Page 108 of Mad About You

Gwen launched into her spiel and Harriet started hard-sweating. Where was the signal?! Harriet was terrified by its absence and utterly cursing herself for demanding it.

If Marianne had simply understandably forgotten in the turbulence of being visible up there, Harriet supposed she would have to plough on regardless. She was fairly sureMarianne had not had a transformative epiphany at the sight of Scott in bespoke tailoring, and if she had … she could hardly blame Harriet for taking her at her word.

However, it would be excruciating for Harriet to intervene, and discover it wasn’t welcome. The whole reason this was survivable was because everyone was going to understand the bride had wanted her to. She recalled Cal’s advice.People lie, all the time, for no reason.

‘Sorry, I’ve realised I’ve not said hi to my mum,’ she heard in the distance, in a tiny, chirruping voice.

‘Oh, yes …?’ said the politely baffled Gwen.

Marianne faced the audience, scanning the nearest rows. She kissed her hand, waving it at a woman out of Harriet’s sight.

As her stomach tumbled down a ravine and her heart rate spiked, Harriet abruptly switched emergency.Shit.OK. This was real. It was going to happen.

Harriet looked at her own hands gripping her velvet handbag, her knuckles white.

Gwen’s recitation of the formalities was simultaneously dragging on forever and absolutely tearing towards its train-crash conclusion.

A pause, where blood pounded in Harriet’s ears. She looked up at the balloons. The urge to run from the room was overwhelming.

‘Now.’ Gwen paused. ‘We’ve got to the part where I ask: if anyone here knows a reason why this coupleshould notbe lawfully joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.’ Gwen looked out at theassembled company. She accompanied it with the beatific smile that was generally used here, to convey it was an adorable piece of rhetorical silliness. Commanding her limbs to move, Harriet got to her feet, having an out-of-body experience where she was only half-aware if shehadstood up.

‘Me. I do,’ she said, in a shaky voice that was apparently hers.

Every head snapped round, and the expectant silence was so taut you could twang it.

Somewhere among the pews, Harriet heard a voice sayingWho the fuck is that?and being shushed.

Make. Your. Mouth. Work. Her lips were clamped together, her jaw locked. She cleared her throat. That voice again, which didn’t sound like hers.

‘Scott Dyer is a coercive controller, a domestic abuser. I was with him for four years and during that time he nearly mentally destroyed me.’

The seconds following, felt like years. Every face was a mask of riveted, fascinated amazement. Gwen looked as if someone in a clown mask holding a Tommy gun had zip-lined into the ballroom.

‘I can’t believe you’d do this, Harriet,’ Scott said, eventually, in a hard monotone, like the flat blade of a knife. Every head moved to look at him. It occurred to Harriet he’d be a notch more prepared, having thrown Nina out. The collusion would now be clear. The full extent of it wouldn’t, though.

‘I can’t believe I’d do this either,’ Harriet said, feeling her courage rise by a tiny degree. There was nothing equally as frightening as jumping, and she had jumped. ‘It’s an extreme measure, to stop you ruining another woman’s life.’

‘Just because I don’t want to be with you, doesn’t mean I ruined your life,’ Scott said.

Although he was sheet-white and visibly trembling with fury and embarrassment, he’d calculated she had to be spoken to like a stalker. It was his greatest weapon, his best chance of discrediting her: the suspicion of female hysteria.That bitch is crazy.

Undeniably helped along here by the fact interrupting a weddingwascrazy.

‘You know exactly the things I mean, Scott. Monitoring where I was, checking up on me constantly. Calling me a liar so often I started to doubt what was real. Isolating me from my friends, telling me they were our enemies. Falsely accusing me of infidelity, or flirting, of embarrassing myself.’

Harriet paused, fully expecting to be interrupted, but the element of surprise was on her side, she had the audience in the palm of her hand. And she guessed Scott telling her to shut up was too much like corroborating her.

‘… Viciously criticising me, calling me worthless. Monstering me if I dared leave the house, until it became easier not to. The sulks, the rages, the accusations, the belittling. Turning me into a dependent, confused wreck, with no one left to turn to, because I’d pushed them all away, to please you. And it’s not only me you’ve done this to, is it, Scott?’

‘You seem to be the only person inventing this horrible stuff, Harriet, yes,’ he said, with an effortful evenness, infusing his tone with a deeply weary regret that implied he’d tried, God knows he’d tried, to help this woman. Scott knew thestakes and was giving the BAFTA-nominated performance of his life. ‘I’ve moved on and I’m happy. You’re here trying to wreck my wedding. You’re wrecking Marianne’s day, which is what hurts most of all.’

He looked at his bride, who was looking back at him, her sparkling Fiorucci-cherub face, blank. Harriet heard the crowd tut and make noises of support.

They were going to believe him? Of course they were. He was always believed. Alright, he had an advantage – he was their groom and she was a stranger. Still, what would it take to get people to set aside their preferred version of Scott Dyer, the one they’d bought into? Why did a woman’s voice have to be a chorus, to count?

‘Harriet is NOT the only person saying this!’ came a ragged female voice from the back of the room. Harriet turned to see Nina. She’d ditched the hat, and acquired a mini bottle of Prosecco.

‘Should’ve locked me out,’ she added, holding the bottle up to toast Scott. ‘Hi everybody, I’m Nina, I’m another ex-girlfriend of Scott’s. I’ve also come here to say, don’t do it, Marianne! Everything Harriet said was true. I mean, I didn’t hear most of it, but I know what she was going to say. He treated me like dogshit too. I say, HEAR HEAR.’

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