‘Have they already gone?’
‘Yes,’ said Pete. ‘Thank God!’
‘I’ll get these two organized,’ I said, looking at Orsino and Wolf, still engrossed in Peppa Pig on the sofa. ‘Boys, up we get, time to go to church.’
Outside, in the drive, the chauffeur stood waiting by the Rolls-Royce. A big black Mercedes was behind it for the pageboys and me. I’d retrieved a plastic M&S Bag for Life from under the kitchen sink for the journey in case Orsino decided to be sick over his other shoe.
‘In you get,’ I said, bundling them into the car.
Beside us, Pete was lifting Lex’s train into the Rolls-Royce as carefully as if he was handling a grenade. Then he climbed in and the Rolls moved sedately off. We followed.
‘Can we watch Peppa Pig?’ asked Orsino.
‘No, it might make you sick again,’ I said crisply.
Orsino and Wolf were supposed to go down the aisle first, but there was an attack of stage fright just outside the church, so I ended up walking down with one small boy either side of me, little clammy hands in mine, the smell of sick wafting behind us. Nobody was looking at us though, because Lex and Pete were following.
I looked at Hamish standing at the front, who didn’t turn around until the boys and I had reached their pew. He smiled nervously at me, then turned to look at Lex and his eyes started watering. At least I think they did, but that was the moment that Wolf decided to tug on my sash. ‘I need a wee,’ he said.
‘Oh, Wolfie, you’ll have to hold it in. Look, here comes Lex. Doesn’t she look pretty?’
‘But I really need a wee.’
‘Look at her flowers! Aren’t they lovely? Here, play with this.’ I handed him an Order of Service, hoping that a 4-year-old would be interested in reading hymns.
‘Dearly beloved,’ boomed Vicar John, who looked 600 years old and had hair sprouting from his ears. The Swifts had been coming to this church on Christmas Day and Easter for years. Although Vicar John had shocked Lex recently in her wedding class with Hamish by suggesting that if she wasn’t sure about her fiancé then he remained available. ‘I think he was joking,’ she told me afterwards. ‘But I can’t be sure.’
And then we were into ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’, Pete rumbling out the words behind us like a Welsh chorister.
‘I still need a wee,’ said Wolf, when we sat down and Uncle Nick stood to do a reading.
‘Can you hold it? Just for a bit? Look, it’s Uncle Nick, he’s going to tell us a story,’ I said, nodding towards the lectern.
‘And the greatest of these is love,’ intoned Uncle Nick, a few moments later, looking gravely at Lex and Hamish over his glasses.
‘Bloody isn’t,’ I muttered to myself.
‘What?’ whispered Wolf, looking up.
‘Nothing, don’t worry. Nearly there, then we can go home and have a drink,’ I whispered to him.
Next, Vicar John stood to make the address, which I only half listened to because I was wondering what canapés there would be at the reception. A smoked salmon one, inevitably. Hopefully mini beef Yorkshire puddings. Maybe some sort of cheese tartlet?
A small hand tapped me on the knee, and I looked down at Wolf again. ‘I really have to do a wee,’ he said. A small tear trickled down his cheek.
Oh, God. I looked up at Vicar John and then to the end of our pew. I could sneak out the side of the pew, I realized, and along the side of the church to the doors at the back. Was weeing allowed in a graveyard?
‘Orsino,’ I whispered, handing him my phone. ‘You stay here and watch Peppa Pig quietly. Wolf and I will be back in a minute.’
I took Wolf’s little hand in mine and, crouching down, led him to the end of the pew. Then I tiptoed as quietly as possible towards the door, sensing everybody’s eyes on us. The door clanked and creaked as I opened it. Fuck. I was starting to sweat into my purple dress at the stress of it all. My biological clock had never been more silent.
‘Quick, Wolfie, trousers down, just wee here,’ I said, crouching behind an old gravestone. Which is when I heard a familiar voice behind me.
‘Pols,’ it said, so I turned around.
It was Jasper.
‘Jasper! What… Why are you… ?’ I was so surprised to see him here, at Lex’s wedding, that I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Jasper, seriously, what are you doing here?’ I asked, louder, still crouching by Wolf as he peed all over the gravestone.
‘Polly, I’m so sorry. So, so, sorry, I just need to explain,’ he started. He was wearing a morning suit, albeit without a tie. And he was slurring his words.
‘Are you drunk? And why are you in a suit? You’re not invited any more, Jasper. What are you doing? Why are you here?’
He looked down at his clothes in surprise. ‘Don’t worry about my suit,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘How did you get down here? Did you drive?’
‘No, I got an Uber. Nice chap called… Well, I can’t quite remember what he was called but he drove me.’
‘From London? Jesus.’
Jasper shook his head. ‘Polly, my darling, you’re getting hung up on all the wrong things. Look, I’m here. I’m supposed to be here. I’m your plus one. So, can we talk? We haven’t even spoken and I need…’
What happened next was so quick that it took me several seconds to realize what was going on. A rocket seemed to appear from behind me and suddenly Jasper was on the grass, wrestling. There was grunting. And then I realized it wasn’t a rocket. It was Bill.
‘YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE WANKER,’ he roared.
‘What are you doing? Get off me,’ shrieked Jasper.
Bill grabbed a fistful of his hair.
‘Don’t touch my hair!’ shouted Jasper, who yanked Bill’s tie.
‘He’s trying to strangle me!’ shouted Bill.
I stood motionless, unsure of what to do. Alert anyone and risk ruining the wedding service? Let them slog it out? ‘Don’t worry, Wolfie,’ I said, helping him pull his trousers up and taking his hand again. ‘They’re just… wrestling.’
Wolf and I stood silently watching the pair of them grappling on the grass between gravestones. Jasper tried to punch Bill, but missed and pummelled his fist into the ground. Bill reached for Jasper’s collar and ripped his shirt.
‘This is a very expensive shirt!’ screamed Jasper.
‘GOOD,’ roared Bill.
‘That is ENOUGH,’ I said. ‘Both of you get up.’
They ignored me and continued fighting. Then Jasper managed to land a blow on Bill’s face. ‘You asked for that,’ he said.
And then Uncle Nick suddenly appeared from the church, stepping into the fray and pulling Bill away from Jasper.
‘This is a disgrace,’ he said to them. ‘Look at the pair of you.’
‘Sorry,’ Bill said, dusting his trousers down. His lip was bleeding.
‘Sorry, sir,’ added Jasper. ‘But, Pols…’
‘I don’t want to hear it.’
‘I need to talk to you,’ Jasper said, feebly.
‘No, you don’t,’ I said. ‘Go home. You shouldn’t even be here.’
Jasper looked at me in surprise. ‘You’re picking him? Over me?’
‘I’m not picking anyone. Both of you are mad, but you need to go home before you totally ruin this wedding. Now.’
‘How do I get home?’ he said. ‘I let the driver go and we’re in the middle of the country. Pols, come on.’
‘Don’t “Pols, come on” me. I don’t care.’
‘Bill, you go back inside the church. And you, Polly. I’ll call you a taxi,’ said Uncle Nick, looking at Jasper.
Jasper looked at me once more, so I looked in the opposite direction.
‘Pols,’ said Bill.
‘Bill, I don’t want to hear it from you either. This whole thing is…’ I was going to say crazy, but it was beyond that. I looked at Bill. His lip was still bleeding. ‘You need to go sort your face out.’
‘Oh, thanks ver
y much. I come out to check you’re OK, then I defend your honour and…’
‘Bill,’ said Uncle Nick, handing him a handkerchief. ‘Take this and go inside.’
Bill sighed. ‘All right.’ He raised his fingers to his lip. ‘It really hurts. That guy’s a psycho.’
‘And you,’ Uncle Nick said, looking at Jasper, ‘you can follow me and we will wait out here until your taxi arrives.’
‘Pols…’ Jasper said once more. But I took Wolf’s hand and walked back into the church.
Wolf and I tiptoed down the side of the pews again and back into our row, where Orsino was still transfixed to my phone. As I sat down as quietly as possible, Lex looked at me questioningly from her seat while Vicar John – apparently undisturbed – carried on with his address. ‘All good,’ I mouthed back at her.
I sat and tried to process the scene outside. It was too bad if he missed me, I told myself. He was trouble. My plus one indeed. Jesus, as if. He was delusional if he thought I still wanted him here.
Lex and Hamish stood to do the love and honour bit. She then tried to wedge his ring on, and giggled. The congregation laughed back in a polite sort of way that suggested ‘This isn’t the best joke in the world, but we’re laughing to be polite and because we’re British and we don’t know how else to alleviate the social tension of a wedding ring not fitting properly’.
‘Now, Alexa, repeat after me. I, Alexa Jennifer Swift, take Hamish James Thomas Wellington to be my husband.’
Lex did her lines, Hamish took her hand and slid the ring on, then she took it off again and held out her left hand, because he’d put it on the right. The congregation laughed in the same way again.
‘Wonderful,’ said Vicar John. ‘I now pronounce you man and wife; you may kiss the bride.’
Clapping and whoops rippled across the church as they shyly kissed one another.
‘Now let us all stand for the final hymn,’ said Vicar John, as the organist struck up the opening chords of ‘Jerusalem’. God, I want a glass of champagne, I thought. A really big glass. One of those champagne glasses that was actually more like a wine glass. The sort of wine glass that Dita Von Teese liked writhing around in.
They sat for the final prayers and blessing and I glanced sideways at the boys, still watching my phone screen.
‘Come on,’ I said, taking my phone and dropping it into my clutch bag.
‘Why?’ said Orsino.
‘Because it’s time to go back to the house for the party and a big drink.’
Half an hour later it was chaos at the house. Cars were blocking the drive, waiters were carrying tray after tray of champagne flutes through to the marquee and I was still trying to hand over Wolf to his mother.
‘Photos, Polly, photos,’ said Karen. ‘Come on, chop, chop, in the drawing room.’ She had gone full Stalin.
Pierre, the photographer, was standing on a chair in the drawing room directing everyone.
‘You, darling,’ he said, pointing at Uncle Nick, ‘you need to go to the back.’
‘Ah, the small boys,’ he said, looking at Wolf and Orsino. ‘They must be here. In the front.’ He gestured on the carpet in front of Lex and Hamish, so I shepherded my flock to the floor.
I smiled at Lex. ‘Look at you all radiant, Mrs Wellington.’
She frowned at me. ‘What happened outside? What’s up with Bill? Have you seen him today?’
‘Err, yes, briefly.’ I didn’t think I needed to go into the full story right now. ‘Why?’
‘Well, Mum says he’s on his own.’
‘On his own?’
‘Without Willow,’ added Hamish.
‘I don’t know what’s going on but it completely screws the table plan,’ said Lex, smoothing a strand of hair behind her ear.
‘It’ll be fine, your mother’s on it. Let’s not have hysterics,’ said Hamish.
‘EVERYONE GET INTO THEIR PLACES PLEASE,’ shouted Pierre, still standing on his chair.
‘You,’ he added, looking at me. ‘You are, how you say it, the virgin one?’
‘What?’ I replied.
‘The virgin one. You know, the virgin friend of Alexa,’ said Pierre.
‘He means the maid of honour,’ hissed Uncle Nick behind me.
‘Yes, the maiden. That’s what I meant. Stand beside Alexa please.’
I tucked in behind Lex.
‘Beautiful, beautiful. Now, everyone, look right at my lens and say cheese,’ said Pierre.
‘CHEEEEEESE,’ shouted Orsino and Wolf, before rolling on to their sides and giggling together.
I needed three things after the photographs, in this order:
1)To return Wolf to his mother.
2)A drink.
3)To find Bill.
Wolf’s mother was lurking in the kitchen so I quickly palmed him off on her, wondering if the canapés had run out yet. ‘See you in the marquee,’ I said.
Then I ducked through the main entrance to the marquee and scanned it from just inside. Two hundred heads throwing back champagne flutes and eyeballing the room for waiters carrying trays. I watched one waiter appear in the corner with a tray of something – I squinted at it, tuna tartare maybe? – and a cluster of people moved in on him like hyenas. When the waiter came back into view, he looked like he’d been at war and the tray was empty.
‘Polly!’ said a voice on my other side. I turned. It was Mrs Maloney, our old secondary school teacher.
‘Mrs Maloney!’ I said, as she pulled me towards her for a hug. She looked like Queen Victoria – short, with a bun pinned up on the very top of her head, and a majestic bosom that, in its younger days, could have graced the front of a ship.
‘I’ve missed you girls. Didn’t she look superb? And you, my darling, when’s your big day?’
‘No time soon, I’m afraid,’ I said, desperately looking around for a tray of champagne.
‘No man on the scene? You look ever so lovely. You’ve lost all that puppy fat!’
‘That’s so kind of you. It’s all the sex I’ve been having. I don’t want to marry any of them though…’
The bun on Mrs Maloney’s head quivered.
‘Do you mind if I go and find a drink? Desperate for a glass of champagne! See you at dinner,’ I said. Bad, I know, but I had low blood sugar levels and it wasn’t the moment to reminisce with my old teacher.
‘Polly, there you are,’ said Karen, as I turned around.
‘Now, we’ve got to jiggle the seating plan a bit because Bill’s Willow hasn’t come and Cousin Mabel had a funny turn this morning and hasn’t made it down from Birmingham. So, do you mind finding the wedding planner, the one with the clipboard and the very severe haircut, and telling her to rearrange those two tables. Fucked if I can remember which ones they were on. Just get her to take them off and move the knives and everything around. Sorry to ask you but I’ve got to introduce Vicar John to Pete’s mother.’
‘’Course,’ I said, that glass of champagne looking ever more like some sort of desert mirage.
I stalked out of the marquee and walked around the back. There was an extension off the side where the ovens and staff were preparing dinner. I spotted Janie, the wedding planner, standing in the corner, talking to a handful of waiters.
‘Sorry to disturb,’ I said, standing beside her. ‘Karen sent me. It’s just that we need to take two people out of the seating plan.’
‘No problem,’ she snapped. ‘Have they died? We always have that. Deaths overnight of Great-Aunt Agatha or Great-Uncle Henry.’
‘Erm, no. No deaths. Not that I know of. It’s Willow Maldon. On Polzeath. And Mabel, er, not sure about her surname. On Lisbon.’ Lex had named the tables after the places she and Hamish had been on holiday.
‘You,’ said Janie, clicking her fingers at a nearby waiter, ‘listen to me. Can you go and remove two places from the tables?’
‘Yes,’ he said decisively, and then a bit less decisively, ‘Which places?’
‘One from Lisbon, one from… Oh ne
ver mind, I’ll do it. Otherwise it’ll get messed up. You get back to pouring champagne. Speeches are in…’ she squinted at her watch ‘… twenty minutes and everyone’s glasses need to be full.’
‘Ah, talking of which, can I grab a glass while I’m back here? Haven’t had one yet and I’m desperate,’ I said.
‘’Course you can. You, anonymous waiter, take this lady and give her a large glass of champagne. Then get back out there with the bottle. I’ll go and sort these tables. Willow and Mabel, Willow and Mabel…’ She hurried off, muttering to herself with her clipboard.
‘Hang on,’ said the waiter, walking towards the fridges. He came back with a bottle and a glass. He handed me the glass, then opened the bottle with a loud bang.
‘Keep the bottle,’ he said, pouring me a glass. ‘There’s loads of them in the fridge. I’ll just take another one.’ He handed me the bottle and went back to the fridge, opened another bottle, spilled half of it onto his shoes, and hurried back out towards the fray.
I took a big gulp, then another, then a few more. Then I topped up the glass again. I couldn’t go wandering back out with a bottle in my hand. Looked bad. I’d just have to drink the whole thing. I needed ten minutes of calm. On my own. Having a drink. There was a chair in the corner of the catering tent. So, I sat down, topped up my glass and had a quick read of a text from Mum.
Send us some pictures Xxxx
I worked my way through three glasses, which gave me a few minutes to have a wee and get back into the marquee for the speeches. Perfect. Also, Bill. Must find Bill and talk to him about earlier.
Trouble was, back in the marquee, people were starting to sit down at their tables. Fuck. I still hadn’t found him and it would now have to wait. I was on a table called Ben Nevis, with Hamish’s best man, a character called Ed, on one side and Pete on the other.
‘You nervous?’ I said to Ed when he appeared at the table.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Nothing to it. A few gags about anal sex and we’re away.’
I looked at Pete on my other side and smiled weakly at him.
Pete was up first, although he was crying, so he struggled to get the words out. ‘Come on, Pete, pull yourself together, love,’ said Karen from across the table, as he tried to tell a story about Lex falling off her first bicycle. When he sat down, he reached for his napkin and blew his nose into it so loudly I feared bits of his brain would come out.
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