A Beautiful Day for a Wedding Read online

  ‘You need to tell him to get his testicular lump checked out by a doctor. This is really important.’

  ‘Umm, ok.’

  ‘And someone whose name begins with a B is going to play a big role in your future. I see many happy times with B.’

  Becca excitedly dug her fingers into Eve’s leg. ‘Yay,’ she whispered. Across the room Ayesha shot her an enthusiastic double thumbs up while Tanya raised her eyebrows and made a silent clapping gesture. What was with her friends tonight? They’d all lost the plot.

  With Violet safely dispatched to her waiting taxi, Eve’s friends crowded around her.

  ‘It must be Ben,’ Ayesha shrieked excitedly.

  ‘It is not Ben,’ Eve replied.

  ‘But think about it Eve, he miraculously reappears again and suddenly you get a reading saying that a man called B is the one for you, it must be.’

  Eve rolled her eyes. ‘Seriously, it isn’t. It’s just as likely to be Bernie, the vegan lentil-popping pogo-sticker from your wedding Tanya.’

  ‘No offence, but Bernie’s way out of your league.’

  ‘Cheers Tanya, that’s very helpful. But it’s not him, and it’s not Ben, and anyway, more to the point, Violet is a lovely old lady, but I’m taking anything that comes out of her mouth with a shovel of salt.’

  Ayesha sucked thoughtfully on her phallic straw. ‘My mum was choosing between a pink and a turquoise sari you know. That’s uncanny.’

  ‘Not really. Didn’t you say that the bride usually wears red, no one wears white, and the brighter the better? She could have quite easily said blue and you’d have assumed she meant turquoise, and you’d still think she was right.’

  ‘You can’t argue with fate,’ Becca added. ‘And if I was you, you know, single and everything, I know that I’d be trying to find as many Bs as possible to be having happy times with.’

  ‘I do already, B-ecca.’

  ‘Eve. It wouldn’t hurt to just open your eyes to all the Bs around you, that’s all I’m saying. Next time a bloke called B something shows a little bit of interest, and don’t roll your eyes at me, you know it happens, I’m simply saying don’t ignore it – see where it leads. You’ve been given a massive clue as to your future, don’t waste it.’

  ‘Becca’s right,’ Tanya chipped in. ‘You can’t really afford to at your stage in life.’

  ‘Again, Tanya, very helpful. Right are we sticking with Pimms or moving onto something stronger?’ Eve then wandered away from her gaggle of friends to the countertop where a range of out of date vodkas were calling for her. Now these were her kind of spirits.

  Chapter 12

  Eve wasn’t mistaken. The heart locket lady was definitely smiling at her. After seven months of sharing the same train journey, and being caught – more than once – blatantly staring at her, she finally returned Eve’s wistful smile. The sweaty mugginess of public transport in July evaporated and love, romance, and happiness filled the carriage. It was definitely a lover that gave that woman her necklace, her eyes were dancing too much and her skin too glowing, for it to be otherwise. He was probably working abroad using his niche skills to advance world medicine, or unearth dinosaur bones in Tanzania. He wrote often, of course, his own half of the necklace tarnished from the sun, but still he ticked off the days of his calendar until they would meet again.

  Bollocks, Eve had completely missed her stop. She pushed her way through the throng to the door and ran off at the next station, quickly doubling back on herself and heading back up the same tube line. It was ten past nine when she finally arrived at the imposing glass revolving doors into her office, but instead of powering on through and running breathlessly and apologetically to her desk, Eve slowed down as she approached the entrance.

  ‘Alright, Clive?’

  ‘Morning gorgeous.’

  ‘Everything ok, Clive?’

  ‘Course it is. Fabulous day for it.’

  Eve didn’t feel like playing along today, but equally she couldn’t break from convention and start talking about his intimate health. She bottled it. ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘Fabulous day for it.’

  All the way up in the lift to the fourth floor she mentally beat herself up for not saying more, but apart from replaying the same four-line conversation with him every day, she knew nothing about Clive’s life. She could hardly start talking testicles with him.

  The meeting had already started, and Eve tried to slip in unnoticed, but Fiona made a point of pausing when the frosted glass door swung open, and stayed silent until Eve had taken her seat at the table, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  ‘I was just saying, Eve, that as per the memo I sent around last week, the sales targets are higher for the next issue, so we need editorial ideas that help generate new advertisers. As you’re last in, you can be first to share what you’ve got planned.’

  Another meeting, another completely blank mind brought about by zero preparation.

  ‘Hen dos,’ Eve blurted out, thankful that her real life was providing such rich fodder for her day job. ‘Gone are the days of a simple meal out with friends, today’s brides want to do something completely out of the ordinary. I was at a hen do last weekend where we had a séance.’

  While the rest of the room broke out in an excited chatter at this revelation, Fiona said, ‘While that’s interesting, and no doubt your colleagues will be tapping you for information about it the second this meeting’s over, I can’t see clairvoyants with bags of cash waiting in line to advertise with us.’

  ‘No, it was just an example of the out of box things that now happen on hen dos, I could do a round up of fun and quirky things to do in the major cities, London, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Dublin, and then tour agencies, nightclubs, adventure companies, entertainers, hotels etc, might all come in. It’d make a fun online directory too, and we can sell banners on the site, even offer discount codes. I think it’d bring in quite a bit of revenue.’

  ‘Keep it classy though Eve, we’re not out to shock like some other publications.’

  Lucie, one of the junior stylists on the fashion desk said, ‘Talking of which, did anyone else see that Venus is running a wedding column now? Misadventures of a bad bridesmaid? The first one came out a couple of weeks ago, and it’s hilarious – basically all the stuff we’d love to write about if we were allowed to!’

  Eve could feel the hairs prick up on her arms and tried really hard to keep her eyes from becoming saucer-like.

  ‘No,’ said Fiona curtly. ‘Can’t say I did. Right, yes, Eve that sounds good, remember to pass any lucrative leads onto Angie, and maybe include a Further Afield box-out on European destinations with original things to do to perhaps bring in some airlines too. Right, fashion—’

  ‘You went to a séance?’ Kat hissed as they all filed out back to their desks. ‘You never said!’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a séance, it was an old woman claiming she could talk to the dead passing on incoherent messages that were pretty vague.’

  ‘Anything come through for you?’

  The image of jolly Clive jumped to the forefront of Eve’s mind, which she quickly shook away. ‘Not really, she said that I’m going to meet a bloke with a name beginning with B who was going to be important to me, but it’s all a load of tosh.’

  ‘That’s so exciting!’ Kat squealed. ‘I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open for a Boris or a Barry I can hook you up with!’

  ‘Stop it. Just stop it. Now leave me to my inbox.’

  Dear Eve,

  I have always loved elephants and really want to arrive at church on the back of one, but all the zoos I’ve called won’t let me borrow one, can you help me?

  Mia, West Sussex

  Hi Mia,

  Funny you should ask, I actually run a sideline specialising in elephant hire for events, I used to do marquees but diversified last year.

  Just then Eve’s phone sprang into life, with Ayesha’s name flashing up on the scre
en.

  Eve answered it gratefully. ’Hey bride to be, how are you doing?’

  ‘I’m great, thank you so much for a fab weekend.’

  ‘Not my doing at all, it was all Becca.’

  ‘She told me that had you not stepped in we’d have been touring toilets, having a talk by a sexpert and making bras out of shells.’

  Eve laughed. ‘We can do her ideas on a weekend when your mum’s not with us!’

  ‘It’s a deal. Amit had a fun time too, he was telling me all about it last night. There’s a brilliant video of him and Ben busking in Covent Garden. Apparently Amit had an inkling that that’s what they were going to make him do, so he’d gone prepared to rope Ben in to do it with him, and even picked up a pair of men’s tap shoes in a charity shop that he’d stashed in his bag, and made Ben wear those and dance while he sang Bohemian Rhapsody with a tambourine!’

  This was so much better than Eve could have hoped. ‘Oh my God, I bet Ben was so embarrassed.’

  ‘He was bright red on the video. He kept asking Amit how he knew about the prank, but Amit just had a lucky guess.’

  Eve sent a telepathic thank you to Amit for keeping her out of it, although she kind of wanted Ben to know that she was behind it. There was no point getting your own back if the person in question didn’t know.

  ‘And, you’ll never believe it, but Trudy’s just called me. First thing this morning, she went for a private scan of the baby and Violet was completely right, they’d got it wrong before, and it is a girl! She’d had three different doctors confirm a boy to her before this scan, so that’s incredible isn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm, incredible.’

  ‘And Samantha messaged me, saying that she gave her job contract to a lawyer friend, and there is a clause in there, buried on the fifth page, about having a year’s probation where she can’t take any holiday days! She called HR and they’ve agreed to reduce it to three months. Violet’s amazing, isn’t she?’

  ‘Mmm, amazing. Look Ayesha, can I call you back, I just need to go and do something.’

  Under the pretence of getting coffee from the cafe downstairs, Eve left her desk with a piece of paper with everyone’s orders on it. There was still every likelihood that Violet had just struck lucky with Trudy and Samantha, but Eve wouldn’t be able to live with herself if there was the slightest chance she might have a crystal ball where her brain should have been.

  Clive sprang up from his chair just inside the front door to hold open the door for her. ‘You look tired Clive, you should rest more.’

  He laughed, showing yellowing teeth stained by years of cheap cigarettes, smoked strictly when he was out of uniform. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’

  ‘You need to take care of yourself Clive, we all do, we’re not getting any younger, are we?’ Eve said, smiling, trying to pitch it as a friendly talking point, rather than a direct, and quite frankly inappropriate, inquiry into his private bits.

  ‘You’re a spring chicken, love.’

  ‘I’m thirty. But that’s not the point, it’s so important, isn’t it Clive, to get any niggles seen to by the professionals? You know, something that might be worrying us, but we’re putting off doing anything about. God knows Clive, I’m guilty of it too, but a quick check up always sets your mind at ease, wouldn’t you say Clive? Sometimes, we might be too embarrassed, or maybe a bit shy about stripping off in front of a doctor, but it’s what they’re there for, isn’t it? To feel our boobs and cup our balls.’

  She’d gone from ‘Fabulous day for it’ to an armed assault that included the words boobs and balls. She was mortified. He was mortified. Eve fled to the nearby sanctuary of the cafe and wondered how the hell she was going to re-enter the building with seven low-fat lattes without going through the front door.

  Hen dos. Chances are, your mother and grandmother didn’t have one, or if they did it would have been a lovely classy affair with some cucumber sandwiches and a large teapot taking centre stage. Fast forward to the twenty-first century and hen parties have enjoyed a revolution of epic proportions. The term ‘hen’ was first coined in the 1620s as a slang term for women, and our friends across the pond in the US often used the phrase ‘hen party’ to describe any gathering of females. Even the formidable Eleanor Roosevelt was said to have hosted a Christmas hen party for cabinet wives and ‘ladies of the press’ in 1940 – so far, so sedate. But somewhere along the line, brides decided that grooms shouldn’t have all the fun, and we jumped on the pre-wedding party bandwagon – destination: Let-your-hair-down Town. Over the next few pages are some fun ideas of how you can spend your final few nights of freedom with your friends. Flashing tiara completely optional…

  Eve was boring herself. She minimised the word document and maximised a blank one.

  A hen do, bachelorette party or the appallingly named stagette – just typing the word has made my fingers freeze into rigor mortis – has become an industry worth £500 million in the UK alone. That’s half a billion pounds spent on phallic confetti, flammable LED-encrusted veils and strippers called Gavin who work at B&Q during the day.

  A nice afternoon tea with friends in the Sixties, morphed into a meal at a Bernie Inn in the Seventies, jiggling your bits along to Wham at a disco in the Eighties, a night out wearing an L-plate and Skechers platforms in the Nineties, and now the twenty-first century has hit, we’re expected to renew our passports and board a plane for Barcelona for three nights. Or worse, head into the country with ten or more women you’ve never met before, hole up in a self-catering house grandly, and falsely, advertised as a ‘barn’ and get served your dinner by a naked man in a posing pouch. No thanks Gav, put it away.

  And the activities. I don’t want to learn pole-dancing at 11 a.m. stone cold sober, go clay pigeon-shooting or attend a séance where a purple-rinsed clairvoyant randomly shouts nouns into the room and fellow hens cluck that she’s a genius. The foreplay and flirting workshop is so cringe-inducing I’m blushing even writing it, and model makeovers offend my feminist heckles so much I want to shake the screen until it dies a slow death. Wine tasting, I could get behind, and a nice meal out will always see me RSVP-ing in a positive way, but once the price tag goes over two digits I’m already feeling a bit pissed off before I’ve got there. Let’s turn our attention to themes for a minute. There’s nothing big or clever about middle-aged women wearing Pink Ladies jackets. Ever. Unless your first name is Olivia and your second is Newton-John, and even then most of us thought it was a cop out when she joined Rizzo’s gang at the end. Be yourself Sandy, you don’t need them.

  It was like free therapy, Eve thought, smiling. Except it wasn’t just free, she was actually being paid by Venus to do it. None of this sitting on couches next to a tissue box staring into an Ikea picture of a waterfall, she was curing herself of all her woes and anxieties, and paying off her debts at the same time.

  Just then her phone buzzed with an unknown number. She didn’t normally answer unless she knew who it was, there’d been a couple of instances in the past of panic-stricken brides needing the calming dulcet tones of Agony Aunt Eve to quell their desperation but writing the Venus column had put her in the type of mood where even the most hyperventilating bride of them all could be talked back from the ledge. ‘Eve speaking?’

  ‘Eve, it’s Ben.’

  Eve clutched the phone so tight her knuckles whitened. ‘Ben, hi.’

  ‘I got your number from Ayesha.’

  ‘Oh. Ok.’

  ‘How was the hen party?’

  This was very strange, Eve thought. There’s no way that after four years of silence he had found her number in order to enquire after her weekend. ‘Um, it was, fine.’

  ‘It was Amit’s stag do, as you know, this weekend too.’

  ‘Yes. I heard he had a great time.’

  ‘Did you also hear how he had “a feeling” about what his prank was going to be and made me join in too?’

  Eve smiled. ‘I may have heard something.’

  ‘With tap sh
oes. I wore tap shoes, Red.’

  Feigning surprise when all she wanted to do was burst into applause and yell ‘GOTCHA’ was an Oscar-worthy performance. ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve been racking my brains thinking about how he could have known.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘It’ll come to me, I’m sure. Anyway, I’ll see you at their wedding in a couple of weeks. I’d better go, I’ve got to add in a few things to the speech, it’s going to be a corker. Bye Red.’

  Eve rolled her eyes. This petty tit-for-tat game playing was incredibly immature. He’d walked out of her life without even looking backwards, and now they seemed to be involved in a juvenile version of prank-tag.

  Chapter 13

  Hitched at Kew Gardens

  Short of turning up with a megaphone announcing her marital status, Eve realised that nothing shouted ‘Spinster’ so loudly as being your mum’s plus one to a wedding.

  ‘Stop fidgeting, you look lovely,’ Faye said, putting her arm through Eve’s as their shoes crunched the gravel on the long driveway towards the Orangery where the ceremony was going to be held.

  ‘So, the bride is called Leila, and the groom is Nick,’ Eve clarified, accepting an order of service from a tall smiling usher.

  ‘Yes, you used to play together when you were little, but you wouldn’t remember that. You’d actually really get on with Leila, she wrote a blog about being single in London, it was pretty funny actually.’

  They found two seats together near the back of the cavernous glass-roofed space, which was simply decorated to show off its breathtaking floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the gardens beyond. Delicate garlands of greenery wound their way around the backs of the white spindled chairs, with large white peonies attached to the end of every row. It was classic, and classy and even for a wedding pro like Eve, it was pretty near perfection. A small band of musicians struck up a jaunty jazz tune that Eve recognised from an old movie as the bride walked in on her father’s arm. Eve could see what Faye meant about her getting on with the bride as even watching her walk up the aisle, Leila exuded a joy that quite often was missing from brides who were so hung up on every detail being right they forgot to have fun. Instead, this bride was beaming, waving hello to each familiar face she passed, doing a little shoulder jig in time to the music, and generally looking like the happiest person that ever walked the earth. Despite not seeing her since they were little, and having no real connection to her, Eve couldn’t help a tear running down her face as her groom gently lifted her veil and broke into the biggest grin she’d ever seen on a groom. Eve’s tears were for their unbridled joy, their happy ever after, but they were also a bit for her. For the love and passion she’d had a taste of, but was cruelly snatched away – with no explanation, no good reason, just because. The applause from the congregation snapped her back, and Eve clapped along, subtly and quickly wiping her eyes.