I Heart London (14 page)

Alex, sitting opposite me in jeans and a David Bowie T-shirt that looked suspiciously like it had been ironed, smiled over his coffee cup.

‘Afternoon,’ Mum replied. ‘We were just discussing where to go for lunch. Alex thought it would be nice if we all went out together.’

‘That sounds lovely,’ I said, taking a deep drink and trying not to shudder. Maybe it was a little bit strong. ‘I’ve been dreaming of a Sunday roast.’

‘Someone got out of bed on the right side.’ Dad got up from his chair and kissed me on the top of my head. Thank goodness vodka didn’t smell. ‘Alex and I were almost as lazy as you. Late one, wasn’t it, son?’

Son? Wuh?

‘It was,’ Alex confirmed. ‘Your dad has some awesome vinyl. You never told me he was a rocker.’

‘I didn’t think a Phil Collins cassette made someone a rocker?’ I turned to follow my dad as he walked towards his shed. Ahh, the shed. A man’s last bastion of freedom.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Alex leaned across the table and yawned. ‘He has
so many
records. I can’t believe he saw Bowie in the Seventies.’

I looked down at Alex’s T-shirt and leaned over to sniff it. It smelled of Comfort. And yes, it had definitely been ironed. ‘Is that my dad’s?’

‘It was,’ Dad called back. ‘I gave it to Alex. Keep it in the family and all that. It’s not like I’ve worn it in the last forty years.’

My good-girl resolve was being tested. My mum looked so calm, I would have put money on her having had a Botox-fest in the night, and my dad and Alex sharing clothes and staying up late listening to records … Perhaps it wasn’t just me who was drinking in the day.

‘We nearly did for that bottle of whiskey, as well,’ Dad shouted. ‘Drank me under the table, this one did.’

Ahh, so that’s how Alex had moved up the son-in-law ladder so quickly. They had bonded over Seventies rock and got hammered. And my mum had seen him hold a baby without pulling a face or even slightly injuring it. Which was more than could be said for me. He was in. Relief washed over me. Or at least the buzz from my screwdriver did. I really did need to eat something soon.

‘Is Jenny up?’ Mum, complete with lipstick
and
mascara, reached for a Bourbon biscuit. ‘We need to set off soon if we want to get a seat in the garden.’

‘She’s still fast on,’ I said, waiting for someone to compliment my dress and wondering if my mum looked better than I did. I had relied heavily on the frock for impact. ‘I’ll go and ask if she wants to come. Garden looks nice.’

‘Dad’s been getting it ready for the party,’ she said, looking incredibly pleased with herself. While my mother was one of England’s leading martyrs, she also really enjoyed an opportunity to rub my Aunt Sheila’s face in the fact that our garden was three times the size of hers. I would have found it sad if I hadn’t been fighting exactly the same gene my entire life. It was probably why I was still so pissed off that no one had mentioned my very beautiful and not inexpensive dress. ‘We’re going to have a little marquee over there,’ she said, pointing to a pretty grassed area between the two silver birches at the end of the garden. ‘And Dad’s going to turn the shed into a bar. He’s a bit more excited about that than he should be.’

‘I’ve been learning how to mix cocktails,’ he called from behind closed doors. ‘Just call me Tom Cruise!’

‘Don’t call him Tom Cruise,’ Mum said in a low voice. ‘Whatever you do. Right, Angela, are you going to check on Jenny? Poor girl, I hope she’s not sickening for something. Lovely dress, by the way.’

I nodded, patted Alex on his criminally soft T-shirt and pattered back into the house. It was a lovely dress.

Jenny passed on Sunday lunch, or at least that’s what I took her grunting underneath the covers to mean. I patted her on the top of the head, told her where my mum hid her chocolate and recommended that she shouldn’t wander into sunny Surrey unaccompanied in case she was burned as a witch by my mother’s neighbours. Then I closed the door.

The drive to the pub was uneventful. My parents were oddly quiet, even with each other, only breaking their silence when we passed someone from the garden centre who, surprisingly enough, might or might not have cancer. Alex and I were safely strapped into our seat belts on opposite sides of the back seat. It wasn’t quite the same as a frenzied late-night make-out session in the back of a taxi, but there was something lovely about watching the English countryside rush by with the window down, holding hands with my boyfriend and hoping my parents didn’t notice.

The garden at the pub was almost completely empty − just a couple of kids playing on the see-saw and the usual smokers hiding out in a corner. Everyone else clearly thought their proximity to the bar would get them served quicker. They were right. I was jealous, but on the other hand drinking in front of my parents had always made me uncomfortable. This was indeed quite the predicament.

‘Now you’re awake and not quite so mardy, do you want to tell us what your plans are for the week?’ Mum asked, ordering a spritzer. Dad and Alex ordered pints. I went for a Diet Coke and made a secret deal with myself to sink a glass of wine at the bar later. Now that I wasn’t quite so mardy.

‘Not drinking?’ Dad said in a slightly too high voice. ‘Glass of wine?’

‘I’m still a bit tired,’ I said, crying inside.

‘Not drinking.’ Mum gave Dad a sly glance and raised her eyebrows. Did they know I’d already been on the vodka? Was there a marker on the bottle that I hadn’t seen? Like when I was a teenager? ‘Not drinking. So, plans? For the week?’

‘Nothing much set in stone.’ I pulled out my iPhone and checked my calendar. ‘My meeting at Spencer UK is going to be Thursday now, I think, and obviously it’s your party on Saturday. Alex has got some meetings, haven’t you?’ He nodded on cue. ‘And I suppose Jenny’s going to want to do the touristy things. Why?’

‘Just interested,’ she shrugged. The problem with my mum was that it wasn’t what she said but what she didn’t say that you needed to look out for. When she said she was ‘just interested’, what she meant was she wanted a complete itinerary of every waking second for all three of us otherwise she’d have us tagged like stray dogs. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about the wedding.’

‘Have you now?’

Alex kicked me very gently underneath the picnic table and leaned in towards me.

‘I have,’ she went on, pulling her shoulders back and clearing her throat. ‘I was thinking about what you said − about keeping it small and just with close friends, and, well, what I thought was, why not have it here?’

‘Here in the pub?’ That didn’t make any sense at all.

‘No.’ Mum took a deep breath. ‘Here at home. This week.’

I felt Alex’s thigh tense beside me but his expression never changed. Mum and Dad, on the other hand, were lit up like Christmas trees.

‘Right.’ I laid my hands flat on the wooden table and looked to the heavens. What pretty fluffy white clouds. ‘You want us to get married this week?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though weddings, on average, take about eighteen months to organize?’

‘Yes.’

‘And we haven’t organized anything yet. Or got a licence. Or lost our minds.’

‘So this is what I was thinking,’ Mum went on as if I hadn’t spoken, pulling up her handbag − a very tasteful Radley number complete with dangling dog − and producing a flowered notebook. ‘We’ve got the party all organized for Saturday, the family is going to be there, Louisa is coming, your Jenny’s here and you did say you just wanted something simple and no hassle. What’s less hassle than this? It’s all done for you.’

‘Even if I didn’t think you were completely insane,’ I said, picking my words as carefully as I could, ‘I don’t have a dress. Alex doesn’t have a suit here. And we have other friends as well as Jenny and Louisa. And what about Alex’s family?’

‘Uhh, I kind of mentioned something about not being so close with my mom and dad last night,’ Alex said, laying a hand over mine on the table. ‘And I guess I might have said they probably wouldn’t be coming to the wedding?’

I turned slowly to give him the full power of my glare. ‘So you know about this?’ I asked. ‘Is this your idea?’

‘No,’ he held his hands up just in case I was thinking about shooting him. And if I’d had a shotgun, I would have. ‘I swear.’

‘It’s my idea.’ Mum started tapping on her notebook with her pen. ‘Angela, just think about it for a minute. You were the one that said you didn’t want too much fuss. And what would be nicer than getting married surrounded by your family, at home? We’ve always had some money put aside for your wedding, so that’s not a problem. I’ve already ordered lots of flowers − pink and white peonies. They’re still your favourite, aren’t they?’

‘I don’t hate peonies,’ I admitted grudgingly.

‘And I’ve ordered all your favourite food.’ She looked down at her list. ‘And I’m not making it. It’s coming from a caterer.’

Now she was playing to the crowd.

‘And I know we don’t have a licence, but I looked on the Internet and what we could do is have your Uncle Kevin do the ceremony and then get the paperwork signed afterwards. I downloaded it all − it looks very straightforward.’

I hated the Internet.

‘But the dress?’ I looked at Alex for support, but he just shrugged and held up his hands again. ‘I don’t have a dress.’

‘You’re not telling me that between you, Louisa and Jenny you can’t find a wedding dress in a week?’

She was right. If ever there was a crack team of bridesmaids preassembled on this earth, it was those two. But still. This was even more poorly thought out than Kim Kardashian’s wedding. Her second wedding, anyway. I couldn’t speak about the first; it wasn’t covered by
E!
.

‘I’m going inside to the loo, and when I come back I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened,’ I said, standing up and attempting to extricate myself from the picnic bench without flashing my knickers. ‘And when the waitress comes back, I want the beef. With everything.’

I stormed into the bar wishing I wasn’t wearing a swishy lace sundress and stomped into the bathroom as violently as I could. I was in the mood for DMs and ripped jeans and flannel shirts and shouty suicidal music. Instead I was rocking a look that Zooey Deschanel might have written off as a bit too cute. I knew I shouldn’t have spent ten minutes in the bathroom applying seventeen coats of mascara. No one ever believed Bambi when he was angry.

I peed furiously, washed my hands and tossed the paper towel into the bin. It didn’t help. There was only one person who could help at a time like this.

‘Hello?’

‘Jenny.’ I snuck out of the toilet and out through the front door of the pub. ‘My mum has gone mad.’

‘Like, Hulk mad, or crazy mad?’

‘Like she wants me and Alex to get married on Saturday in the back garden mad.’

There was a silence on the line that I took to mean Jenny was also freaking out. Or at least watching visions of a Vera Wang bridesmaid’s dress disappearing in a puff of smoke generated by Annette Clark.

‘Angela,’ she said slowly. ‘That is a freaking awesome idea.’

‘What?’

Had the entire world gone insane?

‘Think about it.’ Jenny’s pace picked up. She was going to run with this. ‘Your family is here, I’m here, Alex is here. Dude, it’s so romantic.’

‘Getting married in my mother’s garden is romantic?’ She’d lost me.

‘Totally. It’s like something out of a goddamn Nicholas Sparks novel,’ she squealed. ‘I love this. We’ll get flowers, a ton of flowers, just fill the place up, and it’s still six days away − that’s a heap of time.’

‘But it’s not a Nicholas Sparks novel,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m not dying, I don’t have amnesia and Alex isn’t going away to war. This is stupid. Why don’t you think this is stupid? What about Erin and Sadie and all of Alex’s friends?’

‘Please − they can get their asses over here,’ she said, dismissing my concerns immediately. ‘Do you have any idea how much money those girls have? More than you and I will ever, ever have. And I’m sure Alex’s friends would come if he asked them. We can put them up in the house. Or maybe Louisa could help?’

Louisa. Why didn’t I call Louisa? She would have shit on this idea before I’d got as far as agreeing on Uncle Kevin officiating. And in what way exactly was Uncle Kevin ordained? I’d work that out later. I had bigger questions right now.

‘Angela, I think you should think about this,’ she said seriously. ‘You want a no-hassle wedding, right? This is a no-hassle wedding. And it’s super-romantic.’

‘I suppose it does give me six more days’ notice than the last one I planned,’ I said, sitting down on the low stone wall behind me. ‘But it just feels wrong.’

‘Everything feels wrong to you,’ Jenny reminded me. ‘Remember when I got bangs? You thought that was wrong too.’

‘I don’t think this is the same,’ I huffed. ‘And you did grow them out immediately.’

‘Spending eighteen months planning a ridiculous wedding doesn’t guarantee happiness.’ She wasn’t about to give up. Jenny had clearly decided which team she was on here and it wasn’t mine. ‘Look at Russell and Katy.’

‘I was actually more upset about that than I expected to be,’ I mused. ‘But what if we can’t find a dress? What about your dress?’

‘Oh, please,’ she scoffed. ‘I could find me a dress blindfolded. Worst comes to the worst, I’ll have something flown over. And if I start looking for you now, we could go shopping tomorrow. Thank God you had that stomach flu last month − you don’t even need to lose weight.’

‘So you’d be ready to call a stop to this if I wasn’t at my target weight?’

‘I’d call a stop to it if I wasn’t at my target weight,’ she replied. ‘But I honestly think it’s a good idea. We could make this super-beautiful. An English country-garden wedding. I’m seeing a loose skirt, maybe a deep V-front and back for the dress, your hair down, wavy, fresh flowers in a garland. I’m having a vision, Angie. I’m having a concept.’

‘And I’m having a heart attack,’ I said. ‘Just don’t get overexcited, OK? I haven’t agreed to this. And Alex literally hasn’t said a word.’

‘Alex will do whatever you tell him to,’ Jenny said with a yawn. ‘Guy’s whipped.’