A Catered Affair (12 page)

I thought back to the conversation we’d had just before he died—the one in the car park on Hampstead Heath, when he talked about me getting married and said how important it was to find a soul mate. I was in no doubt that I had found one in Josh, and it made me sad that Dad wasn’t around to get to know him and tell me how much he approved of my choice.

I don’t know when I dropped off, but the next thing I knew, light was flooding into my room and I could hear Nana on the phone to room service, ordering coffee, OJ and croissants. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was just after eight. My head throbbed. The inside of my mouth had turned to felt.

I pulled on my dressing gown and went to brush my teeth.

“Can you believe it?” Nana said as I came into the living room. “The big day’s finally arrived. So how are you feeling?”

I had to admit that I’d woken up feeling slightly less relaxed than I had been last night. “I guess I’m a bit nervous, but not omigod-am-I-doing-the-right-thing? nervous. More am-I-going-to-fall-arse-over-tit-as-I walk-down-the-aisle? nervous.”

“You’ve got a bit of stage fright. That’s normal. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

Everybody else got up when they heard the breakfast trolley arrive, but none of us—apart from Nana, who appeared to have not the remotest symptom of a hangover—could manage any solids.

“Just look at this weather,” she said, staring out of the window at the gray and drizzle. “The forecast promised warm and sunny. How is it they always get it wrong? Such a pity, today of all days.” She started offering round pastries. “You have to try the
pains au chocolat
. They just melt in your mouth.”

The four of us grimaced as one.

Trevor and Rob arrived just after ten. Trevor, my long-of-tinted-lash, tight-of-buttock hairdresser, had been tending to my locks for years. Today he was tending to us all. His boyfriend, Rob, who was a TV and film makeup artist, was going to get busy with his brushes and palette. I’d just stepped out of the shower when I heard them arrive. I got back into my robe and went into the living room to say hi. “Here comes the bride,” Trevor cried. “Come and say hello to your Aunty Trevor.” I gave him a double kiss. I was about to introduce everybody, but I realized that Nana had gotten there first. “Tally, did you know that Trevor once weighed nearly three hundred pounds? You’d never think it to look at him now, would you? And not an ounce of loose flesh anywhere. He’s been showing me.”

In five minutes Nana had found out more about Trevor than I had in ten years.

“No, I didn’t know,” I said. “That’s remarkable.”

“OK, fabulous as I am,” Trevor said, “that’s enough about me.” He picked up a lock of my hair and pulled a face. “Ooh, somebody needs a protein pack.” Then Rob started peering at my skin. “Those pores may not be wide open, but they’re definitely ajar.”

“Blimey,” I said. “Don’t you two have a way of making a girl feel special on her wedding day?”

“But that’s precisely what we plan to do,” Trevor said, explaining that they had come laden with magic hair and skin potions.

While I lay on one of the sofas, hair and face covered in gloop apparently designed to revitalize and regenerate, Trevor and Rob got busy with the others. For the next three hours they sashayed and bustled, ironed and blended. They also bitched about their A-list clients—some of whom were on Fein Management’s books, so Mum didn’t say much. Nana, on the other hand, lapped it up, even though she had no idea who these stars were who had taken up kabbalah and/or the baby-food diet, or done the Hoffman Process. “So was that invented by Dustin Hoffman? I loved him in
The Graduate
.”

Grace’s hair needed the least attention, since she wore it closecropped. Trevor ran some wax through it and she was good to go. She spent the rest of the morning snapping the rest of us being beautified. There was me in my face and hair gunk. Nana in rollers, having her eyebrows debushed. Scarlett and Mum being “ironed.”

My hair was the most complicated. When we first discussed wedding hair, Trevor had suggested leaving it long. “I’m thinking a retro vibe would really work with your dress.” We had decided on loose shoulder-length curls.

Trevor tonged while I drank more coffee and pulled daft faces for the camera.

“Wow,” Rob said when Trevor finished. “Great job, boyfriend. Tally, you look like Liz Taylor in
Quo Vadis
.”

“No! Really? You think? It doesn’t look too Jessica Rabbit?”

Trevor tapped my wrist and told me to behave.

“OK,” Rob said, “I’m thinking eyeliner with a flick and heavy on the lips—to give her that real vintage look.”

Rob was a genius. Not only had he slammed my pores shut, but my makeup was perfect. I adored it, particularly the eyeliner flicks. Whenever I attempted cat’s eyes I always ended up with panda eyes.

The last job was to put my hat in place. I’d found my little fifties creation in a vintage shop in Islington. It wasn’t so much a hat as a wide band covered in tiny feathers. These were antique rose—the exact same color as the underskirts that helped puff out my dress. “It’s a great look, particularly with the bathrobe,” Trevor said, arranging the band over my head. Grace snapped a picture.

By two, we were thanking Trevor and Rob and double kissing them good-bye.

Scarlett and I went to my room and she helped me into my dress. “Just look at you,” she said, zipping me up. “My big sister in her wedding dress. Sweetie, you look stunning. Absolutely stunning.” I slipped on my satin heels and looked at myself in the full-length mirror.

“Come on, admit it,” she said. “You look fabulous.”

“OK, I look fabulous. Totally, wonderfully, gloriously fabulous. Josh will be knocked out when he sees me. He is so going to want me in this dress.”

“You are not wrong. And you know what? Dad would have been so proud.”

For a moment I had a lump in my throat.

Scarlett said that time was getting on and she needed to get dressed. No sooner had she gone than Nana appeared.

“Nana, look at you.”

“Will I do?”

“Will you ever.” With her elegant fringeless bob and pale peach dress and coat trimmed with tiny beads, she could have passed for sixty instead of eighty-odd. “Look, my eye shadow matches my dress, and Rob even made me put on mascara. I haven’t worn that since your cousin Bradley’s bar mitzvah in 1979.”

“And you’re wearing heels.”

“I know, but I’ve put some comfy slippers in my bag for later . . . Anyway, forget about me. What about you? Darling, you look like a princess. My little Tally is getting married. I can’t believe it.” She went to fetch Mum, who was swearing and cursing as she struggled to get into her Magic lose-ten pounds-in-an-instant Knickers.

When Mum finally appeared, I was knocked out. The gray jersey silk full-length dress, which I’d seen only on the hanger, looked truly fabulous—as I knew it would. The deeply scooped neck and long, skintight sleeves were perfect. As she gave a twirl, I remarked on how well it skimmed her newly smoothed figure and clung in all the right places. I also made the point that the gray looked stunning with her red hair. To complete the effect, she was wearing chunky, typically Mum jewelry, which she’d bought only a few days ago and I hadn’t seen. There was an outsize cherry crystal cocktail ring, a row of matching crystal bracelets and big red-and-gray drop earrings.

“So you like?” she said.

“I absolutely love. Mum, you look gorgeous.”

Just then Scarlett and Grace made their entrance. They were wearing slinky full-length halter-neck numbers the color of milk chocolate.

At three o’clock on the dot, reception called up. The wedding cars had arrived to take us to the synagogue. The plan was that I would travel in one car with Mum and Nana. Scarlett and Grace would take the second. The three of us picked up our bouquets—deep antique pink roses for me, cream roses for Scarlett and Grace. As we walked to the elevator, Grace took my arm. “I just wanted to say thank you for letting me be one of your bridesmaids. We haven’t known each other long, so you didn’t have to ask me. Scarlett really appreciates it, and so do I.”

“You really don’t need to thank me. I’ve seen how happy you make my sister. Believe me, it’s my pleasure.”

I found myself wondering how Dad would have felt about Scarlett’s being gay. She reckoned that these days most dads were cool about having lesbian daughters. It meant that no man would come between them and break the father-daughter bond. Dads were used to girls having best friends. They reasoned—according to Scarlett—that a lesbian relationship wasn’t so different. After all, what could two women get up to in bed?

Grace went ahead to catch up with Scarlett. I found myself next to Mum.

“You look beautiful, Tallulah. Really beautiful.”

“Thanks, Mum. I’m glad you approve.”

“I suppose you could have gone for something a bit more off the wall . . .”

“Mum, just for once, do me a favor and quit while you’re ahead.”

She laughed and took my arm. “Sorry. Me and my big mouth.” She paused and looked at me. “Be happy, darling.”

“I will. Promise. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said, giving me a kiss.

The elevator reached the ground floor and the doors opened. As we processed through reception in our finery, a few of the hotel guests waved and shouted good luck.

Outside, the limos were waiting with uniformed drivers in attendance.

“Now then, will you just look at this weather?” Nana said, gazing heavenwards. “The forecast was right after all. There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

T
he limo drew up alongside the synagogue’s white marble steps. “We’re five minutes late,” Nana said, looking at the gold dress watch that Grandpa Joe had bought her just before he went broke. “Perfect. A bride should always be fashionably late.” The driver got out, opened my door and offered me his hand. I took it and eased myself and my petticoats out of the car.

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with Josh and me getting married in synagogue. Since neither of us was even vaguely observant, it seemed pretty hypocritical.

We thought of ourselves as Jew-ish—amphibious Jews, half in, half out of the water. In other words, we knew the difference between a
kneidl
and a knish but put bacon on our bagels and went to synagogue only for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Along with other Jew-ish people, we enjoyed poking fun at our culture—how many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb? Don’t worry, I’ll sit in the dark—but at the same time we couldn’t ignore its pull or imagine not being part of it. Hypocritical or not, then, marrying in synagogue felt just about right, on balance. Plus, the one time Josh and I raised the possibility of a civil ceremony, Nana Ida and Josh’s mum practically had the vapors.

“But what about the photographs?” Judy Eisner had said. “Registry offices are so soulless and municipal. You’ll be lucky if you get one photograph without a fire extinguisher or emergency exit sign in the background.”

We didn’t take much persuading, bearing in mind that the Queensway Synagogue in Bayswater, which Nana suggested, was all Gothic arches, marble columns and stained-glass windows. “It’s just like the Sacré-Coeur,” Nana had said when she was trying to sell us the idea. “But obviously it’s not a church. It’s a fraction of the size of the Sacré-Coeur and it’s not in Paris.”

 

 

Scarlett and Grace had arrived a couple of minutes earlier and were waiting for us on the steps. Scarlett came up to me and started smoothing my skirt. “How you doing?” she said.

“Bit nervous.” The stage fright I’d been feeling earlier had cranked up several notches.

“Don’t worry. Once you’re standing next to Josh under the canopy, you’ll be fine.”

There were no guests hovering outside. I presumed that by now they were all in their seats. The only person there to greet us was the wedding photographer: cheap suit, two Nikons slung round his neck, a camera bag over one shoulder. He started snapping. “OK, if the bride and her grandma could just look this way . . . lovely . . . Now then, mother of the bride . . . nice smile . . . that’s it.” Grace had offered to take the wedding photographs, but Josh and I wouldn’t hear of it. She was a guest. I refused to have her working on my wedding day.

“Right, now just a quick one of the bride and the bridesmaids. Then we’ll have a group shot on the steps.”

In the end we had to tell him that we were running late and that we needed to get inside.

The wood-paneled foyer, though empty of people, was filled with music. The choir was singing something I remembered from the few times Scarlett and I had been to Saturday morning services as children—usually for a cousin’s bar mitzvah. Mum and Dad would never have taken us otherwise. Mum thought of herself as “spiritual” but had no interest in organized religion. Dad brought us up to believe that religious observance was superstitious nonsense, akin to stepping over cracks in paving stones or waving at magpies.

The double doors leading into the main body of the synagogue were open. Scarlett and I peeked inside. The place was packed. There were faces I knew. Loads I didn’t. I could see Rosie sitting near the front looking slim and gorgeous in something strappy and emerald, her long hair piled high in a mass of curls.

I swallowed. “OK, suddenly I’m
very
nervous.” I turned to Mum. “Shall we hold hands or link arms as we walk down the aisle?” Mum said she didn’t know. Nana, who was due to be part of the procession, along with Judy Eisner—taking their place after Mum and me but before the bridesmaids—said we should link arms. “Or hold hands.”

I found myself wondering where Judy Eisner was. It also occurred to me that somebody from the synagogue should have been there to meet us. On cue, Rabbi Feldman appeared, all billowing black robes and tall hat. I liked Rabbi Feldman. His face always looked as if it were about to break into a smile. He was forty, with a reputation for being particularly laid-back and liberal. He had no problems marrying Josh and me, despite us being not so much lapsed as collapsed Jews. “Look,” he’d said when we went for our prewedding interview, “you get married in synagogue and there’s always a chance you get a taste for the religion and return to the fold. If you do, that’s brilliant because it will have been down to me and I get to feel good about myself. You don’t—I still get my fee, and so does the synagogue. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a win-win situation.”