Mother of the Bride

After her parents had split up and Jonathon had married Marnie they had come to a compromise, based on the two of them taking frequent cruises, which Jess suspected was acceptable only because her father felt that cruising wasn’t so much travelling as moving a little piece of England closer to all those countries Marnie was so keen for him to see.

‘We’re somewhere in…’ He hesitated as if waiting for a prompt. ‘Croatia.’ He made it sound like the outer reaches of the Horsehead Nebula. ‘We went to see some thing this morning and I think Marnie’s planning to go and see more things tomorrow. But anyway, never mind me. You and Max – it is Max, isn’t it? Well done, I’m really pleased. We’re really pleased. Obviously we’ll need to talk about the arrangements for the wedding and what your plans are when I get back. I want to see the cut of his jib and all that – make sure his intentions towards my little girl are honourable.’

Jess winced at her father’s idea of a joke.

‘So, have the pair of you set a date yet?’

‘We were thinking maybe Christmas – well, December anyway.’

‘Ah, right. December? So not that far away then. Have to get your skates on with the planning. You say you’ve spoken to your mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘Not much but I’m sure we can sort it out between us.’ Jess put her hand over the receiver. ‘Do you want to talk to him?’ she mouthed to Max.

Max shook his head. Meanwhile her father was saying, ‘I’m sure you’re right, Puss, and your mother has always been good at that kind of thing. Okay, well, look, why don’t the two of you come over as soon as we get back home? Not quite sure when that is – I’ll ring you. Lost all track of time, you know how it is with holidays.’

Jess smiled as they said their goodbyes; what her dad meant was that he didn’t know when they were due home because Marnie had made all the arrangements.

‘Are you going to ring your mum and dad now?’ she asked, waggling the phone in Max’s direction after she had rung off.

He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I was thinking that maybe we should go back to bed. I could light the fire in the bedroom. What do you think?’

Jess smiled. You didn’t need to be much of a mind-reader to work out what he meant. ‘Or we could just huddle together for the warmth,’ she said, all innocence.

‘Sounds like a plan, be terrible to freeze to death in the middle of the summer, wouldn’t it?’ Max purred as he kissed her, which made her heart do that funny, fluttery, skip-a-beat, horny thing.

‘Are you going to ring your mum and dad later?’ asked Jess, as Max took her by the hand and led her up the steep, winding stairs.

‘I was thinking that maybe we ought to go round and tell them. They’re a bit old-fashioned about that sort of thing.’

‘Oh, okay,’ said Jess as he started nibbling at her neck and unbuttoned her shirt. ‘What sort of thing?’ she started to ask, but the words got lost as he kissed her harder and pulled her down into a great billow of duvet, bolsters and pillows.

Chapter Three

‘Flowers, food, frocks, cars, dresses – balloons, doves. My sister had doves.’

‘Yes, all right, thank you,’ said Molly to Phil, who was busy counting off what you needed for the perfect twenty-first-century wedding. ‘Why don’t you go and make us some tea?’

They were back in the offices of EAA FM and Molly, who was sitting at her desk waiting to go in to their regular strategy meeting with their manager, had been Googling weddings. The good news was that there were hundreds of thousands of websites, offering every kind of service and paraphernalia imaginable – dozens of books, CDs and DVDs and lord only knew what else online, as well as innumerable sources of advice to help her help Jess in the quest for the perfect occasion.

There were Wild West-themed weddings, weddings with Liberace lookalikes, weddings in caves by candlelight. Molly’s main problem was, having spent most of her working life looking for weird and wonderful things to attract her listeners, she found it impossible not to be drawn towards the bizarre. What couple in their right mind wanted to be married underwater or, come to that, while bungee jumping? As she scrolled through the pages Molly hoped Jess had something a little less strenuous in mind.

Nina Holman, the station’s senior office administrator, stood behind her, peering over Molly’s shoulder.

‘So if that’s the good news, what’s the bad news?’ Nina asked conversationally.

Molly sighed. ‘Well, according to this we should have started organising the wedding in June last year.’

Nina waved the words away. ‘Oh, come on. How hard can it be? I mean, even Phil knows what you need. It’ll be fine. Surely the bride and groom do most of it themselves these days, don’t they? Oh look – great outfit. That’s half your problems solved.’ Nina pointed towards the screen. ‘That bluey-green one on the end with the straw hat. Don’t look so worried, let’s face it, we fly this place by the seat of our pants all the time. Organising a wedding will be a doddle.’

Molly bypassed the frock commentary. ‘Yes, but that’s because we’re dealing with the great British public – and I know they can be fickle and peculiar, but unlike Jess they’re not likely to cry all over me and use emotional blackmail to get what they want.’

Nina took a sip of coffee. ‘Oh, I dunno, there was that bloke in Great Yarmouth last summer…’ She laughed. ‘All right, all right, I hear what you’re saying. And I’m here for you. If you need a hand or a shopping buddy or just a shoulder to cry on, count me in. I’ve always been a sucker for a big hat and matching shoes. I’m thinking maybe lavender and cream…’

‘And I’m thinking it’s going to take a lot more than a decent frock to pull this off. Look at this list.’ Molly flicked back to a page she had previously bookmarked and then scrolled down, and down, and down.

‘Bloody hell.’ Nina leaned in closer to pick out some of the details. The list was so long it was almost a joke. After a couple of minutes speed-reading she pulled away.

‘Are they serious? It says here,’ she pointed indignantly at the screen, ‘that traditionally the bride’s family organise it and pay for it all and then when everybody else has finished necking your champagne, and you’ve Hoovered the confetti out of the Axminster, you’re the one who sends slices of cake to the people who didn’t make it. Did no one tell the guys who wrote this that they abolished slave labour a while back?’

‘Apparently not. I was planning to print the list off and tick things off as we go.’

Nina gave her a long, hard look. ‘I don’t think we’ve got that much paper in the office, Molly. Or, come to that, that you have that much time. Surely you can’t be expected to do it all, not these days. Have you considered suggesting that the pair of them elope?’

‘It’ll be fine. Knowing Jess, she’ll want to do most of it herself.’

‘You hope,’ said Nina with a wry grin.

‘We’ll get it sorted out, I mean, how hard can it be?’ said Molly with a confidence she didn’t feel.

She flicked back to the Mother of the Bride outfitters’ websites. One thing that was very noticeable was just how many sites offered the perfect outfit in larger sizes; presumably comfort-eating after all that planning, thought Molly miserably as she returned to the to-do list.

Top of the list was choosing where they would get married. Would they want a church, or a registry office, or one of the myriad venues where you could hold a civil service? Was Max religious? Was he Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Zoroastrian, maybe he was a Buddhist? Maybe they would want a humanist ceremony in a field or something involving a hand-fasting, organic rice cakes and biodegradable confetti?

She really needed to talk to Jess.

And then there was the matter of who should they invite, and who was going to chauffeur the old aunties or ensure that Uncle Eric from Chester knew where the cheap hotels were? Looking down the who-does-what list Molly could hazard a guess.

Besides all of that, Phil was right, if you went for the full nine yards there was so much to arrange: the frocks and cars, and flowers, photographs and videos, and then the reception, the food, drink, cake. Just thinking about it made her feel slightly queasy.

News, like flu, spread fast through the office of EAA, so by mid-afternoon there didn’t seem to be a soul in the building who didn’t know Jessica was getting married.

Working on the radio station was like being part of a warm, if dysfunctional, family. Each presenter had a back-up team; sometimes there was a co-presenter and there was always a producer who worked with the presenter to create programme content. There was at least one broadcast assistant per team to act as gofer, chauffeur and general dogsbody. This made up the basic family unit, and then there were the cousins and second cousins; the editors, the weather men, news readers and sports reporters, two guys who worked on website content, people who answered the phones, PAs, cleaners and receptionists, security and all manner of techies as well. By the state of Molly’s email inbox there didn’t seem to be anyone on the station who hadn’t heard the news.

‘Could be worse,’ said Stan, her producer, as handed her the notes for their up-and-coming meeting with their boss.

‘You mean Jess could be making me a grandma instead?’

Stan held up his hands in protest. ‘Seriously. All I’m saying is, “Wedding Countdown Special”.’ He handed her a clipboard. ‘I’ve already heard it muted by the water cooler.’

‘Over my dead body,’ said Molly grimly.

Nina tapped the agenda. ‘Item four, programming ideas for the new season. It would be easy pickings, Molly. Just think about it,’ she said with a grin.

‘I have and it still sucks.’

‘Conference room in ten minutes. And Rob’s on his way down apparently,’ said Stan, pointing to his watch. ‘Oh, and here comes young Phil with the tea.’

At which point the phone on her desk rang. Molly picked up the receiver and tucked it under her chin, waiting until Stan and Nina moved away before she spoke and starting to flick through the MoB’s outfit website.

‘Hello, you’re through to Molly Foster at EAA.’ All she could hear was a peculiar distant clicking and crackling. At first Molly thought it might be an automated cold call until she realised she could hear someone breathing heavily on the other end of the line, and was about to slam the phone down when Jonathon said, ‘Molly, is that you? You there?’

‘Yes, how are y—’ she began, but before she could get any further Jonathon snapped, ‘Is Jessica pregnant?’

As was often the case when Molly spoke to her ex-husband, she instantly found every word he said infuriating.

‘Does it matter if she is?’ she demanded, while thinking how very like Jonathon not to have asked Jess himself.

‘Well – well no, obviously, of course not. I mean I didn’t say anything when she rang because I didn’t want to upset her, she sounded so happy,’ he blustered. ‘But if she is I just didn’t want her to think that she has got to get married to this Max just because she’s – well, you know.’

‘Pregnant? A fallen woman? Unclean? An awful lot has changed since the dark ages of our youth, Jonathon, people don’t have to get married any more, in fact they don’t seem to have to do anything they don’t want to. Those days have long gone. Thank God.’

‘I suppose we should just be relieved that given all that, he’s still going to stand by her.’

Stand by her? Molly groaned inwardly; Jonathon Foster, closet Victorian.

Jonathon paused, obviously needing a moment or two to catch up. ‘So are you saying that Puss isn’t pregnant?’

‘As far as I know, no, I’m sure she would have said something but I will ask.’

‘In that case, what’s the bloody hurry? I mean she barely knows the chap.’

‘She’s young…’

‘Well, he isn’t. What is he? Forty? What’s the hurry? They barely know each other.’

Molly decided to ignore him and press on. ‘She’s in love and, let’s face it, when you’re that age you think waiting for anything is a silly idea.’

‘Personally,’ said Jonathon, using a tone that suggested Jessica’s news was entirely Molly’s fault, ‘I don’t understand what the rush is – I mean we weren’t like that, were we?’

Molly laughed. ‘Of course we were. I remember my mum and dad suggesting we waited another couple of years and saved up and you were absolutely furious.’

‘Things were different then,’ snapped Jonathon. ‘We were more mature, more sensible. We took things seriously.’

‘Did we? I seem to remember the real reason we wanted to get married was so that your mother would let us sleep together when we stayed at your parents’ house – I don’t think it had much to do with having noble plans for a shared life of poverty and pain and procreation.’

There was a pause and then Jonathon said, ‘So, what do you think of him?’

‘Max?’

‘No, the Pope. Of course Max, who else is my only daughter planning to marry?’

‘Our daughter,’ Molly said tersely.

‘Whatever. The thing is, what is he like?’

‘You’ve met him, haven’t you?’

Jonathon sniffed. ‘Of course I’ve met him. Once or twice but only in the “Hello, pleased to meet you, so you’re the bastard who is sleeping with my little girl” kind of way.’

Molly laughed; sometimes, Jonathon could also be delightfully self-aware.

‘They dropped in on their way back from somewhere or other and then Jess brought him over to have Sunday lunch with us,’ Jonathon continued. ‘What does that tell you about anybody? He seemed nice enough, but who knows? He could be an axe-murdering psychopath for all I know. Something in banking, isn’t he?’

‘No, that was Glenn. The one before, the one who went off to America? San Francisco?’

‘Ah.’ There was another pause and then Jonathon asked, ‘So what does Max do?’

‘IT, project management, I think. I’m not sure what exactly.’

‘Ummmm, not a banker then? I suppose we should be grateful really.’

‘We have to trust Jess to make her own mind up, after all she knows him better than we do. These are her decisions to make. She’s not a child any more.’

‘So you say.’

‘Jonathon, we’d already got her and Jack by the time I was her age.’

‘Yes, but we were different,’ said Jonathon. ‘Things were different.’

True, now it seemed that adolescence lasted until you were well into your thirties, thought Molly ruefully, whereas when she and Jonathon had been dating, it ended as soon as you left school. She felt younger now than she had in her twenties – probably looked younger too, she decided, catching sight of her reflection in the monitor.

‘Right, well, I suppose we should get together and discuss the wedding, then. Money and the arrangements and things. I know that in the good old days the bride’s father used to stump up for the whole shebang but as you said, times have changed.’

Molly groaned inwardly; the one time Jonathon took notice of something she’d said it was obviously going to rebound.

‘Before all this kicked off I had been thinking of giving Jess something towards the deposit on a house or a flat,’ Jonathon said.

‘They still might prefer that…’

Molly looked back at the website she’d been browsing through. With the cost of a wedding today Jonathon wouldn’t be far out. The price of a deposit on a first time home equalled just about what it would cost to throw a half-decent wedding. In fact the all-inclusive charge on a featured venue of the month cost more than Jonathan and Molly had paid for their first house.

‘How about we talk everything over once Marnie and I get back?’

‘Fine by me. So you’ll ring Jess and make the arrangements?’

‘Oh.’ Jonathon sounded genuinely surprised. ‘I was rather hoping you’d do that.’

‘But if we’re coming to yours…’

Jonathon gave a funny little throaty cough.

‘You want everyone to come to mine?’ said Molly. Mindreading was right up there on the list of talents required to deal with Jonathon. She certainly didn’t miss being married to him one little bit. ‘Not your place?’

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, do you? I don’t want to upset Marnie,’ he said.

‘But it’s all right to upset Nick?’ asked Molly, her tone level.

‘You know how things are, Molly –’

What Jonathon actually meant was he didn’t live with Nick and therefore he didn’t give a rat’s arse about how upset Nick might or might not get, because Nick wasn’t anything to do with Jonathon, and Marnie – five foot two, six stone wet, with a tongue that could strip paint, and a temper to match – most definitely was. Seeing the way Jonathon ran around trying to placate Marnie, Molly had come to the conclusion that sometimes it paid to be difficult.

‘Besides,’ he was saying, ‘your place is so much easier to get to, and you’ve got more parking. Our place is a bit tucked up for all those cars.’

All those cars – two more at most. Molly wondered just how many reasons Jonathon would be able to come up with before she put him out of his misery. On screen she had found a really beautiful oyster-coloured suit with a hat – apparently a complete snip at nine hundred pounds.

‘Fine,’ she agreed.

‘Fine?’ said Jonathon.

‘Look, I’m at work, Jonathon, I’ll email you. Have a nice holiday.’

‘See you when we get back, then.’ Jonathon sounded crestfallen at not having managed more sparring. ‘So you’re all right about everything?’

Molly looked heavenwards. What was that supposed to mean? She decided not to ask him. ‘I’ll ring Jess when I get home and then we can arrange a time for you to pop over.’

‘Oh,’ said Jonathon.

‘Oh? What do you mean, “Oh”?’

‘Well, I’d rather assumed I’d be coming over for lunch. We’ve got a lot to talk about. And I am going to be coughing up the lion’s share for the wedding.’

The sheer gall of the man took Molly’s breath away. What she wanted to say was, ‘In that case maybe you should invite Jess and Max over to your place instead and count me out. You could arrange it between yourselves – after all, it is your only daughter who is getting married.’

But she knew from years of experience that the resulting hissy-fit wouldn’t be worth it, so what she actually said was, ‘I have to go, Jonathon. I’ll let you know what Jess says.’ And with that she hung up, which was perfect timing as she could see their boss, Rob Harwood, making his way into the conference room.

Picking up her notepad and clipboard Molly hurried over to catch him up. For all his apparent bonhomie and great show of just being another one of the station crew, one of the team, no one was under any illusions about who was top dog or what would happen if you ever made the mistake of treating Rob as just one of the boys.

In the conference room Stan was already sorting out a drink for Rob, Nina was there to ensure no one forgot budget or logistics, a girl from the front office was there to take notes while someone up from the sales department was there to talk about advertising.

Molly had already emailed her outline plan for next month’s shows, although it was fairly academic; the framework for programme content in the broadest sense was more or less the same every year, give or take a public crusade or two.

In the summer they rolled out some kind of seaside special in August, finishing up on Bank Holiday Monday, before heading towards back-to-school and then autumn themes, beginning in September with harvest festivals and late-season breaks. October there were debates over Hallowe’en versus Bonfire Night, then there was Christmas and all that that entailed – the presents and pantomimes and cookery tips and how-tos. And then the New Year, with lots of phoneins about presents you hated and resolutions made or broken, followed by the January blues and sales, segments on credit cards and canny ways with money, and the year rolled slowly into a new spring with lambs and farm visits and the first snowdrops, how this February was the wettest, driest, coldest, hottest or sunniest since records began, and before you knew it they were round to planning holidays on air, with a mix of local destinations and travel companies who had bought air time, and before you knew it, it was summer all over again.

Molly quite liked the slow seasonal rotation in programme planning; while some people saw it as dull, for her it had all the comfort of visiting old friends.

Rob looked up from his notes as Molly came into the conference room and smiled broadly. ‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ he said, as she pulled out a chair. ‘Phone lines are still buzzing. Marvellous news, please pass my best wishes on to your daughter and the groom-to-be. Max, isn’t it?’

Inwardly Molly groaned. Whoever was it said only bad news travels fast?

Chapter Four

‘I know that I promised not to turn into Bridezilla,’ said Jess. ‘But there are things we ought to talk about, things I need to ask you, and want your opinion on. We haven’t got that long to sort everything out – so what sort of wedding do you think we should have?’ She paused. ‘Max, you are listening, aren’t you?’

The two of them were curled up under the duvet in bed in the little cottage with its view out over Watchet Harbour. Outside it was raining hard, but Jess couldn’t have cared less about the weather. She had barely had time to catch her breath since Max had gone down on one knee and now the full weight of what he had asked her was beginning to sink in.

If Jess could have planned exactly how she wanted to be proposed to she would have been hard-pressed to top Max’s efforts. It was breathtakingly romantic and so unexpected that, despite it being a horrible cliché, she had to keep from pinching herself to check that she wasn’t dreaming.

At first Jess had thought Max was kneeling down to tie his shoelace and then just when she was going to ask him if he was all right he had caught hold of her hand. And even then Jess hadn’t guessed, she just thought he might need a hand up because it was cold and they had walked for miles with her dog, Bassa. Then Max had said, ‘Jess, I want to ask you something.’

And before she could think what it might be, Max had asked her to marry him.

Although replaying the scene in her head – and Jess had replayed it many times since Max had said it – Jess wasn’t sure exactly whether Max had asked her so much as told her. She seemed to remember that what he had actually said was, ‘Jess, I think that we should get married.’ Because it didn’t seem as if there had been any question that she could answer yes or no to. But it didn’t matter, because it had all been so magical and so very special and incredibly romantic and then Max had said, ‘I was thinking December – maybe Christmas, certainly before the New Year. What do you say?’

And although Jess hadn’t said anything to Molly, it had been a surprise. In fact it was so unexpected that for a few moments Jess thought she must have misheard him.

All the time they’d been going out together Max had said things about how much he liked his own space, and how he wasn’t really good with girlfriends, like they were some kind of pet, and how, although he really enjoyed being with her, he was a happy bachelor – which, although they seemed to get on fairly well and however smitten Jess was, hadn’t given her much hope that the relationship was going anywhere.

And when on girly nights out Jess had expressed her concerns, her friends – who hadn’t met Max yet because he was usually busy midweek – had said that maybe he was just playing with her, that whole protesting too much so he wouldn’t get hurt when she finished with him kind of thing.

‘He’s got that little-boy-lost look. You can just tell he’s been really hurt,’ Jess had said to them. ‘And he’s gorgeous and is so mature – he makes me feel all fragile and feminine. And he is such a gentleman – a proper grown-up.’