The Big Little Wedding in Carlton Square Read online

  He gathers me into his arms, shifting till we find the lying-down position that doesn’t make my arm go numb. When we first figured out that this was possible, it seemed like the universe telling us that we really are perfect together. ‘I don’t mind,’ he says. ‘I just want to spend the rest of my life with you. My side can pitch in as much or as little as we want. Besides, I’m sure a wedding doesn’t have to cost that much.’

  ‘This is based on what, your vast amount of wedding-planning experience?’ I say, as I spot a crumpled bank statement peeking out from under the settee. Who knows how long it’s been there? Daniel and Jacob really need a cleaner. Snatching it up, my eye falls on the balance. And on the account owner’s name.

  ‘Daniel?’

  Suddenly we’re sitting up staring at each other with the bank statement between us.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I’ll pay it off. I needed a new suit, that’s all.’

  ‘Made of what, solid gold?’

  He laughs. ‘You’d be proud of me, actually. I channelled my inner Emma and found a rahly good deal. That’s not all from the suit.’

  ‘That’s not making me feel better. Daniel, we’ve talked about this. Why don’t you just wait until the money’s in the account to buy what you want instead of always playing catch-up?’

  ‘But you know I’ll pay it down, darling. I always do, don’t I?’

  I know he does. He is very good at tightening his belt when he’s spent too much, and he’ll get that overdraft down just like he’s promised.

  ‘This is all the more reason not to go overboard with the wedding,’ I tell him. ‘Your family won’t need to pitch in. We’ll do something nice that we can afford. Mum and Dad have some money for us.’

  ‘Em, your family shouldn’t have to pay for everything when we’re more than happy to contribute. After all, it’s my side that wants a blowout and Mummy has already offered. Your parents will let us help, won’t they?’

  ‘We’ll see. Let’s look at our options first, okay?’

  But I already know what Dad’s going to say about the idea of Daniel’s family paying for his only daughter’s wedding because he can’t afford to.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Bollocks!’ Dad’s already got his arms crossed. His re-crossing is just for emphasis. I’ve got more chance now of winning the EuroMillions than getting him to change his mind. I didn’t even want to have this conversation again. But Mum, being Mum, wouldn’t stop going on about the wedding plans. Like I haven’t worked out for myself that most decent places are already booked up. We’ll probably end up paying over the odds for a garage under the arches.

  I really don’t want to have our wedding in a garage under the arches.

  ‘I’m just saying that they can afford it.’ The words are out before I can stop them.

  Mum closes her eyes and sighs.

  Why can’t I ever quit while I’m not too far behind?

  The set of Dad’s jaw tightens. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he says. ‘You know I think Daniel’s a good lad, but you don’t need a big fancy wedding to get married. You’re committing to each other and you can do that just fine at the registry with a little party after. Your mother and I were married–’

  ‘“In the town hall not ten minutes from this house,’” I finish for him. He’s trotted out the same lines ever since I first dared to ask for Dr. Martens when I was ten. Real ones, not the Junior Dr. Martens rip-offs they had down the market. What’s good enough for my parents is good enough for me. I’ve heard it a million times, and quite a lot recently. ‘“We had our do at the Cock and Crown,”’ I continue, ‘“with our family and friends, and everybody was happy.”’

  ‘“We stuffed ourselves on prawns from the prawn man till we were nearly sick,”’ Mum finishes. ‘“We didn’t need to spend a lot of money and it served us just fine.”’

  Mum and I grin at each other.

  ‘Exactly,’ Dad says. ‘So you know the story, Emma.’ His voice grows as soft as his expression. He’s a handsome man, my father. He’s usually got a sparkle in his eye and a cheeky grin for everyone, but he can be a pit bull if you push him. ‘Why not have a simple wedding?’ he says. ‘The important thing is that you love each other.’

  When I hug him his beefy arms squeeze me tightly. ‘I know that, Dad. We do love each other, and I don’t want anything fancy. I’m going with Kell to see some places tomorrow. We’ll find something that works.’

  I just hope it won’t cost the earth. Mum and Dad are really stretching to give me two thousand quid for the wedding. I know it’s draining their savings, but whenever I protest they change the subject.

  So I’m not about to tell Dad that my future mother-in-law is probably expecting ice sculptures and a synchronised dove release. Our parents haven’t met yet. The last thing I want to do is make Mum and Dad even more preoccupied with Daniel’s family than they already are. When I told Mum about the engagement party she asked me to take photos of Philippa’s bathrooms. As if rich people don’t poo the same way as everyone else.

  I had to explain that no, they don’t have fancy quilted loo roll or one of those hand soap pumps – just a plain old bar of soap in a dish. And drapes on their windows – no nets.

  Maybe that’s what the great social divide really comes down to: the haves versus the have nets.

  Our parents will need to meet before the wedding, as soon as we figure out the best way to do it. It was hard enough introducing Mum and Dad to Daniel. The fact that he’s from West London is enough to make them uncomfortable. As soon as I mentioned Chelsea, Mum started going on about redecorating before he came over.

  Our house is perfectly fine. Maybe it’s a bit dated, but we have lived here my whole life, and Mum hasn’t exactly got an interior design budget to work with. It’s a typical sixties council house on a red-brick two-storey terrace where most of the gardens are kept up pretty well. We’ve got wood floors all inside and tile in the kitchen and bathroom. The suite isn’t new, but Mum doesn’t let anyone eat their dinner on it so it’s not too stained, aside from Dad’s chair, and there are stacks of coasters everywhere so there’s not a water ring on any of the tables. When I was little I wanted a bay window like Kell has at her house, but other than that I haven’t really wished for anything different.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ Mum says. ‘Go get Auntie Rose with your dad. She’s at the pub with her ladies. I’ll get the tea on and then I’ve got to be to work for seven.’ When she leans down to kiss my dad, the curtain of thick straight ginger hair that she wears in a long bob covers their faces.

  ‘Right, to the pub, Dad?’

  ‘Ready when you are.’ He awkwardly pats his pockets. ‘I’ve got me money. Off we go.’

  ‘One pint, Jack, and then come back. I mean it. Otherwise the food’ll burn. Half an hour.’

  He waves over his shoulder as I grasp the handles of his wheelchair and carefully manoeuvre out the front door and down the ramp.

  We had the ramp installed on my twentieth birthday. I remember because Kell joked that it was for when I came home pissed from the pub. We all made out like it was the greatest invention in the world. Now Dad could come and go as he pleased, we said. He put on a brave face, but everybody knew he’d have preferred not to need it in the first place.

  If he wasn’t a taxi driver, he would probably have realised a lot sooner that he was ill. But, like he said, sitting on your arse all day is bound to cause some pins and needles. It was when his vision started going funny that he finally admitted his symptoms to Mum. She had him down to Helen at the GP’s surgery almost before he’d finished telling her.

  The doctors did loads of tests that Dad got pretty sick of by the time they told him he’s got multiple sclerosis. That was over ten years ago. It’s the kind that comes and goes and gets worse over time, which is why we had to get the ramps fitted on my twentieth birthday. He’d had to stop work a few years before that, though. He can walk with crutches if he has to, but he doesn’t usually have
to with the wheelchair and all of us to push him around when he gets bad. Their bedroom’s on the ground floor now, in the old dining room, and we had the en suite loo added so he doesn’t need to worry about going upstairs at all.

  Of course, Kell was worried about me when it all first happened. At fourteen everything is a huge deal anyway, so when it really is a big deal it seems catastrophic. But she didn’t really need to worry because my dad is still my dad; he’s still with us and he’s still himself. He can’t drive the cab anymore and it’s pretty bad when he relapses, and Mum’s gone down to part-time work, what with looking after Dad and Auntie Rose, but that’s why I’m working. It’s lucky I’m here.

  But once I get married I’ll have to move out. Imagine the arguments if I try to keep giving them money then. You’ve seen how Dad reacts when Daniel offers for his parents to pay for our wedding. I’ll have to hide money down the sofa cushions or after I move out.

  Auntie Rose is doing a victory lap around the pub when we get there, shouting, ‘Persimone! Get IN!’

  ‘She’s winning, I take it?’ says Dad to Uncle Colin once he’s finished nodding his hellos to the half-dozen men sitting round the battered tables.

  ‘Insufferable!’ Auntie Rose’s friend, June, shouts from the big square booth by the door. ‘Take her home, Emma, she’ll only be a dreadful winner again.’

  ‘Sour grapes,’ sings Auntie Rose as she throws her ample frame back down in the booth, jostling the Scrabble board on her landing.

  ‘Mind the game!’ Doreen adjusts the tiles. ‘Don’t spoil it for the rest of us. Next week we’re going back to cribbage.’

  Auntie Rose takes a sip of her lime and soda. ‘Where’s your fighting spirit?’

  ‘I’m about to fight,’ Doreen grumbles. She will too if they let her have too much sherry. She might look like a sweet old lady, but you’d do well not to cross her. There was once a husband, but he disappeared after getting caught playing away once too often. Maybe he’s living with his mistress out of town, maybe he isn’t. That’s all I’m saying.

  So all’s well at the Cock and Crown. Nobody’s surprised to see a seventy-five-year-old woman fist-pumping her way round the bar. Technically she’s my great auntie, my Gran’s younger sister. She’s been meeting her best friends here every week for about the past forty years for a game of cribbage or cards or, when Auntie Rose gets to choose, Scrabble. No matter what else happens in their lives, they wouldn’t miss a week unless they’re in the hospital, like when June broke her hip, or one of them dies, like my Gran did seven or eight years ago. That’s when Auntie Rose came to live with us. She’s not so good at being on her own.

  ‘We’ve got to be home in half an hour for tea,’ I tell my auntie, who’s gone back to studying her tiles. Her lips move as she considers her next play. She’s got an impressive vocabulary considering she left school so young. She credits that to my great grandad being a newsvendor. He let her do the crossword from The Telegraph every day, as long as she never creased the page and ruined it for sale. She used to trace out the crossword onto a sheet of paper and fill it in.

  ‘You all right?’ June asks me in her twenty-a-day voice as everyone shifts round to make room for me and Dad. I catch a waft of June’s Mentos. ‘How are the wedding plans coming along?’ Her pale blue eyes are lined with life and worry.

  ‘We’re really just getting started.’ June and Doreen nod their bright blonde heads. Auntie Rose does their hair too. She’s got a very limited colour palette. She figures if it looks good on her, it’ll do for everyone else. ‘But it’s less than three months away so we really need to make a start.’

  ‘That’s plenty of time,’ June says, rolling up the sleeves on her knock-off hoodie. She always dresses in a range of nearly-Nike and almost-Adidas, like she’s on her way to aerobics. ‘Your parents did it in less time than that.’

  Looks shoot between the older women as Doreen fidgets with the little gold cross nestled in her cleavage. You wouldn’t catch her out of the house in a tracksuit. She’s always in a wrap dress. The wrapping job’s a bit hit and miss, though, given the shape of the package inside.

  ‘In those days things weren’t so formal,’ Auntie Rose says. ‘Nowadays everything is so fancy. I saw in the news about couples who spend a million quid on flowers! I bet the Queen doesn’t spend a million quid on flowers.’

  When Auntie Rose says the news, she means The Sun. The Telegraph is good for the crosswords, but she gets all her information from the tabloid.

  ‘Oh, I know!’ says June. ‘My Karen’s youngest had two hundred people at her wedding. They had to get a second mortgage to pay for the whole palaver. Those payments’ll probably last longer than the marriage.’

  ‘We’re not taking out any loans,’ Dad says. ‘We’ve got a bit of dosh saved. We’ll do right by you, Emma.’

  ‘I just wish you’d let Daniel’s parents give us money,’ I say, even though I know I’m pushing my luck. ‘They won’t even miss it.’

  His fist slams on the table, making Auntie Rose’s lime and soda jump. ‘Goddammit, Emma, why can’t you get it through your head that I don’t need your in-laws’ charity! Isn’t it bad enough–?’ He shakes his head. ‘Don’t be fooled by the wheelchair, girl. I might not be able to do most things anymore, but I can look after my own family. Now that’s the end of it, Emma. I mean it, this topic is closed. We’re doing this for you, and that’s the end of it.’

  His pride will never let him accept help from Daniel’s parents. ‘All right, Dad,’ I sigh, ‘and I’m really grateful for everything you and Mum are doing. Incredibly grateful. We’ll keep it very low-key, like you suggested.’

  I don’t want to cry here in the pub. The very idea of Mum and Dad draining their savings for me when they’ve got so little as it is.

  ‘Aw, you’re a good girl,’ Doreen says. ‘You’ve got your head on straight, don’t she, Jack?’

  Not necessarily. I just know when I’m fighting a losing battle with Dad. And it’s not like I want an extravagant wedding anyway. I just don’t want Mum and Dad using all their savings for it.

  But I’ll never budge Dad now, so the least I can do is spend their budget wisely. We’ll have a nice little wedding and everyone will love it. They might not get gold necklaces or exotic fish, but they’ll still have a laugh.

  It is just one day out of the rest of our lives. We don’t want to go into debt like June’s Karen’s youngest, do we?

  I know Uncle Colin would be really touched if we asked to have the party here. He’s rightly proud of his pub. But as I stare round, trying to see it as an outsider would, my heart sinks. I love a fruit machine as much as the next person, but their blinking lights don’t exactly give off the right ambiance for a wedding party. The chairs and booths that I’ve sat in my whole life look clunky and tired, and there’s no getting round the faint odour coming from the swirly green carpet. Even if we could turn off the machines and take down all the football paraphernalia that Uncle Colin has collected over the years, it’s not the Ritz in here.

  But it is home. Plus it’s where Mum and Dad had their party, though Uncle Colin was only a barman then, not the landlord.

  ‘When do I get to meet your bloke?’ Uncle Colin shouts over as he empties a rack of pint glasses on to the shelf behind the bar. ‘You can’t keep him from me forever, you know.’

  ‘I’ve only met him once myself, Colin,’ pipes up Auntie Rose from the booth, ‘so you’re not the only one.’

  Dad and I exchange a look. Auntie Rose has met Daniel four or five times at least, but we smile at her indignation. It’s better than correcting her. She only gets upset when we do that.

  ‘I’m not keeping him from you, Uncle Colin. I’m planning to bring him round next week to meet everyone.’

  ‘Barbara’s still up north,’ he says, pulling a pint of ale for one of the men sitting at the bar. ‘The week after would be better. Or you could always bring him round twice. We’ll have to get used to him eventually.’
r />   ‘He’ll have to get used to you, more like,’ I say. ‘I’ll bring him the week after next then. That way he can brace himself to meet everyone at once.’

  I haven’t been keeping Daniel away. He’s met Mum and Dad several times, and my best friend Kell, of course. It’s just tricky trying to entertain when you’re still living at home. There isn’t exactly room for romance in our house. There’s barely room for the family.

  We have to pry Auntie Rose away from her friends, as usual, to get home in time for tea. She’s won at Scrabble again, but I don’t think they let her. She may be losing her marbles, but she’s still a dab hand at board games.

  Later, in bed, just when I’m about to drop off to sleep, Auntie Rose’s voice floats over from the other bed. ‘I don’t have to tell you about the wedding night, do I?’

  What am I supposed to say to that? First off, the idea that my old auntie might explain the Kama Sutra to me makes me shudder. Secondly, she’s not technically even supposed to know about that, since she’s never had a wedding night. And even if she does have some inside knowledge, I’d definitely rather not hear it. ‘No, I know what happens, but thanks all the same,’ I say, really hoping she’ll fall asleep quickly.

  ‘Well, I should bloomin’ hope you do, with a man like Daniel around.’

  She’s quiet, but I know her. She’s not finished. If she asks me any intimate questions about Daniel, I’m going downstairs to sleep on the settee.

  ‘Then you also know you’re going to be too tired to do anything after the wedding, so my advice is, find a quiet spot during the party and get your leg over. Got it, girl?’

  I stifle a laugh into my pillow. ‘Yes, Auntie Rose, thanks for the advice.’