No Ex Before Marriage, page 1
No Ex Before Marriage
Portia MacIntosh
For Joe, Joey and James – thanks for everything
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Acknowledgments
More from Portia MacIntosh
Also by Portia MacIntosh
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
1
The first rule of Wife Club is that you talk about Wife Club all the time.
Today is my friend Rachael’s wedding – the last person in our friendship group to get married – and it’s an interesting one.
There are four of us. Me, Rachael, Lindsey and Sally, and we’ve all been friends for a long time, and I mean a long time. Pudley village is only a small place, so the four of us being the same age landed us in the same nursery group and we stayed friends all the way through school, into adulthood. We’re all thirty now, and while I may not feel like we’re as close as we used to be, I think it’s impressive that we’re all still friends.
The reason we’re drifting apart is the aforementioned Wife Club, and some of us perhaps not being quite as into it as others.
It’s funny that Rachael is the last one in our group to tie the knot because she’s always been the most enthusiastic about doing so. So much so that we had a bit of upset last year when Sally got married.
Well, Rachael was a bridesmaid for me, and then for Lindsey, so when Sally wound up getting married next and asked us all to be bridesmaids, Rachael had a total meltdown because, you know what they say, three times a bridesmaid, never a bride. I mean, they say that, but it’s not true, is it? It’s clearly not true because Rachael was eventually persuaded to be a bridesmaid for the third time, and her wedding ceremony just finished, so it’s obviously bullshit.
We’re currently in that weird stage between the ceremony and the wedding breakfast, right after the photos are taken, when everyone sort of mills around for a bit before taking their seats. I could do with a drink, but after having our bridal party photos taken, we’re still standing in the semi-circle we stood for our last photo, just chatting by a large hotel staircase that provided the backdrop, making the most of our time with Rachael before she’s back to being a busy bride. I remember exactly what it’s like at your own wedding, no one really lets you have a minute, you’re just constantly talking to people, thanking them for coming, smiling, working your way through the formalities.
‘I can’t thank you all enough for being my bridesmaids,’ Rachael gushes. She’s got big bride energy right now – you know, that super smug level of extreme happiness where you know the world has no choice but to revolve around you? I don’t mean to sound so cynical – or maybe I do – but this wedding was planned down to the tiniest detail (excluding the groom, of course) long before Rachael even met Kevin. That’s Rachael, though. She’s always been the sensible one, always worrying about anything and everything to cover all bases. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been useful over the years, especially when we’ve all tried to coordinate trips or plan parties, but she does drive us all a little mad sometimes. I know no feeling like the heavy weight on my chest when Rachael hands us one of her itineraries – a more recent addition to her organisational tactics, thankfully – knowing full well we’ll all have to stick to it or she’ll have one of her meltdowns.
‘I just hope that, by the end of the day, my wedding lives up to all of yours,’ Rachael replies. She has a look on her face that somehow shows that she knows her wedding is so far so superior. That’s what she believes, anyway. I’m not sure I agree.
‘No one was ever going to be able to compete with our street food fair,’ Sally half-jokes.
No one was ever going to be able to compete with Sally’s wedding full stop. Her husband’s dad invented something completely boring but worth an absolute fortune – I think it’s a type of adhesive, because the whole family make ‘sticky’ jokes constantly – so there was no expense spared for her majorly tacky big day (Christ, even I’m doing it now).
She’s still getting her money’s worth from the wedding, though. She almost always finds a way to mention it. Today it’s going to be too easy. Back in February, at Lindsey’s dad’s wake, she was seriously reaching, but she got there in the end. Some tenuous link between the Tunnock’s teacakes they had out and her two-thousand-pound wedding cake – she had the same baker as Meghan and Harry, don’t you know.
Crass as it is, you’ve got to hand it to her, it’s impressive how she always finds a way to bring it up. That’s Sally, though, she’s always had the vibe of a snooty rich person, even before she was actually rich.
Lindsey is probably the one who has changed the least, she’s still a big hug of a friend, always smiling, always preferring baking to bitching. There’s nothing that girl doesn’t think she can fix with scones. But she, like the other two, has grown increasingly sensible over the years, in a way that just doesn’t seem to be happening for me.
‘Thankfully, I didn’t let Kevin make any decisions or the colour scheme would be Man City and we’d all be doing karaoke after the wedding breakfast,’ Rachael says with a snort.
Sally shoots her a not-so-subtle look. Rachael quickly turns to me.
‘Not that there’s anything wrong with karaoke at a wedding, Poppy,’ she reassures me, visibly cringing. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned your wedding at all, should I?’
‘It’s fine,’ I insist.
It isn’t awkward when people mention my wedding. It’s awkward when they mention it and then cringe themselves inside out, before trying to make me feel better with pitying looks and soppy words – which ironically only ever makes me feel worse. I’ve never really viewed my life choices in a negative light. It’s only when I see them reflected back at me in the eyes of others, all contorted like I’m looking at them in a funhouse mirror, that I start to wonder if maybe I have made a mess of things.
‘I’m excited for the food,’ Sally says, changing the subject. ‘I had to taste test so much food – for our street food fair – that I was worried I wouldn’t fit into my Vera Wang dress.’
We all look at her.
‘I did, though,’ she reassures us, as if we didn’t know. ‘I’ve always been a size 8.’
It turns out it is in fact possible to roll your eyes without moving them because I just did it. Well, I think I did. It’s also possible I just rolled them properly and no one noticed because no one’s eyes are on my size 12 body today. I say size 12. I’m a 10 if I’m feeling optimistic. A 14 if I’ve eaten too much. A 16 for my top half in certain high-street retailers. My point being, claiming to be a certain size ‘always’ (come on, she wasn’t born a size 8, was she? Was she?!) means nothing. Not only because sizing isn’t universal but because it doesn’t define any of us. It’s all about perspective. My feet are a size 8 but, when I tell people that, they usually just give me pitying looks for that too. It must have been a nightmare for this lot, watching me dance in open-toed shoes at my karaoke wedding.
‘As long as you’re not cooking,’ Lindsey teases Sally.
‘Well, that’s why I thought that a couples’ cooking class might be fun, the first one is in a couple of days, so we can go to a few before we jet off on our honeymoon to Hawaii…’
Rachael says this like we don’t all already know where she’s going, and it’s worth pointing out that she isn’t even off on her honeymoon until February.
‘…so we can all learn to cook and er…’
Well, that’s the first I’m hearing about this cooking class, which obviously means I’m not invited. Rachael can’t hide that she knows she’s put her foot in it.
‘I actually think… er…’ Rachael peers into the reception room next to us, her eyes darting back and forth. ‘Yes, I think it’s time to take our seats. We have little seating maps, dotted around, with QR codes on them, so you can scan them to find where you’re sitting.’
This room is not that big.
‘Bridesmaids and groomsmen are over there,’ Lindsey says, pointing in the direction of the top table.
It’s family only at the actual top table, Rachael told us. There’s a not-quite top table for close friends. Trust me, I’ve heard her talk about this wedding so much, for so long, I know it all. Nothing could surprise me.
I’m about to follow the other girls when Rachael places her arm on mine, holding me back. She waits a second or two until it’s just us.
‘Poppy, I actually thought it might be cool for you to sit somewhere else,’ she eventually says with a smile.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask. Perhaps I can be surprised. I’m also pretty sure I know what she means already but I want to hear her say it.
‘Well, you know, I thought you’d like to sit at a table where you can meet some new people,’ she explains. ‘And, to be honest, with the tables only seating six, with the other girls and their husbands…’
That’s four.
‘…and then two other people, that’s six, and with you just being on your own…’
I bite my tongue. It’s her wedding day.
‘So, which table am I at?’ I ask coolly.
‘Table twelve,’ she replies.
‘Twelve?’ I squeak back at her. ‘How many tables are there?’
‘Oh, only twelve,’ she replies, confirming that I am on the last table. ‘It’s over there.’
Table twelve couldn’t be further from the top table without being out in the car park.
‘Honestly, you’ll be much happier there, people to meet, lots of singles, and other divorced people too!’ she says, like that’s going to be the answer to my prayers. ‘Enjoy the food, hun.’
She dashes off before I can say anything. I don’t know what I’d say to her if she hadn’t. Not on her wedding day, anyway.
Table twelve. I can’t believe it. The sad singles table. Has it really come to this?
Perhaps it has, given that I’m the only one in our group who is single. Not only was I the first person in our group to get married, I was the first to get divorced, too. And boy, they don’t ever let me forget it.
2
In some ways, Rachael’s wedding is like every wedding I’ve ever been to. The bride wore white, her dad gave her away, and all the guests are taking their seats in the function room, which is laid out beautifully with large round tables covered in pristine white cloths, topped with big bunches of flowers that match the bride’s winter bouquet. The thing that makes this wedding different from all the others – and it does really feel different – is the fact that it’s New Year’s Eve. Never mind the fact that I’m pretty sure every wedding I’ve ever been to has taken place in the summer, meaning I always associate the events with long, warm sunny days instead of cold, dark dreary ones like today, but I’ve never actually been to a wedding that overlapped another occasion, like a birthday or a national holiday.
For me, this wedding sort of covers both. Obviously New Year’s Eve is New Year’s Eve, which is the case for everyone here, but the clock striking midnight doesn’t just kick off all the phoney new beginnings and short-lived healthy eating bullshit we all flirt with each year, it also marks the start of my birthday, pretty much to the minute.
The night I was born was kind of a funny story – not that I remember anything about it, obviously, but it’s a story my parents enjoyed telling year after year. My mum was always a bit of a wild card. Despite having a super serious job in the legal profession, you wouldn’t recognise her outside the office. She was fun and reckless and said whatever she wanted, did whatever popped into her head without giving it too much thought, and rarely worried about consequences. That’s why at pushing nine months pregnant with me she didn’t think twice about going to a fancy-dress New Year’s Eve party with my dad and their friends. No prizes for guessing that my mum went into labour before the clock struck midnight, and I was born shortly after, making me the first baby born in Lancashire in 1991. What makes the story funnier is that my dad, assuming my mum had gone home early with my auntie, didn’t even realise my mum had gone into labour, so he stayed out partying all night – something out of character for him, as he’s always been the straitlaced, sensible one. This was before everyone had a mobile phone (wow, saying that makes me sound so old) so he didn’t even know I was born until he was walking home the next morning, still dressed as John McClane from Die Hard, when he noticed the local newspaper and there I was, their first baby of the year, in the arms of my mum who – hilariously – was still half wearing her Madonna cone bra. Needless to say, after spotting that, my dad got himself to the hospital faster than you could say yippie-ki-yay, and he somehow became even more sensible after that.
I like to think it was my chaotic entry into this world that paved the way for my yo-yo life. It’s always nice to blame it on something, isn’t it? Well, when you get married and divorced by the time you’re twenty-five, it feels a little bit better being able to put it down to something other than who you are as a person. My mum, when she was still with us, always used to say I took after her, albeit reluctantly. She never tried to talk me out of getting married, she was all for it. She also helped me pick up the pieces when I got divorced.
I always think of my mum more at this time of year, with Christmas and my birthday soon after. I wonder what she would think of me, if she could see me now, slinking sheepishly up to table twelve, the loser table.
I say loser table – I don’t think we’re losers just for being single. I just know that will be the way Rachael sees us. She’ll think she’s doing some kind of public service, putting us all together like this. Isn’t it annoying, when people find love, and it makes them aggressively want to find it for you too? If her heart was in the right place, sure, why not? But I’m really starting to feel like my single status is – hmm, how would Sally describe it? – throwing off the aesthetic of the group. I’m already being left off the guest list for activities they’re planning – not that I’m all that gutted to be missing out on a couples’ cooking class that sounds like a nightmare, but it would be nice to have been invited.
I’m the fourth person to arrive at table twelve. With three men already in their places, anxiously awaiting their fellow table mates, clearly already wise to the concept of the singles table, I feel a little bit like I’m on Blind Date – or almost-Blind Date, anyway. Blind in the sense that I didn’t know I was going to be served up to the eligible bachelors at the wedding.
Oh, the relief on their faces when an actual girl sits down at the table.
‘Hello,’ I say with a brightness that does not at all genuinely reflect how I’m feeling on the inside.
‘Hi,’ the man directly in front of me says.
‘Hello,’ the man to his left says.
The man to the right just gives me a slight wave.
Good God, it’s going to be a long day, and I mean that in both respects. It’s going to feel like a long day, if this is the level of chat the men at this table have to offer, but it’s genuinely going to be an actual long day, given that this wedding is doubling up as a New Year’s Eve party.
‘And you are?’ the man in the middle asks, rather formally.
He’s probably in his late thirties. His dark hair is starting to go grey at the sides, which wouldn’t be a problem, except the product he’s used to slick it back hasn’t worked, causing the sides to stick out wildly, making him look a bit like a rockhopper penguin.
‘I’m Poppy,’ I tell him. ‘You?’
‘Simon Alistair Ainsworth,’ he says, extending a hand for me to shake. ‘Car insurance salesman.’
I shake his hand only to come away with one of his business cards.
‘Oh, right,’ I say, a little bemused by, well, basically everything. ‘I can’t drive, so…’
I hand him his card back and he takes it with such a look of disdain.
‘What, like you’re on a ban?’ he asks. His tone quickly shifts to something rather light-hearted, for something so serious. ‘Big fan of the old Venetian water?’
