It Started With a Kiss (15 page)

Wren picked up her mustard-yellow velvet dress, burgundy twisted rope headband and veil. ‘The way I see it, we don’t have a choice. I vote we get changed, do the gig and then plan all the truly nasty ways we’re going to wreak our revenge on D’Wayne.’

Only one good thing could be said about the outlandish outfits: at least we didn’t look out of place. Whichever sadistic fancy dress emporium supplied The Pinstripes’ garb for the evening had obviously also been responsible for clothing every guest and member of the bridal party.

Halfway through the second set, we launched into ‘Love Shack’ and the assembled guests (particularly enthusiastic about dancing owing to the prohibitive amounts of mead they had consumed) started bopping about in their ridiculous outfits. Half of them began an energetic conga line around the great hall, the stragglers at the end running as best they could in brightly hued hose and preposterous curling-toed shoes, while the rest of our audience were frantically moshing in a manner more akin to a rock concert crowd. As we looked out at the completely bizarre scene before us, we all suddenly realised how hilarious the situation was. Charlie was the first to snigger, struggling to sing the male lead in the song from behind the drum kit. Wren and I followed suit and Tom had to stop playing his guitar as the wave of mirth hit him next. By the time we reached the end of the song, tears were rolling down our faces and we couldn’t look at each other for fear of losing the plot entirely.

At the end of the gig, we were all on a high.

‘I’m thinking burnt orange might be my colour,’ Tom said, twirling around the stage in his tunic and yellow tights as we packed away.

‘Yeah, mate, it matches your eyes,’ Charlie replied from behind the stacks of his drum cases.

I walked back into the dressing room to change out of the pale blue velvet gown and tall lilac hennin hat. As far as our costumes for the evening went, I think I’d received the best – Wren’s mustard yellow and burgundy braid number resembled a product from an occupational therapy class for depressed colour-blind seamstresses, while the less said about Charlie’s harlequin brown, cream and puce velvet tunic with slate-grey tights the better.

As I folded up my costume, Stevie Wonder started warbling from the front pocket of my bag. I retrieved my mobile and saw that I had three calls and a voicemail message from Uncle Dudley.

‘Bab, it’s happening! Baz called me tonight to say he has some stills of you and your fella! He’s bringing them round to the boat tomorrow afternoon, so get yourself over here as soon as you can. It might just be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for and …’ His voice trailed off and I could hear Auntie Mags’ muffled voice in the background. ‘Yes … I know, I said that, Magsie … say what? Righty-ho. Sorry about that, our Rom. Your auntie says she tried out a new recipe today that is exactly what you’ll need when you see the pictures. Tarar-a-bit!’

‘Everything OK?’ Charlie asked, taking me by surprise.

I smiled, feeling a strange fluttering in the pit of my stomach. ‘Yes, I think it is now.’

He stared at me and for a moment I thought he was going to say something more, but he simply nodded and left. I wasn’t altogether sure whether I was relieved or disappointed by this – to have such a breakthrough happen and not to share it with him was yet another reminder of how things had changed between us. But I couldn’t think about that now: the news from Uncle Dudley was far too exciting to ignore.

Alone once more in the dark wood-panelled room, I sank down on to the oak bench that ran round three of the four walls. I could hardly believe it. I was finally going to see him again – not a fleeting glimpse like before, but an irrefutable image that time couldn’t fade.

There had been so many happenings lately that were now linking together – the Valentine’s Night gig sighting, the growing support for my quest, the collective ‘what-if’ stories from Sophie and her colleagues at school – surely these were confirmations that spending my year searching for him was right?

There was only one way to test this theory: I needed to see those photos.

I can’t remember much of the ride over to Kingsbury next day. My head was consumed by a multitude of thoughts, elbowing and jostling for position like cramped commuters jammed into a morning train. In fact, it nearly wasn’t a ride at all: I was tempted to drive straight from home to
Our Pol
, but a sense of duty to my parents and two weeks without giving my bike a decent outing led me instead to choose Sunday lunch in the beige kingdom first.

Thankfully, my parents were still blissfully unaware of my blog and Uncle Dudley’s one-man mission to locate PK. And it was likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future, especially given that Mum and Dad (who only used their aged home PC for work spreadsheets and wouldn’t know how to Google anything if their beige lives depended on it) were resolutely against social media in any form.

The delicious naughtiness of concealing something from them was impossible to resist. Of course, my principle is always to tell my parents about the latest developments in my life, just not necessarily
right away
…

Crossing over the canal bridge and turning on to the towpath, I shivered as my stomach somersaulted for the umpteenth time that day, knowing the inevitable moment of truth was accelerating towards me. Knocking on
Our Pol
’s bow doors, I hoisted my bike on to the narrowboat’s roof, removed my gloves and cycle helmet and stepped inside.

If there was ever an Oscar awarded for ‘Most Ineffective Attempt at Nonchalance’, my aunt and uncle would be guests of honour at Elton John’s winners’ afterparty. They stood rigidly by the kitchen sink, identikit fixed grins across their faces.

‘Cup of tea?’ Auntie Mags asked, her voice almost squeaking as she battled the excitement evident in every syllable of her body language.

I tried to answer as calmly as I could. ‘Yes, please. Just what I need after my ride. Everything good with you, Uncle Dud?’

My uncle was even worse, fidgeting like a coiled spring about to unravel. ‘Fine, bab, just peachy.’

‘You are rubbish at waiting, aren’t you?’ I laughed, as my aunt and uncle rushed to the table and pushed a brown, A4 envelope towards me.

Clasping her hands to her chin, Auntie Mags fixed me with her gaze. ‘Are you ready?’

‘I think so.’ Holding the envelope in front of me, I realised my hands were shaking. I made a conscious effort to slow my breathing, ignoring the insistent flutter of my pulse, and turned the envelope over to break its seal.

Please let this be him
.

Uncle Dudley wrapped a nervous arm around my aunt. So much hope and love were mixed in their encouraging smiles that I had to close my eyes for a second to push the mass of emotion away.

My fingers clumsy with impatience, I pulled back the envelope flap, the salt and vinegar scent of brown paper rising to my nostrils as I did so. I felt the cool glossiness of photo paper and I slowly pulled the picture out, its white reverse appearing first.

Here goes
…

I flipped over the image, scanning its hazy black and white detail. Before my eyes were the familiar shapes of the Christmas Market stalls where we had met, the blurry faces of Christmas shoppers crowded around us. And there, in the midst of it all, were two figures, one of whom I instantly recognised …

‘
Well?
’

‘It’s – a wonderful photo …’ I looked up at my rapt audience and held it out to them, tears welling in my eyes ‘… of
me
.’

The silence in
Our Pol
was deafening.

‘It’s the back of his head.’

‘Yes, I know it is, Wren.’

‘The
back
of his head, Rom! That’s all you have?’

‘Oh, look, Fat Face has a sale on. Shall we go in?’

Wren wasn’t listening, staring at the photo in her hands as we travelled down a vivid pink-lit escalator in The Mailbox. ‘I suppose one consolation is that you can compare the back of this guy’s head with the bloke you saw the back of at the Valentine’s gig.’ She cracked up, oblivious to the disapproving looks she was getting from two well-heeled ladies walking out of Harvey Nic’s. ‘You have to admit it’s funny.’

‘Hilarious. Where did you want to go for coffee?’

She gathered herself together long enough to give me a sensible answer. ‘Let’s head for New Street, then we can take our pick.’ As her eyes met mine, her mirth vanished. ‘Oh Rom, are you upset? I shouldn’t have laughed, I’m sorry.’ Linking her arm through mine, she gave me a squeeze. ‘Right. We’re going to think about lovely, girly things now and for the rest of the afternoon, OK?’

A week after I first laid eyes on the photo, I was feeling decidedly calmer about the whole thing – in fact, I even found myself laughing with Jack and Soph when I shared the photo with them yesterday evening. Yes, I was disappointed, but what mattered was that he
was
in the photo, which meant that he
was
real and it
had
happened. However I looked at it, I couldn’t escape the positives in this situation.

‘It’s one more piece of the puzzle,’ I explained to Wren when we sat down in a coffee shop ten minutes later, watching shoppers milling about outside as a street performer played his tenor sax, accompanied by a sound-activated dancing reggae cat.

Wren stirred the whipped cream into her
venti
hot chocolate. ‘You’re amazing, Rom. I’d have given up months ago. So what happens now?’

‘I don’t know. We keep looking, I suppose. Uncle Dudley reckons the blog will bear fruit soon, especially as the number of followers keeps growing.’

‘How many do you have now?’

‘Nearly forty. I don’t know how they find it, but they’re certainly very enthusiastic when they arrive. If my chances of success were directly proportionate to the level of belief in my followers, I’d be on to a dead cert.’

‘Hmm …’ She was flicking through an old local paper, left on our table. ‘I guess your problem now is that the supporters you have aren’t much good for anything other than cheering you on. What you need is …’ She broke off as something caught her eye.

Wren possesses the type of creative brain that operates at a zillion miles an hour, all day, every day. Consequently people assume she’s a ditzy redhead, owing to her apparent inability to finish sentences or follow the thread of a discussion. In reality, she is probably more intelligent than the rest of us put together, capable of multitasking several different trains of thought and physical actions at once. One school report famously suggested that Wren had the potential to become ‘either a prodigiously gifted young woman or a despot in the making’ – a description she frequently reminds us of with unbridled pride.

‘Anyway, at least I know that the man I met was real. Wren?’ I waved my hand in front of her face, but her eyes would not be moved from the crumpled newspaper spread out between our coffee mugs. ‘Hello? Earth to Wren …’

‘That’s it!’ she exclaimed, stabbing page 12 with her finger. Lifting her head, she beamed, triumph igniting her expression. ‘I know how we can find him! Why didn’t I think about this before?’ She slapped the heel of her hand to her forehead. ‘Dumbnut! I apologise, Rom, for being so bloomin’ slow on the uptake here.
This
is perfect!’ Any moment, I expected Wren to lift off and bump up against the ceiling, like a newly filled helium balloon.

‘Wren, calm down. What are you talking about?’

‘This!’ She rotated the newspaper and indicated a page.

‘The Encounters section?’

‘Yes! We put an ad in there, saying where you were, what you were both wearing and what happened, and then when he reads it he’ll get in touch and that will be it!’

‘As long as he reads this paper.’

‘Rom,
everyone
reads this paper. Anyway, that’s just details. I want you to find him again. I think you deserve to have a gorgeous man rescuing you, especially after all that time you waited for Charlie.’

Out of all of my closest friends, Wren’s opinion of me was one of those I cherished the most. It was unspeakably touching to see her so passionate about my happiness.

‘In fact, I think we should write the advert now and I’ll email it in.’

Now it was my turn to be cautious. ‘Don’t you think we should maybe take some time to consider this properly?’

‘Oh come on, sweets, where’s your famous sense of adventure? Grab a pen and let’s get writing!’

Even though I had my reservations about Wren’s latest plan, I had to admit that I couldn’t think of anything else that might work. Since Baz’s not-so-great photographic evidence of the meeting with my stranger, developments had been scarcer than promotion opportunities for my boss at work. Wren’s Encounters advert was due to go in the following weekend’s paper (after she had insisted on rewriting it at least five times since our first draft a few days ago), and Uncle Dudley had nothing to report, apart from a new batch of lovely messages from my ever-growing crowd of supporters:

Such enthusiastic encouragement was going to take some getting used to, unaccustomed as I was to sharing the intricate details of my love life with half of cyberspace. But then, as Uncle Dudley reminded me, ‘The wider the net, the more chance you’ve got of catching your fella.’

I had to believe that was possible, even though the trail had gone cold – temporarily, I hoped. At least Wren was a gold-card-bearing member of the quest, and my other friends, though happy to make kind-hearted jokes at my expense, were supportive too. The only person yet to be convinced was Charlie.

Following our discussion on the way to the medieval wedding, the tension between him and I had noticeably eased, but we were far from the level of honesty we had shared before the quest began. My instinct was to tell him everything – fifteen years of doing so wasn’t easy to forget – but the subject remained firmly out of bounds. Not wishing to be the unwitting instigator of an argument, I resolved to avoid it entirely when Charlie and I were together.

Meanwhile, the wedding gigs began to increase in frequency. As March passed into April, one wedding emerged that was to pass into Pinstripes’ history: ‘The Bunny Wedding’.

Set in a hotel on the outskirts of Leeds, the Easter Saturday gig had appeared promising enough when D’Wayne provided us with the details. But when we gathered together mid-rehearsal in the old shoe factory to listen to the couple’s requirements, we had no inkling of the delights that lurked in store for us.

‘OK, we’re looking at a standard set but the couple have vetoed the Motown medley in favour of the Bee Gees one – they think their guests will be up for a bit of “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease” rather than “Heard it Through the Grapevine”. First dance will be “Better Together”.’

‘
Ugh.
Jack Johnson. Bo-o-o-o-oring,’ Tom groaned.

I stared at him. ‘It’s a lovely song.’

‘To sing, maybe. To play it’s the musical equivalent of watching paint dry.’ Tom and Wren launched into an impression of playing the song,
bm-bm
ing the bass line whilst miming yawning, looking at their watches and slipping a noose around their necks. Charlie and Jack found this utterly hilarious and joined in, motioning drums and keyboard with the same reactions.

‘You’re all cynics,’ I reprimanded them, although it was impossible not to be amused by their act.

‘And you’re sure there aren’t any tights this time?’ Jack asked D’Wayne, whose shoulders instantly drooped. He had been relentlessly ribbed about the medieval outfits since our costumed spectacular.

‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry about the medieval gig,’ he replied. ‘The wedding planner assures me that this is a straightforward event today.’

As it turned out, the wedding planner lied.

What better way to celebrate your commitment to the love of your life on Easter Saturday than an Easter Bunny theme? To our collective horror, we discovered that not only were the entire bridal party resplendent in baby-pink furry bunny-ear headbands, but every guest was expected to wear them, too. According to the wedding planner, each invitation had stated firmly that nobody, be they bridal party member or guest, would be admitted to the nuptials if they failed to come attired in the correct headgear. Needless to say, the wedding entertainment wasn’t exempt from this edict and the best man insisted we comply before we were allowed to set foot in the country club venue.

Tom’s expression conveyed what we were all feeling. ‘I used to think I was a serious musician,’ he thundered, the impact of his fury dampened somewhat by the ridiculous fluffy appendages strapped to his head that bobbed as he spoke. ‘What kind of strange, demented psycho demands bunny ears for their wedding? It just makes a mockery of the whole event.’

I would love to say that the Easter theme ended with the fluffy ears, but I’m afraid I would be lying. Yellow, fluffy toy chicks marked each place setting and were scattered across the top table; pastel pink, blue, yellow and green ribbons were tied around the white chair covers and looped round the marble pillars at the entrance to the reception hall; cuddly toy rabbits were
everywhere
– nestling round the Easter-egg-topped wedding cake, sitting in the middle of tables holding baskets stuffed with daffodils and white tulips; and real white rabbits sat dejectedly in a caged area on a strip of sickening green Astroturf in the middle of the room. For bridal favours, each guest received a box of Cadbury Mini Eggs and an Easter egg hunt had been organised for the children between the afternoon and evening receptions. Worst of all, garishly pink fluffy rabbit tails were fixed to the back of each chair. It was
hideous
– a case of a funny idea being taken way too far, eventually taking precedence over everything that should have been lovely about a spring wedding.

And as for the gig – well,
you
try giving a polished performance with two hundred blatted guests John Travolta-ing to ‘Night Fever’ in matching leporine accessories …

Our task was not helped by the thoroughly unpleasant selection of guests who moaned, bitched and shouted their way through the majority of our set. The bride – highly spray-tanned and sporting at least four sets of false eyelashes – pouted constantly because she was being ignored by her three chunky bridesmaids who were desperately attempting to grab anything remotely male. Meanwhile, her new husband – who had the legend ‘Wolfman’ blue-tattooed across the back of his neck – almost caused a full-on fistfight when he very publicly fell out with his best man, two of the ushers and the mother of the bride.

It doesn’t happen very often, but all of us were thoroughly relieved to reach the end of the gig and leave as soon as possible. However, the night was saved by Tom’s timely summation of the event, as we sat in Jack and Soph’s living room nursing huge mugs of hot chocolate:

‘Look at this way: at least we got out of there alive. Pity the bunnies, people!’

BRIEF ENCOUNTER?

I was the girl in the red coat and cream scarf who crashed into a toy stall in the Christmas Market, Victoria Square, Birmingham, on Saturday 17th December.

I have shoulder-length dark blonde hair, sea green eyes and I’m 5ft 5ins tall. You were the man in the black coat wearing a green, brown and cream striped scarf who came to my rescue. You had wavy, russet-brown hair, hazel eyes and were around 6ft tall. If you don’t want this to remain a brief encounter, please contact me.

Email [email protected] quoting

Box No:
BE1712

‘I think it’s good,’ Tom said slowly, his eyebrows raised far too high for this to be what he truly thought.

I don’t often wish for alcohol at ten thirty on a Saturday morning, but today the presence of a nice glass of red in the middle of the band rehearsal might just have helped to take the edge off the sinking feeling I was now experiencing.