Kate's Wedding (17 page)

Given that he paid so little attention to his appearance, perhaps it was unreasonable to expect Ian to look as though he was having a good time at a photoshoot on a beach in front of members of the public, for heaven’s sake.

Still, Kate couldn’t silence the little voice in her head that held some store by how comfortable a couple looked when they were photographed together. Somehow, the digital images of Ian holding her as though she were a small child who might pee on his shoes at any moment had made tangible Kate’s suspicion that he really didn’t feel connected to her at all. His decision to stay in London and go to the footie while she was dealing with her mother’s operation certainly didn’t seem like a connected thing to do.

Was Ian just getting married because he felt it was time to? Had he chosen her simply because she was a suitable girl: good job, no obvious baggage, similar background? Was there any passion there at all? Lately, Kate was starting to think that Ian was marrying her because it would be cheaper than getting a housekeeper.

‘What do you think of the pictures?’ Ian asked when he called to say what time he would be home that night so that she knew when to start cooking dinner.

‘They’re OK,’ said Kate in a guarded way.

‘I think they look fine,’ said Ian. ‘I think Mum would like the first one from the series where we’re sitting on the log.’

‘Not a
Titanic
shot?’ Kate asked.

‘She didn’t like that film,’ said Ian, taking it literally, as always.

‘OK,’ said Kate. ‘I’ll email Trudy. I’ll get the same picture for my parents as well.’

She couldn’t imagine it being on their mantelpiece for ever, she realised with a jolt.

Something had definitely shifted.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Diana was delighted with all the photographs in her online engagement album. The effort she had put into her hair and make-up had definitely paid off. She clicked the tick of approval next to almost every shot. Of course, she would incorporate one of the photographs into the wedding stationery. It was hard to choose just one. In the end, she chose the first of the ‘royal’ photographs. So, they weren’t the Testino shots, and Ben didn’t look exactly comfortable, but Diana had never seen her hair look quite so good. Also, her expression was just right. She looked remarkably like the princess in waiting.

‘Please,’ Ben begged her, ‘don’t tell me that we’re going to have one of those royal photos on our invitation.’

‘Oh, Ben,’ Diana wheedled, ‘everyone will love it.’

‘No way.’

‘Fine,’ said Diana. ‘Then we’ll have this one instead.’

She picked out a photograph of herself in a floor-length gown and Ben in a rented tux.

‘Why do we have to have a photo of ourselves on the invitation at all?’ Ben asked. ‘Isn’t it classier to have something plain?’

Diana considered that thought for a moment. She consulted one of her half-dozen wedding-etiquette books before admitting, ‘You’re probably right.’

Still she was determined that as many people as possible should see the engagement pictures. What was the point of having them otherwise? She ordered a dark-brown leather-bound album to be made of all the shots she had approved of. She ordered copies of the album, in a slightly less expensive finish, for her mother and Ben’s mum and all four sets of grandparents. She ordered two framed photographs for her father. They would make perfect Christmas presents. That really didn’t spread the news of Diana’s triumph far enough, though. While Ben was in the sitting room, watching
Match of the Day
, Diana fiddled around with the wedding-stationery options on the photographer’s site. She chose a picture of herself and Ben dressed up as the royal couple and set it on a white card with a fine silver border. She played with the typesetting, choosing a swirling, extravagant font that looked like the very best calligraphy. The card she created, complete with matching silver-tissue-lined envelopes, was surely oozing with class.

But in a rare show of deference to her future husband’s wishes, Diana did not press the ‘order’ button on her wonderful invitation design. If Ben wanted plain wedding invitations, then that was what they would have.

Christmas cards, however . . .

Three days later, Diana was very pleased to see how good her favourite photograph from the engagement shoot looked on the custom-printed Christmas card. On the inside of the card, she’d had printed, ‘Merry Christmas and happy New Year from the other couple getting married in 2011.’ Nicole and Susie thought the cards were great fun. Very witty. Ben could hardly believe his eyes.

‘Tell me we are not sending this card to anybody I know.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we look like a pair of idiots, that’s why. Is it supposed to be a joke card?’

‘No,’ said Diana, ‘of course it’s not a joke card.’

‘That makes it even worse. I’m not sending this card out. I’ll get another box from Tesco.’

‘We have to have a joint card. We’re engaged.’

‘You can send it to anyone you like on your side of the family, but I don’t want my friends to think I’ve gone soft in the head.’

‘Oh, Ben, it’s just for a laugh. Here . . .’ She reached under the chair and pulled out an enormous envelope. ‘I haven’t forgotten. This is especially for you. I had it made at the same time.’

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You can put it up now if you like. Did you get me one?’

‘What?’

‘A card.’

‘Hang on,’ said Ben. ‘It’s upstairs.’

He returned with an envelope. Diana ripped it open. Her face fell. Her lip curled as she took in the picture of a robin sitting on the handle of a spade. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a Christmas card.’

‘I can see that.’

‘And?’ Ben was confused.

‘Couldn’t you have made a bit more effort? I’m your
fiancée
, Ben. This is the only Christmas in my entire life that I will get to spend as someone’s fiancée. They do make fiancée Christmas cards, you know.’

‘They do?’

‘Yes.’ Diana sniffed. ‘Open my card.’

Ben opened the card Diana had designed for him. On the front, two teddy bears with their faces cuddled under a piece of mistletoe. Above them were printed the words ‘Happy Christmas to my wonderful fiancé.’

‘I thought we could put our cards side by side on the mantelpiece to make a special focal point, but this is just like something you would have given somebody at the office. In fact, you probably did give a certain somebody at the office exactly the same card!’ Diana snorted into her handkerchief.

‘I haven’t given her a Christmas card,’ said Ben, knowing at once who Diana was referring to. ‘I swear.’

‘You better not have. Is she going to be at your office party? I don’t think you should go if she is.’

‘She’s not going to be at the party. She’s already gone back to Australia for the holidays, to see her family. She’s taking two weeks off.’

‘How do you know in such detail what her plans are?’ Diana’s eyes narrowed.

‘I’d hardly say that was detailed knowledge. I work in the same office as her. Of course I know when she’s not coming in.’

‘Can’t they get her moved?’ Diana asked. ‘I hate the fact that you’re still working alongside her, after what she did to me.’ Diana took a deep breath through her nose. Ben recognised it as the precursor to a bout of sobbing. He couldn’t face it.

‘She’s leaving,’ Ben lied. ‘She’s going freelance.’

Diana’s face brightened. ‘Well, that’s the best news I’ve had all day.’

Later that day, Ben called his future mother-in-law to see whether she had any idea what Diana really wanted for Christmas.

‘She needs new tyres for her car,’ he said. ‘I thought I could get that sorted out.’

‘Oh, Ben,’ said Susie.

‘She said she was going to put them on her Christmas list.’

‘She didn’t mean it, you doughnut. You don’t get your fiancée tyres for Christmas. Not unless you don’t want to get married.’

Ben was tempted to click straight through to the Kwik Fit website.

Susie chuntered on. ‘You’ve got to get a girl something sparkly for Christmas, something in a Tiffany box. Get her a charm for her bracelet at least.’

That bracelet. Ben hated it. He hated the way it jangled around. He especially hated the way it got caught in his hair, which he wore longer than he liked just to please her, when she grabbed hold of his head in moments of passion. Not that there were many of those any more. Ben had almost choked when Diana told him that she was ‘renewing her virginity’ by swearing off sex until the big day. What was that about? Ben had mentioned that to his best friend, Ed.

‘Well, don’t think you’ll be getting any on your wedding night either,’ Ed told him. ‘My missus told me about some statistic that says nine out of ten brides are too exhausted by the big day to put out until halfway through the honeymoon.’

It seemed that none of the married people Ben knew had a good thing to say about it, but then he would see an old couple holding hands across the table in the café in Marks & Spencer, which is where everyone in Ben’s office went for their lunch, and the sight of such enduring love would fill him with a sense of warmth and contentment. That was what he was getting married for, so that someone would want to hold his hand when he got old. But could he stand the rest of it for long enough to get there?

Chapter Thirty

That Christmas, Ben’s office party was a pretty scaled-down affair out of respect to the colleagues who had lost their jobs earlier in the year. Still Ben expected a very eventful evening.

He had lied to Diana about Lucy having left to go back to Australia. In fact, Lucy had decided that it wasn’t economically viable for her to go Down Under that Christmas, not when she would have to be in Australia the following May for her big brother’s wedding. As a result, Lucy was still very much in Southampton and she was very much intending to be at the office party. When he overheard her telling one of the secretaries that she had bought a ‘knockout’ dress for the occasion, Ben got the distinct impression that he was the intended recipient of any fatal blow, but Lucy was not at the party when Ben first arrived. He accepted a glass of some cheapo fizz from his boss and toasted their continued success as a department.

‘You’re looking good,’ said Mary the office manager, noting Ben’s new jacket. ‘Did Diana buy that for you?’

‘I chose it myself,’ said Ben.

‘Sure you did,’ Mary laughed.

Ben tried to focus on the original compliment. He was looking good. That was what he wanted to hear.

‘And how is your lovely fiancée? Still keeping you in line?’

His phone beeped. Diana had texted him.

Remember we’ve got to go to B&Q in the morning,
she wrote.
Don’t get too drunk.

Ben reached for another glass of the cheap bubbles and knocked it back. No sex and no booze? No way. She couldn’t tell him not to get drunk that night. It was his bloody office party.

‘Line up another one,’ Ben told the barman.

Lucy arrived about half an hour later than everyone else. The transformation from ‘Lucy by day’ to ‘Lucy by night’ was amazing. Obviously, Ben had previously noticed that his colleague had some pretty impressive charms, but he was used to seeing her in her work clothes. Even on the evening when they finally got it together, Lucy had been dressed in a dull grey suit, having come straight from the office. So though he had seen her in her underwear, he had never seen her in a dress. And certainly he would not have imagined, looking at the dowdy two-pieces she wore most weekdays, that she would ever own something quite as spectacular as the red velvet number she was wearing now.

‘Va-va-voom,’ muttered Tony, Ben’s boss. ‘That can’t be our Lucy. I didn’t know she had tits.’

Ben knew, of course, but now it was obvious to everyone that Lucy had a pair of breasts as big as two babies’ heads. Knockout?

‘She’ll give someone two black eyes before the evening’s out,’ said Tony.

Lucy’s figure was shown to absolute perfection by the dress, which was as heavily engineered as a suspension bridge. She paused at the doorway to the party and let her coat fall from her shoulders. She knew exactly how to make an entrance. Ben hadn’t known that about her.

The moment was slightly spoiled in that no one rushed forward to take Lucy’s coat. The boys were too awestruck, and the girls were too busy calculating how much Lucy must have spent on that evening’s ensemble and who exactly among their colleagues she was investing all that effort in. Ben didn’t dare go anywhere near her. Lucy hung her coat on the overloaded rack with everyone else’s.

She sashayed over to the bar. Ben watched her face. He didn’t think he had ever seen her wear that much make-up either. She had lined her eyes with heavy black kohl so that they brought to mind a 1950s starlet like Liz Taylor. Her lips glistened as though she had just licked them. Her hair was piled high on top of her head.

‘She looks like that one out of
Mad Men
,’ said Tony. ‘Those were the days, eh? Back then, you could ask your colleagues for a quickie without risking a lawsuit.’

Ben was just dumbstruck. As Lucy crossed the room, he was sure that she was making a beeline for him and his heart quickened accordingly, but instead she bypassed him and headed for Andy and Mary. Andy? What was she doing talking to that prat?

Lucy talked to Andy for a very long time that evening. Ben knew he had no right whatsoever to be jealous, but he still couldn’t stop himself stealing a glance in their direction from time to time, more and more frequently according to how much he drank, to see whether they were still locked in conversation over the chicken teriyaki. It went straight to Ben’s heart when he heard Lucy laugh loud and long at something Andy said. What exactly was it he’d told her? Andy wasn’t that funny. Lucy herself had told Ben she found Andy irritating. Now she was eating out of his hand.