Diary of an Unsmug Married (19 page)

After what seems like an hour, the man finally begins to speak. ‘Getting sick of foreigners stealing all our jobs,’ he says – very slowly, presumably to compensate for the muffling effect of the stupid helmet. ‘There isn’t a single British dentist left in the bloody NHS.’

Oh, thank God. It’s only Mr Beales. I am torn between relief and fury, just like when Josh and Connie come home unexpectedly late.

‘Of course there is,’ I say, though I have no idea if this is true or not. (My dentist’s from Denmark, I think, or Finland. Somewhere in Scandinavia, anyway.) ‘But it doesn’t matter where they’re from, does it – as long as they’re fully qualified?’

‘Of course it does,’ says Mr Beales, who always knows best, even if he does virtually repeat what you yourself have only just said. ‘You can’t understand a word foreign ones say, especially through the face masks they insist on wearing these days. My new dentist sounds like the Swedish chef from the bloody
Muppets
when he’s got his on. I thought he said he was going to give me a filling, so it was a hell of a shock when he started pulling my tooth out instead.’

Probably felt like
knocking
it out, I should think. I know I do. I have no more patience this week – none at all. And I happen to
love
the Swedish chef.

‘Well, if we’re talking about people who are hard to understand,’ I say, ‘you are too, with that crash helmet obscuring your mouth.’

Then, while said mouth is still presumably hanging open in astonishment, I add: ‘And while we’re on the subject, I would appreciate it if you would never –
ever
– walk into this building again with your face almost totally hidden like that. It’s a serious security risk.’

It’s only when I get back to my desk that I realise the implications of what I’ve just said. And what Johnny meant last night, when he offered to take me away from ‘all this’.

SATURDAY, 24 JULY

At the risk of sounding even more like Victor Meldrew than I usually do,
I
don’t
believe
it!
The perfect end to a perfect day. Why do the rich have all the luck?

What with fretting about crash helmets and burkas, and Johnny’s offer to rescue me from psychotic guinea pigs, I left it far too late to do any chores last night, so I’m tired and grumpy when I wake after only a few hours’ sleep, and with all the packing still to do.

We’ve got absolutely
miles
to drive today.

‘Why do we have to go to this stupid thing?’ says Connie, when I insist that she packs a dress. ‘If David and Susie didn’t mean their vows the first time round, then they shouldn’t have got married at all – should they?’

I avoid answering, as Connie may well have a point. Also, if Max and I didn’t have to spend all our money on a hotel room for David and Susie’s renewal of their wedding vows, we could have had a mini-break or something, which might have refreshed
our
relationship.

As it is, we can’t even afford to get breakfast thrown in, and Connie and Josh are furious that they’ll have to share our family room. I’m not any keener on the idea than they are – seeing as
bang
goes any chance of marital relations. (That was a wholly accidental pun.)

The journey to the Midlands is awful, too. Gone are the days when we could distract the kids with nursery rhyme tapes, or by playing I-Spy. Now we have to listen to Josh’s horrendous Screamo music, in an attempt to drown out the constant bickering between him and Connie. By the time we approach Malksham Priory in the late afternoon, Max and I are totally frazzled.

The forecourt looks like an episode of
Footballers’ Wives
, and a press pack is crowded round a couple whose weekly dentistry bill is probably more than my yearly salary. Josh says that the groom plays for a Premiership team, and that his new bride is a ‘Z-list celebrity’.

I’m feeling distinctly Z-list myself – and even more so, when we have to sneak through the glitterati, while trying to hide a Tesco carrier bag containing our breakfast supplies.‘You could at least have gone to Waitrose,’ I say to Max, but he’s too busy gawking at an Aston Martin that’s just arrived to bother to reply.

Things don’t improve when we get to our room. I’ve just finished stashing the milk and orange juice in the mini-bar, and hiding the boxes of cereal at the back of the wardrobe, when David phones from his and Susie’s room.

‘Molly,’ he says. ‘You’ve arrived at last. Good. I’ve booked a table for seven-thirty in the restaurant downstairs. We’re all meeting there, so see you then.’

Oh,
God
. I gesture frantically at Max, who is staring lovingly out of the window at the Aston Martin and therefore doesn’t notice me.

‘Um, David – can I call you back in a minute?’ I say. ‘I just need to check on something first.’

I hang up before David can object, then drag Max away from the window and explain. To his credit, he realises the seriousness of the situation immediately, and is decisive about what we should do about it, too.

‘Phone David back and tell him Connie and Josh are fussy eaters,’ he says. ‘Then say we’ve promised them a take-away, and that we’ll join everyone for drinks after they’ve finished their meal.’

Brilliant. Or not, as the case may be. At 7.30, we’re still hunting for a take-away in an unfamiliar town, miles from the rural idyll of the priory. In fact, we’d still be searching
now
, if it wasn’t for one of Josh’s more useful mobile phone apps, which eventually helps us to locate a pretty grotty fish and chip shop, situated in a run-down back street.

We gobble down pale, sweaty chips – with the added luxury of fishcakes for the kids – and then race back to the hotel, where Max and I try to make Primark look convincingly like Prada. I doubt it works, plus I’m sure I still smell of vinegar when we finally make it downstairs and into the restaurant.

All the other guests are already well-oiled, have wiped out four courses and are still eating pudding. There are empty wine bottles everywhere, and I have a sudden panic that, at the end of the evening, Max and I will get caught up in that nightmare scenario where the richest person in the room – who has inevitably eaten and drunk the most – decides it would be a good idea to ‘split the bill’, and won’t remember that we haven’t eaten anything at all.

Max seems oblivious to this possibility and is enjoying himself, if attracting a little too much attention from the wife of David’s business partner. She looks like a horse, clad in Boden.

Admittedly, her husband is a chinless wonder, who I’d turn down, despite his millions, so I can’t really blame her for fancying Max – though I think she’s going too far when she tries to sit on his lap. Maybe she thinks he’s a ‘bit of rough’. (Not rough enough, in my opinion, as he doesn’t throw her off. He just puts up with it – looking bemused, but also slightly flattered.)

I get my own back by paying close attention to a gorgeous man on my left, who resembles the Milk Tray Man but with the added benefit of conversational skills. I have no idea what he does for a living beyond ‘working in the City’, but I seem to be holding my end up fairly well so far.

That’s until, during a lull in the general conversation, he says, in a rather carrying voice, ‘Gosh, Molly. You’re
so
articulate. What do you do for a living?’

Quick as a flash, David’s in there. You’d swear there were undervalued shares on offer. ‘She’s one of those socialists, Miles,’ he says. ‘Never grew out of it. Takes pride in abject failure, and all that nonsense.’

I will not rise to it. I will
not
. Who needs enemies, with friends like David? Has he forgotten we used to share a flat, back in the days when he was also broke?

‘Aren’t you going to call me a fascist, Mol, and defend what you believe in?’ he says, getting up and coming to give me a hug. ‘You disappoint me, old girl. Have you lost your faith?’

Honestly, he
never
gives up.

‘After the week I’ve had, I have no idea
what
I believe in,’ I say, but he’s asking for the bill now, and isn’t listening. I breathe a sigh of relief – until he delivers the coup de grâce. As all the rich kids start scrabbling for their platinum cards, he says, ‘Don’t worry, this one’s on me, guys.’

I cannot believe it. I simply
can’t
. David has never picked up a tab in a restaurant in all the years I’ve known him – and my family ate
chips in the car because we couldn’t afford to join him and his other friends for dinner! I didn’t even get a bloody fishcake.

David is right: my life
is
a disaster.

Max obviously thinks so too. He just keeps repeating, ‘This one’s on me, guys’, all the way back to our room. Connie and Josh say nothing at all.

Sometimes silence can be far, far louder than words.

SUNDAY, 25 JULY

Things don’t improve this morning. Max stubs his toe, really hard, while trying to get past Josh in the queue for the bathroom and almost faints. I think he may have broken it.

There’s no time to do anything about it, though, as we’re almost late for the ceremony as it is. (Josh is on a go-slow because he doesn’t want to wear a suit and proper shoes, and Connie’s refusing point-blank to wear the dress I made her bring.) We get there just in time and hide towards the back, where it’s dark – so hopefully no one can see what Josh and Connie have ended up looking like.

‘It’s going well, isn’t it?’ I say to Max, half-way through.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘though it’s not surprising, is it? It’s only five years since the last one. David and Susie can hardly be out of practice.’

‘Well, I think it’s surprisingly moving,
actually
,’ I say. ‘Maybe we should do it, too.’

Max is just about to answer, when he has to move seats to separate Connie and Josh, who’ve started one of those hissing and poking arguments – the kind that get out of control very quickly. You’d never think Josh was in his final year at school, and that Connie had a proper job, albeit only for the summer holidays.

She’s now sitting next to me, sulking, so I have to look past her to see Max, who’s looking very attractive today and does have a firmer chin than most of the other men present. I probably would marry him again.
If
he asked.

He probably wouldn’t, though. I don’t think I’ve lived up to anyone’s expectations so far – and the ‘wedding breakfast’ only confirms this impression. When we find our names on the seating plan outside the function room, we discover we might as well have been seated in Siberia.

We’re quite obviously on the payback table. On my right is the headmaster of David’s old school – the one who expelled David on the grounds that he saw every school rule ‘as a deliberate infringement of his personal liberty’. On Max’s left is the man who sacked David from his first job, for much the same reason.

The numbers are made up by various ex-wives and ex-husbands of the successful individuals who are seated next to the top table, along with their new trophy partners. Everyone on our table has disappointed David in some way or another, apart from the photographer, but
he
soon makes up for that.

God knows where David found him, but he must have come cheap, or should have done. He holds forth – throughout the entire meal – about his last job, which involved taking pictures of a greyhound racing stadium. This is about as interesting as you would expect.

On the odd occasion that he pauses for breath, he pokes at each course as if he has never seen food before, and doesn’t trust it. Then he pounces and suddenly hurls a vast quantity of it into his mouth, which he kindly leaves open while he chews.

He eats
everything
– including a whole load of mussels which have remained closed, but which he determinedly prises open. I can’t be bothered to advise him not to, as I think he’d probably stab his fork into my hand and accuse me of trying to shaft him if I did.

By the time the band arrive for the evening’s entertainment, the photographer is nowhere to be seen and, as Max and I approach to say our goodbyes, we find David shouting into his mobile phone.

‘What d’you mean you
think
you’ve got food poisoning? You ate the same as everyone else!’ He pauses and then says, ‘Well, if you let me down this evening, you’ll be hearing from my solicitor.’

‘Problems?’ I ask, trying to resist giving way to schadenfreude.

‘Muppet photographer says he’s got food poisoning. Reckons he can’t stop throwing up. So now I’ve got to find someone else to take decent pictures of the dancing. I’m not flying in a ten-piece band from Cuba to end up with no proper record of it.’

David’s eyes are scanning the room as he speaks. Then he spots Max’s camera. ‘
Max
, my old mate—’

‘Sorry, David – I can’t.’ Max hides his pleasure well. ‘We’ve just come to say goodbye. Got to head for home now.’

‘Oh, that’s
right
. Our Molly can’t have a day off from saving the world from capitalists.’

I smile sweetly, and say, ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure one of your more financially astute guests will be happy to take on the job of photographer – for a fee.’

David laughs, so I forgive him. As usual. He
is
my oldest friend, after all – though I bet I’d have been much further up the table hierarchy if I’d married Johnny.
He
probably wouldn’t be seen dead here, though. David’s courier company is hardly global
,
even with a lowercase ‘G’.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it? Not when I’m really looking forward to getting home, snuggling up to Max on the couch, and listening to him snore. I’m not cut out for a glittering social life.

MONDAY, 26 JULY

I’m quite glad to arrive at the office today as The Boss is back in London – or, rather, I
am
glad, until I get a call from the Jobcentre saying we may start getting complaints about lack of access to their building. They’ve been forced to temporarily close it to the public as Mr Meeeeurghn has kicked off again and sent them into lock-down mode. Something to do with being turned down for a payment from the Social Fund.