‘Oh hurray!’ cries Patrick’s mother.
‘Shut up,’ hisses Del from across the aisle.
‘Oh,’ says Patrick, but I see it. I see the light in his eyes. ‘Peony, I—’
‘Please. Just give me five minutes. I need to say my piece. If you still want to marry… err. Oh God, I’m so sorry, I don’t know your name.’
‘Carys,’ I offer.
‘Carys! Sorry. Yes, if you still want to marry Carys after that, I won’t stop you.’
Patrick looks to me nervously and I do not have any idea what to do.
Do I say okay and let them speak? Do I say no? This is my wedding after all. What is the normal human reaction at this moment? I don’t have a script for this.
I open my mouth, hoping that the right words will come out, when I hear ‘Stop the wedding!’
And then there’s Dolly, awkwardly running in through theopen doors, her movement restricted by her slinky dress. What is she doing here?
‘Dolly?’ I cry.
‘Dolly!’ chorus my sisters excitedly.
‘Oh, hi, Dolly,’ says Patrick cheerily. ‘How was your wedding?’
‘Non-existent,’ she mutters, as she reaches us.
‘You didn’t?’ I gasp.
‘No. Not yet. I had something to do first,’ she says to me.
‘Oh, are you here to be maid of honour?’ Patrick beams. ‘How lovely! I didn’t think that was allowed.’
Dolly’s eyes move from me to Peony. ‘Oh. Hello. Peony, I presume?’
‘Yes, hello.’ For some reason, Dolly and Peony shake hands. ‘Sorry, were you the person I just overtook in the driveway?’
‘Yes, but in your defence, you are wearing a much more sensible outfit to stop a wedding.’
Patrick looks very confused. ‘You’ve come to stop the wedding, Dolly?’
Peony gulps. Dolly’s eyes bore into me. She came? She really came.
He looks from Dolly to me. ‘Carys?’
I can’t speak.
‘Carys, why has Dolly come to stop the wedding?’
‘I—’
‘This is a jolly strange coincidence,’ Peony says awkwardly.
Finally, he looks at Dolly then back to me. That’s when I see it, the moment of realisation in his eyes. It’s a kind of heartbreak.
‘Oh,’ he says quietly. ‘I see.’
‘Can someone tell me what the hell is happening?’ Jane says in the sweetest voice possible for someone who just said ‘hell’ during a wedding ceremony.
