The Armchair Bride (15 page)

Twenty

It’s a long taxi ride to The Old Vicarage, a small, but much talked about eatery on the outskirts of nearby Knutsford. It’s the kind of place grown-ups go. Brian and I barely exchange more than a few words during the journey.

I stare out of the window. It’s starting to rain and the wind is getting up. Jabbering voices on the radio talk up storm warnings and by the time we crunch up a gravel path the windscreen wipers struggle to keep pace with the downpour.

‘Wait here,’ Brian says and leaps out.

‘Who’s paying my fare?’ the cabbie says.

I shrug. ‘Don’t look at me.’

Our eyes meet in the rear view mirror and I look away. He pulls shut a small plastic window to shut me off and re-tunes his radio to commentary from a football match.

Where the hell is Brian?

I’m about to make a run for it when he emerges with a huge umbrella. Struggling to keep control, he opens the cab door.

‘Quick, he says, or you’ll get soaked.’

He puts one arm around my shoulders to shelter me from the gathering storm and I totter across the gravel into the restaurant. I’m about to say thank you when he ducks back out to pay the driver.

A smiling waiter bows his head and tells me to follow him.

The dining room is breathtaking. Huge windows down one side reach all the way up to the ceiling. The trees outside are floodlit in red and add to the drama of filthy weather. Rain lashes the windows, yet the atmosphere within remains serene. Candles send flickering shadows dancing up the walls.

The waiter pulls out a chair and invites me to sit. He unfolds a heavy cloth napkin before discretely melting away.

So this is how the other half lives.

Brian appears.

‘This place is stunning,’ I say. ‘Thanks for inviting me.’

‘Wait till you’ve tried the food,’ he says with a wink. ‘You might not be thanking me then.’

I look around anxiously.

‘What have you heard?’

A smile lights up his face and he shakes his head.

‘I’ve never been here myself. Never had the excuse before.’

‘Is that what I am?’ I say and mock outrage. ‘An
excuse
?’

The waiter returns with menus and Brian orders a bottle of wine, naming both a vineyard and a year. I can’t help but be impressed.

‘I asked the barman at the Travel Lodge,’ he says. ‘Turns out he’s a bit of an expert.’

The menu is mostly in French and has me stumped. The chef may as well have chosen to present dinner options in semaphore.

‘What are
geziers
?’ I say. ‘They sound dangerous.’

‘Gizzards.’

‘What?’

He indicates his stomach.

‘The bit where chickens store up and grind their food. They’re a delicacy, very popular in France.’

‘The French will eat anything won’t they?’ I say and wince. ‘Thank God you’re here. I’d be lost without your help. Did you study French at school?’

Brian looks sheepish.

‘I downloaded the menu and translated it all online about two hours ago,’ he says.

‘You big fraud.’

I smile and feel myself relax.

By the time the waiter takes our order, we’re both acting far more like we want to be out together. We tease each other about how to pronounce each dish. Brian refreshes my drink after we tuck into our starters - both of us play safe and go for the French onion soup. It is, though, absolutely the best French onion soup I’ve ever tasted. Sweet and salty at the same time, topped with crusty bread and oozy melty cheese.

‘I’m so glad you finally agreed to come to dinner,’ he says.

‘It’s not like I was trying to avoid you,’ I say and know it makes it sound like that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

Four courses come and go and conversation flows easily - more so when Brian orders a second bottle of wine. By the time we’re offered coffee, I feel like we’ve been friends for years. And in effect we have.

‘You really do look beautiful tonight,’ he says and my cup hits the saucer with more force than I intend.

Why spoil the evening by coming on strong after we’ve been getting along so well?

‘Thanks,’ I manage. ‘You look ... beautiful too.’

There’s an awkward silence and I suggest getting the bill.

‘I’m absolutely knackered and I have to go and see a man about balloons for a hen party tomorrow.’

Brian’s face falls for a moment, before the smile slips back into place and he waves down a waiter.

‘Can you order us a cab,’ he says as he signs the credit card slip. ‘In fact, make that two cabs.’

This time my face falls. This isn’t how the evening is meant to end. 

‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I’ll pay. I’m a gentleman after all.’

‘Thanks,’ I say miserably.

Brian pushes back his chair and is half way across the room when he stops and turns to look back. I grin as he’s caught me trying to stuff after-dinner mints into my bag. He manages the faintest of smiles before striding purposefully towards the door.

Two cabs wait outside. The rain has let up and it’s turned into a bitterly cold night.

‘I’ll see you at work then,’ Brian says.

‘I suppose so. Thanks so much for tonight, I had a great time.’

‘I
think
I did too.’

The maître d’ appears with my coat. I shrug it on and go to kiss Brian gently on the cheek, much as Sharon suggested. He pulls away and shakes my hand.

I’ve never felt so humiliated.

In the cab on the way home, I call Amy who picks up after one ring.

‘How did it go?’ she says.

‘Can you nip out and get me a bottle of wine,’ I say. ‘And a huge bag of Maltesers.’

The wonderful thing about sisters is you don’t need to fill in the gaps and can shortcut to how you feel by issuing demands for confectionery and alcohol.

‘Had a nice night?’ the driver says.

‘How about, the worst night of my life?’

Sensing a passenger in no mood to make idle chit chat, he pulls shut the communicating window and I hear the sounds of a football match commentary.

Twenty one

When Sharon was expecting Bethany she complained of feeling both terrified and exhausted for the first three months, often sneaking off to spend her lunchtimes napping in the Royal Box. Amy is quite the opposite.

‘I honestly can’t wait and I haven’t felt any ill effects. I must have the most robust set of hormones known to womankind,’ she says as she polishes off a second huge slice of apple pie with double whipped cream. I had to admit defeat and leave half of mine, coming as it did less than an hour after a full English breakfast.

‘Are you leaving that?’ She waves a fork in my direction and when I nod, switches our plates.

‘So you haven’t even had the slightest bit of morning sickness?’ I say.

‘No morning sickness, afternoon sickness or evening sickness. I did feel a bit bloated after that curry last night though.’

‘Three starters might have been pushing it.’

‘I can’t help it. It’s all so bloody lovely.’

Amy has ballooned. In the past week alone, she looks to have put on half a stone.

‘What do you say we go to Boots next and sort out the condoms?’ she says.

‘Condoms?’

Amy rolls her eyes.

‘To blow up and attach to Helen.’

She gives her stomach a loving pat.

‘Do you mind paying? I have to pee.’

On the way to Boots, we stop so she can buy a hot dog, I probably ought to say something about her weight, but she seems so happy and upbeat.

‘I’m not sure about the condoms,’ I say and hold open the shop door.

‘It’s traditional. That and the L-Plates. I’ve already got a pair of those from when Glen tried to teach me how to drive.’

I say nothing. It’s a Doyle family rule - nobody mentions Amy’s driving lessons.

On her seventeenth birthday, she applied for a provisional license. When it arrived, she insisted that forking out good money on a qualified instructor was for mugs. I was pressed into service first. Things didn’t start well when we exchanged harsh words after I told her she couldn’t drive in spike-heeled stilettos. Those angry exchanges paled into insignificance compared with what I said when she wiped my second-hand mini up a lamppost. When I threw in the towel, Sue made up an excuse about being too busy with the kids and so the job defaulted to Glen. Eleven months later, after five failed tests and with talk of divorce proceedings, Amy admitted that she wasn’t cut out to be left in charge of a motor vehicle. The whole family breathed a sigh of relief, neighbours parked back in the close, Amy bought expensive shoes instead and once more everything was right with the world.

‘Ribbed or plain?’ She holds up two packs of condoms.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Coloured or natural?’

‘Coloured I suppose.’

‘I’ll get a party mix, is there anything else?’

She catches sight of a pregnancy predictor kit, thoughtfully displayed next to the birth control products and her bottom lip trembles.

‘Are you OK?’ I say and she nods and sniffs. Maybe all that talk of not being a martyr to her hormones is bravado. I pry the condoms from her grip and pay and then gently lead her away.

‘What if I can’t do it,’ she says.

‘Do what?’

‘Have a baby.’

‘I think you’ve left it a bit late for that.’

‘I mean, what if I’m a rubbish mother and they send social services round?’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘It might.’

She looks set to burst into tears.

‘How about we go and have a coffee somewhere?’ I say.

‘And cake?’

‘If you want.’

‘Can I get extra cream?’

‘Obviously.’

I never even imagined there could be so much work involved in what is essentially little more than night out on the town. Having Amy around proves to be a boom. She’s been called upon to organise a hen night or two in the past, so it’s like having my very own piss-up planner. I’d hoped that handing over credit card details and giving the nod to Dick Rock might be the extent of my role, but Amy has other ideas and guides me through organising pampering sessions, pre-piss-up cocktails and helps collect money and confirm arrangements with venues. Somehow, she tracks down comedy fake breasts and a length of net curtain that when combined with a silver Alice band work as a veil for Helen to wear along with her L-Plates and inflated condoms.

I spend the Friday evening fielding questions from Helen’s friends and relatives, all anxious to know what’s planned. I reveal very little, fearing it’ll get back to Ginny.

Andy calls before breakfast on the pretext of asking if he left a favourite shirt behind. After a series of inane exchanges, he confesses filming isn’t entirely going to plan. A new director has cut many of his lines and cancelled key scenes. The budget has been slashed and people fired left, right and centre. The promised big name band lined up for the soundtrack has pulled out; leaving the theme song to be performed by a folk singer supposedly huge in the Baltics.

‘I’ve tried to see if I can get out of it, but it looks like my contract is watertight, so unless I can get pregnant or contract rabies I’m in to the bitter end,’ he says.

‘It’ll all be over in a few weeks.’

‘Until it comes out.’

I hesitate, unsure if I should say what’s been in the back of my mind since glancing at the initial script.

‘Do you
really
think it will get a release?’

‘So now to add to everything else, I’m appearing in a straight-to-DVD low- budget soft-core horror flick,’ he says.

‘I might be wrong.’

‘You’re probably not.’

Andy exhales heavily.

‘Are you smoking?’ I say.

‘Just the odd one now and then. There really isn’t much else to do here.’

‘I thought Bratislava was the apex of the new gay Europe.’

‘Bratislava might be. I’m in some Godforsaken toilet of a town in the middle of nowhere. The only signs of life are a Texaco garage and a launderette. Just as well, considering I spent all day yesterday rolling around in the mud trying to overpower a gang of midget vampires.’

‘Midget vampires?’

‘One of them recognised me from when he was in
Snow White
at the Empire. Remember the blonde dwarf who asked me out?’

‘Grumpy?’

‘Sneezy.’

‘The one who took offence in Pizza Express when they brought him a kid’s high chair?’

I toy with suggesting all bets are off and that he should just come home and have his old job back. I have an idea.

‘Why don’t you tell them I’m ill,’ I say. ‘Something terminal.’

‘What?’

‘Say I’m a close friend and that I’m sick. Say you’ve got to fly back to the UK. If you get a flight this afternoon, you could come to the hen night.’

‘There are many things I miss about Manchester and many reasons to come home, a hen party is not one of them.’

‘We could go out on the town later.’

‘Tempting as that might sound, I can’t risk it. When I was ten, I got out of swimming by saying I had to help my mum because Mr. Tibbs was ill. There was nothing wrong with him when I said it. Two days later he was dead.’

‘Was Mr. Tibbs a neighbor?’

‘He was our cat. He ran out in front of a car the day after I lied to my teacher about him being sick.’

‘So tell them you have to come home for a wedding. Say it’s a prior engagement. I’m sure they’ll let you go for a few days.’

Andy sighs.

‘Lisa, I made you a promise,’ he says. ‘And I
promise
I’ll do my best to be the husband everyone wishes they had.’

‘Actually, something’s happened with that. I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell you, but Ginny’s seen to it that everyone knows I’m not married.’

‘So you don’t need me then?’ He sounds disappointed.

‘I still want you there, Andy. It really wouldn’t be the same without you.’

I don’t want to have to explain about what happened when I went back to Mam’s over the phone, but he sounds so desperate for someone to talk to that I tell him everything.

‘I wish I
could
come back tonight,’ Andy says when I finish the story. ‘If nothing else, I could take the piss to your face.’

‘I’ll get through, don’t worry about me.’

‘You’ll be fine, sweetkins. Keep your head up and don’t let the bitches get to you.’

‘That really is easier said than done.’

We chat a while longer and I fill him in on Amy’s pregnancy - he isn’t surprised, he always says she’s built to breed. Despite myself, I also tell him the tale of my disastrous date with Brian.

‘You really have got to start putting out more,’ he says.

Amy interrupts our conversation with a loud cough. She points at the clock. My meeting with the drag queen hosting Helen’s big night is in less than half an hour.

‘I have to go,’ I say.

‘I’ll do my best to make it.’

‘What? You promised ...’

There’s a crackle and hiss and the line goes dead. I stare at my phone.

‘What’s wrong?’ Amy says.

‘I think he just cut me off.’

‘Well there’s no time for ringing him back right now. You need to get ready.’

‘Fine,’ I say and reach into my wardrobe. ‘I’m doing jeans and sweater, hair tied back. Don’t try to style me.’

I’ve arranged to meet someone called George at a nearby coffee bar. When I arrive, it’s almost empty as Saturday morning shoppers are still busy ransacking supermarket shelves.

I order a cappuccino and find a quiet table. An emaciated student girl engrossed in a dog-eared paperback nurses a bottle of water at the next table. Near the window, a jolly looking middle-aged woman picks at a chocolate muffin while doing a crossword.

The door opens again and a tall, wiry guy wrapped in a grey trench coat shuffles in. His glasses steam and he pulls a hanky from his pocket. After ordering a pot of tea, he looks around, spots me, smiles and waves. This, I decide, is George.

‘Is it Lisa?’ he says in a gentle Blackburn accent as he puts his cup on my table.

‘It is, and you must be George?’

We shake hands.

‘That’s me, for my sins. George Fonda, drag queen extraordinaire, your host with the most.’

He sits down.

‘I’m so glad to meet you,’ I say. ‘I don’t mind pretending I’m probably more nervous than the bride to be.’

‘Perfectly natural, love. Organising one of these things can be terrifying. But have no fear Fonda’s here. Now what do you want to know exactly?’

‘Well, I suppose I wanted to check what the plans are for tonight.’

I open my notebook, ready to jot down his every word.

‘I can give you a rough idea of the running order,’ George says. ‘But I like to keep things fairly fluid, you never know what might happen and if you’re tied to a strict schedule, it takes all the fun out of it.’

‘Right.’ I put down the pen.

‘Eight o’clock, I’ll have the limo meet everyone at the Stage Door bar next to the Empire Theatre. Lovely place, you do know it?’

‘I work there as it happens.’

‘
Do you?
Well I’m sure we must have met before then. I was in the panto three years back I played the wicked queen.’

‘I’m in the box office.’

‘Right.’

He looks unimpressed and returns to his instructions.

‘You’ll be picked up by a stretch limo. The driver will have the engine running, so I need your girls to be ready to go on the dot of eight. It’s all double yellows round there and we don’t want to go getting another ticket. If that happens, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on the cost.’

‘Right, 8pm, be ready,’ I say and flip open my notepad.

‘He’ll drop you at the Astoria for drinks. I’ll be doing a bit of stuff on the microphone, a few jokes to introduce the bride.’

‘Oh.’ I try to hide my concern.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Well it’s just Helen is a bit…’

‘Shy?’

‘She’s not the outgoing sort.’

‘Chuck a few glasses of cheap bubbly down her neck and she’ll be fine.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

George ignores me and carries on.

‘Nine-thirty, I need you all back in the limo and on to the Snake Pit, where Mr. Rock is due to strut his stuff at around ten.’

I nod and make notes. It sounds increasingly like George Fonda’s idea of keeping it loose and unplanned is rather different to mine.

‘Then it’s karaoke and a few party games.’

‘Party games?’

‘Pin the cock on the stripper, vibrators, a few things with condoms and bananas. The usual sort of thing.’

I try to hide my mortification.

‘I don’t suppose I could make a few suggestions?’ I say.

‘You can, doesn’t mean I’ll listen.’

‘It all sounds a tiny bit tacky.’   

‘This is a Manchester hen night love, not an open-air picnic at Glyndebourne.’

George no longer the benevolent gay uncle type, transforms into a bog-standard bitchy queen and I whisper a tiny prayer of thanks. At last, I’m on familiar ground - I’ve dealt with his type a hundred times before. I learnt at the hands of a master.

‘What you’re offering sounds like it probably works fine in most cases,’ I say. ‘You know your market better than me, but I’m going to have to ask you to be a bit more creative with my crowd. Most of them are in their forties, nearly all married and probably not the sort to want to spend the night rolling condoms onto soft fruit.’

George lets me finish, before shaking his head.

‘Now listen to me. I’ve been doing this for twenty years. If I had a quid for every time someone like you has said they think it might not be their sort of thing, I wouldn’t need to squeeze my balls into support tights every night. Trust me on this. If I spot anyone not having a good time, I’ll see to it that they’re looked after.’

‘Right.’ I try to sound convinced.

‘If at any point you’re unhappy or you think someone isn’t enjoying themselves, you tell me and I’ll sort it out.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘I
do
know what I’m doing.’ Nice George is back and I relax. ‘Now which one is the bitch?’

‘The what?’

‘The bitch. Don’t tell me there isn’t one old slapper you’d all like revenge on. Someone to take down a peg or two?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In an ideal world I like to have someone I can ... how shall I put it? I like to have someone to
pick on
. Unless you tell me otherwise, I’m afraid that will be you.’

I don’t need to think twice.

‘Her name is Ginny.’

‘You point her out at the start of the evening.’

A broad smile lights up George’s face.

‘Like I said I’ve been doing this for a long time, it gets a bit samey. I need something to make it fun for me too. Once a vicious old queen, always a vicious old queen.’

I spend almost an hour telling George what a complete and utter cow Ginny was at school and inexplicably since. I leave out what happened at Mam’s, although George assures me he’s on my side, I can easily imagine the comic potential in my imaginary husband and don’t want it exploited for all and sundry. He agrees not to mention her recent marital bust up, pointing out that talking about people getting divorced at a hen night tends not to go down well.