The Nearly-Weds
The Nearly-Weds
Also by Jane Costello
Bridesmaids
First published in Great Britain by Pocket Books, 2009
An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Jane Costello, 2009
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
Pocket Books & Design is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc.
The right of Jane Costello to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84739-088-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-84739-827-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox and Wyman,
Reading, Berkshire RG1 8EX
For Lucas, with all my love
Acknowledgements
Thank you to all those people behind the scenes who have played such a crucial part in the creation of this book.
They are my agent Darley Anderson (I haven’t stopped feeling lucky since he agreed to represent me) and the immensely talented team at Simon and Schuster UK, particularly Suzanne Baboneau, Julie Wright and Libby Vernon.
Thanks also to Doris Alexander and Sarah and Jack Shulman for their help with the Americanisms.
As ever, I am indebted to my parents, Jean and Phil Wolstenholme, for their love and support.
Finally, thank you to Jon, whose input I value enormously, despite my suspicion that he’d prefer to be reading
Middlemarch.
Contents
Chapter 1
I’m trying my best to create the air of a sophisticated world traveller but am not entirely sure I’m pulling it off.
With hindsight, I probably gave the game away immediately by enthusiastically testing one too many fragrances at Duty Free, leaving me now exuding an aroma so pungent it could wake someone from a coma.
I’ve also been let down by my ethnic-style cotton top, the one I was convinced looked like an item I’d picked up somewhere fabulously exotic in the South Pacific – until I discovered the price tag poking out, revealing that I in fact paid £44.99 for it in Monsoon.
And maybe I didn’t look quite as streetwise as I’d hoped by being the very first to camp out at Gate 65, beating a large group of Saga holidaymakers by at least half an hour.
Now I’m actually in the air, it’s still happening: my status as a long-haul travel amateur is being ruthlessly exposed at every turn.
I’m currently attempting to balance all the empty packaging from my in-flight meal on top of a ludicrously proportioned tray and an undrinkable cup of coffee without it tumbling on to my neighbour’s lap and leaving his tackle with third-degree burns. It’s like a real-life version of Kerplunk, with every item threatening to wobble off at the slightest hint of turbulence.
Unlike the American gentleman sitting next to me – he has cleverly tucked his lemon-scented freshening wipe into his empty teacup and neatly stacked the salt and pepper packets, plus the mini butter tub, in his tasty beef casserole container – I have ended up with an unruly compost heap of plastic and foil debris.
‘Shall I take that for you, madam?’ asks a stewardess, swiping it away before I can prevent a knife clattering on to my table.
‘Whoopsadaisy!’ I hoot, sounding not very like the cosmopolitan member of the jet-set I’m hoping to appear. I pick it up and attempt to hand it to her, but she’s off already, steamrolling her trolley down the aisle and nearly taking the skin off several passengers’ knuckles.
I glance to my side and realize my neighbour is eyeing my knife dubiously.
‘Oh, well.’ I shrug. ‘Who knows when I might need a plastic knife complete with generous smothering of butter?’
He smiles.
It isn’t a particularly conspiratorial smile, though, one that belies a flicker of amusement. It’s sympathetic, revealing pity for the poor creature next to him who must surely be on day-release from a psychiatric ward.
I lean back in my seat, mentally humming a song that was always on the radio when I was little and Mum was cremating the Sunday dinner: ‘I’m leaving on a jet plane . . . la la la . . . la la la la la la la . . .’
Oh, never mind. I’m sure the words will come back to me. And, anyway, it’s the sentiment behind them that matters. The song, I assume, is about embracing new beginnings. About moving on. About discovering a whole new world.
Which is exactly what I’m doing right now.
As you may have guessed, however, flying halfway across the world by myself isn’t something I’ve ever done before: easyJet to Barcelona for a two-night hen weekend, yes; two weeks in Turkey with boyfriend in tow, not a problem; a week with the girls in the South of France, bring it on.
But three and a half thousand miles across the Atlantic?
And possibly for good?
No.
Except here I am. Actually doing it. Even if I wish it was with rather more panache.
Chapter 2
When I was at primary school, my best friend was called Elizabeth. She was of Jamaican origin but she was Scouse through and through – and had an accent so thick it could have unblocked a toilet.
Even at ten, Elizabeth knew what she wanted to do with her life: to see the world. She wanted to climb mountains, trek through rainforests and see as many different places and meet as many different people as she could. I found out last year that she’d graduated from Oxford, travelled for two years and now works for the Red Cross in Stockholm.
I mention this merely to illustrate a point: that if a scale existed to measure how adventurous your twenties were – according to conventional wisdom, at least – Elizabeth’s life would be at one end and mine would probably be at the other.
For the past seven years, until last Friday, in fact, I’ve worked as a nursery nurse in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool that fancies itself posh. Actually, I’m doing myself down a bit: by the time I left, I’d risen to deputy manager (the youngest they’d ever had, as my mother informs anyone she meets within the first thirty-two seconds of conversation).
This achievement doesn’t so much reflect ruthless ambition, as the simple fact that I love my work.
Really
love it. Which is a constant relief, given that I embarked on this career after dropping out of my first year of a law degree (something my mother informs anyone she meets within the next thirty-two seconds of conversation).
The real point is that Bumblebees Nursery is precisely six minutes’ walk from the house in which I grew up, twenty-one minutes’ drive from the hospital in which I was born, and so close to my former secondary school that if you look out of the nursery’s attic on tiptoe you can still see some graffiti referring to a snog I allegedly had with Christopher Timms in the lower sixth. (This, by the way, was someone’s attempt at irony. At seventeen, Christopher Timms was renowned for lighting his own farts with such regularity he needed his own Fire Incident Support Unit.)
The pond-like existence I have somehow maintained for my entire twenty-eight years on this earth is – I am fully aware – slightly tragic, but, in my defence, I’ve got a good excuse. No, two good excuses: I found a job I adored and a man I adored.
So, why would I want to give them up?
I shift in my seat in another vain attempt to make myself comfortable. It’s a space that would fail EU regulations for transporting poultry, never mind people. But it’s no good. I lost all sensation in my bum cheeks a good two hours ago and I’m not likely to get it back any time soon.
I pick up my rucksack for want of something – anything – to do and take out my compact mirror to examine my reflection. It isn’t a pleasant experience.
I’m not saying that under normal circumstances I’d threaten any of Eva Longoria’s L’Oréal contracts but until recently I’ve been relatively okay with my looks. I inherited good bone structure from Dad’s side of the family, good legs from Mum’s and I’ve even – after many years of angst – learned to live with the washboard stomach I sadly didn’t inherit from either.
At the moment, though, my most striking feature is not the dark eyes or full mouth I used to be complimented on, but my skin – which is so pale I look as if I need basting. I went for one of those spray tans a couple of weeks ago to see if its advertised ‘natural, golden glow’ would sort me out. Unfortunately, my knees and elbows ended up with such an alarmingly orange tinge that I’m convinced the beautician who applied it must have been sniffing glue.
To add insult to injury, in less than a month, my size ten–twelve frame – the one I took so utterly for granted that I even managed to complain about it at least twice a day – has somehow been replaced with one that is precisely sixteen and a half pounds heavier (and counting).
Yes, you read that right: sixteen and a half pounds. If you hadn’t realized until now that it was physiologically possible to put on that much weight in such a short time, then I assure you, neither had I. But it is – and I have. Probably because I’ve spent the last couple of months comfort-eating for Britain.
What has caused all this?
Oh, what do you think? A man. Obviously.
My
man. At least, he
used
to be my man.
I can now say categorically that Jason Redmond – high-flying accountant, pool champion, charmer of friends and parents alike, oh, and love of my life – no longer answers to that description.