White Wedding (11 page)

‘And there’s deffo a big splash of vodka in there too.’

‘It’s called a “Viva Las Vegas”,’ said the waitress, overhearing them.

‘Ah, that’ll be because they’re going to honeymoon in Vegas,’ said someone behind Max, picking up what the waitress said. ‘How very sweet.’

Violet caught Bel’s eye across the room and waved, but Bel didn’t wave back. Her face was like granite.

Bel saw lovely Violet wave to her and she turned away, pretending she hadn’t seen her. She had to keep away from nice people and carry on mixing with the odious Liam and her stepfamily
and all the Bishop side of the clan that she didn’t know all that well and wanted to know even less. Only that way would she stay true to her convictions.

‘Where’s the cake?’ asked Vanoushka, looking around. ‘Surely she hasn’t cocked that up as well.’

‘I’m sure she hasn’t,’ said Faye, feeling terribly guilty now that she hadn’t insisted on helping. Bel must have been under such pressure to arrange everything, and
had so obviously failed.

‘I’m starving,’ said Martin. ‘When’s the lobster happening?’

Bel was posing for snaps for those guests who had brought their own cameras. Unlike Shaden, she wasn’t relishing any attention from the lenses, merely enduring it. Then she excused herself
and slipped away to the ladies’ toilet, picking the furthest away of the ten cubicles. She sat on the seat, letting her head drop into her hands. It seemed to weigh a ton, as if all the hurt
and anger in there were solid rocks jarring against each other. She felt the jabbing of her fifth stress-headache in two months.

The pain in her temple momentarily weakened her. She wasn’t sure she could do this any more.
This is recoverable, if you want to back out
, said a soft, seductive voice inside her.
No one need ever know if you change paths now
. She was married. Her name was officially Belinda Bishop – even though anyone looking closely enough to decipher her scrawl would see she
had signed the register
Bellend Bastard
. . . The voice continued:
This could all be over now
.

Then she heard Vanoushka enter the toilet.

‘I just hope the meal makes up for it.’ She thought she was whispering, but the acoustics of the toilet carried the sound down to Bel. ‘If I’d known it was going to be so
hideous, I wouldn’t have bought something new. What a waste of Dior.’

‘Awful, isn’t it?’ giggled the second voice, instantly recognizable by the put-on rounded vowels: Shaden. ‘And what
is
that dress she’s got on?’

‘Christ knows. It looks like a sack. You are the belle of the ball today, my darling. I bet Richard wishes he was marrying you. Hold my handbag while I have a pee.’

Bel’s resolve recovered instantly on hearing that. She waited until she heard a flush, the taps turn on and off, the hand-dryer finish blowing and the door close. Then she stood, ready for
the final act:
Fight the Good Fight. She’d show them how un-fucking-sweetly a Candy girl fought back, all right.

Let battle commence.

Much to Martin’s delight, people were starting to filter into the dining room. His stomach was groaning so loudly it sounded like a one-man brass band. The sight of the
waitresses bringing the starter was the gastric equivalent of music to his ears. Mysteriously the cake was covered with a fine white cloth on a separate table in the corner of the room.

The first course was a hearty soup with thin slices of toasted baguette floating in it, topped with melted cheese.

‘This is lovely,’ said Richard, sinking his teeth into the bread. Then the full force of the cheese hit his taste buds and he wheezed as if he’d just been punched in the gut by
Muhammad Ali. ‘Goodness, that cheese is strong. What is it?’

‘It’s called Stinking Bishop,’ beamed Bel. ‘Isn’t it the best find?’

Judging from all the coughing going on around the room, others were finding it equally as brutal on their internal workings.

Vanoushka was less than impressed.

‘Soup? Could there be a more ordinary starter?’ she moaned to Martin, who nodded in agreement, although he collared the waitress for a second helping of it. She hoped Belinda was
never going to take up wedding planning as a career. Especially as the main course was nothing out of the ordinary either. Coq au vin.

‘I always think that coq au vin sounds like someone’s had sex in a van,’ laughed Bel to Richard. She was staring at him, unblinking. ‘Don’t you?’

Inside him something stirred and he felt a pang of alarm. Why would she say that? Did he detect a hint of knowledge in her words? Then again, coq au vin
did
sound like someone having sex
in van. He was being paranoid and as such he gave himself a mental slap.

‘Yes, it does,’ and he laughed heartily. ‘I’d never thought of it before.’

‘I know it’s a bit naff, but it is the chef’s speciality here,’ Bel went on. Not that she could eat much of it as her insides were churning.

Then the main-course plates were taken away and strawberry tarts were served. Richard had just stuck his fork into the pastry when Bel asked him, ‘What do you think of the strawberry tart,
darling?’

‘It’s really lovely,’ and he winked. ‘I like a bit of tart. I hope you’ve got something very tarty on under that gown.’

Bel placed her hand on her dress, where her heart was. ‘Under here,’ she said with her sexiest lopsided grin, ‘is something very wild and wicked especially for you.’

As the dessert plates were being collected, Bel stole a look across at her friends. She noticed that there was an empty space next to Violet; Glyn hadn’t come. Well, at least that was one
less witness. Poor bloke, though. He obviously couldn’t face a crowd of strangers. Depression was a terrible thing. She had felt herself standing at the edge of a very deep, dark chasm
recently and the only way she could pull herself back from it was to plan, scheme, hate.

The waitresses were gearing up to serve coffees, which meant the speeches were minutes away from starting. Bel’s heart was like a battering ram against her chest wall. She felt
light-headed, slightly sick. She was seeing the world in slow motion: Liam standing, people starting to applaud as he called for order.

It was a typical Liam speech. As shiny and slimy as a snail trail. With a big beaming smile he talked about his sister-in-law being a beautiful bride, even though Bel knew that he must have been
crying inside to have to adhere to that rule of protocol. He relished telling how she had tamed his wild brother. Bel wasn’t fooled. She was waiting for Liam to stick a big infected needle in
her day.

‘So please raise your glasses to the bride and groom. Richard and Sh— Bel.’

He turned to Bel and the superior look on his face told her that he
knew
too
.
That split-second shushing sound wasn’t a mistake. She didn’t hear the toast. Her ears
were full of her own heartbeat; it was the sound of an iron ball thundering down the barrel of a cannon, dangerous and unstoppable. Again in slow motion she watched her dad begin to stand, and she
shot to her feet first. She waved at him to take his seat again.

It’s still not too late, Bel. Say ‘thank you for coming’ and sit down
.

‘Bel, what are you doing?’ This from Richard, tugging at her hand. She ignored him.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. Just before you hear any more, I’d like to say thank you all for coming.’

There’s still time, Bel. Sit down and this will all be over. No one need ever know
.

But a stronger, harder, nastier voice inside answered.

Fuck off, sensible thought. This day has been too long in coming.
You
sit down
.

‘And thank you to Liam for a wonderful speech.’ She flashed a smile of such sweetness at Liam she hoped it would give him instant diabetes. ‘You truly are a master of the
spoken turd, sorry, I mean “word”.’

A titter of unsure laughter rippled around the room in the pause that Bel then left.

‘I just want to tell you all how much I love Richard,’ said Bel. The room was filled with ‘aws’. ‘And even though we aren’t strictly related, how much I
adored my cousin Shaden, my lovely bridesmaid.’

She raised her glass in Shaden’s direction and then drank from it.

Violet didn’t like this at all. Vibes were missiling from Bel and none of them were good ones.

‘I say “adore-
d
” because it’s past tense. I adore-
d
her until I found out that she was shagging my fiancé.’

Oh God
.

Bel didn’t hear the gasps. She didn’t even notice Richard stand in front of her and try to reason with her, persuade her to leave the table and come outside to calm down – or
sober up. But Bel was stone-cold sober and he couldn’t have budged her with Semtex. She was anchored to the spot with the three tons of hurt that had been stored inside her for two months,
fermenting until they were rotten and stinking and toxic.

‘And according to the texts and emails I found, shagging, amongst other places, in the back of one of my dad’s vans, which she borrowed from him apparently to move some furniture. So
here for your amusement is one of those many emails that passed between them.’

As she fumbled to pull out a folded sheet of paper from up her sleeve, Richard again tried to pull her to her seat but she pushed him off. Bel’s voice was strong as she began to read, but
the hands holding the sheet of paper were shaking. Some of her fingers had long false French-manicured nails on them; she had bitten the others off in the last half-hour, ripping them from the nail
bed. They thrummed but she was glad of the pain because it was another factor which helped to drive her on.

‘“Dear Big Dicky”.’ No one even tittered. ‘“It’s done, thank God, so you don’t have to worry any more – and neither do I. The B-word will
never know. Had a few cramps and unpleasantness, but it was a small price to pay. Silly us, getting that carried away. Good job I did an early test and we didn’t leave it any later.
Can’t wait to see you tonight. I’m going to eat you for supper – and breakfast.”’ Long-stored-up fat salt-filled tears started to plop down Bel’s cheeks on to
the snow-white tablecloth.

‘Oh God,’ said Violet. ‘Max, should we go to her?’ They stood up.

‘No one move, please,’ said Bel with the aggression of a severely hacked-off headmistress heading up an assembly full of coughing children. The room was locked in an excruciatingly
uncomfortable vacuum of silence. Everyone and everything with a mouth held it agape.

Bel picked up her champagne glass.

‘“The B-word” would like to raise a toast: to the Stinking Bishop and the Strawberry Tart,’ she said and sank the contents in one. ‘May you both rot in hell.’
With one fluid movement that a bullfighter would have been proud of, Bel reached over and whisked the cloth off the cake. A beautiful three-tiered pure-white confection was revealed and on the very
top layer were three figures – a golden-haired bridesmaid in red with her knickers down, leaning over a table, a groom with his trousers to the floor behind her – and a short
spiky-haired bride walking off with her fingers raised behind her in a large V.

Richard reached for her hand. Bel removed it with a mighty jerk. Then she marched out of the reception at the speed of Usain Bolt approaching the finishing line.

There was stunned silence for a few seconds before a low hiss of gossip broke and people sprang into action. Faye ran out first, followed by Violet and Max, then Trevor, who would have been in
the lead had his knee not been playing up. They were all just in time to see the waiting taxi zoom off.

‘Jesus,’ whistled Max.

‘I knew something wasn’t right,’ said Violet, on the edge of tears.

‘Excuse me,’ called a young man coming from behind the reception desk. ‘I’ve been asked to give out these envelopes. The bride . . .’

Max leaped over. There were two – one for Max and Violet, one for her dad.

Max ripped open the envelope and held it out so Violet could read it too.

A devastated Trevor read his out so Faye could share the words. There were a lot of apologies in the first paragraph.

Then:

Bel climbed out of the taxi and headed straight for the car waiting outside her apartment with her suitcase already packed in the boot. Also in the car was a box of food that
she had hastily collected in the last few days, although she had no appetite for any of it. It contained stuff that didn’t take much thought to eat: Pot Noodles, tins of soup and rice
pudding, coffee, tea, some powdered milk, a family pack of KitKats. There was no time to go into the flat and change her dress; it was the first place they would all come looking for her. At least,
she knew her dad would. Richard – she wasn’t sure about. She couldn’t face any of them yet. She couldn’t even face herself in the mirror. She bunched herself and her dress
into the front seat of her Merc, let out two huge lungfuls of air and then stuck the key in the ignition.

She wanted to be alone with her brain, a few boxes of Kleenex and a big fat bottle of red wine for a couple of days. And that is why she set off for Emily, the larger of the two adjoined Bronte
Cottages that her dad owned out on the edge of the West Yorkshire moors. She had always had a set of keys for them, although she hoped her dad didn’t remember that.