Revenge of the Wedding Planner (13 page)

So, on the way back from Delaney’s, I nipped into Josephine’s staggeringly upmarket boutique for a moment (all tiny gilt chairs and a real wool carpet), filled her in on the situation and showed her the gold-edged business card. Bill was waiting for me on the road outside and he
thought I was just picking up some samples for Dream Weddings. Anyway, he’d never be caught dead in a lingerie shop so I knew I’d be able to have a private chat with Josephine. I told her about Jay O’Hanlon, the Sean Bean lookalike, and said I was worried something untoward might be about to happen in Galway. Julie was quite taken with this man, I said, or so it seemed to me. Well, I had to tell Josephine about Jay O’Hanlon. But I did warn her to keep it under her hat because it was paramount that Gary Devine didn’t find out about him.

‘I think she’s having a bit of a crisis, Josephine,’ I ventured bravely. ‘I’d like to go down there and talk some sense into her but I’ve far too much going on in my own life at the moment.’

Josephine looked incredibly sceptical. She thinks I’m the most boring person alive, but then Josephine thinks nothing of having one-night stands with younger men. She claims it’s only a spot of glorified market research into the pulling power of zebra-print thongs. Josephine’s married to a wealthy estate agent but I know for a fact their handsome son was fathered by a male model from Berlin. They called him Franz because he was conceived in Germany. Obviously, Josephine’s hubby doesn’t know she was doing vertical gymnastics in the lift with a gorgeous stud half her age. She was on a biz trip with her husband and there was a fashion show going on in the hotel foyer. So Josephine nipped into one of the lifts with this male model and one lovely-looking son turns up nine months later. Like I said, Josephine’s quite a character. I should have known better than to go anywhere near her, that’s the bottom line.

‘Leave it with me, Mags,’ Josephine said, eyeing my genuine (if threadbare) 1920s vintage coat with some amusement. ‘I’ll get on the blower to the girls right away.’

And I went home feeling purged and at peace and collapsed into bed with Bill. I don’t know what I’d do without that man – he’s the only thing that keeps me sane sometimes. He kissed my neck and shoulders tenderly (classic Goth erotic hot-spot, the neck and shoulders area) until I felt relaxed and then he just lay beside me, holding my hand. As I fell asleep I decided that if there was any money left after the birth of Alexander and Emma’s baby (and maybe a spot of therapy for Emma to get her food issues under control), I’d pick out a nice Celtic headstone for Dad and I’d let my sisters decide what to have engraved on it. Even if it was something sentimental (in Irish), knowing them. I was feeling very generous that night. I didn’t dwell on what Bill would say when I told him a big whack of our savings had been spent on the funeral. He thought the whole thing had cost two thousand pounds when really it had cost four. And that I was going to spend another five thousand on a massive lump of Irish granite. I mean, he’s never raised his voice to me in twenty-odd years but still… Once a Punk, always a Punk.

But telling Josephine about Julie’s carry-on at the spa was the worst, worst, absolute worst thing I could have done. Don’t read the next bit if you’re easily offended. Honestly, just skip to the next chapter if you don’t want to read about the saucy goings-on in a Galway hayloft. I could leave out the details but you might as well have it all, now you’ve got this far.

Oh, boy.

You see, Josephine knew lots of things about Julie that I didn’t know. Up until that point, anyway. I mean, Julie told me all the emotional stuff about her parents fighting on the patio occasionally with two broom handles, and about Gary smothering her with his wedding ambitions and so on. But the spicy, sexual stuff she told to the Coven. The lovers she’d had, what they’d done in bed together, size of various manly appendages and expertise in lovemaking, et cetera. And that her top sexual fantasy of all time was that she’d bump into a Sean Bean looka-like (or, even better, the real thing) and that he’d ravish her
in a hayloft
. Blimey, Charlie, as Peter Kay is fond of saying. Blimey, Charlie and bloody ’ell. The pieces of Julie’s undoing were coming together like vultures circling in the desert.

So what did Josephine do? Did she gather the Coven together? Yes, she did. She phoned them all while I was resting in my lovely Victorian-style bed, still tired almost a week after the funeral. Did they collectively book into the spa full of shocking-pink armchairs without further ado and set off that very night in a brand-new people-carrier belonging to Josephine’s sister? Yes. Oh, yes, they did. Did they talk some sense into Julie and get her to come home to Gary and stop her toy-boy nonsense? No, they did not! They decided to give old Julie a treat so they looked up a picture of Sean Bean (as Sharpe) on the internet and printed it out. They picked up a similar-period military jacket, complete with sword, on the way to Galway (from a second-hand army surplus store in East Belfast) and they went down there and they gave it
to Jay. And they also gave him some interesting suggestions as to what he should do with it.

It was easy enough to find Jay as he was the head barman at the spa. He was an open-minded sort of chap and well up for a bit of fantasy and fun, no problem to him. He wasn’t at all offended that Julie’s mates wanted him to dress up in a moth-eaten bit of navy-blue felt and pretend to be another man. Actually, he told them he’d been mistaken for Sean Bean lots of times already so it was no big leap of the imagination for him to get into character. And he could ride a horse. Excellent. So, off Jay went with the jacket and the sword in a glossy carrier bag, and the girls checked into their rooms for a few days of relaxation and pampering.

Lucky for some.

And so, next morning, the Coven were slipping into the heated pool with trayloads of exotic cocktails being ferried to them, and Jay was slipping into the military jacket in order to surprise Julie before she even knew that her friends were in the building. Jay sent Julie a text asking her to dress like a gypsy girl and meet him by the hayloft at midday and then he saddled up one of his father’s horses (they owned the biggest retired donkey and horse sanctuary in the country) and galloped off to give Julie the surprise of her life.

You can imagine the rest, can’t you?

She called me that night and told me all the gory details but I’d say what happened next was inevitable. There was Julie, in her white linen ruffle skirt and peasant top, huge hoop earrings and dainty leather sandals, waiting by the hayloft in the sweltering July sunshine when she heard a
horse’s hooves come clattering down the cobbled lane. She thought her eyes were deceiving her when she saw Jay in the military jacket with the gold buttons, his tousled blond hair hanging in his eyes and a long narrow sword bouncing beside his thigh. She told me afterwards that she had a mini-blackout there and then. Her legs simply folded beneath her and she half fell against the rough walls of the barn. And that was only the first of several moments of ecstasy that afternoon as Jay slid to the ground, gathered Julie up in his arms and carried her inside to the barn’s dusty shadows. He kicked some loose straw and farm tools out of his way and Julie whimpered with delight. He laid her gently down onto a bale and stood looking intensely at her as he hastily unbuckled his jacket and pulled off his sword. Julie said she could almost hear the sounds of a battle going on in the background, gunpowder explosions and the clang of metal on metal. But that was clearly just her blood pressure hitting the jackpot. Then Jay eased her peasant top (and balcony bra) down off her shoulders and kissed her hard on the mouth.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

‘You know you want me, so stop pretending you don’t,’ Jay said gruffly and poor Julie thought she was in heaven.

She forgot all about Gary Devine and how kind and gentle he always was. She forgot about her reputation and her dignity and who she would spend her retirement years with. Julie and Jay almost rocked that humble hayloft to its very foundations. She told me she couldn’t remember her own name for a while and if she hadn’t had some
ID in her handbag she might be wandering the roads of Galway still. No foreplay, she didn’t need any. Ten seconds after that first kiss, they were lovers. They did it on the hay bales, on the floor, with him on top, with her on top. With their clothes on, then half off, then completely naked. Standing up against the door, in the water trough and finally with her hands tied to the wheel of a wooden handcart. Oh, yes, our Jay was into a bit of harmless bondage, and Julie was a willing convert. He slapped her smartly on the bum at one point. Not too hard but hard enough to leave a red mark. He told her she was too uptight and snobbish and she needed the attentions of a real man to tame her. And he left teethmarks on her ankle. Which I thought was a bit of a liberty. Call me old-fashioned but I definitely wouldn’t fancy a smack on the rear and a good telling-off during the inaugural love-making session. And of course, Julie was dicing with danger. Dicing with death, really, allowing a man she didn’t know from Adam to tie her up like that. But she was thrilled. Incoherent with delight, she was. Jay snagged his collarbone on a rusty nail when he was releasing her from the cartwheel afterwards and a trickle of blood ran down his bare chest. It all added to the general air of hedonistic abandonment. Julie said she thought her heart was going to stop with sheer pleasure.

‘I actually screamed out loud at one point,’ she told me. ‘I’ve never screamed in twenty-three years of sexual adventure and experimentation. It was when he was throwing me into the trough, Mags. It was such a hot day but that water was stone-cold. And his legs!’ she whispered into her mobile, from the comfort of a bubble
bath later that evening. ‘Mags, you should have seen his legs! When he tore off his jeans the buttons broke, by the way. The muscles on his thighs were incredible! All covered with soft blond hairs.
Massive
doo-da, needless to say! Perfect shape! And his kisses! So rough yet so good! I honestly thought I was going to die.’

No mention of that particular service in the spa brochure, I’ll wager.
Heart-stopping sex provided in all the rooms by our gorgeous gigolo. Reasonable surcharge for the use of a nearby hayloft
.

Jay was incredibly strong and Julie wasn’t in her right mind. A perfect combination. She had the best sex of her life that afternoon, so she told me. Afterwards he held her in his arms and they both wept a little and then Jay told Julie he loved her and he would always love her, no matter what. Of course, she had to tell him she loved him too though she didn’t mean it. She was only being polite, Your Honour. And by the time she discovered who had set her up, it was far too late to worry about Gary Devine. That particular ship had well and truly sailed.

The Coven was helpless with laughter in the mezzanine bar that afternoon when they saw Julie limping into the foyer with a piece of straw sticking out of her platinum-white bob, her peasant top ripped to shreds and one of her sandals missing. Amanda laughed so hard one of her contact lenses went round the back of her eye. Josephine accidentally swallowed a whole wedge of lemon in one go and almost choked to death, but Amanda gave her a mighty thump on the back and it popped right out again. They were all very impressed with Jay when they met
him, it has to be said. Very impressed indeed. And let me tell you, those girls are hard to please. They said Julie could pass him on to the rest of them when she was finished with him. That’s if there was any mileage left in the poor lad. What a laugh! And Julie’s place as Grand High Witch of the Lisburn Road Coven was set in stone for ever.

10. Blue Days

There’s a price to be paid for wanting too much. There’s a price to be paid for thinking you can handle life’s various tribulations by yourself. And I paid it a few days later when I finally told Bill I was going to book plane tickets for my sisters so they could come home again at Christmas and we could visit our father’s grave together. Without the stress of several hundred mourners looking on. I’d promised Ann and Elizabeth (or, as Bill calls them, A&E) I would make the arrangements for their visit and also a short layover so they could see Mum in Devon. And that I was also forking out for a massive granite Celtic cross for my father, to make up for not really bothering with the poor unfortunate man when he was alive. Bill looked at me like I’d gone soft in the head.

‘Your sisters have both got good jobs,’ he pointed out straight away. ‘Why can’t they pay for their own plane tickets?’

‘Because I’m the eldest.’

‘That’s not a proper reason, Mags. It’s bad enough I’ll not have you all to myself this Christmas without having to pay for two plane tickets. And why the big headstone for your dad? You know it was his obsession with politics that made him such a distant father, always. Wouldn’t something smaller be more in keeping with the other graves? Some bigoted nutcase will only smash it to bits
anyway if it’s going to be that noticeable. You know how cemeteries get vandalized in this city.’

‘I can’t say where the idea came from, my love. Guilt, I suppose? I’ve told Ann and Elizabeth about it now, in any case, and they’re very taken with the notion.’

‘Are they going to help pay for it, then?’

‘I doubt it. At least, they didn’t offer.’

The debate staggered on for some time in this fashion. Me telling Bill all my big plans and him pointing out the even bigger, nay massive, flaws in them. I told him I’d booked some expensive private health care for Emma and also requested an elective C-section for her because of her childbirth phobia, which would be sorted out when she’d discussed various options with her new doctor. He didn’t appear to be very sympathetic, I must say. Bill, that is, not the doctor. The doctor was all public-school charm and heavy gold bracelets.
He
sounded like he went to bed each night and slept under a duvet stuffed with £100 notes.

‘But that was the only way I could convince Emma to keep the baby,’ I added, barely pausing for breath. Well, Bill knew that much already but he was rather shocked that the wheels were already in motion. And that Emma was registered with such an expensive doctor. When I explained that this consultant was the only one Emma could find to see her at short notice, Bill looked unconvinced.