Don't Tell the Groom (2 page)

‘I've just been assigned their account and in return for sorting out their rather bungled tax return from their previous accountants they've offered us a complimentary meal there.'

The Lemonheads on loop comes to a dramatic halt. Suddenly it makes sense. Mark wasn't about to shell out part of the mortgage on our house to pop the question. He was clearly treating me to a freebie from work.

‘Great,' I say. I need to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I am still getting to go to Chez Vivant. I can still make my friends weep with jealousy. And a few months ago Posh and Becks were spotted there, so at the very least I can hope to see a Z-list celebrity like someone from TOWIE.

‘Come on. Table's booked for seven thirty, so we should get a wriggle on.'

‘OK,' I say.
Seven-thirty?
I've got less than an hour. An hour before we have to leave! Clearly Mark doesn't understand that you book to have your hair done before you go to a place like Chez Vivant. Less than an hour to get ready is an impossibility.

Exactly one hour later and we're walking through the doors of Chez Vivant. It just shows that my teachers at school were right: I would be able to succeed in life if I actually put my mind to it.

For once my frizzy hair allowed itself to be blow-dried straight to within an inch of its life, and so far, thanks to a whole can of hairspray, it is staying up in a chignon.

I'm also dressed in a hideously expensive, I'll wear it one day, I really will, Mark, dress. And look, here I am wearing it! It has only taken three years, and I don't know if you'd call that value for money, but it looks amazing. And I'm even wearing a proper cheese-wire thong and a sexy lace strapless bra. Of course both are killing me, but the overall effect is worth it.

It's just a shame that the shoes I've got on are from Next and not the Jimmy Choos that I could have owned if it weren't for LuckyLes11. I close my eyes. I'm not allowing myself to think about that now. Besides, even if I had won, it isn't like there is a Jimmy Choo shop in Farnborough I could have raced to tonight to get them.

‘You look so good,' says Mark as we deposit our coats in the cloakroom, ‘I almost thought about throwing you on the bed and changing my mind about going out.'

Now he tells me! If I'd known all it would have taken was for me to put this dress on to get him to stay in bed, then I
would have put it on two hours ago. What am I saying? I'm standing in Chez Vivant!

Inside it is exactly like I'd imagined it would be. Huge glass chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. There are thick red heavy velvet curtains hanging around the outside of the room. There is even a black-and-white movie being projected onto the ceiling. It just screams expensive.

‘We've got a reservation, under Robinson,' Mark says to the maître d'.

I can't believe how grown-up and confident he sounds in this place. There's something about walking in here that has made me suddenly feel like I'm a child at an adults' party. I'm hit with narcissistic thoughts that everyone in the whole restaurant is going to be looking at me as if they know we're getting our food for free and that we can't normally afford to eat here.

So much for my celebrity spotting. I'm terrified to even look at anyone for fear they'll be pricing up my outfit and thinking that my dress is far too many seasons ago to wear.

The maitre d' nods at us in that discreet posh way, and he leads us across the restaurant. It's at this moment that I notice the floor. It's super-shiny black tiling with diamantes buried in it. The lights keep catching the sparkles and they're twinkling like stars in the night sky. I'd usually be dead impressed, but as well as being super shiny it's also super
slippy, and it seems that I might as well be wearing heels with soles made of ice, as I appear to have absolutely no resistance.

Gone is the panic that people are going to be judging me on my looks. They're now going to be judging me on the fact that I'm waddling like a duck and doing windmill arms like I'm walking a tightrope. I manage to grab hold of Mark's arm just as I'm about to do the splits. Not only would I have ripped my amazing dress on its first outing, but with the cheese-wire thong I'm wearing, I'm sure I would have put a lot of diners off their dinner.

‘Here you are,' says the maître d', unaware of the Bambion-ice impression I've being doing behind his back. He points towards some curtains in the corner and I'm wondering just where he's taking us. He pulls them open to reveal a velvet-covered booth. Maybe they keep the curtains closed when it's not in use to make the restaurant seem fuller. I shimmy into the booth. It is almost as comfortable as my bed; maybe it was worth getting out of it after all. As Mark slides in opposite me, the maître d' shuts the curtains around the booth.

Oh, my God, they really are embarrassed to have us here.

‘Are we like the poor relations?' I ask. I think it best to make a joke out of it before Mark gets embarrassed.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, he shut the curtains.'

‘Pen, that's to give us privacy. These booths are for their guests who want their dining to be a bit more discreet.'

‘Oh. Right,' I say, nodding. ‘I knew that.'

I did
not
know that. Now we're going to spend the entire night starving as we'll never get the attention of the waiter.

Mark presses what looks like a doorbell and seconds later a waiter appears from behind our curtains.

‘Yes, sir?'

‘We'll have a bottle of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape to start with,' says Mark.

Having the wine list in front of me at that particular moment makes me gawp at the price. Thank God this is a freebie.

‘An excellent choice, sir. I'll bring it straightaway.'

Minutes later the waiter is as good as his word and he's poured me the best wine I've ever tasted. Oh, how the other half live! I could get used to this.

‘Here's to the start of an excellent night,' says Mark, as he raises his glass.

I chink his glass with mine, making sure we have strong eye contact. The more intense the eye contact the more intense the sex, or so my friend Lou always says.

By the time my trio of desserts arrives I am full, but there's no way I am going to leave here without three courses. Especially when someone other than me or Mark is paying. Why is it that food always tastes better when someone else picks up the bill?

Mark presses the little buzzer.

‘I can't eat another thing, Mark,' I say, groaning under the weight of my belly.

‘We'll have a bottle of the Möet,' says Mark to the waiter.

Möet? There is no way that they are going to give us Möet on a free meal. They're not that bloody stupid, are they? Or else my boyfriend Mark is the best accountant in the whole world.

‘What did you do that for?' I hiss over the table.

‘Because, Penny, we are celebrating.'

‘We are?' I ask. ‘What are we celebrating?'

Maybe we're celebrating the fact that he has been crowned world's best accountant. Maybe this will be the start of more amazing free dinners.

‘This,' says Mark.

Oh. My. God. There it is, in his hands. Stage four of the life plan Mark's mapped out for us. Aka an engagement ring. A small, perfectly formed, princess-cut diamond that seems to tick all the four Cs, (colour, cut, clarity and carat,) and is by far the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

‘So will you marry me, Penelope?'

Thank God for the curtains, is all I can say. As the next thing I know I've thrown myself at Mark like a desperate woman who thought this day would never come.

‘Of course I bloody will!'

‘Ahem.'

I stop snogging the face off Mark and wipe my mouth, embarrassed, as the waiter is standing next to us, popping open our champagne.

‘Here's to you, the future Mrs Robinson,' says Mark, as he raises his glass.

We chink glasses, and this time there is no Lemonheads, only the wedding march ringing in my ears.

I glance down at the ring on my finger. It's perfectly weighted so that I know I have something ever so special and precious on my left hand. It's like my whole life my left ring finger has been lacking something, and finally it's lost its virginity and it feels complete.

I'm just starting to drift into a wedding fantasy where I'm shopping for the perfect dress to match my ring, when I realise Mark is talking to me.

‘We'll have to get out the bank statements for the wedding fund to see just how spectacular our wedding can be.'

Uh-oh. My cheeks suddenly feel heavy as I push every muscle I can to hold my fake smile in place. Mark can't see
the bank statements, as that's linked to my bingo account. He'd be able to see all my bingo win payments going in. Even though I've probably topped up the account with thousands of pounds of winnings by now, he would never approve of me playing bingo.

‘How about I plan the wedding, honey? I can make it my present to you? Then all you have to do is turn up. It will be like that TV programme,
Don't Tell the Bride
, only I won't tell the groom.'

‘Sounds even better. To us,' he says, taking a sip of champagne.

‘To us,' I echo. Oh, bloody hell. There suddenly seems a lot already that I can't tell the groom.

‘Are you sure you wouldn't rather just go straight to bed?' I ask. ‘I mean, aren't we supposed to consummate our engagement? Won't it not be binding if we haven't done it?

I look up at Mark in the hope that the lure of getting me naked will be stronger than the urges of the accountant inside him.

‘Come on, we didn't open them yet so that we could have the big surprise when we got engaged. I want to know just how big this wedding you're going to plan will be.'

I fail to correct Mark, that we didn't open the statements because I didn't want him to see my bingo winnings going in.

‘OK,' I say reluctantly.

This is not how I imagined the night of our engagement ending up. I imagined we'd spend the time after the proposal
screaming down the phone at our nearest and dearest, but as it was after ten o'clock on a Monday night we thought we'd save that pleasure until the next day. Then after shouting from the rooftops, I'd envisaged that we'd probably be so amorous when we got over the threshold that we'd end up having sex on the stairs. Not that I imagine it would be a) very comfortable on our wooden staircase or b) very warm in our poorly heated house. But surely when you get engaged you're supposed to have acts of passion like that. Checking bank statements did not appear in any of my fantasies. I guess that's what happens when you're going to marry an accountant.

I sit on the bed in the spare room in my sexy dress, holdups and Mark's dressing gown, as he hands me the envelopes for our bank statements.

I take a deep breath. You see, with weddings the difference of five hundred pounds is mammoth. It's the difference between having, or not having, luxuries like a magician to entertain the guests, or a candyfloss machine and sweetshop stand at the evening reception.

I find the most recent statement from the franked date on the envelope, and I almost wince at it through closed eyes. Does that say fifteen thousand three hundred and fifty-five pounds? A smile breaks out over my face. Fifteen thousand is OK, although I was expecting it to be around twenty thousand.
But fifteen thousand will still get me my Vera Wang dress, right?

‘So how much are we talking?' asks Mark.

I'd almost forgotten he was in the room. I'd been imagining how I was going to eat candyfloss without getting it on my Vera Wang gown.

‘I'm not telling you, Mark. We said we were going to do this “Don't Tell the Groom” thing, and I think we should take it seriously. Besides, you'd probably do a spreadsheet, and it would be like the whole household expenses fiasco.'

Mark makes an all-singing, all-dancing spreadsheet for our household budget every year. It was depressing enough to discover that we spent £3.50 on toilet rolls every two weeks, but then he manipulated the data into a graph that showed me that it cost £91 a year, and that it literally went down the toilet. That's a pair of boots!