Last of the Great Romantics

by Claudia Carroll

  'And that would be?'

  Joshua stumbled out of the bed and made his way to the breakfast trolley which Molly had delivered hours earlier, and poured himself some lukewarm coffee. Thinking on his feet, particularly when hung over, was where he excelled. 'It's going to be a diary format, hour by hour. Beginning with the blushing bride having her war paint put on in the salon, the bridesmaid fussing over her, the groom arriving at the Hall, all of that. Then a countdown to the ceremony, with all the guests arriving in their glad rags, the boring religious bit I'll keep to a minimum and then the reception which – it doesn't matter what anyone thinks – is the highlight of the day. Drunk chicks with their tits hanging out doing a conga line, that's what the readers want. That and the bride blubbering at the end of the night with her make-up dribbling all over her Vera Wang. Trust me, darling, it's all under control.'

  If Fifi thought she'd catch him on the hop, she'd another think coming.

  'Just as well I gave you this alarm call then, wasn't it?'

  'Thanks a thousand, darling. I do my best.'

  'One more thing. Under no circumstances are you to miss Mark Lloyd's arrival at twelve-thirty sharp. That hot-air balloon is costing the magazine a fortune and, by God, we fully intend to get our money's worth.'

  One long, pampering, invigorating shower later, Joshua sauntered up all four flights of stairs to the Salon in no rush whatsoever, with Liz, his very pissed-off photographer, in tow. 'Couple of head shots of the wedding party having mani-pedis with their hair being blow-dried straight and then we're out of here,' he directed the poor girl, who just silently rolled her eyes up to heaven. They were met at the door of the Spa by Julia, dressed up to the nines in a shimmering, figure-hugging, green lace dress, mermaid style, which perfectly accentuated her slim, curvy body. As ever, her hair and make-up were impeccable; she looked as though she'd won best-dressed lady at Ascot and had just stepped out of the parade ring, trophy in hand, without even breaking a sweat. The only accessory which looked slightly out of place was the headset discreetly clipped to the side of her head and the mouthpiece she was dictating into.

  'OK, we need the FOB to the bridal suite for a photo call, it's zero hour minus four hours and twenty-seven minutes, we need him right now. Give location, please.'

  'The FOB?' Jasper asked, completely audible.

  'Father of the bride.'

  'Relax; I have him in my sights. I've just seen him chatting to Lucasta beside the marquee.'

  Joshua did a double-take, marvelling that he could hear both sides of the conversation so clearly over the headset, then, hearing the clump clump of his heavy footsteps, realized that Jasper was in fact only on the floor beneath them, thudding his way downstairs to the main entrance.

  'Holy fuck, if it's not one thing, it's the mother,' snapped Julia. So fraught with nerves that you could string a guitar with her, she was in absolutely no mood for anyone who dared deviate from her watertight schedule on this day of days. She turned her full attention to Joshua, shoved a timetable into his hand and practically drop-kicked him back down the stairs again.

  'The Spa is out of bounds at present, no photos, no questions. Get outside and take exterior shots while the weather still holds and report back here in precisely twenty minutes.'

  Too used to her to bother arguing, Joshua merely shrugged and was ambling back downstairs shadowed by the photographer when Julia hollered at him like a sergeant major over the banister rail: 'Move it, faster, do it, now!' Then under her breath she added, 'I'll bet David and Victoria never had to deal with this crap at their wedding.'

  'I know you.'

  Lucasta was standing at the entrance to the marquee, fag in hand, squinting suspiciously at poor Robert Armstrong. All around them, the scene was one of tightly orchestrated chaos, with ice sculptures being ferried past, exquisite floral centrepieces being carted down the red carpet and a string quartet, all looking miserable and shivering in evening dress against the blustery March wind, beginning to set up.

  'Now don't tell me, it'll come to me; I have a wonderful memory for faces,' she went on, scrutinizing him. 'Did you used to sing with the Boomtown Rats?'

  Robert merely smiled and looked a bit embarrassed. He had just returned from a trade mission to China but looked very well-rested and behaved as he always did, impeccably.

  'No, no, I have it, I know where I've seen you before,' Lucasta was droning on. 'Are you that gobshite who was a hostage in Beirut for years?'

  'No, I'm afraid not.'

  'The man who ran the four-minute mile?'

  'Most definitely not.'

  'Did you train the winner of last year's Grand National?'

  'I wish.' He was teasing her now and really enjoying himself.

  She would have gone on interrogating him indefinitely, but they were interrupted by Jasper, while Joshua and his photographer ambled behind, snapping them from a respectful distance.

  'Morning, emm, Mr President,' Jasper said to Robert, totally unfazed that he was addressing the Head of State and working on the assumption that the President should be addressed the way he was on The West Wing. 'Sorry to interrupt, but Julia Belshaw will have a heart attack if you don't go up to your daughter's room for a photo call.'

  'Duty calls then,' replied Robert politely. Then, smiling at Lucasta, he said, 'Father of the bride and all that, you know.'

  She continued to look at him, baffled.

  'Oh dear me. I can't bear to see you misled any longer, Lucasta. I'm Robert Armstrong, at your service. We met at your launch party, remember? And we spoke on the phone? I organized the match tickets for you. I was so very sorry not to have been able to join you, but I've been on tour in China, you know. I hear it was a wonderful match.'

  'Oh, that's where I've seen you!' she said, thumping her forehead in exasperation. 'Of course, how silly of me not to recognize you. Armstrong. You're the first man who walked on the moon.'

  'Lucasta,' said Jasper, stepping in. 'He's the President of Ireland. You have seen his face before, on a thirty-two-cent stamp.'

  'Well, I wish someone had said,' she replied, doing her trick of lighting one cigarette off another. 'I suppose that explains all the security men traipsing all over the place. And there was me thinking you'd escaped from some kind of institution.'

  Joshua's Diary, Davenport Country House Hotel, eleven a.m., the Beauty Salon.

  How wonderful it is to see all the beautiful Oldcastle ladies being pampered here in the luxurious surroundings of the Davenport Spa! Although it's hard to imagine how any of these lovelies could possibly look any better than they already do. They kindly permitted Gotcha magazine to photograph them as they chatted excitedly about the day ahead.

  'You're nuffin' but a stupid slaphead, Falcon Donohue!' Shakira was screeching across the washbasin over to where Falcon was having her false tan painstakingly applied by Shelley-Marie. 'You know I was supposed to get my bleeding tan done before you, get a bloody move on, will ya?'

  'Ignore the old tart,' Falcon said at the top of her voice to Shelley-Marie, 'she's only jealous cos I'm gonna be mahogany and she'll look like petrified shit. Where you from anyway, you got a really funny accent.'

  'Oh, I come from Texas,' Shelley-Marie simpered.

  'The DIY place?'

  Joshua stood where he'd been ordered to by Julia and frantically scribbled away in his elegant leather-bound notebook, periodically muttering into a Dictaphone when something particularly inspirational struck him. The Salon was packed to the gills with guests, all women, naturally, in various states of undress, demanding blow-dries and manicures immediately, while poor Mrs Flanagan waddled around calmly telling them they'd just all have to wait their turn.

  'It isn't my fault if none of these good folks made appointments,' Shelley-Marie had moaned to Julia earlier. 'I've only got one pair of hands.'

  'We'll just get a couple of shots and then they'll all have to bugger off,' retorted Julia, well pissed off that here was something she hadn't made allowances for in h
er schedule. 'At precisely one p.m., we need the room cleared for the bride and bridesmaid. The rest of them can sever limbs themselves doing their own bikini waxes for all I care. Serves them right for not booking in advance.'

  Falcon Donohue, wife of Oldcastle's star striker Shane Donohue, laughs animatedly with her old friend Shakira Walker as she has her magnificent hair washed in preparation for the big day.

  'Careful with that slag's hair extensions then,' Shakira called over to Mrs Flanagan as she lathered Falcon's head in conditioner. 'Four Ukrainian bitches are bald now cos of her and they're very loose, ya know. One of them fell off and landed right in my champagne flute last night. I thought it was a king rat's tail, so I did.'

  Our wonderful hostess, Lucasta, Lady Davenport, arrives in the Salon to make sure everyone's happy and to check that there are no last-minute hitches.

  'So the bride's father is actually the President of Ireland, then,' Lucasta twittered, oblivious to the stares she was attracting. Surrounded by a bevy of pampered, preening princesses, she stood out like a bag lady backstage at a Paris couture show. Even the photographer, who was happily snapping anything with a pulse, took one look at her ladyship's mucky Wellingtons and stinking oilskin jacket and decided to stick with the considerably more photogenic Oldcastle women. 'I just wish someone had told me. Why, oh why am I always the last to know anything?'

  Mrs Flanagan rolled her eyes to heaven. Catching Joshua's eye she calmly said, 'Ah Jaysus, it's been headline news for weeks now. It's not like it's a state secret or anything.'

  'Well, you might have said. I was on the verge of having Jasper escort him off the premises. Only this morning, I was saying the sooner people like that are recaptured, the better.'

  * * *

  Daisy, too, was up and about bright and early. As Eleanor was so late arriving back to the Hall the previous night, she and Simon had decided they had no choice but to postpone the inevitable till the following morning. Daisy had just pulled on her crisp black uniform and was clipping on her 'acting manager' nametag when her bedroom phone rang.

  'Wee girl? How you doing?' The Scottish accent.

  'Hi, Simon. I'm about to become the reason why the wedding of the year gets called off and, for added entertainment, I'm about to smash Eleanor's heart into smithereens. I've been better.'

  'She's in her room. Come on, let's go up there now and just get this over with, shall we?'

  'Do you know, I honestly think I'd rather have a javelin up my arse and out my mouth right this minute than go through with this.'

  He laughed in spite of himself. 'I'm not exactly relishing the thought meself. Come on, let's get it over with.'

  She put the phone down and was on her way out of the door when it rang again. 'Simon, I told you, I'm on my way.'

  'No, it's me, Jasper.'

  'Are you OK?'

  'Running around like a lunatic down here trying to keep things under control. I just wanted to say one thing to you.'

  'What's that?'

  'I know you haven't an easy day ahead of you, with everything that's happened.'

  Funny, Daisy thought. Jasper was one of those people who instinctively knew what was going on without it having to be spelt out for him. She silently blessed him for it as he went on.

  'But I just wanted to let you know, I might have a bit of a surprise for you later.'

  The excitement here is at fever pitch as the groom and his best man, French midfielder Alessandro Dumas, arrive at Davenport Hall in a hot-air balloon. As they wave excitedly to the crowd below, we see that Mark is clearly relishing this, the biggest day of his life, with not a trace of nerves to be seen.

  'Bugger me, Alessandro, I think I'm going to puke. No one told me these hot-air balloons went up so bleeding high. I don't like heights, they gimme a headache.'

  Alessandro, whose grasp of English was less than perfect, peered over the edge of the basket and said, 'Maw, where are all of the . . . how do you say . . . bunches of the fans? I had . . . j'ai cru . . . expected the fans to be here to say bienvenu . . . et là bas – no one . . . just the house . . . umm . . . workers . . .'

  Unfortunately, he was right. With just under two and a half hours to go to kick-off, naturally all of the wedding guests were far too busy pampering themselves to have any interest in being drafted outside for a freezing photo call. The staff too were so completely run off their feet that only Tim, Molly and some of the extra catering staff were frogmarched by Joshua and poor Liz over to the rose garden for the photo call.

  Hordes of friends and well-wishers gather by the delightful surroundings of the rose garden, thrilled to see their hero, footballing legend Mark Lloyd, arriving in style.

  'Is this charade going to go on for very much longer?' asked Tim, wearing only his chef's suit and freezing against the wild March wind. 'In case you hadn't noticed, I have two hundred people to cater for and time is of the essence.'

  'And the bedrooms aren't going to clean themselves,' Molly said in agreement, with her teeth practically chattering.

  'Oh, ten more seconds, just till we get a couple more shots,' replied Joshua coolly. 'And could you all cluster in together a bit more? Thank you so much, it just helps us to fill out the photos a little, you know.'

  By now, the balloon was only about twenty feet from the ground as the pilot expertly guided it downwards as smoothly as he could, given the less than favourable weather conditions.

  'Oh hell, get me out of this thing, I think I've got altitude sickness,' said a very green-faced Mark Lloyd. 'And I'm freezing me bleeding arse off.'

  'Jeune fille jolie at, ehh . . . two o'clock . . . Heeello!' Alessandro only spoke pigeon English, but when it came to describing an attractive woman, his vocabulary was surprisingly adequate. As it happened, it was Daisy he had spotted, sprinting out of the French doors and racing for the rose garden as though her life depended on it.

  If she had thought Mark would betray even a trace of embarrassment at seeing her again, she was mistaken.

  When the basket hit the ground seconds later, he was out of it in one swift, athletic leap, his nausea completely forgotten as he made a beeline for the camera, waving jubilantly like he'd just scored a winning goal.

  'Mark, Mark! Over here, Mark!' Joshua and Liz were both frantically trying to grab his attention, panicking that they wouldn't get enough shots of the groom greeting his adoring fans. His adoring fans, on the other hand, had other ideas. No sooner had the photographer finished with them, than they all scarpered for the warmth of the Hall, delighted to be out of the icy winds, leaving Joshua with no choice but to improvise wildly.

  Such was the throng waiting to greet Mark, that police barriers had to be used to prevent them from crushing the groom just hours before the 'I dos'. One intrepid fan, however, managed to break through security to wish Mark the very best of luck on the occasion of his wedding.

  'Well, how are you then, love?' he asked. Mark playfully patted Daisy on the bottom, clearly thinking his celebrity status endowed him with a sort of droit de seigneur. 'Good night the other night, bit of fun, yeah?'

  Daisy flashed him one of her iciest blue glares. 'Eleanor would like to see you in her room immediately. And if you ever touch me like that again, my cousin will plaster your brains against a brick wall. Do you understand?'

  'I think maybe you're the one who doesn't understand, love.' Mark's tone had switched on a sixpence, from flirtatious to threatening. 'I hope, for your sake, you haven't said anything to Ellie 'bout the other night, have you? Cos that would be really, really stupid of you. For a start, who's gonna believe you anyway?'

  Daisy looked at him, stunned into silence.

  Then Alessandro sidled up. 'You so preeetty. You are remembering me, yes?'

  She ignored him.

  'I was just telling Daisy here that she'd want to be very careful about who she goes telling tales to, isn't that right, Alessandro?'

  Like a faithful lapdog, Alessandro nodded in agreement.

  'Cos ten-a-pen
ny dirt birds are always running to the papers making all sorts of allegations about me, aren't they, Alessandro? All the bleeding same, just a bunch of attention-seekers, all looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. Like the other night, for instance. When you practically flung yourself at me. Coming on to me like a bleeding freight train, you were. I mean, only for you turfing her out of my room in time, Alessandro, God knows what would have happened.'

  For a second, Daisy really thought she'd smack him across the jaw. Ordinarily, she would have screamed, ranted, roared and yelled enough obscenities at him to colour the air blue, but right now there were bigger issues at stake. And after all, she reminded herself, revenge was a dish best eaten cold. Mark Lloyd would get what was coming to him. No two ways about it. She drew herself up to her full height and summoned up every last ounce of her dignity.

  'If you could get a move on, please? Eleanor asked me to tell you it's urgent.'

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  With just moments to go before the ceremony, the excitement is palpable as guests gather in the Ballroom here at Davenport Hall, where the happy couple will exchange their vows at three o'clock today. Never in the Hall's two-hundred-year-old history can it have seen an event as glamorous as this, as the Oldcastle wives and girlfriends vie with each other to compete in the fashion stakes. As guests begin to assemble and take their places, the gasps of admiration for the Ballroom, transformed for this truly wonderful occasion, are audible.

  'Miles better than that shithole in Sheffield we got married in any day, innit, darling?' said Shane Donohue enviously. 'Can't beat a bit of class, can you?'

  'Yeah, it's all right I suppose,' moaned Falcon as they inched their way through the other guests and took their allocated seats, no mean feat in her six-inch wedge heels. 'Don't get me wrong, love, I do love old things; I mean our mansion house dates all the way back to the seventies, don't it?'