‘My cousin Joss is already going ballistic, look!’ Clemmie brandished her phone in my face. ‘I’ve had weeks of people trying to get an invite for their kids, and I said, I’m sorry but it’s only fair if it’s no children at all, and now they’ll all think I made a special exception for Maisie! I mean, she’s the last kid I’d have had as a bridesmaid! I thought she was a boy until she was four!’
‘Clementine!’ said her mother reproachfully.
‘Tilly would have loved to have been a flower girl,’ said Meg, looking distinctly unimpressed. ‘And I wouldn’t have had to drive to Macclesfield to leave her with Jack’s mother.’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry, Meg …’
Hannah’s phone pinged and everyone stared at her.
‘Um, it’s from Serena,’ said Hannah, awkwardly. ‘She says …’
‘I think we can guess,’ I said, firmly. ‘No need to read it out.’
‘This is meant to be the happiest day of my life!’ Clemmie spun round on the dressing-table stool. Her eyes were wild and hungry in the way only those of a woman who hasn’t eaten anything white for six months can be. ‘And I’m going to spend it apologizing to every single parent here!’
‘I promise you won’t,’ I said. ‘Clemmie, look at me. You’re going to have a wonderful wedding. The day we’ve been planning. Your special day.’
Then I put a calming hand on her arm and looked right into her face, a trick my old boss Caroline had taught me years ago. It also worked on dogs.
After a tremulous second, Clemmie sniffed and managed a broken smile, and I knew what I had to do. It was just a gatecrasher issue, that was all. Any events manager worth her salt could handle a gatecrasher, even one in a pistachio satin bridesmaid’s dress.
*
I marched briskly down the carpeted corridors I’d come to know like the back of my hand over the years, and asked myself a question that went through my head at least twice a day, more often at weddings: ‘What would Caroline Bentley Douglas do now?’
Caroline, Laurence’s first wife, had taught me everything I knew about organizing weddings – as well as everything about the Bonneville itself, from its fabulous reception area with gilded sunbursts and polished floors to its delicate domed skylights. Laurence sometimes joked that she was more in love with his hotel than with him, but I could understand that. The Bonneville had real personality, that of an old-fashioned London debutante: elegant, well-connected, sometimes a bit naughty – but always discreet. That discretion had been its calling card in the pell-mell years between the wars; The Ritz or Claridge’s might have had endless flashbulbs popping outside, but love-struck stars who didn’t want to be photographed checked into the Bonneville’s suites for their secret London trysts. Caroline had regaled me with all the stories when I was a young vacation chambermaid, and then seeing my enthusiasm for the place, she’d taken me under her wing, encouraging me to study hospitality management at college. When I graduated, I walked straight into a job as her assistant, and that was when I really started learning about the hotel trade.
Nearly ten years on, I was in charge of the super-traditional wedding packages Caroline had dreamed up as part of her mission to keep the struggling hotel afloat. She was still mentoring me, but it wasn’t over black coffee in her office any more. Caroline had bought her own hotel in Oxfordshire, after she finally got tired of Laurence’s charming but chaotic stewardship of his family’s business, and divorced him.
These days, I had to rely on Laurence for on-the-spot advice, such as it was. I liked Laurence very much, but I couldn’t blame Caroline for throwing in the towel. She was the sort of boss who got down on her knees to check under beds and ran her finger along picture rails; Laurence, on the other hand, claimed to be allergic to dust. As well as chlorine, Dettol, stress, wheat, and certain types of paper. Working for him could be frustrating, particularly now that his short-lived second wife (and former receptionist) Ellie had left too, and the wifely duties of diary management and general organization had fallen to me and Gemma. But Laurence’s redeeming feature – one that was quite useful on a day like today – was a knack with the guests that was something to behold. He was a natural host. A ringmaster of his own hotel, as you’d expect from someone actually born in Room 32, during a dinner-dance for one of London’s most prestigious estate agencies.
As I made my way back downstairs to the wedding party in search of the interlopers, I kept an eye out for Laurence’s lanky frame amongst the morning suits and floral dresses. He loved our hotel weddings – in the sense that he liked to shimmer in once everything was organized and dispense brandies to the gentlemen and compliments to the ladies – and I was very keen for him to see me at the epicentre of a well-organized and profitable event. The last general manager, Paul, had finally succumbed to the ‘pressures of the role’ and had checked himself into rehab at The Priory; I wanted Laurence to consider me for the job. Okay, so I was younger than most general managers, at just thirty, but I knew this hotel inside out and, more to the point, I was absolutely passionate about restoring that gleam and glamour it had once enjoyed. I wanted to hear it talked about again in smart circles; I wanted to see the hotel bar filled with attractive couples and witty chat. I wanted to see the Bonneville sparkle again.
Laurence wasn’t in reception, and neither were Katherine and Maisie. I wove my way expertly between guests until my antennae twitched – there they were, lurking near the globe-shaped box trees by the side of the garden, almost out of sight: a blonde in a tight floral sheath dress and, next to her, a miserable five-year-old in a pale pistachio satin frock that pinched her plump arms.
I had no intention of telling Clemmie, but several couples were giving Katherine pointed glares and muttering darkly. Still, it wouldn’t take a moment to sort this out.
I went over, a friendly smile on my face. ‘Excuse me, is it Katherine?’
‘Yes?’ She looked guilty but defiant, and pulled Maisie towards her.
‘Wonderful! I wonder if I could take you and your beautiful daughter to a special seat?’
‘Why?’
‘Because for insurance reasons we can’t allow anyone under the age of eleven to be within twenty metres of the fountain.’ I gestured towards the tumbling water feature and started to guide them both towards the last row of chairs. They moved without even knowing they were being directed.
Over the years, I’d developed the art of leading people from one place to another without them realizing they were being shepherded; Caroline had taught me as part of my gatecrasher-removal arsenal. It was part stage hypnotism, part lifting.
‘Maisie needs access to the bridal party.’ Katherine looked at me boldly.
I gave her my very politest really? smile and said nothing. We both knew she was bluffing.
‘And … I need to be able to see,’ she faltered.
‘Of course! We’ve arranged the chairs so everyone gets a great view,’ I assured her. ‘Maisie, you look a bit hot, darling. Would you like me to find you a glass of orange juice?’
‘No! What if she spills it on her bridesm– … on her dress?’
‘I’m sure you won’t,’ I said, holding out my hand to Maisie. The poor thing looked about as thrilled to be crammed into a green satin dress as Clementine had been to find out she was wearing it. ‘I know where there’s a special gold chair for you,’ I added, conspiratorially. It was a long way back. And afterwards, I could think of a few fun things for Maisie to do – with Gemma, and well out of Clementine’s way.
The little girl beamed up at me, and I felt a glow of satisfaction at having solved another problem, and with fifteen minutes still to go before the wedding.
*
Having got Katherine and Maisie safely trapped at the far end of a row of chairs, with several large relatives between Maisie and the aisle, I scooted back upstairs to make sure the photographer had taken all the reportage shots Clemmie had specified on her list, and then, when Gemma confirmed from downstairs that all the oth
er wedding participants were in position and ready to go, I gave Clemmie a hug. Carefully, so as not to dislodge the family tiara.
‘You look beautiful,’ I said. ‘Don’t cry, please, Arthur,’ I added to her father, standing next to her. His stiff upper lip was already wobbling, through pure pride. ‘You’ll set us all off.’
‘This is perfect, Rosie.’ Clemmie seemed dazed with happiness. ‘This is just what I imagined.’
‘Quite.’ Arthur’s voice was gruff with emotion. ‘None of that fancy stuff you get these days. Just a nice simple wedding.’
‘That’s what we aim for,’ I said, because it was. This was the moment when I really had to concentrate to keep my events focus; Clemmie looked so radiant and so excited. I’d done my job – nearly. ‘Now, let me get the lift for you.’
*
I was always telling brides to stop and take in one still moment in their wedding day, and I made a point of taking a moment myself to stop and see exactly what I’d just achieved.
Today I stood just inside the rose garden and watched as Clemmie and Jason made their vows by the marble fountain. It was exactly how I’d pictured it during the planning meetings when I’d outlined the ideal Bonneville wedding to Clemmie: I aimed to create the wedding finale from a classic Golden Age Hollywood movie, with a trademark English feel. Black and white sophistication, but with pink cherry blossom, and tea roses.
My eye travelled up from the bride and her groom, gazing at each other as Jason slipped the ring on Clemmie’s finger; up to the tall windows of the hotel rising five elegant stories above them, punctuated by black wrought-iron balconies on which actresses and princes had once sipped morning coffee gazing over Green Park; and finally up to the curliest, widest balcony of all, at the top: the luxurious honeymoon suite where Clemmie and Jason would be spending their first night as husband and wife.
The honeymoon suite was at the heart of every wedding I arranged. It was magical. Just smoothing down the satin coverlet on the big bed with its scalloped headboard made me feel something of the hotel’s romantic past, imagining all the passion and new beginnings that the room must have seen over the decades. It sounds a bit airy-fairy, but it wasn’t only the Bonneville’s stylish suites and elegant spaces that I loved, but its human history: the secrets and whispers from another, more glamorous age, caught in the fabric of every room. The cocktails, the black cabs, the cash tips, the forgotten red lipsticks, the snatched moments of pleasure in a place designed to shut out real life completely, just for a night or two. The honeymoon suite, up in the penthouse like a secluded nest far above the real world, seemed to distil everything the Bonneville stood for into one room.
A ripple of applause from the congregation brought me back to myself with a jolt; the new Mr and Mrs Atkinson were turning to walk back down the white carpet towards their reception, and I needed to shift into the next phase of precision organization.
The sun broke through the fluffy clouds, reflecting off the soft cream exterior of the hotel, bathing the guests in a fresh, flattering light as they rose and began to make their way to the afternoon tea reception. It was in the Palm Court, where black-clad waiters were already gliding around with the porcelain cake stands and silver teapots, dispensing tiny macaroons and wielding proper tea-strainers.
Oh, brilliant, I thought. Right on cue, now all the hard work was done, Laurence had appeared by the entrance to the garden, resplendent in his blazer and red trousers, kissing the bride, shaking everyone else’s hand, smiling and laughing away like the consummate hotel owner. I knew what he’d be saying even though I was too far away to hear; I could see from the dazzled expressions on their faces that he was working his magic on everyone in earshot.
Laurence seemed to be getting on particularly well with Clemmie’s Auntie Priscilla, I noted. I was supposed to be keeping an eye out for potential dates for him, on Caroline’s instructions; she was very keen to get Laurence paired up again, and weddings were a fertile source of appropriate middle-aged women, most of whom he seemed to know already through his many years of extreme sociability. Laurence wasn’t a man who coped well on his own, and like me, Caroline didn’t have time to deal with his constant phone calls about the washing machine.
While I was watching Priscilla flirting outrageously with Laurence, and wondering if I should ask Clemmie for her details, or just take them straight off the guest database, my fascinator buzzed, and I pushed a stray curl out of the way to answer it. ‘Gemma?’
‘Rosie, someone’s brought their dog with them? It’s in the foyer? I don’t know what to – urgh! Bad dog! No! Naughty!’
‘Put it in Laurence’s office,’ I said, setting off, shoulders already pulled back in fire-fighting readiness. ‘I’ll be right there.’
I swished past the guests, the waiters, the caterers, the flower arrangements, the champagne, and although the stopwatch in my head was ticking, I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face.
On a bright May day like this one, there wasn’t a more romantic place to get married in all of London than the Bonneville Hotel. In all the world, actually. It’s the only place I’d ever consider getting married, if I was in the market for a wedding, which I’m not.
As I said, it’s not that I don’t have a boyfriend, I do. And it’s not as if I’m completely anti-marriage, because obviously I enjoy a good wedding as much as the next person. Even after my Unfortunate Wedding Experience – the ‘j’ word isn’t in my vocabulary either. It’s just that …
Well. Let me tell you about my boyfriend, Dominic.
CHAPTER TWO
When I told people my boyfriend was Dominic Crosby, they usually laughed and said, ‘Not the Dominic Crosby, though?’ and when I assured them that, yes, I lived in West Kensington with the Dominic Crosby, London Food Critic of the Year two years running and campaigner for Quiet Zones in restaurants, they laughed again, but more nervously, and then changed the subject.
I didn’t know Dominic was the Dominic when I met him, about two years ago. He was just the short, rather intense bloke sitting next to me at a university friend’s birthday meal in Clerkenwell – a birthday meal I didn’t really want to go to but felt I had to attend, because if I didn’t, the main topic of conversation would have been Rosie and her Big Fat Non-Wedding, and its sequel conversation, now starring Anthony’s ‘surprise’ new girlfriend, Leona from Work. (Still. Nine months on, my non-wedding was the conversational gift that kept on giving. Luckily for me, not long after this particular dinner, another friend’s boyfriend went to prison for payroll fraud and everyone started feeling sorry for Kate instead.)
I should have had an inkling about who the bloke sitting next to was when he insisted on sending back all ten plates of lamb tagine served to our table because the lamb ‘had the stringy texture of knitting wool, spiced with the piquant addition of Mr Muscle’. But I’d missed the introductions at the start of the evening as I’d been dragged into Laurence’s office on my way out to provide my confrontation-phobic boss with a strategy for handling the Brazilian chambermaid who’d eaten £150-worth of pillow chocolates in less than two weeks. I merely noted, with my customer service hat on, that the posh bloke in the red shirt had managed to convey his punchy opinions on the tagine in such a charming, if opinionated, manner that the waitress didn’t empty the contents of his plate over his head.
It was my best friend, Helen, who alerted me to the fact that I’d been sitting next to the most controversial food writer in London. Helen managed the restaurant at the Bonneville and had headshots of all the major food critics lined up by the service hatch in the kitchens, arranged in Fear Order. (I rarely ventured into the kitchens; to be honest, I was a bit scared of the chef.)
As I recounted the horror of the complaining, Helen’s expression swung between delight and alarm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you knew Dominic Crosby?’ She was normally quite inscrutable – her ‘look’ was basically that of a Hitchcock blonde: neat grey suits, immaculate blonde French pleat, composed demeano
ur – but occasionally flashes of excitement broke through the Nordic cool. ‘Can you get him to review us? Although—’ her brow creased, ‘there’s always the risk we’d end up on the “Killed by Quips” list.’
‘How do you mean, “Killed by Quips”?’
‘When he ignores the food and just takes potshots at everything else. It’s worse when Dominic Crosby decides to be funny about somewhere. That’s when you might as well just shut down.’ Helen seemed surprised at my blank expression. ‘You haven’t read his columns? In the London Reporter? And in the Sunday papers? He’s the Man in the Red Trousers.’
‘These “Sunday papers” of which you speak? What exactly are they?’ I pretended to look baffled.
She blinked, then realized I was joking. ‘Not everyone sleeps through Sunday mornings, you know.’
‘There’s a morning on Sundays?’
Helen and I both worked the same insane hours at the Bonneville: ours was a friendship forged from late nights and blister plasters and oversharing brought on by too much Red Bull. She was the only person who really understood why I sometimes worked eighteen-hour days. She was the only person who could make me laugh at the end of them too, with her brutal assessments of which of our co-workers she’d like to murder first. And then how she’d get rid of the evidence.
She tapped me playfully on the knee. ‘But, hey. Exciting. New man. Are you going to see him again?’
‘He’s not a new man. I don’t think he noticed me,’ I said firmly. ‘He was paying more attention to the bread rolls. He said the yeast died in vain. He felt sorry for it, to the point of requiring revenge.’
‘That place will be closed down in three weeks,’ sighed Helen. ‘Mark my words.’
But she was right, and I’d been wrong. Dominic had noticed me. I got an email the following week, asking if I’d mind coming along to review a restaurant with him; he made it sound, rather sweetly, as if I’d be doing him a favour by ‘eating an extra starter and anything with a sauce because I have problems around cream.’ Two days later, we were sitting at the best table in Windows on the World overlooking the lights strung like glittering diamonds across the patchwork squares of Hyde Park, and Dominic made me laugh so much I forgot to eat anything. (He didn’t. He cleared his plate, then mine, apart from the bits with sauce on.)