Yes! Bingo!
“No hymns?” I raise a hand to my mouth in horror, as though I hadn’t known this all along. “But how can you have a wedding without hymns? What about ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’? You were always going to have that at your wedding.”
Lottie was in the choir at our boarding school. She used to sing solos. Music was a big deal to her. I should have started with this tack first.
“Well. It’s not important.” She smiles briefly—but her whole demeanor has changed.
“What does Ben think?”
“Ben’s not really into hymns,” she says after a pause.
Ben’s not really into hymns.
I want to whoop. This is it. Her Achilles’ heel. I have her like putty in my hands.
“I vow to thee, my country,” I start singing very quietly. “All earthly things above.”
“Stop,” she says, almost snapping.
“Sorry.” I raise an apologetic hand. “Just … thinking aloud. For me, a wedding is all about the music. The beautiful, wonderful music.”
This is untrue. I couldn’t care less about music, and if Lottie were sharper, she’d instantly realize I’m winding her up. But she’s looking away, lost in her own world. Are her eyes a little glassy?
“I always imagined you kneeling at the altar in a country church with the organ playing,” I muse, rubbing it in. “Not at a registry office. Funny, that.”
“Yes.” She doesn’t even turn her head.
“Da-da-daah-da-da-da-da-ah-da …” I’m still humming the tune of “I Vow to Thee, My Country.” Obviously I don’t know all the words, but the tune is enough. That’s what’ll get her.
Her eyes are glassy. OK, time to go in for the kill.
“Anyway!” I break off from singing. “The important thing is that this is your special day. And it’s going to be perfect. Nice and quick. No stupid fussing about with music, or choirboys, or bells pealing from a country steeple … Just in and out. Sign a paper, say a couple of words, and you’re done. For life,” I add. “Finito.”
I feel almost cruel. I can see her bottom lip quivering very slightly.
“Do you remember the bridal scene in The Sound of Music?” I add casually. “When Maria walks up the aisle to the nuns’ singing and her big long veil floating everywhere …”
Don’t overdo it, Fliss.
I lapse into silence and sip my champagne, waiting. I can see Lottie’s eyes flickering with thoughts. I can sense her inner battle between romance and lust. I think romance is just getting the edge. I think the violins are playing louder than the jungle drums. She looks as if she’s coming to a decision. Please go the right way, go on.…
“Fliss …” She looks up. “Fliss …”
Just call me the World Champion Bride Whisperer.
There was no argument. No confrontation. Lottie thinks it was her idea to postpone. I was the one saying, “Are you sure, Lottie? Are you positive you want to call things off? Really?”
I’ve totally sold her on the idea of a country wedding with music and a choir and bells. She’s already looked up the name of the chaplain at our old school. She’s off on a new dream of satin and posies and “I Vow to Thee, My Country.”
Which is fine. A wedding is lovely. Marriage is lovely. Maybe Ben is destined to be her life partner and I’ll kick myself as she has her tenth grandchild and think, What was my problem? But at least this way gives her some breathing space. At least it gives her time to look at Ben and think, Hmm. Sixty more years with you. Is this a good idea?
Lottie’s gone off to the registry office, to tell Ben the news. My work is done. The only task remaining is to buy her Brides magazine. We’re going to meet up for coffee tomorrow and have a cozy chat about veils, and then, in the evening, finally I’ll get to meet Ben.
I’m waiting to cross the King’s Road, mentally congratulating myself for being so brilliant, when I see a face I recognize. Beaky nose. Windswept dark hair. Rose in his buttonhole. He’s about ten feet tall and is striding along the pavement on the other side, with the kind of thunderous frown that you wear when your rich best friend has been grabbed by an evil gold digger and you’ve got to be best man. As he’s walking, his rose suddenly falls out, and he stops to pick it up. He’s looking at it with such a murderous expression, I almost want to laugh.
Ha. Well, wait till I tell him. What’s his name again? Oh yes, Lorcan.
“Hi!” I wave frantically as he moves off. “Lorcan! Stop!”
His stride is so fast, I’ll never catch up with him. He pauses and swivels round suspiciously, and I wave again to get his attention.
“Over here! Me! I need to speak to you!” I wait for him to cross, then approach him, brandishing my bouquet. “I’m Fliss Graveney. We spoke yesterday? Lottie’s sister?”
“Ah.” His face clears briefly, then it’s back to the cheery, wedding-day scowl. “I suppose you’re heading there now?”
I’d forgotten about the ridiculous movie-trailer voice. Although somehow it sounds less ridiculous when it’s not a disembodied voice coming down a phone line. It matches his face. Dark and kind of intense.
“Well, actually …” I can’t help sounding complacent. “I’m not heading there, because it’s off.”
He stares at me in shock. “What do you mean?”
“It’s off. For now,” I add. “Lottie’s gone to postpone the wedding.”
“Why?” he demands. He’s so bloody suspicious.
“So she can make sure Ben’s fortune is invested in a way that makes it easy to plunder,” I say with a shrug. “Obviously.”
Lorcan’s face flickers with amusement. “OK. I deserved that. What’s going on? Why is she postponing?”
“I talked her out of it,” I say proudly. “I know my sister, and I know the power of suggestion. After our little chat, she wants a romantic wedding in a small stone church in the country. That’s why she’s postponing. My reasoning is: if they delay, at least it gives them a chance to see if they’re right for each other.”
“Well, thank God for that.” Lorcan breathes out and runs a hand through his hair. Finally his hackles are coming down; finally his brow is starting to relax. “Ben is in no place to be getting married right now. It was nuts.”
“Ridiculous,” I agree.
“Insane.”
“Stupidest idea ever. No, I take that back.” I glance down at myself. “Putting me in a purple bridesmaid’s dress was the stupidest idea ever.”
“I think you look very nice.” Another flicker of amusement passes across his face. He glances at his watch. “What should I do? I’m supposed to be meeting Ben at the registry office by now.”
“I think we should stay away.”
“Agreed.”
There’s a pause. This is weird, standing on a street corner, all dressed up with no wedding to go to. I finger my bouquet awkwardly and wonder if I should throw it in the bin. It seems wrong somehow.
“Do you feel like a drink?” says Lorcan abruptly. “I feel like a drink.”
“I feel like about six drinks,” I counter. “It takes it out of you, talking someone out of a wedding.”
“OK. Let’s do it.”
A man of swift decisions. I like that. He’s already ushering me down a side street, toward a bar with a striped canopy and French-looking tables and chairs.
“Hey, I assume your sister did call it off?” Lorcan stops dead in the doorway. “We’re not going to get an irate text saying, Where the hell are you?”
“Nothing from Lottie.” I check my phone. “She was pretty determined to cancel. I’m sure she did.”
“Nothing from Ben either.” Lorcan’s looking at his BlackBerry. “I think we’re in the clear.” He ushers me to a corner table and opens the drinks menu. “You want a glass of wine?”