A Groom With a View (14 page)

Read A Groom With a View Online

Authors: Sophie Ranald

“Why don’t I put that on my list?” Erica said. “What was the name of the shop again?”

“That would be brilliant, thanks Mum. If you’re able to go that, then I can finish off the playlist I’ve been putting together for the band, and do the labels for the vodka miniatures – we did decide Grey Goose for the favours, didn’t we? Let me write down that address for you.”

I pulled the pillow over my head, but it didn’t help – I could still hear them.

“It’s no good,” I said to Spanx, “We can’t lie here lazing about when they’ve been up doing Wedmin for shagging hours already. Come on, get your fluffy orange arse out of bed.” I pushed him gently away and he stalked off in high dudgeon, his stripy tail curved like an affronted question mark.

I showered and dressed and sloped through to the kitchen, feeling both useless and guilty.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Nick said. “I was going to bring you a coffee earlier but you were out like a light. I think you’re still jet lagged, you know.”

I switched on the kettle, and said rather testily that you don’t get jet lag on overnight flights when the time difference is only two hours.

“Well, I’m delighted you had a good sleep, anyway,” Erica said pointedly, “because you’ve got a busy day ahead of you, if your to-do list is anything like as long as Nick’s.”

Did I? Actually, I’d been thinking it would be rather nice to wander down to Maltby Street and pick up some coffee and custard doughnuts, then spend the afternoon on the sofa with Spanx and the duvet, catching up on
EastEnders
until it was time to open a bottle of wine and watch
The X Factor
. But something told me Erica would take a dim view of that plan.

“Er. . . yes,” I said. “I’ve actually got an appointment to try on dresses at. . .” I racked my brains, “Liberty! I’ve not been there and they’ve apparently got a really good selection.”

Erica nodded approvingly. “Well, I’ll be heading into town later so why don’t I come along and have a look too? I’m beginning to think your expectations must be unrealistic, Pippa, because it’s quite absurd that you haven’t found anything suitable yet. A bit of firm guidance. . .”

“No!” I said. “No, thank you, Erica. I’ve agreed to meet Katharine. We’re going to have lunch first and then she wanted to go shopping for. . . er. . . vibrators. So really, I must be off.”

Blushing furiously (I’ve never been a convincing liar), I stuffed my purse, phone and keys into my bag, put my coat on and hurried out.

Once I emerged into the street, I’d rather run out of steam. What the hell was I going to do? I’d effectively exiled myself from the flat for the rest of the day, and I had no intention of embarking on another soul-destroying wedding dress-shopping session, even if there was any chance I’d be able to get a last-minute appointment, which there wasn’t. I thought of getting the train to Hampshire and going to visit Mum and Dad or Callie and Phoebe, but I couldn’t face more wedding talk. I could go and see a film, but there wasn’t anything on that I wanted to watch.

So I went to Borough Market and bought three kilos of springbok steak, and then got the Tube to work and spent the afternoon in the kitchen, happily experimenting with recipes for the rather tastelessly named ‘More Bang for your Buck’ episode of
Guido’s African Safari
until I had them nailed.

It was after eight that evening when I got home. I felt so buoyed up by my successful day that I think I might have actually been singing when I opened the front door, and I called out a cheery “Hello!” to Nick and Erica, who were sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of red and a takeaway from the Vietnamese place.

“Hey Pip,” Nick said. “We ordered you some meatball pho, is that okay?” He paused, his chopsticks halfway up to his mouth. “Pip? You look. . . You’ve done it, haven’t you? You’ve found a dress!” And he pushed back his chair and swept me up in a massive hug and spun me round. “I could tell as soon as you walked in! Look at you, you’re grinning like a loon! Is it cool? No, don’t tell me, I want it to be a surprise!”

Christmas with Nick has always been my absolute favourite time of the year. With Erica abroad and my parents choosing to spend most of their Christmasses travelling to exotic destinations together (“The south coast of England in December!” Mum always laments, “Could anything, anywhere be more depressing?” This year they were off to Vienna to watch operas and eat sachertorte), we’ve never had any family obligations, and although one year we hosted Christmas lunch for a few of our similarly unencumbered friends, mostly we loved just being alone together.

We had various little rituals and traditions that were just ours. On Christmas Eve we’d order a curry and watch
Love, Actually
on Netflix. We made Christmas stockings for each other, filled with random, silly gifts (and one for Spanx with new toy mice, Dreamies and a tin of corned beef, which is his favourite thing in the world) and opened them in bed as soon as we woke up. Nick made bacon sandwiches for breakfast and we ate them with a glass of his lethal bloody Mary, then went for a walk along the river, laughing about how tasteful everyone else’s Christmas trees were compared to ours. After we got home I’d change into the beautiful new underwear Nick always put in my stocking and one of my less saggy jumper dresses, we’d open the first of several bottles of prosecco and start cooking together.

By the end of the day we’d be smug and sated, congratulating ourselves on our good food and good fortune, before dancing badly together to the cheesiest of our favourite songs and falling into bed long after midnight.

Like I say, perfect. But somehow this year I wasn’t looking forward to it as much as I usually did. I’d even felt a bit let down, instead of delighted like I would have expected to feel, when Erica announced that she was off to spend a few days with Andrew and Barbara in Halifax, no doubt feasting on Aunt Bessie’s roast spuds and sprouts that had been in the pressure cooker since the clocks went back.

When Erica was around, especially when she was being her most insufferable, she successfully distracted me from the fact that I was constantly annoyed with Nick – a low-grade, niggling annoyance that threatened to spill over into anger at any second. Her presence made it difficult for the horrible tension between us to escalate into an actual argument, and I was afraid, once we started a row, of exactly how and where it would end.

Nick must have sensed my mood, because he was carefully solicitous of me. When I said, “Shall I ring the Ivory Arch, then?” Nick said, “No, don’t worry, Pip, I’ll do it. Why don’t we have lamb rogan josh, I know you like it better than vindaloo?” even though vindaloo was what we had every year. He pressed pause on the remote control when I got up to put the kettle on, even though we’d seen the film so many times I could practically recite it in my sleep. He kept asking me if I was okay and not too tired and having a nice time. And the more solicitous he was, the more irritable I became.

Even the contents of my stocking were more lavish than usual. Instead of the usual panic-buy from Debenhams, he’d splashed out and bought me a beautiful silk bra and French knickers from La Perla. There were chocolates from L’Artisan instead of the usual family pack of wine gums, and a gorgeous cashmere cardigan, and even a pair of real pearl earrings.

“I thought maybe you’d want to wear them for the wedding,” he said, looking all pleased and shy.

I was appalled by how much it all must have cost, and dreadful that I’d bought all his presents in one hasty Amazon order, and my guilt made me feel even crosser.

“Shall we head out for a stroll?” Nick said, once the stockings were opened, the bloody Mary drunk and Spanx happily mauling his catnip giraffe.

But when we opened the front door, it was pissing with rain.

“Let’s not bother,” I said.

“Go on, Pip!” said Nick. “We’ll wear wellies and take an umbrella. It’ll be fun. I’ll run you a hot bath when we get back, with some of that whatsit Provence stuff I put in your stocking.”

I said, “No, I don’t really feel like it.”

So Nick went for a run on his own and I put the oven on to cook our dinner and started to peel chestnuts in a resentful sort of way, and thought how ungrateful and petulant I was being, and how I really needed to snap out of it. But I couldn’t.

“Pippa,” Nick said later, once we were sitting at the table with our first glass of fizz, the flat beginning to fill with the smell of roasting goose, “we need to talk.”

“Do we?” I said.

“I think we do,” he said. “Something’s wrong, and you’re not telling me what it is. I know it’s been hard for us to have time together, with Mum staying. You’ve been so good to her, and she really appreciates it. And I know it’s been crazy for you, and with your hen night coming up next week, and then your trip to South Africa, and then obviously the wedding. . . There’s so much going on, and I think you’re worrying about stuff. I wish you’d talk to me.”

Spanx jumped on to my lap and I scratched his bristly chin. I could feel a flood of words building up in my chest – about the wedding, about Bethany’s reappearance on Nick’s blog and in his life, and about the other thing, the one we never spoke about. But I had no idea how to begin to get them out. “I’m just a bit stressed, I guess. Work, you know.”

“Pip, I don’t think that’s what it is. Come on. You’re loving work at the moment. It’s hectic and everything, but when you talk about it. . . That’s the only time you seem really happy.”

“Nick, I am happy!” I protested. “You know I am, and I love you. I’m just a bit worried about the wedding.” I took a gulp of prosecco and a deep, slightly trembly breath.

“Pip. You don’t need to worry about the wedding,” Nick said. “Now you’ve found your dress – and I can’t tell you how happy I am for you about that – there’s nothing more for you to worry about. Mum, Callie and I are on the case. Everything’s booked and sorted and all the deposits are paid. And you mustn’t feel bad about me having done more of that than you. Are you worried things won’t be right? I know you want everything to be perfect but we’ve done our best to make it be the kind of day you’d want. Shall we have a look at the USB Stick of All Knowledge? It’s all on there. If there’s anything you really want to change I’m sure it won’t be too late, you must just say.”

God, how I wished it was just a question of telling him I wanted pink peonies rather than snowdrops, or for Callie’s dress to be Cadbury purple rather than the silvery grey she’d chosen, which I only knew about because I’d seen a picture of it on Nick’s blog.

“It’s not that,” I said. “You’ve all been amazing, I appreciate it so much. But I just feel kind of like. . . Brocklebury Manor, you know? The whole thing. It’s got so huge and it’s not what I imagined we’d have, really, ever.”

“God, I know what you mean!” Nick said. “I didn’t, either. Mum’s been so generous. I never thought, when we went to Iain’s wedding and it was all so fabulous, that we’d ever have anything like it. But we are. It’s kind of daunting, isn’t it?”

I wanted to scream with frustration. How could I tell him that I didn’t bloody want an identikit stylish wedding in a country house hotel with hundreds of his relatives there and flower girls and pageboys and the most boring menu known to man? How the hell could I possibly tell him I’d lied about the dress? And if I couldn’t talk about those things, how could I talk about the stuff that actually mattered?

“I’m just going to baste that goose.” I opened the oven and over the sound of sizzling fat, I said, “It’s too late to change things now, anyway. We’ve only got a month and a bit.”

“It’s not too late! Pippa, all that matters is that you’re happy. Is it the food? I can email Hugh, and we can make a plan for you to go down there and see him again and change anything you want to change. Bollocks to the cousins, it’s your wedding and if you want truffled foie gras and roast nightingale, that’s what you must have.”

He stood up and put his arms round me from behind. I turned round in his embrace, my hands still in the oven gloves, and looked up at him. I could feel tears starting to pour down my face, which was hot and scarlet from the heat of the oven.

“I don’t care about the food,” I said, “Well, I do, obviously. But that’s such a small thing. I’m more. . .”

“Here,” Nick said, “sit down. I’ll top up your glass. Spanx wants to know what’s wrong, and so do I. Come on, tell us.”

“When you say it isn’t too late to change things. . .” I began.

But then there was a knock at the door.

“Leave it,” Nick said. “It’ll be Jehovah’s Witnesses, or something.”

“No, I’ll get it.” I blew my nose on a piece of kitchen roll and went to the door, just as the knock came again and a familiar voice called, “Nick? Pippa? Are you there?”

It was Iain. He had the beginnings of a spectacular black eye, and there was blood all over his white shirt.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ring first,” he said. “I couldn’t. Katharine chucked my mobile in the fishtank.”

Once we’d got him changed into a jumper of Nick’s and given him a stiff whisky, and reassured him that it was totally fine, he hadn’t interrupted anything at all, it was only Christmas dinner after all, and Iain had stopped shaking quite so much, Nick said, “Surely Katharine didn’t do that to you, did she?”

“Katharine? God, no,” Iain said. “It was some bloke I’ve never seen before. I know who he is now, obviously, but until today I didn’t have a fucking clue he even existed. Because Ludmilla never fucking said.”

I had a pretty good idea what he was on about, of course, but Nick didn’t. So I turned my back to them and started cutting crosses in sprouts, and listened in silence while Iain spilled the beans.

“I’m a total shit, I know,” he said. “I feel like the world’s biggest cunt. But you know how it is. Ludmilla’s only twenty-two. She made it so easy. She was so, like, grateful for everything. She admired me. And Katharine. . . nothing I do is good enough for her. Because she deserves everything to be the best, obviously. And I let her down. And I deserve this, totally.” He gestured at his rapidly swelling nose.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go to A&E?” said Nick.

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