‘You haven’t changed at all.’
‘Maybe not on the outside.’ Doing better Eve, doing better. Ben seemed momentarily chastened by her reply and didn’t know how to answer.
‘So, do you want some help or not?’
‘Not.’ She added, ‘Thank you though’ as an afterthought. Manners never cost anything.
‘Suit yourself.’ Ben turned and walked over to a pile of nearby fairy lights and started unravelling them. Bugger. She really did need help, just not from him. Her arms were starting to hurt from the weight of the fabric and she had no idea how she was supposed to single-handedly hang them all up. She could hardly ask someone else for assistance now that she’d rebuffed Ben’s offer.
‘Ok fine,’ she huffed. ‘You can help.’
Ben shrugged and walked back towards her, holding his arms out for her to share the load. ‘Where are they going?’
‘Up there.’ Eve nodded to the ceiling and piled all the fabric into his outstretched arms. ‘I’m not sure how. But that’s your problem now. I’m off.’
She could still hear him shouting after her as the heavy door to the factory swung shut behind her. It turned out she was right; she had changed.
Swishing out with such a dramatic exit, while insanely gratifying, did pose something of a dilemma though. She was meant to be whizzing round the factory with an electric polisher round about now. A large part of her wanted to say ‘stuff it’, pour a large gin and tonic and sit on her balcony for the rest of the day basking in the sun, but she had the wedding rehearsal later that afternoon, and forty years of grime to remove from the floors before tomorrow. As much as Tanya was incredibly irritating in her demands, Eve couldn’t ruin her day with sticky floors.
‘I need back up,’ Eve said as soon as Becca answered her phone. ‘I’m at the warehouse which, by the way, is a ridiculous place to have a party, and Ben’s here.’ Eve heard Becca’s intake of breath. ‘And I stormed out in a brilliant way, but I need to go back in there and do the floors, but I don’t want to look like a pillock.’
‘So don’t. Enjoy this moment, wait until after the rehearsal and we’ll go back and do it then.’
‘Oh God, the rehearsal. I’m going to have to see him then.’ Eve leant back against the side wall of the warehouse where she was hiding. ‘Why did he have to come back from New Zealand?’
‘Just ignore him, you don’t need to even speak to him. I’ll be there, and Ayesha, so just stay with us.’
‘You’re wonderful.’
‘I know. What time is it again?’
‘What?’
‘The rehearsal.’
‘Three. Do you know where the church is?’
‘No. South of the river somewhere, isn’t it?’
Eve smiled. She might be wonderful, but Becca was never going to win any prizes for organisation. ‘I’ll come by the flat and pick you up in a cab, be ready at half past two.’
‘Fab. And Eve?’
‘Yes?’
‘Chin up.’
The only time Eve had seen it before was on nature programs. The frantic pacing, eyes flashing dangerously, a single rogue movement from the bushes and POUNCE. Whoever had said that brides were glowing with happiness, and filled with fuzziness and heart-melting romance had obviously never been to a wedding rehearsal.
‘You’re late,’ Tanya snapped. They weren’t, but Tanya tapped her watch anyway. ‘We’re all waiting for you.’ Eve glanced around the almost empty church. Luke’s parents weren’t even there yet. Or Ben.
‘Well, we’re here now,’ Eve replied brightly. ‘Anything we can do?’
‘Did you do the curtains ok?’
Now was not the time to get into semantics. ‘All sorted.’
‘And the floors?’
‘Under control.’
‘Well, that’s something I guess.’ Eve held her breath waiting for an expression of gratitude, but none came.
‘So here are the keys to our flat, we’re leaving for the airport straight after the wedding, so you’ll have to sleep at ours tomorrow night to look after Coco. I’ve left out loads of water and food, but when you get in just take her once round the block. She’ll have been cooped up all day and that girl poos for England.’ Tanya tossed Eve a keyring and gave a big theatrical sigh, looking pointedly at her watch as Luke’s parents hurried in, before turning to the waiting vicar. ‘Well, we might as well make a start.’
The walk-through was almost finished when Ben came crashing into the church filled with profuse apologies. Eve held her breath, waiting for him to throw her under the bus and tell everyone exactly what had held him up, but he blamed the traffic and stood mutely as Tanya tore warm meat off his limbs.
He then demurely took his place next to Becca at the end of the aisle.
‘No Ben, not there!’ Tanya shrieked. ‘You’re walking Eve up, which you would know if you were here on time.’
As he moved next to her Eve could smell a combination of his aftershave masked with smells of manly sweat brought on, no doubt, by hanging twenty-five kilometres of bastarding chiffon. ‘It’s done,’ he whispered.
She couldn’t bring herself to thank him, so just kept her eyes resolutely resting on the statue of a crucified Jesus.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said into the silence.
Eve just rolled her eyes. The cheek of the man. He couldn’t possibly think that he could just waltz back into her life, do her a small favour and expect her to shrug, erase the past and pretend that everything was ok.
It was just after 8 p.m. when Becca and Eve managed to head back to the warehouse and start gentrifying the floors. As a surprise, Tanya had booked all the bridesmaids manicures, less as a gesture of kindness, and more to make sure that they all had rounded nails, not square, painted the same unimaginative shade of pale pink. Personality and individuality were very much banned from this wedding. Eve promptly managed to completely ruin her nails within the first half hour of floor polishing.
‘You know, you could have just said no to her,’ Becca said, as she trailed behind Eve, holding the wire out of the way of the machine.
‘But who else would have done it?’ Eve replied, puffing her long hair out of her face as she manoeuvred the unwieldy polisher around a corner.
‘She’d have found someone. Note that she didn’t ask me or Ayesha as we’d have just laughed at her. You need to learn the art of saying no.’
‘No.’
‘Haha. I mean it though, she only tells you to do these things because she knows you will. Are you like this at work too? Do you literally do everyone else’s jobs for them?’
Eve thought for a second. It wasn’t that she was a control freak, or a perfectionist, or even a pushover, like Becca was insinuating; she just found it really, really difficult to let people down. But this wedding had tested even her limits of patience.
‘Ok, I’ll make you a deal.’ Eve offered, turning the polisher off so that she didn’t need to shout over its drone. ‘From now on, I’m going to trial a new me. One that doesn’t do anything I don’t want to do.’
‘That’s my girl. You will still help me plan Ayesha’s hen do and my own wedding though, won’t you?’
‘I’ll make an exception for you.’
***
It was proving very difficult to shield Tanya’s eyes from resting on either the front or back of her dress, but Becca had been true to her word and was like Eve’s shadow, standing less than a foot away from her back at any one time, and the bouquet was stuck resolutely to Eve’s bodice. They hadn’t yet had to navigate the complexities of either of them needing the bathroom, but that time would come. It would have been comical if Eve wasn’t absolutely terrified of Tanya’s wrath should she find out. They’d got through the church service, and Eve had even managed to give Ben the briefest and smallest of smiles as he offered his arm for her to hold to walk up the aisle even though inside she felt like she was going to be sick. Once upon a time she’d played this moment out in her head, albeit wi
th a different ending.
Walking into the reception an hour later, Eve’s breath was taken away by the effect of the soft white material flowing down from the ceiling, the twinkling fairy lights, and the beautiful round tables bedecked in white tablecloths and tall glass vases with white orchids cascading out of them. She had to give it to Tanya, her vision was absolutely stunning. Finding her name on the big canvas propped up on an easel at the entrance, Eve winced. She was hoping to be sat near Becca or Ayesha, but she didn’t recognise anyone’s names on her table at all. After all she’d done for Tanya, you’d have thought she’d have given her a fun table to sit on. As Eve approached Table Thirteen, her heart sank. She was sat on the singles table.
‘Hi everyone, I’m Eve.’ She gave a little wave, hoping that it fell into the friendly but not flirty camp; a quick scan of the table had already confirmed that it was unlikely her future soul mate was present. Not that she was shallow or judgmental – one of the four men sitting around it might absolutely surprise her with their quick wit and repartee, but it seemed unlikely.
After Eve had gone round the table, politely shaking everyone’s hand, one of the men took out a small bottle of antibacterial gel from his inside pocket and cleansed himself, while another started furiously vaping. The dark-haired one opposite Eve started lining up little plastic pots of lentils and homemade falafels that he’d brought with him in a mini cooler bag, and the spotty teenage nephew of the groom to her right had already started on the shots, fishing a slice of lemon out of what she was sure was her water and sprinkling table salt on his hand. The women were equally as welcoming.
‘So, what do you do—’ Eve peered at the place name of the germ-killer next to her, ‘—Peter?’
In the exact same nasally voice that Eve had already given him in her head, he replied, ‘I’m a botanist. But you’d know that if you read your card.’
‘Card?’
‘In front of you.’
Eve looked down at her table setting. Four sets of cutlery were laid out, which instantly gave her a sinking feeling as to how many courses she was expected to sit through, but tucked underneath her napkin was a little card. On it in neatly typed writing it read:
Welcome to Table Thirteen (unlucky for some!) We hope you enjoy the reception, here are some introductions to your fellow guests to kickstart conversation and help you make new friends. Enjoy!
Peter – Peter is a botanist and a keen fly-fisher.
Jenny – Jenny is fluent in Welsh and can say the world’s longest train station backwards.
Kevin – Kevin is a tube driver and fan of heavy metal, the heavier the better.
Anne – Anne lives in the Orkneys and breeds the North Ronaldsay sheep which mainly eats seaweed.
Bernie – Bernie is an ambidextrous vegan and has completed a marathon on a pogo stick.
Louisa – Louisa is a lexicographer and a keen trumpeter.
Jake – Jake has recently finished his A levels and hopes to become famous.
Violet – Violet is Luke’s great-aunty and first started reading palms when she was seven.
‘You seem very young to be a great aunty.’ One of the women said to Eve.
‘There must be a mix up,’ Eve said. ‘I’m not Violet.’
‘So who are you and what do you do?’
In the same vein as an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Eve announced, ‘My name is Eve, I’m a wedding journalist and I drink ten coffees a day.’
‘That amount of caffeine can be very detrimental to your health,’ said the lentil man, who Eve rightly signposted as Bernie.
‘You’re telling me you pogo stick through a marathon on no caffeine at all?’ Eve replied.
‘You can’t use pogo stick as a verb, it’s a noun,’ the woman, who Eve guessed was Louisa, said curtly.
‘So, Jake.’ Eve swivelled slightly in her chair to the boy to her right. ‘What do you want to be famous doing? Do you sing?’
‘Nah.’
‘Act?’
‘Nah.’
‘Do you invent things?’
‘Nah.’
‘Might you have a Plan B for your future Jake?’
‘Nah.’
Eve looked over at the table she’d hoped to be at, where Ayesha and Amit were topping up everyone’s glasses, Becca was laughing at something Ben was saying and everyone was smiling and having fun. Sighing, Eve reluctantly tuned back in to the table, just in time to hear Jenny say, ‘Hcogogogoilisytnallllwbordnrywhcyregogllygnywgllwpriafnall.’
‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Eve muttered under her breath, reaching into the middle of the table for a bread roll.
‘I don’t think we’re meant to eat those yet,’ Anne said, immediately singling herself out as someone who would never be Eve’s friend.
Eve broke a large chunk off and popped it in her mouth. ‘I don’t think I got the memo about that.’
Chapter 7
‘Ask me what my table’s like,’ Eve said to Becca and Ayesha as they met by chance in the ladies’ loo in the lull before the speeches started and dessert was served.
‘What’s your table like?’
‘Funny you should ask. The boy one side of me has propped his phone up against the bread basket and is live-streaming a football match, the bloke opposite me, Kevin, I think, has eyebrows that are alive and trying to communicate with me, one woman keeps Instagramming her food, the overweight man the other side of me, Peter, has a nasal problem that if I wasn’t so goddamn hungry would be putting me off my food, and the other two women are only talking to each other. It’s just fun, fun, fun.’
Ayesha pouted in the mirror redoing her lipstick. ‘It’s really strange though Eve, I did the table plan with Tanya, and you were definitely on our table.’
‘Well, Tanya must have changed her mind and thought that I deserved punishing for the hen fiasco a little more.’
‘No, I even placed all the paintbrushes on the tables this morning. Yours is lilac, like ours.’ Tanya had come up with the idea of dispensing with the run of the mill paper name cards and in honour of the factory’s previous life, had instructed Ayesha to write everyone’s names on a hundred small paintbrushes, the ends of which were dipped in different colours denoting which table they would be seated at. Eve had noticed that hers had a purple end, while everyone else’s on the Table of Doom were ironically a sunshine yellow, but she hadn’t thought anything of it.
‘You were between Jack and Amit,’ Ayesha continued. ‘But when we all sat down to eat, Great-Aunty Violet was sat there instead.’
‘She’s a hoot,’ Becca added. ‘You’ll love her. She’s been reading all our palms; I’m going to have twins one day and Ayesha is going to move to Africa.’
‘That sounds a lot more fun than the Chelsea game or the sound of phlegm boy clearing his sinuses every few seconds.’
‘Move to ours now, when we go back in,’ Becca urged.
Eve opened her mouth to say that she couldn’t possibly, it would seem really rude, and then remembered her new vow of woman-ing up. Reentering the room, she headed straight for her table, grabbed the bouquet under her chair, tossed it to the sheep-breeder with a smile, gave the rest of the open-mouthed guests a wide grin and said, ‘It’s been really fun, enjoy the rest of your day,’ before heading off to the welcoming arms of the lilac table.
Amit and Great-Aunty Violet moved their chairs up so Eve could squeeze in between them. The old woman was dressed head to toe in hot pink, even her lipstick that was busy bleeding into the hundreds of fine lines around her lips was the same daring shade. How liberating it must be to be so old that people just waved away your tastes as eccentric, rather than strange, Eve thought. Violet gave Eve a big toothy smile as she sat down and immediately called a waiter over to get her an empty wine glass. There may have been nigh on sixty years between them, but Eve could tell they were kindred spirits.
Violet leaned in close to Eve, and said in a loud stage whisper: ‘Speeches soon. I hope Luke doesn’t rabbit on like
he usually does.’
Eve tried to stifle a smile. Slagging off the groom was very poor form, especially on his wedding day, but she was inclined to agree. Luke had been in the same tutor group as Ben and often came round to their student house, their damp problem being marginally better than the one in his house. And they had cable TV, whereas he and his three rugby friends were playing roulette with no TV licence. The vans with aerials on them regularly drove around their neighbourhood trying to find and fine students playing the system. While they were all making ends meet by working in the student bars or local pizza joint, Luke was working in his uncle’s stockbroking firm, and spent an inordinate amount of time recounting yawn-inducing tales of corporate high jinks to them all. It couldn’t have been his chat that won Tanya over, so Eve had always assumed that either he had a large trust fund or was a demon in the bedroom department. Looking at him now at the top table, mouthing the words to his speech in a last-minute run-though, hands shaking, with his already-thinning hair brushed over an obvious bald spot, Eve gave an involuntary shudder at the thought of the latter reason.
Ben, on the other hand, was annoyingly displaying none of the signs his friends were of being a decade older; there was no visible paunch, his hair was still dark and thick, and if anything, his late twenties had ironed out the aesthetic flaws or judgments of error of his student days. Gone was the straggly excuse for a goatee that had once been long enough to plait, which bizarrely Eve used to find quite attractive. He’d always been confident, but watching him work the room now, if you’d looked up the word charming in the dictionary it would have a smouldering picture of Ben Hepworth next to it. He was currently hovering by the top table making innocuous small talk with Tanya’s sister. Eve could tell by the way Cathy was curling her hair around her finger that his chat was teetering on just the right side of flirty. He looked up then and their glances met. Embarrassed, Eve quickly looked away. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Ben straighten up and start walking towards her table. She quickly turned towards Violet and said, ‘I love your outfit.’
A Beautiful Day for a Wedding Page 6