Page 3 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
Nudge 5: The Wedding (Saturday 24 December, 3.30pm)
I mean, where do I start? Getting there was bad enough. I barely made the 11.08 train and very nearly puked on theplatform (combination of running because late and committed consumption of vodka-based beverages through to early hours of this morning) and finally found a spare seat, only to discover Annabel and Hugh across the aisle. Annabel’s eyes lit up in poorly disguised delight; what was unclear was whether her delight was due to how green I was looking or the gossip she’d get from chatting to the groom’s ex. She cocked her head to one side, mock-sympathetically, and said, ‘Alice, darling! How are you? I heard Monty had invited you to thewedding’ – she mouthed the word – ‘but so brave of you toactuallycome! Isn’t it, Hugh?’
Lucky Hugh acted like he was engrossed in theFT(surely no one actually reads theFT?) whilst I (and everyone else) had to endure Annabel talking loudly about the Lamb and the artwork there and how she had an eye for art, until the conductor interrupted us. And then I got to watch Annabel’s décolleté redden with pleasure as the conductor told me that my saver return wasn’t valid in the first-class carriage.
Dad wasn’t there to welcome me at the station, just my eldest sister Arrie honking at me to hurry up from the driver seat of her stinky, hairy Land Rover, which somehow was even filthier inside than out. She made me sit in the back on a slightly damp seat, squashed between the twins’ booster seats, my knees hitting horse tackle, whilst her pregnant Vizsla, Maud, got to sit in the front because she ‘doesn’t like the back’. When I pointed out that I didn’t like it much either, Arrie said, ‘Yes, but you don’t bark and urinate in protest.’
‘No guarantees,’ I said. ‘I’m pretty hungover.’
She snorted derisively.
I thought about telling her that there was, in fact, a highchance I was going to be sick if she continued to take the corners that fast but, knowing Arrie, rather than slow down, she’d just pull over and make me walk instead. Just because she was born five years before me, she’s always thought it’s her role as oldest sister to teach lessons.
As we hurtled down the High Street (definitely not a case of twenty’s plenty for Arrie), we passed the entrance to the Lamb (with a very trendy slate-grey sign) and then our old house. ‘Oh gosh,’ I said, ‘it’s for sale again!’
‘Give it up, Alice,’ said Arrie. ‘It’s been ten years.’
I turned to watch the house for that bit longer; it looked even more beautiful in the low winter afternoon light. ‘Do you remember how lovely Christmases there were, though? All that space for everyone. Do you think Mum and Dad could afford it again now?’
‘No, Alice.’ Arrie spoke slowly, like I was an idiot. ‘Lost shares are lost. Surely even you understand that.’
‘But the new house is so… ’
‘Practical,’ said Arrie. ‘It costs far less to heat and they don’t need that much room for just the two of them. Not to mention how expensive it is to actually move.’
‘Well,Imiss it. Christmas isn’t the same.’
‘Then grow up, and get your own house, Alice, like the rest of us.’
‘Some of us don’t have husbands to buy farms for us, Arrie.’
‘I bought that farm, not bloody Roger,’ said Arrie.
Roger and Arrie have been married forever, and I’m not sure when she first started referring to him as ‘bloody Roger’ (probably after the twins) but she does it quite a lot. Often in front of him.
‘AndI bought this car that I’m currently giving you a free lift in.’
She did as well. So annoying having overachieving older siblings.
Then, despite having pretty much found fault with me since I’d got home (being late, not putting the phone charger back, spilling tea on the carpet) and even on the way up to the church (I’d used up too much hot water in the shower and everyone else had to have cold ones), Mum chose to wait until we were just about to enter the church, one hand holding the door ajar, to say loudly, ‘Good golly, Alice, couldn’t you have put some make-up on? You look positively haggard.’
The whole family turned to look at me, in their neat Noah’s Ark pairs, in perfect descending order of age: Mum and Dad, Arrie and Roger, and Astrid and Aziz. Then me, on my own, at the back.
Aziz gave me a sympathetic look: nicest person in my family by far. I did warn him what we were all like, but he went ahead and married Astrid anyway.
And when I told Mum that I had, in fact, put make-up on, she just sighed and said, ‘Well, I suppose working a junior desk job at a hardly junior age takes its toll.’
That’s where Arrie gets it from: Mum is a big fan of ‘constructive’ criticism. Thank goodness she didn’t see my viral post. And she firmly believes that working in children’s publishing is for people who haven’t managed to progress to adult publishing.
‘As does years of alcohol abuse,’ added Astrid. She’s worse than Mum and Arrie because she knows full well what she’s doing. Typical middle-child behaviour. Probably jealous of mebecause I was such a cute baby. ‘No one better light a match near her; I think she’s fifty per cent vodka.’
‘Now, now, Astrid darling,’ tried Dad gently, ‘that’s not even possible. In fact, the world record for highest recorded blood alcohol level was a mere 1.374 per cent. Held by a Polish chap apparently. Read all about it in—’
‘Honestly, Alice!’ Mum bulldozered over Dad. ‘I despair. No one wants a drunk wife.’
‘Who said I want to get married?’ I said.
‘Aunty Margaret’s married,’ said Astrid, to Mum. ‘You said she drinks loads.’ At least Astrid enjoys winding everyone up, not just me. That’s why she’s such a successful lawyer.
