The Honeymoon Hotel by Hester Browne
‘I didn’t know we’d even decided Dad was invited?’ Flora turned back to Joe. ‘What about ushers in the same suit but in different colours? To match the bridesmaids? Or are green suits for boys a bit much? Guess it depends on their colouring, right?’
I looked back and forth between the two of them, bewildered by the sudden change of direction. Where had this come from? Where was the traditional 1930s Cecil Beaton wedding that Flora had been so keen on ten minutes ago?
‘Ushers wear anything these days,’ said Joe, as if he was now a wedding fashion expert. ‘I was at a wedding last year where the ushers all wore the football strip of the team the bride and groom supported. I think it was Aston Villa. They made the bridesmaids’ dresses the same colours too.’ He grinned. ‘And the cupcakes, and all the table décor. Really broke the ice.’
Aston Villa. Aston Villa played in maroon and blue. Maroon and blue in the delicate function rooms. I felt faint.
‘Oh my God, that’s amaaaaazing,’ breathed Flora. ‘I don’t know what team Milo supports – what’s that one near us, Mum?’
‘Chelsea?’ Joe suggested. ‘Fulham?’
‘I don’t think football is—’ I started, but Julia Thornbury cut in with a swift, ‘No, Flora. Absolutely not.’
‘Rosie’s right. Rugby would be much more appropriate,’ Joe went on helpfully. ‘What team does Milo support? Harlequins? What about ushers in rugby kit?’
I narrowed my eyes at Joe to get him to shut up, but to no avail.
‘You could make rugby your theme?’ he suggested. ‘Create your own personalized strip. Have the bridesmaids doing a line-out throw for the bouquet. Arrange all the tables into Six Nations groups, and do play-off party games after the reception. And there’s room for a bouncy castle in the courtyard …’
Could I punch him? I looked around for inspiration. A stray vase, or a flower display. Was there a way of subtly knocking him out with a blow to the head disguised as a simple swatting away of a wasp?
Delighted, Flora pointed her silver pencil at him. ‘I’m so writing that down, Joe Bentley. Who knew you’d be a brilliant wedding planner? You are full of amazing ideas.’
I watched her bee-stung lips move as she wrote down ‘Ushers – rugby kit’ on her notebook. Just underneath where she’d written down ‘String quartets playing Cole Porter medleys’ after I’d suggested it.
‘And the other thing I saw at a wedding that was really wow,’ she went on without looking up, ‘was a sort of dance back down the aisle?’
‘Oh, cool,’ said Joe before I could stop him. ‘Like the one on YouTube?’
‘Yah! It was that one on YouTube.’ Flora beamed. ‘The bride and groom were already at the, like, vicar end or whatever, and he started doing a kind of breakdance routine there, and they joined in, then came breakdancing down the aisle like it was a kind of … electrical current thing? And everyone was clapping and cheering? It was super emotional.’
‘Really?’ I said, with my teeth clamped together. It sounded awful. I kept the smile on my face as bright as I could. ‘How quirky. But I suppose they were married somewhere quite informal, like Babington House or one of the London clubs?’
‘Not really …’ said Flora. ‘St Luke and St Peter’s church in Little Ripley.’
‘And the vicar didn’t mind?’ Julia gasped.
Flora shook her head, and the tawny gold hair fell into her face. She pushed it back with her long hand, and the glare off her sugar-lump diamond nearly blinded us. ‘They let the church keep all the Wi-Fi equipment they had installed for the videographer. He was totally cool about it.’
‘Amazing,’ said Joe, in exactly the same irritating beach-bum drawl as Flora. I could quite happily have throttled him.
I pulled myself together. I am an events manager, I told myself. I could steer Flora back towards the elegant and traditional affair the Bonneville needed to be seen to be hosting for her. I visualized the photographs in my head. What had Laurence wanted? Three major national magazines? They’d be queuing up for fashion shoots in the honeymoon suite if the world had seen Flora Thornbury exiting a vintage Rolls-Royce outside our black and gold entrance.
‘Well, it’s always fun when the bride has her own unique ideas to work with,’ I said calmly.
Julia flashed me a look that – in my experience of mothers of the brides – said, Nu-uh, no unique ideas here, thank you very much. Julia, I knew from her phone calls to me, wanted morning coats and poached salmon, definitely not ushers in hot pants and jazz hands across the aisle. And since she was paying for the wedding, she wanted to make sure she got the wedding she wanted.
Our eyes locked and I tried to convey my concrete support. I couldn’t say, ‘Please ignore the idiot son of the owner,’ when they were old family friends, but I needed this wedding. I opened my mouth to say something reassuring but before I could speak, Joe leaned forward.
‘Have you thought about setting up a Twitter hashtag so guests can live-tweet the wedding?’ he asked.
‘Well, that was a delicious cup of tea,’ said Julia, in an interview-ending tone.
‘Did we talk about our traditional toast master?’ I asked desperately but she was already getting her Filofax together, squeezing it shut like an overstuffed corset. There were thirty years’ worth of contacts in there, and she was taking them all to a different hotel.
My throat went all tight and panicky. ‘Or the honeymoon suite? It’s the most romantic in London – and we like to create somewhere magical for the whole bridal party in our third-floor suite, not just the bride—’
‘I’m so sorry, Rosie, but we need to get across town to another appointment, and my driver is hopeless.’ Julia smoothed her skirt and rose, and I followed her. After a pause, Flora unfolded her endless legs from the sofa, but Joe only got up when I glared at him.
Flora let out a very pretty sigh as she gazed round the airy hotel lounge once more, as if she was sorry to be leaving so soon, but Julia was already sweeping out, taking my ambitions for the society wedding of the year with her.
Joe looked at me and gave me a quick, optimistic grin and a covert thumbs-up, as if he’d just personally secured the wedding of the century for the hotel.
I stared at him, my mouth dropping open in horror. It wasn’t just that he had no idea what he’d done – he was actually taking pride in it.
That was it. I was going to have to talk to Caroline. He had to go. Before he ruined everything I’d worked for, or I strangled him, or both.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The moment that Julia and Flora had been ushered into their chauffeur-driven black Mercedes by Frank, the doorman, I let the smile drop from my face. My cheek muscles were aching with the effort of keeping it there when I actually wanted to flip my entire head back and roar with frustration like a demented Pez dispenser.
‘Joe,’ I said, without turning to look at him, ‘Please come with me.’
Joe had been waving them off as if he were hailing someone across a festival site. ‘Where? To the bar? I thought that went well, didn’t you?’
‘No. No, it didn’t go well. We’re going to Laurence’s office.’ I turned on my heel and stalked past the reception desk so hard my heels made indents in the thick carpet. I didn’t even care that it made me look as if I was waddling.
Joe followed, but without the same urgency. ‘Why?’
‘So we can get in a good explanation, early, as to why we’ve failed to lock down the Thornbury wedding. And also the Thornbury rehearsal dinner, the Thornbury attendants’ spa indulgence weekend, and all the other glamorous and very profitable Thornbury-based celebrations I had planned.’
With each item my voice got shriller and I stomped harder down the corridor. I knew I sounded hysterical, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d wanted to book this wedding so badly. Wasn’t he listening to anything I was trying to tell him?
Joe was nearly breaking into a run keeping up with me. ‘Slow down. What’s the big problem?’
I st
(To be strictly accurate, my nose was about level with his chin. Joe was lanky, and I wasn’t wearing my highest heels. But you get the picture. I got a faceful of deodorant and a close-up of the stupid necklace he was still wearing, the one with the whole seashell in the middle.)
Two of the waitresses from the hotel bar were heading in our direction with trays, but when they saw my face they executed a perfect spin and diverted via the lounge.
‘You don’t have a sense of how that could have gone better?’ I asked, as calmly as I could.
‘No,’ said Joe. ‘I made some suggestions, I listened to what the bride wanted, I agreed with her. Everything you told me to. Thought both ladies looked pretty happy by the end.’
I had a flashback to Julia Thornbury’s tight-lipped expression as she left. The face of a woman who’d been promised an éclair and handed a jam doughnut, and no napkin.
‘You’re not supposed to agree with everything the bride suggests,’ I said, holding on to my calm.
Joe looked ‘confused’. ‘But I made a point of not asking her the questions I wanted to ask. Like, doesn’t this Milo guy get a say in what kind of wedding he has? And whether Flora’s dad’s coming to the wedding or not. I mean, that’s bad manners, right there.’
‘Their guest list is nothing to do with us! My problem is that that meeting was going perfectly until you arrived,’ I said slowly, to stop myself screeching. ‘I had it all under control. Flora’s mother, who, let’s face it, is paying for this, wanted to hear we could provide a sophisticated, traditional civil wedding ceremony. That’s what she wanted when I discussed it with her on the phone. That’s what she was going to get – and that was what Flora was really keen to have too, until you arrived! And started … started … encouraging Flora with those mad suggestions about breakdancing bridesmaids, and offering stuff that you know we don’t do—’
‘Stuff that you don’t do at the moment,’ Joe corrected me. ‘Doesn’t mean you can’t in the future. Aren’t you always telling me you’re there to make the client’s dreams come true?’
Why did he keep taking my own words and using them against me?
‘That’s not the point! Brides have insane dreams at this stage! Do you really think what the Bonneville’s lacking is a themed bouncy castle?’
‘But she loved the idea of dancing down the aisle.’
‘Well, I didn’t. It’s not the sort of thing we do here.’
‘But, Rosie,’ said Joe, with an irritating holier-than-thou look. ‘It’s. Not. Your. Wedding.’
‘In a sense it is! It’s our hotel that appears in the papers.’ I took deep breaths through my nose. I sounded like a bull. ‘And brides are like sheep in big skirts. If Flora Thornbury has bridesmaids voguing round the garden, then everyone’s going to want them, and let me tell you, for every voguing bride, you lose ten perfectly normal ones.’
The St Mary’s Hotel had lost half its bookings overnight after some style blogger posted photos of the bride arriving on a donkey, and the donkey plopping its way down the aisle. And it was a really nice donkey.
‘Really? Are you sure?’ Joe frowned. ‘Surely all publicity’s good publicity?’
I rubbed my face and reminded myself that Joe was just thinking in fire-walking terms, not deliberately trying to wind me up. But hadn’t Laurence or Caroline told him anything about their visions for the Bonneville? Couldn’t he see the old girl’s faded personality in every flirty window seat and curved porcelain coffee cup?
‘Not always, no. We’re trying to rebuild the hotel’s reputation for elegance, for discretion – the “Hollywood’s best-kept secret” it used to be. It’s a romantic hotel, a classic honeymoon destination. The Bonneville’s about champagne and flowers and long white dresses, string quartets playing Cole Porter … not brides twerking up against ushers in Aston Villa shirts.’
Joe said nothing, and I thought maybe I’d got through to him, but then he rolled his eyes. ‘Seriously, you are a control freak. You need to relax a bit.’
That did it. That showed that (a) he hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said, and (b) he didn’t understand the first thing about running events. And (c) he really didn’t get how annoyed Laurence would be about losing the Thornbury wedding, when I’d all but promised I had it in the bag.
‘That’s what brides pay me for!’ I exploded. ‘Flora’s mother wants an event planner who’ll keep the whole thing on track and on budget, and not let Flora start going crazy. Do you have any concept of the possible permutations of even a basic wedding?’
‘What? No. I seriously don’t, no. Two people turn up, promise to love each other forever, eat some cake, have a drink, go on holiday. That’s it.’
I stared at him. ‘Have you ever had a girlfriend, Joe?’
‘What? I don’t see what that’s go to do with anything.’ He looked properly annoyed, which only served to make me more annoyed, because frankly, what did he have to be annoyed about?
‘I only meant that if you’d ever—’
‘Sod that. The customer is always right, aren’t they? Or is that too American for you? If she wants a bouncy castle, get the lady a bouncy castle. It’s her day. Jeez.’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘Why are you getting so stressed out about it? It’s like you said, just a big party.’
I ignored the fact that I had said that. It hadn’t been quite what I meant, though. Joe was very hard to argue with.
‘If that’s what you think,’ I said icily, ‘maybe you should ask Laurence to move you on to housekeeping. You can tell Jean it’s “just sheets”.’
He folded his arms. ‘Fine with me. And it is just sheets, isn’t it? I don’t have a problem telling Jean that.’
‘Ha!’ I said. ‘Good luck. You’ll love the laundry chute.’
‘Hey, hey, hey! What’s going on here?’ Helen came striding round the corner from the direction of the secret side entrance. She looked flushed and guilty and slightly disgusted with herself, which made me suspect she’d been speaking to Seamus.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
She looked between us. ‘Doesn’t look like nothing.’
‘I was getting a lecture in nuptial service provision from the Romance Robot here,’ Joe sniffed. ‘Apparently if you don’t fit into the wedding template she’s offering, you can’t get married in this hotel.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. That’s not what I said at all,’ I began.
‘Well,’ Helen started, but I stopped her with a glare. She raised her hands. ‘You do have a template. I was just going to say, fair enough. Nothing wrong with having a system. It’s how we run the restaurant.’
‘Exactly my point.’ I turned back to Joe. ‘If everyone ordered off-menu at dinner, where would that leave the kitchen?’
‘Giving people what they want?’ he suggested piously. ‘She only wanted to dance down the aisle. It’s not like she wanted the entire congregation to be naked during the ceremony.’
I closed my eyes. Dominic’s face floated up in front of me, wryly amused and already constructing the anecdote. I knew how he’d play this: let Joe have enough rope to hang himself. If he found hospitality such a chore, he wouldn’t stick around for very long, would he?
‘Rosie, I need your thoughts about some cake,’ said Helen briskly, and I felt her take my arm. ‘And I need them before the lunch rush starts. Would you excuse us, Joe? Sorry …’
‘I was going out anyway,’ said Joe, and marched off towards the revolving main door.
‘Hey! No!’ I protested. ‘We were going to—’
Helen nudged me, hard. ‘Leave it till you’ve calmed down. I need to talk to you.’
‘I really don’t know if I can face cake,’ I protested as she dragged me towards my office. ‘Something about having tea with twenty-three-year-old lingerie models takes the shine off it.’
‘It’s not cake.’ Helen pushed me in and closed t
‘I just wanted to check we were still on for the awards dinner next Friday,’ she said.
‘Of course we’re still on for it,’ I said. The post had arrived on my desk while I’d been out, and I started sorting through the press releases for hot-air balloons and edible flowers. ‘Dominic’s had his outfit picked out for weeks. He’s been testing his heckler put-downs on me since the weekend. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but he’s nominated for an award?’
‘You have mentioned it. Every day. I thought maybe the four of us could go for a drink beforehand. And … a chat.’
I looked up from my pile of post at Helen. She and I had been out together plenty of times after work (and on very bad days, during work), but we’d never managed to go out as a foursome. Office hours, on all sides, made it about as easy to organize as a G8 summit, although that was probably a good thing, given the nuclear personality clash between Seamus and Dominic.
‘Really? There’ll be enough booze there to flood central London. And Seamus is, er, very talented in many ways, but conversation isn’t exactly his strong point.’ I tried a smile. ‘I’ve had more chat out of his steak pie.’
Helen fiddled with the bowl of sugared almonds on my desk. ‘I’ve been reading this self-help book about modelling the relationship you want, and I thought if Seamus saw how you and Dominic interact in public, you know, it’d give him some idea of … well, what you’re meant to do. It’s difficult for him, because he spends so much time at work. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to be a boyfriend.’
Sometimes I wondered if Helen could hear the things that came out of her mouth. ‘And Dominic and I are the kind of couple you want Seamus to model himself on?’
‘Yes!’ Helen nodded hard. ‘Come on! It could be a regular date! We all work in the industry – we’re supposed to go out to pop-up diners and soft openings.’