Chapter Seventeen
JESS
I have to return to the top table to eat my main course, but I hardly taste anything, and once the last bite is finished, I make my excuses and weave my way through the function room, on my way ‘borrowing’ a floral arrangement from a table at the back of the room, populated mostly by kids and Luke’s great-aunt Jane.
She gives me a quizzical look as I remove the centrepiece, but I just smile brightly at her and disappear out the doors of the function room into the hallway.
I hide myself away in an alcove near the hotel reception and stare at my ill-gotten gains.
Last time I got married to Luke, my mother caused a horrible scene, and it all started with the speeches, which are going to happen in less than half an hour. I’m hoping that if I can change what happens when Luke gives his speech, I can avoid the chain reaction of events that followed.
I should’ve thought about it the first time around, but I’d just been so happy in my bubble of bliss running up to my wedding day, that it hadn’t even occurred to me that Mum might take offence at the gifts given out by Luke and me to people who had helped with our wedding.
Obviously, each of the bridesmaids got a gift.
Luke’s mum is an incredible baker and made the three-tier wedding cake for us, saving us a fortune, and Lola had made the twins’ bridesmaids dresses herself after I couldn’t find children’s dresses to match the one Hannah had fallen in love with, so Luke and I arranged for flowers to be given to them both.
By that point in the day, Mum had been pretty drunk, even though I’d implored her to try and keep it under control, and she started making passive-aggressive comments about being invisible, because she must be, mustn’t she, if she’d been overlooked?
I’d witnessed it all with the sinking feeling in my stomach.
However, the truth was that Mum hadn’t contributed anything in terms of finance or time in the planning of the wedding.
I asked her if she wanted to go wedding dress shopping with me and Hannah, and she seemed excited at the time, but when the day came she’d had a raging hangover and cried off.
There were a few other occasions I asked for her help, and she flaked out on me, so in the end I just stopped trying.
I hadn’t thought about getting her a gift because, honestly, there was nothing to thank her for but disappointment.
And even though it still seems unfair to me in this version of our wedding day, I’d rather be the bigger person and give her a gift, than endure the whole fiasco again.
At first, I’d been relieved when she got up and stomped away from the top table, causing a bit of a stir, but about twenty minutes later, there was a commotion outside.
The Lubbock is a converted Georgian manor house with a wide paved terrace.
I picked up the skirts of my wedding dress and hurried outside, followed by almost all of the wedding party, and a good number of the guests, to find my mother standing on the thick stone railing, facing the sloping gardens, rambling on about something.
Somehow, she had yet another glass of champagne in her hand, even though I’d asked the waiters to cut her off.
As I drew closer, her slurred words became clearer.
‘No one cares about me, anyway … ’ she was saying to no one in particular, champagne sloshing out of her glass as she gestured to the night sky.
‘Everyone would be happy if I just went away … disappeared. I might as well just … ’ She made a motion, as if to launch herself off the railing into the darkness, and stumbled, causing the assembled crowd to gasp, before regaining her balance.
This was part of Mum’s repertoire: play the victim, say the world would be better off without her.
I realized years ago that she wasn’t serious when she said things like this.
It’s all designed to make people feel sorry for her.
However, there was a fifteen-foot drop to the lawn below and, while it might not kill her, she could end up with a few bruises, and possibly even broken bones.
Someone else at the reception had obviously been worried, because shortly afterwards there were sirens and blue flashing lights and two police cars sped up the driveway.
She got down eventually when my dad stepped in and offered his hand, told her firmly but kindly it was time to go home.
One of Luke’s cousins drove her back and made sure she got into bed.
Everyone tried to get back to enjoying the party after that, but it all felt awkward and strained.
I fixed a smile on my face but inside I was dying of shame.
What must Luke’s family have thought he was marrying into?
And I knew that when people discussed the wedding in the coming weeks, it wasn’t the lovely ceremony and reception we’d planned, or how happy Luke and I seemed together, that they’d been talking about.
Did you hear what the mother of the bride did? You’ll never guess … ?
My plan is to make a similar floral arrangement to the ones I am giving the other mothers, so I’ve got one to give one to my mum as well.
My floristry skills are limited but I’m going to do my best. I’ve been eying up the table centrepieces since we sat down to eat our meal, and I think I can use the one I nabbed from table eleven as a starting point.
The flowers are similar colours, but it’s a bit smaller than the ones I’ve got for Lola and Diane, so I need to find a way to pad it out.
I’d rope Luke into helping me because, being good with his hands, he’s surprisingly good at flower arranging.
I asked him about it once, and he said it was because when Diane was being treated for cancer when he was in his teens, he had to pick up doing some of the household tasks and looking after his younger siblings.
Back in those days, hospitals were less fussy about flowers, and even if people didn’t bring them to the hospital, they sometimes arrived at the house, and he didn’t want his mum to have one more thing to do when she was so exhausted, so he taught himself how to do it.
However, I also think it’s a hangover from those days that Luke can have very fixed ideas on how things should be done, and I suspect he would have a completely different plan to the one that’s been forming in my brain, and I just haven’t got the energy – or the time – to tussle with him about it right now. It’s easier if I sort this out my way.
I sneak over to the doors to the function room and scan the tables.
Can I steal another centrepiece, or is that going to look too suspicious?
But then I spot the table in the corner with the wedding cake with the bouquets placed artfully around it.
I don’t want to decimate my one, as I’m doing a bouquet toss later, but maybe I could use one of the others?
It’s just at that moment that I spot Hannah making her way through the tables to talk to a group of our friends and I intercept her path, slide my arm through hers and whisper desperately into her ear, ‘I need your help!’ She blinks, then nods and I steer her through the double doors and into the hallway.
‘What’s up? Are you doing a surprise for Luke?’
I shake my head. ‘Would you mind … I mean, I don’t know if you were intending to keep it or whatever, but could I please have your bridesmaids’ bouquet?’
I go on to explain why. Obviously, I can’t tell her the bits that haven’t happened yet, like my mum’s meltdown on the terrace, but I can explain she’s going to get upset and that I’ve realized she’s going to feel left out.
‘I noticed she was a bit squiffy,’ Hannah says, glancing in the direction of the function room, ‘but I didn’t realize she was that bad.
Wait here a second … ’ She slides through the doors, walks up to the wedding cake table, retrieves her bouquet, and nonchalantly strolls back out again.
Nobody bats an eyelid. I let out of breath of relief.
Hannah takes the lead cannibalizing the bouquet and adding bits to the table arrangement. She helped me pick out the original floral gifts, so she knows what we’re aiming for. We end up with something a bit more spectacular and a lot closer to the arrangements intended for the other mothers.
When the last stem is poked into the floral foam, I give her a big hug. ‘You are the best friend ever! What would I do without you?’
Han gives me a wink. ‘Partners in crime?’
‘Forever,’ I say firmly.
‘You’d better believe it,’ she says. ‘Now give me those flowers before anyone realizes what we’re up to.’
I make my way back to the top table while Hannah surreptitiously places the extra flowers with the others then has a whispered conversation with the best man about who to deliver the different presents to when the time comes.
When she slips into her seat further down the top table and gives me a thumbs up, I breathe out a sigh of relief.
Mission accomplished. I think I may have just saved my own wedding day.
‘Of course, we want to say a huge thanks, not only to the bridesmaids, but also to a few other people who’ve helped make our day special,’ Luke says.
He’s standing up beside me, a microphone in his hand, and he has the whole room in the palm of his hand.
His speech had not only me snivelling but seventy-five per cent of the guests too.
He waits while his best man and a couple of the ushers form an orderly queue, gifts in hand, and then he passes the mic to me. Crap. I forgot I insisted on doing the talking for this bit first time around. I stand up and clear my throat.
I thank Lola and Diane for the dresses and the cake and then I turn to my mum, who is scowling, as if she’s already got it into her head that she’s going to get offended.
‘And I want to say thanks to my Mum too,’ I say, smiling widely, ‘for … ’ I feel time slowing down, the way it does before a car crash or an accident of some kind.
I don’t know what to say! Quick, Jess … Make something up.
Anything! ‘For all the help she’s been in preparing for this wedding, giving her opinion on …
’ Oh, Lord. There must be something she had some input on.
‘On the colour of the bridesmaids’ dresses …
’ (She suggested teal instead of green but it’s close enough!) ‘And for … for … ’ I can feel my face going red.
It’s starting at my collarbones and working its way up.
I’m losing the power of cohesive thought.
‘For giving birth to her in the first place!’ Mum suddenly shouts from her seat, raising her half-drunk champagne for the toasts.
Everyone laughs and Mum looks pleased with herself, so I smile nervously too, drop back down to my seat and give the mic back to Luke. He’s going to have to handle the rest.
After the meal has finished and things are being set up for the evening reception, I ask the hotel if we could keep the doors to the terrace locked, leaving a side entrance into the formal garden as access to the outside for those wanting fresh air or a sneaky cigarette.
No fifteen-foot drop, no problem, right?
And my plan works. Even though Mum says I wasn’t as glowing in my thanks to her as I was to the other mothers, she’s pleased with her flowers and chuffed everyone thought she was funny.
When the music starts later on in the evening, she gets up on the dance floor and lets loose, having a grand old time, and I can’t help hoping her love of Seventies and Eighties hits will keep her out of trouble for a bit.
But just after 9 p.m., right after I’ve finally let myself relax and enjoy the evening, I notice a group pointing and laughing at something outside the large windows. A few more people turn to look. The sinking feeling I get in my stomach is horribly familiar.
‘What’s going on over there?’ Luke says beside me.
‘Don’t know,’ I reply hoarsely.
He frowns and begins to walk in that direction.
I trail after him, but when I reach the windows that look out over the garden, I see exactly what the cause of all the hilarity is.
There, in the middle of the rose garden, is my mother …
and she is not alone. She is most decidedly not alone, seeing how one arm is wrapped round the guy’s waist and the other is cupping his left buttock.
And that’s not the worst of it. The man my mother is snogging as if her life depends on it is not only fifteen years her junior, it’s the minister who performed our wedding ceremony, and he seems just as much a willing participant as she is!