‘No, darling,’ said Granny, taking me by the elbow. ‘I’ll do it.’
Someone with even greater authority than my father clearly intervened at this point, because the next thing I knew, the Romney-Joneses were assembled outside the church and it wasn’t even raining. The horse and carriage supplied by the Green Energy people was delightful, the villagers had come out to throw confetti and only one or two guests were still lurking outside having a last-minute cigarette.
‘Wait here,’ said Daddy, helping Emery down from her carriage. He looked distinguished and very handsome in his morning dress, and his perfectly groomed hair made me wonder if he’d availed himself of my make-up-artist time.
He strode off towards the church door and gave something to one of the ushers.
‘Oh, Emery, don’t you look wonderful in that cape!’ exclaimed Granny to distract her attention from the mutterings. She adjusted the snowy fur framing Emery’s face, and arranged the folds so it fell down to the ground luxuriantly. ‘It really does suit you far better than it ever suited me.’
‘A gift?’ asked Mummy archly. ‘From an admirer?’
‘Naturally,’ replied Granny without even turning her head.
I looked around to see if I could see Jonathan, but presumably he’d gone in already. I tugged at the neckline of my dress and consoled myself with the thought that at least he’d see me in something more attractive later on. Granny had done a pretty impressive job on me, although my resting expression was now one of mild surprise.
‘Right,’ said Daddy, hurrying back. ‘You can sign later, Emery. No need to spoil the moment, is there?’ He smiled benevolently at the four of us, disarming any protests in an instant. ‘What a lucky man I am, surrounded by four such gorgeous ladies!’
It was true, we did look pretty gorgeous, especially Mummy. She was very much in her public mode, champagne-blonde and poised, and almost as serene as Emery, although I did wonder how chemically assisted that serenity was. Her hat was spectacular but didn’t detract from the smoothness of her skin or the high, cat-like cheekbones that made her real age an unguessable quantity.
One of the ushers appeared and held out his arm to her. She accepted with a graceful nod and walked into the church. The rest of us watched in sheer admiration as her ladylike wiggle, demurely contained in a mint-green suit, vanished through the Norman arch of the church door.
I held my breath for Daddy to say something to ruin it, but he didn’t. He just smiled to himself, then fingered something in his inner pocket nervously.
‘Good luck, darling!’ Granny held the drooping feathers on her hat back and kissed Emery’s cheek. ‘Now and for ever.’ Then she too vanished, on the arm of the best-looking usher, into the church.
‘Ready?’ said Daddy.
I took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘I wasn’t talking to you, Melissa,’ he snapped. ‘Emery?’
‘What? Oh, er, yes,’ murmured Emery, plucking at her bouquet of lilies and red berries as both photographers snapped away.
I lifted the fur hood up over her head, picked up the trailing lengths of her train, and the three of us walked slowly into the incense-scented darkness of the porch.
26
The ceremony itself went off without a hitch. I was pleased to see that the vicar had put his foot right down about ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams not being an acceptable hymnal choice, even if played on a harp by someone we were both at school with.
The church itself looked glorious, with candles around the pillars and curling ivy and bright orange Chinese lanterns on the end of each pew. I sat with my back very straight all through the wedding ceremony, knowing that somewhere behind me, in the sparsely populated groom’s side, Jonathan would be watching.
Seemingly moments later we were standing around outside again as dusk fell and the photographers – now joined by a grumpy-looking teenager from the local paper – scrabbled to get pictures before the light went completely.
Tears of emotion and beads of perspiration had wreaked havoc on my make-up, so I slunk away to a flying buttress to repair the damage as best I could with my powder compact.
‘Wasn’t that lovely?’ I heard Gabi’s voice say, somewhere behind me.
I hesitated, puff on nose. I didn’t want to eavesdrop . . . but the temptation to listen in on what they were really up to was irresistible.
‘Yup. Lovely,’ agreed Nelson, not sounding quite so enthusiastic.
Good, I thought. If they were romantically involved he’d at least have warned her he wasn’t prepared to splash out on such a lavish do.
Gabi sighed. ‘So? Have you told Mel yet?’
I held my breath. Told me what?
‘No,’ said Nelson. ‘Not yet.’
I heard Gabi’s familiar huff of impatience. ‘When? When are you going to tell her? When can we show her the . . . thing?’
The thing? What on earth were they talking about? Details of a flat? A ring? A scan?
‘When the moment’s right, Gabi.’ Nelson now sounded more excited. ‘She’s rushed off her feet. I don’t want to spring it on her in front of her family, or that great stiff, Jonathan. I need to get her alone.’
I stared at my stupefied reflection in my compact. Was Gabi moving in? Were they now going out? What was so awful that Nelson needed to talk to me on my own? Why did no one tell me anything any more?
How much worse could today get?
I hurried out from my hiding place to catch them, but they were already disappearing towards the cars, Nelson with one arm slung around Gabi’s shoulders, the way he used to sling his arm around me. My heart gave a great thud of misery as I spotted another couple also heading that way, also deep in animated conversation: Daddy, and Bobsy Parkin, her racehorse legs very much on show in a silk dress and baby-pink tweed jacket.
Clearly something was going on. And I was going to find out what. Bobsy had no right to ruin my sister’s big day. Being as how she could easily ruin my whole life with the wrong word in my father’s ear . . .
‘Let’s have one of me and my sisters!’ announced Emery, gliding up behind me and putting her arm through mine.
‘Yes, let’s,’ deadpanned Allegra. ‘I’ve never been photographed with a life-size globe artichoke before.’
‘Hello, Allegra,’ I said. She and Lars had flown in that morning and gone straight to their hotel, then to the church. She knew from long experience that minimal exposure time was the key to preserving family harmony.
Married life hadn’t diminished Allegra’s Gothic looks at all: she had Granny’s long nose and piercing blue eyes, intensified by her long straight jet-black hair, and she was wearing a black, scarlet-lined cape that Dracula would have rejected as a tad flamboyant.
‘She doesn’t look like an artichoke!’ protested Emery, as the photographers jostled for position.
‘Thank you,’ I said, gratefully.
‘More like . . . a leek,’ sniggered Emery.
I scowled, and wished I’d accepted Mummy’s kind offer of a Valium with my pre-wedding Buck’s fizz.
I’d like to draw a veil over the wedding speeches. The best thing one can say about them is that they lasted only forty minutes. Unfortunately, thirty-eight of those minutes were taken up with my father’s speech, leaving William and Darrell with two minutes between them before the band started.
It isn’t really in anyone’s interests to rehash my father’s show-business monologue, in which he managed to remind everyone of Emery’s brief eating disorder, revealed Mummy’s teenage drink-driving conviction, made some off-colour jokes about nurses, cast aspersions on the marriage habits of American lawyers, and slandered at least two other local MPs. In fact, the only people he remembered to thank were the various organisations who had provided free stuff for the wedding.
I honestly tried to keep my face rigid with disapproval, but I couldn’t. My father is an utter snake, but a very funny one.
Not that I was really expecting any thanks, even
though the food was utterly delicious and the marquee looked like something out of the Arabian Nights. But as Darrell garbled something about William being a great guy, and Emery being a peach, then sat down with a thump, I couldn’t help feeling rather as I did most Speech Days at school, when the headmistress finally reached the ‘Neatest Dorm’ prize, and I was still the only one sitting there without a book token.
But it was Emery’s big day, I reminded myself. Any thanks I needed were right there in her glowing face.
I was consoling myself with a second chocolate marquise from the huge table of extra puddings, when a warm hand fell on my shoulder.
‘I’ve been looking for you all evening!’ said a familiar brisk voice. ‘Where’ve you been?’
Jonathan.
Clouds of butterflies rose in my stomach, fluttering up into my chest and all through my body. I had been avoiding him, it was true; the more I wanted to see him, the less I felt able to behave in an appropriately distant fashion.
Plus, my leek dress wasn’t exactly flattering.
‘Hello, there,’ he said, kissing my cheek in urbane greeting. ‘At last I get to say hello. You’ve been very elusive. Or do I mean busy? Where was your bunch of flowers for organising this whole bunfight?’
I was temporarily lost for words. Jonathan looked ridiculously handsome in a dark suit and tie, his hair tousled slightly and a bright pink rose in his buttonhole.
I held up a warning hand. ‘Don’t say anything,’ I said, stickily. ‘Please.’
‘Ah,’ he murmured, looking sympathetic, ‘bad time?’
I’m at my sister’s wedding, dressed as a transvestite Nell Gwyn and I didn’t even get thanked in the speeches, I wanted to yell. And the alternative is dressing up as Honey to meet your friends! At what point do I ever get to be Melissa?
‘No, it’s not a bad time,’ I said, battening down my rage. ‘But, like you, these puddings deserve my undivided attention. Let me finish one so I can concentrate on the other.’
‘Flatterer,’ he said, with a hint of a wink. ‘The food has been amazing. I suppose we’ve got you to thank for that? You’ve done a fantastic job.’ He topped up his glass from an open bottle on the table and poured one for me. ‘As one would expect from the woman who makes Wonder Woman look like a flaky amateur. Do you want to come over and meet my very oldest school friend now? The American contingent is dying to meet you.’
‘And I’m dying to meet them,’ I said, taking a restorative sip of champagne. I hadn’t yet planned exactly how I was going to avenge my wounded pride. I was hoping the spirit of Honey would rise to the surface and take over. But now the moment was approaching, and Jonathan was right here in front of me, a small voice in my head was starting to doubt whether I had the bottle to be anything but compliant Melissa.
‘Great! Um . . .’ Jonathan dropped his voice, cast his eyes from side to side theatrically, looked significantly in the direction of my head, and murmured, ‘Listen, Wonder Woman, do you . . . um, need to . . . freshen up first?’
I gazed back, slightly dazed by the conspiratorial look in Jonathan’s eyes, until it clicked that he was meaning ‘get changed’. I was Melissa. And he wanted Honey.
Ouch. I’d spent the past few days riling myself up so that snub wouldn’t hurt, just make me crosser, but it still stung. I noted that the arrogant, thoughtless bastard was already casting glances over towards his friends, probably not wanting them to see him with frumpy Melissa the bridesmaid.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, mentally calculating how long it would take me to transform, given my underwear headstart. He was going to get the transformation of the century. ‘Give me . . . five minutes?’
‘OK.’ Jonathan smiled and gestured with his eyebrows towards the dance floor. ‘But don’t be too long. I need to give you a spin around the dance floor before that grandmother of yours claims it for herself. I’ll be by the chocolate fountain. Which I love, by the way.’
‘I’ll be quick as I can,’ I said with a stagey wink, and slipped off, seething.
I wasn’t sorry to get out of the heavy bridesmaid’s frock; by now it reminded me all too itchily of how little my family actually thought about me and my feelings. Simply zipping up the fitted satin sheath, in palest ballet-slipper pink, and pulling on a long pair of evening gloves, made me feel lighter, quicker, and more ‘me’ at once, even though it was part of Honey’s wardrobe.
I pulled back my hair into a bun in readiness for my wig, while I focused all my thoughts on being Grace Kelly: ice cool and distant. My fingers slipped and pushed, now well-practised, and suddenly there I was, Honey in the mirror, golden and assured.
Sounds of distant partying floated back through the house as I slicked black eyeliner over the top of the pastel shadow I’d worn so as not to upstage Emery, and lined and filled my lips with sexy scarlet gloss. A quick dust of blusher over my cheekbones was like painting water over a magic picture book: my face seemed to come to life. I smacked my lips together and smiled to check there was no trace on my teeth.
Should this be the final time I’d see Honey too, I wondered. Should I retire her wig for ever after tonight? I wasn’t sure I could go through this again.
I pushed away the nagging thought that I’d hidden most of my angst about the wedding from Jonathan out of pride, and that it was me who had called an end to the Honey dates. All I could see looking back from the mirror was a woman – a beautiful, confident woman – who could be taken advantage of: for free by my family, and for cash by everyone else. And I’d let them.
It was like seeing myself for the first time.
What on earth had I been playing at?
All the irritation that had been building up in me all month suddenly rose to the surface, galvanised into action by the wig, the satin gloves, a few glasses of champagne, and the high heels. Honey’s dynamic approach to other people’s lives had finally turned on my own. My selfish family, Nelson and Gabi, the constant demands of work – every frustration began to fizz into my bloodstream like Alka-Seltzer until my skin tingled.
‘Right, you bugger,’ I said, glaring at my smouldering reflection and secretly liking the flare in my nostrils, ‘I’ll give you Honey Blenner-bloody-hesket.’
I stalked through the house, nearly bumping into Darrell, who was stumbling around, a ladies’ handbag in one hand and an empty champagne bottle in the other. ‘Hey,’ he slurred, then did a double take and added, ‘hey, ’ve we met?’
‘Do not use the lavatories in the house!’ I snapped as I brushed past him, sending him reeling. ‘The Portaloos for guests are outside!’
The band had come back from their break and had swung jazzily into a selection of Rat Pack show tunes, as requested by me.
The whole wedding was requested by me, I thought, striding past the beautiful tables, now strewn with empty glasses and wilted buttonholes. Chosen by Emery, but bloody requested by me. This was the best wedding I was ever going to have, and I wasn’t even the bride.
Jonathan was, as he had said, by the chocolate fountain, chatting to a couple of men, and a tall woman with her back to me. As I approached, I saw him raise his hand, begin to smile and then suddenly the smile froze and a look of confusion replaced it.
Too late, I thought, stonily, enjoying the swing of my hips in my high heels as I crossed the remaining space in a few quick strides. The conversation stopped instantly as their heads turned and took me in as I slid a long, gloved arm round Jonathan’s waist.
‘Hello, there!’ I said, flashing a wide smile to the assembled company. ‘I’m Honey!’
‘Melissa?’ said Jonathan.
‘No, Honey,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘That’s who you invited, isn’t it?’
Jonathan pulled himself free to stare at me fiercely, but I refused to drop my gaze.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he hissed.
He had a nerve! I was the affronted one here!
‘I could ask you the same thing!’ I hissed back.
&nb
sp; Jonathan grabbed me by the elbow. ‘Pardon me, folks, I just need to have a quick word with my guest,’ he explained suavely. ‘She’s having one of her blonde moments.’
He propelled me across the dance floor with a strength I would have found rather attractive had I not been so outraged.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I demanded, furiously, shaking myself free once we were outside. ‘Get your hands off me!’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’ Jonathan’s grey eyes were blazing.
I’d intended to play it icy and cool, but now I found I simply couldn’t; I was morphing from Grace Kelly into, oh dear, Maureen O’Hara.
‘It’s one thing to hire me to be your date, at my own sister’s wedding, but that does not give you the right to manhandle me!’ I yelled. ‘There are limits to what you can ride roughshod over, you know! You can’t treat me like you treat your minions in the office!’
‘What?’ Jonathan ran his hand through his hair in a quick, exasperated gesture. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘What am I talking about?’ I glared at him. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘No,’ snapped Jonathan. ‘It’s not.’
‘It’s not obvious that I might be offended by having to dress up as someone else, to be your date for my own sister’s wedding?’ I roared. ‘It’s not obvious? Have you any idea how that makes me feel? Today, of all days!’
‘Melissa, did I ask you to dress up as Honey?’ demanded Jonathan. ‘Well? Did I?’
‘Yes!’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Jonathan dropped his voice as a couple walked past, casting inquisitive glances in our direction. ‘Quite the reverse, in fact.’
I stared at him dumbly. ‘You did. This is not something I would do for fun,’ I hissed back. ‘Believe me.’
Jonathan raked his hands through his hair so it stood up in choppy peaks, and the light from the torches outside the main marquee reflected copper and gold like licks of flame around his head. ‘Melissa, did we, or did we not, say goodbye to Honey while we were sitting drinking hot chocolate on the South Bank? I thought we drew a line under all that. How much clearer do you want me to be? Do I have to get down on my knees or something?’