My Fake Wedding(33)

I take it. After all, I’ve got no one else to practise on. And Janice and Jasper are apparently getting on very well. They’ve done restaurant dates and the theatre. He’s even taken her to the opera, where she betrayed her roots by falling fast asleep, bored to tears, and dribbling down the lapel of his suit. And she’s holding out on the sex front. Doesn’t want him to bugger off. So they’ve done breast touching, and even a bit of breast looking, but that’s about it.

‘I’m reeling him in gently.’ She laughs. ‘I’m being all mysterious. Anyway, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. We’ll decide what you’re going to cook.’

George says I should at least go to a wedding beforehand. After all, it’s been ages since I attended a reception. And, as luck would have it, he’s been invited to one next weekend. He doesn’t really want to go because it’s rumoured that the bride is a money-grubbing, social-climbing, bottom-feeding bungalow dweller who’s found herself a nice piece of rich, and is consequently getting ideas above her station, but now he thinks of it, David’ll be away so why don’t I go along with him. Save him having to go on his own.

‘And it might give you some ideas,’ Sam says enthusiastically.

I allow myself to be steamrollered into the whole thing. And the following Saturday, I pour myself into gold lamé and meet George in Bierodrome in Upper Street for cherry beer and chips with mayonnaise before stumbling down the Holloway Road where we buy him a pair of size eleven sparkly red mules and jump, giggly on beer bubbles, onto a tube bound for South Kensington.

The reception is being held in a large house off Eaton Square. Wobbling along the terrace of identical white mansions with squirly black numbers painted on wedding cake pillars outside, we identify the spiddly spoo strains of jazz filtering into the busy street and follow the sound up steps, through a front door, down a long panelled hallway and into a big, striped, tenty sort of thing attached to the back of number twelve. Girls in great pumpkins of ballgowns and chaps in DJs are twirling each other around in a blaze of flaming scarlet silk, soft emerald velvet and shimmering midnight-blue satin. Silver horseshoes and golden streamers are liberally scattered among the corks and coffee cups discarded on nearby tables and a girl with what George calls a common mouth and air hostess orange make-up is dressed as a giant pavlova and waltzing with someone’s granddad over by the stage.

George seems to think introductions are superfluous to requirements.

‘No point being polite,’ he chirrups happily, lighting a banana-coloured fag and trolling over towards the booze. ‘I already got all the delicious gossip. Groom’s Zachary Faulkner. Father’s a zillionaire. This is his house. Or one of them, I should say, darling. Bride’s your average slapper in slingbacks. It’s the blessed union   of Nice ’n’ Rich and Cheap ’n’ Nasty, sweetie. Belgravia Boy and his Basildon Bride. Isn’t it fantastic? His parents are furious. Look, over there. British Bulldog smoking cigar, and Tweedy Stick Insect sucking lemon. Black tie wedding theme was the bride’s idea, of course. I mean who does that these days, darling? So tacky. Oh, and that’s the bride’s parents over there. Pink Liquorice Allsort Hat and Shiny Brown Suit. See?’

I glance over to where a drab, sad-looking couple in their fifties sit, bewildered and obviously leagues out of their depth. No one’s even bothering to talk to them. It seems so sad. It’s their own daughter’s wedding.

George springs into action. Spotting a full, opened bottle of champagne sitting unattended on a nearby table, he gleefully points over at it. ‘Are we having that or not?’ he asks mischievously.

‘Having it,’ I reply as he swaggers over to swipe it, wrapping his greedy little hands round the golden foil neck and joyfully glugging straight from the bottle as he clacks over to a table occupied by a solitary woman with a cleavage like a builder’s bum and a couple of pubescent bridesmaids, all pearlescent pink ruffles and train-track braces. I follow, shuffling over in ridiculous slut shoes that make my squashed feet feel like sides of vacuum-packed ham. Feeling more than a tad silly, I concertina my gangly limbs into the spaghetti-sized gap between tent pole and table.

Unfortunately, because I’m slightly uncomfortable, I drink. A lot. And because I know I’m never likely to see any of these people again in my life, things get out of hand pretty quickly. Our stolen bottle of champagne is drained with Formula One speed and I’m soon feeling as excited as a kid at a birthday party as golden froth jostles and pops alongside bubbles of possibility in my brain. Perhaps I really can make a go of this catering lark.