The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) (15 page)

At eleven o’clock on Friday evening, Cat’s father put the television off and sent them both to bed. He’d looked at Jack and told him there was to be no creeping along the landing in the night.

Jack had crept – or rather stomped and crashed – along the landing, anyway.

They’d somehow got through Saturday at the golf club, where Jack had fooled around and mucked about, charmed all the ladies in the clubroom, and got right up the noses of the men.

Cat’s father had been livid.

They’d left on Sunday morning, walked straight into a pub and started drinking.

Or Jack had started drinking, anyway.

Since Cat was going to drive them back to London in a pickup from the yard and didn’t want to lose her licence or destroy the pickup – Barry would go mad – she stuck to lemonade.

‘Hey, honeybee,’ he’d said, as he’d knocked back his second pint, ‘if you and I got married, I would be your old man’s son-in-law. Then I’d have a claim on all his money, if he’s got any money. I reckon that would really piss him off.’

Cat had been annoyed with both her parents for making things so difficult for Jack. ‘It’s just as well you’re not the marrying kind then, isn’t it?’ she’d said.

‘I might be!’ Then Jack had pretended to be outraged. ‘So I’m not good enough for you, is that it?’

‘You’re lovely and I love you.’

‘Why don’t we make it legal, then?’

‘You’re serious?’ said Cat, astonished.

‘Yes, why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Okay,’ she had replied. She’d been both pleased and flattered to be chosen by such a handsome, sexy, charming man. ‘I’ll marry you. So do I get a ring?’

‘Yes, when I can afford one.’ Jack had shrugged and grinned. ‘But you might have to wait a while.’

‘That’s all right, whenever.’

‘But in the meantime, honeybee …’

Jack had found a piece of silver paper from a chocolate wrapper in the pocket of his jeans.

He’d made a ring and slipped it on Cat’s finger.

So they were engaged.

She stumbled on down Oxford Street, hardly noticing that she was buffeted and shoved by all the people flowing past.

What had she been thinking, she asked herself again. Married life with Jack would be a nightmare. It would be the Zackie Banter Show, starring Jack and Jack alone.

She wouldn’t be his partner on life’s journey. She wouldn’t even be his blonde and glamorous assistant in stiletto heels and fishnet tights. She would be his cleaner, sexual services provider, washerwoman, housekeeper and bank.

But, in the meantime, what was she going to do about the money? How much would it be? How much had Fanny Gregory disbursed, as she had put it? Who was going to lend her what she owed the bloody woman?

A loan shark, she supposed.

Or could she ask her father?

She shuddered at the prospect of talking to her father, who would say he’d told her so, even though he hadn’t told her anything at all, because she hadn’t dared to break the news of her engagement to her parents. On reflection, this was just as well.

When she got home, she got straight on the phone to Fanny Gregory, who didn’t seem surprised to hear from Cat.

‘So you and Jack, you’ve definitely changed your minds?’ she said, sounding like a high court judge about to send you down for life with no chance of parole.

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ Cat replied. ‘We won’t be getting married after all, so now I need to know—’

‘I’ll call you back ASAP,’ said Fanny, and hung up.

‘Okay, okay,’ said Cat. She pulled a face, remembering her mother’s favourite saying – or one of her mother’s favourite sayings, she had a lot of them: courtesy costs nothing.

While she was waiting for her nemesis to get in touch again, she fetched a block of chocolate from the fridge.

But, far from giving her a serotonin rush, the chocolate merely made her feel sick. It tasted absolutely horrible, like a lump of cocoa-flavoured soap.

She spat it in the bin.

‘I’ve spoken to the runner-up,’ said Fanny twenty minutes later, cutting in as Cat apologised again, as she tried to discover what she owed. ‘She was thrilled to win the luxury weekend in Barcelona, which you will remember was our super second prize. So she was in ecstasies to know she’s won the wedding, after all. What’s more, my angel, unlike you and Jack, she and her fiancé are in a position to proceed.’

‘Fanny, about the money,’ Cat said, for she wanted – needed – to know the worst of it. ‘Please can you let me know how much I owe you?’

‘I don’t have all the paperwork to hand.’

‘Well, when you do, please could you contact me? I’ll need to make arrangements.’

‘Of course you will, my angel,’ said Fanny Gregory crisply. ‘I’ll do my sums and then I’ll be in touch.’

‘I’m sorry, Fanny. I mean, for all the trouble I’ve given you, the messing you around and all that stuff.’

‘Well, sweetheart, as I say, I’ll be in touch.’

‘I’m also sorry about Jack.’

‘Yes, the lovely Jack,’ drawled Fanny. ‘Quite a charmer, isn’t he? I can understand why you were smitten.’

‘When do you think I’ll hear from you again?’

‘Give me a breather, darling. I need to get this new show on the road and hope it’s really going to happen this time.’

Then the phone went dead.

So Cat called Tess.

‘What do you mean, the wedding’s off?’ demanded Tess. ‘I’m in serious training! I’ve been doing all these exercises for the upper arms so I’ll look good in sleeveless. But now you’re telling me that I won’t be a bridesmaid after all?’

‘I’m sorry, Tess.’

‘I should think so, too.’

‘But Tess, you never liked him. You never wanted me to marry Jack. You said he was a scumbag and he wasn’t worth my tears.’

‘I fancied being a bridesmaid. I’ve never been a bridesmaid and soon I’ll be too old for it.’

‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

‘I can’t see how,’ sighed Tess. ‘Cat, it looked so lovely, that Melbury Court Hotel – the rooms, the grounds, the fountain, especially the fountain.’

‘Yes, it was fabulous.’

‘There were even peacocks on the lawns.’

‘I know,’ said Cat regretfully.

‘I’m so into peacocks.’

‘Tess, I’ve said I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah, all right,’ said Tess. ‘Do a bit more grovelling and serious self-abasement and I might forgive you in about a hundred years. I tell you what,’ she added, ‘I’ll come round to yours about half seven with a couple of bottles of that nice Chilean red. Tesco’s got it on at three for two.’

‘Okay,’ said Cat.

‘We’ll send out for a pizza or a curry and watch
Notting Hill
or
Pretty Woman
or
Love Actually
. Or we could watch
Gladiator
and pretend our Jackie-boy’s the bloke in white who gets it in the neck from Russell Crowe. Or what about
The
Terminator
, that bit where the cyborg guy gets blasted in the guts?’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Cat, who by now was feeling like she had been blasted in the guts herself and was just an empty, smoking shell.

‘But you like all those films!’ cried Tess.

‘Yes I do, and it’s very kind of you to offer to keep me company. But don’t come round to mine. I’m tired and I need an early night.’

‘
Dio
, Signor Lawley, who taught you to speak Italian?’

Pietro Benedetto was doubled up in agony – an agony of laughing. ‘Your accent, it’s so terrible! It gives me so much pain!’

Your English accent’s rubbish too, said Adam, but only to himself. You sound as if you should be in a sitcom.

‘I’m sorry, Adam – may I call you Adam?’ Pietro looked apologetic now. ‘I welcome you to Lucca.’

‘Thank you, Pietro,’ Adam said politely, as he looked round Pietro’s busy yard where all kinds of restoration work was going on. ‘
I’m happy to be here
,’ he added in his bad Italian.

‘We hope you will much enjoy your visit,’ said Pietro in his sitcom English.

‘Where shall I be staying?’

‘You have a studio apartment above my uncle’s restaurant, which is in the
anfiteatro
in the old walled town.’

‘You mean the Roman amphitheatre, right?’

‘Yes, and your apartment and the restaurant are both in a building set into the Roman arches. I think you’ll find it comfortable there.’

‘I’m sure I shall,’ said Adam. ‘Pietro, did you say you have a schedule for me?’

‘Yes, and it’s a very busy one, starting with tomorrow morning. You have many meetings and many workshops, studios and yards where you may make your visit. But you should be able to do some tourist things at the weekend.’

‘I hadn’t planned to do much tourist stuff.’

‘You hadn’t, Adam?’ Pietro Benedetto looked at him. ‘I hope you will excuse me if I’m speaking out of turn – is that what you say? But when we first made contact, didn’t you say you had a
fidanzata
? I thought you said you meant to bring the lady on this trip?’

‘Yes, but it didn’t work out,’ said Adam firmly, in a tone which didn’t invite discussion.

How could he have told Pietro he had a fiancée? How could he have been so certain Maddy would say yes to his proposal? How could he have been so arrogant, so stupid and so blind?

‘I’m sorry,’ said Pietro, and he shrugged expressively. ‘The ladies, Adam – they love to change their minds.’

Adam changed the subject. ‘I’ll need to hire a car, so can you recommend a place?’

‘You could have got one at the airport,’ said Pietro.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Adam. ‘But I thought I’d like to take the train. I’d never been on an Italian train. I’ll get a car tomorrow morning.’

‘Get a Fiat Bravo, they’re the best.’

Adam’s studio
apartamento
was
high in one of the
Renascimento
tenements built into the arches of the Roman amphitheatre, where flocks of city pigeons cooed and fluttered and nested on his flimsy-looking wrought-iron balcony.

Lucca was amazingly romantic. What he had seen of it so far suggested it was made for lovers, with its colonnaded villas and secluded little gardens and its cool, dark alleys opening on to mediaeval squares.

But he mustn’t think about this place being romantic, he decided, as he unpacked his stuff.

What was romance to him, when he had work to do?

Pietro had been right about the schedule. Adam spent a lot of time in workshops, studios and yards which belonged to somebody related to Pietro, or with whom Pietro and his renovation firm did business.

In all these various workshops, yards and studios, Adam watched the work in progress, learning about marble restoration, about filling cracks and pits and fissures, finding out when this was possible and when the only remedy was replacing the original stone.

He made a list of tools he’d need to buy and took lots of photographs and notes for when he got back home to England. They also let him do some work himself.

As he worked on a cherub’s damaged wing, he wondered how the girl from Chapman’s yard – he must forget her name, he told himself – was getting on, and if her wedding plans for Melbury Court were going ahead.

He supposed they must be – he hadn’t heard they weren’t. But perhaps he wouldn’t, anyway? Why would she contact him?

As soon as I get home, he told himself while he was mixing paste, I’ll see if I can get that Venus fixed, fill all those cracks and holes. I’ll also try to get the plumbing sorted. Then the actual fountain might be working on her wedding day.

He never should have kissed her – that had been a huge mistake. She was engaged, for heaven’s sake, and she would be getting married soon.

But she had kissed him back, and she had meant it – if he knew anything at all, he knew for certain she had meant it. She hadn’t been intimidated, frightened or anything like that.

He also knew she could have made a scene. She could have gone to the police. She could have accused him of a sexual assault. Then he would have ended up in court. The papers would have branded him a sex fiend, he might have gone to prison, and his poor mother would have died of shame.

He worked the filler into the hairline cracks along the cherub’s broken wing.

He’d thought he might be getting over Maddy, and that he might be healing. But he clearly wasn’t, because kissing Cat had opened up deep cracks and fissures in his damaged heart, which no amount of filler could put right.

It was a pity he couldn’t replace his heart.

At the yard in Walthamstow, Cat had started on a massive sort-out of all the files and documents which had been in the office since Barry’s father set the business up in 1962.

She got the shredder going and found it very satisfying, getting rid of all the waste and rubbish. It was consolatory, in a way – and this was just as well, because her friends did no consoling. Bridge-over-troubled-water stuff was absolutely not their thing.

Tess was a good mate. She liked a laugh. She loved a party. She’d dance the night away and she was always lots of fun. But, in spite of being desperate to be somebody’s bridesmaid before she got her pension, nowadays she was very brisk and practical with Cat and kept insisting that she was well rid of Jack the lad. So Cat should now get over it, move on.

‘He was a waste of oxygen,’ said Tess.

‘When we first met him, you thought he was fit.’

‘We all make mistakes,’ admitted Tess. ‘It’s usually because we fail to understand ourselves. I read about it in this magazine. I did a test to find out if I understand myself and you should do it, too.’

‘I do understand myself.’

‘You only think you do,’ insisted Tess. ‘So take the test and then you will be sure.’

‘I don’t have time to take a stupid test.’

‘You’ll stay in psychic limbo, then.’

‘Tess, don’t you have any work to do, people to see, old doors and sinks to buy?’

‘I’m only trying to help you get your psyche sorted out.’

‘No, you’re not,’ retorted Cat. ‘You’re mocking me again. It’s what you do.’

Bex was just as bad, or even worse.

What about getting Jack some concrete high-tops?

Or they could fill his pockets with lead shot and shove him in the river, couldn’t they? Or take out a contract on his head? Or on some other bit of him?

She knew a man who knew a man.

She knew a lot of men.

‘Oh, don’t we all?’ sighed Tess, and took a bite of chocolate, pecan and marshmallow muffin.

‘We do, and every one of them a bastard.’ Bex dipped a finger in her cappuccino and then licked off the chocolate-dusted foam. ‘It must be so much easier to be gay – not that I fancy you or Cat, of course, in spite of what I said that time.’

‘You mean you don’t like stubble on a girl?’

‘I mean you need to get your roots done and get your eyebrows threaded. Soon you’re going to look like Whatsit Baggins or his wizard buddy Voldemort.’

‘You mean Gandalf.’

‘Do I?’ Bex dabbed at some muffin crumbs and pushed them round her plate. ‘Big fat shaggy eyebrows aren’t a good look on a woman, anyway.’ She turned to glance at Cat. ‘I meant to tell you, that red lipstick doesn’t suit you. It makes your face look grey. You should stick to pink.’

Cat tuned out and thought of Adam Lawley – of kind, sympathetic Adam Lawley, the man who always carried cotton handkerchiefs to offer weeping women – he wouldn’t be half as mean as Bex or Tess. She would bet on it. She wondered if he fancied meeting up to have that drink she owed him? If they did meet up, she could return his handkerchief.

She’d washed it and she’d ironed it and that had been a first. She’d had to dig through many layers of stuff to find the iron, a present from her mother ten or fifteen years ago.

It had still been in its cardboard box, entombed beneath a bag of clothes and books and other bits and pieces she meant to take into a charity shop when she got round to it.

So was this ridiculous or dangerous or what?

It didn’t have to be ridiculous or dangerous. They’d meet up in a public place, of course. She didn’t want him thinking she was up for any hugging, kissing, any other sort of hanky-panky.

She was still a bit ashamed of grabbing him, of kissing him, of practically eating him alive in Barry’s shed. But that had been a blip. She didn’t want to get his shirt off, did she?

Yes, replied a voice inside her head. I’d say that’s exactly what you want.

Shut up, Cat told herself.

But they had been so promising, those kisses—

Stop it, idiot, she thought. You don’t want anything to do with Adam, who practically admitted to being a commitment-phobe, and who would just be trouble if you got involved with him.

So you will not meet him, understood? You will not return his handkerchief. You will delete his number from your phone.

Make me, sneered her other self.

As she was looking for a supplier’s invoice later in the day, she found Adam’s business card stapled to a copy of a VAT receipt which Barry had misfiled.

She saw his e-mail address. She decided this must be a sign. So she would send a friendly little message.

Where was the harm in that?

> You know that drink I owe you? What about tomorrow, six or sevenish, if you’re free?

> Sorry, I’m in Lucca – that’s in Tuscany – right now. So it will have to be some other time.

> That’s a shame. I fancied a Prosecco. What’s the weather doing? It’s raining here, of course.

> It’s gorgeous – brilliant sunshine, bright blue sky.

> I’d like a bit of sunshine. It might cheer me up.

> Why, is something wrong?

> Absolutely everything is wrong.

> Jack?

> How did you guess?

> So is it on or off?

> The wedding’s off. God, I don’t know how I could have been so bloody stupid, so absolutely blind!

> Cat, I’m not God.

> All blokes are God, or think they’re God.

> You sound as if you need a long weekend away. Why don’t you come to Lucca? You could easily get a flight to Pisa after work tomorrow. I’d meet you at the airport, find you somewhere nice to stay.

> You mean it?

> Yes, I mean it. Come and have that Prosecco in the sunshine. Book your flight and text me when you know your ETA. I’ll come and pick you up at Galileo Galilei.

> Why are you being so nice to me?

> You owe me a drink. So you’d better not forget your euros, because you’re paying – right?

Cat thought – what the hell. I’ll put it on my card.

While I still have a card.

‘A long weekend?’ said Barry, when she asked him.

‘Saturday to Monday, yes.’

‘I see,’ said Barry, and he smirked suggestively.

She hadn’t confessed to Barry about Jack. She didn’t want his clumsy sympathy, so she’d sworn Tess to silence.

She wasn’t going to tell him about Italy. She wasn’t even going to tell her girlfriends she was going to Italy. They’d only say she had to bring them back a load of stuff like Fendi scarves and Gucci bags. Then they’d moan and grumble when she didn’t get them cheap. They’d do better buying obvious fakes in Oxford Street.

‘I don’t know about a long weekend,’ said Barry, who was frowning now. ‘Well, not when we’re so busy.’

‘Oh, go on with you, it’s really quiet.’ Cat looked through the office window out into yard, empty but for some old guy in baggy corduroys and a cable cardigan who was probably looking for garden gnomes he could paint up. ‘Barry, all the books are up to date. There are no deliveries outstanding. I didn’t take any time off over Easter. So I’m due a couple of days, at least.’

‘What’s in the diary?’

‘You’re in London for the next few days. Tess has no meetings booked with anyone who’ll want to sell us stuff. So she’ll be at the yard.’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Barry and sighed a martyred sigh. ‘If you twist my arm. But it’s Saturday to Monday, right? No sloping in at two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon.’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Sussex – I want to see my parents. I haven’t been to visit them for ages, and my mother’s noticed I’ve been neglecting them.’

‘So are you taking lover boy along?’

‘No, he’s busy,’ Cat replied. ‘He’s got a gig in – Birmingham, and that’s why I thought I’d go to see my mum and dad.’

‘A likely story,’ Barry said, and then he grinned again.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You don’t usually go the colour of a London Routemaster when you talk about your mum and dad. What are you really up to, eh?’

‘I told you, Barry – I’m going down to Sussex.’ Cat thought it was time to change the subject. ‘Anyway, how’s Annie, and how’s Roxie Jane?’

‘They’re good. I’ve got some pix.’ Barry found his phone and started scrolling through his gallery. ‘Roxie’s smiling now. Or Annie says she’s smiling. But I think it’s wind. Okay, here’s Daddy’s little girl – adorable or what?’

‘She’s absolutely gorgeous. When’s Annie coming back to work?’ asked Cat, as she looked through Barry’s photographs.

‘Pretty soon, she reckons. She’s bored out of her mind at home. She’ll bring Roxie in her Moses basket and do two days a week.’ Barry put his phone away. ‘I know why you’re asking. You and Tess, you want more weekends off.’

‘The thought had never crossed my mind.’

‘You’ve gone all red again.’

Tess didn’t buy the Sussex story, either.

‘You’re up to something wicked,’ she said, smirking when Cat mentioned she was going to see her parents.

‘God, you’re so suspicious. Why shouldn’t I go and see my parents?’

‘Parents are like Blackpool – they’re all right for a day trip but not a long weekend. So is it all on with Jack again?’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Cat.

‘Okay, if you’re going to Sussex, bring me back a souvenir? What about a snow globe of the Brighton Royal Pavilion? I fancy one of those.’