Page 109 of Mad About You

She clamped the bottle under one arm and clapped, one small pair of hands sounding tiny in the yawning silence. To Harriet, they were everything.

‘What the HELL is going on here?’ said a balding older man who’d got to his feet at the front of the room. Harriet recognised Scott’s dad. ‘Get out! Both of you! You’re destroyingthe happiest day of these two young people’s lives. Do something!’ he said to the traumatised Gwen, as if she was nightclub security.

‘I told you! I told you and you wouldn’t believe me. Now do you believe me?’

With a rustling noise, another guest got to her feet, near the back on the right-hand side. Now Harriet got to be as surprised as everyone else had been. The unexpected contributor had long brown hair with a curl and a golden tan, and was made up to the nines in a cream tuxedo jacket.

‘I had a thing with Scott a few years back, it didn’t last very long as he met Marianne,’ she said in a Scouse accent. ‘What these two women say is ringing a lot of bells. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t say so. I’m only here because my boyfriend Martin is friends with Scott …’ She cast a look down at a seated partner who, Harriet suspected, was not on board with her decision to speak up. ‘Behind closed doors, Scott is a vicious little bully. The girl in the veil over there described it perfectly. No one ever believes you, because he’s such a charmer when there’s other people around.’

A collective stunned silence followed this admission, to add to the canon of stunned silences this wedding had produced.

‘Three of us now! Have I got any advance on three?’ Nina said in an auctioneer impression. ‘Let’s try for a fourth!’

Harriet noticed that a glowering Scott wasn’t responding to Nina, or this other woman, because refuting multiple accounts was beyond even his skillset. He’d claim conspiracy, but it was not so easy to paint that in right now.

‘Right,’ said Gwen, struggling to regain control of a hiccup that was absolutely not covered in the How to Officiate Civil Ceremonies handbook. ‘The person who is marrying Scott today is Marianne. I appreciate feelings are running high here. Given there’s nolegalimpediment, which is what I asked for …’ she made a pursed-lips scold face, as if she was principally upset at their lack of meeting the brief, ‘I’d ask you now to leave these two people to get married in peace.’

Hotel staff appeared menacingly, a foot from Harriet. Word of what was happening had left this room and she was about to be given non-voluntary escorting from the premises.

‘Actually, I asked Harriet and Nina to come today,’ Marianne said to Scott, in a voice clear and sweet as a bell, dropping her bomb like it was a scented handkerchief.

Harriet swore she could physically feel the room shift fromWell This Is A Hell Of A YarntoOh OK History Is Being Made Here, What The Fuck.

People were urgently whispering their disbelief and at the same time, trying not to obscure a word of the dialogue.

‘Sorry, I can’t remember your name,’ Marianne said to the Scouse girl.

‘Paula,’ she said, half-standing again and putting her hand up, as if they were at a cookery demonstration and Marianne was about to call her up to try rolling her dough.

‘Paula, that’s it. Thank you too.’

Marianne turned to her groom.

‘Scott, I didn’t come here to marry you. I came to tell you it’s over. I hate how you’ve treated me, and I hate how you’ve treated them.’ She pointed back at Harriet and Nina.

Marianne didn’t sound even slightly nervous. Harriet had never been so impressed by someone in her life.

‘There’s a reason I’ve done it in public. What I hate most of all is that everyone here, nice people, good people, our family and friends’ – she swung a hand at the stupefied audience – ‘they all think that you’re this devoted good guy who’d never hurt a fly. I started taking beta blockers last year for panic attacks, because I was so scared of your temper. You’ve been bullying me to stop seeing my mum for how long? It’s not right.’

‘Oh, this is utter nonsense!’ bellowed Scott’s dad, off to the right. ‘I can’t listen to another word of this. I don’t know why you’re all persecuting my son like this. He’s got a heart of gold! Shame on you all. Absolutely disgusting.’

A large blonde woman on the front left stood up.

‘Heart of gold, my arse, Keith. I told my daughter he had a mean streak a mile wide from day one. These girls can’t ALL be lying, can they? You should care how your son’s treating women.’

‘A mean streak called, “paying off her debts”. A mean streak like, “doing up that spare room while she went out with her friends”,’ Keith said.

‘Debts?! I clear the balance on my Santander card myself EVERY month!’ Marianne said, looking dumbfounded for the first time. ‘He did the back bedroom because he yelled at me for being shit at painting. To be fair, I am quite shit at painting, but that’s not the point.’

‘Wake up and smell the coffee, Keith,’ said Marianne’s mum. ‘You’re sleeping in Starbucks.’

Harriet noticed Scott was saying nothing, looking murderous but petrified. Three women’s testimony was damning, but Houdini would’ve still escaped if he had a bride. A cobbled-together, verbal equivalent of a press statement would’ve circulated at the reception.Yes, in his day, he’d been a heartbreaker and a ladykiller. Women tended to get hung up on him, he’d picked a few handfuls and got himself in some tangles. Thank God he’d met The One.His guests might’ve believed him or might not, but they’d have at least pretended to, in order to eat their Chicken Diane without guilt.

‘Right, I’ve said my piece, we’re done.’ Marianne looked Scott directly in the eye. ‘I’m done. This is over, Scott. Have a nice fucking life and don’t fuck up anyone else’s life.’ She turned back to the room. ‘Now. There are free drinks in the bar. Sorry everyone for having a wasted trip today. I know this isn’t what you came for, but it was important that we did it. I hope you understand.’ Marianne said. She turned to the musicians. ‘Please can you play my exit music?’

The cowering string quartet looked unsure, having thought their job for the day was definitively over.

‘Please?’ Marianne said, with an intonation that was a command, and they hurriedly turned the pages of their sheet music.

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