The Wedding Diaries (18 page)

Me:
What?

Thom: Hold on, you know I didn’t mean that. But both of your parents are worried about where this wedding seems to be headed. If we all talk about it, we can make this work.

Me: Thom. I don’t need this. Please.

Thom sighed, and we said we loved one another, then we said goodbye. Do we even like each other right now?

April 6th

I met Eve for a drink after work yesterday. She spent thirty-five minutes telling me about a guy on the tube who was trying to look at her tits until she undid her top buttons and told him that would be £50, please. She said she didn’t know who she felt sorrier for, him or his wife – ‘Although of course I didn’t really feel sorry for him, the dirty pervert.’

At that particular moment, I felt most sorry for me. Bringing another pair of Bands on the Run from the bar, I took a deep breath and said as coolly as I could manage, ‘Eve, can I come and stay at yours for a while? This wedding planning is so tricky when Thom and I are on top of one another and nitpicking. I wanted to get some bulk of the organisation done, then he and I can thrash the details out.’ None of that began to cover the terrible air between us every time the W-word was uttered, nor how close I felt to losing him for good, but it was as close to the truth as she was ever going to get. Eve raised one eyebrow at me, but simply said, ‘
Mi casa es su casa.
’ I slugged my Band on the Run and we went for a karaoke session. What
doesn’t
seem better after belting out Elton John’s hits at the top of your lungs? I’m eager to stay friends with Jim, so despite his hospitable objections, I’m going to Eve’s tonight. It’s that old saying about houseguests and fish: I don’t particularly want these few days to stink our friendship up. I’m on the way over to Eve’s now.

Still no word from Susie. Three months to go until that baby’s out. And I don’t even know if Thom’s heard from her.

April 7th

I arrived last night in the pouring rain with shoes squelching, and hair dripping right onto Eve’s Liberty welcome mat. She came at me with a gigantic fluffy towel, wrapped me up and handed me a mug of hot chocolate only slightly smaller than my head. ‘Come in and watch some
All About Eve
,’ she said, steering me to the sofa. ‘Why are you watching a film about yourself?’ I asked, delusional with cold and tiredness. I remember drinking half the hot chocolate in one swig; then Eve waking me up when the film was over and steering me off the sofa and up to her spare room. I woke up at 7 this morning, with Eve tapping at the door and brandishing a beautiful tray with a vintage cup and saucer and a Vera Wang teapot, and saying, ‘Time for work, Sleeping Beauty.’ I tried desperately to remember where the hell I was, then felt like crying when I remembered that I still wasn’t home. ‘Aren’t I just the best company you’ve ever had?’ I asked. Eve sat at the end of my bed, tucked her knees beneath her chin, and looked at me for a while.

‘Kiki, you know you can stay here for as long as you want. We don’t have to talk about anything that you don’t want to talk about, or we don’t have to talk at all, if you like. I am monastic like you would not
believe
. Just get your rump off my beautiful sheets, eat the delicious breakfast I’ve made you, and get to work before you lose your somehow-enjoyable job.’ I thought it best to follow her excellent orders.

When I got back this evening, Eve had ordered an amazing Japanese takeaway, with grilled quail eggs and mixed tempura and a whole heap of udon; while I changed into pyjamas, she poured me a glass of some absurdly expensive saké. We spent the evening discussing all the people we went to school with, details of our dream party (with key use of the cuttings in this book, which I pulled out for the visual aids) and planning a business for renting dogs as party icebreakers. Sometimes, I can really remember why I’m friends with Eve.

April 8th

Christ alive. Eve is a
nightmare
.

We’d been spending a great Friday night going through her cupboards, sorting all the gorgeous finds she’s sourced from flea markets, antiques shops, jumble sales and car boot sales into Definitely Keep, Let Kiki Have and Sell On piles. She’s got such an eagle eye for this stuff, and I’m sure half the reason she never keeps a man is that he might unbalance the visual beauty that is her home. I found a snow-globe with tiny numbers in instead of snowflakes, and thought of Thom and his terrible job, and all the numbers in his life that crush him. I said, ‘I love these. No matter what’s inside them, the kitsch outweighs the cheapness. In a good way.’

Eve took the snow-globe from my hand. ‘I don’t really understand what you’re doing here, Kiki. I love you, and I’m really glad you’re staying, and you really are welcome to stay for as long as you want – I could do with a housemate from time to time – but I really don’t know what you’re doing here. Do you know how much Thom loves you? Listen, I’ve been talking to someone recently – not a professional, someone I’ve met – and it’s been quite shitty to admit that I am, mostly, pathetic. Yes, I have the nicest house of anyone you’ll ever meet, and my hair is amazing all of the time, but what kind of person would have to prove herself by trying to snare a friend’s man?’

I felt a bit sick. This wasn’t really why I was staying away from my flat. I wasn’t missing my own bath and bed and kitchen and sofa and fiancé just so someone else could make me feel so stressed I wanted to vomit.

‘Kiki,
listen
. Thom has made it abundantly clear, time after time after time, that he cannot stand me. He’s so polite, but I am fully aware of how he feels. And why wouldn’t he? He can’t turn around without finding me pushing my tits at him. I know he doesn’t like me. At
all
. Do you know what he was saying to me at my birthday party, when we were dancing together? He kept calling me Kiki. There isn’t a scrap of sexy-space in his brain that isn’t taken up with you. And while I can understand that you’re finding organising a party for 150 people stressful, you should be talking this through with – or ignoring it all next to – him, not me. Even though I love you.’

I had nothing to say to that. I can cope with being friends with Eve if we both pretend she was just drunk at her party, but I can’t manage if she tells me that she’s tried to steal Thom. Or if she then tells me how to manage the relationship she was, apparently, desperate to break up. I picked up my pile of Let Kiki Have things to go to bed, shaking, then had to turn around and say, ‘Eve, what the hell is wrong with you? You need to fucking pull yourself together. You’re fucking …
disgraceful
.’ Eve sat with her face in her hands, and
she
had nothing to say to
that
.

April 9th

I’m home again. I stayed up most of the night thinking about what she’d said, thinking about what she’s
been
throughout most of my life, and how since I met Thom I’ve seen her less and less, naturally, but each time the three of us were together she never once gave me the impression that she enjoyed herself or got on well with Thom, only that she wanted to be there, witnessing us, somehow. I must have fallen asleep a little after 4am, and dreamt of hundreds of doors closing off a long corridor, and my old History teacher saying she couldn’t be my girlfriend while I was still engaged. I’m not sure what any of it meant, but I do recall feeling
really
cross about it in the dream. Eve was gone by the time I got up, having to rush off to some charity emergency, but she left my breakfast all laid out and a note saying ‘Sorry x’.

I took the bus home. As we drove past the statue of the naked lady with the sword, I imagined how tough
her
life must be. Back at the flat by 10 this morning, I closed the door after me with an un-silent silence, trying to creep about in a way no one could possibly have missed. When that received no response, I closed our bedroom door and put some music on – again, unmissable for anyone in the flat. After ten minutes, I noticed the stillness of the whole place, and started registering things I’d seen on the way through: the pile of letters on the mat; the tidiness (although that may have been due to my week-long absence); Thom’s brown suitcase missing from the top of the wardrobe. I had a sudden feeling in the pit of my stomach, and rooted in my bag for my diary. The dates were there:
Thom to Edinburgh
. I’d completely forgotten that Thom left this morning for a course and wouldn’t be back until late next Sunday night, and I realised then how much I’d wanted him to be here.

April 12th

I took off from Polka Dot early today, to see Dad at the college. He was in the middle of one of his classes, but he saw me hanging around outside like some gloomy paedophile and called one of the assistants to take over for the last fifteen minutes. He bustled me into his office (a cupboard next to the Arts foyer) and made us both some tea.

Dad: What are you up to, little Katherine?

Me: [lump in throat]

Dad: [patting my knee] Like that, is it? Drink your tea, girl.

We sat in silence until the buzzer rang for the end of the day, and listened to the kids banging and calling on their way out. After a few minutes, I said, ‘Dad, I think I’m an idiot.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s true of most folk. What’s your main concern?’

I told him everything that had happened, feeling no disloyalty to Thom because the telling made me realise quite what a minuscule crime Thom had committed. Poor Thom. Dad gave me a big hug and said we were all as bad as each other; that nothing was as bad as it seemed, and at least the pair of us had our health. He said that we clearly loved one another, and that it ought to be good enough to fix all this silliness. I felt better, and like the biggest idiot in the world.

Now, Thom, please can you come home?

April 13th

Spent the last few days moping around the house waiting for Thom to come back and running off to do last-minute stuff with Jacki. She wants Polka Dot Books there for every stage: no purchase is too small to record and (unfortunately for me) photograph. I feel dizzy; Jacki’s life is a tornado, with her at the centre, beaming at everyone through the chaos and activity. If anyone in the history of weddings has ever earned their honeymoon, it’s that woman. Two days to go.

April 15th

OH GOD I’M EXHAUSTED. And terrified that the police are about to knock on my door. One can only assume that Jacki’s
actual
wedding co-ordinators were replaced by amphetamine-fuelled robots months ago. Today was, finally, the day of Jacki and Leon’s wedding. I’m not sure I can think about any of this at the moment. More soon.

April 17th

Right
. I’ve had thirty-six whole hours in bed and on the sofa with dire daytime TV, a bag of brioches and several pints of lime cordial, and I’m beginning to feel human enough to talk about it.

I was due at Jacki’s at 4.30am, to ensure that Pedro and his assistants had their way clear, and that Jacki would not have to worry about anything to do with the pictures and the last few bits of writing (I was going to do those after I’d eye-witnessed the whole thing). I got a taxi over and expected to find a dead silent sleeping house, but pulling up outside, every single light was on and the front door was wide open, with people already coming and going with lighting rigs, hampers, gifts, dress-racks and flowers. No one knew exactly where Jacki was (or at least, everyone told me somewhere that she turned out not to be) but eventually I found her, in the basement kitchen, the only place in the house that was still and quiet. I couldn’t see her face when I first walked in, and when she lifted her head to see who was coming I was shocked to see how haggard she looked, how terrified. But she recognised me, and leapt up to give me a huge hug, talking away ten to the dozen like I hadn’t seen her face just a moment before. She kept me close to her, one arm half round me like she always did with whoever she was speaking to, but when I asked if Leon was in the house she said, ‘No, no love, he’s at his mum’s. Bad luck to see the bride on the wedding morning,’ then took us out of the kitchen and all the way up the house to her bedroom, past flocks of people being paid Christ knows how much to do Christ knows what. Her room looked like Diana’s funeral, piled so high with flowers I could barely see the furniture underneath. In one corner was a dressmaker’s dummy, with her beautiful wedding dress on and her little Louboutins peeking out from the hem like the mannequin was all ready for her big day. There was a luxuriously wrapped parcel on the bed, about the size of a shoe box, with a giant bow on top and a label saying, ‘For my Ladybird.’ Jacki saw me looking, and said happily, ‘It’s his wedding present for me.’ It was still only 5am, but her excitement was almost pushing me over. Then Pedro arrived – we could hear him barking orders to his underlings the second he walked in the front door – and I was relegated to the edges, directed to keep out of shot and not get in the light, so I pulled out my notebook and began trying to sculpt some of the things Jacki had said (or not said) into her hilarious marital prose. The hours sped by, because every ten minutes or so someone would come looking for another pair of hands to hold this vase/steady this ladder/move this pile of presents from room to room to room. Jacki and Leon would be having a post-reception reception here, so the house was being decorated just as carefully as the venue itself. Caterers filled Jacki’s kitchen, and lighting designers called me down again and again to give my opinion at which side of the room the lamp looked better, God knows why. Finally at 11am, Jacki, with hair in rollers and face glowing, found me in a corner and demanded that I go into her room and try on a few things to get me looking a bit more weddingish. I asked her if she had any floor-length white dresses hanging about for me and she said, ‘Kiki, love, you joke, but I bloody will do. Plenty of them. Slightly worried we might look a bit of a pair, though.’ I loved the dress I was in at the time, so she found me a giant broad-brimmed green hat and some matching cropped gloves, then she stood back to consider my outfit and fished in her jewellery trunk to find a long rope of pearls. I balked, saying I didn’t think I should walk around in something so precious, but she only laughed, and explained that these were M&S’s finest. I was slightly concerned that I looked ever-so Miss Marple, but when I went to her wall-o-mirrors I was delighted to see that I looked more
Harper’s Bazaar
than village fete, so Jacki clapped me on my backside and said that I would do. Then she went off to get her hair finished while I sat in her room and fantasised like a five-year-old about owning her wardrobe (bigger than our bedroom and living room put together) and all those things in it (worth, I suspect, twelve times more than any home we’ll ever own). After half an hour of stroking her coats and picking up all her shoes I actually felt a bit of a deviant, so I tucked myself back in the corner to make more notes, anything other than I WANT HER SHOES I WANT HER CLOTHES I WANT HER HANDBAGS. When she found me again, she was in her million-pound Jenny Packham dressing gown and ready to get into her dress. She wanted me with her, so Pedro, Zoe, three assistants, two makeup artists, two hairdressers, plus the dress designer and her assistants, all piled into Jacki’s room, where she was chatting to all of us, remembering everyone’s names and putting everyone at ease. I think only I was aware of how hard she was squeezing my hand. Because she has the body of a Greek goddess, she was happy for Pedro to keep snapping while she dropped her robe, revealing her beautiful underwear, and allowed herself to be dressed by the designer herself, and when the dress was fastened and Jacki turned around to us all, I doubt I was the only person with tears in their eyes. She really was beautiful, a million miles away from the person I’d glimpsed at the kitchen table that morning. Hairdresser A fastened the veil in her hair while hairdresser B stood nearby spraying hairspray like she could fix this moment in time forever, and I actually did start crying then. This was all so lovely, so perfect. Wild horses wouldn’t have torn this sentiment out of me out loud, but … she looked like an angel, like I wanted to look, like how all brides should look on the day of their wedding. She was amazing.