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‘Please don’t correct me, Minty. I mean the magnitude of it. Of what I’m being asked to give up.’
‘Yes, but, you knew that before,’ I breathed, aware of a lemon-sized lump in my throat.
‘Yes. But I didn’t understand it before. What it truly means. But now I’m here, in church, I do. These huge promises. And I’m just not prepared to make them because, frankly, Minty, as you well know, there are lots of things about you that really …annoy me.’ At this a sudden murmur arose from the pews, like the uprush of small birds from a field. I could hear nervous, interrogative titters, and the sound of breath being sharply inhaled.
‘They say it’s the little things that get to you in the end,’ he said, ‘and it’s the little things that have got to me about you. I mean, you’re so untidy,’ he went on, getting into his stride now. His tenor voice was rising to an almost girlish timbre, which is what happens when he gets worked up. ‘You talk such rubbish half the time,’ he went on, ‘and you never know when to shut up.’
‘What do you expect?’ I said, my heart now banging in my chest. ‘As you know, I’m a) half Irish, and b) a professional broadcaster.’
‘You really get me down,’ he whined. ‘I’ve been trying to put all my doubts about you to the back of my mind, but I can’t any longer, I simply can’t, because I think we’d …we’d …we’d be bound to come unstuck! I’m sorry, Minty, but I just can’t go through with this.’ My jaw dropped. It dropped wide open. I must have looked a picture of cretinous idiocy as I absorbed what he had just said. I glanced at Dad, but his mouth was agape too. And Mum and Helen seemed frozen, in a state close to catatonia. Then Charlie intervened again.
‘Look, do us all a favour, old man. Cut the crap, will you – sorry, Vicar – and just say “I do”, there’s a good chap.’
This seemed to be the last straw, and then that bally wasp came buzzing back.
‘No. No, I won’t,’ said Dom, swatting it away from his per-spiration-beaded face. ‘I won’t say that, simply to please you and everyone else. I’m not a puppet, you know. This is a free country. You can’t make me go through with this. And I won’t. I’m determined to think of myself – at last!’ He turned ninety degrees and faced the gawping crowd. And I could see the fear in his face as he realised how exposed he now was to their contempt. ‘Look, I’m …sorry about this everyone,’ he said, nervously running a finger round his wing collar. ‘I …er …know some of you have come from quite a long way. A very long way away in some cases, like my Aunt Beth, for example, who’s come down from Aberdeen. But, well, the fact is, I can’t do this. I hope you all understand. And once again, I’m …well …I’m sorry.’ Then something of the old Dominic returned, as he felt himself take command of the situation once more. ‘However,’ he went on smoothly, ‘I would like to point out that there is a comprehensive insurance policy in place, which should take care of everything.’ He swallowed, and breathed deeply. And then he looked at me.
‘Look, Minty. It just wasn’t going to work out. I think if you were honest, you’d admit that yourself.’ And then he began to walk away from me, down the aisle, with a very determined air. And as he picked up speed he almost skidded on the highly polished floor, and I actually shouted after him, ‘Careful, Dom! Don’t slip!’ But he didn’t. He carried on walking until he reached the door, his shoes snapping smartly, almost brightly, across the gleaming tiles.
I don’t really remember what happened in the minutes immediately after that. I think it’s been erased from my mind, as one erases unwanted footage from an old video. I do remember trying to recall some comforting or possibly even useful phrases from Nearly Wed, but couldn’t think of a single one, except for the chapter heading: ‘How to Survive the Happiest Day of Your Life’. Apart from that, I think I simply stood there, immobile, clutching my Order of Service. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I just hoped that the camcorder had been switched off. Charlie had run after Dominic, but had come back, three minutes later, alone.
‘He got on a bus,’ he whispered to me, and to Dad and Helen, who had now stepped forward in a protective pincer movement around me. And I found this piece of news very odd, because Dominic loathes public transport.
‘Couldn’t you have chased after him?’ suggested Dad.
‘No, it was a number 11, it was going pretty fast.’
‘I see,’ said Dad seriously. We looked vainly at the vicar but he didn’t seem to know what to do.
‘This has never, ever happened during my ministry,’ he said, a piece of information which did little to cheer me up.
By now, people were whispering loudly in their pews, and many looked distraught. Amber was opening and closing her mouth like an outraged carp.
‘What the hell’s that plonker playing at?’ she demanded in her over-bearing, Cheltenham Ladies way. ‘What a bastard!’ she added, as she clambered out of her pew. ‘What a sh—’
‘Shhhh! Madam,’ said the vicar, ‘this is a house of God.’
‘I don’t care if it’s the house of bloody Bernarda Alba!’ she flung back. ‘That man’s just jilted my cousin!’
Jilted! It cut through me like a knife. Jilted. That was it: I’d been jilted. Amber was right. And it wasn’t a moment’s aberration, because the minutes were now ticking by, and Dominic still hadn’t reappeared. And I could hear another wedding party gathering outside, so I didn’t see how Dom and I were going to have time to make our vows even if he did come back, which by now I very much doubted. And anyway, if there’s one thing I know about Dominic, more than anything else, one constant, immutable characteristic, it’s the fact that once he’s made up his mind to do something, he will never, ever go back.
Dad sat down, and put his head in his hands. Mum and Helen looked equally distraught. And then I looked down the pews, scanning the faces of those who had witnessed my shame. There was Jack, not knowing where to look, and his step-daughters, who were stifling giggles; next to them was Melinda, her podgy hand clapped to her mouth in a melodramatic tableau of shock; and Wesley was tut-tutting away to Deirdre and shaking his head, and Auntie Flo was crying, and no one knew what to say or where to look. But they were all trying hard not to look at me, in the way that nice people avert their eyes when passing the scene of some dreadful crash. And that’s what I felt like. A corpse, lying on the road. Hit and run. I hadn’t been cut. I didn’t have a scratch, but my blood had been spilled for all to see.
By now Charlie and the vicar were conferring agitatedly. Someone would have to decide what to do, I realised vaguely. Charlie took charge. He came up to me, and laid his hand on my arm in a reassuring way.
‘Shall we go to the Waldorf, Minty? Do you want to go?’
‘What?’
‘We can’t stay here.’
‘What? Oh …no.’
‘You see, I don’t think Dom’s coming back and the next party’s starting to arrive. I suggest we all go to the Waldorf, try and calm down, and at least have a little lunch and plan what to do. Do you agree, Minty? Is that OK? Remember, it’s your day. We’ll all do exactly what you want!’
‘Well …yes, why not?’ I said, with a reasonableness that astounded me. I think I even tried to smile.
‘She’s in shock,’ Amber announced loudly. She put her arm round me. ‘You’re in shock, Minty. Don’t worry, it’s only to be expected.’
‘I’m sure everything’s going to be OK, Minty,’ said Helen, taking one of my hands in both hers. ‘I’m sure he’s just been possessed by some temporary …you know …insanity.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said calmly. ‘Please could someone tell the photographer and the video chap to go home?’
‘What a bastard!’ said Amber, again.
‘Please, madam,’ repeated the vicar.
‘Come on, Minty,’ said Mum. ‘We’re going to the hotel!’ And she and Dad led me out of the church, one on each arm, as though I were an invalid. Indeed, the waiting Bentley might as well have been an ambulance – I half expected to see a blue flashing light revolving on its roof. And the shocked voices of the congregation were drowned out by the voices clamouring in my head. They said, Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY?
‘Um …this is a somewhat unusual situation,’ announced Charlie, as we all sat down to our vine-ripened tomatoes in the Waldorf’s Adelphi Suite half an hour later. He nervously fiddled with his buttonhole as he faced the assembled guests. ‘Now, I don’t want to speculate as to why Dominic seems to have got cold feet –’
‘Cold?’ interjected Amber acidly. ‘They were deep frozen.’
‘Thank you, Amber. As I say, I refuse to speculate about Dominic’s behaviour this morning,’ Charlie went on, ‘except to say that he has been working rather hard recently. Very hard, in fact. And he has seemed rather preoccupied lately, so, er, I suspect that er, professional pressure is largely to blame. And I think the best thing is if we just try to enjoy our lunch, and, er, try to, er, well …’ his voice trailed away ‘ …enjoy our lunch.’
And the waiters came round with the Laurent Perrier – in the circumstances we’d decided not to have a reception line – and people drank it, and chatted in low, respectful voices. They sat huddled round their tables like spies, as they swapped theories about Dom’s dramatic exit.
‘– another woman?’ I heard someone ask.
‘– dunno.’
‘– already married?’
‘– nervous breakdown?’
‘– always a bit flaky.’
‘– totally humiliating.’
‘– what about the presents?’
I was on the top table, of course, but instead of sitting there with my new husband, I was next to my bridesmaid and the best man, and my parents, brother and cousin. And Madge, unfortunately. She’d come along to the Waldorf, too.
‘Well, at least I got to wear my new Windsmoor,’ she said with a satisfied shrug. ‘It cost an absolute bomb.’
‘Windsmoor? I say,’ said Amber incredulously. She seemed more outraged than me.
‘Do you have any notion as to why your son has done this?’ Dad enquired with stiff civility.
‘Well, I suppose he felt that it wasn’t right, and that he just couldn’t go through with it,’ she offered. ‘He’s got such integrity like that.’
‘Integrity!’ Amber spat.
‘Amber, Amber, please,’ said Charlie. ‘It doesn’t help.’
‘Nice tiara, by the way, Minty,’ said Madge.
‘Thanks.’
‘And you can keep the griddle pan.’ I was too shocked to take in this happy news.
‘Never mind, Minty, darling,’ said Mum, putting a solicitous arm round my shoulder. ‘I always thought the man was a first-class shyster and rotter, I can’t deny it, and – oooh, sorry, Madge!’ Mum blushed. ‘An appalling waste of twenty-eight grand, though,’ she added regretfully.
‘Is that all you can think of, Dympna?’ Dad asked wearily, as a waiter flicked a large napkin on to her lap.
‘Well, just think of all the homeless bats and battered wives you could save with that lot!’ she retorted. ‘What about the insurance policy?’ she asked.
‘Charlie phoned the helpline on his mobile,’ Dad replied. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t appear to cover stage-fright.’
So we sat there eating our lunch, amid the curiously merry clatter of cutlery on china, and the pan-seared swordfish arrived and everyone said it was very good, though obviously I couldn’t eat a thing; and the string trio were playing ‘Solitaire’, which I thought was extremely insensitive, and I was just making a mental decision not to tip them when Charlie’s mobile phone went off. He flicked it on, and stood up.
‘Yes? Yes?’ I heard him say. Then he said, ‘Look, Dom, don’t tell me this, tell Minty. You’ve got to talk to her, old chap – I’m going to put her on to you right now.’
I grabbed the outstretched phone as though it were a lifeline and I a drowning man. ‘Dom, Dom it’s me. Listen …Yes …Yes, OK …Thanks …No, Dominic, don’t hang up. Don’t. Please, Dom, don’t! …Thanks, Dom. No, don’t go, Dominic! Don’t, Dominic …Dom –’
He’d gone. And then, at last, I burst into tears.
‘What did he say?’ asked Charlie, after a minute.
‘He said …he said, I can keep the engagement ring.’
‘Ah, that’s nice of him,’ said Madge with a benevolent smile. ‘He was always very generous like that.’
‘And the honeymoon.’
‘Heart of gold, really.’
Mum shot her a poisonous look.
‘But how can I go on my honeymoon on my own?’ I wailed.
‘I’ll come with you, Minty,’ Helen said.
And so at ten to five Helen and I left the Waldorf in a cab – she’d already dashed home to get her passport and a weekend bag. And we were waved off by everyone, which felt rather strange; I decided, in the circumstances, not to throw my bouquet. I left it with all my wedding gear, which Dad said he’d take back to Primrose Hill. And as I crossed the Thames in the taxi with my bridesmaid instead of my bridegroom, I kept thinking, ‘Where’s Dominic? Where is he? Where?’ Was he still on the bus? Unlikely. Was he back in Clapham? When had he decided on his course of action? Was it pure coup de théâtre, or a genuine éclaircissement – and why was I thinking in French?
‘I don’t think he’ll be back,’ Madge had announced, as she sipped her coffee.
‘What makes you so sure?’ Charlie enquired testily. Tempers were frayed by now.
‘Well, once he makes up his mind about something he never changes it,’ she said, patting her perm. ‘Like I say, he’s got such integrity like that.’
‘Oh, why don’t you shut up about Dominic’s blasted “integrity”?’ said Amber, with a ferocity which struck me as rude. ‘Look what he’s done to Minty!’
‘Well, it is unfortunate,’ agreed Madge, with an air of regret. ‘But much better to pull out now than later on.’
‘No!’ I said in a voice I barely recognised as my own. ‘I’d rather he’d gone through with it, just gone through with it, and divorced me tomorrow, if that’s how he felt.’
‘But he’s got such a lot to lose,’ she said.
‘Well, I’ve lost all my dignity!’ I replied. ‘It’s so humiliating,’ I wailed, as I tried to avoid the pitying looks of the catering staff. ‘And in front of every single person I know.’ And it was then that I suddenly regretted having let Dominic persuade me to invite half the staff of London FM. How could I work there again, after this? I looked at my napkin – it was smeared with mascara, which annoyed me because I’d paid £24 for it and had been assured by the woman in the shop that it was completely waterproof. I looked at my watch. It was ten to four, and the train to Paris was at five fifteen.
‘I think you should go,’ said Dad again.
‘Why don’t you go,’ I said, ‘with Mum?’
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘It’s the Anorexia Association Ball on Tuesday. I’ve got to look after Lord Eatmore, he’s the sponsor.’
‘Go with Helen, Minty,’ said Dad. ‘That way, if Dominic wants to ring you, he’ll know where you are.’
Oh yes. Dominic would know that all right. The George V. The Honeymoon Suite. That’s what he’d asked me to book and, very obediently, I had. So that’s where he could ring me. He could ring me there and explain. Perhaps he’d even come over and talk to me in person. But deep down, I knew he wouldn’t – because I knew that Madge was right.
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne the heroine, Hester, is made to wear the letter ‘A’ on her dress. ‘A’ for Adultery. ‘A’ to indicate her public shame. As Helen and I swished through the Kent countryside on Eurostar, I thought, maybe I should wear ‘J’, for jilted. This would save people constantly coming up to me in the coming weeks and asking me why I looked so strained, and why I hardly ate, and why I had this mad, staring expression in my eyes. It would be the emotional equivalent of a black armband, easily read from afar, and leaving nothing to be said – except perhaps for the occasional, and entirely voluntary, sympathetic gesture.
And I thought too, as I gazed at the sunlit fields, of how incredibly unlucky I’d been. I’d had more chance of being blown up by a terrorist bomb, or hit by a flying cow, than being deserted, in church, mid marriage. And I thought of Sheryl von Strumpfhosen and of how she’d got my horoscope so horribly wrong: ‘Your love life takes an upward turn this weekend,’ she’d written. Upward turn? And then I remembered my marriage manual, Nearly Wed, and a grim smile spread across my lips. I thought as well of all the kind things people had said as I left the hotel. ‘Chin up, Minty!’ ‘Probably all for the best …’ ‘Expect he’ll come running back!’ ‘Thought you looked lovely, by the way.’ They had crawled and cringed with embarrassment, brows corrugated with confusion and concern. I’d felt almost sorrier for them than for myself. I mean, what do you say? And then, I realised, with a heart like lead, that it wasn’t just the people who were in church. It was the hundreds of others who’d read that I was engaged.
Because it was in the papers, of course. In the engagement columns of both the Telegraph, and The Times. That had been the first cog to turn, setting in motion the invincible wedding machine. And then I regretted putting it in on a Saturday, when it would have been spotted by everyone I know. And so for months to come I would have to explain again and again that, ‘No, I’m still Minty Malone, actually,’ and ‘No, I didn’t get married, after all,’ and ‘No – no particular reason, ha ha ha! It just didn’t, you know, work out.’ ‘These things happen,’ I’d have to say, brightly. ‘All for the best and all that.’ Oh God. I was interrupted from Bride’s Dread Revisited by the distant clink of a trolley.
‘Please eat something,’ said Helen. ‘The steward’s just coming –’ She reddened.
‘Up the aisle?’ I enquired bleakly.
‘Please, Minty,’ she said, as he approached. ‘You didn’t eat anything at lunch.’
Eat? I was still so shocked I could hardly breathe.
‘Champagne, madam?’
Champagne? I never wanted to see another glass of that as long as I lived.
‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘You have it, Helen.’
‘Lamb or duck, madam?’
‘Neither, thanks.’
‘Nothing at all for madam?’ enquired the steward with an air of concern.
‘No. Nothing for madam. And, actually, it isn’t madam, it’s still miss.’
The steward retreated with a wounded air. Helen picked up her knife and fork.
‘I’m sure Dominic will be back,’ she said, trying to comfort me, yet again.
Helen’s like that. She’s very kind-hearted. She’s very optimistic too, like her name, Spero – ‘I hope.’ In fact, her family motto is Dum Spiro, Spero – ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ Yes, I thought, Helen’s always hopeful. But today she was quite, quite wrong.
‘He won’t come back,’ I said. ‘He never, ever changes his mind about anything. It’s over, Helen. Over and out.’
She shook her head, and murmured, for the umpteenth time, ‘Incredible.’ And then, determined to cheer me up, she began to regale me with other nuptial nightmares she’d read about in women’s magazines. The groom who discovered he’d married a transsexual; the best man who didn’t show; the bride who ran off with a woman she’d met at her hen night; the collapsing or flying marquees. Helen was an expert. Helen knew them all.
‘Did you hear the one about the coronation chicken?’ she asked, as she sipped her Bordeaux.
‘No.’
‘It claimed five lives at a reception in Reigate.’
‘How dreadful.’
‘Then there was this awful punch-up at a marriage in Maidstone.’
‘Really?’
‘The bride spent her wedding night in jail.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘And there was a woman in Kent who was married and widowed on the same day!’
‘No!’
‘The groom said, “I do,” then dropped stone-dead. Heart attack, apparently, brought on by all the stress.’
‘Oh God.’
‘And I know someone else whose granny croaked at the reception.’
‘Really?’
‘She went face down in the trifle during the speeches.’
‘Terrible,’ I murmured. And though Helen meant well, this litany of wedding-day disasters was beginning to get me down. I was glad when we pulled into Paris.
‘Well, perhaps it’s for the best,’ she said, as we got off the train. ‘And I’m sure you’ll meet someone else – I mean, if Dominic doesn’t come back,’ she added quickly.
And I thought, yes, maybe I’ll meet someone else. Maybe, like Nancy Mitford’s heroine, Linda, in The Pursuit of Love, I’ll encounter some charming French aristocrat right here at the Gare du Nord. That would be wonderfully convenient. But there were no aristocrats in sight, just an interminable queue for the cabs.
‘Le George V, s’il vous plaît,’ Helen said to the driver, and soon we were speeding through the streets, the windows wide open, inhaling the pungent Parisian aroma of petrol fumes, tobacco and pissoirs. At the bottom of Rue La Fayette stood the Opera House, as ornate and fanciful as a wedding cake, I reflected bitterly. Then we crossed the Place de la Concorde and entered the bustling Champs Elysées.
‘Elysian Fields,’ I said acidly. The sight of a shop window full of bridal gowns dealt me a knife-blow. A wedding car festooned with white ribbons pulled past and I thought I was going to be sick. Ahead of us was the Arc de Triomphe, massive and emphatic. It seemed to mock me after my decidedly unheroic disaster in St Bride’s. I was glad when the driver turned left into Avenue George V, and we couldn’t see it any more.
‘Congratulations, Madame Lane!’ The concierge beamed at me. ‘The Four Seasons George V Hotel would like to extend to you and your ‘usband, our warmest félicitations! Er, is Monsieur Lane just coming, madame?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘he isn’t. And it’s still “mademoiselle”, by the way.’ The concierge reddened as he called a bellboy to take care of our bags.
‘Ah. I see,’ he said, as he slid the registration form across the counter for me to sign. ‘Alors, never mind, as you English like to say.’
‘I do mind,’ I pointed out. ‘I mind very much, actually. But I was persuaded not to waste the trip, so I’ve come with my bridesmaid, instead.’ Helen gave the concierge an awkward smile.
‘Eh bien, why not?’ he said. ‘The Honeymoon Suite is on the eighth floor, mademoiselles. The lifts are just there on your right. I ‘ope you will enjoy your stay.’
‘I think that’s rather unlikely,’ I said. ‘In the circumstances.’
‘Please remember, madame –’
‘–oiselle.’
‘– that we are entirely at your disposal,’ he went on. ‘At the George V no request is too big, too small, or too unusual.’
‘OK. Then can you get my fiancé back?’
‘Our staff are on hand night and day.’
‘He ran off, you see, in church.’
‘If you need help, unpacking your shopping …’
‘In front of everyone I know …’
‘Or you’d like something laundered or ironed …’
‘It was so humiliating …’
‘Then we will be pleased to do it for you.’
‘It was awful.’
‘At any time.’
‘Just awful.’
‘We are here for you round ze clock.’
‘It was terrible,’ I whispered. ‘Terrible.’
‘Oui, mademoiselle.’
The marble reception desk had begun to blur and I was aware of Helen’s hand pressing gently on my arm.
‘Come on, Minty,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we go and find the room.’
To call it a ‘room’ was like calling St Paul’s a church. The bedroom was about thirty feet long, with an enormous walk-in wardrobe. There was also a private sitting room, a huge bathroom, a separate shower room, and a terrace. The walls were painted a soft yellow, and there were antiques everywhere. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling; its lustre drops looked like tears.
‘It’s lovely,’ I said, sinking into the boat-sized bed. I looked at the huge bouquet of congratulatory pink roses and the bottle of chilling champagne. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said again. ‘It’s just so …’ A hot tear splashed on to my hand.