White Wedding (37 page)

‘However, a great deal of preparation has gone into this day, so I ask you to please join me at the reception. A minibus has been provided for your comfort and will bring you back to the
church afterwards if you so wish. Oh and wedding presents will not be accepted, obviously. I hope you’ve all kept your receipts. Thank you.’

Someone clapped and then shut up, embarrassed that they were the only one doing so. Everyone else started to gossip to a neighbour.

‘Where’s Stuart?’ asked Kay McBride.

‘Mum, just get in the minibus.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Bel. ‘I’m going to kill Stuart when I get my hands on him.’

‘I feel like I’m in a bad dream,’ said Violet, puffing out her cheeks. ‘What do we do?’

‘We get in the minibus,’ said Bel, tugging her friend’s arm. ‘Trust me, when the bride is as determined as Max, it’s best just to do what she says.’

Quite a few of the guests decided to not to join the wedding party for the reception, mainly Stuart’s side, which came as no surprise. Most lined up in the queue for the minibus in shock;
one or two old relations were convinced this was one of those bizarre weddings with a twist and the bridegroom was going to burst out of a cake. Max rode to the reception in her Cinderella coach
alone when she should have been snuggled up in it with Stuart. She felt a prick of tears behind her eyes and stuck her glittery nails in her very brown arm to shock herself out of them.

‘What the fucking hell . . .’ said her dad when he saw the cake.

‘Graham,’ reprimanded her mum. In the twenty-six years they’d been married she had never heard him use that word before.

The photographer was having such an orgasm taking in the spectacle that he nearly forgot the fact that there was no groom. There were flowers everywhere, huge pink displays of them suffusing the
air with their beautiful scent. Violet could have cried for her friend. So much effort, so much waste.

‘Everyone, please enjoy the meal. Pretend you’re here for an ordinary lunch. We can’t let all this just get thrown away . . . it’s all paid for.’ Max announced. She
knew that all the guests were from Yorkshire – they didn’t do waste.

‘Your bastard mate is dead when I get my hands on him for this,’ growled Bel at Luke.

‘Get in the queue, Bel,’ said Luke. He looked over at Max standing by her cake, the huge bouquet of pink flowers in her hand. She must have been on the near side of seven foot tall
with her heels and hair but she looked like he had never seen her before: fragile and vulnerable with a stoop to her shoulders. He wanted to put his arm round her and pull her away from all this;
run a bath for her, make her tea and toast, sit with her and let her talk until she fell asleep. Luke and Stuart were too close to fall out for ever, but at the moment he hated him for what he had
done to Max. He hoped she never found out about Jenny Thompson.

The staff were amazing. They quickly screwed up the place-name with ‘Stuart’ on it and moved everyone up a place so there was no empty seat next to Max.

‘At least you won’t have to do a speech, Dad,’ said Max, as the main course arrived. Her mum said that he had been flapping about it.

‘I’ll do a speech when I get hold of Stuart,’ seethed Graham, spearing some cauliflower cheese with a furious fork.

‘I hope you’re still going to that spa,’ said Bel to Max. ‘You’ll need it.’

‘No,’ said Max. ‘I don’t want to go there and sleep in a big bed by myself.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘I’m sending Mum and Dad in my place,’ said Max. ‘My dad’s going to have a coronary if he doesn’t get some lavender oil slapped on him after all
this.’

Coffee had just been served when Luke surprised them all by standing up and clapping his hands for silence, which quickly ensued.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘I think you’ll agree with me that this has been a rather strange day. We’re all in a bit of a daze but I’d like to take it
upon myself – on behalf of Max and her family – to thank you for turning up today, for coming here to the reception to enjoy this wonderful food and for making this room not as empty
and sad as maybe it could have been. As the best man, I should be talking about Stuart, but I’m obviously not going to do that. Instead I’m going to talk about Max.’

He looked over at Max with such warmth in his grey eyes that she had to gulp down a fat gypsy ball of emotion.

‘I’ve known Max since we were sixteen because we went to sixth-form college together. And, really annoyingly, she hasn’t aged as much as some of us.’ There was a ripple
of laughter as he gave his short white-grey hair a stroke from front to back. ‘In fact, inside she hasn’t aged at all. She’s still the fun and fabulous, big-hearted beautiful
person she always was. And she always will be. I have no doubt about that. She could have curled up in a ball and run away today, but she didn’t. And that’s because she’s Maxine
McBride. She doesn’t run, she doesn’t hide; she sticks out her chin and she rides whatever life throws at her. She survives and rises, and she will again. And that’s why I’d
like you to raise your glasses and toast the very wonderful Max. And wish her your support and all your best wishes – and your love.’ He raised his glass and winked at her. ‘To
our Max.’

‘To our Max,’ said everyone in unison, except for Graham, who was too choked up to say the words, and Kay, who was sobbing into a hankie.

Then Auntie Sylvia broke into applause and the room was filled with clapping sounds, with warmth and affection. Max raised her glass and said in a very croaky voice, ‘Thank you. Thank you,
everyone. Thank you, dear Luke.’

Max was still in her wedding dress at nine o’clock that night. She had stripped off the petticoats and kicked off her boots, but everything else remained. Her hips and
waist were aching and rubbed raw and would have benefited from a warm bath and being massaged with Sudocrem, but she didn’t want to take off her lovely dress. She looked in the mirror and a
gypsy bride stared back at her – albeit one with skin the colour of a burned roast. Today she looked like the princess she had always wanted to be. But a princess with the haunted, sad eyes
of Lady Diana when she found that she had a prince-shaped hole in her heart.

The door buzzer went and she looked at the CCTV screen on the wall to find that it was Luke. She padded down the hallway and unlocked the door. He was probably the only person she would have let
in.

‘Are you by yourself?’ he said. ‘Tonight?’

‘Yes. That’s the way I wanted it.’

‘Tough,’ said Luke, and he marched into the lounge, where he threw himself down on the sofa. Max sat down next to him.

‘How long has it been going on?’ she asked him softly.

‘What?’ he asked, with a stir of panic.

‘Stuart’s affair.’

There was a long telling pause before Luke scrambled together an answer. ‘He’s not having an affair.’

‘Luke, you always were a crap liar,’ Max smiled. ‘I saw them.’

Luke opened his mouth to say ‘Saw who?’ but he didn’t want to lie to Max and he didn’t want to tell her the truth and so the words jammed in his throat.

‘There I was in my Cinderella coach driving to the church this morning, sure that Stuart would be waiting at the altar for me. And because the driver thought he’d give me my
money’s worth and go down a few side streets so that I could have extra time to enjoy the ride and wave at the crowds, we passed the greasy spoon on Duke Street,’ said Max, coughing a
croak out of her voice. ‘And there, framed in the window having breakfast together, were my fiancé and Jenny Thompson. As coincidences go, that was a belter.’

‘Oh Jesus,’ said Luke.

‘Let me guess your next question: did they see me? Oh yes. The big loved-up smiles on their faces closed up like clam shells. And then I knew, you see, that he most definitely
wouldn’t be at the church. He told me that I might as well have cut off his willy for how I made him feel. It’s a good job I didn’t, isn’t it? Seeing as he needed it to
stick it in the cleaner’s daughter.’

‘He wasn’t, Max,’ Luke jumped in.

‘Well, if he wasn’t then, he will be now,’ said Max with a brittle, bitter laugh. ‘I haven’t said anything to Bel or Violet. I will eventually, when I’ve got
things straight in my head.’

‘Have you got any brandy?’ said Luke. ‘I think we both need one.’

Max got up to pour out two glasses.

‘I wish I knew what to say to make it all better, Max,’ said Luke.

‘There is nothing,’ said Max. ‘Do you know, I considered turning up at his door and saying, “Look, forget the dress, forget the reception, let’s just tell everyone
it’s off and run away to Gretna Green.” But in the end I wanted to wear my dress more than I wanted to do that. He said we’d grown apart and I didn’t believe him, until he
gave me the space to think about it. Jenny is only one of the reasons why we didn’t get married today.’

‘I think you should get that dress off and climb into a big bubble bath,’ said Luke.

Max took a long slug of brandy. ‘I’m never going to take this dress off,’ she said. ‘I’m going to turn into Miss Havisham. I’ll get the rest of the cake
brought over, put it on the table and wait for the cobwebs to grow over us.’

Luke put his arm round her and pulled her into his shoulder. As strong a woman as Max was, she felt small and soft and crushable at that moment.

‘I won’t let you shut yourself away. You weren’t built for hiding and growing cobwebs,’ he whispered.

‘It’ll save on the laundry if I never change clothes again or go out. I can do all my shopping online.’ Max plucked at the skirt of her dress. ‘How ridiculous everyone
must think I am.’

Luke immediately pulled her round to face him.

‘You’re not ridiculous, Maxine McBride. You’re beautiful.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Max, not giving him eye contact.

‘You are beautiful in this dress and you’d be beautiful in sack cloth and ashes. And anyone who loves you thinks the same.’

‘You’re a lovely man, Luke. But I want to be on my own,’ said Max, feeling the tears rise inside her. His nice words were killing her.

‘Okay.’ He kissed her head and stood to go. ‘Goodnight, Miss McBride. The very wonderful and brave and formidable Miss McBride.’

After Luke had gone, Max filled up her glass and sat back on the sofa. The house felt as chilly and spartan as Stuart always said it did. It was far too big for the two of
them, and characterless. The sofa was stylish but so uncomfortable, the white walls hard on the eyes and unwelcoming.

Max was suddenly plunged into a cold pool of sadness that she and Stuart were over and there was no way back from that. She gulped down the brandy in one, then put the glass on the ugly designer
coffee table in front of her and sobbed until she fell asleep on the hard leather sofa.

‘So, between the three of us, we’ve had two shite weddings. You do realize the pressure that puts you under to give us a good one?’ said Bel, slurping her tea
in the Maltstone Garden Centre coffee shop. It was a week after Max’s wedding debacle and three weeks before Violet’s big day.

Max pushed the last mini cream cake in front of Violet. ‘You have that. You need fattening up a bit. You’re looking particularly scrawny today, if I might say so.’

‘You’re not looking exactly milkmaid-plump yourself,’ said Violet. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m okay,’ said Max with an unconvincing smile.

‘Heard anything from Stuart?’ Bel asked, spitting out his name like a snake that had just been given its VAT bill.

‘Nope. I bagged up his stuff and Luke took it over to his parents’ house. Except Luke brought back the watch and the sweater I bought him for his birthday. He hadn’t even taken
them out of the packaging.’

‘Bumhole,’ hissed Bel.

‘And I found his BMW on the drive yesterday. He’d put the keys back through the letter box. He doesn’t want that either.’

‘Double-bumhole.’

‘Hang on a minute, Bel,’ Violet put in. ‘Surely it would have been worse if he kept them. Do you want some help selling them on?’

‘I can’t be bothered,’ said Max. ‘I think I’ll just stick them in a charity bag.’

‘You can’t stick a BMW in a charity bag!’ cried Bel.

‘Luke’s a lovely caring fella, isn’t he?’ said Violet. ‘You can tell he thinks an awful lot about you.’

Bel noticed that Max’s eyes were starting to look a bit watery. She clapped her hands like a jolly Sunday school teacher.

‘Right, enough of that. Shall we buy a dartboard and pin loads of photos to it?’

Max chuckled. ‘Give us some hope. How are you getting on with Richard?’

‘He’s been in Ukraine for a fortnight on business. I’m seeing him again on Wednesday.’

She sounded very nonchalant about it, Max and Violet both simultaneously thought.

‘Have you actually snogged him yet?’ asked Max.

‘No,’ said Bel. The thought of being intimate again with Richard terrified her, if she was honest. She didn’t so much have a wall round her heart as an armed watchtower and
razor wire. ‘If we got back together? Would you be really annoyed with me?’

Violet tutted. ‘That’s not how friendship works and you know it. It’s your life. We’d be charm itself whenever we happened to be in his company and there for you if you
needed us.’

‘Although we’d be sticking pins in his wax image in the comfort of our own homes,’ added Max. ‘Why, is a reconciliation on the agenda?’

‘Not yet, I just wondered what you’d say. If you’d think I was a disgrace to womankind for taking him back,’ said Bel. Then she turned to Violet. ‘Anyway, are you
going to show us your swanky ice-cream parlour while we’re in the vicinity? When are you planning to open it? Got a date yet?’

‘The first week in August,’ said Violet. ‘When I get back from honeymoon.’

‘In your in-laws’ specially valeted caravan,’ Bel teased. ‘Smashing.’

To Violet’s delight Pav’s van was parked outside the parlour when they crossed the courtyard. She had been under the impression that he was away, working all week in Wakefield. A
local firm had drafted in as many Poles as they could to avoid paying fines that a penalty clause on an unfinished job would incur.