My Fake Wedding(38)

‘Gettout!’ Basildon Bride grabs my elbow in a vice-like grip and prepares to march me outside.

‘Oooh, she’s just like Jackie Dixon,’ I hear George say.

‘You’re a fuckin’ liar. And you’re going down, you slag.’

Oh God.

Then she turns on George.

‘And you,’ she screeches. ‘You’ve bloody gatecrashed as well, haven’t you?’

‘’Fraid so, sweetie,’ George agrees. ‘But I really wouldn’t be flattered. I’m not having a very nice time, I’m afraid. Actually, to be perfectly frank, this whole bash smacks rather of Asti Spumante. The guests are more egg and chips than gratin dauphinoise, darling, and talking of food, no one has had the common decency to offer me any more than a flaccid sausage roll since I got here.’

‘Come on, George,’ I hiss, preparing to make a run for it. The bride, for all her froth and frills, looks hard as frigging nails and I’m left in little doubt that she won’t baulk at smashing a bottle over my head if she feels the need.

But George isn’t to be deterred.

‘This do has the class of the QVC Shopping Channel,’ he spits. ‘Belgravia? Huh. We might as well be in bloody Plaistow.’

That does it. George’s venomous tongue is the final nail in my coffin. Tiara askew, Basildon Bride launches herself at me in a spitting, hissing flurry of dirty cream silk, grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and slopping rum and black all over my gold jacket, screeching that if we haven’t got the fuck out of there by the time she’s counted to ten, she’s going to smash my fucking face to bits.

I believe her.

‘Very elegant,’ I counter bravely, administering a sharp kick to her shin and noticing with some satisfaction that I’ve made a whopping great rip in her tights. Well, that’s one ladder that definitely isn’t a stairway to heaven or why the hell did her husband of several hours feel the need to poke me, a ginger streak of piss from South London, on their wedding day?

‘Just goes to show, darling,’ George remarks spitefully. ‘You can take the slag out of the council estate but you sure can’t take the council estate out of the slag. I’d watch it if I were you, darling,’ he comments to Zac, as I pray for the parquet to swallow us up. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if her wedding lingerie turns out to be crotchless.’

Then, with a parting, ‘Nasty dress, by the way,’ he tugs on my hand and we stagger, cackling and hooting with deliciously bitchy laughter, into the night.





Chapter 8


The first grown-up dinner party Janice and I attended together was in Sixth Form. I smothered my hair in Sun-In and wore wraparound shades and a disgusting dress with a gingham puffball skirt. I thought I was the dog’s bollocks. Janice hired a frock specially: a stunning fifties number, ink-black with a pinched-in waist, acres of gauzy netting and trillions of tiny jet beads. Then she shagged the school heartthrob, got sperm all over the dress and made me take it back to the shop while she sat outside in my mum’s Austin Maxi with the engine running.

This time, she’s adamant that everything’s going to be perfect. Gone is the girl who changes her men as often as she changes her g-string. Jasper is the start of her grown-up life, and she’s buggered if she’s letting on she’s really the type to go round dishing out blow jobs to sundry blokes with runaway egos.

If I’m honest, the thought of her giving all that up makes me depressed. It signals the taking on of responsibility. Adulthood. It reminds me I’ve got to do something with my life before it’s too late.

Of course I don’t have to. I could always opt out. I could open a sunbed centre or do a course in teaching aerobics. I wouldn’t have to sit in an office then. I could dress permanently in sports wear and drive round in a Jeep. But before I really have a chance to decide whether or not I want to start my own catering business, Janice has organised her dinner party and sent out the invites. We meet in the Moon Under Water on Sunday to drink pints of shandy (doesn’t really count as drinking as it’s half lemonade and so entirely suitable for a school night) and discuss the menu.

‘I thought carrot, coconut and cumin soup to start,’ she announces bossily. ‘Followed by roast rump of lamb with a minted polenta crust and seasonal vegetables and then a rich chocolate mousse cake with marscapone to follow. I got it all out of the Sugar Club cookbook. What d’you reck? Will that look as though it took me bastard ages?’

I don’t know about that. But I do know that it’s going to take me bastard ages. Any normal person would be happy to settle for pasta and pesto. Or spag bol at least. I’ll give her flaming minted polenta crust.