Tales From a Hen Weekend (5 page)

‘Christ, Jude – have you been on the booze already? Of course we’re all here!’ I’m laughing as I’m hugging her.

‘But I can’t
tell
you how pleased I am to see you, Katie – I’ve been looking forward to this for ever, and here we are already…’

‘Get a grip, Jude!’ laughs Lisa, coming to join us. She dumps her suitcase, narrowly missing Jude’s feet, and gives her a hug too. ‘How’re you doing, girl?’ She holds her out at arms’ length and studies her. ‘Not putting on any weight, I hope? There’s
no
room to let out in those seams, I keep telling Katie…’

‘Sure, Lisa, and there’s more fat on a stick of celery than there is on meself, you should be knowing that. Leave off with your nagging, for the love of God, or we’ll all be scared to touch a drop all weekend, so we will.’

‘I hardly think that’s likely,’ I mutter, watching Karen and Suze weaving their way towards us, arms linked, giggling. ‘Those two got started on the plane!’

They don’t seem to have changed since our university days. Still the good-time party girls – show them a bottle of wine and they’ll have it opened and poured out quicker than you can blink.

‘Good job it’s a once in a lifetime experience, eh?’ says Lisa, smiling at them with the condescension of the big sister who’s had a lifetime of tolerating the immature ways of the younger generation. Despite her superior ways, Lisa’s always liked my friends and she’s particularly fond of Emily and Jude, having got used to them both practically living at our place over the years.

‘One hopes so, anyway,’ chimes in Mum. ‘
Far
too expensive, these days, to go through it all more than once – how
do
people manage it two or three times?’

‘Not really an appropriate thought at the moment, Mum,’ points out Lisa.

‘No, well – in
my
day marriage was considered to be for life,’ she begins, but there’s a silence at this point and she stops, looking embarrassed, evidently realising it’s not clever to advocate eternal fidelity when your own marriage only lasted eight years. ‘So, Jude, dear – how are you?’ she continues blithely. ‘Are your parents well?’

‘They’re grand altogether, thank you, Margie – and how’re you yourself?’

‘Bearing up, dear, under the strain, you understand. Not every day your youngest child gets married, you know. Want to do her proud, of course.’

She gives me a sad smile as if this is going to be an almighty effort.

‘And you’re looking well, so y’are, Margie. You’re going to have a blinder of a time here in Dublin with us girls, are you not?’

‘Quite probably, Jude. Quite probably,’ says Mum, nodding thoughtfully.

‘All checked in, then, girls!’ calls Emily, who’s been sorting out all the paperwork with the reception desk. ‘Come on – rooms are on the second floor!’

I’m sharing with Jude. She arrived by train from Cork an hour ago, so she’s already unpacked and hung all her stuff in the wardrobe. The dressing table’s covered with her pots of cream and bottles of make-up.

‘Whoops, sorry!’ she says, sweeping them all over to one side. ‘There’s plenty of space, Katie, I’m just making a mess as usual. Can’t go anywhere without me war paint, you know how I am!’

Jude’s a funny mixture.

She takes enormous care of herself. I mean, you’d never catch her going out for a walk in the rain, or the wind, for instance, in case she got her hair mussed up. She can’t be seen in public without at least one layer of make-up and a full set of false nails. She doesn’t possess slobbing-out clothes. I’ve never seen her in her dressing gown in daylight hours. We’ve spent dozens of holidays together – all through our teens I used to come over to Ireland for two or three weeks every summer – and I don’t think I ever saw her in pyjamas that hadn’t been ironed. Sometimes I wonder what she does when she goes to bed with a guy. Sorry – I don’t mean that to sound gross. I just wonder if she finally gets to be spontaneous, cos she sure as hell never is when
I’ve
shared a room with her. Her bedtime can take so long, I’ve been to sleep, had my first dream, woken up and wondered whether it’s the next day, before she even gets her clothes off.

The finished result, Jude Barnard robed, coiffeured, and made up to the nines, is a sight for sore eyes. She’s petite and slim, with perfect blonde hair, big blue eyes and little delicate features like a china doll. And on top of that, she’s the sweetest natured girl you could ever meet. Never says a bad word about anyone. She makes me feel like Attila the Hun as soon as I open my mouth to utter the slightest, mildest criticism, because no one is ever too bad for Jude to see their hidden good points. She’d probably tell you that Hitler was just a bit misguided and Judas Iscariot was having a bad day.

But the sad thing is, guys don’t tend to notice Jude. When she’s around people she doesn’t know, she’s as timid as a mouse. She always takes the corner seat, keeps quiet and doesn’t meet people’s eyes. She’s got no confidence. She was the same at school, but I thought she would have grown out of it by now.

That’s why I was so pleased when she told me about Fergus. They’ve been together about five or six months now and apparently he’s Mr Wonderful personified. And good luck to her.

I roll over onto my back and stretch out on the bed, arms above my head. I could fall asleep quite easily. I’m knackered from the stress of all the wedding preparation, and this is the first chance I’ve had in weeks to relax.

We’ve arranged to meet up in the bar at seven o’clock. I’m expecting Emily, Karen and Suze to be first there, already getting stuck into the booze, but surprisingly, Mum and Auntie Joyce are the only ones already ensconced at a table. They’ve both got gin-and-tonics in front of them and they’re deep in conversation, hugging their handbags on their laps.

‘We didn’t have a honeymoon,’ Mum’s saying as Jude and I bring our drinks over from the bar to join them. ‘There wasn’t any money for things like that. We spent everything we had on the deposit for our first house.’

We’re back in 1972 again, by the sound of it.

‘I know, Marge, says Joyce, ‘but you’ve got to hand it to the youngsters. They don’t rush into marriage. They work hard and save up. Bloody good luck to them, I say. Ron and I went to Guernsey for a week. But if we could have afforded a honeymoon in the Caribbean, we’d have gone for it. We
all
would have done, wouldn’t we?’

‘We didn’t expect luxuries,’ insists Mum, taking another sip of her drink. ‘We
expected
to be hard up. That’s the difference.’

‘It’s not so very different, Mum. We’re still hard up, trust me,’ I tell her.

‘God, everyone’s hard up these days, aren’t they, so?’ says Jude.

‘Who’s hard up?’ asks Emily, joining us at the table. ‘Is someone trying to get out of buying a drink?’ she laughs. ‘Cos before you all start arguing about it, I think we should have a whip.’

‘Good idea,’ says Lisa, and between the two of them they’re getting organised, getting the right amount of euros from everyone and keeping it in a separate purse.

‘Hope one of you two is going to stay sober!’ I tell them.

‘Yes, Emily, dear – that’s a lot of money. Be very careful,’ says Mum, giving her a stern look. ‘We don’t want you getting mugged.’

‘Well, that’s nice to know, Marge! I’ll do my best
not
to be.’

‘I know you will, dear, and it’s very good of you to take care of everything for us. Katie’s very lucky to have such good friends,’ she adds. The look she gives me implies that it’s far more than I deserve.

‘Here’s to good friends, then!’ I suggest, raising my glass. Everyone’s turned up in the bar now and got themselves a drink.

‘Cheers!’ they all respond.

‘And here’s to the
Hen
!’ laughs Emily. She raises her glass again, takes a big gulp of her vodka and lemonade, and gives me a hug. ‘Have a wonderful weekend, Katie! Just relax and have fun!’

‘Gear?’ I suddenly remember all the other hen parties I’ve ever been to, and experience a moment of pure panic. Am I mad, putting my fate in the hands of this lot? For a start, Lisa’s going to want to get her own back on me for the huge inflatable willy I made her wear, along with the veil and L plates, at her own hen party. For the first time I notice the plastic carrier bag Emily’s stowed under the table. Well, at least there can’t be too much in that, can there? No room in there for an inflatable willy…

‘Come on, Katie, on your feet!’ commands Emily, delving into the carrier bag and pulling out a pink feather boa.

Well, that’s pretty harmless, anyway. She drapes it around my shoulders and then sticks a sparkly pink tiara on my head.

‘Thanks!’ I say, hugely relieved. This is almost a pleasure to wear, considering what some of the alternatives could have been. Emily’s a good friend. I reckon she’s insisted on keeping the fun clean and the embarrassment minimal.

‘And now here’s something for everyone else,’ she adds with a giggle, getting a handful of big badges out of the bag and passing them around. Probably ‘Katie’s Hen Party’ badges, I suppose. Nice idea. I feel a warm glow of gratitude towards Em, and in fact I’m just about to give her a hug when I notice that everyone else is almost bursting with suppressed laughter.

‘What?’

I lean over to take a look at Jude’s badge. She grins at me and holds it up for me to see. Sure enough, it has my name on it. And what it also has on it is a picture of me at the age of about twelve, with braces on my teeth, my hair in pigtails and wearing a hideous pair of pink striped trousers my mother should never have allowed me to go out in.

‘Where did you get hold of
that
?’ I demand of Emily.

‘Nothing to do with me!’ she says, laughing.

‘Mum! Did
you
supply this horrible picture?’

‘No, dear!’ she says, smiling innocently at me. ‘I think Jude found it herself. But I did supply
this
one!’

On her own badge is a picture of me as a baby, sitting in a high chair, with chocolate dessert all over my mouth. Lovely.

‘And I supplied this one!’ says Auntie Joyce excitedly. It’s me as a toddler of about three, red in the face, mouth wide open in full screaming temper tantrum. ‘You haven’t changed, dear!’ she teases.

Lisa’s got me at about six or seven, in a school nativity play, dressed as an angel, with my halo hanging off. Emily, Karen and Suze have all managed to find pictures of me in various states of drunkenness at the student bar. In Emily’s picture I’m holding onto someone whose name I can’t even remember, and I look as though I’m just about to vomit.

‘I didn’t have any photos of you, unfortunately,’ says Helen seriously. Thank God for that! ‘So I had to use my phone to take this one, specially,’ she adds, turning her badge round to show me.

I’m sitting at my desk at work, the computer on, a book open in front of me – sound asleep.

Everyone falls about laughing. They obviously think this is the funniest one of all.

‘When did you take this?’ I ask indignantly. ‘I do
not
go to sleep at work! I must have just dozed off for a minute!’

‘Must have been a really exciting book!’ says Lisa sarcastically.

‘It was the night after Emily’s birthday party!’ laughs Helen. ‘You were slightly hung over, if you remember.’

‘Shit, that is
so
mean of you!’

At this, the two women lean back in their chairs and laugh so hard, one of them goes into a horrendous coughing fit and her friend has to go to the bar to get her another drink.

‘And one for me little bride over there,’ she says to the barman, giving me a wave. ‘It might be the last pleasure she ever has on this earth, bless her heart!’