Page 19 of Mad About You

‘Right, do we reckon she’s rallied?’ Katie said. ‘Let’s get abottle of bubbles from the bar and take it up. She needs to be told it doesn’t matter if it’s shitting it down, the human spirit is bigger than this.’

‘Yes!’ said Hollie. ‘We’ll do a pre-show prayer huddle with her. Time to find her Sasha Fierce.’

‘See you there,’ Harriet said. Were these three always this entertaining? She’d like to book them for funerals.

Harriet feared the worst in the bridal suite, heading back with camera lowered in anticipation, but moments later Lynn threw the door open to her with a grit-teeth smile, and made a fingers-crossed signal in front of her body.

Inside the suite, a composed Rhian in a towelling robe was sat daintily drinking a V&T through a straw as the make-up artist primped at her repaired face with a tiny brush and ‘We Found Love’ pumped away motivationally in the background.

Apparently, an encouraging FaceTime with the groom, a stiff drink and some Rihanna on the stereo had done wonders, her mum explained, under her breath.

‘Knock knock,’ Hollie called from the hallway and then she, Jo and Katie conga-danced into the room, to much squealing delight from the bride. ‘Turn the music UP! We found love IN A RAINY PLACE!’

Lynn gamely joined the conga and Harriet tried to get a few photos, though she doubted they’d win any awards.

‘C’mon, Nana Pat!’ Katie shrieked, and hoisted her unsteadily to her feet. ‘And you, Harriet! Put the camera down!’

Harriet consented to join the back of a conga that did two awkward laps of the bed and went into the bathroom before realising they couldn’t execute a turn and backed outagain, Hollie yelling in automated voice: ‘THIS VEHICLE, IS REVERSING.’

As they disbanded, Nana Pat announced: ‘If one of us falls here we all go down like ninepins. That’s what took my friend Oonagh’s husband, Roy Plomley.’

‘A conga line?’ Harriet said.

‘A fall!’

‘Mum, can you try to think positive, please?’ Lynn hissed and Pat said: ‘There’s nothing positive about the way he went, they removed the feeding tube.’

Nana Pat aside, the mood seemed to have swung wildly upwards.

‘Thanks for bearing with us,’ Lynn said to Harriet. ‘Sorry for this fuss. You must’ve seen it all by now?’

‘Every wedding is unique,’ Harriet said, smiling. ‘This is uniquer than most.’

The strangest thing about her job is how you had an intense, access-all-areas pass to a stranger’s world, this tiny, intimate snapshot of lives-in-progress at a crucial point. Then you never saw them again.

It was quite bittersweet, in a way.

She could probably forego the pleasure of tons more Nana Pat, though.

During the second, and what she feared wouldn’t be the last, conga line of the day, Harriet saw her phone flashing with a call from Roxy and excused herself into the corridor – away from the decibels of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’–to answer it. The bridesmaids had made alcoholic lemonade from lemons.

‘Have I got a house for you!’

‘Have you?’

‘New listing today. Proper beautiful semi in Meanwood, a quiet street, one of my faves. It’s a very reasonable rent because he’s looking to fill the room quickly, andyou should seeyour en suite bedroom and the garden.’

‘…Myen suite …?’

‘But call him now, absolutely NOW, to arrange your visit! It’ll go in a heartbeat when I put it online in an hour.’

Harriet’s heart sank. She’d instructed Roxy she’d rather have a place to herself, even though she knew the outgoings would be punishing. Hell is other people. In usual Roxy fashion, she’d listened, discarded this information as burdensome and ploughed on with her better ideas.

‘He? The other tenant’s a man?’

‘It’s the twenty-first century. Men can be people too. Plus you’ve got an en suite. No bathroom sharing. That is key to housemate harmony, in my professional opinion.’

‘Why’s he looking to fill the room fast?’

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