Before I Do(13)
“So, how did you and your chap meet, then?” she heard Brian ask Miranda. Josh was telling her something about boutonnieres for the groomsmen, and she strained to hear Miranda’s reply through the layers of chatter around her.
“Oh, nothing too out of the ordinary,” Miranda started to say. “It was—”
“Audrey?” Josh nudged her.
“What?” she said, a touch too sharply, as she tuned back in to what he was saying.
“I was just pointing out that this time tomorrow we’ll be married.” Josh’s neck pushed back into the collar of his shirt, his eyebrows knitting into a wounded expression.
“Sorry,” she said, biting her lip and then adding quietly, “Maybe I am a little overwhelmed. There’s just so much to think about.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be anxious, your mum has everything in hand,” Josh said, laying a hand on her arm. “Honestly, stop stressing.”
“Stop telling me I look stressed and pale and crap, Josh,” she hissed, removing her hand from beneath his.
“I didn’t say you looked crap.” Josh visibly blanched at her words.
Audrey picked up her butter knife, squeezing it tight before ripping a hunk of bread in two and aggressively buttering it. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, “I don’t know why I’m so on edge.” She did know why. She knew exactly why.
Josh leaned over and put an arm around her. “It’s supposed to be fun, remember? It’s too late to change anything now anyway.”
Strangely, Audrey didn’t find these words reassuring. “?’Til death do us part” suddenly felt like a really long time. It wasn’t like in medieval days where you got married and then one of you would probably cut a finger chopping turnips and die of sepsis soon after. Could the wonders of modern medicine be making a lifelong commitment more daunting?
“I know. You’re right, I’m being silly.” Audrey tried to sound relaxed, to smile. The last thing she needed now was to be in a stupid fight with Josh, so she tried to stop having weird thoughts about sepsis and turnips, and to quell the small hysterical voice of panic beating furiously against the inside of her rib cage.
* * *
Once the main course had been cleared away, Lawrence, who was seated at the far end of the table between Vivien and Granny Parker, stood up and tapped his glass. He was wearing a dark gray suit, impeccably tailored to disguise his increasingly portly build. He always wore a silk pocket square, which he pulled out to clean the lenses of his narrow rimless glasses. He looked overdressed for the balmy June evening; his already ruddy complexion had grown redder with the wine, and his gray hair was damp with sweat.
Just as the room fell silent, Michael returned from the bar, pocketing his phone. He tried to slip unnoticed back into his chair, but the untouched plate of scampi and chips in front of him betrayed the length of his absence and elicited a sharp look from Debbie.
“What’s the score, Dad?” Josh whispered across the table.
“A hundred and eighty-five all out,” Michael whispered back, and then flushed guiltily.
“Now, I know that tomorrow the role of speech maker has, unconventionally, been given to the nanny,” Lawrence boomed, nodding his head toward Hillary. “Our resident Gary Poppins.” Hillary laughed politely, as he always did whenever Lawrence recycled this particular joke. “So, I thought I’d take this evening as an opportunity to make my own little stepfather-of-the-bride speech. Though I am aware that is a position held by half the male population of England.” He nodded toward Brian, who sportingly lifted his glass.
“We’ll have none of that,” said Vivien firmly, then pointed a stern finger at Hillary. “We’ll have none of those comments tomorrow either, thank you, Hillary.”
“Joking aside, as the current father figure in Audrey’s life, I’d like to say a few words on this auspicious evening, her last day as a maid.”
Audrey heard Clara cough into her wineglass from the opposite side of the table. She looked across at Paul, who was trying to make a hat out of his napkin. She noticed the way Miranda was laughing at him; she’d always found Paul’s silly antics amusing.
“Now, I know you and Josh have been living together for a while now,” Lawrence went on, “so I’m sure you don’t need me to explain the whys and wherefores of married life.”
He winked at them both. Audrey cringed. She wished he’d sit down. There was something acutely awkward about having a toast made about you, especially by someone who didn’t really know you. Josh reached an arm around her chair, kissing her shoulder lightly, just as she dared a glance down the table toward Fred. He was looking right at her. She dropped her eyes to her lap, the only safe place to look.
“But as someone who’s been married twice, I do have a little wisdom to impart,” Lawrence went on. “Marriage is a partnership, someone to share life’s challenges and celebrations with.” He smiled down at Vivien, who looked uncharacteristically tense. “Someone who will love you on the boring days as well as the interesting ones, and ideally have legs as good as Vivien’s well into her sixties!” Lawrence gave a hearty laugh, and the others obliged with a polite titter. He lifted his glass in Audrey and Josh’s direction. “I have had the honor of watching Audrey and Josh’s relationship develop these last few years, and I can tell you, if anyone has what it takes to beat the divorce statistics, it’s these two. And if I’m wrong, well, your mother has her divorce lawyer on speed dial, ha ha!”