They have started to arrive. An endless cascade of luxuriously quilted envelopes, thumping onto the doormat. The wedding invitations.
This wasn’t the first wave of weddings. Some of their contemporaries had even got married at University, but in that self-consciously wacky, rag-week way, a let’s-pretend parody of a wedding, like the jokey student ‘dinner parties’ where everyone wore evening dress to eat tuna pasta bake. Student wedding receptions were picnics in the local park, the guests in Oxfam suits and secondhand ballgowns, then onto the pub. In the wedding photos the bride and groom might be seen raising pint glasses to the camera, a fag dangling from the bride’s rouged mouth, and wedding gifts were modest: a really cool compilation tape; a clip-framed photo-montage; a box of candles. Getting married at University was an amusing stunt, an act of benign rebellion, like a tiny tattoo that no-one ever sees or shaving your head for charity.
The second wave, the mid-twenties weddings, still retained a little of that tongue-in-cheek, home-made quality. The receptions took place in community centres and parents’ gardens, vows were self-composed and rigorously secular, and someone always seemed to read that poem about the rain having such small hands. But a cold, hard edge of professionalism had started to creep in. The idea of the ‘wedding list’ had begun to rear its head.
At some point in the future a fourth wave is expected – the Second Marriages: bittersweet, faintly apologetic affairs that are over by 9.30 on account of all the kids. ‘It’s not a big deal,’ they will say ‘just an excuse for a party.’ But for the moment this year is the year of the third wave, and it is the third wave that is proving the most powerful, the most spectacular, the most devastating. These are the weddings of people in their early-to-mid-thirties, and no-one is laughing anymore.
The third wave is unstoppable. Every week seems to bring another luxuriantly creamy envelope, the thickness of a letter-bomb, containing a complex invitation – a triumph of paper engineering – and a comprehensive dossier of phone numbers, email addresses, websites, how to get there, what to wear, where to buy the gifts. Country house hotels are being block-booked, great schools of salmon are being poached, vast marquees are appearing overnight like Bedouin tent cities. Silky grey morning suits and top hats are being hired and worn with an absolutely straight face, and the times are heady and golden for florists and caterers, string quartets and Ceilidh callers, ice sculptors and the makers of disposable cameras. Decent Motown cover-bands are limp with exhaustion. Churches are back in fashion, and these days the happy couple are travelling the short distance from the place of worship to the reception on open-topped London buses, in hot-air balloons, on the backs of matching white stallions, in micro-lite planes. A wedding requires immense reserves of love and commitment and time off work, not least from the guests. Confetti costs eight pounds a box. A bag of rice from the corner shop just won’t cut it anymore.
Mr and Mrs Anthony Killick invite Emma Morley and partner to the wedding of their daughter Tilly Killick and Malcolm Tidewell.
In the motorway services Emma sat in her new car, her very first car, a fourth-hand Fiat Panda, and stared at the invite, knowing with absolute certainty that there would be men with cigars and someone English in a kilt.
‘Emma Morley and partner.’
Her road atlas was an ancient edition, with several major conurbations missing. She turned it through one hundred and eighty degrees, then back ninety, but it was like trying to navigate with a copy of the Domesday Book and she slapped it onto the empty passenger seat where her imaginary partner should have been sitting.
Emma was a shocking driver, simultaneously sloppy and petrified, and for the first fifty miles had been absent-mindedly driving with her spectacles on top of her contact lenses so that other traffic loomed menacingly out of nowhere like alien space cruisers. Frequent rest stops were required to stabilise her blood pressure and dab the perspiration from her top lip, and she reached for her handbag and checked her make-up in the mirror, trying to sneak up on herself to gauge the effect. The lipstick was redder and more sultry than she felt she could carry off, and the small amount of powder she had applied to her cheeks now looked garish and absurd, like something from a Restoration comedy. Why, she wondered, do I always look like a kid trying on her mother’s make-up? She had also made the elementary mistake of getting her hair cut, no, styled, just the day before, and it was still falling into an artful arrangement of layers and flicks; what her mum would have called a ‘do’.
In frustration she tugged hard at the hem of her dress, a Chinese-style affair of rich blue silk, or some silk substitute, which made her look like the plump unhappy waitress in the Golden Dragon Take-away. Sitting down it bulged and stretched, and the combination of something in the ‘silk’ and motorway jitters was making her perspire. The car’s air-conditioning had two settings, wind-tunnel and sauna, and all elegance had evaporated somewhere outside Maidenhead, to be replaced by two dark crescents of sweat beneath her arms. She raised her elbows to her head, and peered down at the patches and wondered if she should turn around, go home and change? Or just turn around. Go home, stay home, do some work on the book. After all, it’s not as if she and Tilly Killick were still the best of pals. The dark days when Tilly had been her landlady in the tiny flat in Clapton had cast a long shadow, and they’d never quite settled the dispute over the non-return of the returnable deposit. It was hard to wish the newly-weds well when the bride still owed you five hundred quid.
On the other hand, old friends would be there. Sarah C, Carol, Sita, the Watson twins, Bob, Mari with the Big Hair, Stephanie Shaw from her publishers, Callum O’Neill the sandwich millionaire. Dexter would be there. Dexter and his girlfriend.
And it was at this exact moment, as she sat pointing her armpits at the air-conditioning vents and wondering what to do, that Dexter drove by unseen in his Mazda sports car, Sylvie Cope by his side.
‘So who’ll be there?’ asked Sylvie, turning down the stereo. Travis – her choice for a change. Sylvie didn’t much care for music, but made an exception for Travis.
‘Just a whole lot of people from University. Paul and Sam and Steve O’D, Peter and Sarah, the Watsons. And Callum.’
‘Callum. Good, I like Callum.’
‘ . . . Mari with the Big Hair, Bob. God, people I haven’t seen for years. My old friend Emma.’
‘Another ex?’
‘No, not an ex . . .’
‘A fling.’
‘Not a fling, just an old, old friend.’
‘English teacher?’
‘Used to be an English teacher, writer now. You talked to her at Bob and Mari’s wedding, remember? In Cheshire.’
‘Vaguely. Quite attractive.’
‘I suppose so.’ Dexter shrugged hard. ‘We fell out for a while. I told you about it. Remember?’
‘They all melt into one.’ She turned to the window. ‘So did you have a thing with her?’
‘No I did not have a thing with her.’
‘What about the bride?’
‘Tilly? What about her?’
‘Did you ever have sex with the bride?’
December 1992, that horrible flat in Clapton that always smelt of fried onions. A foot massage that had spun wildly out of control while Emma was at Woolworths.
‘Of course not. What do you think I am?’
‘It seems like every week we go to some wedding with a coach-load of people you’ve slept with—’
‘That’s not true.’
‘—a marquee-full. Like a conference.’
‘Not true, not true—’
‘It is true.’
‘Hey, you’re the only one for me now.’ With one hand on the steering wheel, he reached across and placed the other on Sylvie’s stomach, still flat beneath the peach shot-satin of her short dress, then rested it on the top of her bare thigh.
‘Don’t leave me talking to strangers, will you?’ said Sylvie, and turned up the stereo.
It was mid-afternoon before Emma found herself, late and exhausted, at the security gates of the stately home, wondering if they would let her in. A vast estate in Somerset, shrewd investors had turned Morton Manor Park into a sort of all-in-one marriage compound, complete with its own chapel, banqueting hall, a privet maze, a spa, a selection of guest bedrooms with walk-through showers, all surrounded by a high wall topped with razor wire: a wedding camp. With follies and grottoes, ha-has and gazebos, a castle and a bouncy castle it was an upmarket marital Disneyland, available for whole weekends at breathtaking expense. It seemed an unusual venue for the wedding of a former member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, and Emma drove along the sweeping gravel drive, bemused and disconcerted by it all.
In sight of the chapel, a man dressed in the powdered wig and frock coat of a footman lunged in front of her, waving her down with frilly cuffs and leaning in at the window.
‘Is there a problem?’ she asked. She wanted to say ‘officer’.
‘I need the keys, ma’am.’
‘The keys?’
‘To park the car.’
‘Oh God, really?’ she said, embarrassed by the moss growing round the window seals, the mulch of disintegrated A to Zs and empty plastic bottles that littered the floor. ‘Okay, well, the doors don’t lock, you’ve got to use this screwdriver to hold it closed and there’s no hand brake, so park it on the level or edged up against a tree or just leave it in gear, alright?’ The footman took the keys between his finger and thumb as if he’d been handed a dead mouse.
She had been driving barefoot and now found that she had to stamp her swollen feet into her shoes, like an ugly stepsister. The ceremony had already started. From the chapel she could hear ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ played by four, possibly five, gloved hands. She hobbled across the gravel towards the chapel, her arms raised to evaporate some of the perspiration, like a child pretending to be a plane, then with one last tug on the hem of her dress she slid discreetly through the large oak door and stood at the back of the packed congregation. An acapella group was performing now, clicking their fingers maniacally, singing ‘I’m into Something Good’ as the happy couple grinned toothily at each other, wet-eyed. This was Emma’s first sighting of the groom: a rugby player type, handsome in pale grey morning suit and razor burn, he moved his big face at Tilly, working though different variations on ‘my happiest moment’. Unusually, Emma noted, the bride had opted for a Marie-Antoinette theme – pink silk and lace, a hooped skirt, hair piled high, a beauty spot – causing Emma to wonder if Tilly’s degree in History and French had perhaps fallen short of its mark. She looked very happy though, and he looked very happy, and the whole congregation looked very, very happy.
Song followed sketch followed song until the wedding began to resemble a Royal Variety Performance, and Dexter found his mind beginning to drift. Tilly’s ruddy-cheeked niece was reading a sonnet now, something about the marriage of two minds not admitting impediment, whatever the hell that meant. He tried hard to concentrate on the poem’s line of argument and to apply its romantic sentiment to his own feelings for Sylvie, then turned his attention back to how many of the congregation he had slept with. Not in a gloating way, not entirely, but with a sort of nostalgia. ‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks . . .’ read the bride’s niece, as Dexter made it five. Five ex-lovers in one small chapel. Was this some kind of record? Should there be extra points for the bride? No sign of Emma Morley yet. With Emma, five-and-a-half.
From the back of the church Emma watched Dexter counting off on his fingers, and wondered what he was doing. He wore a black suit with a skinny black tie; like all the boys these days, trying to look like a gangster. In profile, there was the beginning of a slight sagging under his jaw, but he still looked handsome. Stupidly handsome actually, and far less pasty and bloated than before he had met Sylvie. Since their falling out Emma had seen him three times, always at weddings. Each time he had thrown his arms around her and kissed her as if nothing had changed, and said ‘we must talk, we must talk’, but it had never happened, not really. He had always been with Sylvie, the pair of them busy looking beautiful. There she was now, a proprietary hand on his knee, her head and neck like some long-stemmed flower, craning to take it all in.
The vows now. Emma glanced across in time to see Sylvie reach for Dexter’s hand and squeeze the five fingers as if in solidarity with the happy couple. She whispered in his ear, and Dexter looked up at Sylvie, smiling broadly and a little dopily, so Emma thought. He mouthed something back, and though not a practiced lip-reader Emma thought that there was a good chance it was ‘I love you too.’ Self-consciously, he glanced around and caught Emma’s eye, grinning as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
The cabaret ended. There was just time for an uncertain rendition of ‘All You Need is Love,’ the congregation struggling to sing along in 7/4, before the guests followed the happy couple outside and the reunion began in earnest. Through the crowd of people, hugging, whooping and shaking hands, Dexter and Emma sought each other out and suddenly there they were.
‘Well,’ he said.
‘Well.’
‘Don’t I know you?’
‘Your face certainly rings a bell.’
‘Yours too. You look different though.’
‘Yes, I’m the only woman here who’s drenched in sweat,’ said Emma, plucking at the fabric beneath her arms.
‘You mean “perspiration”.’
‘Actually, no, this is sweat. I look like I’ve been dragged from a lake. Natural silk my eye!’
‘Sort of an oriental theme, isn’t it?’
‘I call it my Fall of Saigon look. Chinese technically. Of course the trouble with one of these dresses is forty minutes later you want another one!’ she said, and had that feeling, halfway through the sentence that she would have been better off not starting it. Did she imagine it, or did he roll his eyes a little? ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s okay. I really like the dress. In fact me love it long time.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘There you go; now we’re quits.’
‘What I meant was that you look good.’ He was peering at the top of her head now. ‘Is that a . . . ?’
‘What?’
‘Is that what they call a Rachel?’
‘Don’t push your luck, Dex,’ she said, immediately scrubbing at her hair with her fingertips. She glanced across to where Tilly and her brand new husband were posing for photographs, Tilly fluttering a fan coquettishly in front of her face. ‘Unfortunately I didn’t realise there was a French Revolutionary theme.’
‘The Marie-Antoinette thing?’ said Dexter. ‘Well at least we know there’ll be cake.’
‘Apparently she’s travelling to the reception in a tumbril.’
‘What’s a tumbril?’
They looked at each other. ‘You haven’t changed, have you?’ she said.
Dexter kicked at the gravel. ‘Well I have. A bit.’
‘That sounds intriguing.’
‘I’ll tell you later. Look—’
Tilly was standing on the running board of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost that would take them the hundred yards to the reception, the bouquet held low in both hands, ready to be tossed like a caber.
‘Want to go and try your chances, Em?’
‘Can’t catch,’ she said, placing her hands behind her back just as the bouquet was lobbed into the crowd and caught by a frail and elderly aunt, which seemed to anger the crowd somehow, as if someone’s last chance for future happiness had been squandered. Emma nodded towards the embarrassed aunt, the bouquet dangling forlornly from her hand. ‘There’s me in forty years’ time,’ said Emma.
‘Really? Forty?’ said Dexter, and Emma pressed her heel down on his toe. Over her shoulder he could see Sylvie nearby, looking round for him. ‘Better go. Sylvie doesn’t really know anyone. I’m on strict orders never to leave her side. Come and say hi, will you?’
‘Later. I’d better go and talk to the happy bride.’
‘Ask her about that deposit she owes you.’
‘D’you think? Today?’
‘See you later. Maybe we’ll be sitting next to each other at the reception.’ He held up crossed fingers, and she crossed her fingers back.
The overcast morning had settled into a beautiful afternoon, high clouds rolling across the huge blue sky as the guests followed the Silver Ghost in procession to the Great Lawn for champagne and canapés. There, with a great whoop, Tilly finally saw Emma, and they hugged each other as best they could across the bride’s vast hooped skirt.
‘I’m so glad you could make it, Em!’
‘Me too, Tilly. You look extraordinary.’
Tilly fluttered her fan. ‘You don’t think it’s too much?’
‘Not at all. You look stunning,’ and her eye drifted once more to the beauty spot that made it look as if a fly had settled on her lip. ‘The service was lovely too.’
‘Awwww, was it?’ This was an old trait of Tilly’s to precede each sentence with a sympathetic ‘aw’, as if Emma were a kitten who had hurt her little paw. ‘Did you cry?’
‘Like an orphan . . .’
‘Awww! I’m so, so glad you could make it.’ Regally she tapped Emma’s shoulder with her fan. ‘And I can’t wait to meet your boyfriend.’
‘Well me too, but unfortunately I don’t have one.’
‘Awww, don’t you?’
‘Nope, not for some time now.’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘I think I’d notice, Tilly.’
‘Awww! I’m sorry. Well get one! QUICK!!!! No seriously, boyfriends are great! Husbands are better! We must find you one!’ she commanded. ‘Tonight! We’ll fix you up!’ and Emma felt her head being verbally patted. ‘Awwwww. So! Have you seen Dexter yet?’
‘Briefly.’
‘Have you met his girlfriend? With the hairy forehead? Isn’t she beautiful? Just like Audrey Hepburn. Or is it Katharine? I can never remember the difference.’
‘Audrey. She’s definitely an Audrey.’
The champagne flowed on and a sense of nostalgia spread across the Great Lawn as old friends met and conversation turned into how much people earned now, how much weight they had gained.
‘Sandwiches. That’s the future,’ said Callum O’Neill, who was both earning and weighing a great deal more these days. ‘High-quality, ethically-minded convenience food, that’s where it’s at my friend. Food is the new rock and roll!’
‘I thought that comedy was the new rock and roll.’
‘It was, then it was rock and roll, now it’s food. Keep up, Dex!’ Dexter’s old flatmate had transformed almost beyond recognition in the last few years. Prosperous, large and dynamic, he had moved on from refurbished computers, selling the business at a vast profit to start up the ‘Natural Stuff’ sandwich chain. Now, with his trim little goatee and close-cropped hair, he was the very model of the well-groomed, self-assured young entrepreneur. Callum tugged on the cuffs of an exquisite tailored suit and Dexter found himself wondering if this could really be the same skinny Irishman who wore the same trousers every day for three years.
‘Everything’s organic, everything’s made fresh, we do juices and smoothies to order, we do fair-trade coffee. We’ve got four branches, and they’re full all the time, seriously, constantly. We have to close at three o’clock, there’s just no food left. I tell you, Dex, the food culture in this country, it’s changing, people want things to be better. No-one wants a can of Tango and a packet of crisps anymore. They want hummus wraps, papaya juice, crayfish . . .’
‘Crayfish?’
‘In flatbread, with rocket. Seriously, crayfish is the egg sandwich of our time, rocket’s the iceberg lettuce. Crayfish are cheap to produce, they breed like you wouldn’t believe, they’re delicious, the poor man’s lobster! Hey, you should come and have a talk to me about it sometime.’
‘About crayfish.’
‘About the business. I think there could be a lot of opportunities for you.’
Dexter dug at the lawn with his heel. ‘Callum, are you offering me a job?’
‘No, I’m just saying, come in and—’
‘I can’t believe a friend of mine is offering me a job.’
‘—come and have lunch! None of that crayfish crap either, a proper restaurant. My treat.’ He draped a large arm over Dexter’s shoulder, and in a lowered voice said, ‘I haven’t seen you much on TV these days.’
‘That’s because you don’t watch cable and satellite. I do a lot of work on cable and satellite.’
‘Like?’
‘Well I’m doing this new show called Sport Xtreme. Xtreme with an X. Surfing footage, interviews with snow-boarders. You know. From all around the world.’
‘So you’re travelling a lot then?’