‘I’ll put it over here to dry,’ I say, draping it over the back of the seat.
‘You’ll need translators from the British Library to decipher it,’ Justin says, in that quick, light way that gets him away with murder.
I can’t help but glance at Susie, and she gives me a quick hard look of understanding, and looks away.
We sip our fizz and clink glasses and say: ‘Happy engagement!’ as heartily as we can, and Hester says, ‘It wasn’t planned, you know?! I had one of my moments of inspiration. You know my thing is to follow them.’
I do know. I remember a story about Hester convincing her in-laws to skinny dip with her on a family holiday to the Cornish coast which lives on in my nightmares. (‘Never trust the physically uninhibited’ – only solid piece of advice my dad gave me.)
‘Next up, you’ve got to buy a ring,’ Justin says. ‘You should spend a month’s wages, isn’t that right?’
Ed grimaces. ‘Luckily my monthly wages are two hundred quid and a bag of scratchings.’
‘Hah, oh Edward. Best get saving! The one I like is Cartier!’ Hester says.
Unplanned, was it.
‘Jesus wept, how much are they?!’ Ed fires up his phone and googles. When he finds the relevant page, he mimes mopping his brow with his scarf. ‘H, the website doesn’t even have prices. I have to,’ he makes a James Bond face, ‘Contact a Cartier Ambassador to Request the Price.’
Hester’s gurgling with delight and I know Ed’s in the clear to joke as much as he wants for the rest of the evening. If not the rest of his life.
‘If they won’t even admit the price upfront then surely it’s a real “going in hard with no lube” situation?’ Justin says. (I told you about Justin and good taste.) ‘Oof.’
‘Yeah, they’ll start well north of five grand,’ Susie says, someone who knows about posh things more than the rest of us. ‘Get that kidney ready for the black market, Eduardo!’
Ed mimes queasiness and Hester smooths her hair and lowers her eyes in a mock ‘Princess Diana’ gesture. I feel queasy and it’s not even my savings. ‘I was thinking a spring wedding,’ Hester says. ‘I hate long engagements, they’re so pointless. They’re for people who want time to change their mind, hahaha.’
‘Or to save up,’ I say, in a tight voice, my feelings about this finally breaking the surface.
‘Eve,’ Hester turns to me, ‘Susie,’ she then turns to Susie.
Hester will make a stunning bride. Springtime. It’ll be all snowdrop flower crown, flowing backless satin like some medieval princess, tea lights in storm lanterns. ‘I have something to ask you both. By the time we tie the knot, my best friend back home will be about six months gone and, if her previous pregnancy is anything to go by, she’ll look like an egg.’
Wow.
‘… And my sister says it’s a disgrace and embarrassment for anyone her age who’s still single to be a bridesmaid.’
A stagey pause, while I think I’m pretty sure her sister’s only two years older than us. ‘I was wondering. Would you two be my bridesmaids?’
A stunned beat before Susie bellows ‘Are you kidding oh my God of course we’d love to!’ and I echo her with as much force as I can muster.
We smash glasses together again and Ed says ‘Wow, H, that is the loveliest thing. Two of my best mates, bridesmaids! That’s made my day.’
I’ve never seen Ed so uxorious. I admit I’ve been looking for micro-tells of his being pissed off at this ambush, but I can’t find any.
‘It struck me as a really nice thing for you two to do, to make you feel part of it,’ Hester says to me and Susie, as if we’re the ones on a school trip by grace of a special hardship fund.
I beam, with a fake banana-sized grin. I am so glad to be drunk right now. Hats off, Hester, you’ve played a blinder.
‘And it goes without saying – this is my best man!’ Ed says, and he and Justin hug. ‘The gang’s all here.’
Through the blurry talk of which venues have enough outdoor space to host the nuptials, I think about the fact I’ll have to go to dress fittings with Hester, with her bossing me in and out of boiled-sweet-coloured gowns, free to pass comment on my appearance. I’m known for living in black, wearing my clompy boots and, as Ed says, sticking to my ageing Goth make-up.
Instead of hiding at the back of this wedding, with a gin miniature, a Valium and my crushed hopes in my black silk clutch, I will be front and centre and required to grin my way through the official photos.
My Best Friend’s Wedding might’ve been a funny film but reliving its plot doesn’t feel funny in the slightest.
‘… Question twelve. We asked you what Marcus Garvey, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Hemingway and Alice Cooper have in common? It involved a mistake. The answer is: they all read their own obituaries, which had been mistakenly published before they were dead.’
‘Ah, that was the connection!’ I say, but no one is listening.
The men in the packable anoraks win.
3
I’m that level of boozed where I’m hovering slightly outside myself, listening to the sound of my feet stamping heavily on the ice-sparkled concrete as if they’re someone else’s.
The road’s asphalt looks so magical when it’s white-speckled and has that translucent sheen, like a mirror ball, or mother of pearl. And yet it’s so treacherous. Is the pavement a metaphor for marrying Hester? Or am I just drunk?
Everyone in the group is taxi-ing distance from The Gladstone, Susie in one suburb, Ed and Hester in another, Justin in town. I live in the same postcode as the pub, Carrington, a tiny suburb with winding streets, and red-brick, quirky Victorian houses, some with turrets that look like Correctional Institutions for Wayward Boys, or as if they’re made from gingerbread by fairytale witches. Suitably, Fairytale Witch is my look. There are lots of overhanging, mature trees that scatter blossom like confetti once a year.
And cats. It’s lousy with cats. Roger is engaged in a bitter ongoing territory battle with the local feral unneutered tom, Dirk. (No, I don’t know how a stray has a name either – notoriety on the local community message boards, I assume. Dirk is a rugged individualist, a white-whiskered super villain, and no one’s going to take his liberty, or his bollocks.)
My phone pings with a text message from Susie. It’s not been sent to myself and Justin, only to me, which is intriguing. This suggests deep-dive Girl Talk, and there’s very little Girl Talk between us that Justin isn’t privy to. He asked Susie to copy him out of her graphic account of her Mirena coil removal, but that’s about it.
MAN DOWN. I have opinions on tonight’s atrocity, much to discuss. Speak soon. xx
Maybe it’s because we’re the cursed bridesmaids. I am not looking forward to remembering that dismaying fact when I wake up with a shitty head. Is it possible to decline being a bridesmaid to one of your best friend’s brides, without mortally offending them? Could I fake an injury? There’s no way Hester would let someone with an orthopaedic support boot hop down the aisle, spoiling the vision. Even as I think it, I remember that I’d have been to the fittings by then and be wasting their money. Sigh.