Bridesmaids (9 page)

There is something about being British that makes us ascribe to a simple cup of tea the sort of healing properties you wouldn’t even demand from a Harley Street psychiatrist.

It doesn’t seem to matter what disaster befalls us, whatever death or destruction throws itself in our path, the reaction is always the same: ‘I’ll put the kettle on then, shall I?’

‘Would anyone like another?’ says one of the assistants, popping her head around the door.

‘Can you make sure it’s Assam this time,’ says Valentina, handing back her cup.

The thing is though, it somehow works. At least, it has on Charlotte. Although, admittedly, it might not just be the PG Tips that have done it. Charlotte has spent the last half-hour revealing some of her innermost thoughts to myself, Georgia, five other bridesmaids, and a dressmaker who clearly thinks that if she’s going to have to fix that dress, she at least wants to hear all about what was behind its undoing.

The thoughts Charlotte has revealed are ones that she’s never, ever told us about before, which is unbelievable really, given that our relationship has lasted longer than the average marriage.

With hindsight, they are thoughts that I probably shouldn’t have been surprised about. But the fact is, I
was
surprised. I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d confessed to having a secret career as Alan Titchmarsh’s private lap dancer.

It turns out that lovely, soft-spoken Charlotte–Charlotte who, ironically, never sees anything but good in people–can see nothing but
bad
in herself. And behind the shyness that I’d always assumed was just in her nature lies a self-esteem so low it defies gravity. Charlotte, it appears,
doesn’t
like her milkmaid curves and gorgeous rosy cheeks. In fact, she despises them.

‘I know I’ve never really said anything, but I have always felt like this,’ she says as she sips her tea, her hands still shaking slightly. ‘I was teased at school for the way I look, and although people don’t say anything to my face any more, I know what everyone thinks about me.’

‘Charlotte,’ I say, shaking my head, ‘what people think of you is that you are a fantastic,
lovely
person who—’

‘Well, that’s all fine,’ she interrupts. ‘But don’t pretend that even you, even my best friends in the whole world, don’t look at me sometimes and think: What a blinking mess she is.’

‘Actually, Charlotte, I don’t thin—’ I begin again.

‘I’m not having a go at any of you,’ she interrupts. ‘I mean, how could I? I
am
a mess. I’m overweight, I don’t know how to dress properly and I’ve never put on lipstick in my life. I wouldn’t even know how.’

‘We always just thought you were just…comfortable…with the way you look,’ says Grace.

‘No, Grace, I’m not,’ she says. ‘I hate myself.’

‘It does have an effect on your confidence when you feel that you don’t look your best,’ sighs Valentina. ‘I don’t want to leave the house sometimes when my eyebrows are overdue.’

Everyone ignores her.

‘The point is,’ Charlotte continues, ‘I know happiness isn’t necessarily about being slim and gorgeous, but I have enough experience of being fat and plain to know it’s not about that either. I’d love to look as nice as any of you.’

I am about to repeat my reassurances when it strikes me that, actually, she may be right. At least partly. If looking better would make our friend more confident, then why on earth wouldn’t we help her do that?

‘Listen, Charlotte,’ I say, ‘I love you just the way you are and so does everyone else here. But if you really feel this strongly about it, we’ll help you.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asks.

‘I mean we’ll give you a makeover.’

She looks sceptical.

‘Seriously,’ I continue, ‘we’ll help you to get fit, we’ll help you to do your hair and your make-up, we’ll help you pick your clothes–and anything else you want help with, for that matter!’

‘Charlotte,’ gasps Valentina, ‘I’ll introduce you to the director at
Andrew Herbert
if you like! He’ll have you looking like Jennifer Aniston in no time. Oh, this is so exciting!’

‘I’m sure it can’t be that easy,’ she says.

‘Nonsense,’ says Grace. ‘You’ve got a lovely face, but everyone looks better with some make-up.’

‘I actually think the biggest problem is my weight,’ she says.

‘Right then, you can sign up to WeightWatchers,’ I suggest. ‘In fact, we could all go to give you some moral support. You’ll love it, Valentina.’

‘Couldn’t you just start throwing up instead?’ says Valentina, pulling a face. ‘It did wonders for Princess Di.’

I tut.

‘Do you really think this sort of thing would help?’ asks Charlotte.

‘Yes!’ we all say in unison, and she starts giggling.

‘Oh God, but what about this dress?’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry, Georgia, I really am.’

‘What are you on about?’ Georgia says firmly. ‘It’s challenges like this that dressmakers thrive on–isn’t that right, Anouska?’

‘Sure, no problem,’ replies the dressmaker begrudgingly. ‘We’ll get another one ready in time. No problem. Yeah.’

Charlotte suddenly has a sparkle in her eye and, later, when I catch her by herself I can’t resist seizing the moment.

‘You’ve just got to promise me one thing,’ I tell her. ‘If we succeed in pulling off this makeover, you’ve got to start putting in some effort with Jim.’

This time she laughs out loud.

‘Fine!’ she says in mock exasperation. ‘Whatever you say, Evie. Whatever you say!’

Liverpool city centre, Saturday, 24 March

I only know one person who would even consider getting married in a cowboy hat and feather boa, and that is my mother.

‘I think it’s quite fun, don’t you?’ she asks, posing in front of the full-length mirror.

‘You look like J.R. Ewing in drag,’ I tell her.

She pulls a face. ‘How did you ever get to be so conventional?’

‘All kids have got to rebel against their parents,’ I say. ‘Being conventional was the only option open in my case.’

She ruffles my hair, something she’s done for as long as I can remember and will probably still be doing when I’m collecting my pension. It used to drive me insane, but now it’s just one of a long list of my mother’s unique characteristics and, given that it’s one of the less eccentric ones and that it doesn’t attract too much attention from upstanding members of the public, I’ve decided I can live with it.

‘Have you thought about something a bit more
demure
,’ I ask, thinking back to what the magazines in the bridal shop said. But the second I’ve said it, I wonder why I bothered.
She doesn’t do demure, my mum. Demented maybe, but not demure.

‘You mean boring,’ she says, continuing to look along the rail. ‘Oh, this could be nice.’ She picks up a traditional-looking floor-length dress. My hopes rise momentarily.

‘I wonder if they’d do it in gingham?’ she muses.

My mum is getting married later this year to Bob, whom she has been dating for six years. To say they’re made for each other is an understatement. Because while I’d previously considered my mother to be a one-off, she and Bob couldn’t be more suited if they came as a matching pair.

He is a bearded philosophy lecturer who is permanently clad in Jesus sandals so unfashionable only the Almighty Himself could carry them off. She is a yoga teacher with a fondness for clothes that come in such an alarming array of colours I’m sure some people must risk having a fit if they look at her for too long.

Both of them have a permanently chilled-out expression on their face that always makes people think they’ve been smoking dubious substances. While I can’t testify to what they got up to in the seventies, I strongly suspect that in both cases they were just born like that.

I’ll never think of Bob as a father, but I’m glad he and my mother are getting married. She deserves to be happy and he’d do anything for her–so long, of course, as it doesn’t involve anything that might challenge his vast list of ethical views on everything from the pollution of Formby beach to the treatment of moon bears in China. Not that my mum would ever challenge those–her own list is long enough to fill the
Yellow Pages
.

But as I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realise that, despite her
feeding me more lentils as a child than can be good for anyone’s digestive system–I was twelve before I had my first Wagon Wheel–and the fact that her idea of a family break was six nights camping at Greenham Common, Mum is undoubtedly one of the good guys in life.

My dad, on the other hand, whom she met on an Indian ashram in 1972, disappeared when I was two. I sometimes think I can remember him, but then wonder whether what’s in my head are just ideas about him that have been pieced together from old photos and snippets of information I’ve picked up over the years.

I wouldn’t say my mum exactly shies away from talking about him, but the subject rarely comes up and I certainly don’t push her on the issue. It can’t be easy, having the father of your child simply leave the house one day and never turn up again. He had apparently popped out to buy some LSD, which tells you all you need to know about him. Other people go out to buy a pint of milk and don’t come back. My father couldn’t even run away respectably.

‘Do you know,’ she says, frowning at the rail, ‘I don’t think I’m going to go for a wedding dress at all. I’d just look silly in any of these. They’re not me.’

‘You haven’t even tried any on yet,’ I say, getting worried now. ‘Oh God, you’re not thinking about wearing your usual gear, are you? I’m telling you, Mum, if you wear one of your purple mohair jumpers and painted clogs, I’m boycotting this wedding.’

‘Don’t be horrible,’ she says, but she’s smirking.

‘You need something
special
,’ I insist.

‘It’ll be special no matter what I wear,’ she says. ‘Who cares what I’ve got on, really? Besides, I’ve left it very late
now. They probably couldn’t even get one ready for me in time.’

‘I’m sure they could,’ I say. ‘Go on, just go and try a few on. For me. Please.’

She pulls a face like a sulky teenager whose iPod and mobile phone have been confiscated and grabs a handful of dresses from the rail before wandering off behind a curtain. The shop assistant looks at me in the same sympathetic way I’ve seen people look at Grace when Polly is playing up.

My mum tries on five dresses and by the time she has decided to abandon the sixth one I start to think she may be right. They’re all lovely on the rail, but somehow they don’t look right on her. They all look weird. By which I mean normal. And, quite frankly, normal isn’t her style.

‘Shall we just have a little break?’ she says hopefully. ‘Oh, go on, Evie.
Please
?’

For proximity’s sake, we settle on one of the cafés in the Met Quarter, although given that you can’t move for trendy executives, footballers’ wives and designer junkies in here, I’ll admit that we look a little out of place.

I go for my usual cappuccino while Mum orders a herbal tea that looks and smells as if someone has washed their socks in it. She opens her newspaper, the
Guardian
, which she buys every day even though she has complained about it ‘going too right-wing’ for the last fifteen years. She also buys the
Daily Echo
religiously, though I suspect from the fact that she asked recently whether we’d given much coverage to a newly-released book of Afghan poetry that she doesn’t actually read it all that often.

I pull a copy of one of Grace’s old wedding magazines from my bag and turn to the inside back page, where there’s a list of things we should have done so far. The reception is booked, so that’s one tick at least. Sort of, anyway. The wedding party is being held in a field near Mum’s house, and Wendy, her friend who runs a health-food shop, is doing the catering. It will be a sumptuous feast of nettle soup and mung bean falafels. I can’t wait.

‘I suppose I’d be wasting my time asking whether you’ve ordered the flowers yet?’ I say.

‘You don’t need to do that yet,’ she says. ‘There are three months left.’

‘Two and a half,’ I correct her. ‘And, anyway, according to this you do. Mind you, this says you’re meant to have sent out cards telling people to expect an invitation soon. What’s the point in that? Why don’t you just invite people?’

‘Capitalism,’ she says knowingly. ‘They want you to buy two sets of cards. Anyway, we don’t need cards. I thought I’d just mention it to people when I bump into them.’

My heart sinks, and not for the first time today.

‘Mum,’ I say, trying to stay calm, ‘you can’t do that. I know you don’t want things to be too formal, but I’ve been to better organised sixth-form parties.’

‘You worry too much,’ she says. ‘It’ll be fine. If you want to send out cards, then do. But I’m not bothered and Bob certainly won’t be either.’

I can see that being a bridesmaid at this wedding is going to involve significantly more than it did for Grace’s wedding–although it isn’t as though I haven’t got plenty of people to share the burden with.

As well as myself, my mother has asked nine other people to be bridesmaids, including Grace (who could probably do without the hassle), Georgia (who was looking forward to some wedding-free time), Charlotte (who is traumatised enough with the preparations for Georgia’s wedding) and Valentina (who’s thrilled–she has a star part again).

‘I take it you haven’t invited anyone else to be a bridesmaid recently?’ I ask.

‘No, I haven’t actually,’ she says. ‘Although I don’t know
why you’re so bothered about it. It’ll be nice. The more the merrier.’

‘I’m bothered about it because, while I’m not saying you ought to be a slave to convention…’

‘Heaven forbid,’ she interrupts.

‘…getting married, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a
ceremony
–which by its very definition follows certain conventions.’

She frowns.

‘All I’m saying is, you’ve got to follow at least
some
of the rules,’ I say.

‘What rules am I breaking?’ she asks.

‘You’re only meant to ask a
select few people
to be your bridesmaids,’ I huff. ‘My friends would have been happy as guests. I mean, you didn’t even go to Grace’s wedding.’

‘Only because Bob and I were in Egypt.’

‘Ah, yes, your Egyptian holiday…’

Mum pulls a face as if to request I don’t express my opinion on this again.

‘We enjoyed it, I’ve told you,’ she says.

What’s wrong with Egypt as a holiday destination? you may ask. The pyramids, a Nile cruise, Tutankhamun’s tomb. Marvellous.

Well, yes, except my mum’s Egyptian holiday featured none of those and would be enough to give your average Thomas Cook customer heart failure. Her trip was organised by an environmental group and involved my mum, Bob, and a number of other like-minded lunatics waking at 5 a.m. every day to spend six hours picking up tampons and other unsavoury bits of pollution from the banks of the Nile. I worry for her sometimes.

‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘all your friends were really pleased when I asked them to be my bridesmaids. Especially Valentina. Lovely girl.’

‘You won’t be saying that when she tries to upstage you on your own wedding day,’ I mutter.

I excuse myself to go to the loo, and when I come back I see something that alarms me slightly. My mum has my mobile phone in her hand. The reason I feel so uncomfortable with this sight is because technology and my mother are not happy bedmates. This is a woman who thought blogging was something to do with deforestation.

‘I tried to answer this for you,’ she says. ‘I thought it was ringing but I think it turned out to be one of those text thingies.’

‘Let me see,’ I say, taking the phone from her and narrowing my eyes. I just know this was the newsdesk trying to get hold of me for a big story. I can feel it.

‘What did you press?’ I ask.

‘Nothing!’ she protests.

‘Well, don’t worry about it then,’ I say, still slightly uneasy, but slipping my phone into the pocket of my denim jacket anyway.

She pauses for a second. ‘Okay, I might have pressed something,’ she says guiltily.

I raise an accusatory eyebrow.

‘I didn’t mean to, I was just trying to answer it for you.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Was there a message there?’

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Do you remember what it said?’

‘Er, something about a wedding from someone called John. No, sorry, Jack. That’s right, Jack. It was definitely Jack.’