by Clare Lydon
“I just need to sit down a minute, these heels are killing me,” she said.
“Already?”
“I think they need adjusting. Or maybe I shouldn’t have worn new shoes.”
My heart leapt as she sat down beside me and steadied herself on my knee: her touch did things to me I never remembered happening before. I ate my canapé, wiping my hand on the serviette and then stroking Lucy’s back. She fixed her heel back into place, then kissed me briefly, before sitting back, legs crossed and exposed, sipping her champagne. Her skin looked silky smooth and my eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to it.
“Pretty fancy, eh?” she said, her eyes sweeping the venue. “The last wedding I went to was in a hall in Hull.”
“You don’t get much fancier than this. This is where footballers get married,” I said.
“Do you think there’ll be thrones?”
“We can only hope. There was a mention of a wedding singer, which I’m hoping proves true.”
“Well it’s a thumbs-up to free champagne.” She paused. “Do we know who’s on our table?”
“I think Andy and Jason, Matt and Natalie and some of Julia’s nicer cousins. At least she promised me they would be the nicer ones.”
“That’s bad.”
“Why?”
“They all drink. You don’t want that at a wedding, you want a few tee-total aunts on your table or at least a pregnant couple where the man has to not drink too out of sympathy,” Lucy said.
“Don’t think any of my aunts are tee-total I can promise you. You’ll just have to flash your cleavage at our waiter and I’m sure he’ll bring us more wine if we run out.”
Lucy slapped my leg, then looked serious for a moment.
“What?” I said. She frowned, shook her head and turned to look at the crowd again. I nudged her.
“What?”
“Nothing…”
“Tell me.” She sighed and swivelled to face me.
“It’s just… Are you sure Karen just turned up this morning. Nothing else to it? Nothing you want to tell me?”
I shook my head. “Nope, nothing else, I told you.”
“She didn’t show up to try to win you back?”
I shifted in my seat, then took Lucy’s hand. “Who knows why she showed up, I gave up trying to read her long ago. But she did and I told her to go away. That’s it.”
“You sure?”
I held Lucy’s gaze, the last couple of weeks whizzing through my brain.
“You’re the only woman I want. Truly.”
It didn’t matter if Karen showed up on my doorstep every day – Lucy was the one I wanted now. There had been plenty of times when Karen would have been welcomed but not now. Besides, I was sure she’d soon have bigger fish to fry – she normally did. She hadn’t stopped chasing what she couldn’t have, which was always the biggest prize.
Lucy hadn’t taken her eyes from me. I loved this woman and she was sitting here asking me if everything was okay with us. All because of Karen. Damn her. I needed to reassure Lucy. Needed to let her know the truth. Surely she knew the truth by now? We hadn’t verbalised it, but the feelings were on show for everyone to see. I locked her gaze once more and cleared my throat. If you can’t tell someone you love them at a wedding, when can you?
“Lucy, I…”
“There you are! Sitting down already?” Matt’s voice boomed out beside us shattering the moment. I looked up and smiled weakly.
“Not interrupting are we?”
Lucy and I shook our heads rapidly, overcompensating for the moment that was now gone.
“No, all good. Just getting a bit soppy with all the romance around us,” I said. I squeezed Lucy’s hand and took a sip of her drink. “Tell you later,” I mouthed.
She smiled.
Weddings seemed to bring out the best in people, with everyone looking like they’d just stepped off the pages of Vogue. Even jeans-and-polo-shirt Matt looked suitably stylish, with a black suit, crisp white shirt and black tie, going for the rock star minimalist look. It suited him. Meanwhile, Natalie looked radiant in a blue and cream number beside him.
“So the cake looks good,” Matt said.
“We haven’t tasted it yet,” I replied.
I spotted Julia honing into view so I waved over Matt’s shoulder. She made her way towards us, raising her eyebrows to the heavens in the manner of a super-diva.
“How are we? All good?”
“We’re great darling,” I said.
“How are the canapés? Taste all right?”
“Wonderful,” I said. “You’ve got an eyelash just there,” I told her, pointing under my right eye. She went to her left. “Other side… Got it.”
“Good,” she said. “Look at all these bloody people! At my bloody wedding!”
We all laughed.
“It’s going really well,” I said. “And you look beautiful.”
Julia blushed.
“This place looks amazing too,” said Matt. “They’ve done a great job.”
Julia nodded. “Yeah they have haven’t they? Mind you, they should the price they charge… Well, I better go circulate – apparently everyone wants to talk to me, no idea why.” She scanned the room. “Have you seen the champagne man?”
Lucy spotted him out of the corner of her eye. She slid sideways to pluck a fresh glass from his tray and delivered it to Julia’s hand.
“I like her a lot, have I mentioned that?” Julia said, before floating off to the next group in a cloud of white lace.
There were around 80 guests invited to the wedding, who all played their part in creating a picture-postcard wedding vista of love and romance in an opulent setting.
As we sat down I looked over to the top table where Julia and Tom were grinning at each other, their magnum of Verve Clicquot diminishing by the second. Jason stopped griping once the food came out and Julia’s cousins turned out to be a hoot, along with her Aunt Dawn and Uncle Alan who seemed inordinately excited to be on a table with a lesbian couple and a gay couple.
“So terribly London!” I heard her telling her husband with a thrilled look on her face. Alan went on to describe three other gay people he knew in his life, all very decent sorts he was pleased to report.
“The thing with lesbians these days though is that it’s a choice, isn’t it?” he said. “I mean, time was when the uglier women chose that route because women are so much more accommodating and can look past appearances. But look at you – you’re not at all ugly, you don’t have to be a lesbian, it’s what you want to be. And I think that’s great,” he said.
“Yes, it’s all sorts these days, Alan – not just those with mullets and motorbikes,” I said. As expected, the irony passed him by.
“Exactly!” he said. “And you’re not a mechanic or a labourer – you’re a baker!” he said, his eyes bulging at the fact that a lesbian could bake. Alan took a bite of his dessert to calm himself down and I followed suit, wondering where the conversation was heading next.
“And what does your friend do?” He nodded towards Lucy.
“She’s an optician.”
“You see,” Alan said, astounded. “Takes all sorts. Just wonderful.”
I looked around just to check I wasn’t being filmed for some candid camera joke, but apparently I wasn’t. Alan was not a figment of my imagination and he really did say all of those things.
I was on my way to the loo a few minutes later when Julia waved and beckoned me over. I pitched up in front of the giddy bride on her big day, the toxic mix of wine, champagne and bonhomie working their magic.
“How’s it all going? How’s the food and your table? I gave you one nearby so you’d get served quickly,” she said.
“Great. And your Uncle Alan – he’s a rare find. Him and Dawn think they’re sitting with London’s A-gays like they’re in the pages of some Saturday supplement.”
“Glad he’s being entertaining. I thought he might be,” she said.
“He told me he thinks it’s gr
eat that lesbians don’t have to be ugly anymore.”
“Oh my god!” Tom said, covering his face with his hands while Julia threw back her head with laughter.
“I love him! I love him even more now. How great are Alan and Dawn? I wanted to have them on the top table with us but Tom told me that wasn’t protocol.”
A waiter drew up beside me, placing full glasses of champagne along the top table. I shifted my head left.
“I better go to the loo before the speeches start,” I said.
The toilets were posh and full of jauntily-angled mirrors as I expected. I dried my hands on a proper mini hand towel, putting it in the dark wicker bin provided – “imagine the laundry bill” my mum’s voice chimed in my head. Smoothing down my trousers in one of the full-length mirrors, I decided the scorecard didn’t read too badly. My hair was still fairly buoyant, my make-up in place and the spot count was zero. No wonder Karen had looked so dejected when I told her to bugger off, on top of Lucy turning up looking stunning.
I allowed myself a smile as I took a deep breath and got back out there, sliding into the seat beside Lucy just as Julia’s dad was clearing his throat to start the speeches.
The disco got started around 7.30pm. By that time, my tie was loose around my neck and Lucy had abandoned her heels.
“Going ethnic,” she said, whatever that meant. We put our bags and redundant shoes under our table and went for a boogie as YMCA came on, at which time half the wedding decided to do the same which I knew would appal Julia. She’d tried to stipulate no cheese for the first half of the disco but I’d told her if she wanted people to dance, that was the wedding law.
The song had just finished when I saw Mum and Dad walking in with a card and gift in their hands. Mum had been thrilled with the evening invite and had been chattering about the night for weeks now. I told her two days ago I was bringing Lucy – perhaps that’s why I saw a touch of apprehension on her face as she scanned the room for us. She was dressed in my favourite outfit though, a coral floaty number. Dad had opted for his trusty grey suit, his thick hair looking newly trimmed.
I whispered to Lucy they’d arrived and took her hand, walking over to where Shirley and Ian had halted their progress. I waved and Mum waved back, relief flooding her face as she saw someone she recognised. She knew Julia’s mum too, seeing as we’d been to school together, so she was next on my list to introduce them to.
“Hiya,” I said, kissing Mum on the cheek and reaching up to do the same to Dad. Lucy had dropped my hand and was standing at my side smiling.
“Mum, Dad, this is Lucy,” I said. I looked at my girlfriend who held out her hand and gave my parents a full-beam smile.
“Really lovely to meet you. Jess’s told me a lot about you.”
“Oh, I hope not too much!” Mum said. She looked relieved that Lucy was a normal human being, one head, no scales.
As Lucy shook my Dad’s hand, I mentally stepped back and took a snapshot in my head of this historic moment: my parents meeting their first girlfriend. The room began to slither around me as I wiped out all background distractions, everything else a blur as I clicked my mental camera and saved the crystal clear image to disc. I snapped another just for good measure, then focused back on the whole room, the noise levels revving up as I floated back. Smiles all round, nobody had died and mum was asking me a question which my ears were not attuned to.
“Sorry?”
“I said has it been a lovely day?”
“Great,” I said. Lucy was giving me a strange look but stepped in to cover my tracks.
“It’s been amazing – the food was great, the speeches short and the toilets have proper hand towels,” she said. “Plus the weather was amazing too, I’m sure they got some great shots in the grounds.”
“So lovely, isn’t it, love?” Mum asked Dad.
“Grand,” Dad said.
I guided Mum and Dad to the presents table to leave their gift then manoeuvred them through the crowds to Julia’s parents, Christine and Dave, who were thrilled to see them.
“They seem really sweet,” Lucy said as we left them.
“They have their moments,” I said. For all their past misdemeanours they’d been gorgeous to Lucy and my doubts about tomorrow, about them meeting Lucy, about them integrating her into their lives all melted away. Perhaps change was possible, for me and for them.
“You really look like your Mum, too,” Lucy said.
“Well take a good look because that’s your future,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them. Lucy was still smiling at me though, clearly not that easily scared off.
“Well, she’s not bad for an older woman…” she said.
“You’re not finishing that sentence,” I said, my brows shooting upwards as I dragged her to the dance floor.
An hour later and we were still twirling with Matt and Natalie. Jason and Andy had retired injured – sore foot so Jason said, although I had a sneaking suspicion it was more to do with the free bar.
I looked at my watch as Aretha demanded a little more respect and considered what a perfect evening it had turned out to be after such an inauspicious start. After some sweet-talking Lucy seemed to have gotten over the whole Karen debacle and I was hugely relieved. I looked across at her now and grinned at her screaming out every word of the song along with the rest of the crowd. As I looked over her shoulder I spotted Ange at a table at the back of the room, sipping white wine in a red dress and chatting to a woman with short cropped hair.
Ange.
Super.
Time stopped and the music went muffled in my ears as panic surged through my body with torrential force. I was going to kill Julia.
Lucy caught my gaze and swivelled to look. I tried to grab her arm to dance with her, but too late – she’d already turned, already seen, and was now already turning back to face me, her face hardening by the milli-second.
“What’s she doing here? I thought you said Julia had told her not to come?”
Matt and Natalie danced on, oblivious to what was happening as I took Lucy’s hand and escorted her off the dance floor in the opposite direction to where Ange was sitting. We stood on the edge, literally and metaphorically, one foot on hard wood, the other on plush carpet.
“She told me she had but it looks like it slipped her mind.”
Lucy stopped and assessed the situation. She could see the anguish on my face and I hoped she believed this was definitely not in my plans for a fun night out. On the contrary, Ange had been the furthest thing from my mind. However, I had to take charge of the situation now.
“I can’t very well go and tell Julia off on her wedding day, so it looks like we have no choice other than to be grown-ups and ignore it.”
The look on Lucy’s face told me she didn’t like this plan and that right now, she didn’t much like me. I swear, if she’d had her shoes on, she’d have shown me a clean pair of heels and been out the door. I gave up a silent note of thanks for lady shoes.
“That’s your plan? What if she comes over?”
I looked pained and tried not to shrug even though I had no control over Ange’s movements.
“If she comes over we’ll deal with it. She’s nothing to me Lucy and you… Well, you’re the opposite of that.”
She wasn’t going to be coerced into smiling that easily.
“Let’s not let it ruin our night. I say we get a drink, have a chat with the boys and then dance some more. Look at it like we’ve just run into her in a lesbian bar by chance, which could easily happen.”
Lucy seemed to like this approach and I could see her assessing this new tack in her brain. I ran with it.
“It’s a big bar, granted, far bigger than usual but what can I say – lesbianism is getting more and more popular these days.”
She looked around to where Ange was sitting engrossed in chat, then looked back at me.
“And yes, you might not think that every woman here is a lesbian,” I said, indicating
some aunts and a granny in front of us, “but looks can be deceiving. I guarantee you everyone here is a lesbian. Even those that look like men.”
Finally, a smile and a laugh. I grabbed her hand.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get a drink. What do you want?”
“I’m coming with you, you’re not safe going to the bar on your own,” she said.
I smiled wryly.
“And I just need to know before we get to the bar, are there any other of your exes waiting in the wings to pounce? I just need to mentally prepare. Karen this morning, Ange tonight – we haven’t had the big ‘this is how many people I’ve slept with and this is how many actually meant something’ conversation. So please do let me know if I’m missing someone crucial who’s about to jump out of the shadows and seduce you.”
She paused for breath and held me with a penetrating stare. For a second it felt like there was nobody else in the room but Lucy and I, her waiting for an answer, my mouth dry and unresponsive. She frowned.
“I don’t know about you but I need a stiff drink. Tequila?”
It was more a statement than a question so I nodded meekly and we walked to the bar.
“Yes, love?” asked the bartender. Lucy turned and ordered two tequila shots and two beers.
“Make that three tequilas,” chimed in Julia, draping her left arm around my shoulder as she leant her weight into me dramatically. Lucy adjusted the order while I put my arm around Julia’s extremely skinny waist.
“Hello bride,” I said. “How you holding up?”
“Surprisingly well. And this whole centre of attention thing? I could really get used to it.”
“You seem like a natural.”
“It really is amazing. Everyone wants to talk to you, everyone pays you a compliment, this is what being famous must feel like. So I’ve told Tom that has to be our first goal as a married couple. To get famous and then people will be nice to us and take our pictures all the time.”
“Did he agree?”
“He had to, I’m the bride!” She looked especially pleased with herself.
“Here we go, ladies,” Lucy said. She put tequila shots in our hands along with a lemon wedge each, then licked her left hand just below the thumb, sprinkled salt on it and grabbed her own shot. She waited for us to do the same and then proposed a toast.