Читать книгу Crazy Little Thing Called Love: The perfect laugh out loud romantic comedy you won’t be able to put down - Charlotte Butterfield - Страница 11

Leila stabbed the last phallic-shaped straw into a lurid cocktail in Lucy’s kitchen, hearing the high-pitched shrieks of hilarity through the paper-thin walls. She paused to plaster her smile back on her face before re-entering the dining room.

‘What’s your favourite part of Marcus’s body?’ one of Lucy’s friends from her book club read out to a chorus of girlish giggles.

‘His forearms,’ Lucy replied. ‘He has amazingly strong forearms.’

Leila tried not to blink, and just focused on dividing out the drinks between the eight women, who were in various stages of inebriation, including, much to her complete embarrassment, her own mother, who was swaying glassy-eyed at the end of the table.

Lucy hiccupped after taking a small sip, ‘What’s in this one? It’s lethal!’

‘Um, lots of clear stuff and some blue stuff,’ Leila took a gulp of her own concoction without wincing. She’d passed the point that alcohol had any effect whatsoever. They’d spent the day gluing sequins onto stilettos as one of their hen party activities. Lucy had put Leila in charge of the day and evening, and then proceeded to forward Leila pins or links to exactly what it was she wanted them to be doing. So, early afternoon was glitzing up footwear, and then they had a mixologist come to the house and throw bottles about. Which Leila had to admit was pretty fun – hence her newfound talent for cocktail-making. Lucy had firmly rebuffed the butler in the buff idea, which was just as well as Leila had no intention of seeing a naked man for at least another two-hundred and forty-eight days anyway.

Looking around the table, it was the oddest mix of women she’d ever seen. Apart from her, Tasha and Judy, there were two women from Lucy’s book club, an ex-colleague of Lucy’s who was heavily pregnant so not drinking, another former colleague who was so drunk her eyes were crossed, and a tall, long blonde-haired, very athletic-looking woman who hadn’t spoken to anyone apart from Lucy all afternoon. She also hadn’t joined in any of the activities, instead she’d sat for most of the afternoon and evening with Lucy’s wedding binder on her lap writing down numbers of florists, reception venues and photographers into her diary.

‘Are you getting married soon too?’ Leila turned to her, trying to kick-start conversation.

The woman looked up from the folder, ‘Yes, I’m marrying Lucy’s brother, Nick.’

‘Oh, that’s great. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

The woman put her head down and was scribbling again.

‘I was with Lucy when we went wedding dress shopping and Stephanie was sending you pictures of some, wasn’t she? See any that you liked?’

‘I actually already have my dress, I was engaged before you see, but it didn’t work out. But I love the dress, so have kept it ready for the next one.’

‘Oh.’ Leila thought frantically of what she was meant to say to that. ‘That’s, um, handy.’

‘Same with the bridesmaid dresses. Although one of my cousins has put on loads of weight recently, so she won’t be able to be a bridesmaid any more. Which is a shame because we were close.’

‘Righto. Um, excuse me.’ Leila reached across the table to an upturned sunhat and fished a rolled up piece of paper out. ‘Shall I read the next one?’ She paused before saying, ‘What is Marcus’s favourite position?’ Oh God, why did she have to pick that one out?

‘You have to be diplomatic here don’t you!’ The pregnant ex-colleague laughed.

‘Not on our account, you don’t, pretend your fiancé’s sisters and mother aren’t even here,’ Tasha said with a lot more good humour than she was feeling. ‘There’s nothing we’d like more than to hear about our brother’s exploits in bed.’

‘We can cover our ears if it makes it easier for you to say,’ Leila added.

Lucy’s eyes casted to the left as she screwed up her forehead, looking like she was thinking way too hard about this question for Leila’s liking. ‘Um,’ she said, biting her lower lip, ‘to be honest, we’ve decided to save ourselves for our wedding night.’

Despite ten minutes of solid scrubbing, the wall still had a faint blue tinge to it where Leila had spluttered her cocktail all over it. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said sheepishly after the last of the party, Judy and Tasha, had been dispatched in a taxi, waving merrily and unsteadily, shouting ‘See you in church!’ noisily across the darkened cul de sac.

‘It’s fine,’ Lucy replied in a tone that suggested that it wasn’t. She turned on the main light and started sweeping the table’s detritus into a bin bag.

‘Here, let me, you go on up, you’re the one that needs her beauty sleep ready for the wedding.’

Lucy’s lips pursed into an unattractive pout. ‘Thanks very much!’

‘I didn’t mean like that! You’re getting married! It’s late, I’ll do the rest, honestly, it’s fine, go.’ Leila gave her soon to be sister-in-law a stiff hug and started the impossible task of picking the thousands of penis-shaped confetti out from between the floorboards.

Leila thought that she might as well wait until the dishwasher had finished to put another load in before she left, it’s not as though there was anyone awake at home waiting for her. There was a small bit of wine left in two of the bottles, so Leila splashed them both into a glass and gave it a swirl. Marcus would be horrified. When they were teenagers they used to work in their parents’ hotel in Dartmouth, and she and Tasha used to stow away the dregs from all the bottles they’d served to customers throughout the evening for them and their friends to share later. She’d decant all the whites into one bottle, all the reds into another, completely ignorant of blending grape varieties or vintages, and trudge to the sheltered safety of the local park to drink the stash and voice ill-conceived musings on the universe. She remembered with a smile that Marcus had been appalled that she had mixed a £200 bottle of 1982 Chateau Haut Brion Pessac-Lognan with a rough house Beaujolais, but she had just tipped her plastic cup at him in a mocking toast and downed the lot.

***

Jamie had saved a seat for her in church by putting his top hat on the pew next to him. At six foot five, wearing the top hat was never really an option, but Lucy had insisted on him at least carrying it.

‘Emergency averted?’ he asked as Leila hurriedly sat down and pinned the hat on her head. She hated hats.

‘Yes, the roses were the wrong shade of pink.’

‘Oh no, is your sister-in-law ok?’

‘She’ll live.’

They turned in time with the rest of the congregation as Lucy made her entrance to a loud fanfare of Handel’s Wedding March, a predictable choice that had the rest of the church beaming. Her tight corset flowed down to a sharp A-line, with delicate crystal beading catching the sunlight that danced through the stained glass. Her long strawberry blonde hair had been tightly pinned into elaborate swags under a flowing veil. The hysterics over the roses a few minutes earlier were forgotten.

Back at the hotel, Leila hurried past the easel holding the seating plan straight into the dining room. She didn’t need to look at it, she’d had three blasted attempts at making the damn thing, so knew its contents off by heart. The first two efforts didn’t entirely ‘encapsulate the theme’ was how Lucy phrased it. The theme in Leila’s mind now being ‘sticking needles in my eye’. She’d also just had an earful from Marcus about the fact that Jamie had bailed straight after the ceremony to step in to replace an injured teammate at the last minute for an away rugby match at Exeter.

‘His place at the wedding breakfast cost £65,’ Marcus had fumed at her, as though she had gaily waved him off after tucking in his shin pads and hadn’t been livid about it herself. Now she was dateless for a massive family wedding and incredulously £65 out of pocket as her brother accepted her offer to pay for Jamie’s food. And Leila knew their parents were footing the bill anyway but didn’t have the heart to have a screaming match with her brother on his wedding day.

Her table was already filled – now the only table with odd numbers in the whole room. ‘Hi, Leila, hello, Leila, hi there, Leila, hello, Leila, nice to meet you, Leila, hello, Leila.’ Introductions and obligatory reaching across the table handshakes done, Leila broke with the convention of waiting for the bride and groom to arrive and poured herself a massive glass of wine, broke a bread bun in half and slumped noisily sighing into her seat.

‘That bad?’

Leila looked to her right. ‘Worse.’

‘Nice dress.’

Leila looked down. The coral bridesmaid’s dress that dwarfed her tiny frame in a blanket of offensive, and probably highly flammable, chiffon could not in any way be described as a nice dress. In that instant every tiny atom of frustration that had been building up for the entire three-month engagement was ignited by the gently mocking tone of this stranger. She threw her head back and laughed a laugh so loud, so bordering on hysterical, that nearby tables turned to look. ‘You have no idea,’ she finally uttered. ‘You literally have no idea.’

‘Try me.’

Leila needed no encouragement. For the next ten minutes, even during the jubilant, albeit vastly rehearsed, entrance of Marcus and Lucy, she barely paused for breath. ‘And another thing,’ she added, ‘Lucy even wanted me to wear a blonde wig to cover my dark hair because I would ruin the photos, can you believe that? And another thing—’ Throughout this impassioned monologue the stranger had kept her glass topped up and was offering silent nods of sympathy. ‘These god-awful shoes weren’t available in my size so Ms Hitler ordered me ones a size and a half too small, so as well as looking like a festival tent, I now have four blisters and my blood has dyed the fabric a sort of putrid puce colour.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, you must be Rob, you work with my dad, is that right?’ Leila remembered the name that she’d written on three table plans next to her own.

‘No, I’m Ms Hitler’s brother, Nick.’

Leila buried her face in her hands. ‘Bollocks. Bollocks. I’m sorry. For the tantrum, not that she’s your sister. I’m sure she’s delightful. Deep down. Shit. I’m sorry.’ She suddenly froze. ‘Why did you move places? Nobody’s supposed to move!’ Her voice was now loud and shrill. ‘This arrangement took away almost a week of my life that I will never get back, and I’ll never hear the end of it if Lucy finds out. You’re supposed to be on the other side of the table between Rob’s pregnant wife Laura and a woman called Olga, who quite frankly sounds like a Russian lap-dancer.’

‘Who is also my girlfriend. And is sitting to my right, but thankfully the hours she’s spent in noisy strip clubs has completely ruined her hearing, so I think you got away with it.’

‘Oh God.’ Leila took a big gulp of her wine. She had no idea how much she’d drunk, but her verbal diarrhoea was in full flow, so a sizeable amount she reckoned. ‘I’ll just stop talking shall I?’

Nick grinned. ‘Apparently some arsehole, my sister’s words, not mine, dropped out just before the meal and so she needed to shuffle things around, so here I am, being captivated by the eloquence of my new sister-in-law. Lucky me. And if it’s any consolation, I’m under strict instructions not to roll my sleeves up, regardless of how hot it gets because she doesn’t want your family to know I have tattoos, and until last week I had long hair as well, that I had to cut off or my invitation was going to be revoked. Which I’m realising now may not have been a bad thing.’

‘I had waist length hair until about four months ago, but then went for a bit of a drastic change. Which your sister says makes me look like a boy.’

‘Oh Jeez. I’m sorry. And for the record, you don’t.’

‘I’m really sorry too. About everything, My no-show date, Lucy, and Olga. Who I’m sure is really lovely, or you wouldn’t be marrying her.’

‘I wouldn’t be what now?’ As if on cue, the blonde woman with long poker-straight hair from the hen party swivelled round in her seat and extended her beautifully manicured hand over Nick’s lamb shank. ‘Hi, I’m Olga,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

‘Um, fine thanks, much better than I was. Nick has been cheering me up, sorry for taking up all his time. We met at Lucy’s hen do?’

‘Did we?’ Olga started stroking Nick’s arm with her fingernail.

‘Yes, we were talking about your wedding and you were making notes on Lucy’s bridal folder. And telling me about the bridesmaid dresses you’ve already got?’

Leila had never seen the physical manifestation of the phrase ‘blood draining from face’ before, but before her eyes it happened to both Nick and Olga at the same time. Nick retrieved his arm from Olga’s tight grip, coughed and pushed his chair back. ‘I need a smoke, back soon.’

Leila pushed open the door to the terrace and walked over to where Nick was lighting a new cigarette from the dying embers of the last one. ‘I told the waitress to keep your lamb warm, they’re clearing the table now.’

Nick shrugged, ‘Cheers, but I’ve lost my appetite anyway.’

‘So… I take it the engagement was very much in Olga’s head,’ Leila ventured.

‘It’s our fifth date. So yes, very much so, although now you mention it, she did insist on meeting Mum after the first one. To tell the truth I didn’t even want to bring her today, but Lucy insisted as otherwise it would cock up the numbers or something. But it’s a massive thing isn’t it, bringing someone you barely know to your sibling’s wedding?’ He wasn’t to know that this made Leila cringe a little. ‘And I didn’t want to give the wrong signals this was more serious than it was, and all the time she’s been planning our wedding.’ He took a deep inhalation from his cigarette and blew the smoke out. ‘Jesus, women!’

‘Can I take this opportunity to point out your audience?’ Leila joked.

‘Sorry. I’m just fed up of every woman I date trying to fast track from the getting to know you stage straight to the altar.’

‘At least yours made the dinner, my date didn’t even have a Pimms before he legged it to a better offer.’

‘That makes me feel better. At least I’m not the biggest loser here.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘But at least you’re now free to enjoy the party. I have to go back in there, break up with a fiancée I didn’t know I had, and then I am going to have to call her a taxi.’

‘But her name is Olga.’

‘Oh, that’s a bad, bad joke.’

They stood opposite each other both looking fittingly solemn. And annoyed. Leila’s mouth began to twitch, and then Nick smiled the start of a bigger smile. Before long they were both convulsed in laughter that didn’t stop until Lucy angrily shouted from the window that the desserts were being served.

Somewhere between the coffee and the first dance, in that lull that always happened at weddings when the bride and groom often disappeared to ‘freshen up’ while the dining tables were moved to make way for a dance floor, Nick put a tearful Olga in a taxi. He’d spent nearly an hour on a sofa in the reception with her begging him not to ruin her life.

‘Double whisky please,’ he asked the barman weakly on his return back to the bar. He perched on a stool alongside Leila, who too had made the transition to hard liquor. ‘What a day.’

‘Thank God it’s almost over and we can all get back to our lives.’ Leila lifted up her tumbler and clinked it against Nick’s. ‘Cheers to never hearing the phrase “but it’s my wedding” ever again. I swear I have it on repeat in my head.’

‘Why let yourself get so involved though? She’s not your sister. I managed to not get roped in.’

‘I know, I’m weak and impressionable. But I’m working on changing that. Spending a whole evening stuffing sugared almonds into tiny pieces of netting only for 200 people to pick them up and proclaim, “I don’t like almonds,” has made me realise I need to be more assertive.’

‘It would have been cool being on that table with the woman with the nut allergy. They all had Haribo sweets instead. They lucked out.’

‘Indeed they did.’

They both sat in silence, staring ahead into the mirror behind the optics. As the background lounge music turned into a very loud One Direction hit, Nick leant forward and banged his head hard on the bar three times. ‘Leila, I swear to God, if we don’t find a way to escape this hellhole in the next fifteen seconds, then this is officially the worst day of my life.’

‘Come on then.’

She led him through the maze of corridors through a door marked Staff Only, past a couple of waitresses staring at their phones, and through the spotless lino-clad kitchens. Leila ducked into her parents’ office to retrieve a key from the desk drawer and then pushed open a disabled fire exit door.

The hit of cool evening air with the lingering scent of salt water was a welcome respite from the stuffy bar and they both took long breaths in. ‘I love the sea.’ Nick’s eyes were closed, his face slightly upturned to the sky.

‘Me too. As much as I love living in London I do feel my shoulders dropping a few notches whenever I get back here.’ Leila pulled Nick to the very edge of the driveway and parted some of the thick branches of an oak tree. ‘Come and stand here, in this exact spot.’ Leila moved a foot to the left so Nick could take her place. The whole town was laid out in front of them. The panorama took in the whole of the harbour below, across to the Castle and Naval College on the other side of the town. Down on the water you could see the lights from the passenger ferry’s last journey across the river, taking tourists back to the waiting steam train. ‘Isn’t that view incredible? I’ve tried taking photos of it so many times but it never captures just how amazing it is. I’ve tried painting it too, but nothing does it justice.’

Nick smiled at Leila’s unexpected burst of sentimentality. ‘Where are you taking me now?’

‘You’ll see.’