka.’
‘Can you get there on easyJet?’ I asked hopefully.
‘It’s in Japan, Dayna.’
Oh.
‘I really don’t want to go,’ she said, and the way her face dropped I knew it wasn’t just for my benefit. ‘But I can’t be without Max, I really can’t.’
‘Well, tell him not to go. He’s got a great job already. If he loves you, he’ll stay.’
‘You haven’t seen what they’re offering him. It’s obscene. And they’ve promised him he’ll get to run the London office when we come back. It’ll set him up for life.’
‘God, he’s already set himself up for life ten times over.’
‘You know Max. Enough is never enough. It is an amazing offer. He can’t turn it down. And it’s only for six months.’
‘Yeah, sure. That’s what he told you last time.’
‘He’s promised me this time, said he’ll put it in writing if I want. And he knows I’ll go insane and kill him if I have to stay there a second longer. Anyway, what have I got to stay here for? Let’s face it, I’m never going to hack it as an interior designer.’
I couldn’t argue with that. I wanted to … But I really couldn’t.
‘When are you going?’ I asked, resigning myself to my fate.
‘Next month. Don’t worry, I’ll be here to force you up the aisle on Saturday.’
The last time she’d left me I’d been alone. This time at least I’d have Cristian. I’d be far too busy settling into my new life as Mrs Antonescu to miss her. No, this time I wasn’t going to cry, not now that I was an almost-married grown-up.
I went back to my flat that afternoon. I’d more or less moved back in there. Nothing to do with Cristian and I not getting along or anything. No, we’d decided that in the run-up to the big day we should live apart and then marriage would seem so much more special and romantic. Actually, I’d decided it, but Cristian had thought it was a brilliant idea. At least he did after I’d spent a week talking him into it.
I’d meant what I’d said to Emily. I was done with running away. It was time to grow up. I was getting married in a week and I was going to throw myself into it wholeheartedly, and straight after the honeymoon I was going to go back to work, which I’d throw myself into equally wholeheartedly, and then I was going to get pregnant, which meant I wouldn’t be working for too long because of maternity leave, but no matter, Mila would be thrilled because she’d be a gran … Yes, it was all going to work out brilliantly and I felt better than I had in weeks.
And when the phone rang ten times over the course of the evening I answered it every time instead of letting the machine pick it up the way I sometimes did when I wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone – OK, to Cristian. And each time he told me he loved me I told him I loved him back and that, yes, I too couldn’t wait for next Saturday when we’d be joined together in holy matrimony till death did us part.
And when I hung up for the tenth time I panicked. I mean I really panicked.
I’m sure I’d have been just fine if Cristian hadn’t chucked in the till-death-do-us part bit on his last call – idiot. I couldn’t face panicking alone. I needed a panic buddy. So I called Emily. She got there in half an hour and, like the true friend she was, as soon as she’d taken off her jacket, she started to panic too.
‘Oh my God, the phone. Should I get it? What’s going on, Dayna? Tell me!’ she yelped over the rings. ‘No, let me answer it, then tell me.’
‘No, don’t!’ I screamed. ‘It’s him! I can’t talk to him again. Not tonight. Not ever!’
‘But why? What’s happened?’ Emily shrieked as the answering machine kicked in and we listened to Cristian profess his undying love to the rolling tape.
‘Nothing. He hasn’t done anything. But I can’t do it!’
‘Do what?’
‘Haven’t you been listening to anything? I can’t marry him! He’s all over me. It’s suffocating. I can’t BREATHE! Emily, I can’t live like that. Not for the rest of my life.’
‘Stop it! Let’s sit down and let’s talk this through calmly and rationally,’ she shouted irrationally. Why did I ask her to come round? She was making me feel worse.
‘There’s nothing to talk about!’ I yelled. ‘I just can’t do it!’
‘Rubbish, of course you can,’ she said. ‘These are just last-minute nerves. That’s normal. Everyone gets the jitters like this. You’ve got to speak to a grown-up. I know, ring Suzie. She’ll know what to say.’
‘I know what she’s going to say!’ I yelled hysterically. ‘She’s already figured out this is all wrong. I can’t call her. She’ll just go I told you so.’
‘Well, maybe she’s right. Maybe you shouldn’t marry him,’ she said, suddenly changing tack for no good reason whatsoever.
‘Don’t say that!’ I screamed, slightly more hysteri cally than before. ‘I HAVE TO MARRY HIM! It’s all org
anised, paid for. I’ve got the dress, a cake the size of the Empire State Building, a twenty-grand honeymoon in St bloody Lucia, Mila will have a shit-fit, Cristian will KILL HIMSELF, nobody will ever speak to me again!’
Whichever way I looked at it, I was fucked. I couldn’t marry the guy. I couldn’t not marry him. I was trapped in a situation of my making. No, not of my making. It suddenly dawned on me that this was all Dad’s fault! He was the only reason I was engaged to Cristian. I’d only done it to prove that, unlike him, I could commit. But he wasn’t even around for me to prove it to. Jesus, if he hadn’t already been dead, I’d have killed him for the mess he’d got me into.
I fled into my bedroom and flung myself onto my bed.
‘I can’t breathe, Emily!’ I rasped. And I really couldn’t. My chest was tight and I was making these funny little wheezy sounds.
‘Try getting your face out of the duvet. That might help,’ Emily suggested, sounding relatively calm at last.
I rolled over and looked at her helplessly, as she took my hand. ‘You’ve just got to ask yourself one question,’ she said. ‘It’s the question I asked myself when Max hit me with the Japan thing and I didn’t agree to go until I’d answered it. Think hard about this, Dayna: Do you need Cristian in your life?’
I thought about it long and hard.
Did I need Cristian?
There was only one thing I needed: a baby. As uncertain as I was of everything else, I was positive about that.
And if I needed a baby, I needed Cristian … Didn’t I?
Emily stayed with me for another hour, leaving only when she was sure I wasn’t going to do anything stupid and only after she’d hidden all my knives. I made myself some toast when she’d gone, but I couldn’t settle. I needed to talk to someone. I crossed the landing and knocked for Kirsty. She was the most coolly objective (OK, cynical) person I knew, especially when it came to the subject she had no interest in whatsoever – i.e. men. Her advice, therefore, was bound to be excellent.