Last of the Great Romantics (39 page)

'The Spa is out of bounds at present, no photos, no questions. Get outside and take exterior shots while the weather still holds and report back here in precisely twenty minutes.'

Too used to her to bother arguing, Joshua merely shrugged and was ambling back downstairs shadowed by the photographer when Julia hollered at him like a sergeant major over the banister rail: 'Move it, faster, do it, now!' Then under her breath she added, 'I'll bet David and Victoria never had to deal with this crap at their wedding.'

'I know you.'

Lucasta was standing at the entrance to the marquee, fag in hand, squinting suspiciously at poor Robert Armstrong. All around them, the scene was one of tightly orchestrated chaos, with ice sculptures being ferried past, exquisite floral centrepieces being carted down the red carpet and a string quartet, all looking miserable and shivering in evening dress against the blustery March wind, beginning to set up.

'Now don't tell me, it'll come to me; I have a wonderful memory for faces,' she went on, scrutinizing him. 'Did you used to sing with the Boomtown Rats?'

Robert merely smiled and looked a bit embarrassed. He had just returned from a trade mission to China but looked very well-rested and behaved as he always did, impeccably.

'No, no, I have it, I know where I've seen you before,' Lucasta was droning on. 'Are you that gobshite who was a hostage in Beirut for years?'

'No, I'm afraid not.'

'The man who ran the four-minute mile?'

'Most definitely not.'

'Did you train the winner of last year's Grand National?'

'I wish.' He was teasing her now and really enjoying himself.

She would have gone on interrogating him indefinitely, but they were interrupted by Jasper, while Joshua and his photographer ambled behind, snapping them from a respectful distance.

'Morning, emm, Mr President,' Jasper said to Robert, totally unfazed that he was addressing the Head of State and working on the assumption that the President should be addressed the way he was on
The West Wing.
'Sorry to interrupt, but Julia Belshaw will have a heart attack if you don't go up to your daughter's room for a photo call.'

'Duty calls then,' replied Robert politely. Then, smiling at Lucasta, he said, 'Father of the bride and all that, you know.'

She continued to look at him, baffled.

'Oh dear me. I can't bear to see you misled any longer, Lucasta. I'm Robert Armstrong, at your service. We met at your launch party, remember? And we spoke on the phone? I organized the match tickets for you. I was so very sorry not to have been able to join you, but I've been on tour in China, you know. I hear it was a wonderful match.'

'Oh, that's where I've seen you!' she said, thumping her forehead in exasperation. 'Of course, how silly of me not to recognize you. Armstrong. You're the first man who walked on the moon.'

'Lucasta,' said Jasper, stepping in. 'He's the President of Ireland. You have seen his face before, on a thirty-two-cent stamp.'

'Well, I wish someone had said,' she replied, doing her trick of lighting one cigarette off another. 'I suppose that explains all the security men traipsing all over the place. And there was me thinking you'd escaped from some kind of institution.'

Joshua's Diary, Davenport Country House Hotel, eleven a.m., the Beauty Salon.

How wonderful it is to see all the beautiful Oldcastle ladies being pampered here in the luxurious surroundings of the Davenport Spa! Although it's hard to imagine how any of these lovelies could possibly look any better than they already do. They kindly permitted
Gotcha
magazine to photograph them as they chatted excitedly about the day ahead.

'You're nuffin' but a stupid slaphead, Falcon Donohue!' Shakira was screeching across the washbasin over to where Falcon was having her false tan painstakingly applied by Shelley-Marie. 'You know I was supposed to get my bleeding tan done before you, get a bloody move on, will ya?'

'Ignore the old tart,' Falcon said at the top of her voice to Shelley-Marie, 'she's only jealous cos I'm gonna be mahogany and she'll look like petrified shit. Where you from anyway, you got a really funny accent.'

'Oh, I come from Texas,' Shelley-Marie simpered.

'The DIY place?'

Joshua stood where he'd been ordered to by Julia and frantically scribbled away in his elegant leather-bound notebook, periodically muttering into a Dictaphone when something particularly inspirational struck him. The Salon was packed to the gills with guests, all women, naturally, in various states of undress, demanding blow-dries and manicures immediately, while poor Mrs Flanagan waddled around calmly telling them they'd just all have to wait their turn.

'It isn't my fault if none of these good folks made appointments,' Shelley-Marie had moaned to Julia earlier. 'I've only got one pair of hands.'

'We'll just get a couple of shots and then they'll all have to bugger off,' retorted Julia, well pissed off that here was something she hadn't made allowances for in her schedule. 'At precisely one p.m., we need the room cleared for the bride and bridesmaid. The rest of them can sever limbs themselves doing their own bikini waxes for all I care. Serves them right for not booking in advance.'

Falcon Donohue, wife of Oldcastle's star striker Shane Donohue, laughs animatedly with her old friend Shakira Walker as she has her magnificent hair washed in preparation for the big day.

'Careful with that slag's hair extensions then,' Shakira called over to Mrs Flanagan as she lathered Falcon's head in conditioner. 'Four Ukrainian bitches are bald now cos of her and they're very loose, ya know. One of them fell off and landed right in my champagne flute last night. I thought it was a king rat's tail, so I did.'

Our wonderful hostess, Lucasta, Lady Davenport, arrives in the Salon to make sure everyone's happy and to check that there are no last-minute hitches.

'So the bride's father is actually the President of Ireland, then,' Lucasta twittered, oblivious to the stares she was attracting. Surrounded by a bevy of pampered, preening princesses, she stood out like a bag lady backstage at a Paris couture show. Even the photographer, who was happily snapping anything with a pulse, took one look at her ladyship's mucky Wellingtons and stinking oilskin jacket and decided to stick with the considerably more photogenic Oldcastle women. 'I just wish someone had told me. Why, oh why am I always the last to know anything?'

Mrs Flanagan rolled her eyes to heaven. Catching Joshua's eye she calmly said, 'Ah Jaysus, it's been headline news for weeks now. It's not like it's a state secret or anything.'

'Well, you might have said. I was on the verge of having Jasper escort him off the premises. Only this morning, I was saying the sooner people like that are recaptured, the better.'

* * *

Daisy, too, was up and about bright and early. As Eleanor was so late arriving back to the Hall the previous night, she and Simon had decided they had no choice but to postpone the inevitable till the following morning. Daisy had just pulled on her crisp black uniform and was clipping on her 'acting manager' nametag when her bedroom phone rang.

'Wee girl? How you doing?' The Scottish accent.

'Hi, Simon. I'm about to become the reason why the wedding of the year gets called off and, for added entertainment, I'm about to smash Eleanor's heart into smithereens. I've been better.'

'She's in her room. Come on, let's go up there now and just get this over with, shall we?'

'Do you know, I honestly think I'd rather have a javelin up my arse and out my mouth right this minute than go through with this.'

He laughed in spite of himself. 'I'm not exactly relishing the thought meself. Come on, let's get it over with.'

She put the phone down and was on her way out of the door when it rang again. 'Simon, I told you, I'm on my way.'

'No, it's me, Jasper.'

'Are you OK?'

'Running around like a lunatic down here trying to keep things under control. I just wanted to say one thing to you.'

'What's that?'

'I know you haven't an easy day ahead of you, with everything that's happened.'

Funny, Daisy thought. Jasper was one of those people who instinctively knew what was going on without it having to be spelt out for him. She silently blessed him for it as he went on.

'But I just wanted to let you know, I might have a bit of a surprise for you later.'

The excitement here is at fever pitch as the groom and his best man, French midfielder Alessandro Dumas, arrive at Davenport Hall in a hot-air balloon. As they wave excitedly to the crowd below, we see that Mark is clearly relishing this, the biggest day of his life, with not a trace of nerves to be seen.

'Bugger me, Alessandro, I think I'm going to puke. No one told me these hot-air balloons went up so bleeding high. I don't like heights, they gimme a headache.'

Alessandro, whose grasp of English was less than perfect, peered over the edge of the basket and said, 'Maw, where are all of the . . . how do you say . . . bunches of the fans? I had . . .
j'ai cru
. . . expected the fans to be here to say
bienvenu
. . .
et là bas
– no one . . . just the house . . . umm . . . workers . . .'

Unfortunately, he was right. With just under two and a half hours to go to kick-off, naturally all of the wedding guests were far too busy pampering themselves to have any interest in being drafted outside for a freezing photo call. The staff too were so completely run off their feet that only Tim, Molly and some of the extra catering staff were frogmarched by Joshua and poor Liz over to the rose garden for the photo call.

Hordes of friends and well-wishers gather by the delightful surroundings of the rose garden, thrilled to see their hero, footballing legend Mark Lloyd, arriving in style.

'Is this charade going to go on for very much longer?' asked Tim, wearing only his chef's suit and freezing against the wild March wind. 'In case you hadn't noticed, I have two hundred people to cater for and time is of the essence.'

'And the bedrooms aren't going to clean themselves,' Molly said in agreement, with her teeth practically chattering.

'Oh, ten more seconds, just till we get a couple more shots,' replied Joshua coolly. 'And could you all cluster in together a bit more? Thank you so much, it just helps us to fill out the photos a little, you know.'

By now, the balloon was only about twenty feet from the ground as the pilot expertly guided it downwards as smoothly as he could, given the less than favourable weather conditions.

'Oh hell, get me out of this thing, I think I've got altitude sickness,' said a very green-faced Mark Lloyd. 'And I'm freezing me bleeding arse off.'

'Jeune fille jolie
at, ehh . . . two o'clock . . . Heeello!' Alessandro only spoke pigeon English, but when it came to describing an attractive woman, his vocabulary was surprisingly adequate. As it happened, it was Daisy he had spotted, sprinting out of the French doors and racing for the rose garden as though her life depended on it.

If she had thought Mark would betray even a trace of embarrassment at seeing her again, she was mistaken.

When the basket hit the ground seconds later, he was out of it in one swift, athletic leap, his nausea completely forgotten as he made a beeline for the camera, waving jubilantly like he'd just scored a winning goal.

'Mark, Mark! Over here, Mark!' Joshua and Liz were both frantically trying to grab his attention, panicking that they wouldn't get enough shots of the groom greeting his adoring fans. His adoring fans, on the other hand, had other ideas. No sooner had the photographer finished with them, than they all scarpered for the warmth of the Hall, delighted to be out of the icy winds, leaving Joshua with no choice but to improvise wildly.

Such was the throng waiting to greet Mark, that police barriers had to be used to prevent them from crushing the groom just hours before the 'I dos'. One intrepid fan, however, managed to break through security to wish Mark the very best of luck on the occasion of his wedding.

'Well, how are you then, love?' he asked. Mark playfully patted Daisy on the bottom, clearly thinking his celebrity status endowed him with a sort of droit de seigneur. 'Good night the other night, bit of fun, yeah?'

Daisy flashed him one of her iciest blue glares. 'Eleanor would like to see you in her room immediately. And if you ever touch me like that again, my cousin will plaster your brains against a brick wall. Do you understand?'

'I think maybe you're the one who doesn't understand, love.' Mark's tone had switched on a sixpence, from flirtatious to threatening. 'I hope, for your sake, you haven't said anything to Ellie 'bout the other night, have you? Cos that would be really, really stupid of you. For a start, who's gonna believe you anyway?'