Bride without a Groom

‘Hey, Tams. How’s Marmalade?’

I’ve fallen in love with the orange cat that was brought in last week. Once I’ve patched things up with Barry, I’ll start working on him to agree to a flatmate for Jess.

‘Marmalade’s a mama! She had six kits after you left last Sunday.’

‘No way!’

Tammie and I muck out the horse stables and drag the heavy bags of dry dog food towards the dog section. The barking is deafening.

‘Five new residents since last week,’ Tammie points to a trembling terrier, who is huddled behind the chicken wire. ‘We’re calling him Bailey. He was in pretty bad shape.’

‘Poor chap. Where’s Major?’

I’ve been harbouring quite the soft spot for the old English sheepdog that has been here for a month now.

‘Oh I totally forgot to tell you! A young couple came on Monday, filled in the papers and took him home.’

Tammie and I have been volunteering together for six months now, and I don’t even know her last name. All we talk about is animals. It’s like taking a holiday from the real world for a couple of hours.

One day, when Barry and I are married, I’ll jack in my job and volunteer here full time. If I didn’t have to worry about money, I could be here every day, matching little fur babies with adoptive mummies and daddies, and not just Sundays. I’m pretty pants at my day job, and being polite in an office all day is exhausting. At the shelter, I get to do something important, something I’m good at.

To be honest, I’m quite happy for Barry to play the whole breadwinner role! I’d have no problem trading my grey work suit for my pink floral boots. Barry would benefit too, because I wouldn’t be so worn out from the office. I could even throw the odd dinner party to impress his important corporate types. I’d play the enchanting hostess, presenting a perfectly plump turkey from an immaculate kitchen while Barry pours the sherry and entertains the CEO. I’d laugh at his little jokes. Sure, Samantha from Bewitched makes it look easy!

All I need are a few cookery lessons. How hard can it be? Oh, and a full-time nanny if we have little ones. Now, I won’t go as far as the old pipe and slippers routine. I’m not a Labrador at the end of the day, for goodness’ sake.

Back home, I tell Jess the good news about Marmalade. The throbbing in my temples is back, so I open a bottle of white wine. Hair of the dog is the only thing left to try.

‘Jesus, Jess. If Barry and I don’t make up, we could become homeless!’

I’m imagining my bleak future without Barry. My personal hygiene has taken a sharp decline and I’ve shaved my head like Britney Spears after her split with Kevin Federline. I’m forced to shop in Argos and Iceland, and have a cunning disguise so that I can mooch around Lidl for bargains without being spotted. I have no choice but to cash my gold at some seedy pawn-style establishment, and have to hock my large collection of shoes on eBay to scrape some measly euros together. I haggle with grubby types at car boot sales over my Dolce & Gabbanas. I’m living in a sordid trailer park rubbing shoulders with ‘The Great Unwashed’. My teeth have fallen out, and I’ve been invited to appear on The Jeremy Kyle Show.

‘Good God!’

I shudder as I pour another glass of wine and consider moving back to Mum and Dad’s gaff if our relationship horribly crashes and burns. It’ll be a pride-swallowing moment, and I’ll have to resume a child–parent relationship with two people whose intentions are admittedly good but incredibly annoying. On the plus side, the grub is great. There will be lashings of tea and sympathy on tap from the old dears, with Sky Movies hooked up to the flat-screen telly and all the mod cons at my fingertips. Their legendary Sunday dinners with a heavy slathering of gravy will be good enough to make me forget my troubles. My version of events will always be morally superior to those of the ‘Man-of-whom-we-do-not-speak’.

I realise that the only alternative is that a friend allows me to sleep in their box room amongst their sad collection of dusty books and flowery wallpaper. Most of my friends are loved up, so I will end up as the gooseberry from hell clutching my earplugs as they frolic in the night through frighteningly thin walls.

‘Welcome to hell, Jess.’

Jess yawns. He is so emotionally unavailable.

We’ll have to sort our collection of CDs into cardboard boxes. Barry can keep his greedy paws off my Dirty Dancing soundtrack. The gloves are off, now – that’s a limited edition collector’s item, signed by Patrick Swayze himself (God rest his handsome soul). He hardly ever listens to it. Charitably, I decide that he can have Depeche Mode’s Greatest Hits back. I only faked an interest in that one when he produced it one Christmas in lieu of my specific request for Duran Duran. He may also keep the Karaoke Christmas. His mother bought that one. Bit of a Christmas turkey.

Will dinner parties become unbearable if our friends take sides in our vicious dispute? Will we be bitter rivals who can’t be in the same room, just like Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in The War of the Roses? Surely, they will all side with me, the victim in all of this. But will they stay in touch? Will they send Christmas cards? Will I be excluded from smug happy couple events?

Will we haggle over furniture and whose Tesco club card points are whose? The custody battle for our possessions will be like Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep fighting over their child in Kramer vs. Kramer. Of course, Meryl is way too old to play me if this all ends up in court and is splashed all over the media and then turned into a million dollar budget movie. Perhaps Reese Witherspoon would be a more appropriate casting.

I’m consuming my own weight in chocolate, flicking channels and tormenting myself with images of what lies ahead. Later, I wake up on the couch with a crick in my neck and a chocolate biscuit mashed into the cream cushion.

Emer calls to discuss the latest Jodie Marsh scandal, which is splashed all over the tabloids.

‘Frankly,’ she confides, ‘I saw it coming a mile off.’

‘Mmm.’ I can’t bring myself to muster even a mild gossip.

‘So, still no word from him, then?’

‘Not a sniff.’

‘Hang in there. He’ll call. Let him get settled in after the long journey.’

Time for a shower, I decide as I catch a whiff of myself. I’m not down and out just yet.

Eight (#ulink_a19f791a-0daa-5f9b-a0d1-6dbd66ee2cff)

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Bangkok is pretty damn plush. According to the website, it boasts five stars, so it’s bound to have a well stocked mini bar at the very least. Barry holds his leather holdall on his knee as the taxi speeds through the capital city.

The heat is so oppressive, sharing a taxi is like sharing a sauna with Shelley and Nigel. Neither of them are saying much, and Nigel is not the freshest after the flight. It’s hard to determine whether the BO is strongest from Nigel or the chatty driver. The heady scent of Nigel’s business-class brandy mingles with Shelley’s sickly sweet perfume. Shelley hasn’t spoken a word since the flight. He wonders if this is from exhaustion or whether things between them have become uncomfortable. He feels a headache start to peck at his temples with a chisel.

They enter the cool air conditioned lobby and a small elderly man in a heavy uniform takes their luggage, while another hands them welcome drinks. Barry’s drink is pink with a swizzle stick. He doesn’t care if it is the gayest drink he has ever clapped eyes on. He doesn’t care if it’s the middle of the night; he just hopes there is alcohol in it.

The elderly man is sprightlier than he looks and manages to handle the entire luggage at once. The buttons on his heavy crested jacket go all the way up to his neck. Barry wonders how he sticks the heat.

Barry had been expecting penny-pinching Nigel to shack himself and Shelley up in some red-light district, flea-bitten hostel with heroin-addicted lady boys, breakfast not included, but he’s pleasantly surprised.

‘Get some rest,’ Shelley breaks her silence.

Barry nods and inserts his key card into the doorframe of the bedroom next to hers. He throws his jeans on the bathroom floor. In his boxers, he lies on the king-sized bed with a vodka tonic and the smallest tube of Pringles he has ever seen. At eight dollars a pop, Nigel better be coughing up for the snacks, he thinks.

He flicks on the TV. For once, he’s allowed to operate the remote control. His lids feel as though they are made of concrete. He only plans on closing his eyes for a second, but a dream tunes in straight away.

Barry is standing at the top of the aisle, dressed in a top hat and tails. The church organ plays the Phantom of the Opera. The guests crowd the pews, dressed in black. He cannot see their faces. A figure moves towards him, dressed in a white meringue. She has a white lace garter and reveals a slender leg. He pulls back the veil. It is Shelley.

A knock on the door wakes him.

‘Hey, Barry!’ hisses Shelley. ‘You still up?’

‘Hi!’ Barry leaps off the bed.

‘Quick!’ she giggles.

Through the peephole, he can see that she is dressed in a white hotel robe. In her hands are three vodka bottles and a packet of macadamia nuts.

‘Oh my God, Shelley, you nutter! Get in quickly before anyone sees you. Just a sec!’

Barry searches for his robe. He can’t answer the door in his jocks. He squirts some deodorant on his armpits and fumbles with the lock.

‘Hey, classic! You’re in the robe too! Legend. Have you checked out the bathroom? It’s amazing! Here.’ She thrusts the booze into his hands and enters the room.