Chapter Thirty-Nine
RIVER
The big day arrived and Alice couldn’t have looked prettier, careful not to upstage the bride, she was dressed in a simple mint tunic with cream leggings, hair in one of those elegant French baguette buns – and not of the edible kind, a matching cream clutch bag in the hand of her pearl-spangled right arm, all finished off with a pair of mint kitten heels which looked sleek enough to adorn a cocktail.
Maybe when you were a mixologist you just had to go into overkill with the descriptions. Yet none of Alice’s classicism could steal the show from Jonie, and heaven only knew how much that dress cost. But a pavlova she’d always dreamt of – according to Lee, anyway – and a pavlova was what she steered herself down the aisle in, for to all intents and purposes, she really was the epitome of a hovercraft.
But none of this mattered when you were in love. And now River’s two, arguably most loyal customers, stood side by side at the altar of St John’s Church, halfway up Glastonbury High Street, ready to declare that very undying love to an impressive gathering, many of whom could just as easily be quaffing Pimm’s or Manhattans a few doors away in the bar. In fact, River had offered the use of his premises as the reception, but Lee had declined. Jonie had long ago had her heart set on a wedding breakfast in a windmill – not that Somerset could exactly take her pick of those, or was in any way twinned with a small town whose population wore clogs, but miraculously, a small windmill on the banks of the Brue in a village not a million miles away, did have a couple of willing and fairly broke owners, and so a windmill was what Jonie was going to get. Albeit the Top Table only would be dining inside the miniscule monument, everybody else would be spilling onto the river’s banks – but hopefully not into the water.
River brought his attention back to the all-important present moment; the exchanging of the vows – and rings – he felt the small circular piece of platinum embedded safely in the satin lining of his trouser pocket and gave a very private sigh of relief.
“We are joined here today in holy matrimony to…” began the vicar.
It was at this point that against his better judgment, River decided to steal a look back at Alice. Unbelievably, her eyes had been locked on his back all the time, but they fell to her lap immediately when he returned her gaze, and that’s when the emotion hit him and he thought he might just cry in the kind of vast quantities that only his namesake could hold. He would never get to experience any of this with her and that was too bad.
Of course, he had always assumed that she wouldn’t be up for the contractual thing, and he was pretty sure that neither of them would be up for inviting God to witness the joining of their hands either. But all of those protests aside – isn’t that what anybody who wasn’t quite sure of their partner’s commitment found themselves saying these days? Wasn’t it just easier to spout out ‘oh, you know, it’s just a piece of paper… it doesn’t change the way we feel about each other… we don’t see the need, besides, if ever we did, it would be a beach wedding in the Dominican Republic, just the two of us and a witness… blah, blah, blah.’?
If River was honest, he could think of nothing less tragic. For a wedding was a celebration and the bigger the better. A real man should have the balls to stand up in front of a happy crowd and declare his feelings for, and commitment to, the woman in his life. Yes, Heather would practically disown him if he ever declared this newfound thought aloud. But there was something wonderfully knightly about the way Lee had the bravado to do this here, on King Arthur’s land, not even shifting his weight from side to side as he might once have done.
Mind you, the hypnosis sessions he’d been paying the guru friend of Heather’s for, may have set him back a small fortune at such short notice, but they’d undeniably done the trick. River had never seen his friend so calm. It was like watching a millpond. Even if he skimmed a pebble at Lee, he doubted he’d flinch.
“Is there anyone here present, who knows of any lawful impediment, why this man and this woman may not be joined in—?”
The church door slammed shut then, casting the holy building in a most eerie silence. River hardly dared look around, not least because he didn’t wish to see himself publicly rejected courtesy of Alice’s body language once more. But also because he couldn’t believe how late these guests were. Talk about crap timing just as the vicar was questioning the appropriateness of the wedding.
But nobody took their seat discreetly in the rear pews. Instead, all that could be heard by the congregation – who had now strangely grown necks like giraffes, the majority most rudely with their mobile phones in hand, ready to record some kind of evidence – was a commotion. The shuffling of feet seemed to be coming from a salt and pepper haired man in his mid-thirties, who was being thrust forward by a woman donning a giant black fascinator better suited to Ascot atop her head, clip-clopping in stilettos as she projected him mid-aisle:
“He does!”
The silence became a bubbling of hushed whispers. Somebody tittered, as folk do when they bear witness to a situation which is about as far removed from funny as the climax of a crime novel. Elsewhere in the assembly, somebody began to wail. It was an awful version of anybody’s attempt at crying, and he could only hope Lady Rigby-Chandler was not its proprietor, seated as she would have been somewhere towards the middle to back.
“Then…uh…” the vicar broke off to clear his throat, “then kindly step forward and do show us your face,” he continued, with a look of total surprise on his own, for clearly it had been some time since this unwanted predicament had occurred, despite him having been the one to publicly put the question to the floor in the first place.
“Go on,” said the woman behind the man causing the furore. But the figure said nothing and so the female continued to be his mouthpiece.
“He’s the traitor of traitors, the lowest of the low!”
Her voice thundered down the aisle, bouncing off the church’s arches, so that anybody who didn’t catch her words the first time, certainly wouldn’t miss them the second, or third.
It was at this point that the light streaming in through the stained glass window ceased to blind River, casting a spotlight instead on a man who looked the spit of Blake, shielding a visibly pregnant woman behind him, dressed from head to foot in jet black.
Oh dear God, no. Why of all days today? This was Lee’s wedding, Jonie’s big day; her chance to be the centre of attention for once in her run-of-the-mill life. Not that it would ever be remotely mundane after her groom pocketing the jackpot, but still.
“Man alive… this is Lee’s wedding, Jonie’s big day—”
River started to yell uncontrollably, hoping his lips’ movement would come to a grinding halt before they had their way with his musings about Jonie’s golden moment as centrepiece.
He needn’t have worried.
A weighty figure rose from the pew – once more it was difficult to make out precise details, the bright stream of light having moved again now so that River suspected he wasn’t the only one to wish he’d brought sunglasses – she… and it was definitely a she, well, he guessed that much anyway since the figure was clad in a purple skirt, lunged at Blake in an angular fashion. Which was precisely when the bride screeched out: “Oh my God!” and the vicar signalled his apologies heavenward for the unexpected blasphemy that had occurred, “it’s only Hayley taking Blake out!”
And indeed it was.
Georgina had vanished into thin air while Hayley followed up her lunge by using her left arm as a blade, cutting into Blake’s right shoulder, preventing his futile attempts to grab at her leg. Round and around they shuffled for a while mid-aisle, a couple doing the do-si-do on the Wells Cathedral green in the annual country dance competition. Except Hayley was too smart for her partner: with her left hand she cupped the left side of his head, with her right hand she covered his right temple and eye, effectively cranking his neck – so much so, the congregation began to audibly wince – until finally, she managed to disrupt his balance completely, and a couple of nearby male guests stepped in to take Blake away.
Hayley rubbed her hands together as if she’d just taken out the dustbins, granted herself a bow, everybody returned to their seats, the vicar signed the cross skywards once again, before crouching to remove a hip flask of something – and River was pretty sure it wasn’t holy water – from his sock, until now covered by his robe, and took a rather lengthy and shaky swig.
“Well,” he said, pulling out a handkerchief to pat his lips dry, “now that the annual recreation of Four Weddings and a Funeral is over and done with; let’s get on with the show.”
***
“You never cease to amaze me,” said River, arm in arm – to keep his teeth from chattering above all else – with one of the most incredible women he thought he would ever meet.
“It’s pretty much physics,” said Hayley, pulling away from him to pluck at the long grassy blades which fringed the River Brue, running her fingers along the length of their pale seed displays and scattering husks onto the water’s surface to mingle with the pond skating insects, “wherever the head moves the body follows.”
“Come again?”
“Krav maga, mate. You never do know when it’s gonna come in useful, like. I’ve had to resort to using it more times than I’ve had hot dinners with some of me passengers over the years. All’s I can say is I’m mighty glad to have befriended the bride and groom courtesy of your bar over the course of this year… looks like I well and truly saved the wedding day.”
Hayley stopped to adjust her faux fur stole, an accessory which put River in mind of the Egg Nogs circuiting the after party, something he’d be happy to down immediately, should a waiter care to pass this way.
Alice appeared from the windmill’s doorway then, a glass of Eggnog in her mittened-hands.
“Why the wistful look? Surely you two haven’t had a ding-dong again?”
“It’s not her, it’s me.”
“Oh don’t feed me that line. If there ever was a sentence that needs to be deleted from the male bleedin’ vocabulary, it’s that; drives me up the wall.”
“Well, in my case it’s true. She’s perfect, I’m an idiot. There’s nothing more to say. I had my chance, I blew it.”
“But what did you do this time?”
River’s brain began to weigh up the pros and cons of going into full blown details, and then Terry made the decision for him.
“Ladies and gents, hope you’re enjoying the day… well done Hayley for earlier and rest assured I shall be having words with… with… it pains me to say it, my kids.”
“The pleasure was mine, Tel. And who is this?”
Hayley turned to the unconventional, yet somehow dashing guy who was accompanying Terry. River definitely hadn’t spotted him earlier in the church.
“The name’s Bob.” The mystery man held out his hand to take Hayley’s for a rather corny kiss. River was stunned to see her oblige.
“Yeah, this here is the one and only Bob, aka the geezer who’s turned my life around.”
Aha, TV Exec Dude.
Well, little did Bob know he wouldn’t be standing here now losing himself in the eyes of this lady had River not followed his instinct and penchant for a shot of Tequila, but that was the best thing about all of this, having this amazing secret and not being tempted to tell a soul about it. Okay, with the exception of Lee that one time. But it hardly counted, and besides, he hadn’t believed a word of it anyway.
River and Terry gave each other The Mutual Nod and peeled off in their separate directions, each instinctively aware their presence was no longer required. Unsure quite where he was heading, River began to whistle, like most men inexplicably seem to do, as if to put in a little premature practice for the big 4-0. It worked a charm to attract the attention of a waiter, even if the Eggnog was ‘temporarily on hold’. A mulled wine was no bad substitute. He took a sip and closed his eyes, resurrecting their Prague Christmas bauble of a bubble. Oh, to go back there, to say the three words he should have spouted back at Alice, to personally see to the depositing of red rose petals on a seventies bedspread himself, to deck Piet and throw him into the Vltava.
When he opened his eyes he saw his opportunity to catch Alice alone instead, as she stood serenely in a chocolate box pose, elbows propped against the gates of the orchards flanking the river. He knocked back his mulled wine so fast it almost winded him, recovered; straightened up his tie, and soon his legs appeared to be transporting him to her, despite the lack of an invite.
“It wasn’t so long ago that we were jumping over these with a fleet of bulls’ horns at our backsides.”
He climbed on top of the gate, wincing at his dreadful attempt to break the ice, and looked down on her golden halo with a smile. It still looked like she’d ‘just stepped out of a salon’, to quote one shampoo advert. She’d definitely picked up far more style tips along the way than he had.
“Don’t remind me.” She allowed herself a more modest curl of the lips, before reverting to the seriousness with which she’d greeted him once more.
“Are you getting the first coach back, or staying on a little?”
Talk about a mawkish chat-up, River. Is that the best you can do after all these weeks of purely platonic behaviour?
“I hear they’re going to have thirty outdoor heaters tonight,” he heard himself plough on. “The mind only boggles at the bill, but then again, Lee can certainly afford—”
Damned alcohol and lack of nourishment! Please don’t put two and two together, Al, please.
Her eyes flickered, as if registering this remark about Lee’s newfound abundance, but if she’d made the financial connections, she certainly wasn’t letting on. Thank God for that. It wasn’t that he’d never planned to tell her, and it certainly wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but it was Lee’s secret, and hardly your bog standard one at that.
“I think we both know it would be best not to tempt fate… I’ll take the first coach, you must stay on and celebrate, it’s your duty as Best Man, you can’t not fulfil it. Who knows, perhaps Georgina will show up again, a few drinks… you, I mean, not her… in her condition… and suddenly life with a ready-made family will look a lot rosier.”
“Just stop this, Alice, stop it!”
Silence, until in a distant field a cow mooed. It seemed to be telling him to tell her something, anything, even if his words were to spew out in a pile of utter drivel.
“I’m out of my mind, life’s been so tough that at times – and I can hardly believe I am saying this… but at times I have been ever so slightly close to understanding just how a man could take his life.”
Now she looked at him, eyes reluctant to let themselves become shiny, it was a trait of hers he knew too well.
“I love you, Alice Goldsmith… I wanted to tell you that day in the market in Prague, but you’d only have said I was returning the compliment, matching your words… and besides, I loved you too much to keep you away from your beloved mulled wine for a second longer.”
Alice climbed to sit next to him on the gate, keeping a safe distance apart. It was a start of sorts. He somehow stifled the urge to smile and he definitely didn’t dare inch closer. She was still a wild animal, wilder than she’d been that day when he’d rescued her from the strawberry fields. And yet as they sat there in the rural Somerset Levels’ silence, watching herons stoop low to take their fill from the water; watching waiters annoyingly deposit the last of the Eggnogs before the claxon called for one and all to huddle to graze on caviar… and Alice a gourmet slice of nut roast; watching Hayley and one TV Executive called Bob enjoying a thoroughly cheeky snog beneath the sails of a quaint windmill, River knew that he and Alice had turned a corner.
Somehow destiny had brought them back together. And now, much like the millers who had ground their crops for long enough, he wasn’t so much determined to make hay while the sun was shining, as flour – preferably of the self-raising variety, of course. Which was quite the corniest of puns given their location, yet somehow there was no better way of summing things up.
Soon it would be their time.