The Stag and Hen Weekend (29 page)

‘An absolute nightmare. Best part of an hour sitting on the M1 just past Leicester. Nearly gave up and turned back! It would’ve been a shame of course, after all this place isn’t cheap, but as it happens I’m off to a new country spa hotel just outside Buckinghamshire in a few weeks that by all reports should knock the spots off this place. Still, here I am, always doing the right thing!’

‘Well I’m glad you did,’ lied Helen, resisting the temptation to throttle Caitlin. ‘The weekend wouldn’t have been the same without you.’

Caitlin flashed her best professional smile, the one Helen felt sure she used whenever closing a business deal. ‘You say the sweetest things.’ She held out her hand to Yaz and although she couldn’t be sure Helen thought she detected an extra glint of spitefulness in Caitlin’s eye. ‘And Yaz, how are you? Long time no see.’

‘Yes,’ said Yaz. ‘It has been a long time. Been keeping well?’

‘Can’t complain,’ replied Caitlin, carefully. ‘You? How are those adorable kids of yours? Still running you ragged? I don’t know how you do it. I can’t see me ever having kids. They’re a guaranteed route to a ruined figure.’

Yaz’s face fell as it dawned on her that she had just been Caitlined. Helen was confused; normally Caitlin saved her catty remarks for Helen alone but for some reason she appeared to want to drag Yaz into this too. Realising she had milliseconds to stop Yaz slapping her sister-in-law-to-be into next week Helen quickly jumped into the fray and changed the subject.

‘We’re all going down to the sauna in a minute,’ she said quickly. ‘If you hurry up and get changed you can join us.’

Caitlin raised a eyebrow. ‘It always takes me forever to unpack so I doubt I’ll make it. Otherwise what time should I meet you for the first treatment?’

‘Eleven o’clock, in the spa.’

‘Great,’ said Caitlin. She flashed Helen and Yaz another of her business smiles and then with one swish of her ponytail she clip-clopped out of the restaurant leaving the speechless friends wondering what had just hit them.

‘I always knew she was a bitch,’ said Yaz, ‘but that woman takes bitchdom to a whole new level! She’s like a super-turbo-charged-bitch-faced bitch.’

Helen nodded in agreement. ‘And . . . might I add, a right royal pain in the arse too.’

‘You have my deepest sympathies becoming family with a woman like that. My deepest sympathies indeed.’

In the beginning Helen had rationalised Caitlin’s dislike as simple loyalty to her close friend Beth, whom Phil had dated for two years. Caitlin regularly hung out with Phil and Beth and so when Phil called time on the relationship it spelled not only the end of the couple but also for Caitlin spending time with her brother whom she idolised. Seemingly convinced that Phil and Beth were in the throes of getting back together, Caitlin had extended a somewhat frosty reception when Phil had invited her to meet Helen for the first time. Phil had picked up on his sister’s hostility but had excused it in that lazy way all men excuse the behaviour of women they like: ‘She’s not being bitchy,’ he explained, ‘she just doesn’t know you that’s all. Give her time and she’ll soon warm up.’

The second time was some six months later when Phil decided it was time to introduce Helen to his mum and stepdad and so organised a Sunday afternoon barbecue for his entire family. Helen had hoped that relations between them would improve over time but in fact they became worse. While never openly hostile, Caitlin focused on one-upping Helen whenever the opportunity arose. If Helen told a story about a great weekend, Caitlin would tell a story about an even better one. If Helen bought a new dress and wore it out to dinner, Caitlin made sure to let everyone know how new her own dress was and how expensive it had been. Whatever Helen did that was good, Caitlin had always done better. And because it wasn’t open hostility Phil didn’t see it. ‘Honestly babe,’ he told her as they cleared away after the barbecue when after much deliberation she had finally brought the subject up, ‘you’re just being paranoid. So what if she’s a bit boastful? If she winds you up that much just ignore her.’

Helen tried to take Phil’s advice and although months went by without the two of them needing to exchange a word, what with Christmas, Easter and various family birthdays there were other times when there was literally no escaping Caitlin. And although it would be natural to assume that over nine years, two family bereavements, and the handing over of countless tastefully selected and perfectly wrapped birthday and Christmas presents (presents that had quite clearly not been bought or wrapped by Phil), that hostilities would have ceased, this was not the case. Instead they continued to bubble under the surface waiting for the opportunity to erupt.

Inviting Caitlin to the hen weekend was Helen’s final olive branch to Caitlin for the sake of the man she loved and if she refused to accept it after this weekend, or at the latest after the wedding, she resolved to stop making the effort and cut Caitlin out of her life for good.

Helen was up in her room frantically stuffing one of the hotel’s tastefully designed straw tote bags with everything she needed for the morning when her phone rang.

‘It’s me,’ said Yaz urgently. ‘Listen I don’t want to panic you, but we might not have thought this whole thing with Caitlin through properly.’

Helen hadn’t got a clue what Yaz was talking about.

‘Think about it. We’ve just invited her to meet downstairs in the lobby haven’t we? Now I know she said she probably won’t come but what if she does and gets there before we do, introduces herself and the girls start telling her about what an amazing time they all had hanging out with Aiden? I don’t know whether you’d planned to tell Phil about bumping into your ex or not but if she gets to the girls before we do I guarantee you won’t need to worry about how to break the news to him.’

Yaz was right. This was exactly the kind of thing Caitlin would leap on. Grabbing her bag, Helen snatched up her key card and ran out of the room slamming the door behind her. Racing along the corridor at top speed she passed the lift and took the stairs, then pelted down several steps at a time.

Her heart pounding as if it was trying to escape her chest, Helen sprinted to reception to meet the girls.

‘I need to tell you something,’ gasped Helen thankful that there was no sign of Caitlin. ‘Is everyone here?’

‘All except Yaz,’ said Kerry.

‘Look,’ said Helen quickly, ‘it’s like this: for reasons that I don’t want to go into I need to ask you all a massive favour. Whatever you do don’t—’

Helen stopped abruptly as Yaz arrived frantically waving her hands.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ said Yaz still waving her arms. ‘I’m just thinking that you probably need to stop talking . . . now.’

Realising something was up Helen was horrified to see Caitlin standing behind her. In that instant Helen saw she had two options: she could allow herself to fall apart as she had done when she bumped into Aiden or professional Helen could get on with the business of being unflappable.

‘Caitlin,’ said Helen calmly, ‘great you’ve decided to join us. I was just getting the girls together to explain that they shouldn’t . . . drink too much.’

Caitlin looked confused. ‘Isn’t that sort of the idea of hen weekends?’

Clearly in agreement the others looked on perplexed.

‘I’m just saying that—’ An idea occurred to her and she pointed to Caitlin. ‘Where are my manners? Everybody, this is Phil’s sister, Caitlin, everybody this is Caitlin.’

It wasn’t exactly the most subtle of ways of getting her point across to her friends that they should keep their mouths shut about the events of the night before, but from the raised eyebrows and silent gasps that spread amongst the girls like a Mexican wave the message had clearly been received. But just to make sure that there weren’t any little slip-ups as everyone introduced themselves to Caitlin, Helen whispered to Yaz to brief everyone individually about what was and what wasn’t out of bounds to talk about with the evil one.

The girls made their way out of reception and along the outside path to the Spa. It was a beautiful cloudless morning, the perfect summer barbecue day and even though it was only mid-morning there was no doubt it was going to be a scorcher.

The area around the spa had been landscaped so that it was only once visitors descended the limestone stairs that the spa could be seen at all. Once there the girls knew they were in for a treat. The front entrance looked like a partially buried glass dome jutting out of the slope and as the girls marvelled at its architectural elegance the more confident they became that a building like this wasn’t going to be staffed by bored teens fresh out of beauty school.

Signing in, they made their way to the changing rooms where they hurriedly undressed and within a matter of minutes they were settled in the steam room and getting down to the main business of the day: conversation.

‘So Helen,’ began Ros, ‘How are all the wedding plans going? I bet you had it all sewn up months ago. You’ve always been the most organised person I know.’

‘Oh, you know how it is,’ said Helen, quickly. She wiped her sweat-laden brow with her towel. ‘Even when you’re organised, with something this big there are always things to do.’

As those who had experience began to exchange tales of their own wedding organisational nightmares, Helen reflected on Ros’s comment. It was true that she was highly organised; there was no way she could do her current job as a presenter and have fulfilled her role as a producer successfully without being organised, and yet she had somehow neglected to bring that same degree of organisational control to bear on what was supposed to be one of the most important days of her life. It wasn’t just that she had left the booking of the venue, the hiring of the caterers and the sorting out of the honeymoon to Phil (she argued that as he was his own boss he had more free time to do these things), it was that with less than a week to go she still hadn’t decided on a dress.

Since the first of her university friends began to get married Helen had had an image in her head of the perfect wedding dress so when Aiden had proposed, she set to work on making the dream become a reality by gathering together pictures ripped from magazines along with brief sketches of her own. Once she was satisfied that she had all the inspiration she needed she went to see the woman who had designed Yaz’s cousin’s gown which she had admired some months before.

The designer had seemed to understand what Helen wanted straight away and had shown her some beautiful swatches of material, which Helen knew would be perfect. Several fittings later and there it was: the fantasy dress of her dreams, a more beautiful reality than she’d ever expected: a floor length strapless ivory satin sheath dress exquisitely embroidered with antique beads and trimmed with vintage ribbon.

Gazing at her reflection in the mirror at the final fitting Helen felt every inch the princess that she had hoped to be. She had left the dressmaker’s nearly a thousand pounds poorer but with a joy in her heart she would have gladly paid ten times more to possess.

When she called off the wedding, the dress was the one aspect of the cancelled day that she wouldn’t allow anyone else to deal with, torn as she was between keeping it and giving it away. In the end, having bagged it up and driven to the other side of the city with the intention of donating it to a charity shop, she just couldn’t do it. As selfish as it was she couldn’t bear the thought of another woman walking down the aisle in her dream dress and she took the bag from the boot of the car, crossed over to the car park of a nearby pub and with tears streaming down her face threw the dress into an industrial waste container and walked away.

‘Are you having any, Helen?’

Helen stared blankly at Heather. She hadn’t got a clue what was being asked of her.

‘You’re a million miles away,’ teased Heather. ‘It must be all this steam! I was just asking are you having wedding favours on the table? I went to a wedding last summer and the couple were real green freaks and had put several packets of seeds on every table for people to take away and plant so as to offset the carbon footprint of the wedding!’

Helen was panic-stricken. ‘I hadn’t even thought about it.’

Heather looked mortified. ‘Sorry, babe! I didn’t mean to wind you up into a frenzy. It must be the full-time mum in me: I don’t feel normal unless I’m armed with a sixteen-page to-do list! Just step out of this circle of madness, I say, and do your own thing!’

Helen smiled weakly. Party favours were the least of her problems. At this rate she would be getting married in a tracksuit and slippers. She and Yaz had been looking at dresses for months now, starting with a wedding fair at the NEC in Birmingham and branching out to every bridal shop within a thirty-mile radius of Nottingham. And while there had been many hideous creations amongst the dresses she had seen (one in particular, a huge hideous pink meringue that could easily have been the star of its own TV documentary entitled
My biggest gypsy wedding
), there had also been plenty of tasteful and elegant dresses with which she had fallen in love. A cream taffeta dress in a bridal shop in Hucknall and another that could have been plucked straight from the set of a sumptuous Merchant Ivory production to name but two. And yet whenever the shop assistant asked if she would like to come back for a second fitting her response was always: ‘I do really like it but I’m going to carry on looking just that little while longer.’ And to anyone who asked what her dress was like (a question aimed at her on an almost daily basis) her reply was the same: ‘Beautiful. But I’m not saying anything as I don’t want to spoil the surprise.’