We follow him back inside the building, and he takes us into the church’s kitchen, a large room with a smooth stone floor, grey and white counters, and cupboards around the edges. He directs us to sit at the large wooden table while he goes to get his appointment books.
‘You don’t have to keep doing that, you know,’ I say when Rohan pulls out a chair for me. ‘You’ve more than proved your chivalrous macho-ness since I carried your bag for about a minute three days ago. You can stop using me to show off your manhood any time now.’
‘Ew,’ he says, screwing up his face. ‘Showing off your manhood sounds like something a flasher would do, and that brings to mind all kinds of disturbing images of men in raincoats. Nice turn of phrase there, Bon. If Two Gold Rings goes under, I’ll put in a good word for you with my boss if you’re looking for another job.’
He keeps his hand on the back of my chair until I’ve lowered myself into the heavy wooden seat. I’m certain this is an act of some kind. He’s trying to be charming. He must want something. Maybe he’s worried I’m suddenly going to stop playing along or he needs something from me for his story.
The scrape across the floor as Rohan pulls a chair out for himself brings the patter of little feet as Puffin comes running in. Rohan melts instantly. He’s on his knees with the pug clambering all over him and licking his face, the dog’s whole body wagging with excitement. Something inside me turns to goo at the sight. There’s something about tough guys and small animals that’s just too much.
‘Puffin has certainly taken a liking to you,’ Paul says as he comes back in, a selection of large black books under his arm.
‘I’ve taken a liking to him too,’ Rohan says, punctuated by depositing kisses on the dog’s velvety face.
He cuddles the dog to his chest and stands up, coming to sit in the wooden chair next to me as the vicar spreads his books across the table and takes a seat opposite.
Puffin gets so excited about being on Rohan’s lap that he nearly wags himself straight off again, and Rohan squeezes him against his chest again and whispers, ‘Be careful,’ in his ear, and the dog licks his chin.
‘Now, let’s see what you’ll be wanting,’ Paul says, not seeming bothered about his dog sitting with a complete stranger. ‘Do you have any arrangements in place so far?’
We glance at each other. ‘No.’
‘And your budget?’
I go to fudge some answer about what I might actually be able to afford if this was a real wedding, but Rohan’s a faster thinker than me.
‘This girl should be spoilt. She deserves the best. A wedding with all the trimmings. Give us everything you’ve got.’
My cheeks heat up at the unintentional compliment but I understand what he’s doing. Both of our bosses want to know the ins and outs of what the island is selling and being on a tiny budget isn’t going to get us into that.
‘Then you’ll probably want the full Little Wedding Island package. The one-off fee will buy you everything you’ll need for your big day. It covers the church and the reception venue, your wedding dress and tuxedo, the cake, transport and catering for up to a hundred and fifty guests and entertainment at the reception, your wedding rings, your honeymoon here on Edelweiss Island, bridesmaid and groomsmen wear, decorations, flowers, a photographer and videographer, hair and make-up on the day, and accommodation is included. Our own wedding co-ordinator will organise everything. You’ll choose your options and we’ll make sure everything is put into place, completely stress-free for you. For convenience, everything you’ll need is located in one place on The Little Wedding Street, and any extra requirements can be discussed with the individual providers, but all fees are included in the one payment. That’s our absolute luxury package, but we have options to suit all budgets.’
‘Let me guess,’ Rohan says. ‘This payment is going to have at least one comma and several zeros in it?’
Paul looks like he expected the question and he looks positively smug as he answers it. ‘Actually, the price for our full package is fifteen-thousand pounds.’
‘God, I’ve bought a wedding dress that didn’t cost much less than that,’ I say in surprise.
‘You have a wedding dress, Miss Haskett?’
Oops. And who told him my surname? But mostly oops. ‘No, er, looked at one. For a friend. Bridesmaid’s dress, that’s it. Bought a bridesmaid’s dress, never a wedding dress, that would be ridiculous.’
Rohan and Paul are both giving me disbelieving looks. ‘I expected that to be more expensive,’ I say to distract them.
‘We don’t believe in overcharging here,’ Paul says. ‘Our payment options are flexible, as are the items in our wedding packages, for example some people have relatives baking their wedding cake or making the dresses for them, so our packages are adaptable to your individual needs. We’re a community who love weddings and want to make people happy. We’re not here to rip anyone off. Everyone who lives and works on this island will bend over backwards to make sure your special day goes off without a hitch and is as perfect as you’ve always dreamed.’
‘Yeah,’ Rohan says. ‘And I’ve spent so long picturing my dream wedding. I might cry if the horses pulling the glass carriage don’t have their manes dyed to the exact shade of pink to match my pocket square. Does that come as standard in your packages?’
I kick his foot under the table.
Paul looks at us like he’s ninety percent sure Rohan’s being sarcastic and ten percent wondering how to answer the question. ‘I’m, er, sure something could be arranged, Mr Carter.’
‘Yeah? To be honest, I reckon you’d promise us a honeymoon on Saturn if it would persuade us to hand over more cash. Is there a UFO cruise honeymoon trip available? Do they beam us up from outside the church or down on the jetty? How about Albert Einstein? Could you raise him from the dead and ask him to do a little jig at the reception?’
Paul is looking at him like he’s genuinely never heard sarcasm before. Who knows, maybe he hasn’t. Most people who come to book their wedding venue are probably all happy and in love, unlike us.
‘Ignore him,’ I say, kicking Rohan’s foot again. ‘He’s just grumpy because he woke up right before the good bit of a Prince Charles sex dream last night.’
‘It’s quite all right, Miss Haskett,’ Paul says, clearly thinking we’re both barmy. ‘Shall I see where I can pencil you in and get settled on a date?’
He opens one of his A4 diaries and runs his finger down the pages. I look at Rohan watching him, squinting to make out the words scrawled in each date on the page.
‘Isn’t that a little old-fashioned?’ he asks eventually. ‘You don’t use a computer for bookings?’
‘Yes, of course, Mr Carter. Clara’s the chief wedding co-ordinator on the island and she insists that we all keep our bookings online so our calendars are synced and she can easily keep up with who’s coming and going, what’s been done and what hasn’t. But you’re right, it is old-fashioned, and that’s exactly why I like to do it this way. I think people come here to escape the twenty-first century.’
‘I think they come to escape the early Bronze Age.’
Paul glares at him. ‘Things were simpler in days gone by. Love meant more back then. When people married, they married for life. Nowadays, with you young ’uns and your social media, people treat marriage as a disposable commodity, a joke, something that can be sorted out with a quick divorce if it goes wrong. People don’t treat love with the respect it deserves. They don’t value it any more. Here, we believe love is the most valuable thing a person can find. Something that lasts for ever. Relationships are between two people, not two people and their several thousand followers.’
‘Although social media does come in handy for saying goodbye when you’ve googled an ache in your little toe and discover you’ll probably die within the hour. Useful for getting a coffin delivered same day too.’
Paul is looking at him like he really doesn’t know whether to take him seriously or not. I know the feeling. Ro’s barbed comments might be funny, if I didn’t know him well enough to know they at least reflect his real feelings.
‘So yes, Mr Carter,’ Paul continues. ‘I do keep my records on a computer, but I don’t drag it out in front of my clients because it doesn’t fit with our feeling of tradition. Writing things down in a diary like this is nostalgic now, like receiving a handwritten letter in the post rather than the ping of an email. That feeling is what Edelweiss Island is all about. That’s what people come here for – to remember when things were simpler and when how you felt on a date with your other half was more important than how many likes the photo of your meal got on Instagram.’
That is such a nice sentiment. I’ve been on dates with guys who took pictures of their food and kept checking their phone for reactions all night. I’ve been on a date with a guy who barely looked up from his phone long enough to grunt his name in my general direction. I met a guy for coffee who brought a selfie stick with him and took 37,987 selfies throughout the thirty-minute date.
Their old-fashioned way of things on the island suddenly seems like a lovely way to approach life. I’ve yet to see anyone here on a phone. Even at the B&B, the most modern technology Clara’s got at reception is an old corded telephone mounted on the wall with its round dial and tightly coiled wire. Instead of something from ‘le temps des dinosaurs’ as Rohan called it, it seems like a traditional reminder of better times. My parents would love it here, it would remind them of what things were like when they got married.
Rohan makes a noise somewhere between disbelief and throwing up and I have to block him out. He’s never going to have anything nice to say about this place, and it makes me wonder again about his article. No matter what he’s writing about the church of no-divorces, he’s going to have trouble hiding his bias.
‘Now, the next date I’ve got is a Saturday in September next year,’ Paul says without taking his eyes off the diary.
‘Next year?’ Rohan’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open.
‘We’re fully booked, Mr Carter. You might not appreciate it but this is a very popular wedding venue.’
Rohan genuinely looks shocked, like he’s searching for his usual sarcastic response and he’s lost without it. ‘On what basis? How often do you work? One day a week, if that?’
‘Every day.’
‘Every day? You’re telling me that you’ve got a wedding booked every single day from now until the September after next?’
‘Not every single day. The islanders work hard and we all have days off. The church is booked roughly four to five days of any given week, and we only have a handful of weddings booked between now and the start of wedding season in May, but I can’t offer you anything sooner than that as we’re busy preparing for the season, and I’m sure you’ll want plenty of notice for your family and friends to make arrangements anyway.’
‘Oh yes, definitely,’ I say quickly. God knows how we’d have got out of it if he was free to marry us next week.
Ro is shaking his head in utter disbelief, but I can quite easily believe it. Oliver said people travel from all over the world to get married here, and this story of no divorces is spreading faster than a viral cat video on Facebook. Of course people want to come here. This mini cathedral is the kind of place where you’d want to get married even if you hadn’t wanted to get married before you set eyes on the place.
And I feel kind of disappointed that we’ll have to wait over a year and a half for our wedding. Then I glance at Rohan, stroking the back of Puffin’s neck, his ice-blue eyes still wide with shock, and I have to remind myself that this is not real. I’m not really getting married in this church, and definitely not to him.
‘After the September date, we’re booked up over the winter as people love a winter-themed wedding, but I’ve got two days open in the spring the year after next, but they’ll fill up fast. If you’re ready to book now, I’d recommend you go for the September date.’
‘Well, I do like the idea of an autumn wedding,’ Rohan says. He reaches over and tucks a lock of my blonde bob behind my ear. ‘How about you, darling?’
I freeze in surprise. ‘Er, yeah, sure. I love autumn.’
‘Marvellous.’ Paul starts writing in his diary. ‘That’s a Saturday, the twenty-eighth of September. The trees will have just started to turn brown by then and the weather should be nice and cool. You’ll have to talk to the designers and the florist on The Little Wedding Street if you want to incorporate the autumn theme, but there’s so much we can do. We can decorate with autumn leaves and garlands of berries, dried flowers, and branches of the trees that reach their peak at that time of year. But that sort of thing is between you and the decorator. Their shop is on the street, but it’s really Clara you should talk to – she’s the one with most of the ideas. I just take the ceremony.’
I’ve never pictured an autumn wedding before. I’ve been to some and they’re always gorgeous, but most people want summer weddings or icy Christmas-themed ones. That’s what I’ve always imagined my wedding would be. But autumn could work. A cosy ceremony full of crunchy leaves and cinnamon smells and hot chocolate. Centrepieces of twigs and berries, pumpkin-shaped vases holding branches of catkins and alder cones. Not cold enough to make summer dresses unwearable but just enough of a chill in the air for guests to need a little shrug or cardigan.
I love autumn when the pumpkin-spiced lattes come out and the sycamore trees start dropping their helicopter seeds. Why have I never thought about an autumn wedding before? I can suddenly picture the church decked out for autumn, the trees around it starting to lose their leaves, Rohan waiting at the altar as I walk down an aisle lined with crisp autumn flowers…
‘Bon?’ Rohan says like it’s not the first time he’s said it.
I shake my head to clear it. I can’t be picturing my wedding to him in this church. We’re not really getting married. I shouldn’t need to keep reminding myself of this so often.
‘As I was saying,’ Paul says. ‘That’s all sorted. You’re scheduled for September next year. I’ll pop it into the computer later so all the islanders know the details, and we’ll send you a card in the post to confirm. And you can rest assured that once a date has been booked, no couple have ever cancelled.’
‘Seriously?’ Rohan says, his raised eyebrow somehow managing to go even higher.
‘Yes. It shows commitment. Once a couple have committed to a date, we’ve never had a cancelled wedding. We’ve seen couples break up before booking their wedding, but I believe that setting the date is the final obstacle to being completely committed to each other.’
Rohan gives a sarcastic laugh. ‘There’s no such thing as commitment. All that shows is desperate women and whipped men or vice versa.’
‘Ah, you’ve been hurt in the past, Mr Carter.’ Paul glances at me. ‘And now you’re marrying someone who, I believe, has got exactly the right attitude towards love and marriage. Bonnie fits right in to Edelweiss Island. If anyone can heal your heart, she can.’
I can’t help noticing that Rohan doesn’t deny that he’s been hurt. Instead, he looks at me with a soft smile on his face. ‘Yes, she can,’ he says quietly.
He’s a good actor. The butterflies in my stomach were still frozen in shock after the kiss earlier, but the gentleness of his voice makes them burst back into life and start doing the samba.
‘Most people don’t settle up in one go,’ Paul says. ‘We have a range of finance options to suit all budgets. If you’d like to pay the deposit now, we can arrange for further payments to be taken each month to suit you.’
Ro rolls his eyes at me before turning back to the vicar, and I know that he means something sarcastic about money.
Even so, he gets his wallet out and rifles through it. Despite me offering to pay it too, Rohan insists. ‘I proposed, I’ll pay the deposit.’
‘I’ve heard about your proposal,’ Paul says. ‘What made you propose when you did? I’m told it was spur of the moment.’
Rohan looks at me and smiles that soft smile again. ‘How happy this place makes her. Even from the boat trip over, before either of us had ever laid eyes on the place, I knew she’d love it. I knew it was going to be the one.’
He sounds so sincere that even I believe it. I feel myself blushing for no reason as the vicar beams at us. ‘Like so many other couples before you. People are often drawn here without knowing why.’
That’s so romantic. Like the island really does draw you in if you’re meant to get married here. A wave of guilt crashes over me for lying to them. Everyone is so nice to us, and this island means so much to them, and they undoubtedly think that we’re just another couple drawn in by their magical church. And we’re not. We’re doing this to take advantage of them, and it doesn’t feel good.
Paul and Rohan go through a list of payment options and Rohan eventually pays the deposit by bank transfer on his phone, which is probably the most modern thing we’ll see today.
‘So, are you going to tell us about this no-divorce thing or not?’ Rohan slips his phone into his jeans pocket and sits back.
I didn’t expect him to be so open about it. I was still trying to think of covert ways to work it into the conversation. I expect Paul to look upset or annoyed by his directness, but he sits back in his own chair and folds his arms across his chest, not looking even slightly surprised by the question. ‘There’s really nothing to tell you. It is what it is. No couple who have ever got married in this church have got a divorce. It’s as simple as that.’
‘And why do you think that is?’
Paul shakes his head. ‘This is an old building that’s seen a lot of love through the years. I think it’s retained that love within its walls and now it shares that love with people who are meant to get married here. I’m sure you’re thinking I’m an old loon, but we take care of this church and I think it takes care of us in return.’
‘That’s so sweet,’ I say.
‘I had a feeling you’d like that,’ Paul says. ‘You’d be surprised by how often we get people arrive on the boat without a reason for visiting – they just feel drawn to the place.’
‘That’s all well and good,’ Rohan starts, that look on his face that says he’s about to say something horrible. ‘But it doesn’t account for all the husbands who end up offing their wives and burying them under the patio. You can say that no marriage here has ever ended in divorce, but how many have ended in murder? Can you give me exact figures? Even unexplained deaths would do?’
Trust him to think of that.
Paul splutters indignantly. ‘Well, I never… Never have I been asked such a ridiculous question.’
‘No? There are many ways to end a marriage that don’t involve divorce. No slow poisonings or “accidental” beheadings by hedge trimmer? How about disappearances? How about GBH? No “whoops, I accidentally cut my husband’s penis off while trimming my toenails with this chainsaw”?’
‘Never.’
‘How would you know?’ Rohan asks sweetly. He’s deliberately winding the vicar up and he’s enjoying it far too much.
‘We keep in touch with all our clients. We phone them periodically to see how they’re doing. We also often get couples returning for an annual holiday to celebrate their wedding anniversary here.’
‘Ah, right. So if some bloke’s wife has mysteriously disappeared, and you phone and ask him if he’s divorced yet, he’s going to pick up the phone and go, “No, we’re not divorced, but my wife has mysteriously disappeared and I’ve just had a new pool put in, hundreds of tonnes of concrete that no one will ever look under,” is he?’
Paul is getting increasingly annoyed and doesn’t seem to realise that he’s winding him up, and it’s working. He clearly doesn’t follow R.C. Art on Twitter or he’d be used to this kind of thing.
‘I really don’t like this line of questioning, Mr Carter. You’re implying that happily married couples want to kill each other.’
‘I’m implying that it’s highly unlikely that every marriage ever performed here has ended happily. It’s impossible. People just don’t care that much about their spouses.’
‘I sincerely hope that attitude will change after your own wedding, if not before.’
Rohan glances at me again. ‘Bonnie’s got quite a job on her hands.’
‘Yes, but I’m determined to show him that not everyone will treat him as badly as people have in the past,’ I say pointedly.
Rohan kisses Puffin’s head and ignores the insinuation without denying it. ‘So, how many couples are we talking? You say no one’s ever got divorced but you don’t give any figures for comparison. How many people exactly have got married here?’
‘That’s not a figure I’ve got off the top of my head now, is it? I’ve been here for thirty years, my father and grandfather before me. When I was young I remember only a wedding or two a year, but it’s gradually increased. When I first took over, we did maybe twenty to thirty a year, and the number has gradually increased over time. We’d have no trouble filling three hundred and sixty-five days a year if we wanted to, but that would be unfair on the islanders. They do what they do mostly out of the goodness of their hearts.’
‘Oh, so none of that fifteen grand goes to them then?’
‘Of course it does, but no one’s in it for the money. Like I said, everyone who lives here once got married in this church. They’ve had long and happy marriages and they like to pay it forward, not for profit but because they love seeing other couples as happy as they were on their own wedding days.’
‘That’s really lovely,’ I say. I had suspected as much. Everyone we’ve met so far seems truly happy in their lives. Like Clara, there can’t be much profit in the B&B, but you can see her eyes brighten and hear the passion in her voice whenever she talks about Edelweiss Island.
‘People have to make a living,’ Paul continues. ‘You make your booking and payment through me, and at the end of every month, I divide everyone’s share out and pay the islanders. It makes things simpler for customers buying one of our packages as you just need to make the one payment to one person.’
Rohan looks like he’d be more inclined to believe that Bigfoot ran a monthly knitting club populated by giraffes with opposable thumbs.
‘I sense you’re sceptical, Mr Carter.’
‘Me? Nah. Whatever gives you that idea?’
Paul shakes his head, looking at Rohan with an unmistakeable look of pity. ‘There is no voodoo here. We’re just an island of people who love love. We love seeing people happy. We’re all connected by this church and we all believe that something special happens here when people get married, because we’ve all experienced it first hand. Every person who gets married here is special. People come to us for different reasons – some are just naturally drawn here, some are scared of divorce, some have been divorced before and are desperate for it not to happen again, some don’t care about the divorce aspect and just think it’s a lovely venue. And you can make fun of it all you want, but you came here. You felt drawn to it too. You proposed to your lovely fiancée. Unless you’re playing some kind of unfunny game, you are the one in love, are you not?’
Rohan looks like the gas has been taken out of his hot air balloon. He’s cuddling the dog on his lap a bit tighter, and Paul looks like he’s had enough and can’t wait to get rid of us, and I am even more in love with the church than I was before. Every little thing we find out about it just makes it even more perfect, from the faith the islanders seem to have in it to the sassy vicar who didn’t have time for R.C. Art’s goading.