An Enormously English Monsoon Wedding (18 page)

‘Come in!’ Abbie called cheerily.

‘Hiya.’ A young man with rainbow
dreadlocks, which seemed to be at odds with his very severe Swan uniform, beamed into the office. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Abs. Is this the Boswell–Keskar wedding?’

‘It is.’ Abbie nodded.

‘Great. Hoped I’d catch them before they left.’

Abbie blanched. ‘Oh, heavens – we’ve just finished. Please don’t tell me there’s a hiccup?’

‘No … well, not really.’ Rainbow Dreads beamed some more. ‘It’s just that we’ve had a delivery of decorations for the wedding and I wondered if, um, Mr Boswell and Miss Keskar would like to see them before we put them into storage?’

‘Other way round, actually.’ Jay smiled kindly. ‘And are you sure they’re ours? I thought Abbie said everything we’d ordered had already arrived some time ago.’

‘It has.’ Abbie looked at her screen again, then frowned at Rainbow Dreads. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right wedding?’

Rainbow Dreads nodded. ‘Totes, Abs. We haven’t got another Indian-themed one booked, have we?’

‘Ours isn’t just Indian-themed,’ Erin said quickly. ‘It’s fusion.’

‘Call it what you like,’ Rainbow Dreads said happily. ‘This stuff is very Indian. It says so on the labels. They’ve got little Taj Mahals on them. And elephants. The labels, that is. And it says “Boswell and Keskar Wedding” all over it. Must be yours, huh?’

Jay nodded. ‘Maybe it’s something that was missing from our original order?’

‘There was nothing missing,’ Abbie said tersely. ‘I’ve checked everything off personally.’

‘D’ya wanna see it or not?’ Rainbow Dreads asked kindly. ‘Or shall we just label it up to go with your other stuff until the wedding day?’

‘No, no, we’ll have a look at
it,’ Jay said. ‘I’m really curious now. And if it isn’t ours we can arrange to have it sent back.’ He looked at Erin. ‘OK with you?’

‘Absolutely,’ Erin said quickly, hoping they’d manage to escape from Abbie and Rainbow Dreads and the wedding decs that clearly weren’t theirs so they could have time for some blissfully cool solitude down by the river.

Abbie stood up. Despite the heat and the fact that she was wearing the Swan’s corporate navy-blue suit, Erin noticed she looked completely immaculate and unruffled, while Erin in her baggy white linen trousers and pink T-shirt felt like a limp rag. It simply wasn’t fair.

‘Right.’ Abbie nodded at Rainbow Dreads. ‘Leave it with me then. I’ll show Jay and Erin to their storeroom.’

‘Ain’t in their storeroom,’ Rainbow Dreads said cheerfully. ‘Or anyone else’s storeroom. Far too big for the storerooms. It arrived in a huge lorry. It’s in the back delivery courtyard. We’re gonna have to put it somewhere else.’

Erin closed her eyes. Please, please, please, don’t let it be another load of life-sized Indian gods and goddesses.

‘
Too big?
’ Abbie sounded like Lady Bracknell decrying a handbag. ‘
Too big
for the storerooms?’

‘Massive,’ Rainbow Dreads confirmed. ‘We was reckoning we’ll have to use the big shed behind the swimming pool for it. The one where we store the marquees and that sort of stuff.’

Jay grinned. ‘Then whatever it is certainly isn’t ours. We’ve only ordered garlands and small Ganesh statuettes and table lanterns and candles and some silky drapes in the appropriate colours for the wedding and –’

‘Maybe we should just go and see what
it is?’ Erin squeezed his hand, thinking the sooner they got this latest problem out of the way, the sooner they could sit by the river and chill out. ‘Then, if it’s a mistake – which it obviously is – it can be returned to wherever it should go.’

‘Come along then,’ Abbie said briskly. ‘Let’s not waste any more time. Follow me.’

And with Jay and Erin and Rainbow Dreads in pursuit, she click-clacked efficiently out of her office, along several beautiful corridors, beneath various stone archways, and through a massively studded oak door.

Outside, in another of the Swan’s lovely mellow-walled delivery courtyards, where even the one used for the most prosaic of purposes was awash with tumbling roses and fragrant borders and a fountain sending shimmering droplets across the golden flagstones, chaos reigned.

Several other corporately clad Swan employees, although none of them quite so eye-catching as Rainbow Dreads, stood round several highly loaded pallets. The towering contents were swathed beneath multiple layers of opaque plastic.

Erin and Jay simply stared. Erin’s heart was sinking fast. Please, nooo – not more statues. Anything but more statues.

‘What on earth is it?’ Abbie practically stamped her stilt heels. ‘Has anyone even looked yet?’

Everyone shook their heads.

‘Whatever it is, it’s definitely not ours,’ Jay whispered to Erin.

‘Well –’ Abbie looked quite fierce now as she scanned the Swan crowd ‘– who signed the paperwork? Aiden?’

‘Yes, me.’ Aiden, about the same age as Rainbow-Dreads, with razor-cut hair, an earring and an elaborate neck tattoo, nodded.

‘And?’ Abbie glared. ‘What did it say? What have you signed for?’

‘Wedding decorations for Boswell
and Keskar,’ Aiden ventured. ‘And I checked there was no outside damage to the packaging and everything was intact. I ticked off the pallets. They all tallied. I do know my job.’

Erin wanted to give him a round of applause.

‘Well, let’s look then.’ Abbie strode forwards. ‘Goodness me, do I have to do everything myself? Anyone got a Stanley knife so’s I can just nick the corner of this nearest one and see what it is?’

Several knives were offered. Abbie selected the nearest one, opened it and slid the point along one of the plastic layers, then lifted a corner.

Erin blinked, suddenly dazzled by a billion reflections dancing from a million prisms.

‘What the f–. Er …’ Abbie caught herself just in time, ‘I mean, whatever is it?’

She slid the knife through some more of the wrappings. Golden columns, heavily embellished with droplet crystals and entire galaxies of star-burst sequins towered upwards.

‘Jesus,’ Jay groaned. ‘It’s a bloody
mandap
.’

‘A
mantrap
?’ Erin frowned. ‘Are you sure? It’s far too pretty and twinkly for a mantrap.’

‘A
mandap
,’ Jay corrected. ‘It’s an Indian wedding stage – a tent – like a mobile temple within, well, anywhere you want to put it. There’ll be umpteen pillars, all covered in jewels, and matching pedestals, and a pleated silk canopy roof dripping with diamanté, and gaudy thrones and swathes of gold-leafed organza for the walls.’

Oh, goody.

‘Then there must be some mistake, mustn’t there?’ Erin looked hopefully at Jay.

Jay didn’t look too sure.

Abbie was now slashing at the plastic sheets
with all the ferocity of a serial killer on a spree.

Everyone else, including Rainbow Dreads and several of the Swan’s visitors who’d wandered out of the public rooms and clustered round to watch, was silent, staring in awe as the madly exotic components of the
mandap
appeared incongruously in the old courtyard, glittering and dazzling in the scorching sun.

‘Cool!’ Rainbow Dreads breathed ecstatically. ‘It’s just like something out of
Bride and Prejudice.
’

Several of his colleagues tittered.

Jay frowned at him. ‘You’ve seen that film? Really?’

‘I’ve seen them all.’ Rainbow Dreads nodded. ‘
Hide and Seek, Pyaar Impossible!, Bumboo …’

Aiden nodded earnestly. ‘See, me and David dance a lot, so we love all that Indian film stuff. Bollywood isn’t gay, you know? Wicked music, cool moves and seriously hot women – what’s not to like?’

‘Er, nothing,’ Jay said, straight-faced.

Erin stifled a giggle, knowing Jay had never seen a Bollywood film in his life.

Aiden grinned. ‘We started off with street, because David saw himself as the next Ashley Banjo, but everyone was trying to be Diversity and it got a bit crowded, so we started copying the Bollywood shapes. David’s pretty hot.’

David, a.k.a. Rainbow Dreads, looked suitably proud.

‘Really?’ Erin smiled. ‘Then you might like the new dance class that’s starting in Nook Green, then. Strictly Bhangra, apparently.’

‘Wow,’ David looked animated. ‘Really? Cool.’

‘I’ll let you know if and when
it happens,’ Erin promised, giggling inwardly. ‘They’ll definitely be short of men, especially men who can dance.’

‘Ta.’

‘Erin,’ Jay hissed.

‘What?’

‘Forget canvassing for Nalisha’s dance class for a moment. What are we going to do about the
mandap
?’

‘God knows. It’s, um, absolutely huge, although it’s very pretty, but the Swan has a marriage room so we don’t need a temple, even if we were having a Hindu wedding, which we aren’t, so I suppose it’ll have to be sent back to whoever bought it.’

Jay nodded. ‘Exactly what I was thinking. It must be a mistake. It can’t be ours. It’ll have to be returned.’

Erin did a little mental happy dance.

Abbie stopped slashing and triumphantly waved a delivery note. She scanned it quickly then looked at them.

‘Oh, it’s definitely yours. It says so. What the f– um, devil we’re supposed to do with it though, I have no idea. Oh, it looks as if there’s a lengthy personal note in here, too.’ Abbie shook out the paperwork and squinted at it. ‘Oh, crap, over my dead body.’

‘What?’ Jay frowned, his fingers entwining with Erin’s and squeezing them encouragingly. ‘What does it say?’

Wordlessly, Abbie handed the letter across to Jay. Erin stood on tiptoe and read it at the same time over his shoulder.

‘So Jay and Erin are off making the final arrangements at the Swan this afternoon, are they?’ Gina said to Kam, as she collected glasses from a very busy, very hot, Merry Cobbler. ‘It’s all so exciting.’

Kam, leaning on the bar in his faded jeans and T-shirt and nursing an almost-finished glass of lager, laughed. ‘They seem to think so. It’d scare me rigid.’

‘Oooh –’ Gina pulled a mocking face ‘– what a surprise. Another commitment-phobe. You men are all the same.’

‘And I’m deeply insulted.’ Kam grinned and swirled the dregs of his drink. ‘You’ve clearly misunderstood me.’

Gina chuckled. ‘Isn’t that what they all say? “She didn’t understand me.”’

Kam sighed and smiled. ‘Oh, you’re such
a cynical woman. And I do hate being unfairly typecast.’

Gina, in skimpy orange shorts and a tight white vest, undulated her way through the crowded pub, clattered empty glasses onto the bar and raised her eyebrows. ‘Unfairly? Really? Blame Jay then. He’s told us all about your lady-killing activities. And I believe every word.’

She slipped behind the bar and served two customers with cider on ice before grabbing the empties again.

Kam laughed. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. And what I actually meant was, if I ever found my Erin, the love of my life, my soulmate, like Jay has, then I wouldn’t want the sort of big bash British wedding they’ve chosen. That’s all.’

‘Really?’ Gina stopped shoving glasses into the washing-up machine. ‘And what would you choose? The full-on five-week Indian ceremonial fiesta? The sort of thing that you and the rest of your relatives seem to have been trying to persuade Jay and Erin into?’

‘God, no.’ Kam finished his drink. ‘I’ve already told Erin I’d run a mile from all that. I’m happy to be Jay’s best man – and I’m having a bit of fun winding him up by trying to convince him that he absolutely must have a tilak and a
sagai
, just as Nalisha is teasing Erin about her mehendi – but no, that wouldn’t be for me either.’

‘Really? So you’re on his and Erin’s side in all this wedding malarkey, are you?’

‘Totally.’ Kam grinned wickedly. ‘But Jay and Erin haven’t really grasped that yet.’

‘And wouldn’t it be kinder
to tell them? I know Erin’s getting herself pretty screwed up over all the outside interference from Jay’s family, and this close to the wedding it’s the last thing she needs.’

Kam nodded. ‘I’ve already told Erin I’m trying to work out a way to keep everyone happy.’

‘Call me cynical, but from what I’ve seen, I reckon that’s going to be impossible.’

‘Oh, nothing’s impossible. You’ll all just have to trust me.’

‘Trust you? Never in a million years.’

Kam laughed. ‘Funny, that’s more or less what Erin said, too. But seriously, I’ll do my best to make sure they have the wedding they want.’

‘Hmmm – and I’ll believe that when I see it. Oh, sorry – have to go.’ Gina smiled at the new influx of customers. ‘Hello, lovely day – what can I get you?’

Sailing into landlady mode, Gina pulled pints and smiled to herself. Kam fascinated her, and not, she told herself severely, simply because he was smoking hot, either.

It’d be nice to have time to chat to him properly. To find out more about him. It was one of the reasons she loved running the pub. Gina was infinitely curious about everyone. But Kam’s deepest darkest secrets would have to keep for another day. The Merry Cobbler was heaving and Sam and Pearl were both trying to serve three customers at once.

Gina served a very young couple with a Coke and two straws.

Poor little things, Gina thought, watching them fondly as they curled together in a far corner. They had so much to learn. Give them a few weeks and one, or both, of them would have their hearts ripped to shreds and their dreams trampled into dust, like she had. By Doug.

And the one before him.

Pushing her hair behind her ears and sighing, she
reached for another clutch of empty glasses, took an order for three salads and a jacket potato with prawns for the outside tables, and gazed irritably at the empty ice bucket and the equally empty sliced lemon and lime tray.