Leftovers

by Stella Newman

  Made it to my seat! And with sixty whole seconds to look around and take in the atmosphere. It’s a small ceremony – maybe sixty of us gathered. Apart from Polly’s family, everyone else is in a couple holding hands, apart from me and one other woman, about my age, in the back row. Impossible to avoid your own singleness at a wedding. That’s fine, I think. You’re not here to pull, you’re here to celebrate with everyone. I don’t recognise many of these faces though, apart from her family. Polly and I have always been close, but she and Dave have a group of friends that I don’t know at all.

  This set up is quite different from her first wedding. That was in St John’s Church in Holland Park – beautiful, traditional – and she walked down the aisle to Handel’s Queen of Sheba. Lovely, of course, and I cried immediately. But it was all very formal. Spencer’s parents were raging West London snobs. I could almost see the disappointment on their faces that Polly, this rag-tag regular North London girl, who’d been to a comp, not even a public school, had scrubbed up quite so spectacularly, and they couldn’t find anything to be snotty about.

  This time round, though, Polly has decided to be true to herself. There’s a moment’s hush as the door opens again, and then Polly takes one step into the room and all our eyes light up, at fireworks. She looks extraordinary. Standing there in a silk crepe, Edwardian bias-cut dress the colour of the sky after rain just before the sun breaks through. It has a low neck and tiny flowers with seed pearls and crystal beads adorning the bodice. The sleeves are made of lighter silk with a tiny puff at the shoulder, and behind her flows a train of the same silk with the initials ‘P & D’ made into a flower, like a Rennie Mackintosh rose.

  Her red hair hangs softly around her shoulders and at the crown of her head is pinned a cream lace head-dress with tiny silk rosettes sewn into the border, which falls in waves down her back. In her hands she holds a simple posy of palest pink and ivory roses and sweet peas. She looks so amazing that even though I have vowed not to blub at this wedding I immediately start to cry.

  She stands there and pauses for a minute trying to compose herself but already she’s teary-eyed and can’t contain the huge smile on her face. And then the music starts. And it’s so very Polly, still a Goth at heart. No Handel this time. Instead she’s chosen The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’. And as the opening bars start and she saunters down the aisle I know this is going to be a special day.

  The service is wonderful. Second time round, simple vows, we’ll try our best. I’ve no doubt these two are going to make it work. They belong together. Look at them, holding each other’s fingers, both trying not to cry and laugh as they repeat their vows. There is just one reading, at the end. Polly’s dad recites a poem by Raymond Carver, called ‘Late Fragment’. Just six lines, six lines about love, but oh what lines. Even Polly’s brother has to borrow a tissue from his girlfriend. She really does look young, that one. Even if Jake wasn’t also going out with someone in her early twenties, I’m sure I’d still think it was slightly tragic. She makes him look older than he is, not younger.

  It’s all over so quickly though, and it’s only as we’re standing on the steps of the registry office, confetti in hand waiting for the bride and groom to emerge, that I realise something was missing from the service. Or rather, someone: Daniel McKendall. I feel a little punch of disappointment, like a promise has been broken. I had so been looking forward to seeing him. Even at Christmas that time, I remember coming away from the pub thinking, above all else, I like who this man has become. I like talking to him. I like being around him. Still, probably just as well. He’s no doubt gone to New York to visit his wife and son, where he should be.

  On the coach on the way to the restaurant, I sit next to the other single girl who was on the back row a few seats along from me during the ceremony. I smile at her but she gives me only the faintest smile back. Maybe the ceremony made her feel more single too. Still, we’re all in this together, aren’t we?

  ‘It was a lovely service, wasn’t it?’ I say.

  ‘Beautiful,’ she says.

  ‘And didn’t Polly look amazing? That dress, I can’t believe it wasn’t some mega designer.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’ she says.

  ‘Her friend Nanette made it, she’s brilliant,’ I say.

  She nods.

  ‘You must be a friend of Dave then?’ I say.

  ‘I’m Amy. I used to work with him when he was at the Guardian.’

  ‘Ah right. Are you still there then?’

  ‘God no, I left six years ago. I can’t imagine working in an office ever again. I hated it.’

  ‘So what do you do now?’

  ‘I still do graphic design, but I’m freelance now and my fiancé is an illustrator, so we can work from anywhere. We’re just back from a year in Amsterdam and thinking about where to go next.’

  Fiancé? Ah, yes. She has a ring. God, I’m even disappointed when the women I think are single are actually taken, let alone the men.

  ‘Is your fiancé not coming to the wedding then?’

  ‘He’s coming to the party, he couldn’t make the service, that’s all,’ she says.

  Oh. I thought I’d have someone else who was single to hang out with.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I say. ‘And when are you getting married?’

  ‘August Bank Holiday weekend, down in Rye.’

  ‘At The George?’

  ‘You know it?’

  I do. I was lying in a bed at The George on my thirty-fifth birthday weekend, Jake in the shower, when I realised he wasn’t in love with me any more. I remember staring at the lamp on the bedside table for about twenty minutes while it dawned on me that our relationship was not what he wanted. Was not what I wanted. And that I really didn’t know what, if anything, I was going to do about it.

  Nothing, as it turned out. I left the doing to him.

  I hate that hotel.

  The coach pulls up at the restaurant and as we climb out all I can think about is how quickly I can get to the alcohol. We leave our coats with the door check, walk through a short corridor, and then we’re in a room so gorgeous that it instantly banishes the ghost of memory that was hovering over me.

  In the dining area, six long weathered wooden tables are laid out with simple white linen cloths, china plates, and silver cutlery. Instead of flowers there are glass vases from which stem dark wooden branches that have handmade paper cherry blossoms along them, and a scattering of tiny little blue feather birds nestling. Between the vases, antique silver tea light holders cast a warm, reflective glow over the room, creating pools of shimmering light.

  Over to the right is a dance floor decked out with a canopy strung with warm white star-shaped fairy lights. And on a table at the back is the cake, which is hands down the best wedding cake I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe Polly managed to keep this a secret from me – it’s phenomenal. Five square tiers of white chocolate buttercream cake are stacked on top of each other. Each layer of cake is bordered by tall panels of white chocolate, at alternating heights, like a delicate, edible fence. Between each tier is a two-inch ledge that has been filled with tiny wild strawberries that mark out a scarlet border between each layer of the tower. It looks like the world’s tastiest skyscraper, the fruits gathered on each layer jostling for the best view.

  A waiter comes over with a tray of Proseccos with fresh raspberries floating on the surface like jewels. I carefully take one and wander through the room, smiling randomly at people I don’t know and hoping to strike up small talk. I’m sure these people are normally friendly. But a single woman in her mid-thirties with a drink in her hand at a wedding is not so much a potential liability as a grenade. Having had a lovely chat about golf with Polly’s great uncle Cecil and caught up with her parents, I walk back over to the dining tables to have a closer inspection, putting on a smile that’s meant to convey I’m never happier than when I’m alone at a wedding …

  I haven’t seen a seating plan anywhere, but on the back of each wooden
chair, tied to the top with string, is a little cardboard luggage tag place card. On one side is a silver heart motif, and on the other is written each guest’s name. I wonder whom Polly’s seated me next to in the end. Hopefully it’s not that girl on the coach or her boyfriend. And I could do without sitting next to great uncle Cecil …

  Let’s have a look, where’s my tag then … no, no, not me … where am I? …

  ‘You’re next to me,’ says a familiar voice behind me that makes me jump so suddenly I nearly spill my drink down the top of my dress.

  I turn.

  It’s him.

  It’s been five years and four months since the last time. Twenty-three years and nine months since the first time.

  And still, still he’s as gorgeous as that very first day in Polly’s garden, lying back on the grass smoking a cigarette and looking like the coolest thing I’d ever seen. If anything he’s getting better with age, bastard. His dark brown hair is untouched by grey, and his pale blue eyes are still full of sparkle and mischief. He has the most beautiful mouth of any man I’ve ever known. Or maybe it’s not the mouth. No. It’s the space between his mouth and his chin: a perfect indent between his bottom lip and that straight, square jaw. Good old menthol-smoking Krista McKendall and her perfect Danish bone structure; well almost. Daniel’s beautiful, straight nose, that I used to love tracing my finger down, broken by a rugby ball when he was in the sixth form up in Edinburgh. And now that bump in his nose just makes him even more handsome.

  He gives me a hug that lasts about half a minute, then puts his hands on my almost bare shoulders and looks at me. He breaks into a huge smile, and I automatically do the same, though for some reason I try to hide it, which must look peculiar.

  ‘I was looking forward to seeing you,’ he says, ‘you look so well!’

  I stop myself saying ‘It’s the blusher and the blow-dry.’ Instead I say, ‘You look well too, old friend.’

  ‘Wow, Susie, I mean it, you haven’t changed at all really …’ he says, looking at me thoughtfully. He shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe how great you look.’

  ‘I found my first grey hair the other day! You’re not supposed to pull them out, are you?’ I say, as we take our seats at the table.

  ‘Seriously, you look exactly the same as I remember you, up on the roof all those years ago.’

  ‘Ha, the good old days on your roof! How’s your family?’ I say.

  ‘Dad’s OK, I was just with him earlier. Getting old, it’s no fun at all. And Joe’s on the mend …’

  ‘How’s Krista? She still with Albert?’

  ‘No, she kicked him out, wants to do her own thing. She’s gone to some massively expensive ashram to focus on her inner goddess or something,’ he says, laughing.

  ‘She was always that way inclined …’

  ‘So Polly tells me you’re doing really well in your job,’ he says. ‘Sounds very glamorous.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about work at a wedding! But more importantly, how are you? I hear you’ve got a lot going on?’

  He shakes his head slightly. ‘Been a difficult year … let’s not talk about that either.’

  Well if we don’t talk about work or family or relationships, what’s left to talk about? Plenty, as it turns out. We natter our way through mozzarella, figs and Parma ham, then roast lamb and dauphinoise potatoes and finally the amazing cake, without stopping for breath. Two hours pass and it feels like five minutes. He is on such good form, I’d forgotten how much we think alike, even though our lives have gone in such different directions. We should have made more of an effort to stay friends over the years. It’s such a shame that you often lose your male friends to their relationships. Mind you, I suppose we were always more than just friends.

  I can’t quite get over how good he looks. I glance around the room – it’s full of couples. Daniel and I must look like a couple. A new couple though – still in that excited, discovery stage, though we also share the past. I catch a glimpse of Dave. He has this look on his face, like he can’t believe his luck, to have found this woman, to have found such joy. Sod being self-sufficient: I want a man to look at me that way again.

  This is how I would have wanted my wedding to be. There is singing. There is laughing. There is toasting. There is an awful lot of drinking. And above all there is dancing. Polly and Dave have chosen Roxy Music’s ‘Let’s Stick Together’ as their first dance, and after that each song is better than the last, no duff choices at all. There’s The Cure, of course, but then The Eurythmics, Erasure, good early Madonna, The B52s (but ‘Rock Lobster’ not ‘Love Shack’), Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Guns N’ Roses. Daniel and I used to go down to Our Price on Saturday afternoons to buy this music; I bet I’ve still got half of these on cassingles in a shoebox somewhere at home.

  Daniel grabs my hand and drags me to the dance floor the minute ‘Sweet Dreams’ comes on, and for four hours we dance like maniacs, only stopping to rehydrate with wine, then gin and tonics and then brandies. We are the last ones on the dance floor.

  At 1.30 a.m. the lights go up and the last record goes on – Roxy Music again, this time ‘Avalon’. My eye make-up has smudged, my hair looks a mess and my foundation has slid off. My feet are in tatters from these ridiculous shoes and I couldn’t care less. I feel high.

  ‘Shall we share a cab back north then?’ says Daniel, finally helping me on with my coat.

  ‘North?’

  ‘I was never going to make the last train from Waterloo …’

  Is he inviting himself to stay at mine? Should I offer him my sofa?

  ‘Where are you going to stay?’ I say.

  ‘At Joe’s in Kilburn,’ he says. His brother. I’m relieved and disappointed in equal measure. ‘You’re still in your granny’s place in Swiss Cottage, right?’

  ‘You remember!’

  ‘Course! I loved your granny. She used to make that amazing custard pudding.’ I love the fact that he remembers this.

  In the cab back to mine he puts his arm around me instinctively and I rest my head on his shoulder. I do this without thinking and it is only once my head has been resting there for a moment that I realise this might not be a good idea. I can’t bring myself to move though. It feels so natural, so comfortable being this close to him again, and I love listening to him talk. That voice that sounds like he’s just got out of bed: warm and deep with a smile in it always.

  As we pass the petrol station about half a mile from my flat he asks the cabbie to pull over.

  ‘Fancy sharing a pack of Consulate for old times’ sake?’ he says.

  ‘I don’t smoke any more but you go ahead,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t either,’ he says. ‘Rarely, anyway. But I have a sudden craving.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Shall I wait in the cab?’

  ‘How about we walk back to yours from here and I’ll pick up another cab when I’ve seen you safely home?’

  My heart starts to beat a little faster. We are both drunk. I have never been in this situation and I don’t know how this works or what I should do.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I say. ‘What if you can’t find another cab? It’s late …’

  ‘We’ll be fine.’ We. We. We not I.

  We sit on the wall outside my block and we talk. We talk about all the things we wanted to do in life and all the things we can’t believe we actually did, and all the things we still plan to do but at this rate never will.

  It is only when the sky has lightened to grey and we are looking at our morning-after faces in the light that he finally looks at his watch.

  ‘Shit. It’s nearly six! I’d better bust a move,’ he says. ‘I promised Joe I’d go to Ikea with him. It’s bad enough normally, let alone with no sleep and a hangover …’

  ‘Do you want me to call you a minicab?’ I say, a tiny twinge in my heart as I think how much I’d like him to stay by my side, just a little bit longer.

  ‘It’s fine, I’ll head over to Finchley Road and get a bus or a tube
or something … Man, it was so good to see you, Susie. I can’t believe how good it was … you’re just … yeah … you look great … it was great … You’re such great company …’

  He wraps me in a big hug, then holds me away briefly while he smiles and looks at me, and then kisses me on the mouth, for a moment, for quite a long moment. Before I have time to react he’s walking away and I watch his back, wishing for all the world that I could see the expression on his face right now.

  I stumble into my flat, kick off my shoes, unzip my dress and let it fall to the floor, then climb into bed in my underwear. There is no one in the whole world who had more fun than me tonight, I think, as I finally rest my head on my pillow as the birds start to sing.

  I feel like I have woken from a deep sleep.

  I remember how it feels to be happy.

  w/c 23 April –

  SHOOT WEEK

  Status report:

  Sign off budget, location, wardrobe

  Shoot – Thursday/Friday/Saturday

  Buy chocolates for Mum and Dad before Sunday

  Thursday

  Andy Ashford and I have been scrabbling around with a production company doing location and casting and budgets for the last three days. I have been working till midnight flat out and thank goodness for that. It’s meant I haven’t had too much of a chance to think about last weekend. Why did Daniel kiss me? Why did I let him? Why did I let him leave without giving him my number? Because he’s a married man, that’s why. Now get back to work.

  Today Andy and I are finally on set, on day one of our three-day shoot for Fat Bird. We’re on location in a five-storey house in Notting Hill, in a vast room that’s designed to look like Celina Summer’s kitchen. The set looks gorgeous: white painted brick walls, a marble-topped kitchen island and six stunning over-sized hanging pendant lights with bright pink interiors that cost eleven hundred quid each. For a light!

  I can’t believe we’ve actually made it after all the pain of the last two months. We would never have made it to this point if Karly and Nick were still on the job because Karly would have said those lights were too cheap, and this house was too small, and actually now they’ve had a chance to really think about it, the only person who could possibly direct the script is Martin Scorsese and he’s not available until 2018.