The Honeymoon Hotel (26 page)

I tried to say something, but my eyes had filled up with tears.

‘Come here!’ Helen’s eyes were full of tears too. We had a big hug, during which her ring slipped round again and the enormous cubic zirconias dug into my back, but I didn’t care.

I was so happy for her. I was. I just wasn’t sure there was enough luck like that for both of us.

*

Helen and Wynn’s engagement drinks weren’t taking place in the hotel, as I’d assumed they would, but in the newly refurbished pub at the end of Wynn’s street in Clapham.

Joe and I headed over there after work on Friday night after promising Laurence we wouldn’t be back late, and it was at the door that I got the first nasty surprise of the evening.

‘You didn’t tell me it was a karaoke bar,’ I said accusingly to Helen.

Over in the corner by an old-fashioned piano, a woman in a suit and trendy black-framed glasses was already working her way through ‘Crazy in Love’. Or stamping out a small fire. One or the other.

‘It is,’ said Helen. ‘It’s a lovely local pub that does karaoke on a Friday night.’

‘Is that meant to be a sales pitch? That’s like saying it’s a tea shop
and
a waterboarding facility.’

Helen rolled her eyes, and blocked my line of sight. ‘Come on, Rosie, it’s fun. The burgers here are the best I’ve ever had in London, and you know how many burgers I’ve had.’

‘But how can we relax when there are people singing as if they’ve got something trapped in their throats and doing that awful
X Factor
jerky hand thing? I know it’s your local pub, and I really want to eat here, but can’t we just go somewhere else until—’

‘No,’ said Helen firmly. ‘We can’t. Wynn and I have booked the snug. Have a drink, and in five minutes I promise you will not care.’

‘Problem?’ Joe strolled up behind us and knuckled my head playfully. ‘Is Rosie micromanaging you?’

I rearranged my face into a forced smile.
Get a grip, Rosie
. I didn’t want to look like a killjoy, but karaoke brought me out in hives of anxiety.

‘There’s no problem,’ I said. ‘And I don’t micromanage—’

‘Hi, Joe!’ said Helen, right over me. ‘Thanks for rearranging your shift – it’s great you could come.’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for anything. Oh, wow.’ His face lit up in a broad grin, and I did a brief double take, thinking he was smiling at me, but no – he was staring right over my shoulder.

I turned to see what he was smiling at, but incredibly, he was smiling at the office Beyoncé, now hunched over the microphone and clumping about as if her left leg had gone to sleep and she was trying to get the blood flowing again.

‘Karaoke, amazing!’ he said. ‘I love it! There was this incredible karaoke bar back in Santa Cruz that we used to go to all the time. I do a brilliant Lenny Kravitz …’

‘Excellent!’ said Helen. ‘You can go first.’

‘We’re not—’ I started.

‘Look, go through and meet everyone – Wynn’s already in there with some of his friends. He’ll introduce you, they’re all lovely.’

As she spoke, Joe pushed me helpfully in the direction of the snug, and before I knew it, I was in the middle of a fierce discussion about who the greatest Bond of all time was with two of Wynn’s school friends. It was quite heated, but on the positive side, it drowned out the sound of the singing in the main bar.

*

Soon Helen and Wynn shyly announced that they might just have a go on the karaoke now they’d worked up some Dutch courage.

‘I really hope this is a short song,’ I muttered to Joe. ‘Karaoke’s
bad enough, but couples karaoke should be illegal outside the home.’

‘Don’t be such a buzzkill.’ Joe started edging his way out from the table. ‘Come on, stir yourself, she’s your best mate. And they might need backing singers.’

Wynn and Helen were already clutching microphones on the stage in the corner, and gazing at each other with mischievous expressions.

I’d never seen Helen look mischievous before.

I found myself rammed up against the broad shoulders of Wynn’s mate Geraint. He was also very Welsh. I already knew he’d known Wynn since school, he was an IT consultant living in Shoreditch, he’d once had a dog called Hammond, and he thought Maltesers were the ultimate individual chocolate treat. None of Wynn’s friends had any trouble starting conversations, and they didn’t give a toss about ethical bread production.

‘Ah, it’s you! Now, this should be good, look,’ he said into my ear.

‘Why?’ I asked, at the same time that the introduction to ‘You’re the One That I Want’ boomed out of the speakers.

No. Surely not
Grease
? Helen was too cool for—

Then Wynn started singing. Out of the mild-mannered dentist in the zip-up cardigan flowed the most amazing voice. And he was singing the goofy lyrics with a big smile on his face, right into Helen’s eyes, and making them sound fresh and genuine; and when she pouted and finger-pointed back, somehow she sounded pretty tuneful too. It obviously wasn’t their first time
on the karaoke – a thought that shocked me even more than the idea of Helen hill-walking in the rain.

Most people in the pub had stopped drinking to watch, and some were even joining in with the ‘ooh-ooh-ooooh’ bits and clapping. Joe was whooping
and
clapping, slightly off the beat.

Geraint leaned over and yelled, ‘He’s in the choir!’

‘Helen isn’t!’ I yelled back. ‘I had no idea she could do this!’

‘She’s in love, isn’t she?’ He finished off his pint and put the glass on the bar. ‘Love makes everyone sing better. Now, how about it? You and me? What duets do you know?’

‘I don’t do karaoke.’

‘Come on, love, you can’t turn me down for a song.’ Geraint pretended to look sad. He wasn’t bad-looking, with thick dark hair and a cheeky smile, but he could have been Ryan Gosling and I still wouldn’t have got up there to sing.

‘I don’t do singing. And someone has to keep an eye on the bags,’ I pointed out. ‘Oh, look. They’re finishing!’ And I did lots of over-the-top clapping until Geraint and his mates were ‘persuaded’ to go up and sing ‘Flying Without Wings’.

To prevent further song pressure, I asked the barman for a menu and started examining it hungrily.

‘Those lads are good, aren’t they?’ Joe observed while I weighed up the burgers. ‘They’re almost making it look … “fun”. Do you think you might be persuaded to have some … “fun”?’

‘Nope, not a chance,’ I said without looking up. ‘I’m happy to listen, but that’s as far as it goes.’

‘Well, listening’s an improvement on earlier.’ He paused, and
after a second or two, I glanced up to see why he’d stopped. It was a trick that always worked on me. Joe was looking at me with a glint in his eyes.

‘What?’ I asked, annoyed that he’d got me to do exactly what he wanted.

‘I was just wondering where that birthmark on your forehead’s gone.’

I touched my forehead self-consciously. ‘I don’t have a birthmark on my forehead.’

‘No, you don’t, I realize that now.’ He was gazing at my forehead so intensely that he might as well have been touching it, and I felt myself blush. ‘It’s just that normally there’s a crease there.’

And then Joe did touch me, very softly, between the eyebrows. It made my face tingle, and I jerked backwards.

Living together was very odd. I was much more aware of my personal space around Joe than I had been before December. I’d always noticed that he was a bit touchy-feely, but now every casual touchy-feely touch seemed more obvious.

‘And it’s not there now,’ he announced.

‘Is that a roundabout and rather patronizing way of telling me I’m relaxed?’

‘Ah, no, it’s back. Up till then, you were definitely looking more relaxed. You need to relax more.’

I hated being told to relax. It was the most unrelaxing thing anyone could tell you, right up there with ‘Calm down’ and ‘Cheer up’.

‘I’m very relaxed,’ I said tightly.

Joe nodded. ‘Maybe it’s because you haven’t mentioned anything to do with the hotel or weddings for over two hours now.’

‘I don’t always talk about—’ I started, but he was already shaking his head.

‘This is the longest I’ve seen you go without talking about the hotel. I wish I’d known all it would take to stop you talking about the bloody hotel was to ask you about James Bond films. Who
knew
you had so many opinions about Pierce Brosnan?’ He carried on looking at me in an amused way that made me feel, well, not uncomfortable exactly, but a bit unsettled.

‘He’s unfairly overlooked,’ I said, turning back to the menu. My cheeks felt hot, but then the pub was quite crowded now. ‘He had Moore’s sense of self-deprecation but Connery’s underlying mean streak. And he had the best hair.’

‘I never realized,’ Joe mused. ‘I must have missed the ones he was good in. I only saw the ones where Brosnan looks like he’s wandered in from an episode of
Murder, She Wrote
.’

The way he said it made it impossible not to laugh, even though I didn’t want to. ‘
GoldenEye
is very underrated.’

‘This weekend then,’ said Joe, reaching for the menu. ‘I’ll download it. Actually, I think Dad’s got a complete set, probably on original video. You can talk me through it. Are you having something to eat? I think I saw a review of this place in a paper recently; food’s supposed to be good.’

I flinched; I knew it wasn’t Dominic’s review because I was still tormenting myself by reading them, skimming for mentions of New Betty. There weren’t any so far, which kept me in a state of guilty hot mess. He hadn’t been in touch. But every
morning, despite myself, I woke up and checked my phone hoping there’d be a ‘come back!’ message; luckily, by lunch Helen had normally reminded me why that would be the Worst Thing Ever.

I pushed Dominic from my mind. I still hadn’t lost enough weight to stage a triumphant ‘Look at me now!’ chance meeting. Or got my promotion. ‘I’ll have a burger,’ I said.

‘Good choice. Still haven’t found a burger in London as good as—’

‘—the ones I had in the States. We know.’

‘Touché.’ Joe grinned, then caught the barman’s eye and gave our food order. As he was adding some ‘fries’ and ‘rings’, Helen shimmied up and clapped us both on the shoulders.

‘Do you want to order some food?’ I asked, although Helen looked so euphoric I wasn’t sure she’d ever need to eat again.

‘No, I’m fine, I was coming to say, it’s your turn!’ she said. ‘I bagged you a spot on the list! What do you want to sing?’

‘What? No, Helen—’

‘Oh, go on.’ She squeezed both our shoulders; clearly she was having the best time ever. ‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it! I can’t believe I let you put me off karaoke for so long!’

‘It’s great if you can sing, or you have no fear of public humiliation.’ The pub was busy, and my innards were shrivelling at the thought of people looking at me.

‘No one’s watching,’ she lied. ‘Go on. I’ll do it with you?’

‘Go on,’ said Joe, but I couldn’t, not even for Helen.

‘Let some other people have a turn,’ I suggested. ‘We have kind of been dominating it a bit.’

We all looked over to Karaoke Corner, where a trio of mums were daring each other to have a go. People weren’t exactly queuing up, but then the Welsh Westlife was a hard act to follow.

‘Twenty minutes,’ said Joe. ‘We’ve just ordered some food, but after that?’

Helen looked disappointed. ‘I’ll hold you to that. Order me a cheeseburger, would you? I’m going to see if Wynn’s okay.’

‘Wynn’s fine,’ Joe murmured as her blonde head bobbed back through the crowd. ‘Wynn looks like the happiest man in London.’

‘I know. He’s lucky. She’s lucky. I never thought I’d see her so happy. Kind of gives us all hope, eh?’

Joe didn’t reply, but looked down at the menu again. I wanted to say something encouraging, but I wasn’t sure what.

Geraint, Morgan, and Ellis sauntered over with Suzie and Michelle, the two dental nurses, and we went back into the snug to eat. After a while. when a few people had got up to go to the bar, Joe leaned over the table, and said, ‘So, how about it? Shall we go and surprise Helen with a song?’

‘And it was going so well,’ I said, trying to sound light. ‘No.’

‘Look, can I let you into a secret? People really aren’t taking as much notice of you as you think,’ said Joe. ‘This is London. You could get up there in a PVC catsuit and no one would even stop drinking. And so what if they are looking at you? You’ll never see them again. Whereas Helen’s your best mate, and she will remember tonight for the rest of your lives. Do it for her.’

I stared at his irritating, earnest face and bit back a retort. In
the back of my head, a little voice was telling me that he was right. Annoyingly.

‘And even if you don’t want to do it,’ he went on, keeping his eyes fixed on mine and his voice low so no one else could hear, ‘when you’ve got through the three mortifying minutes – ooh, all
three
of them – think how it’ll feel to have surprised yourself. Don’t you like surprising yourself?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Oh, come on. Everyone likes to surprise themselves now and again. Don’t you ever wonder why I’ve got some of those shirts?’ The ghost of a smile flickered around the corner of Joe’s mouth.

Something stirred in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was the way Joe was looking at me, or the atmosphere, or the nice supper, or what. But I felt a silvery flutter of excitement – maybe it was at the idea of surprising myself.

‘Okay, then what if we all sang together?’ He gestured over to Wynn’s mates, who were, I had to admit, much more fun than I’d assumed dentists would be. ‘We could do that other song from
Grease
, the one with the girls and the boys. I’m sure you’d be up for it, wouldn’t you?’ he added to them.

‘Yeah!’ they all said at once.

And from that point, I didn’t really have a choice.

*

I think the rest of the pub found it amusing when twelve people of very different shapes and sizes crammed themselves onto the tiny stage and starting singing ‘Summer Nights’ around four microphones.

Wynn and Helen took the main parts, obviously, but we took
it in turns to do the others, and by the time it was my turn – the unimpressed Rizzo bit, obviously – I was actually enjoying it enough not to care if people were looking at us.