Amanda's Wedding (22 page)

‘How stupid can you get?' I said, smiling through gritted teeth.

‘Rally! So at first we took the piss a bit, especially with Amanda rally coming on to him like that … I mean, she was still seeing that guy from
Les Mis
at the time.'

‘Oh yes?'

‘Rally – I think she finished it, though. For the wedding and stuff.'

‘Well, that was good of her.'

‘Anyway, then I got to know him a bit more. And now I think he's rally nice.'

‘Oh, he is.'

‘And Amanda bosses him about rally horribly. I mean, I know she's dead lovey-dovey in public, but
honestly' – she lowered her voice – ‘I've heard her be rally nasty to him.'

‘There's a surprise,' I said.

Fran tutted. ‘For God's sake, let's just kill her,' she said.

Mookie looked down suddenly and giggled. ‘Oh, it must be the champagne,' she groaned. ‘Please, promise me you won't tell anybody.'

‘Ehm … we promise.'

‘Then, kind of, I agree with you. Rally, I don't think they should get married.'

I was touched.

We stepped out of the ridiculous car. There was a crowd of people queuing on the pavement, but Amanda knew where she was going, and she waved us ahead fiercely. Evidently a lot of people who hadn't quite been able to drag themselves out for dinner were there, and Amanda passed up the line kissing and squealing with laughter. Yet again everyone was about eight foot taller than me, with designer clothes and loud voices. Mookie disappeared into a crowd of flowing blonde hair. The night was full of peacocks and screeching, and more exotic birds than us, and out of the club came the ghastly thumping of mid-eighties rock. All this detective work had made me extremely tired. I looked for Amanda. She was at the front of the queue, and I just overheard her say, ‘Well, of course, Lili came.'

‘Shall we go?' I said to Fran.

‘Thought you'd never ask,' she said, and we finally collapsed into a cab and made our way home.

Neither of us spoke until we were nearly at my house. One after another, we let out huge sighs, for quite different reasons.

‘Are you coming in?' I said as I paid the driver. However, she was already halfway up the mildewed stairs.

We sat in my sitting room giggling and trying to play the tape. I was terrified about noise, as Linda had put a big sign up on my door that said, ‘Please don't make nois!!' [sic], so I felt a bit in the last-chance saloon.

The tape crackled and spat through a lot of rustling – and a fair bit of chewing on Fran's part – and eventually cut into the conversation:

‘You know, I'm only telling you this for your own good, but you can be incredibly naïve, Melanie.'

The familiar tinkle. I cringed.

‘Why do I let her say this stuff?'

‘Because you have no self-esteem,' observed Fran. ‘If she said anything nice, you'd think she wasn't good enough for you, and you'd never see her.'

I tried to work this out as the tape ran on, but
the tape took over. It was unbearable. By the time it got to my famous ‘I do believe in all that crap' speech, I was rolling on the floor in embarrassment – first, at my Estuary tones, and second, at the whole ghastly situation of hearing yourself talk bollocks when pissed, which in most of life is fortunately never repeated.

I leaned over and switched the tape recorder off.

‘Well, that's it then,' I said.

‘What?' Fran grabbed the recorder back fiercely.

‘You're not playing that to Angus. Or Fraser. Or anyone. I'm throwing it out right now.'

‘But, Mel,' said Fran innocently, ‘I believe!'

‘Shut up!'

‘No! No, I do now truly believe in the power of love, thanks to your moving words.'

‘Fuck off!' I leapt at her to try and grab the tape. She grabbed my arms and we rolled about on the carpet, knocking over a frilly lamp with a paisley shade. It crashed off the coffee table.

‘Oh God.' I sat up, while Fran held the tape out of my reach. ‘SHH!' From next door there came the almost imperceptible sound of a long sigh. Come on, I beckoned Fran quietly, and we went into my bedroom, which was the other side of the flat at least, and you could shut the door properly.

‘You definitely can't play that bit,' I hissed. ‘It makes me sound like fucking Barbara Cartland. Fraser will think I'm in love with him.'

Fran wasn't listening, instead gently crooning ‘The Power of Love' to herself. I kicked her.

‘Wind it on. Wind it on to that bit with Mookie in the limousine.'

Unfortunately, Mookie in the limousine sounded exactly like Bagpuss, only with less distinctive vowel sounds.

‘What's she saying?' I leaned close to it. ‘“I agwee?” What does she agwee with? Jesus, that's dreadful.' The tape filled up with traffic noises.

‘This is pointless,' I said.

Fran looked at me. ‘It's not pointless. You're only going to have to play the first bit to the boys. So what if they think you're an over-romanticized idiot?'

‘I think there are enough people in the world already who think I'm an idiot,' I grumbled sulkily. ‘I don't want you to play that stupid tape. Let them get married. I don't care.'

‘Fine. I don't care either.'

‘Fine.'

‘Fine.'

‘Oh God.'

Fran's lip curled.

‘OK, play the damn thing. Can you tell them it's not me?'

‘That's right, it could be almost anyone of a million friends I had at that hen night. With a Woking accent.'

‘I've got it! Stop it immediately before that bit. Then you just hear the Amanda being a cow bit and nobody gets to hear my speech.'

Fran pulled the spare mattress from under my bed and put the tape recorder under the pillow.

‘But that would be no fun,' she protested.

‘Hey, nobody said a detective's life is easy, schweetheart.'

Alex and I met up the next day. He'd been out with some of his pseudo rock-star mates, and looked pretty wasted. I wanted to do some early Christmas shopping, but knew there wouldn't be much point in suggesting it, so we were lazing around in Charlie's house, nursing our hangovers.

I'd told him about the invites, and he'd offered to phone up and get me into the wedding if it meant that much to me, then I'd had to explain that that wasn't the point, then he'd said, well, what was the problem then, and I'd looked at him like he was a moron and he'd shrugged his shoulders and said what did I want him to do, go read
Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus
? and I said no, forget it, I was having my period.

But I couldn't stay in a strop, because I had to tell him about the night before – in a highly edited version of course, centring around the idea that I might have some ethical concerns about the whole business. He couldn't believe we'd actually gone so far as to wire ourselves up, and thought it was pretty cool.

‘Shall we join the FBI when we grow up?' I asked him dreamily.

‘Yes, I think so. Do you think they get a million morons a day asking to join their alien division?'

‘I don't know. Let's phone them up, ask to join, and measure how pissed off the person's voice is. Those are the kind of forensic detective skills you need to join.'

Alex nodded sagely. ‘So what are you going to do with the tape?'

‘I don't know. Fran thinks we should play it to Fraser. I'm not so sure.'

‘Why not?'

‘Well … it's illegal, isn't it?'

‘So, you think Fraser might report you to the police?'

‘No … although I couldn't join the FBI with a record.'

‘Or without American citizenship. Come on, do you really think it's criminal?'

‘No-o-o … I just think it was a bit embarrassing and I kind of wish we hadn't done it now. I mean, what if Fraser just shrugs his shoulders and never talks to us again?'

‘Well, you know me, I don't really give a shit about this wedding … or any wedding for that matter …'

Point taken.

‘… but if you think it's such a horrendous idea, well, then don't you want to stop it? Like you won't let your friends drive drunk, will you?'

‘Oh God, not that damn crocodile again.'

‘What?'

‘Never mind. I do want to stop it. I just didn't think I'd actually, you know, have to do hard things.'

‘That's why people tell other people to mind their own business.'

‘I know.'

‘But if they insist on interfering, pumpkin … they should carry it through. Can I hear it?'

‘No.'

‘Why not? What does it say on it? Does Amanda renounce Fraser because she's desperate for my body?'

‘You wish.'

Alex shrugged.

‘Really? Would you really wish?'

‘No, my darling, I prefer my women more … Rubenesque.'

‘Fuck off! I can't believe it. If she walked in here naked right now and offered it to you, would you take it?'

‘Are you still here at this point?'

‘No. Say I don't even exist.'

‘Well, maybe.'

‘Maybe?'

He grinned. ‘Well, you know …'

‘But she's evil!'

‘So you say.'

‘You've seen her be evil!'

‘When?'

He was right. I couldn't remember a single occasion. God, she hid it well in front of men.

‘You have the morals of a lobster,' I grumbled.

‘Oh, come on. You asked.'

‘Yes, and you're supposed to say “no”. Always. Even if it's like a whole Helena Christensen/Naomi Campbell lesbian-type thing. You're always supposed to say no, you'd prefer me.'

‘But you don't exist.'

‘Yes, well, apart from that.'

Charlie wandered in. When he saw me, he looked slightly embarrassed. I didn't say anything.

‘Hey,' said Alex.

‘Hey,' said Charlie. Then he took a deep breath.

‘Urm … Melanie.'

I looked up, surprised.

‘I'm terribly sorry about last week.'

‘Oh, I'd forgotten all about it,' I lied.

‘Huh. Right-oh. Erm, how's that friend of yours?'

‘Which one?' I asked him deliberately.

‘Yas, you know, erm … Fran.'

I smiled, and decided to embellish it a bit. ‘Oh, she's doing absolutely great! Ever since she started seeing Angus …'

‘She's seeing Angus?' cut in Alex abruptly. ‘Since when?'

‘Since that night, actually.'

Charlie looked utterly crestfallen. ‘Gosh, I rather buggered that up then.'

‘What?' said Alex. ‘She had her tongue down that other guy's throat when we left.'

‘Well, you know Fran. Always up for a bit of adventure.'

Charlie perked up a bit. ‘Really?'

‘Only with Scottish people though,' I said sympathetically. His crest fell again and he turned and left the room.

‘Damn gorgeous totty,' he muttered as he went.

Ooh, it was working.

I studied Alex. ‘You looked utterly dumbfounded that Fran might have a boyfriend.'

He made a hangdog face. ‘Not really. It's just I'd never have put those two together. Mind you, they're both pretty fierce.'

‘No they're not!' I said indignantly. ‘OK, Fran is pretty fierce. But Angus is a big pet. He's really sweet.'

‘So, it won't last long then. D'ya want tea?' Alex went through to put the kettle on.

Actually, it's already finished, I thought to myself, slightly embarrassed for having fibbed about something so pointless.

‘You told them WHAT!?' said Fran.

‘I thought it would be funny. Wind Charlie up a bit.'

‘I decide when I want to wind Charlie up.'

‘Oh yeah, NEW RULE!'

‘Oh, forget it. You really have a big mouth, don't you?'

‘Yeah, you mentioned that.'

Hurt and annoyed, I slumped back in my chair. We were in a greasy caff in North London waiting for Angus, who had been pestering us to know what had happened to the tape. I fiddled disconsolately with the grubby sauce bottle and drank my slightly suspect tea.

‘Angus!' she said in a pleased tone as he popped into our booth, shaking the rain off like a dog.