‘Although they kept on asking if any of our dresses came in colour or if we had any saris,’ corrects Lee.
‘Yeah,’ says Patsy. ‘Who’d have thought that? But we do have a new bestseller dress,’ she adds excitedly, before standing up to demonstrate. ‘It has Velcro all around the bottom, so you can have a long dress and then rip—’ She pulls at an imaginary skirt in a manner reminiscent of Bucks Fizz at the Eurovison Song Contest back in the eighties. ‘And there you have a dress ready for dancing. The modern bride wants to be comfortable, doesn’t she?’
‘She does,’ agrees Bernard.
‘I mean, you see this?’ says Patsy, holding up her right hand and waving her little finger at both Bernard and me. ‘I call it my crooked little finger. And you won’t believe how I got this.’
‘Try me,’ says Bernard.
‘If I had a penny for every bride who during a dress fitting says something like, “Jesus, my G-string is really irritating me,” I tell you. So I get down there and I hoik it out of the crack with my finger like this.’ She shows us the hooked little finger again. ‘And I say, “Don’t fart while I am down there, love!” I tell you,’ she laughs. ‘The relief on their faces! But look at my finger.’
I glance across at Bernard and for the first time in my life I see that he is genuinely lost for words. He is staring at the crooked finger, trying to work out what to say.
‘Your customer service is unsurpassed,’ he says eventually. ‘No wonder you have one of the most popular shops in the North.’
‘Well, I’m glad you think so,’ smiles Patsy, bristling with pride on the sofa. ‘We like to think that we care.’
‘Well, thank you very much for coming all this way to see us,’ says Bernard, getting up out of his seat.
‘Is that it?’ asks Lee.
‘This was just a getting-to-know-you chat,’ replies Bernard. ‘So that when asked, we can recommend each other.’
‘Oh, excellent,’ says Lee. ‘We will be sure to send some of our brides your way if they need a planner.’
‘Great,’ I smile.
‘Not that we get much call for it,’ adds Patsy. She leans over and snaps at the bunch of grapes left over from the WAG meeting yesterday. ‘But you know,’ she adds, chewing and spitting out the pips and bits and leaving them in a small saliva-covered pile on Bernard’s mahogany desk. He twitches as he watches her. ‘If we can, we’ll send a few people your way. You scratch our back—’
‘And we’ll pull out your G-string!’ hoots Lee.
How Bernard laughs as he ushers the pair out of the door! As soon as they’ve gone he rushes back to his desk, lets off a small shriek and removes the pips with a napkin.
‘If I suggest another meeting like that again, just shoot me and put me out of my misery!’ he says, before hurling the napkin and its half-eaten pip ’n’ skin contents straight into the bin.
But before Bernard has too long to dwell on his encounter with Lee and Patsy, the second appointment arrives. She knocks on the office door and walks in, lugging a black portfolio. In her early thirties with a crown of blonde curls, Chrissie is rake thin, with alabaster skin, and smells of baking. Her eyes are sky blue and fringed with fluffy ginger eyelashes.
‘I’m here to see Bernard,’ she mumbles to Camilla in a soft, sugary voice.
‘Come straight on through,’ says Bernard, opening his double doors again. ‘Tea? Coffee?’
‘I’d love a cup of lapsang, if you have any,’ she says.
The relief on Bernard’s face is palpable. A woman who likes lapsang souchong tea is most definitely someone he can do business with, even if she does make cakes. Bernard has a hatred of wedding cakes, as indeed do I. They are the biggest rip-off in the industry and serve no real purpose other than being something to cut at a particular moment. I think Posh and Becks had the right idea. Their woodland-scene cake with models of the two of them as a naked Adam and Eve on the top was mainly made of polystyrene. In fact, there was only one place where the cake could be cut (between the green apples), using the ceremonial sword inscribed with the message from Brooklyn. It didn’t matter that most of it was inedible, as most wedding cakes are inedible. They are made far too far in advance to be nice to eat. In the old days, when wedding cakes were fruit cakes and the top layer was traditionally kept for the christening of the first child, and pieces were sent in the post to absent relatives to sample or spinster aunts to put under their pillows in the hope that one day their handsome prince would come, it didn’t matter that the cake was ten days or a couple of weeks old. In fact, it improved with age. But these days the only person who wants a fruit cake is Granny; the fashion is for a chocolate cake or lemon sponge, or even a pile of macaroons. The cake has turned into a pudding. If you talk to Nigel he’ll say if you want to eat the cake, let the caterers make it; if you just want to cut the cake, then let a professional cake-maker do the job. Chefs as a rule don’t like serving things they haven’t made, so to prevent any argument it is better to let the caterers make the cake – and a whole lot cheaper.
If the caterer makes the wedding cake, the mark-up is around 15 per cent. If you get a cake-maker to do it, there is no telling what they’ll charge. Bernard and I have regularly taken delivery of £2,000–£3,000 cakes. The most expensive and spectacular one we have ever seen was a £20,000 cake for a reception of 1,200 people. I think that took a couple of talented pastry chefs a week to put together. But with your average £2,000 cake, if you think that labour and costs for making and icing it come to about £175, that is some mark-up. We had a £1,000 cake the other day, where the couple were charged an extra £180 for the real roses they put on the top. And half the companies don’t even make the actual sponge. They take delivery of it, and then simply ice the cake in-house. They like a nice hard cake to cover in soft rolled icing, hence them leaving it to stand for a couple of days.
‘So,’ says Bernard as he and Chrissie flick through her portfolio of iced cakes. ‘Which other cake companies do you admire?’
‘The Little Venice Cake Company,’ she says.
‘Expensive but good,’ nods Bernard.
‘Peggy Porschen.’
‘Stella McCartney’s wedding-cake-maker,’ I say.
‘And I quite like Choccywoccydoodah,’ she laughs. ‘Mainly for indulgence.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ declares Bernard, his mouth watering slightly as he flicks through Chrissie’s book.
She has cakes covered in rose petals, cakes designed to look like presents, cakes decorated with tiny lily-of-the-valley flowers. They come in all colours, including red and orange, and all sizes, from the cupcake to a seven-tiered one right at the back. While Bernard leafs through, Chrissie explains that she used to be the pastry chef at one of the top London hotels, but eventually got obsessed with afternoon-tea cakes. She made a couple of wedding cakes for her friends and has since moved to Norfolk to start up on her own.
‘You have to have a very cold, steady hand,’ she says. ‘Hot hands are the death of the pastry chef. Thank God I have always suffered from poor circulation.’
‘Can you do the pyramid of profiteroles?’ asks Bernard.
‘Easily,’ she replies. ‘But I think if you are going to use me, it should be just as a cake-maker, otherwise the chef might get a little pissed off.’
Chrissie leaves amid much handshaking and exchanging of cards. She has put a pile of well-presented booklets detailing her work on Bernard’s desk and says that she will be in touch.
‘Now you see,’ smiles Bernard, awfully pleased with himself, ‘that went well. That’s the reason why we meet new people and spread our wings. She was nice – and talented.’
‘And not too expensive,’ I add.
‘I know! That seven-layered job was only a couple of grand,’ agrees Bernard. ‘I think we will definitely use her.’
Much as I would like to stand around and talk about cakes, we are interrupted by Camilla telling me my next meeting has just buzzed up. I grab my coat and head down
the stairs to suggest we have a nice cold drink out in the sunshine. Charlotte and Angus are delighted by my idea, and five minutes later I am sitting in the garden of a nearby gastropub with an ashtray of olives and a large glass of white wine.
‘So how did you propose?’ I ask Angus, a rather square-shouldered bloke in an England rugby shirt.
‘Well, mate,’ he grins. ‘You’ll enjoy this. I walked in with the ring on the end of my cock!’
‘You must have a very thin penis,’ I suggest.
‘No – it was a fucking big ring!’ He roars with laughter as he pours himself another glass of wine.
I watch Charlotte giggle away next to him, but I am willing to bet this was not quite the proposal she was after.
‘Fucking big,’ repeats Angus, laughing at his own hilarity one more time. ‘You should have seen the look on her face. She was so shocked.’
‘I was,’ smiles Charlotte, flicking her long brown hair. When she smiles she tries so hard her nose and chin almost meet in the middle.
‘But she said yes. I couldn’t bloody believe it.’ Angus pauses for a large swig of wine and a deep breath. ‘I tell you, what I am really looking forward to is the stag week.’
‘Week?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, you’ve got to have a week these days,’ he declares. ‘Everyone’s doing weeks in Cuba, five days in Las Vegas – Wayne Rooney went to Ibiza for a week in a villa with his mates.’
Angus is right that the days of a night on the town, with dinner, and a crotch in your face in Stringfellows, are over. These days you have to take out an extra mortgage and resign from your job to prove total stag commitment. Everyone also wants to go abroad. Post-communist cities like Budapest, Bucharest, Prague, Vilnius and Tallinn are some of the most popular venues, where the beer is as cheap and plentiful as the girls. I’m convinced it is because couples are getting married that bit older so they have more money, and the blokes have a greater desire to pretend they are footloose and fancy free instead of married, living with their girlfriend, or looking after young children. I suppose if you’ve been married for a while, a five-day shag fest somewhere cold with terrible food and even worse service might be tempting.
‘Do you organize stags?’ he asks.
‘No, but we can recommend some companies,’ I suggest. These companies will in turn be very nice to us, of course.
‘I tell you,’ continues Angus, ‘my mate had the best stag. They were in Prague, right? And he got arrested on the street by these policemen, yeah? And he wasn’t wearing his coat, he was wearing the best man’s coat, which had two grams of Charlie in the pocket. He tried to tell the police that they weren’t his drugs, but they said they’d take him down the police station anyway. So there he was, in the back of the van, and they said, “Let’s not take him to the police station, let’s take him to the woods.” So my mate’s in the back of the van, crying and saying his prayers. The police got their guns out as they arrived in the middle of nowhere and the groom was like pissing himself. And as they pulled him out of the van all the other stags were there and they shouted, “Surprise!” It was a stag arrest!’
‘A what?’
‘A stag arrest,’ he says, taking another swig. ‘Bloody funny, if you ask me.’
‘Yes,’ I say, looking across at Charlotte, who is quietly sipping her drink. Her face is devoid of expression.
‘Oh, and my other mate, he went to Las Vegas. Now that sounds brilliant. They had this night when they had two hookers straddle two chairs while the groom shagged them with a dildo on his head!’ Angus’s whole body rocks with laughter. ‘It’s the Bill Clinton excuse, isn’t it? I mean, he technically didn’t have sex, now did he?’ He grabs my knee and squeezes it. ‘Don’t you agree?’
‘It certainly brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “dickhead”,’ I say, taking a large gulp of wine.
There are some engagements that are destined never to make it to the altar, and this is one of them.
‘Anyone for an olive?’ I smile, offering round the ashtray.
Wednesday a.m.
I CRAWL INTO the office with one of those cracking white-wine hangovers that can only be solved by a bacon sandwich and a vat of coffee. Angus and Charlotte would not let me go last night. The more I edged towards the door, the more bottles of white wine Angus insisted on ordering. It was about nine thirty before I managed to extricate myself from the pub garden, and considering that I had been there since about five thirty, it was quite some going. We drank at least a bottle of wine each and by the end none of us were making sense. Not that Charlotte spoke very much anyway, and I barely got a word in either. She and I were essentially an audience for Angus’s stories. A sounding board with a human face. He would honestly have been happy with anyone. It just so happens that last night the two of us drew the short straw.
It was like listening to a monologue at the local rugby club dinner. I have never heard more stories involving alcohol, sex and vomit since Ashley Cole’s night out on the tiles. Everyone he mentioned seemed to end up either naked on the floor of some public urinal, naked in the street, or naked in a skip in the street. Although I know in my heart of hearts that they will never make it to the altar, I just wish he’d put both Charlotte and me out of our misery by saying so. She needs to find a man who doesn’t want to sink pint after pint while being lap-danced by three eastern European girls in a nightclub. And I need to be able to cross them off our client list, as the idea of organizing a wedding for him and his closest pals fills me with total dread. I am not sure if the hotel, the marquee or indeed I would survive.
I sit and chew on my bacon sandwich with the window wide open, as there’s nothing that annoys Bernard more than the sweet smell of fried food in the office. He says it creates a bad impression. I think it’s really because it makes his stomach growl with hunger. Thankfully, he is a little late this morning, as he’s gone to collect Alice and Richard’s wedding cake from a bespoke cake-maker in North London. I hope he has cleaned out his car as the back seat is always awash with ginger-and-white dog hairs courtesy of his King Charles spaniel, Sophie. In the early years Sophie was allowed in the office; she’d sit underneath Bernard’s desk and he’d hand-feed her dog chocs all day long. Sadly, in her dotage, Sophie’s flatulence has become so frequent and so unpleasant that she’s been banished to the car. It was putting the clients off and Bernard really had to do something. Woe betide anyone who accepts a lift from Bernard at the end of the day, after Sophie’s been relaxing in the car for a full fruity eight hours. Sometimes the smell really does make your eyes water.
The office is quiet for the moment. Jez has been sent south of the river to pick up some Chinese lanterns for Saturday. They are quite the thing at the moment. You write people’s names on them and light them and watch them float up into the sky. They are very romantic and unusually cheap, so they’re increasingly popular at our weddings. I usually suggest them when there’s a lull in the conversation. It’s a bit of a game I play with myself, to see how long the bride thinks about it before saying what a great idea. I think the longest is about five seconds. It always gets them going. Tea lights, fairy lights, Chinese lanterns – brides are like magpies, anything that is shiny or twinkly goes down a treat.
So Camilla and I are holding the fort. Well, more precisely, I am. Camilla is surfing net-a-porter.com while talking to a girlfriend, who I presume is doing the same thing, as they are discussing which outfits to buy for the party of some bloke called ‘Weed’. What his claim to fame and subsequent hilarious moniker is all about is anyone’s guess.
My phone goes. ‘Hello, Penrose,’ I say, taking a final sip of my coffee.
‘You weren’t in the office yesterday,’ says the by now extremely familiar voice of Caroline.
‘I was at a dress-fitting.’
‘Not for you, I hope!’ She laughs uproariously.
‘No.’
‘A bride?’
‘A bride.’
‘Did she look pretty?’
> ‘Very.’
There’s a pause. ‘Good for her,’ replies Caroline. ‘Anyway, I am coming your way later today. I thought I might pop in and discuss the party.’
‘What party?’
‘My birthday party, of course. I shall be thirty-three. That’s definitely worth celebrating.’
And before I can suggest that it might not be convenient for me, she’s hung up. Goddamn it – what am I going to do about this woman?
‘I’ve got Alice on line one,’ says Camilla.
‘Put her through,’ I say. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ she replies briskly.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s the placements,’ she says. ‘They arrived last night at the house and they’re terrible. The writing is horrible, the yellow card won’t go with the flowers and the tablecloths will clash.’
‘Oh, I am sorry, I—’
‘Yes, well, sorry is not really good enough,’ she interrupts. ‘I have spoken to Bernard already and he has asked one of your top calligraphers to come in and I want you to supervise. I want the whole lot redone ASAP.’
She goes on to explain in exact detail how they should be done and where she wants everyone to sit. Such are the tensions, hatreds and feuds within her and the groom’s extended families, she and Richard are going to be more like some UN buffer zone than the happy couple. Honestly, the closer this wedding gets, the more anxious I am becoming. I can sense there’s going to be trouble. Richard is a northern boy made good and Alice is a southern middle-class girl whose parents paid through the nose for her education. There is certainly going to be a culture clash. I just had no idea that there were inter-family problems as well.
I have seen some tensions in my time, but there is nothing that divides a wedding like class. Weirdly, the really very posh don’t seem to mind or notice at all. If the bride’s father turns up in a brown suit, or her mother is sporting a pair of white plastic shoes, they don’t really care. Everything is simply ‘marvellous’, ‘jolly’ or ‘rharely good fun’. It is the middle-class parents who find a working-class element to a party difficult to handle. I remember one wedding we did where a posh girl was marrying a not-so-posh boy, and the father had worked himself up into such a fury that he had a heart attack as his daughter came down the aisle. The ambulance was called and the father was taken away. There was a terrible moment as they turned off the siren as they left the churchyard. The man had died – there was no longer any point in hurrying.
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