True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  Anyway, better go now.

  All best, Verity.

  PS: Do you still keep in touch with Banjo (Paul), my old Residential Adviser from university? My sister Merry now works in medical research at UCH and legend has it that Banjo came into the A&E at St George’s with a satsuma stuck under his foreskin after he lost a bet.

  In the dim light of eleven thirty p.m., the message hadn’t seemed so bad but in the glaring light of early morning and with a hangover, the message seemed absolutely appalling. As clingy and needy as Verity had once accused Adam of being, and what had she been thinking when she decided to add in a postscript about Banjo’s foreskin?

  It was something else to agonise over as Verity was wedged into the back seat of Dougie’s mum’s Nissan Micra next to three boxes of bunting, two bridesmaid dresses and sundry other items that wouldn’t fit into the boot. It was D-Day minus one. The Friday before the Saturday when Con and Alex would plight their troth, then celebrate with a hog roast and booze cruise Cava in the vicarage grounds. Unfortunately they’d left it far too late to book a marquee and the weather forecast was for rain.

  In fact, when her phone pinged, Verity thought that it might be Con with one of her half-hourly weather updates. Then her heart fluttered and she thought it might be from Johnny, just maybe checking that she wasn’t lying in a watery grave. Then the heart fluttering upgraded to a full-on thudding, when she saw she had a WhatsUpp message from Adam.

  Verity groaned like she was in pain, though Dougie and Merry couldn’t hear her because they were singing along to Hamilton. Although she was always a slow peeler of plasters, Verity decided that it was best to get Adam’s reply out of the way as quickly as possible. She sent out a quick heartfelt prayer that he hadn’t become a monk or one of those women-hating men’s rights activists, though it would be her own fault if he had.

  Hello stranger!

  I’m not going to lie. It was a bit of a surprise to see I had a message from you, not altogether a pleasant surprise either because I’ve gone quite clammy too when I’ve thought about you over the last few years.

  Not because of anything you did but because I cringe about what a total cling-on I was when we were dating. If anyone is owed an apology it’s you for the guilt trip I tried to lay on you about ruining me, and how I was never ever going to love another woman again. So many times I wanted to get in touch to say sorry, but I was too ashamed. I really am sorry, Very.

  The way I look at it is that it was a first relationship for both of us and we were both a bit crap at being boyfriend and girlfriend. I don’t think either of us had a clue what love really was. So, yeah, maybe you were a bit odd but I was too and my next girlfriend after you had never eaten a vegetable in her life and could only sleep with all the lights on and the radio tuned to Talk FM, so I guess being a bit odd is relative.

  So, no, you didn’t put me off relationships. Not bloody likely! (Though I have no wish to ever go back to Amsterdam.)

  Anyway I’m seeing someone really special at the moment and hoping that you are too because I’d hate to think that I put you off men for life. Would be great to catch up properly over a drink sometime.

  Adam x

  (I don’t see Banjo anymore but I heard it wasn’t a satsuma, but a grapefruit. How? Why?)

  The breezy tone of Adam’s message was a sudden and welcome reminder that their relationship hadn’t been all about Adam clinging and Verity withdrawing. When he wasn’t asking her what she was thinking about and if she loved him, Adam had been really good company. He’d been funny haha, rather than funny peculiar, they’d laughed a lot. He was a great cook too and they’d shared a love of classic old Hollywood movies and would often spend weekends watching Katharine Hepburn being sassy or Cary Grant being suave.

  And oh! There was also the sheer sweet relief that Verity hadn’t ruined Adam’s life and left him with deep psychological scars! She was absolved from the guilt that she’d always carried with her like a cumbersome backpack that had been surgically attached. Adam had, in fact, been mature and philosophical about the whole sorry episode. He’d treated that weekend in Amsterdam as a teachable moment then jumped right back into the dating pool.

  Was it possible that Verity had read more into that weekend in Amsterdam than she should have? That perhaps it had been nothing more than the end of a so-so relationship between two inexperienced, impressionable people? Certainly not anything so serious it was worth swearing off dating and the possibility of love forever more? Could it be that everyone from her mother, to her sisters, to her friends and colleagues, were right when they insisted that once Verity met the right man everything would magically slot into place?

  No. Verity refused to entertain the possibility that she’d overreacted and set her life post-Amsterdam, her entire future, down a path that it wasn’t meant to go down; that she’d wasted three prime years of her life clinging to singledom like a life raft. She couldn’t juggle relationships and all the other demands on her time and still manage to find the space and quiet she needed to be her best self.

  Or could she? What did it even matter when the only man she wanted didn’t want her? He loved someone else and, even if he didn’t, he’d told Verity that he hated her. So, she was destined to have all the space and quiet she needed, which was great. Except it didn’t feel great; it felt like the end of the world.

  Her phone pinged yet again as the singing and rapping from the front seats reached a crescendo. Verity definitely wasn’t going to have any space or quiet this weekend either, but she’d made her peace with that. It was Con’s wedding and Verity wouldn’t do anything to spoil one minute of the next forty-eight hours – she’d even gone to the doctor and begged a prescription for two Valium to ward off any potential meltdowns.

  ‘Is that Con again?’ Merry swivelled round.

  Verity looked down at her phone. ‘Yes. She’s checked the Met Office, BBC, Google and Yahoo weather apps and is devastated that they all predict a thirty to fifty per cent chance of rain tomorrow and she wants to know if we think that means just a light shower?’

  ‘I am so sick of talking about the weather!’ Dougie chimed in.

  ‘I hear you,’ Verity said as her phone pinged again. Her heart didn’t even have time to flutter at the vain hope that it might be Johnny. ‘It’s Con again again. Apparently we’re not using her wedding hashtag enough on social media for it to ever start trending. She expects us to tweet at least once every half hour with fun wedding content.’ Verity nudged the back of Merry’s seat with her knee. ‘How come she’s not texting you?’

  ‘Blocked her number, didn’t I?’

  Verity didn’t even have it in her to be angry. ‘I wish I’d thought of that!’

  It was too late to block Con now and so for the rest of the journey as Dougie and Merry lustily sang along to Hamilton several more times from start to finish, Verity’s phone continued to ping with weather forecasts, hashtag demands and panicked updates about everything from the cake to the flowers to whether Con could lose five pounds in the next twelve hours or did she have time to go to Lincoln and buy some gutbuster knickers and a minimiser bra in M&S?

  Verity remained surprisingly calm throughout. She’d coasted so many big emotional waves over the last few weeks she had no emotion left to give. She was an empty vessel.

  Finally, they were driving through the Wold, through all the little villages and hamlets they knew so well until they could see the spire of their father’s church in the distance. Then the village sign with said church painted on it:

  Welcome to Lambton

  ‘Home,’ Merry said with some satisfaction. Then. ‘Oh God, do you think Con bullied them into it?’

  Every gatepost of every house in the village had a cornflower blue (Con’s signature wedding colour) ribbon tied around it; the bows fluttering in the breeze.

  ‘Probably,’ Verity sniffed, blinking her eyes rapidly to try and ward off the threat of tears. ‘But it’s still lovely.’

  ‘Very,
are you crying? Don’t cry!’ Merry snapped, her own voice breaking. ‘You know that it makes me cry if you’re crying. These last few weeks, I’ve been a wreck!’

  ‘I can’t help it!’ Verity sobbed as Dougie drove up the vicarage drive.

  The front door of the house opened before Dougie had even switched off the engine. A gaggle of people spilled out headed by Con, dressed only in pants, the official wedding T-shirt emblazoned with #lovesimpsonwedding, and Our Vicar’s Wife’s old wedding veil, which was yellow with age and should really have been soaking in OxiClean by now, according to the detailed timesheet Con had emailed everyone earlier in the week.

  ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,’ Dougie quoted as Con strode over.

  The driver’s door was wrenched open and Con stuck her face into the car. ‘You were meant to be here seventeen minutes ago,’ she said by way of a greeting. ‘You’d better have remembered the bloody bunting!’

  27

  ‘I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.’

  Despite the dire warning of the weather apps, Saturday dawned bright and sunny. Natural light flooded the vicarage for the ‘before’ photographs of Con getting ready, ably assisted by her sisters, with her face and hair done by Chatty because she was the most artistically minded of her brethren and had spent the last two weeks watching YouTube make-up tutorials.

  After most of the wedding prep had been done, there’d been a raucous kitchen supper in the vicarage the night before with huge quantities of cheese toasties and red wine consumed so everyone was quite fragile and the noise levels were manageable. Besides, Con had surrendered timesheet and to-do list to Verity, who had to keep running across the road to the church then back to the vicarage to check on so many last-minute things that she couldn’t care less whether people were using their indoor voices or not.

  After greeting the hog roast guys and showing them where to set up in the garden, Verity was running out of time to get changed and have her own hair and make-up done. As she hurried up the drive, she was overtaken by a van from the very fancy wine merchants in Lincoln, even though Verity knew for a fact that no very fancy wine had been ordered.

  ‘Well, I have a delivery note right here,’ the driver insisted, waving a handheld device at Verity.

  ‘It’s my sister’s wedding. She’s in full Bridezilla mode but on a very small budget. She was meant to clear all purchases with her fiancé, her fiancé’s mum and my parents first,’ Verity said in a panicked voice. ‘There’s no money left. The kitty is empty.’

  ‘Already been paid for, love.’

  Two boxes of champagne were unloaded and Verity was handed an envelope addressed to Con and Alex. She gave it to Con as soon as she walked into their parents’ bedroom, which had been repurposed as a hair and beauty salon.

  ‘Very! Sit down and let me beautify you,’ Chatty snapped. ‘The bishop will be here in ten minutes.’

  Con and Alex were to be married by the bishop of the diocese because Mr Love had said that, for today, he simply wanted to be a proud father walking his daughter down the aisle. Then Con, who’d been banging on for weeks about how she refused to be given away like she was an unwanted pet or a second-hand car, had cried and said that actually she didn’t mind being given away after all.

  ‘We must all remember not to swear in front of the bishop,’ she said now as she lounged on the bed in a cat onesie and tore open the envelope that Verity had given her. ‘Not too much smoky eye, Chatty. We’re going to church not a nightclub … Bloody hell! Did you say it was two boxes of champagne, Very?’

  ‘Yeah. Perrier-Jouët,’ Verity mumbled because Chatty was smothering her face in foundation. ‘Who it’s from?’

  ‘I’ll read it out,’ Con said, holding it up so that Verity could see a block print of two hearts on brown card. ‘“Dear Con and Alex, Congratulations on this most special of days. May the years you spend together be full of happiness and love. Best wishes, Johnny True.”’

  ‘Johnny!’ Merry, Immy and Chatty screeched in unison.

  ‘That bastard! We hate him!’ Immy said. ‘For all the wrongs he’s done to our Very.’

  It was impossible to cry because Chatty was now attacking Verity’s eyelids with grey powder. ‘I have been thinking about that,’ she said, because she’d done little else. Taking responsibility for the rest of Con’s to-do list had been a welcome break from thinking about Johnny. ‘About the wrongs. How maybe they weren’t so wrong when we were only pretending to be in a relationship. I mean, I always knew he was in love with Marissa.’

  ‘What do you mean by pretending to be in a relationship, dear?’ Mrs Love asked mildly from the corner where she’d been keeping out of the way and sewing a button back on Mr Love’s best shirt. ‘And are you saying he was in love with another woman the entire time?’

  Verity pushed down Chatty’s hand, which was brandishing a mascara wand. ‘It’s very complicated. Very, very complicated.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Con snapped, waving the card at Verity. ‘Johnny True! His surname is True?’

  ‘It is,’ Verity confirmed. ‘Though I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’

  ‘Johnny True! How funny!’ Chatty hooted and now Verity thought maybe she should pop a Valium because she’d forgotten that when Chatty and Immy started to shriek, they reached a top note that could shatter all the glasses washed and polished and lined up on the kitchen table, all ready for the toasts.

  ‘Just as well he did do you wrong,’ Immy said rather callously, all things considered. ‘Imagine if you’d got married and double-barrelled your surnames. Then you’d be the True-Loves. Hilarious!’

  ‘So funny,’ Con agreed with a snort of mirth. ‘The True-Loves! Can’t you get back with him just so you can get married?’

  ‘I’m not getting back with him,’ Verity said crossly. ‘I was never with him. Like I said, it was very, very, very complicated.’

  ‘And he’s still a bastard, no matter what his surname is,’ Merry said loyally. Then she looked pensive for a nanosecond. ‘But it’s all right to drink his champagne even if he is a bastard, isn’t it?’

  It was a picture-perfect wedding full of #nofilter moments.

  Verity and her sisters walking slowly down the aisle clutching bouquets of meadowsweet and Japanese anemones picked that morning from the neighbouring fields. They wore cornflower-blue fifties-style dresses bought in the ASOS summer sale for twenty-five quid a pop and Converse sneakers in different colours; a Con-approved nod to individuality.

  Con coming down the aisle in a simple ivory chiffon maxi dress with flutter sleeves and a petal applique, also from ASOS, her hair loose and flowing with flowers entwined in it, Our Vicar at her side, both of them beaming. She’d never looked more beautiful, her sisters had assured her as they waited in the church vestibule for Mrs Reynolds, the church organist, to sound out the first bars of ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ from My Fair Lady.

  The bishop asking if there was anyone who knew of any lawful impediment as to why Con and Alex shouldn’t be wed and God answering with a massive peal of thunder that made the entire congregation shriek.

  Poor Alan absolutely stealing the show as Dog of Honour cum ringbearer as he gleefully tore down the aisle, towards the cocktail sausage that Our Vicar was waving.

  Con and Alex wiping away each other’s tears as they promised to love each other for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

  Then, Con and Alex leaving the church under a canopy of umbrellas to protect them from the torrential downpour as the stalwart ladies of the Lambton and Area Women’s Institute descended on the church hall to set up trestle tables and chairs and hang bunting while Mr and Mrs Love and daughters began the arduous task of transferring the buffet from the vicarage to the new venue. Verity, meanwhile, supervised the hog roast guys who were setting up under canvas in the churchyard. The bishop had decreed that, give
n the circumstances, God wouldn’t mind them roasting pork on hallowed ground.

  The laughter and tears during the Father of the Bride’s speech as the Vicar described how ‘No other man has been as blessed as I am to have five daughters, though none of the other four are allowed to get married now. Not because we can’t bear to part with them but because this wedding has already taken years off Barbara and I.’

  The cutting of the cake made with honey from the vicarage bees and toasts drunk with proper champagne, Cava or homemade elderflower cordial. The first dance to Etta James’s ‘At Last’ and some time after that all five Love sisters taking to the floor in a group hug to dance to ‘We Are Family’, all of them shout-singing and sing-crying.

  It was the best of days. The most special of days. The happiest of days. And to the casual and even the most keen-eyed observer, the middle Love daughter looked uncharacteristically cheerful, apart from one fretful moment when the church hall was still in chaos and the guests were threatening to break free of the holding area in the Scout hut.

  Verity was happy for Con. There was nowhere else that she’d rather be than watching her oldest sister marry the man she loved but ever since the two boxes of champagne had arrived with the note, she’d been in torment. Now, Verity realised that hope, even the faintest glimmer of hope, was much worse than the despair she’d known ever since she’d left Johnny sleeping in a bed wrecked from their lovemaking.

  Every time there’d been a ring on the vicarage doorbell, or a tall male guest walked into the church, or she heard her name being called, her heart would lift then sink back down because it was never him. It was never Johnny.

  Worse, being at a wedding made Verity miss Johnny even more, because they’d been to so many weddings together that summer. When her mind should have been only on Con, she was distracted by memories of sitting next to Johnny on church pews and in registry offices or at the fun couples’ table in marquees and fancy restaurants.