Page 18 of Mad About You

They went on for dinner and at the end of the night Jon said, making no move whatsoever and handing her into a taxi: ‘I’d love to see you again, if you wanted to?’ and Harriet said yes, without hesitation.

She would describe her evenings with Jon from then on as easy. Harriet’s rejected suitors might be irked to know that she’d dispensed with ‘the spark’ as criteria. Jon had spent a full thirty-five minutes explaining why David GrayWhite Ladderwas his favourite album and scoffed at Harriet liking ‘trendy obscure stuff’. (Tindersticks weren’t that obscure, surely.) There was no spark. But sparks caused fires.

It was four dates until Jon suggesteddinner at his.

He’d never mentioned being such a swaglord. Harriet was quietly impressed he’d not revealed this earlier. Turned out that Jon’s place overlooked tennis courts, had electric gates, a specific fridge for chilling wine and – unrelatedly – he asked endlessly what you’d like him to do in his super-kingsize, top-of-the-range memory foam bed. (‘Maybe stop asking that constantly,’ was Harriet’s unspoken response.)

He felt like a tour guide to a different life, one who was prepared to work very hard for his five-star customer review. And God, he seemed smitten with Harriet. She’d catch himlooking at her sometimes, a sappy expression on his face, simply worshipping the fact she existed.

Harriet didn’t think she was a narcissist, but in those early days of novelty, it was hard not to be affected by how intoxicated he was by her. She wasn’t enough of a narcissist to think she’d ever be idolised like that again.

10

Harriet awoke early to the unwelcome sound of water spattering on the Velux window in Jonathan’s spare room on Saturday, and by the time she was on the M62, it was a wipers-on-full-speed-setting powerful, pavement-rinsing downpour. It was the kind of rain from a slate-grey sky that had fully settled in for the day andmightthink about easing off by the evening, if you were good. She had a longer journey than usual to the Radisson Blu in Manchester, and Harriet prayed the marrying couple, Rhian and Al, would laugh the inconvenience off.

Hopes of such resilience were dashed as she was shown into the spacious bridal suite. Rhian was starfished and sobbing, face down on the bed, still in her tartan flannel pyjamas, her mum anxiously holding her hair back so that the expensively salon-glossed curls didn’t get mussed. The make-up artist was solemnly unpacking her kit for a second time, accepting her previous efforts had been for naught.

‘This is a storm to bring the bones of the lepers up,’ Rhian’s Nana Pat said, who, it must be said, wasn’t helping. Nana Pat seemed very much a woman to embrace any misfortune.

‘Godssake, Mum!’Rhian’s mother Lynn mouthed at her furiously, making a zipping-lips gesture, at which Nana Pat shrugged and returned to sipping what turned out to be Harvey’s Bristol Cream in a teacup.

‘It’s like … calming app rain, the sleep app rain,’ Rhian said, lifting her face briefly from the duvet, before resuming her howling.

Harriet thought better than to say, ‘that’s ironic,’ and busied herself taking photographs of the gauzy sparkled bridal gown on its hanger. When she was done, Lynn discreetly suggested she leave them alone while she talked Rhian round. ‘If she doesn’t pull herself together soon it’s thirty-five grand up the chute.’

Harriet never said this, obviously, but so many weddings seemed to come with such dizzyingly elevated hopes of being a Hashtag Perfect Day that they could only end in squabbling and misery. Not only did being a Mrs Someone not appeal to her, she didn’t want the stress. Harriet had once seen a couple have a meltdown over whether their personalised coasters were round or square. By the time you were bellowing THE TILE SHAPE LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING FROM A GREENE KING PUB, YOU TWAT! at your furious fiancé, you’d drifted quite a long way from the point of it all.

Harriet ended up outside in the hotel reception’s grand stone entranceway, eating a hash brown roll wrapped in a paper napkin with the three bridesmaids. They observed the monsoon in the dry, from only an arm’s length’s distance, as if they were under a waterfall.

Hollie, Katie and Jo had foam rollers on their heads, andstrong Yorkshire accents. They were smoking Marlboro Lights held aloft in French manicured hands, hotel dressing gowns thrown over the stretchy flesh-coloured tubing that provided the foundation for today’s outfits, fluffy slippers on their feet. Harriet always liked the ‘chrysalis to butterfly’ of the preparations, and the trio cheerfully agreed to a snap in an archway, the torrent as background, as if they were still in wardrobe on the set of a dramatic music video. Harriet might not desire a wedding herself, but she still loved photographing people who did enjoy them.

‘I know she’s raging that her tarot reader told her she should choose today,’ said Hollie, flicking ash on to the ground. ‘But it’s fuckin’ Manchester? What are the chances? Not a million to one, is it? If you’re this bothered about rain, go abroad?’

Harriet thought this was a fair point, and that it was also terrible luck to have stumbled on to an unreliable tarot reader. You should always check a tarot reader was professionally quality accredited in their field before taking their advice. Otherwise you could so easily end up with any old fraud with a pack of cards and a silk turban they bought off eBay, making stuff up for money. She made a mental note to tell Lorna this, and realised she’d never made mental notes to tell Jon funny things. He’d have completely missed the point, slow blinked and said: ‘Arethere validated tarot readers?’

‘She did look at Cyprus but her Nana Pat wouldn’t travel any further than Manchester, she wouldn’t even come to Harrogate because she doesn’t like the food,’ said Jo. Ha. Nana Pat being the architect of this chaos felt about right. Plus, it was the first Harriet had heard of a Harrogate cuisine.

‘You’ve just got to get on with it, haven’t you?’ said Katie. ‘My cousin got a stress rash on her neck on the day so bad that she had to wear a bolero jacket over a strapless Marchesa dress, and she’d had her tits done specially. Total waste.’

‘Not a total waste. The same tits went on the honeymoon,’ Jo said, stubbing her fag out, and Harriet was so taken with their sorority, she almost wished she smoked. Imagine if she had married Jon. Country house hotel. Lorna looking resigned yet dejected in her bridesmaid dress, Roxy preening delightedly in hers. Jon, in a cravat and in his element. It wasn’t a kindness to accept a proposal from someone you weren’t in love with, however much rejection felt like wanton cruelty.

‘Are you married, Harriet?’ said Hollie, pleasantly.

‘No, and I dumped my long-term boyfriend last weekend. I’m living in his spare room.’

‘Oh that’s minging, sorry,’ Hollie said. ‘There’s eight ushers today though, so plenty to go around, hahahaha.’

Oh, God. Harriet had forgot Al was a madcap-lad groom, no doubt she’d have to do an ushers’ ‘squad strut’ photo with Peroni bottles. There was a lot to be said for the calm and order of unpopular introverts.

‘Do not touch Bruce, whatever you do,’ Jo said. ‘Awful in bed, like riding a mechanical bull.’

‘So gorgeous he doesn’t think he has to try, that’s why,’ Hollie said. ‘Also avoid Batley Chris.’

‘Why is he called Batley Chris?’

‘The other Chris isn’t from Batley,’ Jo said.

‘No Bruce, or Chrises from Batley,’ Harriet agreed.

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