‘They’re a lovely couple,’ says Charlotte, appearing at my side.
‘They are,’ I agree. ‘But speaking of lovely, you’ll be getting a lot of compliments today. You look amazing.’
‘Thanks, Evie,’ she says, grinning. ‘I never knew I could look like this, I really didn’t.’
‘Well, you deserve it, Charlotte,’ I tell her. ‘You must have done more sit-ups than Private Benjamin.’
Not only does Charlotte now spend more time at the gym than at home, but in the space of a few months she’s also learned all those things that in most cases it takes a lifetime for women to accumulate: how to wax legs without the need for an epidural, how to apply lip-liner without looking like Boy George, how to paint the nails on your right hand without covering your whole arm in polish. Today is the culmination of all this. She looks slim, beautiful and–most amazingly of all–confident.
There are throngs of people on the tiny driveway and it’s clear that it would be best for everyone concerned not to hang about here too long.
‘Mum,’ I say, grabbing her arm, ‘you need to throw your bouquet before we go.’
‘Ooh, right you are,’ she says.
It’s funny how women seem to have an instinct for these things. Within seconds of Mum getting into position to throw the flowers, a group of female guests start gathering with the sort of expressions you’d see on a pack of Cocker Spaniels at the mention of some doggie chocolate drops.
To my surprise, someone is missing. Valentina is still talking to Edmund and Jack on the other side of the drive and hasn’t even noticed what’s going on.
‘Valentina!’ shouts Grace. ‘You’ll miss this if you’re not careful!’
As the bouquet flies through the air, narrowly avoiding an entanglement in my mother’s headdress, there is a surge forwards. Some good-humoured but determined nudging begins. But nobody here has the athleticism–or determination–of Valentina.
Having heard Grace shout, she has hitched up her skirt and is sprinting towards us, elbowing guests out of the way. Grace’s mum’s powder-blue hat is knocked off, Cousin Denise’s bouquet flies out of her hands, Gloria’s kaftan ends up over her head. And, finally, looking very like an Olympic volleyball player, Valentina dives for the bouquet. Somehow, miraculously, everyone manages to get out of her way at this crucial point. Well, everyone but one person. Me.
With Valentina flying through the air, it is almost in slow motion that I can see her engagement ring getting closer, like a small comet heading straight for a crash landing…on my face. As it makes contact with an excruciating thump, squarely in the socket of my eye, it takes my breath away. Sharp and searing, the only thought that is going through my head as I am flung to the ground is that I have never felt anything like it in my life.
Sitting on the ground, it takes me a second to work out what has happened. Slowly, I become aware of the blood dripping down my nose, and the deep throbbing in my eye-socket.
Just as I’m wondering whether I have cartoon-character stars whirling around my head, something else strikes me. Nobody has even noticed what has happened to me. They are all too busy looking at the flowers. Watching, dazed and confused from my vantage point on the car park floor, I can just about see through the crowds.
Patrick is there–dressed far more casually today than he was at his own wedding to Grace–and is grinning at Charlotte.
‘You must be next down the aisle, sweetheart,’ he teases gently, as he puts an arm around her shoulder. He points at the flowers her hands are gripped around, having beaten Valentina to them seconds earlier.
‘Have you been keeping someone secret from us?’ he says, laughing softly.
Charlotte looks up at him, blushing so much that her cheeks look like they’ve hit 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Her delight at catching the flowers couldn’t be more obvious, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smiling more widely in all the years I’ve known her. I decide to try to stand up to go and congratulate her.
But it’s at this point that I pass out.
Chapter 90
‘You really ought to go and see a doctor, you know,’ says Jack, dabbing a piece of damp cotton wool on my eye.
‘I don’t need a doctor,’ I say miserably. ‘I need a paper bag to put over my head.’
He stifles a smile.
‘It’ll be fine in no time,’ he says. ‘Honestly, I know the swelling’s bad now but these things tend to go down really quickly. It’ll surprise you.’
I’ve had rather enough of surprises. Like the one I saw when I looked in the mirror just now. Having spent the entire morning tarting myself up for Jack’s benefit, my face–courtesy of Valentina’s crystal ball of a ring–now looks as if I’ve just done ten rounds with Mike Tyson.
Okay, so she has apologized. In fact, she was so shocked by what she’d done, she did look genuinely sorry–for at least a second. But that doesn’t change the fact that my eye is so black and swollen I can barely see out of it, and I have now had the indignity of my boyfriend insisting on wiping the crusty blood away from my nose.
‘You still look lovely,’ he says, and as he kisses me on the lips I feel like crying. And it’s not just because my head, even after enough painkillers to anaesthetize a shire horse, feels as if someone is jumping up and down on it.
Jack and I have now been together for exactly eight weeks. Under other circumstances I might have considered this an achievement, which it undoubtedly is, given my past history. But I’m just not thinking about it in those terms. Hitting the eight-week mark has happened so effortlessly that I can’t imagine not hitting the ten-week mark, twenty-week mark, or any other mark after it.
It’s not just that I’m not sick of him. It’s that my heart leaps when I see the soap bag he now keeps in my bathroom. It’s that when we wake up on a Sunday morning and he suggests we spend the day together–again–I can barely contain myself. It’s that when he phones me at work and mentions that he can’t wait to see me that night, it’s the highlight of my day.
In short, I am cured. My relationship issues are a thing of the past. The only down side is that it’s taken me until today to realize just how much I’ve abandoned other people in my life. Outside work, the only person I’ve spent much time with lately has been my mum, and this was largely out of necessity, given how haphazard her wedding planning has been.
Still, with the exception of her daughter looking like she’s been brawling in the street, things haven’t worked out too badly. The reception is being held in a field near her house, which sounds horrendous but actually isn’t that bad in practice. Okay, so the marquee doesn’t have organza curtains and chandeliers–because it’s a former cider tent from the Reading Festival. And okay, so there’s not much in the buffet if you have a particularly strong liking for red meat–but if you like mung beans and dried papaya, you’ll be in heaven.
No, it’s not really my mum I’m concerned about. It’s Grace. She’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember, and she doesn’t need to spell it out for me to know something’s going on between her and Patrick. When I say ‘something’, that is about as specific and scientific as I can get at the moment, because she’s not given a great deal away aside from the odd moan.
If there’s one thing I am determined to do today, it is to broach this subject. And, as difficult as it is to tear myself away from Jack, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Right now.
Chapter 91
I suppose it had to happen. I knew it had to happen. I’d just pushed it to the back of my mind to try to pretend it wouldn’t. But Gareth is the sort of person who just can’t help himself. Much as I bloody well wish he would.
‘Evie!’ he shouts, as I’m heading towards Grace on the other side of the marquee.
My heart sinks as if it’s attached to a boulder.
‘I was trying to catch your eye during the ceremony,’ he tells me, ‘but…God, what’s happened to you?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ I say, touching my
eye, but I feel like asking the same question of him. Gareth’s skin is now so bad it looks like he’s been exfoliating with a cheese-grater.
‘Are you…all right?’ I ask.
‘Of course I’m all right,’ he replies, picking at one of the drier bits on his chin and flicking the resulting debris to the ground. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I don’t know, you just don’t look terribly well, that’s all,’ I dare to say.
‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘On top of the world. Anyway, how are you? You never did phone me like you said you would, did you? Still, I won’t hold it against you. Have you been wearing those earrings?’
The earrings he gave me in the Jacaranda are currently burning a hole in the bottom of my chest of drawers as if they’re made of Kryptonite. I don’t want them there, I just don’t know what to do with them. I’m certainly not wearing them, but throwing them away seems a bit callous.
And, despite the fact that bumping into Gareth again is about as pleasant as a session of electric shock therapy, a part of me can’t help feeling bad about the effect me dumping him has clearly had.
‘You shouldn’t have bought me the earrings, Gareth,’ I say, trying my best to sound firm and kind, as opposed to bossy and slightly irritated. ‘I know you meant well but you shouldn’t anyway.’
‘But you wanted them, didn’t you?’
‘That’s not the point,’ I say.
‘What is the point then?’ he asks, scratching the left side of his chin so hard it looks like it’s about to draw blood.
‘The point is, we’re no longer together,’ I tell him gently. ‘And we’re not going to get back together either.’
‘Not yet,’ he reminds me.
Before I get the chance to disabuse him of this fantasy, Bob appears. It was Bob who first introduced me to Gareth and I can’t help but feel immensely relieved that someone else is now here to share the burden of his presence.
‘Bob, congratulations!’ says Gareth, patting him on the back with such force he nearly knocks him over. ‘How are you keeping?’
‘Er, fine, yes,’ coughs Bob. ‘How are you? Have you found a new job yet?’
I frown. I had no idea Gareth wasn’t still working with Bob at the university.
‘Oh, I’ve got lots of irons in the fire, put it that way, Bob,’ he replies, glancing at me nervously.
‘When did you leave?’ I ask.
‘Oh, a few weeks ago,’ he says. ‘I, er, decided it was no longer for me.’
Now Bob is frowning.
‘Anyway,’ continues Gareth, ‘I’m going to go and tuck into some of that lovely food. Catch you later, Evie, Bob.’
As he heads off towards the marquee, I turn to my stepfather.
‘What was all that about?’ I ask.
‘Hmm, funny business really,’ Bob says. ‘He wasn’t exactly sacked, but the rumour is that the Vice Chancellor and he came to a mutual agreement that he would leave and never darken their door again.’
‘Why?’ I ask. Gareth may be as much fun to be around as a plague of dust mites at the moment, but I never had him down as the type to be sacked.
‘It’s not exactly clear,’ says Bob. ‘All I know is that they’ve been trying to get rid of him for ages. He’s a very difficult person to work with, by all accounts. A bit…well, sneaky, they tell me. But what the exact circumstances of him going were, I’m not exactly sure, except that he had a huge row with one of our media professors–a nice lady called Deirdre Bennett. Big bottom and terrible teeth, but nice. Anyway, he just seemed to go after that. No one misses him much, I must say.’
‘Oh well, remind me never to rely on you to introduce me to eligible men in future,’ I say.
He looks over at Jack, who’s talking to my mum inside the marquee, and nods.
‘It doesn’t look much like you’ll need it in future, does it?’
Chapter 92
By the look on Grace’s mum’s face, she’s either got chronic wind or she’s not impressed with the buffet.
‘It’s an unusual spread, Evie,’ she says euphemistically. ‘Not many vol au vents.’
‘They’ve got some nice salads,’ Grace offers, although Scarlett, who is in a pushchair next to us, doesn’t exactly look convinced either.
‘Yes…’ replies Mrs Edwards, taking a hesitant bite out of a chick-pea patty. ‘Although some of it reminds me of that stuff you put in the bottom of Polly’s rabbit hutch.’
Suddenly, my own mum appears, straightening her peacock feather as she approaches.
‘Is everyone enjoying themselves?’ she asks.
‘Absolutely,’ says Grace. ‘I thought your service was lovely. Have you met my mother?’
Grace’s mum smiles and brushes down her dress, which looks as if it’s come straight out of the late Queen Mother’s wardrobe.
‘Del-aighted to meet you,’ she says in her best telephone voice. ‘And many congratulations.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ says my mum, grabbing her hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘I’m so happy you could come today.’
‘Oh well,’ says Mrs Edwards, continuing with the odd inflection in her voice, ‘Ay’m here to look after the little ones, that’s all. Ay’ll be taking them home soon to let my Grace have some time to herself. She doesn’t have a lot of time, normally, what with her high-powered job.’
‘Er, yes–thanks, Mum,’ interrupts Grace, before Mrs Edwards starts regaling us with how ‘advanced’ she was as a child.
‘How’s the buffet?’ asks my mum. ‘Ooh, you’ve obviously enjoyed it, Mrs Edwards.’
‘Er, yes, very nice,’ says Grace’s mother. ‘I’m more of a Marks and Spencer fan myself though, to be honest. You know–mini-quiches, sausages on sticks, that kind of thing. But er, yes, this is very nice. For a change.’
‘Oh well, Bob and I don’t buy any of our food from the conglomerates,’ Mum says.
‘From the what, dear?’ asks Mrs Edwards.
‘You know, supermarkets…chains,’ Mum explains. ‘We try to buy direct from the grower. It’s much tastier and ultimately more economical too.’
Mrs Edwards gamely tries to hide her concern for my mother’s welfare and possibly her sanity too.
‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘I don’t think that’d be practical in our case. I wouldn’t know where else to get a Battenburg from, for a start.’
‘Anyway, I do hope you’ll excuse me so I can do a bit more mingling,’ says Mum. ‘Ooh, but before I go, you don’t happen to have a lighter, do you?’
‘Not me,’ I say.
‘Sorry, Sarah,’ says Grace. ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ says Mum. ‘It’s not for me, it’s for Bob’s friend Gerry. And, between you and me, I think he only wants it for his bong.’
Mrs Edwards turns to us after she’s gone.
‘What’s a bong?’ she asks.
Grace gulps.
‘A type of barbecue,’ I say. ‘They’re about to do some corn on the cob.’
Chapter 93
Patrick is trying to give Scarlett and Polly a kiss goodbye before Mrs Edwards takes them home. Trouble is, he’s clearly seeing four of them.
‘Wheresh my besht girlsh?’ he says, stumbling, before scooping both of them up.
‘Are you drunk, Daddy?’ asks Polly.
‘Don’t be shilly,’ he says, trying to pat her on the head but missing.
‘I’m not sure you fooled her,’ Grace tells him after they’ve gone, but he ignores her and takes another liberal gulp of his beer.
As dusk starts to descend, the lights in the marquee are turned on and the four of us–Grace and Patrick, me and Jack–watch as the band prepare for their big performance. They are friends of Bob’s and I can only describe them, from the one time I’ve seen them before, like a souped-up version of Simon and Garfunkel.
‘Hey everyone,’ says the lead singer, a middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt and hair like a mad scientist. ‘Before we start, can I just say congratulations to
Bob and Sarah. I can’t think of a…cooler…couple.’
Everyone cheers as the band launch into the song the bride and groom have chosen for their first dance–‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ by the Rolling Stones.
Bob grabs Mum’s hand and leads her onto the dance floor in a half-skip as their heads bob up and down manically in time to the music. He swings her around in wild abandonment and, with both of their arms flailing like they’re performing a rain dance, they set the dance floor alight in their own unique way.
‘Other people choose James Blunt for their first song,’ I say, shaking my head.
‘Well, they’re entertaining if nothing else,’ says Grace, laughing. ‘You’ve got to admit that.’
‘Yep, they are,’ I agree. ‘Listen, I was thinking. We four should get together soon, you know.’
‘What, you mean a double date?’ says Grace. ‘I’ve not been on one of those since I was about eighteen.’
‘I wasn’t going to suggest we go ten-pin bowling,’ I say. ‘I haven’t got the co-ordination for a start. I thought a bit of dinner might be nice though. Jack’s a great cook.’
‘Tsk, Jack,’ says Patrick, as he starts to sway backwards and forwards. ‘It starts off being invited out and ends up with you doing the bloody cooking. I wouldn’t stand for it, mate.’
Patrick is clearly trying to jest, but there is something about how pissed he is that gives him the air of an EastEnders hard man–and seeing that he’s a corporate lawyer, it really doesn’t suit him. Fortunately, Jack is polite enough to pretend he hasn’t noticed.
‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘Maybe we should get the girls to do the cooking instead. The only trouble with that is that I’ve tasted Evie’s Pasta Putanesca and I’m a bit worried I might not survive the experience twice.’
I hit him playfully on the arm and he responds by pulling me towards him and gently kissing the top of my head. As we move away from each other, I turn to look at Grace and Patrick and am a bit shocked by what I see. They are standing apart from each other and look so uncomfortable with our display of affection, neither of them appears to know where to put their eyes. Then, something strange happens. Patrick drains his glass, turns on his heel and walks away. Just like that.
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