White Wedding

by Milly Johnson

  ‘She’s a fantastic girl, Stuart. They don’t come along like Max every day.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Stuart. ‘But I can’t help what is going on here,’ and he banged his chest with a closed fist. ‘Max doesn’t make me feel like a man.’

  ‘And Jenny does?’ spat Luke.

  ‘Yes, she does. She makes me feel protective and big. Max is too independent; she doesn’t need me. She can provide everything she wants herself. And I need to feel needed.’

  ‘Max loves you so much.’

  ‘I think she will find that she doesn’t. She’ll miss me being around, being a presence in the house, but I don’t think she will miss me.’ He stood to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Luke. And because Stuart didn’t answer straight away, Luke knew where he was going. To Jenny.

  Luke’s heart felt like a heavy stone inside him because he knew without any doubt that Stuart had made up his mind. But Luke was so dreadfully fond of Max and he didn’t want to see her humiliated and destroyed.

  ‘Oh mate, I don’t know what to say,’ he sighed. ‘Promise me you’ll sleep on it. You may feel differently in the morning. I’ll ring you at eight.’

  Stuart laughed at his friend’s attempt to try to the last. ‘I promise you I’ll sleep on it, but I won’t feel any differently. And I’ll tell you why. Because tomorrow morning Max will get dressed in her fancy frock and arrive in her Cinderella coach at the church because she will have no doubt in her head that I’ll be there. She will always believe that she knows best and will get her own way. She won’t cancel everything and arrive on my doorstep and ask me to run away to Gretna Green with her. Just her and me.’

  Luke leaped on the note of hope. ‘And if she did?’

  ‘She won’t.’

  ‘But if she did?’

  ‘It wouldn’t make a difference. I would tell her she’s too late. But she won’t.’

  Chapter 78

  In the church there was a very strange atmosphere. Only a few of Stuart’s relatives were there and they were looking around in confusion for the groom and his immediate family, who were a no-show. The best man was there in his suit, pink rose in his lapel, talking to the vicar and then dashing anxiously out of the church doors.

  ‘Why is the best man hopping from foot to foot?’ Bel asked Violet, recognizing him from photos Max had shown them. He was hard to mistake with his grey-white hair and incredibly tall physique. She climbed out of the Rolls-Royce that had picked them up from Max’s house. ‘Aw, aren’t those bells lovely? Hi, there. It’s Luke, isn’t it? Everything okay?’

  Luke came bounding over. At any other time he would have made polite introductions but he was in too much of a flap.

  ‘He’s not here,’ he said. ‘Stuart isn’t here.’

  ‘Where is he, then?’ asked Bel with a lopsided grin. ‘Stuck in the toilet getting rid of some brown nerves?’

  ‘Ugh,’ said Violet. ‘How can you look all ladylike in that dress and have such a sewer-mouth?’

  ‘When I say “he isn’t here”, I mean I don’t think he’s going to come.’

  Bel and Violet looked at each other, then back at Luke.

  ‘You aren’t saying what I think you’re saying, are you?’ asked Bel.

  ‘He came round to see me yesterday and told me that the wedding was off. But I asked him to sleep on it.’

  ‘Wedding was . . . Why?’ Bel was clutching her bouquet so tightly that her knuckles were white.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ said Luke.

  ‘“Another woman complicated”? Please say no,’ said Bel.

  Luke didn’t answer that question directly. ‘Stuart found out about all Max’s plans yesterday. He hit the roof and told her it was the last straw and that the wedding was off. He’s not answering his phone and I don’t know where he is.’ Luke didn’t think it wise to mention Jenny. He was still hoping that Stuart would realize he had been gripped by a temporary madness and arrive better late than never.

  ‘What do you mean, “he told her the wedding was off”?’ Now Bel and Violet really were confused. ‘She knows? She can’t know. She hasn’t said a word to us.’

  ‘He said this might happen,’ said Luke, rubbing his forehead. ‘He said she’d think he would give in and turn up. And if she did, that would say it all.’

  ‘You’re saying she should have cancelled the wedding?’ said Bel, huffing. ‘There was a fat chance of that happening, I can tell you.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m saying,’ said Luke. Even if Max had cancelled the wedding at the eleventh hour, there was still the subject of Jenny. Was it kinder to let Max think their ultimate differences had caused the split than to let her know that he had been spirited away by the cleaner’s daughter?

  ‘Oh shite.’ This from Violet, who hadn’t said ‘shite’ since 1985. Six white horses with pink plumes on their heads were rounding the corner. Bel’s language was fruitier still. She ran to the coach, which was stuffed full with Max’s dress and bouquet. She could just see the top of a male head in the sea of material and she presumed it was Max’s dad drowning in a billowing ocean of white.

  ‘Drive round the block again. Stuart’s not arrived yet.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Max with measured resignation, ‘I know.’

  ‘What?’ said a male voice from the midst of the dress.

  ‘Dad, trust me. Let’s just walk down the aisle. Come on.’

  ‘You can’t have a wedding when the groom isn’t here,’ said her dad.

  ‘Watch me,’ said Max, sticking one silk-booted foot out of the coach.

  In the fifteen-minute journey to the church Max had gone through every dark emotion it was possible for a human to go through; a veritable rainbow of uncertainty, guilt, anticipation, fear, shock, disbelief, pain, anger. By the time she arrived at the church a vortex of fury and self-preservation was spiralling through her core and it was this that kept her back as straight as a ramrod as she grabbed her dad’s arm. Today she would show the world just what calibre of woman she was. Well, at least the Barnsley part of the world would be witness to it.

  So, after an army of bridesmaids, ushers and church officials had managed to extricate Max from the fairy-tale coach, in a state of high confusion Graham McBride found himself about to walk down the aisle to an organist playing Mendelssohn and among a sea of bewildered faces, most topped off by very nice hats. He had adopted Max when she was seven years old and so he thought he knew her pretty well by now, but – as today was showing him – obviously not. For a start, he’d offered to pay for everything but she’d told him that their wedding was going to be so small that wouldn’t be necessary. It didn’t look small from where he was standing. It was out-blinging Elton John and Lady Gaga combined. And why wasn’t the bloody groom here? The vicar started to pace towards them but when Max barked, ‘Stay!’ at him, he froze. The organist looked round, stopped playing and then started again. He presumed Luke was the groom.

  ‘Max . . .’ began Luke.

  ‘Luke,’ she smiled. ‘Thank you for being here. Now, let me drive this. Bel, Violet, prepare to follow. Dad, let’s go.’

  Max switched on her lights. The small butterflies stitched on to her shoulders began to waft their wings and the ones dotted around her voluminous skirt began to twinkle.

  The poor photographer hadn’t a clue what was going on but he had been paid to take pictures, so he started snapping.

  ‘Maxine, what’s happening?’ asked a totally baffled Graham. ‘Where’s Stuart?’ His traditional Yorkshire brain tried to make sense of it all and failed. The only conclusion it could come to was that it was some sort of modern wedding where tradition went to the wall. Stuart must be following the bride in. He was sure that Max wasn’t that daft as to walk down the aisle if she wasn’t going to meet her groom at the end of it. Knowing Max, her wedding wouldn’t be a normal carry-on, but this was stretching it, even by her standards.

  Max smiled beatifically as she drifted slowly down the
aisle, taking pin steps and savouring every one. She and her dad had to walk sideways like well-dressed crabs because the aisle wasn’t wide enough for them both. It was barely wide enough for her alone. Her bouquet was a weighty Niagara Falls spillage of bright pink roses and the dress weighed a ton and a half. Gypsy Margaret wasn’t joking when she said that some brides were scarred for life wearing them. Max spotted her mum open-mouthed in the front pew. She was holding on to Auntie Sylvia’s hand as if her life depended upon it.

  As she reached the top of the aisle, where Stuart should be standing, Max turned round to the congregation and waited for the organist to finish the last bars.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she began in a cool, clear, unwavering voice. There was a slight echo as her voice bounced off a nearby pillar. ‘There has, alas, been a change of plan. There will be no wedding today, because there is no groom.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Graham crossly. Although he really didn’t know anything. Any minute now he was going to wake up and find out he was still in a nightmare after having too much Cathedral City last night.

  ‘However, a great deal of preparation has gone into this day, so I ask you to please join me at the reception. A minibus has been provided for your comfort and will bring you back to the church afterwards if you so wish. Oh and wedding presents will not be accepted, obviously. I hope you’ve all kept your receipts. Thank you.’

  Someone clapped and then shut up, embarrassed that they were the only one doing so. Everyone else started to gossip to a neighbour.

  ‘Where’s Stuart?’ asked Kay McBride.

  ‘Mum, just get in the minibus.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Bel. ‘I’m going to kill Stuart when I get my hands on him.’

  ‘I feel like I’m in a bad dream,’ said Violet, puffing out her cheeks. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We get in the minibus,’ said Bel, tugging her friend’s arm. ‘Trust me, when the bride is as determined as Max, it’s best just to do what she says.’

  Quite a few of the guests decided to not to join the wedding party for the reception, mainly Stuart’s side, which came as no surprise. Most lined up in the queue for the minibus in shock; one or two old relations were convinced this was one of those bizarre weddings with a twist and the bridegroom was going to burst out of a cake. Max rode to the reception in her Cinderella coach alone when she should have been snuggled up in it with Stuart. She felt a prick of tears behind her eyes and stuck her glittery nails in her very brown arm to shock herself out of them.

  ‘What the fucking hell . . .’ said her dad when he saw the cake.

  ‘Graham,’ reprimanded her mum. In the twenty-six years they’d been married she had never heard him use that word before.

  The photographer was having such an orgasm taking in the spectacle that he nearly forgot the fact that there was no groom. There were flowers everywhere, huge pink displays of them suffusing the air with their beautiful scent. Violet could have cried for her friend. So much effort, so much waste.

  ‘Everyone, please enjoy the meal. Pretend you’re here for an ordinary lunch. We can’t let all this just get thrown away . . . it’s all paid for.’ Max announced. She knew that all the guests were from Yorkshire – they didn’t do waste.

  ‘Your bastard mate is dead when I get my hands on him for this,’ growled Bel at Luke.

  ‘Get in the queue, Bel,’ said Luke. He looked over at Max standing by her cake, the huge bouquet of pink flowers in her hand. She must have been on the near side of seven foot tall with her heels and hair but she looked like he had never seen her before: fragile and vulnerable with a stoop to her shoulders. He wanted to put his arm round her and pull her away from all this; run a bath for her, make her tea and toast, sit with her and let her talk until she fell asleep. Luke and Stuart were too close to fall out for ever, but at the moment he hated him for what he had done to Max. He hoped she never found out about Jenny Thompson.

  The staff were amazing. They quickly screwed up the place-name with ‘Stuart’ on it and moved everyone up a place so there was no empty seat next to Max.

  ‘At least you won’t have to do a speech, Dad,’ said Max, as the main course arrived. Her mum said that he had been flapping about it.

  ‘I’ll do a speech when I get hold of Stuart,’ seethed Graham, spearing some cauliflower cheese with a furious fork.

  ‘I hope you’re still going to that spa,’ said Bel to Max. ‘You’ll need it.’

  ‘No,’ said Max. ‘I don’t want to go there and sleep in a big bed by myself.’

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘I’m sending Mum and Dad in my place,’ said Max. ‘My dad’s going to have a coronary if he doesn’t get some lavender oil slapped on him after all this.’

  Coffee had just been served when Luke surprised them all by standing up and clapping his hands for silence, which quickly ensued.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘I think you’ll agree with me that this has been a rather strange day. We’re all in a bit of a daze but I’d like to take it upon myself – on behalf of Max and her family – to thank you for turning up today, for coming here to the reception to enjoy this wonderful food and for making this room not as empty and sad as maybe it could have been. As the best man, I should be talking about Stuart, but I’m obviously not going to do that. Instead I’m going to talk about Max.’

  He looked over at Max with such warmth in his grey eyes that she had to gulp down a fat gypsy ball of emotion.

  ‘I’ve known Max since we were sixteen because we went to sixth-form college together. And, really annoyingly, she hasn’t aged as much as some of us.’ There was a ripple of laughter as he gave his short white-grey hair a stroke from front to back. ‘In fact, inside she hasn’t aged at all. She’s still the fun and fabulous, big-hearted beautiful person she always was. And she always will be. I have no doubt about that. She could have curled up in a ball and run away today, but she didn’t. And that’s because she’s Maxine McBride. She doesn’t run, she doesn’t hide; she sticks out her chin and she rides whatever life throws at her. She survives and rises, and she will again. And that’s why I’d like you to raise your glasses and toast the very wonderful Max. And wish her your support and all your best wishes – and your love.’ He raised his glass and winked at her. ‘To our Max.’

  ‘To our Max,’ said everyone in unison, except for Graham, who was too choked up to say the words, and Kay, who was sobbing into a hankie.

  Then Auntie Sylvia broke into applause and the room was filled with clapping sounds, with warmth and affection. Max raised her glass and said in a very croaky voice, ‘Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, dear Luke.’

  Chapter 79

  Max was still in her wedding dress at nine o’clock that night. She had stripped off the petticoats and kicked off her boots, but everything else remained. Her hips and waist were aching and rubbed raw and would have benefited from a warm bath and being massaged with Sudocrem, but she didn’t want to take off her lovely dress. She looked in the mirror and a gypsy bride stared back at her – albeit one with skin the colour of a burned roast. Today she looked like the princess she had always wanted to be. But a princess with the haunted, sad eyes of Lady Diana when she found that she had a prince-shaped hole in her heart.

  The door buzzer went and she looked at the CCTV screen on the wall to find that it was Luke. She padded down the hallway and unlocked the door. He was probably the only person she would have let in.

  ‘Are you by yourself?’ he said. ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Yes. That’s the way I wanted it.’

  ‘Tough,’ said Luke, and he marched into the lounge, where he threw himself down on the sofa. Max sat down next to him.

  ‘How long has it been going on?’ she asked him softly.

  ‘What?’ he asked, with a stir of panic.

  ‘Stuart’s affair.’

  There was a long telling pause before Luke scrambled together an answer. ‘He’s not having an affair
.’

  ‘Luke, you always were a crap liar,’ Max smiled. ‘I saw them.’

  Luke opened his mouth to say ‘Saw who?’ but he didn’t want to lie to Max and he didn’t want to tell her the truth and so the words jammed in his throat.

  ‘There I was in my Cinderella coach driving to the church this morning, sure that Stuart would be waiting at the altar for me. And because the driver thought he’d give me my money’s worth and go down a few side streets so that I could have extra time to enjoy the ride and wave at the crowds, we passed the greasy spoon on Duke Street,’ said Max, coughing a croak out of her voice. ‘And there, framed in the window having breakfast together, were my fiancé and Jenny Thompson. As coincidences go, that was a belter.’

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ said Luke.

  ‘Let me guess your next question: did they see me? Oh yes. The big loved-up smiles on their faces closed up like clam shells. And then I knew, you see, that he most definitely wouldn’t be at the church. He told me that I might as well have cut off his willy for how I made him feel. It’s a good job I didn’t, isn’t it? Seeing as he needed it to stick it in the cleaner’s daughter.’

  ‘He wasn’t, Max,’ Luke jumped in.

  ‘Well, if he wasn’t then, he will be now,’ said Max with a brittle, bitter laugh. ‘I haven’t said anything to Bel or Violet. I will eventually, when I’ve got things straight in my head.’

  ‘Have you got any brandy?’ said Luke. ‘I think we both need one.’

  Max got up to pour out two glasses.

  ‘I wish I knew what to say to make it all better, Max,’ said Luke.

  ‘There is nothing,’ said Max. ‘Do you know, I considered turning up at his door and saying, “Look, forget the dress, forget the reception, let’s just tell everyone it’s off and run away to Gretna Green.” But in the end I wanted to wear my dress more than I wanted to do that. He said we’d grown apart and I didn’t believe him, until he gave me the space to think about it. Jenny is only one of the reasons why we didn’t get married today.’