Revenge of the Wedding Planner

by Sharon Owens

  But anyway, Bill knew how to look after himself on the streets of Belfast after dark and I suppose that’s how we managed to have such a great social life when we first got together. We were married just a year after that eventful night and we’ve been together ever since. We have four children (aged eighteen, nineteen, twenty and twenty-one) and a mortgage nearly cleared. We’re law-abiding taxpayers, never been on the dole. It’s all very suburban.

  Bill’s father is English, hence the curious surname. Grimsdale. It’s always reminded me of cobbled streets and clay chimney pots. And Norman Wisdom calling out to Mr Grimsdale in those old black-and-white comedies. Do you remember them? When Norman was a milkman? Sometimes I do that when I’ve spilt a cup of tea over the bed or something. I’ll yell, ‘Mr Grimsdale! Mr Grimsdale!’ in my best Norman Wisdom accent and Bill will come running with a tea towel.

  We’ve only ever had one major disagreement and that was over my boss Julie’s recent fling with a barman from County Galway.

  Now, Julie Sultana is a terrific girl and for the fourteen years that we’ve worked together in Dream Weddings she has always been the living embodiment of style, poise and confidence. I’d be tying my long black hair up with a scrunchie and complaining about the summer heat and she’d be spritzing herself with designer water and wearing sunglasses by Chanel. But when she went off the rails last summer, she really pulled out all the stops. I mean, she did some things I would never have thought of in my wildest dreams. And I’ve got quite an imagination if I do say so myself. Yes, Julie opened my eyes on several subjects, I can tell you. And that was all the more surprising because I never had her down as the rebellious type. Who’d have thought the sort of person who drives an immaculate white Mercedes convertible with scented tissues in the glove compartment would ever have got up to the sort of shenanigans that Julie did last summer?

  3. The Café Vaudeville

  So, I knew Julie had something big to tell me when she suddenly snapped her laptop shut one day last July and said brightly, ‘Mags Grimsdale, put down that tiara and get yourself ready, will you? I’m taking you out for coffee – to the Café Vaudeville, no less.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Even though we’re snowed under with Janine Smith’s wedding? I mean, these whacking great corsages will take hours to finish.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’ll work late to get them made up. Come on.’

  I should mention at this point that Julie’s wedding-planner business is run from a decommissioned lighthouse on the outskirts of Belfast. Julie owns the entire building but we’ve decorated only the top three floors and we use them as a storeroom, an office and a kitchenette, respectively. Interesting story, how Julie came to be the owner of such an unusual building – we’ll get to that in good time. You might think it was a bit crazy to run the business from a lighthouse when it had nothing whatsoever to do with the sea but, honestly, the free publicity was tremendous. The novelty value was priceless, it really was. The women of Belfast were queuing up to huff and puff their way round the endless spiral of stone steps before finally collapsing into our tiny, circular office with spectacular sea views. And they were usually so blown away by the whole experience, they didn’t think to query the bill, which was an added bonus. That’s Julie for you, the consummate businesswoman. And that was before we really went meteoric with these fantasy weddings that are suddenly all the rage.

  We’re a good team, Julie and me. We’re very good wedding planners (if I do say so myself).

  But anyway.

  So, yes, I leapt from my seat like a Jack-in-the-box. You see, I just adore the Café Vaudeville. All ruby-red walls stencilled with fanciful gold loops and swirls, Moroccan lampshades in yellow and blue ceramic studded with glittery jewels, massive red-glass chandeliers and all sorts of lovely dark corners and shadowy nooks to sit in. There’s a wicker sofa with curtains draped over it like a little tent. So Bohemian, you simply can’t imagine. Who’d have thought our creaking old city would ever in a million years have something so beautiful just tucked away on Arthur Street like it was nothing special? It’s a bar and restaurant by day and apparently it’s the place to be seen posing in after dark. But Bill and I rarely went out at night then, what with the kids needing their supper, and lifts here and there, and various school uniforms and outfits to be pressed and so on. But I always did love going out for coffee and Julie knew I was hopelessly enchanted with the red chandeliers.

  So, even though it wasn’t her favourite place to eat (she enjoys the New York modernity of Deane’s Deli with its trendy dark grey walls and giant bowls of fresh olives on the counter) she’d still chosen to take me there and that’s how I knew there was something on her mind.

  ‘Oh, what a lovely-dovely treat,’ I murmured as I switched on the answerphone and closed the windows in the lighthouse. Obviously, burglars couldn’t have got in at that terrific height but sometimes the seagulls are brazen in their attempts to nick what’s left of our sandwiches. Quite frightening, seagulls are, when they’re standing on your keyboard.

  So, as I said, I knew she had some special news to impart to me but you can’t ask with Julie. No, you can’t go jumping the gun and demanding to know what’s going on or trying to guess what it is or making silly jokes or anything. You just have to bite your tongue and wait and Julie will tell you in her own good time. So I fetched my glad rags. A floor-length black wool cardigan with giant jet buttons on it and my old-fashioned black velvet handbag.

  I’m an ex-Goth. Did I mention that? Well, I say ex. I’m more of a forty-year-old institutionalized ‘post-Goth’ who’s allergic to anything floral or flouncy, and I don’t know what else to wear now I’ve turned forty. Blimey, it sounds so strange to even think. I’m forty years of age. I mean, I’m still eighteen in my mind. I gave up the studded belts and the black nail polish when I had my first child, naturally. I’m not an attention-seeker. But I didn’t go mad and buy myself a billowy pink frock with enormous white collars on it either. Like those dresses Princess Diana wore when she was expecting William and Harry. I mean, you can’t suddenly swap comfortable biker boots for those fiddly little sandals that let in the rain and give you chilblains and bunions. And the fashion scene is so expensive. A completely new wardrobe twice a year? On my budget? Don’t make me laugh!

  Yes, so that was the day Julie and I went to the Café Vaudeville together for the last time before it all kicked off. Julie drove us into town in her white convertible, chatting all the way about inconsequential things, giving nothing away about the bombshell she was about to drop on me from a great height. (I’ve never learned to drive, I’m useless with gadgets in general.) In fairness to Julie, she hadn’t a clue that day just how it would all end for her, either. Sometimes it’s the decision you make on the spur of the moment that determines the rest of your life. Oh, well.

  We found a parking space near the Art Deco BBC building on Bedford Street, popped some coins in the meter, a short walk and suddenly we were in through the main doors. Bit of a queue at the entrance but Julie knew the head waitress and we got sneakily siphoned off the line and ushered through to a side room, all the while pretending to be there on business. I waved a couple of A4 envelopes in the air as if we were delivering a business quote of some kind. Works every time. Naughty us!

  We ended up seated on a low leather banquette in the coffee bar (good) next to a gaggle of chain-smoking women in skin-tight double-denim (not so good). Is there anything worse on the larger figure? And they were smoking like trains, filling the air around Julie and me with a thick blue cloud of acrid smoke. But even that couldn’t take the edge off my buzz. I just love opulent interiors, they make my heart beat faster. In my next life, I swear I’m going to come back as a mirror in the Palace of Versailles.

  ‘Café mocha and a chocolate square for you, Mags?’ Julie asked and I nodded happily. Women are supposed to have curves, aren’t they? So why on earth do so many girls like Emma have eating disorders these days? Emma was my eldest son’s girlfriend at the time.
What a drama that was!

  I’m tall for a woman, five foot eleven inches, and let’s just describe my figure as voluptuous. Hourglass figure with ‘strong’ ankles, that’s me. I’m a lifelong devotee of the wide-leg trouser. I mean, why bother with healthy eating when there’s usually nothing in the grocery cupboard but a stale loaf of wholegrain bread, a small can of tuna in brine and a messy bottle of out-of-date salad cream? That huge choccy square in the Café Vaudeville must have weighed two pounds, but, really, I’m not in bad shape considering I’m a mother of four. I had mine young, you see. So my tummy zapped back in again like an elastic band. My hips are thirty-nine inches but my waist is still only twenty-eight! Some women I know hate me for it but there’s no point reminding them I spent my twenties and thirties at the kitchen sink while they were sunning themselves round the holiday spots of Europe. Now they’re all plunging into motherhood for the first time and even my youngest is at university.

  So, Julie ordered a pot of tea for herself (and a plain scone) and for a while we just sat there soaking up the ambience, saying nothing, deliberately looking straight ahead. Then Julie stood up and said she was going to powder her nose and off she went, striding through the afternoon crowd, attracting admiring glances from the men and envious shrugs from the women. Maybe she wanted to gather her thoughts before she made her big announcement.

  Julie is gorgeous-looking, did I mention that? She looks much younger than her forty-one years. She’s never had to go without her sleep, I suppose. Though they do say women without children can age faster than mothers but that theory certainly doesn’t apply to Julie. You’d easily take her for thirty. She’s tall as well, just one inch shorter than me, but she’s fine-boned and elegant to go with it. Graceful and willowy with a platinum-white bob, palest blue eyes, delicate tiny ankles, a light honey-gold tan and clothes to die for. Mostly white linen tops and skirts, lots of ruffles round the hem and outsize mohair flowers on the waistband. Dry clean only. Nothing cheap and trendy from your UK chain stores for our Julie, oh no. She shops only in exclusive boutiques staffed by women of a certain age who’ve had plastic surgery and whose fingernails are so long they must have to employ some lackey to get the lid off their toothpaste at night.

  Even the loos are nice in the Café Vaudeville, by the way. All matt-black walls with giant lily motifs hand-painted on, and marble sinks. Clean as a new pin, they are. I was tinkering with the idea of a black bathroom in my own house, actually. Black walls would have contrasted beautifully with the white suite and I could have had a Roman blind made up in that lovely pattern that’s mainly white with ancient Greek dignitaries’ heads printed on it in grey. I remember thinking to myself: I’ll have to see if Bill is agreeable to a stone urn and black walls in the lavatory one of these days. And if not, then we’ll just have a black chandelier. Meanwhile, I got stuck into the chocolate square because I knew that if Julie’s news was negative in any way I wouldn’t be able to eat in front of her afterwards. I’m a very practical sort of girl. With four children and a full-time job, I have to be.

  Those chocolate concoctions are heaven on a plate, aren’t they? So rich and sticky. Full of grated coconut, flaked almonds and syrupy cherries that burst in your mouth. I almost forgot about Julie as I enjoyed the delicious taste of it. It reminded me of Christmas. I do love Christmas even though I’m not very religious. Well, it’s a pagan festival first and foremost, isn’t it, I suppose? All bright lights, evergreen branches and feasting in the depths of midwinter? Before some men had the bright idea to torment us all with the fairy tale of a virgin birth. Little did those wise-guys know, most women wouldn’t mind a virgin birth if it meant they never ever again had to experience another dimply sweaty beer belly and BO ’pits looming over them in the bed.

  Think about it.

  ‘I’m leaving Gary tomorrow,’ Julie said simply when she returned from the ladies’ room in the Café Vaudeville. Sitting down again demurely on the banquette and smiling at me. And then she went on supping her tea and cutting her plain scone into neat little cubes.

  ‘Come again,’ I squeaked.

  And I literally did squeak because she laughed and called me a mouse. A squeaky little mouse. She can turn quite defensive when she’s cornered, can Julie. You’ll see that as the story progresses.

  ‘Margaret Mouse, you do surprise me,’ she said, almost sniggering. ‘I thought you Goths were unshockable. Don’t you chain each other up for sex in the cellar and drink blood for breakfast?’

  ‘You’re thinking of high-ranking civil servants,’ I told her wearily. ‘And Bill was a Punk, not a Goth. And what you’re describing is fetish. Apart from the bit about drinking blood, which is plainly ridiculous by anyone’s standards.’

  Honestly, so many people these days get Goth confused with fetish. They are completely opposing concepts, don’t you know? Those flimsy sex-shop undies don’t float my boat. Never have. For Goths (the real purists I’m talking about now) eroticism means fully dressed or completely bare, and nothing in between.

  ‘Come on, Mags,’ she said, ‘you can tell me. Doesn’t Bill ever dress up for you? Like on your birthday or special occasions? I bet he looks dead sexy in tight leather trousers and a studded dog collar.’

  ‘Oh, Julie. You know I prefer lace-trimmed cotton pillowcases and handwritten love letters. Please tell me you’re joking about leaving Gary.’

  ‘I’m not joking. Gary wants to get married and start a family and I don’t. That’s it in a nutshell. So there’s no point in going on with the relationship. There’s just no point.’

  ‘Now wait a minute, Julie. Slow down and think about this logically. Can’t you tell Gary how you feel about having children? I’m sure he would understand. He loves you to bits.’

  ‘There’s no time for soul-searching, Mags. We’re both over forty. It’s now or never for Gary. I haven’t told him I’m not ready for marriage and I don’t think I can tell him face to face. He won’t be amused, you know? Recently he’s been nagging me to set a date for our wedding and asking why I can’t decide on a venue for the reception. He won’t be expecting anything as drastic as this and he won’t take the news lying down.’

  ‘You’re right, there,’ I said. ‘He won’t let you go, if I’m any judge.’

  ‘You see what I mean?’ she replied, her blue eyes wide in exasperation. ‘You know yourself what would happen if I tried to leave Gary in a mature and sensible fashion. He’d wreck the house. His house, remember. Not mine. And the renovations cost an absolute fortune. I can’t stand confrontation, Mags. You know I can’t abide shouting and pleading and tears dripping off people’s chins. And slamming doors give me palpitations. It’s all so untidy, so unnecessary. Look, the decision is already made. What I want you to do is tell Gary for me. Please. Will you? You’re so good at this emotional stuff. I’m begging you, Mags.’

  I was stunned.

  ‘The thing is, Julie, I’d rather not get involved in your relationship with Gary,’ I said when I’d recovered from the shock. ‘In any relationship, really. It’s usually the messenger that gets shot, in my experience.’

  ‘Oh, Mags!’

  ‘No, really,’ I insisted. ‘Although I do appreciate the compliment about me being emotional and so on, thank you very much. But you know this information ought to come from you directly. Are you sure you won’t change your mind about talking to him?’

  ‘No, I simply can’t face the man, absolutely not. So either you do it or I leave him a note on the kitchen table.’

  ‘But that won’t be the end of it, Julie. Won’t Gary come to the lighthouse, looking for an explanation?’

  ‘I don’t think he will, actually. He’s a very proud man. A few days to brood and he’ll bounce back. It’s better if I just vanish. Out of sight, out of mind.’

  Oh, as if, I thought to myself. You don’t know Gary, of course, but he’s deep. He’s not a bounce-back sort of man. So for his sake I ploughed on, though I had a feeling it wouldn’t do any good whatsoever. />
  ‘What about your things?’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘What things, she says! Your six-figure wardrobe, lady! Your clothes and all your other possessions in Gary’s house? I mean, you’ll have to go back to fetch them, won’t you? You’ll see him then. You’ll have to talk to him then?’

  Gary lives in a rustic farmhouse on the outskirts of town but of course on the inside it’s packed with luxury fittings, a dream bachelor pad.

  ‘I’m going away tomorrow morning for two weeks so he won’t be able to find me,’ Julie said. ‘I’ll tell you the location but no one else is to know. I don’t care what happens, you mustn’t reveal to Gary where I am. I’ve thought about this from every angle and it’s definitely what I want to do. As for my clothes, most of them have been spirited out of the wardrobe already, allegedly taken to the dry-cleaner’s. What’s left, he’ll probably throw in the bin. Along with my fancy blender, my chrome shoe-racks, my nice shower gels and so on. I wouldn’t blame him.’

  ‘Oh, Julie. Are you sure about this?’

  ‘I am, yes. Thank my lucky stars I still have my apartment. I was tempted to sell it last year and buy a holiday home in Italy but then there was that scaremongering about the cheap flights coming to an end. So I changed my mind. And to be honest with you, somehow I just knew I’d be needing it again.’

  Julie kept her pristine all-mod-cons apartment in a converted flourmill in Saintfield when she moved in with Gary three years before but he didn’t know that. She doesn’t have a lot of faith in love everlasting, I’m sorry to say. Yes, I realize that does sound strange coming from a wedding planner but there’s a lot of money to be made in this game and Julie is nothing if not financially astute. And as I said before, we are very good at what we do.

  ‘So, I’m leaving Gary tomorrow,’ she said again, just like that.