A Beautiful Day for a Wedding Read online

  ‘And I thought what you wrote was really good. So I sent it to my friend, and she loved it too. And she’s going to run it this week, and call you about writing a regular column for them during wedding season, talking about the crazy things people get up to at weddings, bizarre requests, ridiculous stories, et cetera. They have a large budget for freelancers, which would help you out considerably, I’m sure, as you mentioned you were finding it a bit tricky making ends meet. Whatever you write for them would have to be completely anonymous though. That is vital as I couldn’t have it known that our features editor who skips through life filled with the joys of love and marriage is writing a column called The misadventures of a bad bridesmaid. And you would have to swear that you wouldn’t tell anyone at all that you’re doing it, let alone that I told you about it.’

  Throughout this monologue Eve’s eyes were growing wider, this whole conversation seemed so implausible. She’d entered the room thinking she was getting fired, and she was now being offered a potential new sideline and income stream.

  ‘I don’t think I’d be any good at that—’ Eve started.

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘I just mean, it doesn’t sit well with me, pulling apart the happiest day of someone’s life.’

  ‘You do it in private anyway, why not do it in public? Anyway, it’s not pulling apart their day, it’s more about observational humour, saying what most people are thinking. Look, what I read on your screen is exactly what they’re looking for. They pay five hundred pounds a column. Bash a couple out a week and you’ll be rolling in it.’

  Eve gasped. That was crazy money.

  ‘Here’s Belinda’s number, call her after work and go from there. But Eve, if this ever comes out that it’s you, I know nothing and you’re completely on your own. Understand?’

  Eve understood. She understood that this was the lifeline she needed. Not just financially, but for the sake of her sanity as well. If she was going to be paid for getting all her dark thoughts off her chest, it might just be the sweetest gig that had ever existed.

  Chapter 9

  The Bull’s Head was a throwback to the 1920s, and not in an airport-lounge themed-bar type of way. It had the original Art Deco stained glass, a heavy oak bar with leather-clad bar stools and every spare inch of wall was taken up with framed pictures of the good and great of the jazz and blues world who had graced the tiny raised platform at the far end of the pub. There were probably five hundred bars between Tanya’s posh flat, where Eve and Becca were both staying, and their local underneath their own flat but to frequent one of them seemed like cheating on a faithful lover.

  They’d got there early so had managed to commandeer one of the battered leather sofas near the door, which was propped open, so there was a heavenly gush of fresh air to counteract the warm muskiness of the pub.

  ‘So, what’s new?’ Becca said, taking a sip of her wine and tucking her leg underneath her.

  Eve could hardly tell her about the conversation with Belinda that had just taken place on her walk from the tube station. She was sworn to secrecy, and sadly, that included Becca. But the phone call could not have gone better. Belinda welcomed her on board and confirmed the fee for her columns that almost had Eve dancing on the pavement. Forget roller discos and zorbing, she was ready to suggest Vegas for the next hen do. Belinda had asked her what sort of things she was going to write about and, put completely on the spot, Eve found herself reeling off details about all the weddings she had lined up that summer: a fashionable urban wedding in a warehouse; an off-the-wall themed wedding complete with plastic birds and non-conventional aisle; a countryside village fete wedding; and a gay destination wedding. Said out loud, they sounded perfect fodder for her new column, and Belinda thankfully thought so too. As long as she changed enough details of each wedding no one would ever put two and two together.

  Eve shrugged. ‘I haven’t been up to much, apart from being the leading character in an episode of Animal Rescue.’

  Becca giggled through her hand. She was just as guilty of completely forgetting their dog-sitting duties, and when Eve had called her from Tanya’s flat to describe in stomach-churning detail what she was having to deal with, she couldn’t help but laugh. The part where Eve recounted scraping out the inside of Tanya’s Louboutins with an anti-bacterial wipe had actually made her cry a little.

  ‘You would have thought that we’d mature with age.’

  ‘Like a fine wine.’

  ‘Yes!’ Becca smiled, twirling the stem of her glass. ‘Or like Ben.’

  Eve had wondered when Becca would bring him up. The whole way home from the wedding, and the entirety of the next day, when they’d both lain horizontally on the living room sofas for ten hours straight, his name hadn’t been mentioned.

  ‘I’d hardly say he was mature, he swapped the place cards round so I’d have a shocker of a day.’

  ‘I meant mature as in looks. He’s still quite gorgeous.’

  ‘If you like that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Tall, dark, chiselled features, broad shoulders, it’s definitely an acquired taste.’

  Eve rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t notice. To me he was still greasy and annoying.’

  ‘You didn’t think he was greasy and annoying four years ago.’

  ‘I was naive and stupid back then. With appalling taste in men.’

  ‘Did you ask him why he left in such a hurry? With no forwarding address?’

  ‘No. And I don’t care.’

  ‘You cared enough to hide away in New York for two years.’

  ‘I was not hiding! I was working!’

  ‘And hiding.’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘No, you’re right, you were having a great time. In your windowless bedroom with your pot-smoking flatmates who didn’t speak English.’

  ‘Look, him leaving me in the lurch like that just showed his complete immaturity, as did his stunt at Tanya’s wedding.’

  ‘But you guys used to play jokes on each other the whole time, it was what you did. I bet it was just his way of building some bridges,’ Becca reasoned.

  ‘By making me have a miserable time?’

  ‘So get him back. Come up with a prank to show him that you have the upper hand. Or just talk to him, listen to his explanation. You need some closure.’

  ‘I’m not stooping to his level Becca, and come to that, I have zero interest in talking to him about it. Or about anything. Or even talking about him, so let’s not. Anything new with you?’

  ‘He’s living in Wimbledon now.’

  ‘Why are we still talking about him?’

  ‘Which is quite close.’

  ‘Is Jack up this weekend?’

  ‘Just two trains and you’re there.’

  ‘It’ll be nice to see Jack again, he’s been on training for ages now.’

  ‘I could get Ben’s number off Ayesha?’

  ‘If Jack’s up for more than two nights, count me in for a drink.’

  Becca shook her head and rolled her eyes. ‘You’re infuriating.’

  Eve topped up both their glasses and clinked hers to Becca’s. ‘It takes one to know one.’

  They’d called it a night around ten o’clock. Tanya’s was a few stops down on the tube and it was a work day tomorrow. Letting themselves into Tanya and Luke’s darkened flat the two women instinctively angled their noses up and sniffed the air.

  ‘I swear to God I’ve gone through an entire Fruits of the Forest floor bleach, half a tonne of air freshener and lit every single scented candle I could get my hands on, and it still smells like shit.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Becca said comfortingly. ‘They’re away for another fortnight, it can’t linger that long.’

  Eve was eternally thankful they were on the third floor and could sleep with the window open. She felt like she was covered in excrement and trapped inside one of the Christmas tree shaped fobs you hang from rear view mirrors.

  ‘Oh my days, Eve, look at
this!’ Becca had opened the double-door American silver fridge and was standing in front of it, her face illuminated by the fridge lights. ‘Did you see this earlier?’

  ‘I was too busy fumigating the place, what is it?’

  Every jar, bottle and carton inside had little post-it notes with Tanya’s neatly looped handwriting on them. A half-eaten jar of pesto said ‘Please finish by 25/6’, a glass pot of artisan olives tied with a raffia ribbon read ‘Do not touch’, a cold bottle of Moët stated ‘Do not drink’, an M&S bottle of prosecco had the invitation to ‘Help yourself’ and a container of fresh coffee beans had ‘Use sparingly’ on the top.

  ‘Who even uses the word sparingly?’ Eve wondered out loud.

  ‘Tanya does. Don’t you remember our fridge at Stanbrook Road? Me, you and Ben all shared a massive tub of Tesco Value margarine while Tanya had her own Lurpak that we weren’t allowed to use? And she was the only student in the history of students to buy avocados.’

  ‘Do you reckon these notes are for us, or Luke?’ Eve asked cheekily. ‘I mean, this is no way for a grown man to live.’

  Becca grinned and slammed the door shut. ‘It’s a miracle she found someone to marry her.’

  ‘For so many reasons.’

  ‘What’s that? Eve Atwood being bitchy? Who are you and what have you done with my friend?’

  It was true. Eve seemed to have experienced a seismic personality shift in the last few years. Being dumped without explanation and fending for herself in New York had sanded away some of the optimism and jolliness that had erred on the side of irritating if someone hadn’t known her well, and this new incarnation was, dare she say it, cynical and a bit bolshy. And she rather liked her.

  ‘Tanya’s broken me.’

  ‘It was bound to happen at some point,’ Becca said, giving Eve’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘What do you say? Shall we crack open the prosecco and toast our new home for two weeks, and the new you?’

  ‘Sod that, we’re having the contraband Moët.’

  It was nearly midnight and they needed to go to bed, but Becca was talking through her ideas for Ayesha’s hen do. Eve knew that if she stopped her, the moment would be lost and no more plans would be made until ten women arrived on the weekend after next expecting a party and there would literally not be a single thing booked.

  ‘So, we’re agreed that the London Loo Tour sounds fun but not right for a hen do?’

  ‘While I personally love the idea of a guided walk around the city’s best toilets, no, it’s not quite right,’ Eve replied encouragingly. It was Becca’s first attempt at event-planning and her ideas veered from the offbeat to the jaw-droppingly ludicrous. This suggestion hovered somewhere around the middle.

  ‘What should we wear? I was thinking we could all wear Pink Ladies jackets with our names on them?’

  ‘Let’s sort out what we’re doing first, how much it’s costing and then see what’s left over for outfits.’ The Eve of old would have taken over, unearthing some new notebooks, pens and highlighters and steering Becca in the direction of hen perfection, but this Eve was letting her friend arrive at the destination by herself. However much it was killing her.

  Becca suddenly ventured, ‘How about a sex class where experts come and teach us all the tricks of the trade?’

  ‘Didn’t Ayesha say that she wanted her mum to be there?’

  ‘Good point. So that rules out pole dancing, naked life drawing, Adonis cabaret, nipple-tassel making and my personal favourite, the Mermaid-a-thon where we make tails and shell bras.’ Becca lay back on the sofa and closed her eyes in defeat. ‘That leaves nothing.’

  It was time for Eve to step in. Not in a heavy-handed, ‘I’ve got the solution’ type of way, just a gentle nudge, or they’d still be talking about nipple-tassels at dawn. Which sounded like a cracking film title for a rude western. ‘Ok, let’s think,’ Eve said, hand on chin, pretending that the idea she was just about to voice had just that second flashed into her brain, rather than being heavily researched and wedged up her sleeve in case a back-up plan was needed. ‘Ayesha is not the best cook, and she’ll need a solid repertoire to impress the in-laws when they visit from India, so how about an Asian cookery class? Then we could all have dinner eating our own food we’ve just prepared, in a lovely Airbnb that we’ve hired for the weekend, maybe a funky loft apartment on the river.’

  Becca sat up, her eyes wide with enthusiasm. ‘Yes! That’s perfect! And then after dinner we can have the séance!’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘It was Ayesha’s idea. She was so impressed with crazy Great-Aunty Violet’s fortune-telling skills, she’s asked her to come as the entertainment in the evening.’

  ‘Violet told Ayesha that she was moving to Africa, and that you were going to have twins. I’d hardly say she was on the mark.’

  ‘But if that’s in our future, you have no way of knowing it’s untrue.’

  Exasperatedly Eve replied, ‘But you have no way of saying that it is!’

  ‘She said dog poo to you. Can I remind you what sort of day you’ve had?’

  Eve had completely forgotten about Violet’s pronouncement until Becca reminded her. Even so, it was a tenuous coincidence. ‘A séance has the potential to go horribly wrong,’ Eve persisted. ‘What if she tells someone they’re dying and they’re not? Or that their husband’s cheating on them and then they get divorced, and it’s all the wittering of a senile old woman.’

  ‘I think they have to take an oath that they don’t pass on bad news.’

  ‘From where? Palm readers’ college? You don’t sign up to the clairvoyants’ union or anything.’

  ‘Anyway, it was Ayesha’s idea and it’s her hen party.’

  ‘Well, just for the record, I think it’s a ridiculous idea.’

  ‘Is that because you didn’t have it?’

  ‘Now who’s being bitchy?’

  Becca picked up the two empty champagne flutes and swept her mound of olive stones into her hand. ‘Forget about it, it’s late, we need to go to bed, it’s a work night.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Eve said simply. ‘I don’t want to argue with you, I’m just knackered from running around after her ladyship, and I’m angry at myself for agreeing to do all the stuff I did that’s made me so exhausted, and for saying we’d stay here, and I want to sleep in my own bed that I know with a massive amount of certainty has never been pooed on.’

  By mutual agreement they both shared the futon, which turned out to be the world’s poorest excuse for a mattress. Becca was already awake, lying still and staring up at the ceiling when Eve came to.

  ‘Do you think it’s all part of a cunning plan?’ Becca started. ‘If you deliberately make the spare room as uncomfortable as possible then sure, your guests will moan about you behind your back, but they’ll never return. Whereas if they enjoy the best night’s sleep of their lives, you’ll never get rid of them. It’s actually very clever.’

  ‘Will you promise to have a nice spare room when I visit you and Jack? And then strip it back down to a prison cell when I leave?’ Eve mumbled, not yet ready to open her eyes and start the day.

  ‘Ok, but on one condition. You go and take that blasted dog out for a walk before she scratches her way through the front door.’

  Chapter 10

  ‘Are we writing for grooms now too, and no one’s told me yet?’ Kat asked, peering at Eve’s screen. She’d been browsing stag do pranks for the first two hours of the day under the pretence of getting ideas for the feature she was writing on hen parties, but in reality she’d been wondering if Becca was possibly right and that in order to gain some sort of closure on her relationship, friendship, or whatever she had with Ben, she needed to show him that she couldn’t be walked over. Again. And as she had no inclination to go near Wimbledon, or be anywhere in the same breathing space as him, Eve figured it had to be done from afar. She just needed to work out how. And what. And when.

  ‘Long story. A friend of mine has his stag do this weeken
d, and I want to play a joke on the best man.’

  Kat’s eyes lit up with curiosity. ‘Ooh, does our Eve like the best man?’

  ‘In no way whatsoever,’ Eve replied briskly. ‘He’s incredibly annoying and I would love to see him in a mankini.’ She paused. ‘That came out very wrong. I would love to see him humiliated in a mankini, not I would love to see him in one.’

  ‘I’m not sure stag do pranks extend to the best man too.’

  ‘But they do, look at this site,’ Eve swivelled her screen round slightly so that Kat could get a better look at the current webpage on her screen called stitchupthestag.com. ‘It seems that the best man is often included in the gags. My only issue is how to make sure that it happens.’

  ‘What you need is someone on the inside.’

  Kat was right. Eve ran through the list of possible co-conspirators which, as she didn’t know any of Amit’s current friends, was limited to just Luke, and she ruled him out instantly due to his humourless earnestness and the fact that every one of his movements had to be either authorised or vetoed by his wife. There was a way for this to happen, she knew it, it just had to come to her. Meanwhile, she should probably get back to the job she was being paid for, there were panicking brides to placate.

  Hi Eve,

  I’m having a massive issue with one of my bridesmaids, who is also my husband-to-be’s sister. She is so much shorter than the other bridesmaids, like really short, and she’s going to make my photos look really strange. I bought her five-inch heels to wear but she’s refusing. Can I ask her to step down?

  Jackie, Edinburgh

  Hi Jackie,

  Surely you want her to step up, not down? As a hater of heels myself, there’s no way that I’d be able to walk around in five-inch stilettos all day without looking like a drunk Bambi, and that’s not a look you want for your bridesmaid either. But you’re right, a short bridesmaid is absolutely going to ruin everything, and frankly make you look like a complete fool in front of everyone you know. But I think I have the perfect solution. Find another short person, get your sister-in-law to sit on their shoulders all day and just drape her bridesmaid dress over the top. Right height and no blisters.