Amanda's Wedding (2 page)

‘Unh huh. So, what are we going to wear?'

Amanda flounced into the bar on time. She was a three Ps girl – pert, pretty and petite.

‘Darlings, hi!' she crowed across the bar. I forgot: when she got posh, she also got
loud
.

‘White wine OK?'

‘Special Brew for us, Amanda,' shouted Fran. ‘But in a glass.'

Amanda finally wandered over with the drinks, after checking to see if she knew anyone, perched down on her perfect arse and turned to us with a smile like a morning weathergirl.

‘What's your news, then?' I asked helpfully.

‘You'll never guess what, girls!'

‘Ehm, you've won the lottery, for double world fairness? You're actually a man? You're pregnant by forty sailors?' Fran said the last bit under her breath.

‘I'm ENGAGED!!!'

‘Oh my God! Who to?' we yelled simultaneously.

‘You know him, Mel. You remember – Fraser McConnald, from Durham.'

‘Fraser who?' said Fran.

But I remembered. Sweet big gentle Fraser, with the scraggy hair and old clothes. I fancied him madly, he ignored it, so I followed him around pretending to be his mate instead. Not one of my proudest moments. God, did this girl have to win
all
the time?

‘You and Fraser! Arse Bastards!' I said. ‘And also, I mean, wow, you're getting married! Congratulations, that's wonderful! God, and
quick
!'

Fraser never did anything quickly, I seemed to remember. I had a flash of him mooching about the college, trying to find somewhere to sit down and stretch out his incredibly long legs.

‘Oh, I know.' She displayed the ring on her perfectly manicured finger. ‘He says I just swept him off his feet! Hee hee hee!'

Swept him off his feet? Or ran him over with a steamroller? Fraser didn't even
like
being swept off his
feet, I thought mutinously. Fraser liked striding about in the hills and reading
Viz
magazine and failing his engineering exams.

‘I remember him,' said Fran, ‘… a couple of times when I came up. Lanky bloke. Lank. He didn't seem like your type …'

‘Yes, well,' simpered Amanda.

‘How did you meet him? Chess club?'

‘No, actually, it was the funniest thing … I was purring …'

‘What?' I said.

‘Oh, my job, darling, you know.'

Grrrrr.

‘I was working for these clients from Edinburgh who are launching some ancient castles guide. Anyway, who should I see in the portfolio brochure but my old friend from university, Fraser.'

I didn't point out that she can't have said two words to him the whole time, as he blushed a lot, and wore the same pair of Converse trainers every day for three years.

‘Anyway, so I thought I'd go see him for a drink –'

‘Hang on,' interrupted Fran, ‘what the hell was he doing in a brochure? Was it a brochure for Converse trainers?'

Amanda tinkled her tinkly laugh. ‘No, actually – and you'll think this is just mad: me, little Amanda Phillips from Portmount Comprehensive …'

Uh-oh.

‘What?' demanded Fran.

‘Well, actually … he's a laird!'

‘A what?!'

I knew, though.

‘Oh, I know, isn't it cute? Well, it's like a lord – only Scotch!'

‘Is this true?' Fran looked at me.

‘Ehm, I knew his uncle was. Maybe if his dad died, I suppose …'

Amanda looked at me in shock. ‘Melanie, you knew all that time and you didn't tell me!'

‘Amanda, you met him once at a party, and you said he smelled funny.'

‘No-o, that can't have been me.' She laughed again. ‘
Anyway
–'

‘Did he smell funny?' Fran asked me.

‘Only when it rained.'

‘
Darlings
!' said Amanda, with an edge in her voice. ‘This is my BIG NEWS!'

We settled down, and her coy smile came back.

‘
Anyway
, by sheer coincidence I spoke to the castles people and they gave me his mother's number, and she had his home number and it was just across London, so we got together and we had so much in common; we laughed and laughed … Then we went off to look at his land deeds, then one thing led to another at the Caledonian Ball …'

‘
What
a coincidence!' said Fran.

‘… and now I am going to be Lairdess Amanda Phillips-McConnald!' finished Amanda, all in one breath.

There was a silence.

‘Hey, his name's Phillips too?' said Fran.

‘No, no! You see, I'm keeping my name
and
taking
his name. It's a feminist statement really. Didn't you see me in
Tatler
?'

Fran said later my eyes were like saucers. So she asked, ‘Is he rich?'

‘Don't be silly, darling. What's in Scotland?'

‘History? Great natural beauty? Mel Gibson?'

‘Sheep and alcoholics, darling. No, he hasn't a bean … and there's a “castle” to do up – he couldn't pay for that looking at bridges all day long.'

Then Amanda went completely off on one about her interior design plans for the castle. I'd been there. (Fraser had asked a bunch of us along, but I'd tried to pretend it was a private outing for me alone.) It was really just an impressive exterior, two habitable rooms, and a Calor Gas heater, but she clearly didn't know that yet, given the lengths she was prepared to go to to put metal walls in it.

‘I thought we'd go for a cutting-edge, post-industrialist look,' she was saying.

I knew I had to say something – anything – at this point. So I followed my time-honoured rule of saying the first thing that comes into my head:

‘Wow, so really it's like a class-weds-money type of thing! That's practically …'

I was going to say Hogarthian, but too late. I got a look that could peel an apple whole, and a very long pause. Eventually:

‘Well, of course, us Phillips can trace our ancestry back pretty far.'

‘What, to Woking?' said Fran.

‘Ha ha, very funny.' She turned. ‘Are you getting
married, Fran? Oh no, I forgot, you're not seeing anyone, are you? Because maybe, if you ever do, we could make fun of you for a change.'

Fran raised her eyes to heaven and headed back to the bar for more drinks.

Tantrum over, Amanda leaned in chummily. ‘So, you and Fraser were quite close, weren't you?' She smiled, as if to show that this
didn't
mean
ENVY ME! ENVY ME!

‘Not really,' I said, meaning:
Well, I fancied him and he completely ignored me
.

‘Oh, you
must
come to the wedding. It's going to be absolutely wonderful. Daddy simply
insists
on making a fuss.'

Amanda's dad had been married about four times since we were sixteen. He got a discount.

‘I'd love to.' I would be generous. She was the first of my friends to get married, and to a lovely bloke. Why shouldn't I be happy? Without warning, a thought of Alex popped into my head, and I winced.

‘Great! Oh, I'm sorry I can't make you a bridesmaid, but Larissa and Portia are
such
good friends from varsity, I just had to ask them.'

‘Oh,
right
…'

‘You will meet someone, Melanie, you know. Someone nice. Such a shame about Alex dashing off like that. He was a bit of a one, wasn't he? And of course so terribly well connected.'

Meaning what exactly? I put my drink down, rather too emphatically.

‘Well, I don't care about that, and I don't care about Alex.'

‘No, of
course
you don't,' she said, patting me on the hand in an infuriating manner.

I was constantly forgetting Amanda's true potential for sheer malice. Revising my earlier estimate, I hoped she'd have a poxy marriage and get divorced before we'd finished the cake.

Fran came back with the drinks, but Amanda immediately hopped up and said she had to be elsewhere. She shook back her blonde sheet of hair – rootless – and sashayed her pert little leather-trousered arse out the door to her latest-model convertible, mobile phone already clamped to her ear, waving merrily behind her, off to somewhere infinitely more glamorous and exciting than the pub on a Friday night.

Fran and I sat in silence for a bit, till Fran said, ‘Sod that, then!' and we drank her white wine as well as ours. Then we had another one to cheer ourselves up, and then a couple more, and before long we didn't care that Amanda Phillips had found her handsome – if scruffy – prince and was going off to live in a castle. Much.

Much, much later we were yabbering nonsensically about the last bloke Fran metaphorically kicked in the bollocks and threw out the house – actually, when I came to think of it, she had
literally
kicked him in the bollocks, and he had limped out of the house of his own accord – when across the crowded pub I spied
what looked like a familiar pair of knees. Following upwards, I deduced that it was in fact Nicholas, tallest accountant in the world. (How did I know him again?) Gosh, he was tall. I liked tall.

I tugged on Fran's sleeve. ‘Look –'s Nicholas.'

Fran looked roughly over. ‘Wanker,' she said.

Had Fran not said wanker about every bloke we'd mentioned for the last hour and a half I might have listened to her and saved myself some trauma. Instead, I waved at him in huge circular motions. ‘Knickerless!' And I dissolved in giggles. He flew over and gave me a big kiss. Oh, we must have been old friends, then.

‘Melanie,
fantastic
to see you. I've just been having another crazy night out with the accountants.'

I squinted to make out anyone else who'd been at the other end of the bar, but they all seemed to have mysteriously disappeared.

‘God, we're mad. Can't see us getting home tonight without a police caution! Chaw chaw chaw!'

‘Buy's a drink, Nicklas! You're loaded!'

‘Sure, babe.' And he did so with the fervour of a man who knew only too well just how much alcohol he usually had to get down a woman to get her to sleep with him.

In normal circumstances I would have run six miles from Nicholas, whom I had accidentally slept with at a party once because he was, er, very tall. He'd phoned me up constantly since and I'd realized that, tall though he might be, he was also the most boring bastard who'd ever lived. In fact, he was the most boring
accountant
who'd ever lived. After the inevitable
grilling I'd caught from Fran when he turned up to pick me up in stonewashed jeans and pink cowboy boots, I'd made Linda answer the phone for a month. Now here he was again, and he was desperate, and I was desperate for attention – a deadly combination.

Ensconced in a corner next to Fran – who looked half-asleep, but with a drowsy look that said she could still bite you on the face if you thought about trying anything – Nicholas started telling me all the latest pranks him and his fantastic accounting mates had been up to. By the time they'd finally got on the coach they'd hired to go see Bryan Adams, I was about to gnaw off my own hands in despair. With impeccable drunk logic, I decided I'd better kiss him to get him to shut the fuck up. It wasn't the easiest of tasks; almost on a par with climbing a tree. While pissed out of your head. So, once I got to the top, I decided I'd better stay until the tree fell asleep. I'd crawled from under the wreckage the following morning.

‘So now what am I going to do?' I complained to Fran. ‘There's a big stinky man in my bedroom, whom I hate, and if I go in and wake him he'll start telling me hysterical stories about tax again.'

‘So?'

‘So, ehm, could you go … like, ask him to move?'

‘Me! Why me? You're the one with all his saliva! Anyway, plus, what if he's naked?'

‘Oh, right, you've never seen a naked man before?'

‘Not one that's six foot seven. It'll put me right off my sausage sandwich.'

Suddenly my ultra-loud doorbell rang, which made us both jump. Fran and I looked at each other and I limped dourly towards the door to stop the infernal noise.

WHOP! Straight out of my bedroom, an absolutely starkers, very hungover, six foot seven man ran full into me in panic, and it didn't look like he had the faintest idea what galaxy he was in.

‘IS THERE A FIRE?!'

We stood for a while, looking straight at each other like rabbits caught in headlights. Then my psyche made an independent decision to turn me into my mother for as long as necessary.

‘No, Nicholas, of course there's not. Go get dressed immediately! Now! – before I open the door.'

He blinked and retreated without saying a word, headed for the bedroom, then did a quick U-turn and made a bolt for the loo, where I could soon hear him having a six foot seven pee. Well, it was either him or a passing horse had got in there. So I had solved one problem – getting him out of my bedroom – and discovered another. Maybe I could keep him locked in there for ever and the neighbours would let us use their shower.