I Heart London

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down,’ I said, pretending I couldn’t feel the warmth of his palm through my jeans. It was off-putting. ‘Because they bloody well will. Just to be awkward.’

  ‘No one’s being awkward but you,’ he said in a stern voice. It was oddly sexy. ‘I know you’re tired and I know you’re stressed, but you’re gonna regret it if you fuck up this week. You haven’t seen your family in two years, Angela − don’t make this a bad time. They’ve missed you and I know you’ve missed them.’

  I looked back at the towel bales and sniffed.

  ‘Yes you have.’ He nudged me and smiled in the darkness. Damn those blindingly white American teeth. ‘So tell me what’s up.’

  ‘Everything’s just so weird.’ My voice sounded tiny even though it echoed around the tiled walls. ‘I’ve been gone ages and nothing’s changed. Nothing at all. They’ve even got the same soap.’ I pointed at the fresh white bar on the side of the sink. ‘But it’s all so weird because things have changed, haven’t they? I feel like I’ve walked into a reality show or something.’

  ‘Things here might not have changed so much,’ Alex answered after a second’s consideration. ‘But think about it. You have.’

  Huh. That sort of made sense.

  ‘Two years isn’t such a long time if you’re living the same life you’ve been living for the last fifty. Even the last five. But when you up and move to another country and change every little last thing, it’s gonna seem kinda wacky when you come back to the place you left behind,’ he went on. ‘Especially when you come back and throw two arsehole Americans into the mix.’

  I didn’t want to smile but I couldn’t help it. So this was why I was marrying him. My mum was right. He was sensible.

  ‘It’s like putting Mickey Mouse in a Dickens novel, right?’ He squeezed my knee, pushing for a laugh. And he got it.

  Alex reached up to push the hair back from my face. His fingertips rippled through my roots, sending shivers right through my body. I could have sworn I was a fat lap-cat in a previous life. ‘So you’re going to get some sleep and wake up in the morning all shiny and new, right?’

  ‘Am I?’ I wasn’t quite convinced.

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  He pushed up on his knees and slipped his hands around my face, pulling me in for a long, soft kiss. In the dark, with his warm body against mine, we could have been anywhere in the world, and that’s when everything suddenly made sense. Alex was my home. Now I’d got that, nothing seemed quite so strange.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Waking up in my bedroom the next morning was confusing. Waking up next to Jenny was even more confusing. Looking at my phone and seeing that it was almost midday was less confusing. I had been tired.

  With a groan I rolled onto my side and threw my legs over the edge of the bed. The events of the day before came back to me in slow motion − the airport, the supermarket, Louisa, Louisa having a baby, Alex, Jenny. Me behaving like a complete child. Alex was right. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that I was pissed off. Maybe if I hadn’t run into Mark, maybe if I’d had more sleep on the plane, maybe if I wasn’t so stressed about the meeting. This week wasn’t going to get any easier if I was just going to be a complete cock.

  Freshly showered, freshly made up and wearing a fresh aqua-coloured Nanette Lepore sundress and brown leather flip-flops, I ventured into the kitchen with a smile on my face only to find it empty. Sighing, I pushed some loose strands of hair that had already escaped from my perky ponytail out of my face and put the kettle on. Tea. Tea made it all better. Because even if it was after twelve, it was too early to hit the cocktails. Unless − I looked over each shoulder − I made a quick screwdriver. It was Sunday, after all. I’d be brunching myself blind if we were at home right now and brunch meant a Bloody Mary at the very least.

  I flipped off the kettle, pulled the vodka out from under the counter and poured a generous measure into my mug before topping it off with orange juice. Sip, sigh, relax. The perfect crime.

  ‘Angela?’ came a voice.

  I jumped out of my skin and hurriedly hid the Smirnoff. As I did so, I noticed the brand new bottle of JD wasn’t quite so brand new any more. In fact it was half empty. Father − for shame. So that’s where I got my drinking problem from.

  ‘We’re in the garden,’ my mother called. ‘Bring the biscuit tin.’

  Putting on my best McDonald’s smile, I picked up the biscuit tin, checked it had Hobnobs in it and put my best foot forward.

  ‘Morning.’ I placed the biscuit barrel down on the wrought-iron garden table and showed the meanest teeth I could manage without looking like a Rottweiler. ‘What are we up to?’

  Alex, sitting opposite me in jeans and a David Bowie T-shirt that looked suspiciously like it had been ironed, smiled over his coffee cup.

  ‘Afternoon,’ Mum replied. ‘We were just discussing where to go for lunch. Alex thought it would be nice if we all went out together.’

  ‘That sounds lovely,’ I said, taking a deep drink and trying not to shudder. Maybe it was a little bit strong. ‘I’ve been dreaming of a Sunday roast.’

  ‘Someone got out of bed on the right side.’ Dad got up from his chair and kissed me on the top of my head. Thank goodness vodka didn’t smell. ‘Alex and I were almost as lazy as you. Late one, wasn’t it, son?’

  Son? Wuh?

  ‘It was,’ Alex confirmed. ‘Your dad has some awesome vinyl. You never told me he was a rocker.’

  ‘I didn’t think a Phil Collins cassette made someone a rocker?’ I turned to follow my dad as he walked towards his shed. Ahh, the shed. A man’s last bastion of freedom.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Alex leaned across the table and yawned. ‘He has so many records. I can’t believe he saw Bowie in the Seventies.’

  I looked down at Alex’s T-shirt and leaned over to sniff it. It smelled of Comfort. And yes, it had definitely been ironed. ‘Is that my dad’s?’

  ‘It was,’ Dad called back. ‘I gave it to Alex. Keep it in the family and all that. It’s not like I’ve worn it in the last forty years.’

  My good-girl resolve was being tested. My mum looked so calm, I would have put money on her having had a Botox-fest in the night, and my dad and Alex sharing clothes and staying up late listening to records … Perhaps it wasn’t just me who was drinking in the day.

  ‘We nearly did for that bottle of whiskey, as well,’ Dad shouted. ‘Drank me under the table, this one did.’

  Ahh, so that’s how Alex had moved up the son-in-law ladder so quickly. They had bonded over Seventies rock and got hammered. And my mum had seen him hold a baby without pulling a face or even slightly injuring it. Which was more than could be said for me. He was in. Relief washed over me. Or at least the buzz from my screwdriver did. I really did need to eat something soon.

  ‘Is Jenny up?’ Mum, complete with lipstick and mascara, reached for a Bourbon biscuit. ‘We need to set off soon if we want to get a seat in the garden.’

  ‘She’s still fast on,’ I said, waiting for someone to compliment my dress and wondering if my mum looked better than I did. I had relied heavily on the frock for impact. ‘I’ll go and ask if she wants to come. Garden looks nice.’

  ‘Dad’s been getting it ready for the party,’ she said, looking incredibly pleased with herself. While my mother was one of England’s leading martyrs, she also really enjoyed an opportunity to rub my Aunt Sheila’s face in the fact that our garden was three times the size of hers. I would have found it sad if I hadn’t been fighting exactly the same gene my entire life. It was probably why I was still so pissed off that no one had mentioned my very beautiful and not inexpensive dress. ‘We’re going to have a little marquee over there,’ she said, pointing to a pretty grassed area between the two silver birches at the end of the garden. ‘And Dad’s going to turn the shed into a bar. He’s a bit more excited about that than he should be.’

  ‘I’ve been learning how to mix cocktails,’ he called from behind closed doors. ??
?Just call me Tom Cruise!’

  ‘Don’t call him Tom Cruise,’ Mum said in a low voice. ‘Whatever you do. Right, Angela, are you going to check on Jenny? Poor girl, I hope she’s not sickening for something. Lovely dress, by the way.’

  I nodded, patted Alex on his criminally soft T-shirt and pattered back into the house. It was a lovely dress.

  Jenny passed on Sunday lunch, or at least that’s what I took her grunting underneath the covers to mean. I patted her on the top of the head, told her where my mum hid her chocolate and recommended that she shouldn’t wander into sunny Surrey unaccompanied in case she was burned as a witch by my mother’s neighbours. Then I closed the door.

  The drive to the pub was uneventful. My parents were oddly quiet, even with each other, only breaking their silence when we passed someone from the garden centre who, surprisingly enough, might or might not have cancer. Alex and I were safely strapped into our seat belts on opposite sides of the back seat. It wasn’t quite the same as a frenzied late-night make-out session in the back of a taxi, but there was something lovely about watching the English countryside rush by with the window down, holding hands with my boyfriend and hoping my parents didn’t notice.

  The garden at the pub was almost completely empty − just a couple of kids playing on the see-saw and the usual smokers hiding out in a corner. Everyone else clearly thought their proximity to the bar would get them served quicker. They were right. I was jealous, but on the other hand drinking in front of my parents had always made me uncomfortable. This was indeed quite the predicament.

  ‘Now you’re awake and not quite so mardy, do you want to tell us what your plans are for the week?’ Mum asked, ordering a spritzer. Dad and Alex ordered pints. I went for a Diet Coke and made a secret deal with myself to sink a glass of wine at the bar later. Now that I wasn’t quite so mardy.

  ‘Not drinking?’ Dad said in a slightly too high voice. ‘Glass of wine?’

  ‘I’m still a bit tired,’ I said, crying inside.

  ‘Not drinking.’ Mum gave Dad a sly glance and raised her eyebrows. Did they know I’d already been on the vodka? Was there a marker on the bottle that I hadn’t seen? Like when I was a teenager? ‘Not drinking. So, plans? For the week?’

  ‘Nothing much set in stone.’ I pulled out my iPhone and checked my calendar. ‘My meeting at Spencer UK is going to be Thursday now, I think, and obviously it’s your party on Saturday. Alex has got some meetings, haven’t you?’ He nodded on cue. ‘And I suppose Jenny’s going to want to do the touristy things. Why?’

  ‘Just interested,’ she shrugged. The problem with my mum was that it wasn’t what she said but what she didn’t say that you needed to look out for. When she said she was ‘just interested’, what she meant was she wanted a complete itinerary of every waking second for all three of us otherwise she’d have us tagged like stray dogs. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about the wedding.’

  ‘Have you now?’

  Alex kicked me very gently underneath the picnic table and leaned in towards me.

  ‘I have,’ she went on, pulling her shoulders back and clearing her throat. ‘I was thinking about what you said − about keeping it small and just with close friends, and, well, what I thought was, why not have it here?’

  ‘Here in the pub?’ That didn’t make any sense at all.

  ‘No.’ Mum took a deep breath. ‘Here at home. This week.’

  I felt Alex’s thigh tense beside me but his expression never changed. Mum and Dad, on the other hand, were lit up like Christmas trees.

  ‘Right.’ I laid my hands flat on the wooden table and looked to the heavens. What pretty fluffy white clouds. ‘You want us to get married this week?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even though weddings, on average, take about eighteen months to organize?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And we haven’t organized anything yet. Or got a licence. Or lost our minds.’

  ‘So this is what I was thinking,’ Mum went on as if I hadn’t spoken, pulling up her handbag − a very tasteful Radley number complete with dangling dog − and producing a flowered notebook. ‘We’ve got the party all organized for Saturday, the family is going to be there, Louisa is coming, your Jenny’s here and you did say you just wanted something simple and no hassle. What’s less hassle than this? It’s all done for you.’

  ‘Even if I didn’t think you were completely insane,’ I said, picking my words as carefully as I could, ‘I don’t have a dress. Alex doesn’t have a suit here. And we have other friends as well as Jenny and Louisa. And what about Alex’s family?’

  ‘Uhh, I kind of mentioned something about not being so close with my mom and dad last night,’ Alex said, laying a hand over mine on the table. ‘And I guess I might have said they probably wouldn’t be coming to the wedding?’

  I turned slowly to give him the full power of my glare. ‘So you know about this?’ I asked. ‘Is this your idea?’

  ‘No,’ he held his hands up just in case I was thinking about shooting him. And if I’d had a shotgun, I would have. ‘I swear.’

  ‘It’s my idea.’ Mum started tapping on her notebook with her pen. ‘Angela, just think about it for a minute. You were the one that said you didn’t want too much fuss. And what would be nicer than getting married surrounded by your family, at home? We’ve always had some money put aside for your wedding, so that’s not a problem. I’ve already ordered lots of flowers − pink and white peonies. They’re still your favourite, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t hate peonies,’ I admitted grudgingly.

  ‘And I’ve ordered all your favourite food.’ She looked down at her list. ‘And I’m not making it. It’s coming from a caterer.’

  Now she was playing to the crowd.

  ‘And I know we don’t have a licence, but I looked on the Internet and what we could do is have your Uncle Kevin do the ceremony and then get the paperwork signed afterwards. I downloaded it all − it looks very straightforward.’

  I hated the Internet.

  ‘But the dress?’ I looked at Alex for support, but he just shrugged and held up his hands again. ‘I don’t have a dress.’

  ‘You’re not telling me that between you, Louisa and Jenny you can’t find a wedding dress in a week?’

  She was right. If ever there was a crack team of bridesmaids preassembled on this earth, it was those two. But still. This was even more poorly thought out than Kim Kardashian’s wedding. Her second wedding, anyway. I couldn’t speak about the first; it wasn’t covered by E!.

  ‘I’m going inside to the loo, and when I come back I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened,’ I said, standing up and attempting to extricate myself from the picnic bench without flashing my knickers. ‘And when the waitress comes back, I want the beef. With everything.’

  I stormed into the bar wishing I wasn’t wearing a swishy lace sundress and stomped into the bathroom as violently as I could. I was in the mood for DMs and ripped jeans and flannel shirts and shouty suicidal music. Instead I was rocking a look that Zooey Deschanel might have written off as a bit too cute. I knew I shouldn’t have spent ten minutes in the bathroom applying seventeen coats of mascara. No one ever believed Bambi when he was angry.

  I peed furiously, washed my hands and tossed the paper towel into the bin. It didn’t help. There was only one person who could help at a time like this.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jenny.’ I snuck out of the toilet and out through the front door of the pub. ‘My mum has gone mad.’

  ‘Like, Hulk mad, or crazy mad?’

  ‘Like she wants me and Alex to get married on Saturday in the back garden mad.’

  There was a silence on the line that I took to mean Jenny was also freaking out. Or at least watching visions of a Vera Wang bridesmaid’s dress disappearing in a puff of smoke generated by Annette Clark.

  ‘Angela,’ she said slowly. ‘That is a freaking awesome idea.’

  ‘What?’

&nbs
p; Had the entire world gone insane?

  ‘Think about it.’ Jenny’s pace picked up. She was going to run with this. ‘Your family is here, I’m here, Alex is here. Dude, it’s so romantic.’

  ‘Getting married in my mother’s garden is romantic?’ She’d lost me.

  ‘Totally. It’s like something out of a goddamn Nicholas Sparks novel,’ she squealed. ‘I love this. We’ll get flowers, a ton of flowers, just fill the place up, and it’s still six days away − that’s a heap of time.’

  ‘But it’s not a Nicholas Sparks novel,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m not dying, I don’t have amnesia and Alex isn’t going away to war. This is stupid. Why don’t you think this is stupid? What about Erin and Sadie and all of Alex’s friends?’

  ‘Please − they can get their asses over here,’ she said, dismissing my concerns immediately. ‘Do you have any idea how much money those girls have? More than you and I will ever, ever have. And I’m sure Alex’s friends would come if he asked them. We can put them up in the house. Or maybe Louisa could help?’

  Louisa. Why didn’t I call Louisa? She would have shit on this idea before I’d got as far as agreeing on Uncle Kevin officiating. And in what way exactly was Uncle Kevin ordained? I’d work that out later. I had bigger questions right now.

  ‘Angela, I think you should think about this,’ she said seriously. ‘You want a no-hassle wedding, right? This is a no-hassle wedding. And it’s super-romantic.’

  ‘I suppose it does give me six more days’ notice than the last one I planned,’ I said, sitting down on the low stone wall behind me. ‘But it just feels wrong.’

  ‘Everything feels wrong to you,’ Jenny reminded me. ‘Remember when I got bangs? You thought that was wrong too.’

  ‘I don’t think this is the same,’ I huffed. ‘And you did grow them out immediately.’

  ‘Spending eighteen months planning a ridiculous wedding doesn’t guarantee happiness.’ She wasn’t about to give up. Jenny had clearly decided which team she was on here and it wasn’t mine. ‘Look at Russell and Katy.’