The flowers alone involved five thousand refrigerated tulips arriving from Holland and a flower specialist and his six assistants flying in from New York. The cake was to be a twelve-foot-high replica of the Statue of Liberty, but was to be made of ice cream so couldn't be prepared until the last minute. A marquee, big enough to hold five hundred guests, was to be set up in a field in Kildare on Monday night and transformed into an Arabian Nights Wonderland by Thursday morning. Because Davinia — in every other respect an obliging, sensible girl - had elected to get married in a tent in January, I was still trying to track down enough heaters to ensure we didn't freeze. Among other things… Many,
many
other things. It was a real stamp of approval that Davinia had picked me to pull together her dream wedding. But the
stress
, I can't
tell
you — chefs could get food poisoning, florists could develop sudden pollen allergy, hairdressers could break their wrists, the marquee could be vandalized and, at the end of the day, the problem was mine.
But I couldn't tell Mam any of the details because they were strictly confidential and she was even worse than me at keeping secrets — half the locality already knew about the tiramisu bar.
'But if you go to work, what about me?'
'Maybe we could get one of the neighbours in to sit with you.'
Silence.
'Is that OK? Because, you see, it's my job, they pay me to be there, and I've been away for two days already.'
'What neighbours?'
'Ehhmm…'
A recent shake-down had seen a change in the fabric of the local community. One minute it seemed that all the neighbours were women of Mam's age and older, and were called Mary, Maura, May, Maria, Moira, Mary, Maree, Mary, Mary and Mary. Except for Mrs Prior who was called Lotte but that was only because she was Dutch. They always seemed to be dropping in, distributing envelopes for a church collection or looking to borrow a jumper de-baller or… or… you know, that sort of thing.
But recently three or four of the Mary's had moved; Maty and Mr Webb had sold up and moved to a retirement apartment by the sea 'now that the children have grown'; Mr Sparrow had died and Maty Sparrow, a great friend of Mam's, had gone to live with her sister in Wales. And the other two Marys? I can't remember because I must admit I didn't always pay as much attention as I should have to Mam's recounting of local events. Oh yeah, Mary and Mr Griffin had gone to Spain because of Mary Griffin's arthritis. And the other Mary? It'll come to me.
'Mrs Parsons,' I suggested, 'she's nice. Or Mrs Kelly.'
Not a great idea, I realized. Relations had been strained — polite, of course, but strained — since Mrs Parsons had asked Mrs Kelly to make the cake for Celia Parsons's twenty-first, instead of asking Mam, who the whole cul-de-sac knew made the cakes for everyone's twenty-firsts; she did them in the shape of a key. (This took place a good eight years ago. Grudge-holding is one of the hobbies around here.)
'Mrs Kelly,' I repeated. 'It wasn't her fault Mrs Parsons asked her to make the cake.'
'But she didn't have to make it, she could have said no.'
I sighed. We'd been through this a thousand times. 'Celia Parsons didn't want a key, she wanted a champagne bottle.'
'Dodie Parsons could at least have asked me if I could do it.'
'Yes, but she knew that Mrs Kelly had the decoration book.'
'I don't need a book. I can just make up designs out of my head.'
'Exactly! You're the better one.'
'And everyone said that the sponge was as dry as sand.'
'They did.'
'She should just stick to what she's good at — apple tarts for funerals.'
'Exactly and really, Mam, it wasn't Mrs Kelly's fault.'
It was important to broker closer links with Mrs Kelly because I couldn't take any more time off. Francis and Frances - yes,
the
F&F of F&F Dignan - had been pleased when I'd won the Davinia account and said if I got it right I might get to do all of her weddings. But if I messed it up, well… The thing was, I was terrified of Frances and Francis — we all were. Frances had an iron-grey bob, all the better to highlight her boxer's jaw. Although she didn't actually smoke cigars, wear men's trousers and sit with her legs apart, that's what I saw whenever I closed my eyes and thought of her — something that didn't happen often, at least not voluntarily. Francis, her partner in evil, was like an egg on legs: all his weight was piled on his stomach, but his pins were Kate Moss-skinny. He had a roundy face and was bald except for two tufts of hair which stuck out over his ears, so he looked like Yoda. People who didn't know him well thought he was a hoot. They said of Frances, 'She wears the trousers.' But they were wrong, they both wore the trousers. They each had a pair.
If I got this wedding wrong, they'd take me into the RWNW (the Room With No Windows, their version of room 101) and say that I'd disappointed them. And then, almost as an afterthought, sack me. Because they're a married couple they often boast that their company is more like a family. Certainly they know how to make me feel like a guilty schoolgirl and they encourage account managers (I'm one) to compete with their colleagues in an echo of— I'm told by those who know -sibling rivalry. Anyway.
'So will I ask Mrs Kelly to come in?'
Mam had relapsed into silence.
She opened her mouth. For a while nothing emerged, but I knew something was on its way. Then from somewhere far inside her came a long, thin keen of pain. Almost like white noise but with a slight, ragged human undertone. It was chilling. Give me plate-breaking over it any day of the week.
She stopped, gathered breath and began again. I shook her arm and said, 'Ma-am. Please, Mam!'
'Noel's gone. Noel's gone.' At that, the white noise stopped and she was yelping uncontrollably, the way she had that morning, when I'd had to calm her down with Dr Bailey's emergency tablets. But we were out of pills; I should have gone to the chemist when I'd had a chance. Perhaps there was a late-night one somewhere?
'Mam, I'm just going to get someone to stay with you while I go out and get the tablets.'
She paid me no attention and I pelted up the road to Mrs Kelly and when she saw the state of me at the door, it was clear she thought it was time to start making pastry and peeling cooking apples.
I explained my plight and she knew of a chemist. 'They close at ten.'
It was now ten to ten. Time to break the law.
I drove like the clappers and got to the chemist at a minute past. But there was still someone inside. I pounded on the glass door and a man calmly walked over and opened it for me.
'Thank you. Oh, thank God.' I fell in.
'It's nice to be wanted,' he said.
I thrust the crumpled prescription at him. 'Please tell me you have them. It's an emergency.'
He smoothed it out and said, 'Don't worry, we have them. Take a seat there.'
He disappeared behind the white partition bit to where they keep the drugs and I sank onto the chair, trying to catch my breath.
'That's right,' his disembodied voice came from behind the melamine divider. 'Nice deep breaths. In, hold, out.'
He reappeared with the tranks and said kindly, 'Mind yourself now. And remember, no driving or operating machinery when you've taken them.'
'Fine. Thanks. Thanks very much.' It wasn't until I was back behind the wheel that I realized he thought they were for me.
5
Normally, I never read book reviews so it took me a while to find them in Saturday's paper. As I skimmed critiques of biographies of obscure English generals and a book about the Boer war, I began to suspect that Cody might have been wrong for once. But then, my heart gave one big bang that hurt my chest. Bloody Cody was right. There
was
a review. He knows everything.
CHARMING DEBUT
Mimi's Remedies
by Lily Wright Dalkin Emery. £6
.99
This debut from Lily Wright is less of a novel and more of an extended fable - and none the worse for that. A white witch, the eponymous Mimi, mysteriously arrives in a small village - location unspecified -and sets about working her own particular brand of sorcery. Rocky marriages are cemented and sundered lovers are reunited. Sounds too sweet to be wholesome? Suspend your cynicism and go with the flow. Shot through with magic,
Mimi's Remedies
manages to be a charming comedy of manners and a wry social commentary. As comforting as hot buttered toast on a cold evening, and just as addictive.
Shaking, I put the paper down. I think they liked it. Deep breath in, hold, deep breath out, deep breath in, hold, deep breath out. Oh God, I was jealous. I was so jealous, it was hot and green in my veins.
I could see it all now: Lily Wright was going to turn into a major celebrity. She'd be in all the papers and everyone would love her. Despite her bald patch she'd be in the pages of
Hello
!. She'd get on
Parkinson
. Even on
David Letterman
or
Oprah
. She'd be loaded and finally able to afford a Burt Reynolds-style hairweave and everyone would love her even more. She'd do charity work and get an award. She'd have a limo. And a huge big house. And a stalker. Every bloody thing!
I picked up the paper and read the review again, looking for something — anything — negative. There had to be
something
. But no matter how I read it, I really couldn't see that this review was anything but a rave.
I threw the paper from me with a sharp rustle. Why is life such a bastard? Why do some people get every fucking thing? Lily Wright has a gorgeous man — mine, a lovely little girl - half mine, and now a glorious career. It wasn't fair.
My mobile rang and I grabbed it. Cody. 'Have you seen it?' he asked.
'I have. You?'
'Yes.' Pause. 'Fair play to her.'
Cody walks a very narrow line between Lily and me. He refused to take sides when the great falling out occurred and he won't bitch with me about her, even though under normal circumstances he could bitch for Ireland. (If only it was an Olympic sport.) One time he even had the cheek to suggest that Lily stealing Anton from me might have caused her as much pain as it did me. I mean! In theory I can understand his position — Lily had done nothing to him — but sometimes, like today, it gives me a right pain in the arse.
It was Saturday morning, five days since Dad had gone -
five days -
and he still hadn't returned. I'd been certain he would have by now. It was what had kept me going, thinking that the situation was very, very temporary; that he'd had a rush of blood to the head, coupled with the stress of the tiramisu situation, but that he'd come to his senses in no time.
I'd been waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to hear his key in the lock, waiting for him to rush into the hall, yelping about what a dreadful mistake he'd made, waiting for this hell to be over.
On Thursday I rang four times to ask him to come home and each time he said the same thing - that he was sorry but he wouldn't be returning. Then I thought that I'd rung him enough and perhaps a few days' silence from me and Mam might jolt him to his senses.
A week. I'd give it a week. He'd be back by then. He'd have to be because the alternative was unthinkable.
I didn't go to work on Thursday and Friday. I couldn't - I was too worried about Mam. But I worked from Mam's, spending Thursday making calls, sending faxes and emails, as I chased up Davinia's arrangements. I even managed to zip off a couple of emails to Seattle where I vented big time and agreed with Susan that yes, Dad's jacket could have been worse, it could have had fringes.
On Friday morning Andrea came to Mam's with the files and we worked our way through the lists. Davinia Westport's wedding arrangements consisted of list after list after list; lists of the guests' arrival times; lists of the drivers who'd be collecting them; lists of where everyone was staying and lists of their specific requirements.
(I love lists and sometimes at the start of a job, I'll put things on the list that I've already done, just so I can draw a nice 'done' line through them.)
Then there were the timetables. Hour by hour breakdowns of when the marquee was being erected, when the acres of satin would arrive, when the floor would be laid and the lighting and heating should be set up. We were making good progress until Davinia rang on Friday afternoon to say that her friends Blue and Sienna had broken up and could no longer be seated at the same table as each other. All other work had to be shelved for the next two hours as we constructed a new seating plan — this one tiny sundering had set off shock waves which rippled through the entire wedding party, because they all seemed to have slept with each other. Every proposed move impacted negatively: Sienna couldn't sit at Table 4 because Blue's new girl, August, was there. She couldn't sit at Table 5 because her ex, Charlie, was there. Table 6, Blue's ex, Lia, whom he'd dumped for Sienna. Table 7… etc. And if we tried moving the obstacles - August to a new table, for example -
she'd
end up face-to-face with someone she'd shafted or slept with. It was like trying to solve a Rubik's cube.
What made things worse was that I didn't have Andrea's full attention. She kept eyeing the bars of chocolate thrown casually along the window sill, in the bread bin, and on top of the fridge. 'It's like,' she exclaimed, 'being let loose in a sweet shop.'
Because chocolate had been so freely available to me all my life, I could pretty much take it or leave it, but it had come in very handy since Tuesday: more alarming even than Mam losing the will to live, she'd lost the will to cook. And as I had no clue how to, it was just as easy when mealtimes rolled around to have biscuits and chocolate.
I loaded Andrea up with a selection of stuff in the hope that she might concentrate on the job in hand.
'Focus,' I entreated. 'Do it for Davinia if you won't do it for me.'
You see, Davinia Westport was a bit of a rarity. Even though she was posh, rich and good-looking, she was nice. (Apart from, like I said, insisting on getting married in a tent in the coldest month of the year.) More often than not the client is the worst thing about my job - worse than hotel ballrooms burning down two days before the event or the guests at a fund-raiser being fed salmonella chicken and having to be ferried off, puking their guts up, during the raffle. But Davinia was different. She didn't ring me at home in the middle of the night shrieking that her polo neck was the wrong shade of black or that she'd got a cold sore, and that I'd better fix it.
Andrea and I finished up at about eight o'clock on Friday night. No sooner was she gone, gratefully clutching an armful of confectionery, than Mam presented me with a list and dispatched me to the supermarket for the weekly shop. Shedidn't come with me because whenever I suggested she get dressed, she hugged her (increasingly grubby) peach dressing-gown tighter around her and whimpered, 'Don't make me.' But as I unpacked the groceries when I got back, Mam complained that I'd got all the wrong things. 'What did you get this butter for?' she asked, puzzled the way she'd been puzzled when I hadn't locked up the house the first night. 'This isn't the bread we get. And we don't get proper cornflakes, we get the own-brand stuff. Throwing money away…' she muttered.
Before I went to bed, the locking up had to commence; checking the windows, shooting bolts and putting chains on all the doors as I secured the house to Mam's high standards. I was exhausted by the time I trudged up to bed — and I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for myself. It was Friday night, I should have been out on the razz instead of babysitting my mam. How I wished that Dad would come home.
I was too upset to sleep so I took refuge in a fantasy. Conjuring up imaginary story-lines where runaway boyfriends return and enemies are vanquished is my party trick. I've gained quite a reputation, especially among Cody's gang and sometimes people I've just been introduced to ask me to do it for them.
How it works is, they give me a thumbnail sketch of the disaster: for example, their boyfriend had been spotted in Brown Thomas getting a Burberry bag giftwrapped. Naturally the aggrieved party thought it was for her and did what any sensible woman would do — went directly out and bought matching sandals. But the next time they meet, the fella breaks it off… without cushioning the blow with the bag. Obviously he's met someone else!
I take a bit more information, like length of relationship, cost of the bag etc., give it a little think and come back with something like, 'OK, picture the scene. It's three months from now and you bump into him and as luck would have it, you're looking great…' Pause to plan the hair and wardrobe — yes, they could have the candy-striped trews they saw in
Vogue
and yes, they would go with those scoop-necked tops. OK, high-necked if they preferred. And the new season's boots, well,
obviously
— then I continue. 'The Burberry bags have been marked down and you've bought yourself
two
. No, no wait, you haven't bought yourself
any
because who wants a bag that no one else wants? No, you got a bonus at work and you bought yourself an Orla Kiely that there was a waiting list for and you're just back from a sun holiday where you caught jaundice so not only are you rake-skinny, but you've a lovely colour. His car has just been clamped, it's pelting rain and one of his shoes has been stolen by a vicious inner-city fox.' Etc., etc. It's my attention to detail which people rate me for, I'm told, and when Anton ran off with Lily, it was a case of fantasist heal thyself.
The scenario I'd comforted myself with involved escaping to some remote rural Mills & Boon community. Beside the sea, naturally; some fantastically wild sea with big waves and surf and spray and the whole lot. I'd go for long, mad walks along the sea or the cliffs and while I was out tramping along gloomily, some hunky farmer would spot me and, even though I hadn't had my roots done for ages, he'd take a shine to me. Of course, he wasn't just a farmer, he was also a film director or a former entrepreneur who'd sold his innovative company for millions. I'd have an ethereal fragile quality about me, but because I was so wounded I'd be rude to him in the village shop when he tried to be nice to me. However, instead of calling me a stupid bitch, like he would in real life, and recommencing his fling with the village floozie, he'd take to leaving two fresh eggs on my doorstep in the morning. I'd get back from my four-mile stomp along the cliff to find the eggs — still warm from the hens, of course — waiting for my breakfast. (And never mind that my breakfast would normally consist of a mini-Magnum and three bowls of sugarpuffs.) I'd make a delicious omelette, with some wild parsley snipped from the garden that came with the house. Or else he'd leave a freshly picked, hand-gathered bouquet of wild flowers, and the next time I met him I wouldn't sneer, 'Do Interflora not deliver out here, then?' Instead, I'd thank him and say that buttercups were my favourite flowers. (As if.) At some stage I'd end up in his kitchen where I'd see him tenderly feeding a tiny lamb from a baby's bottle and my heart would begin its long overdue thaw. Until one morning, when I was out on my hike, a piece of the cliff would dislodge itself, taking me with it. There had been warnings about the unstable cliff edges, but in my death-wish state I'd discounted them. Somehow the hunky farmer would have seen me toppling over into the briny and he'd come with his tractor and ropes and rescue me from the little ledge I'd fortuitously landed on.
Bosh. Happy Ever After land.