The hen’s one of those events where I can’t work out if everyone secretly despises each other. There are six bridesmaids, but they’re phone-checking more than they’re mingling, and the maid of honor booked cocktail punting—which would have been fine if it wasn’t mid-January and Alana wasn’t terrified of water. So we call it off and find a bar instead, where the maid of honor heads straight to the loos to flip out, forcing the rest of the bridal party into protracted negotiations to appease her.
I organized Grace’s hen do, off-road buggy driving near Brighton, an attempt to re-create—at least in part—her fabled Dubai dune-buggy experience. Afterward there was curry, then pints in a proper pub, the two things Grace said she always missed most when she was traveling. And, to top off the day, it rained—and it was the right sort of rain, British rain. Cold, unforgiving,Four Weddingsrain was Grace’s preferred precipitation type.
She leaned over to me halfway through a pint of John Smith’s. Her mascara was running by then because we’d been laughing so hard. I remember making a mental note to buy her some of the waterproof stuff so she didn’t end up looking like a Halloween bride at her own wedding. “I want you to get married, Cal.”
“What?”
“Isowant you to get married.”
“Why?”
She looked around the pub. “So I can do all this for you.”
Putting a fingertip to the apple of her cheek, I wiped away some of the black. “When I meet the man I want to marry, you’ll be the first to know.”
I hadn’t even met Piers back then, not that marriage would ever be in the cards between us. And before that I’d really had only flings, a few dates that had progressed before going invariably nowhere.
It still makes me sad to think of it now, that Grace never will get to meet the man I want to marry.
•••
The hen do goes from bad to worse when everyone starts to bicker about whose idea the punting was, so I sneak outside to call Joel.
“How’s it going?”
“Horribly, actually. It’s the most passive-aggressive hen do I’ve ever been on.”
“That doesn’t bode well for the big day.”
“Tell me about it. I’m thinking of giving them the slip. Fancy being my co-conspirator?”
I hear him smile into the phone. “Always. Think they’ll mind?”
“Alana’s limbering up for a brawl with her maid of honor as we speak, so I doubt it.” I hesitate. “How does a night in a low-end hotel sound to you?”
I’m booked in at a budget place on the outskirts of the city. The maidof honor chose it, for the discount on the group booking, but Alana turned purple when she saw it. It’s the kind of hotel that could only really pass for decent if both your eyes were closed and you liked all your surfaces to come with a slightly sticky sheen.
“Low-end, you say?”
“It’s very poorly rated on TripAdvisor.”
“Say no more. I’m there.”
•••
An hour or so later, he knocks on my hotel-room door.
“Wow,” he says, when I open it. “You look incredible.”
Excited for an opportunity to escape my wellies and fleece, tonight I made an effort by way of a black dress and fairly extreme heel, curling my hair, giving my eyeliner a sizable flick. The effect’s diminished now—my shoes are off and my hair’s lost its bounce—so it’s extra nice that Joel still thinks I look lovely.
“I’m trying to work out if it’s good or bad that the guy on the front desk didn’t bat an eyelid when I bowled straight past him,” Joel says, putting his arms around me.
I smile and kiss him hello. “I’d say good. Definitely. Thank you for saving my night.”
“Oh, I’m really just here for the free biscuits.”
I wince. “Sorry. There was only one shortbread, and I got a bit peckish.”
