My Life So Far

by Chloe Rayban

  10.00 p.m.

  We’ve had our supper and we’re now lazing in the hot tub. Mum stretches out and closes her eyes.

  ‘You do think I’m doing the right thing, babes, don’t you?’ she asks.

  ‘Marrying Oliver? But of course I do.’ (She could hardly change her mind at this late date.)

  ‘You don’t. I can tell you don’t by the way you said it.’

  ‘Mum, it’s you who’s marrying him, not me.’

  ‘I know, but . . . maybe I’ve rushed into it a bit fast.’

  ‘But you’re crazy about him! You said so.’

  ‘He can be quite difficult at times . . . and I think his hair is starting to recede, just a bit . . .’

  ‘What does it matter about his hair? At least it’s not grey.’

  ‘You don’t think he dyes it, do you?’ Mum’s eyes are wide open now.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Oh my God! What am I doing?’ Mum was staring at me with a scared look on her face.

  ‘Mum, you can’t have second thoughts now. The wedding’s tomorrow.’

  ‘What if I can’t stop myself?’

  ‘But it’s too late to back out –’

  ‘There are twelve whole hours before the ceremony.’

  ‘What about all the guests and the presents and –’

  ‘Oliver isn’t the only man in the world, you know.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  Mum bit her lip. ‘Well, Marlowe was very sweet to me . . .’

  ‘Marlowe?’

  ‘There’s no need to take that tone.’

  ‘Mum, Oliver is a thousand times better than Marlowe. I mean, he’s got a brain for a start.’

  ‘Oliver can be so condescending . . .’

  ‘He’s not too condescending to want to marry you.’

  ‘But is he right for me? Truly, what do you think, Holly? You’ve got to tell me. Straight.’

  (It was now or never. Mum was teetering on the brink. One word from me could push her over and the marriage tomorrow would not take place.)

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mum, you are so lucky. Every girl in the world worships Oliver, even Becky, and she’s really hard to please.’

  ‘That little friend of yours in England?’

  ‘Mmm. A date with Oliver Bream – it’s Becky’s ultimate wish. It’s right up there top of her Wish List – Number One. She wants it more than a Stradivarius. And she wants that really badly.’

  ‘Mmm?’ Mum was smiling now. ‘Why does she want the Strad so badly?’

  ‘I told you. She’s going in for this big international competition, but she can’t win unless she has a really good violin.’

  ‘And she wants a date with Oliver more than this fiddle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, that’s really cute. I guess he is pretty wonderful, isn’t he?’

  ‘And he’s a brilliant actor. I mean, let’s face it, Mum. Who else could someone as famous as you marry?’

  Mum leaned back and closed her eyes again.

  ‘You’re right. Of course you’re right. It was just last-minute nerves, I guess.’

  Saturday 12th July

  The actual day! Elwyn Jones’s residence

  During the night I’d slept restlessly. My windows were open and I was subconsciously aware of something going on secretly, like a guerrilla army on the move, in the garden. I woke at one point and went to the window to check. In the moonlight, crates of Kandhi roses were being delivered from a refrigerated van, a magical forest of gilt chairs was on the move up the pathway, and a ghostly mist of snow-white tablecloths was being spread between the trees.

  8.00 a.m.

  I’ve overslept! Only two and half hours to go. I stumble into Mum’s room to find the dress displayed on a dress stand, swathed in transparent gauzy stuff to keep off the dust. Beneath it a pair of Manolos stand at the ready, and above it – the veil. All it lacks is Mum.

  I find her in her bathroom, which is so crammed with people you can barely move (and it’s a pretty large bathroom). June and Daffyd are there working on Mum’s hair and make-up. There’s an aromatherapist on each foot and a manicurist on each hand. The rest of Mum’s body is having a panic last-minute re-oxygenation and tone-up in a hyperbaric suit. Her head is sticking out from it as if decapitated and presented on a plate.

  ‘Hollywood, babes, come and give me a kiss and wish me luck,’ she says. All her doubts of yesterday seem to have evaporated.

  I lean over and kiss her. ‘Good luck, Mum.’

  ‘Now, Hollywood, you have gone over that piece you’re reciting, haven’t you?’

  My heart does a minor somersault and thump at the mention of it. But curiously enough, I’m not totally panicking. I think it must be true what they say about phobias. Like people who are phobic about flying start by standing on chairs and jumping off and then move on to stepladders and tree houses until they can handle a thirty-minute round-the-city sightseeing flight. Well, now I’ve been on TV and survived I guess I’ve kind of got over the worst.

  ‘Mum, I know it by heart. And anyway, Victor’s put everyone’s text on autocue, so I’ve only got to read it.’

  But I go back to my room to practise all the same.

  8.30 a.m.

  Vix is in charge of texting the venue to all the different people involved. Because of the high level of secrecy required, this needs split-second timing. Each guest is being notified of the address leaving just enough time for them to make it.

  9.00 a.m.

  An army of caterers arrives in an unmarked coach. They are now seething around the tables like black ants.

  9.15 a.m.

  A refrigerated hearse arrives and the seafood is delivered in a coffin. (I’m not going to touch as much as a prawn. To my mind, this is taking secrecy that bit too far.)

  9.30 a.m.

  A car horn is sounding angrily. Elwyn has arrived to find he can’t get his car into his garage. The hot-air balloon which is going to fly overhead and release two million scarlet rose petals (a panic last-minute replacement for the doves and butterflies) is being inflated under camouflage wraps and blocking the way.

  I lean out of the window, trying to get a sight of him. I regret to tell all his past fans that all I see is a slightly tubby balding man in a perfectly ordinary white tuxedo. If this is the punk hero you all worshipped way back, you’re in for a big disappointment.

  9.45 a.m.

  A furniture removal van draws up and the musicians file out, carrying their instruments. They disappear from sight behind the bank of rhododendrons.

  9.50 a.m.

  Panic attack! Apparently Mr Blackman has spotted a loophole in the pre-nup and Mum has to sign an amendment before the wedding takes place. Only trouble is, he’s in court downtown and it has to be signed in his presence.

  I am instructed to stay put and Vix and Victor are sent out to cover for her. (Mum can’t admit to Oliver she’s doing him out of another billion dollars, should they split.)

  I catch a glimpse of her dressed in her wrap, running down the steps to a waiting car.

  10.00 a.m.

  Oliver and Shug arrive in a laundry van. Oliver tries to drop by and say ‘hi’ to Mum. I cover for her by telling them it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding (even if they’ve been like cohabiting on and off for yonks).

  10.30 a.m.

  The guests have begun to arrive. There’s a little trickle at first, and then more and more cars draw up. From my vantage point I can see Elwyn and Vix and Victor, plus Oliver and Shug out greeting them. They’re being shown to their places on the little gilt chairs. They don’t seem to suspect that one vital element of the wedding is currently absent.

  10.31 a.m.

  I zip myself into my pearly pink column and put on my satin shoes all the same.

  10.45 a.m.

  I reckon all the guests have arrived. Even Daffyd and June have taken up their places.
All the little gilt chairs seem to be filled. Still no Mum.

  Behind me I can hear the house phone ringing. I pounce on it. It’s probably Mum caught in the traffic.

  ‘Hello,’ says a voice. ‘Is that Elwyn Jones’s residence?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Well, thank God we got you! This is the patisserie. We’re still waiting to be notified for delivery of the cake.’

  (The cake! The high point of the ceremony. The cake which is going to play ‘Kandidly Yours’ when Mum and Oliver cut it!)

  ‘That is the Kandhi/Bream wedding location, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s here all right. You want the address?’

  ‘Don’t worry. We know where Mr Jones lives. We’re on our way.’

  I put the phone down. Good thing I answered it. How could Vix have forgotten the cake of all things? I knew she couldn’t be trusted . . .

  10.55 a.m.

  The preacher arrives. I can see him standing and talking to Oliver and Shug. Where is Mum?

  11.00 a.m.

  The piano starts up with a medley of Mum’s hits. A respectful silence has fallen over the guests. I can see Vix and Victor casting anxious glances down the driveway. There’s still no sign of Mum. The pianist gets to the end of the medley and there is a slight hesitation before he begins at the beginning again.

  11.06 a.m.

  A car skids into the drive and does a half-turn practically on two wheels. Mum leaps out before it’s even drawn to a halt and runs up the steps two at a time.

  ‘Oh my God, Holly! Help me!’ she pants. ‘If Oliver thinks I’ve stood him up again he’ll walk out. I know he will.’

  Somehow with shaking hands we get her into her dress. She shoves her feet into her shoes and I clamp the veil to her head.

  She turns for a moment and stares in the mirror and then turns back to me.

  ‘How do I look?’

  Mum is flushed from the panic, her make-up is running a bit, and the veil is a trifle lopsided. But I’ve never seen her looking more radiant.

  ‘You look stellar, Mum. In fact you look supernova!’

  ‘OK, let’s go.’

  11.21 a.m.

  I don’t think anyone has ever seen a bride go down an aisle at quite such a speed before. I had to run to keep up.

  She nearly toppled Elwyn when she grabbed him by the arm. Oliver turned and smiled and said, with his typical cool, ‘What kept you?’

  Shug turned too and raised his eyebrows and winked at me. He was wearing a tux and he’d had his hair cut. It wasn’t like a stegosaurus any more, it was more like a tyrannosaurus rex. They have smaller spikes.

  The preacher kept his intro short – I reckon he must be used to marrying stars and knows they don’t like being upstaged.

  After that Shug moved up to the podium and took the mike to make his speech. I have to say, dressed up like that in a tux, he suddenly looked kind of young and shy. He cleared his voice as he cast his eye over the congregation.

  ‘I have to admit,’ he started, ‘that when my dad first told me he was going to marry Kandhi, I thought I was in for the stepmother from hell.’

  A gasp like a little gust of wind went through the audience.

  ‘But since that day, through their little ups and downs . . .’

  The congregation laughed knowingly.

  ‘. . . I’ve grown to respect this incredible woman that Dad’s marrying. I know I’ll never call you Mum, Kandhi – but all the same, welcome to the Breams.’

  And with that he looked over to his dad with kind of tears in his eyes, which was SO-OO unlike Shug.

  I was so taken off my guard that I had completely forgotten that it was my turn to speak next. Mum was nudging me.

  I stepped into place on the podium and took the mike from Shug. The first line of the sonnet came up on the autocue:

  ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  Admit impediment . . .’ I started.

  ‘Love is not love

  Which alters as it alteration finds . . .’

  And then, suddenly, standing up there in front of everyone, I knew what Shakespeare was on about. I mean, Rupert had explained what the words meant and everything, but this was a different kind of knowing. Somehow, although he’d lived like aeons ago, Shakespeare told me why I’d dumped Rupert. He was right. ‘Love is not love which alters . . .’ I hadn’t really been in love with Rupert, though I’d fancied him like mad. No, love was something deeper and far more important:

  ‘Oh no it is an ever-fixèd mark

  that looks on tempests and is never shaken . . .’

  Love was more like what Mum and Oliver had. They’d lived through tempests and survived, hadn’t they? Suddenly I felt I had to belt out the words because at that precise moment the meaning was crystal clear to me.

  When I ended the sonnet there was total silence. I looked up, embarrassed. I mean, maybe I’d like totally overacted or something. And then the applause burst out. I caught Shug’s eye – he was clapping with a kind of slow smile on his face. Mum was drying her eyes.

  I watched in a haze as Mum and Oliver went through the ‘I do’ bit. And right on cue, as Oliver put the ring on Mum’s finger, the string orchestra rose majestically over the rhododendrons and the intro bars of ‘Only You’ flooded out.

  Mum took a deep breath and took Oliver’s hand, then she turned towards the congregation . . .

  ‘O-only . . . Y—’ she started.

  I guess this would have been the ultimate truly romantic moment, had it not been for a totally out-of-line helicopter practically grazing the heads of the people in the front row and drowning out Mum, deafening us with umpteen decibels.

  That first helicopter was followed by another, then another. And then I saw why. Each helicopter had zoom lenses protruding from every orifice and they were all trained on Mum.

  ‘How the hell did the press get wind of the venue?’ Oliver shouted at Mum. He was shaking his fist and taking totally useless swipes at the circling helicopters.

  ‘How should I know?’ screamed Mum above the din. Her veil was being caught in the updraught, practically taking her hair with it.

  ‘Don’t give me that!’ roared Oliver at Mum. ‘You must’ve tipped them off . . .’

  Mum was so speechless with anger she snatched off one of her Manolos and threatened Oliver with it.

  The preacher had got between them and was holding them apart, vainly trying to keep the ceremony going by shouting: ‘You may kiss the bride!’

  ‘Kiss the bride? You must be joking!’ Oliver hurled back at him.

  The arrival of the fifth helicopter unfortunately coincided with the launch of the hot-air balloon. It rose splendidly above the garage and then, caught in the downdraught of the chopper blades, it was thrown wildly off course. I watched helplessly as it spiked itself on the finial of the marquee . . .

  All of a sudden the air was filled with bits of slashed balloon. Mashed scarlet rose petals rained down on the guests, giving the unfortunate impression that a massacre was taking place.

  Later – still Elwyn Jones’s residence unfortunately

  I guess it could have been worse. I mean, Oliver could have stormed off and had the marriage annulled or something. It was only when I saw the cake standing there on the head table, and Vix confirmed that it had been there all along, that I realised who had tipped off the press.

  Me.

  Inadvertently, of course, as I tried to explain over the din of the helicopters and the full-on row between Mum and Oliver.

  But you couldn’t really blame me for the fist-fight that broke out between the security guards and the photographers who had cut their way through the perimeter fence.

  Or the clash between the television crew and the armed police who had parachuted in. There was only one guy hurt and his injuries were minor – he didn’t have to be hospitalised.

  But it was kind of sad the way it ended with the police using water cannons like that. Unnecessary, really, becau
se as soon as the shooting broke out (and it was only over the heads of people, not straight at them) Mum and Oliver drove off in the limo which had been standing by waiting to take them off on their honeymoon.

  And the press set off in hot pursuit.

  Even later (amid the carnage)

  The place is very quiet now. Elwyn and all the guests have gone off to some other place where they can party. I could’ve gone too but I’m feeling too bad about the way things turned out. I want to do something to make amends, so I’ve changed out of my dress and into my jeans and I’ve come to see if I can help clear up the mess.

  I walk between the soggy tables covered in chopped rose petals and disembodied bits of banquet which have been hosed around the place.

  The cake still stands on the top table, leaning over slightly. It took a full-on water cannon blast to its east side. It never did get cut, so no one ever got to hear it play ‘Kandidly Yours’ in that truly romantic way it should have done.

  A voice breaks the silence. ‘Holly?’

  I turn. It’s Shug. What’s he doing here? He’s the last person I want to see right now.

  ‘Why haven’t you gone with the others?’ I ask him.

  ‘I’ve got to be down at the recording studios in half an hour. Why haven’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t feel like it.’ I can feel myself about to cry. I know my nose is going red.

  ‘Look, none of this is your fault.’

  I’m taken off guard. He’s being nice. Shug is actually being nice to me!

  ‘Yes it is. I’m the one who gave the location away.’