I Heart London (36 page)

‘Your batshit sister happened.’ I did try not to shout, but not nearly as hard as I could have. ‘She put this ridiculous slide in the presentation and she says she’s put it in yours and I’m on my way, but do not show that presentation whatever you do. There’s a cock in it.’

If my seat neighbours weren’t paying attention to me before, they were now. They stared, clutching their Styrofoam cups of tea, utterly scandalized.

‘A cock,’ I mouthed, nodding at them. ‘Big one.’

‘Calm down,’ Delia said. ‘Start from the beginning. Cici did something to your presentation? How?’

‘She was here,’ I explained, trying to slow myself down. ‘She actually came here, pretended to be you and gave me a flash drive with the presentation on it.’

‘Oh, she’s practically a Bond villain,’ Delia said with a sigh. ‘And it had a porno on it instead?’

‘Porn might have been nice,’ I replied. ‘But no. She got the presentation off your computer and stuck in one slide with a great big knob on it.’

Again I took a moment to make eye contact with my new friends and reinforce the message quietly. ‘Huge penis,’ I clarified.

‘And then she tried to sneak off, but I caught her, and I might have given her a bit of a slap, but she said she’d done the same thing to your presentation so I’m on my way to Paris to stop you showing it because you weren’t picking up.’

That was a relatively concise version of events.

‘But Angie, the reason my phone was off was because my presentation got pulled forward. I just finished it,’ Delia said slowly. ‘And to the best of my knowledge it was cock free.’

‘Ohhhh.’

I really was quite angry.

‘She really is a Bond villain. She got caught, told me her evil plan and then double-crossed me to get away.’

‘I do wish she’d get over herself.’ Delia sounded almost as pissed off as me. ‘You’re really on your way here?’

‘Yes!’ I rested my head against the window and watched the countryside fly by. Honestly, ‘I wish she’d get over herself’ wasn’t really a big enough of a reaction to me, but then it wasn’t my sister; what did I know. Oh to be rich and find transatlantic mistaken identity pranks a hoot. ‘I’m going to be in fucking France in two hours.’

‘But you’re getting married tomorrow!’ she reminded me, entirely unnecessarily.

‘You don’t say?’

‘Right, it’s fine. You just get off the train and I’ll meet you at Gare du Nord. We’ll be back in London before you know it.’

It was all too much. The presentation, the cock shot, the fight, the train, my lack of a manicure, My Two Dads sitting opposite. I really wanted to have a little cry.

‘Seriously. Do not freak out. I’ll work out what’s the fastest way to get you home and we’ll fire up Grandpa’s jet if we have to.’

Ooh. Silver lining.

‘Just stay calm, get something to eat and chill out. I’ll see you in two hours.’

‘See you in two hours,’ I replied, practising being calm for her and thinking about what I was going to eat. I hung up and popped the phone back in my bag.

The man in the outside seat leaned towards me and coughed politely. I looked up, ready for another fight, but he looked surreptitiously from side to side before putting his hand over his mouth to speak.

‘So just how big was this cock?’ he whispered.

‘Good luck with everything tomorrow,’ Brian, one of my new best friends, said as we hugged it out on the platform of the Gare du Nord. ‘I just wish we could be there.’

‘Me too.’ I wiped away a tear and swapped hugging partners to make sure Terry didn’t get jealous. Terry was the jealous type. ‘But you two have a lovely weekend. You deserve the break. You work too hard.’

‘I tell him all the time.’ Terry gave me a big squeeze. ‘But does he listen?’

‘Well he’ll listen now I’ve told him,’ I reassured him. ‘Now go on, before you miss your dinner reservations.’

I waved them off as Delia came running over, a look of confusion replacing the air of panic about her. ‘Friends of yours?’ she asked.

‘New friends,’ I said, accepting my third hug in as many minutes. ‘Good friends.’

‘That’s cute.’ She handed me a ticket. ‘Now get your ass back on that train.’

‘We’re not taking the jet?’ I was more than a little bit disappointed.

‘This is quicker.’ She gave me a push. ‘Don’t worry, I have a bottle of champagne in my bag. I figured we’d need it.’

‘I know I do.’ I linked my arm through hers and looked at my watch. ‘Is it really only five-thirty?’

‘
Mais oui
,’ Delia replied. ‘I’ll have you home to your mom by eight at the latest.’

Home by eight. I could only imagine what had been going on in my absence.

‘And I have some good news.’ She slipped her arm through mine and pulled me back towards passport control. ‘Grandpa called. Your presentation seems to have gone over pretty well.’

‘It did?’ I made a deal with myself to ensure there was a cracking great phallus in all of my PowerPoint documents from now on.

‘It did,’ she said. ‘And so did mine. Which means we’re on.’

We’re on. We were on.
Gloss
was happening. I stopped still, just to let the moment sink in. And also because I was afraid my legs might crumble underneath me at any moment.

‘But you get no say in the cover design,’ Delia said as she dragged me down the station. ‘Grandpa told me to make that quite clear.’

It turned out one bottle of champagne was quite enough, and I was almost relaxed, full of Ladurée macaroons and the thrill of success, when my taxi pulled up outside my mum’s house not long past eight, as promised. Delia was staying with friends in Mayfair and had promised to have Cici hunted down and strung up as a wedding present by morning. Or at least early afternoon. I hadn’t even got my keys in the lock before the door was flung open by Jenny, complete with new Bluetooth headset, who dragged me in and tossed me into the kitchen. She gave me a warning finger and pointed at a dining chair. Apparently I was to sit down.

‘Yeah, I’m sure you’re heartbroken.’ Jenny pressed a finger against the earpiece. ‘But I need a serving staff here tomorrow at twelve. So I’ll see you then.’

She shook her head and put the phone and earpiece on the table.

‘How anyone gets shit done in this country, I do not know,’ she grumbled. ‘The caterer’s mom died and she wanted to cancel. Can you believe it?’

‘Shit, Jenny.’ I wondered if it was cancer. I wondered if my mum knew them. ‘Serious?’

‘I know − it’s like, be professional.’ She looked super-annoyed and had missed my point entirely. But never mind.

‘But is everything else all right?’ I asked. The back garden was pitch black so I couldn’t see if anything had happened. ‘I’m so sorry about this afternoon.’

‘Jenny to the rescue.’ She sat down beside me and held out her hands. ‘Whatever. Did you hear from Bob Spencer? Did you hear about
Gloss
?’

I nodded, my non-manicured hands pressed against my lips. ‘We got it.’

Jenny pulled me into her arms and screamed, bouncing around all over the kitchen and taking me with her. I was excited that she was excited, but I was a little bit sad that I would now be deaf in my left ear on my wedding day.

‘Thank you so much.’ I pressed down on her shoulders to reset the bouncing mode. ‘You saved the day.’

‘Hey, it’s what I do.’ Jenny smiled brilliantly, the perfect ad for Crest Whitestrips. ‘It’s who I am.’

‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘Is everything else OK?’

‘Today was not without its challenges,’ she admitted. ‘I probably shouldn’t have thrown my phone in the river. That didn’t help. But it will all come off. Louisa has been super-helpful. Your mom and dad are going to hate me by the end of this, but I kinda got everything done that needed doing.’

It was good enough for me.

‘Now. What do I need to do?’ I asked.

Jenny made a clucking noise and turned to a tab in her notebook marked ‘Angela’. ‘Since you missed all of your beauty appointments …’ She frowned. I frowned. And then tried not to because I hadn’t had Botox. Not that I was supposed to get Botox. As far as I knew. ‘We need to do your mani-pedi, maybe a little mini facial, but nothing harsh, and I want to get a deep conditioner on that mop of yours.’

‘What about my lowlights?’ I was suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to darken the tone of my hair by ten percent. My wedding absolutely could not happen unless my hair was ten percent lower. ‘Jenny, what about my hair?’

‘It’ll be fine.’ She waved a hand at me. ‘I might have been overreacting.’

It was still a concern, but if she was going to let it slide, so was I.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ I asked. The house seemed so quiet. ‘Do they all hate me? Have they buggered off on holiday?’

‘Your mom and dad went out for dinner. Louisa is at home making sure Grace’s flower-girl outfit fits, and shut up before you start.’ She gave me another warning finger. ‘Sadie is at her hotel because she couldn’t conceive of crossing the river. James was gonna come over but he didn’t because he’s a flake. Alex is somewhere with Craig and Graham and yeah, that’s everyone. It’s just you and me, pal.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ I said. And it did. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do the night before my wedding than veg out on the settee with Jenny, doing my nails and potentially drinking the bottle of white wine my mum hid under the sink behind the Cif mousse. ‘Pizza?’

‘You know, it’s too late to do any damage now.’ She picked up her phone. ‘Pizza me.’

A few hours later, I was slouched on the sofa, almost at the end of
Die Hard
(my choice), having already watched
Pretty Woman
(Jenny’s choice). There was an empty Domino’s box on the floor and I was holding my nails held carefully away from the carpet even though they’d been dry for ages. Jenny was curled up in a corner, so fast asleep that even the untimely end of Alan Rickman couldn’t wake her. Mum and Dad had snuck in a while ago and poked their heads around the door just to check we were adhering to the sleepover rules and not making international phone calls or hiding boys anywhere. It felt like any other Friday night in the Clark household. But it wasn’t really. It was the night before my wedding. There was a great big tent in the garden and a boy somewhere in town who was going to come back here tomorrow and marry me. I just couldn’t quite believe it.

Careful not to wake Jenny, I turned off the TV and covered her with a blanket before creeping upstairs to bed. I just couldn’t take in the fact that this time tomorrow I would be married. But then I hadn’t expected it. I hadn’t expected to spend half an hour in Paris today. I hadn’t expected to be moving to New York two years ago. And if I hadn’t, maybe I’d already be married. Maybe I’d already have a baby. Maybe I wouldn’t have given a presentation that included a technicolour image of a six-foot cock. Maybe I would never have lived. Just the thought of how many ‘maybes’ had brought me to this time and this place took my breath away. I had found Alex as a result of a thousand bad decisions made every single minute of every single day until we met. Ever since then, even the bad days seemed more manageable. He made everything make sense, he made everything else more bearable, and I knew that as long as we were together, everything else would work itself out in its own time. I lay down on the bed with a smile on my face and slept sounder than I could ever have imagined I might.

Morning came quickly. I woke up with the nervous excitement of every Christmas and birthday that had ever gone before bundled up in one great big ball of stomach-churning giddiness. Wedding day. Wedding day. Wedding day.

The curtains were leaking with bright sunshine − a good start, I thought − and when I pulled them aside, I spotted the marquee at the end of the garden in all its bright white glory. Closer to the house, Jenny was barking orders at a large man carrying a stereo speaker. Another large man, verging on burly, was stringing lights all over the garden. My fairy lights! I felt like such a girl.

‘Angela, are you awake?’ Mum knocked and let herself in, carrying a cup of tea. ‘Good, you’re up. I told Jenny to let you sleep in, but apparently we need you awake now if we’re going to “stay on schedule”.’

Hearing my mum use verbal air quotes made me very happy.

‘Oh.’ I clapped once and dived into my suitcase. ‘Happy birthday!’

Mum pretended to look surprised, but we both knew, wedding day or no wedding day, that if I’d forgotten her sixtieth birthday I’d need more than crutches to get down the aisle. I grabbed the little blue carrier bag out from underneath my knickers and presented it to her with a little ‘ta-da’.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said without a trace of authenticity in her voice. I knew I should have and so did she. Inside the bag was a small box, and inside the small box was a gold chain holding a delicate Tiffany heart and a delicate little ‘A’ and ‘C’ in golden letters. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘And when you cark it, we’ve got the same initials so I’ll be able to wear it!’ I exclaimed happily. Mum didn’t look quite as amused as I did. And she was supposed to be the practical one. ‘As a touching tribute,’ I added, helping her fasten the tiny clasp behind her neck. ‘Because I love you.’

‘Get dressed and I’ll see you downstairs in five minutes,’ she said. ‘And thank you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said back. ‘And I’m sure you’re not going to die soon.’

‘I’m glad one of us is,’ she called on her way down the stairs. ‘This wedding will be the death of me yet.’

‘OK, listen up, flower people.’ Jenny was standing in the conservatory, perched on a crate, shouting at a group of annoyed florists. ‘The garden is marked into four different areas − you are each in charge of a specific area. Please go now and familiarize yourself with your location and then start bringing the flowers in. Any questions, I’m right here. Go.’

‘You know they say people who choose to be florists have the same psychological profile as serial killers,’ I commented, nursing my tea. ‘I’d watch myself if I were you.’

‘Happy wedding day!’ she trilled, bouncing off the box and bounding over to me, her hair wild and her eyes terrifying. ‘I have had so much caffeine. We are on fire.’