The Honeymoon Hotel (19 page)

‘Don’t start,’ she said, and pointed at the napkins. ‘Get folding.’

*

I watched all the ushers – and Joe – like a hawk for the next couple of hours. Joe kept making
it’s all fine!
secret gestures to me, which worried me more than the skulking best man, to be honest, but there was nothing I could do; and by two o’clock, to my relief, the wedding of Natalie Thompson and Peter Lloyd was finally under way in the courtyard.

The hotel looked breathtakingly romantic in the soft autumn
sunshine, I thought, as I made some final glass checks on the champagne reception in the foyer. A few bronze leaves were circling lazily down from the tall trees and the long windows reflected the fluffy clouds drifting across the blue sky. I just couldn’t quite shake the horrible feeling that I’d given Joe permission to destroy an entire reception.

The unnatural smooth atmosphere went on until twenty past two, when the drama arrived, in the form of Gemma, the eagerest bearer of bad news in the business.

‘Rosie! Rosie! I’ve been looking for you for ages!’ Gemma darted around the corner so fast she nearly skidded into a tower of white roses. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, making her hands into claws of panic. ‘I heard something. That best man. Steven?’

My heart flipped. ‘What? What did you hear? When?’

‘He was on the phone, outside. I don’t know who he was talking to, but he told them what time the reception started, and when his speech would be, and said something like … “burst in and wave it around”.’

‘Wave what around?’ I stared at her. ‘A gun? A marriage licence? What else would you wave around? No, actually, don’t answer that.’

There was a ripple of applause from the courtyard, indicating that Natalie was now the newest Mrs Lloyd, and that the guests were raring to get started on the champagne reception in the foyer.

‘Oh, no, they’re coming!’ Gemma looked aghast. The string quartet started up in the little alcove between the courtyard and
the foyer where the waiters were standing with their silver trays of flutes. ‘It Had To Be You’ floated down the corridor.

‘Where’s Helen?’

‘Kitchens.’

‘Joe?’

‘I don’t know.’

Great. Great.

‘Tell Tam to keep an eye on the doors,’ I said. ‘And then find Joe and tell him to stick to the best man like glue.’

‘Okay,’ said Gemma.

‘If worse comes to worst,’ I said, ‘I’ll just deploy Laurence’s FCT again.’

‘FCT?’

‘Free champagne tactic. Father of the bride, speeches, got a bit personal about the mother of the bride, nasty divorce,’ I explained rapidly, my attention now on the first guests streaming into the foyer in search of canapés. ‘Couldn’t stop him, so Laurence sent waiters in with free champagne for a toast – everyone stopped listening, he lost his thread, I got the best man to do an impromptu toast, all sorted.’

‘Rosie, you are amazing,’ said Gemma admiringly.

‘I do my best,’ I said, my eyes scanning the horizon for misbehaving best men.

Natalie and Peter had now sailed into the foyer, bathed in the light falling from the cupola above them. Natalie looked radiant. Peter looked stunned but happy. Steven, the best man, looked smug, in that rugby-club prankster way that made me even more determined to nip his antics in the bud.

There was no sign of Joe. I’d just have to deal with this myself, as usual. I couldn’t help feeling … a little disappointed?

I adjusted the hidden headset in my fascinator, and clicked it on. ‘Okay, Gemma,’ I said. ‘Let’s do this.’

*

In the main reception room, all two hundred guests were taking their seats, a genteel selection of elderly relatives, respectable university friends and other teachers, none of whom were talking above a polite murmur as the musicians carried on playing in the foyer and the chink of glass and cutlery began as the meal was served.

Somehow the calm only made me more nervous. That and the fact that Joe was evading Gemma’s best efforts to track him down, and wasn’t answering his phone.

The meal went off without a hitch, and by quarter past four, right on schedule, I gave the prearranged sign to Graeme, the father of the bride, that his moment had come. (The prearranged sign was a small tot of brandy, served discreetly by one of the waitresses.)

I watched as he stared at the glass for three seconds, then knocked the shot back and stood up, and I turned on the hidden microphone in his table display.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family …’ he began, and the speeches were under way.

I pressed my headset. ‘Anything?’ I whispered to Gemma, who was outside doing a final check on the loos to make sure no guests were missing the speeches.

‘Nothing.’

The best man, Steven, caught me looking at him, and smirked.

‘… Burst in and wave it around …’
rang in my head.

Since there was nothing I could do, I forced myself to think damage limitation. Maybe Joe was right, I thought. Maybe I
was
being a bit controlling? How bad could it be? Probably just some photo of Peter in a dress at another stag do. All rugby players had at least three of those. And they were family here. They’d just laugh.

My eye fell on the guests nearest the top table. A whole table of white-haired aunts and uncles of the bride, smiling benignly up at Graeme. Two were wearing clerical collars. One looked like he might be a High Court judge.

On the other hand …

I swallowed.

Natalie’s dad’s speech was sweet and heartfelt, about what a gift Natalie had always been to him and Kathryn, his lovely wife of thirty-four years (‘as of this weekend!’). Then Peter got up, to some more raucous applause. The champagne was taking hold. He kicked off with the usual, ‘My wife and I …’ line, and this time the cheering was a bit beerier.

My headset crackled. ‘Red alert,’ said Gemma’s voice. ‘I’ve just spoken to one of the chambermaids, and she says she thinks there might be someone in the honeymoon suite?’

I froze, torn between dashing up to sort it out, and staying put to make sure nothing happened.

It’d take me two minutes to get upstairs, if I took my shoes off and ran. Two minutes to get back. A minute to deal if there was nothing, ten if there was a problem.

Over at the top table, Steven the best man gave me a knowing eyebrow raise. One that said,
I know something you don’t, love
.

‘Go and check, and report back,’ I said into my headset. ‘I’m staying here with the best man.’

‘Roger that,’ said Gemma, and crackled off.

She didn’t buzz me again. Peter finished his speech to generous applause, and then the best man got to his feet. My stomach muscles tightened. I could tell from the way he kept glancing at me, at the door, at the groom, then back at the door, that something was definitely up.

‘When Pete asked me to be his best man, I was honoured,’ Steven began, with a leer at the bride. ‘I asked him why he’d chosen me for this esteemed position, and he said, “Steven, you’re the man I want by my side on the most important day of my life. And also because you know a lot of good lawyers to deal with the aftermath of the stag. Wa-hey.”’

‘Heeeeuuuurrrrrgggggghhh!’ roared the assembled members of Steven and Peter’s rugby club.

The two vicars and the High Court judge nearest the top table stiffened in their seats.

Natalie’s smile turned rigid, and a red flush appeared across her cheekbones.

‘Now, when I say that Peter and his stags had a good time in Prague, I mean we all had a bloody good time. Mentioning no names! But when I say we
had
a good time, maybe I should be a little more specific. I mean, you’re safe now, Pete, she’s said yes!’

Natalie glanced over at me anxiously. I smiled back, but
kicked myself for not ‘dropping in’ on the groom’s breakfast to head this off at the pass.

I pressed my headset. ‘Anything?’ I whispered. ‘Gemma?’

There was no reply. ‘Gemma? Where’s Joe?’

The words froze on my lips. I saw her before anyone else did, through the long glass double doors, approaching from the foyer like a tidal wave of inappropriateness.

A woman – or at least, I thought so; she could have been a slightly underambitious transvestite – in a leather miniskirt and bustier top, and the sort of waist-length blond extensions designed for twirling around at the same time as the wearer’s nipple tassels. She had a determined expression on her face, but that might have been on account of our slippery carpet and the very high Perspex shoes she was wearing.

I held my breath, paralyzed with indecision. If I made a move, it would attract attention; if I didn’t …

I could
not
let this happen. But what to do? Head her off? Stop Steven? A few people near the door had also noticed her now, and a general ripple was spreading among the tables, like a sort of communal embarrassment at where this speech could be headed. They had no idea how much worse the destination could yet be.

My head flicked back and forth between the advancing stripper and Steven’s red face, like a tomato above his tight morning dress. I didn’t know what to do. The powerlessness gripped me.

What was it she was carrying? She was clutching something in her hand.

Something white and plastic.

Small, white, and plastic.

Was that a … pregnancy test?

No. I’d heard of some bad-taste best men’s speeches before, but this was by far the worst.

Then, just as I thought I’d have to scream myself and pretend I’d had a vision of the Virgin Mary in the wedding cake, the stripper suddenly looked shocked and disappeared from view through the glass in the doors, sideways, like a tree being felled.

‘… Peter was, of course, a complete gentleman and insisted on offering Svetlana his jacket to cover her … embarrassment, shall we say.’

‘Woooooaaaarrrrrggggh!’ went the ushers, looking doorwards in anticipation of the big surprise.

I can’t describe to you the relief that was rushing through my veins when the doors remained firmly closed. It was divine intervention. Thank God for slippery carpets, I thought, gratefully, and edged towards the door to get rid of the problem before it started howling in agony.

Steven glanced at the door. I made a decision and turned off the microphone on the table. His loud voice carried on for a few words before he frowned, confused; and then, all at once, what sounded like machine-gun fire filled the air, and the doors burst open.

Oh, God, what fresh hell was this?

I should have guessed. It was Ripley. Ripley in her tap shoes, tapping out whatever the Morse code for
save me from this colossal cock-up
was, on the original parquet floor of the restaurant.

Everyone’s heads spun.

‘Happy feet!’ yelled a shrill voice. ‘I’ve got those happy feet!’

Tap tap tap tap tappitty-tappitty-TAP
.

The blood that had drained from my head now returned with a vengeance as Ripley, her blonde curls bobbing, jazz-handed her way right up to the top table. From the outside, she looked angelic – white frock, pink cheeks, blue eyes. Inside, I knew from experience, she was more Tinie Tempah than Shirley Temple.

But on the positive side, I thought, everyone had forgotten about Steven’s X-rated best-man speech. The two vicars were actively cooing.

The doors burst open again, and Joe rushed in. He’d changed into a suit, I noticed, and his hair was ruffled in the style so beloved of male models posing with children.

‘There you are, you naughty … oh no! It’s a wedding!’ He looked round with charming, Hugh Grant-ish mortification.

Ripley, annoyed that the limelight had shifted, did a burst of manic tapping that caused two guests to clutch at their hearing aids, and finished with a ta-da move. I noticed that she was carrying one of the pretty orange nosegays from the row-ends of the seating outside.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Joe explained. ‘Ripley saw the bride, and thought she was so beautiful that she just had to come and give her some flowers. You naughty girl,’ he added. ‘Interrupting is extremely bad manners.’

‘Aww,’ chorused about a third of the female guests in unison. Although I think they were actually fawning over Joe, not Ripley.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tam’s broad shoulders appear behind the glass door, stoop down, then reappear with a white sheet-covered lump over his shoulder. A pair of Perspex platforms dangled from under the sheet. I would never ever question Laurence’s habit of recruiting security staff from the Special Services again.

Steven watched in horror as his surprise vanished over Tam’s shoulder, and his thread of his speech evaporated, all at the same time. While all attention was on Ripley and Joe, I caught Steven’s eye and did that two-finger-prong,
my eyes, your eyes
gesture. Something else that Tam had taught me. He shrank back.

‘I’m so sorry we interrupted your speeches,’ said Joe, turning so Ripley could hand over the makeshift bouquet and tap her way out. ‘Can we send in some champagne as an apology?’ He signalled to the waiters, who immediately began refilling glasses.

At that moment, I could have hugged him. Actually hugged him and his ridiculous, overly dramatic, irresponsible gestures.

‘To the bridesmaids,’ I said loudly, and everyone automatically stood up and raised their glasses.

‘To the bridesmaids!’

Steven looked confused, and the two bridesmaids looked slightly peeved that they hadn’t got their full compliments, but I motioned for the waiting staff to come out again with more champagne and fresh glasses, as well as coffee and tea, and in all the confusion, no one seemed to have noticed that the wedding had fast-forwarded by twenty minutes. Or at least, if they did, they were all too polite and relieved to comment.

Joe and Ripley were detained by the table of elderly relatives, all of whom wanted to chat to the angelic blonde child and her delightful male nanny, but after about five minutes of freestyle charm, Joe swung Ripley up onto his shoulders, to keep her happy feet off the floor and our eardrums intact.

As he turned to leave, he gave me a quick wink and mouthed,
okay?

I was abruptly struck by how different he seemed. Not the scruffy, over-earnest beach bum Joe I was used to; he looked like a confident, tanned adult. A dad, even. For the first time I understood why Helen gave him that dopey smile whenever he walked in. And Gemma. And Delphine, come to think of it.