Revenge of the Wedding Planner (23 page)

The house was decorated from top to bottom with bunches of gold twigs in all the fireplaces, gold ribbons tied along the banisters, and some cheap plastic apples sprayed gold and displayed in a glass bowl on the dining-room table. We had a real tree in the hall, hung with Shaker-style angels and ceramic cookies we’ve had for years and years. They’re quite tatty now but they still look very charming. I did it all on a non-existent budget but it was nice and homely, all the same. The secret of good decorating is to keep the house absolutely tidy at all times and have one unusual piece in every room. Not easy with a big family and no spare cash, but still, my home was all I had to express myself with so I stayed up late most nights, dusting shelves and folding tea towels into baskets, and washing plates and cups that wouldn’t fit into the dishwasher. I did end up losing a few pounds, which was nice as I was able to fit into a good pinstripe suit I hadn’t worn for years. And even Bill was amazed when my chunky ankles slimmed down a bit and you could see the beginnings of a tendon (or whatever it’s called) sticking out the back.

Trying to maintain the facade of being middle class is a very tiring occupation, that’s the truth of it. Sometimes I wish I had the courage to sport a greasy ponytail and a pink velour tracksuit and just lie about the house eating multipack biscuits and watching Jerry Springer being wise
on the telly. But I know I’d rather die trying to be genteel than go down that particular road. By the looks of it, once things start to slide it’s very hard to get back on track.

So I did my Christmas shopping, albeit mostly in the one shop (book tokens and leather-bound diaries: what a lifesaver for the time-poor) and spent a blissful hour one night wrapping them nicely in brown paper and attaching orange raffia ribbons and pretty cardboard gift tags. Because you’ve got to match your gift-wrapping to your Christmas tree theme, haven’t you? I have a big wicker hamper in the hall where we store any glitzy-looking prezzies that don’t tie in with our simple Shaker theme. If the hamper is full, I have a hessian sack with a Shaker angel printed on it, on standby. Bill thinks it’s hilarious but he goes along with it.

Then Julie took the notion of popping into the Café Vaudeville for lunch with me on Christmas Eve just to see what sort of Christmas atmosphere they’d managed to rustle up. You know, to see how they could possibly improve on the enormous red-glass chandeliers. I was delighted to oblige her and was as high as a kite anyway because Alicia-Rose and my sisters were due in Arrivals at 5 p.m. and Julie said she would drive me out there and pick them up in her white Mercedes. So off we went to the Café Vaudeville, plastered in glittery make-up and laughing fit to beat the band over nothing at all. We were sublimely happy. Which just goes to show, you never know what’s round the corner. Because that’s where it all went pear-shaped. As pear-shaped as a whole tree full of pears, never mind the partridge. Well, that’s where it all
began
to go pear-shaped. There was much worse to come, unfortunately, but we didn’t know it then.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

I think I’ve said that before.

Ought to be Dream Weddings’ new logo, I thought to myself later that afternoon in the cafeteria next to A&E. As we sat shivering over two watery teas. I said to Julie, ‘I must have that saying printed on our new buff envelopes.’ She didn’t see the funny side, I have to admit.

Jay was there, you see? Jay O’Hanlon, in the flesh. Barman and doo-da owner extraordinaire. Right there in the Café Vaudeville. Being interviewed for a job as, well, as barman. Which he’d applied for without telling Julie because he wanted to ‘contribute to the relationship’ and also because he feared he might become agoraphobic in the all-mod-cons apartment in Saintfield if he didn’t start getting out more. He’d seen the job ad in a free newspaper that gets delivered out Saintfield way, phoned for an interview, tidied himself up and caught a bus into the city centre. Which was all very admirable and enterprising, really. I mean, at least he wasn’t intending to go on being a kept man for ever.

So just seconds after Julie and I had admired the amazing Christmas decorations and ordered our starters, Jay came strolling out of the office, spotted us and joined us on the sofa with the lovely draped canopy over it. It was kind of funny for me, seeing Jay with his clothes on. Up until then I’d only seen him in his gigolo-kecks but there he was in a black shirt and faded blue jeans and a pair of brand-new Converse sneakers. Dirty-blond hair nicely blow-dried and a couple of days’ stubble on his
chin. Looking all casual and sexy and gorgeous. He’d been offered the job on the spot and he wanted to celebrate by buying cocktails for the three of us. We shook his hand warmly and he sat down between us and put one arm round Julie’s shoulders and the other arm on the back of the sofa behind me. I felt a shadow of concern flicker across my consciousness but I told myself there wasn’t anyone who knew Julie in the Café Vaudeville that day. Anyway, like I said, I was counting the minutes till I saw my Alicia-Rose again so my danger-radar wasn’t working at full strength.

Julie snuggled into Jay and kissed his cheek and he kissed her hand and then they kissed properly for twenty minutes. Whispering sweet nothings and giggling like teenagers. I felt a right gooseberry but I ate my goat’s cheese tartlet (Julie left hers untouched) and we ordered the salmon for mains. It was very nice, I must say. Jay didn’t order any food for himself but Julie fed him little bits and pieces off her fork. They ate a few chips together, taking one end each in their mouths, and licked the salt off each other’s lips when they got to the middle bit. If it hadn’t been for the canopy hanging over our seat, I think they’d have been asked to leave the premises.

‘Get a room, you two,’ I joked at one point. ‘You’re making a show of me.’

They apologized and made a great effort to be well-behaved but Jay started kissing Julie again the moment I went to the ladies’ room to check my make-up after polishing off a giant lemon sorbet. Julie and Jay hadn’t had dessert – they were too busy eating each other. But they had three more cocktails apiece even though I did
warn them the cocktails at the Café Vaudeville are quite strong, but they took no heed. Unfortunately, the alcohol made both of them a little bit randy and more than a little forgetful. According to Julie (I was still in the powder room at this point), Jay slipped one hand under her white linen skirt and gave her a quick but fabulously tender and erotic little thrill. Which delighted Julie so much she forgot to be cross with him for leaving the flat in Saintfield without permission. Yes, it was an outrageous thing to have done in a public place but Julie said afterwards that the lights were turned down very low and, as far as she knew, herself and Jay could not be seen by anybody on the ground floor. She’d forgotten completely about the VIP area because we never go up there. I don’t even know to this day how you go about gaining access to the upper level. And I don’t expect I’ll ever find out now because I’m too embarrassed to darken the door these days.

However.

By the time I returned to our table Julie was slumped against Jay’s chest, half asleep, with a big grin on her face. The bar was warm and dark and full of the scent of Christmas dinner and brandy. Jay said something about Belfast not being nearly as bad as people he knew always made it out to be and that he could really see himself settling north of the border some day. I just smiled at him. Well, I was only two hours away from seeing my Alicia-Rose again and I could almost smell her coconut shampoo if I closed my eyes and wished hard enough. If Jay’d told me he was having a sex-change and entering an enclosed convent I would have thought it was a brilliant idea and given him my blessing. So there we were,
the three of us. All content and pleased with ourselves, stuffed full of Christmas fare and listening to a selection of cheesy Christmas Number Ones on the in-house stereo.

A perfect day.

Well, nearly perfect.

It was just a pity that Gary Devine saw everything (and I do mean
everything
) from his upstairs table in the VIP area, to which he’d been invited by a corporate client. He could see right down the back of the canopy hanging over our table. And as soon as the shock of seeing his beloved girlfriend having sex with a stranger had worn off, he limped downstairs and shouldered his way through the crowds towards Julie, Jay and myself. And just stood looking down at us for what seemed an eternity.

‘I’m Gary Devine,’ he said quietly to Jay. ‘I’m Julie’s long-term boyfriend and fiancé. Who the fuck are you?’

‘Gary! Jesus! Listen, we can explain,’ I began, but it was far too late for explanations. I still had no idea what Jay had just done to Julie under the table but, anyway, it was all desperately uncomfortable.

‘You should have told me about Julie and this guy, Mags,’ Gary said sadly. ‘I thought you were better than this, I really did. Don’t you ever speak to me again. I mean,
ever
.’

And I knew by the low and despairing way he said it that he meant it.

I nodded my head and said nothing more. I didn’t blame Gary one bit for hating me. I’d have felt the same in his shoes. It’s all very well looking the other way when your friends have affairs but who’s to blame when somebody
gets heartbroken and humiliated or beaten to a pulp?

The atmosphere was awful. Gary was making painful gasping sounds. I think he was crying but I didn’t want to glance up at him. I looked away and tried to think of a good excuse to leave the building. A bomb scare would have been welcome at that point, which is an absolutely evil and criminal thing to say but that just shows you how bad it was. However, I sensed Julie didn’t want me to abandon her there alone with the two of them. So for the sake of friendship I stayed where I was.

‘Gary, we have to talk. It’s about time we were honest with each other,’ Julie said then, pulling her designer cardigan closed and attempting to put a positive spin on having a showdown in a public place. ‘The thing is, I’m not quite ready to make the sort of commitment you’d like me to. This is nothing to do with Jay so don’t blame him. It’s all my fault. Jay wanted me to tell you about us from the very beginning.’

‘How noble of him – you’ve got yourself quite a catch there,’ Gary spat at Julie, disgust and anger dripping from every word. ‘Though he’s barely out of school by the looks of him.’ Then he turned to Jay and said, ‘Does your mother know the kind of thing you get up to in a public place, young man?’

‘Please, Gary, please try to understand. I just wasn’t ready to get married. I don’t believe in marriage –’

‘Save it,’ Gary said. ‘Never mind marriage, Julie. It’s over. I’m a patient man and I can put up with a lot of things, but God knows I will not tolerate you treating me like a piece of dirt. You just don’t get it, do you?
I loved you
. I loved you the way you were, we didn’t have to make it official, you could have told me how you felt. Now, I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You were so beautiful to me… Come to think of it, beauty is only skin-deep. Isn’t that the truth? I hope you’ll be very happy with your pretty little toy boy. Another five years and you could be his mother.’

Ouch.

‘Gary, listen to me!’ she said gently. ‘This doesn’t mean I don’t still have feelings for you. We can talk it through?’

‘What the hell for? So you can string the two of us along and blame your crazy parents instead of your own selfishness? You lying bitch! It’s over between us. Didn’t you hear me the first time?’

Then Gary suddenly, and without any hint of warning whatsoever, head-butted Jay (who’d just stood up to shake hands manfully with the losing side) and knocked him out cold. Broke his nose, it has to be said. I could hear it snapping. Oh, it was blood-curdling to witness. Julie sprang to her feet and told Gary to calm down and stop acting like a playground bully. Whereupon he slapped her face hard, called her a worthless slut and shuffled out of the bar on his gammy leg before the door staff even knew what was going on.

‘Don’t bother coming home tonight!’ Gary shouted over his shoulder.

‘I won’t!’ she cried. ‘I still have my apartment in Saintfield. So there!’

‘I’m throwing your stuff in the bin!’

‘Go on, then. I don’t care!’

Oh, dear.

Cue, pandemonium. Jay’d hit his head on the edge of the table when he was going down and split his forehead open just above the eye. There was blood everywhere and Julie had to call an ambulance when Jay hadn’t come round two minutes later. Poor lad was in an awful state. Not to mention the lovely white Bohemian canopy, which now resembled a makeshift field hospital from the First World War. Everybody was staring at us like they’d never seen a head-butt before. Jay was carried out to Arthur Street by a couple of waiters and helped into the back of a mini-ambulance. I apologized over and over to the manager about the damage we’d caused to the furniture and fixings but he said not to worry, and hopefully our friend wasn’t seriously injured. Julie went with Jay to the hospital and she made me go too. We were all mortified. Even my knees were blushing. I joked to the ambulance driver that we’d been bare-knuckle-fighting round the pubs for pints, but he didn’t laugh. He just said Jay’s nose was badly swollen and he hoped his lungs weren’t filling up with blood. Then Julie began to freak out and the driver jumped two sets of red lights and mounted the footpath to get past a bus. It was so utterly awful, I can’t tell you. Julie thought Jay was going to die and, as she said to me later that day in the cafeteria, she really didn’t know anything about him. Apart from the donkey sanctuary that his family owned, she wouldn’t even have known who to contact. It was only in the A&E waiting room that she discovered Jay was short for James. It was written on a bank card in his wallet. Up until then, she’d never thought to ask if Jay was his proper name or a shortened version of it.

Meanwhile, Gary went out to Julie’s apartment in Saintfield and trashed the place from top to bottom with a baseball bat. Totally ruined it. He must have been incandescent with rage. Because, as I said before, Gary is an animal-lover and as gentle a soul as you’d ever hope to meet. He poured a large tin of white gloss paint (there was one under the kitchen sink) into the outsize bath, over the pure wool carpets and across an entire rack of Julie’s beautiful clothes. He broke the smaller pieces of furniture into bits, smashed three sinks and both toilets. He jammed a tin of crabmeat down the waste-disposal unit and wrote SLUT all over the walls with lipstick and squeezy brown sauce. Finally, he thrust the baseball bat right through the headboard of Julie’s French hand-painted bed and left it there. It was horrible. I cried when I saw it and it wasn’t even my apartment. But it was so upsetting to see Julie’s beautiful home violated like that, because it was just like her, all pale colours and elegant lines. And Julie wasn’t a slut, not really. She was confused, that’s all. She didn’t want to get married and then Jay O’Hanlon turned her head with his sex-bomb ways and his rugged Galway accent. It could have happened to anyone.