The One with All the Bridesmaids: A hilarious, feel-good romantic comedy. Erin Lawless
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poor punctuality. ‘It’s mad up there. There’s a match on.’ He immediately busied himself plumbing in the barrels to the taps of the small bar area in the corner.
‘Meanwhile, we’ve been dying of thirst,’ Cole complained, impatiently moving across to claim the first of the clean pint glasses Cleo had already arrayed.
‘Hold on, big guy,’ Barlow said, as unruffled as usual. ‘This stuff is worth the wait. It’s from a brewery in South Wales, it’s the business.’
There were many benefits to having Barlow as a mate, not least of which were the free drinks and free function space. Harry’s best mate from university, he had dropped out a term into his final year, despite everyone thinking him an absolute idiot for doing so, and became assistant manager in the village pub where he’d spent his summers pot-washing since he was thirteen. Fast-forward ten years and he was the owner, proprietor and general manager of The Hand in Hand, one of the best gastro-pubs in Wimbledon.
Definitely one the busiest pubs in Wimbledon, Sarah thought to herself, still immensely grateful for The Hand in Hand and the impact it had had on her life. Five years ago a younger, stupider Sarah had followed a man following a job, all the way to London. That man had promptly started ‘following’ his blonde, size-zero PA (gah!) leaving Sarah heartbroken, with the entire rent on their ‘dream’ central-SW19 flat for good measure. Three months later, with her carefully arranged payment plan about to fall down around her ears, Sarah had ducked into the newly opened pub on her walk home from the office, ostensibly to get out of the rain, but she knew from the off that she was about to spend her carefully budgeted few quid for that night’s dinner on a large glass of something more emotionally substantial.
It had been relatively early and the place had been pretty quiet, so the nice guy behind the bar had chatted with her a bit, insisting that he didn’t want to leave a dribble in the already-open bottle, thus pouring her the largest glass of wine she’d ever seen. But it was more the offered ear that had got her talking – all her friends were back on the Welsh coast and she was embarrassingly lonely in those days – and way before the glass was even empty the poor guy had had to suffer through hearing in great detail all about the collapse of her relationship and the wince-worthy state of her finances.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah had sighed, as she drained the glass and fumbled awkwardly for her handbag. ‘I don’t mean to bang on and take up your entire night. You must be busy.’
The guy behind the bar had just grinned at her and scratched his chin through his beard – the neater side of hipster – and said the words that would change Sarah’s life.
‘It will start getting busy in here round about now, yeah. You know, I’ve been thinking. Sorry, what’s your name?’
‘Sarah.’
‘Sarah. I’m Barlow. Sarah, I don’t suppose you know how to pour a fair pint, do you?’
And that was that. Sarah started at The Hand in Hand straight away; she stayed to have her training that very evening: four nights a week after she had finished at the office, plus as many hours as she could physically hack each weekend. With the decent hourly wage, plus tips, she managed to clear the bulk of the rental arrears within a few months and Barlow even helped her source a flatmate. In the end she kept on the Saturday shift at The Hand in Hand just because she loved it, and because Barlow had become a friend. And then, one night, about eighteen months after she’d started working at the pub, Barlow had decided that the break in her heart had healed enough, and arranged that fateful double date.
Sarah studied her husband of about a year now. Cole was built like a swimmer – unfairly, as he did no swimming – cultivated a devil-may-care sort of artful stubble, and although his hairline had started to recede as he approached thirty, the dramatic widow’s peak actually quite worked for him. He’d been dark where her ex had been fair, generous where her ex had been stingy and so flirtatious Sarah worried the blush would be burned onto her face by the end of that first date. And like a woman who didn’t learn her lesson, Sarah had fallen in love, all at once and all too quickly.
‘Cole!’ The next party guest through the doors made an immediate beeline for him; Cole stooped to wrap the petite blonde in a bear hug. Sarah swallowed a sigh. Hers was a face in far too many of the pictures on the photo wall.
‘Hello, Clairey. You look gorgeous. What are you drinking?’ Cole gestured behind him to where the drinks were lined up waiting. It was a serve-yourself bottle bar – Barlow didn’t want to be stuck behind the taps all night at one of his best friend’s engagement party.
Claire dramatically nudged Cole with her shoulder and rolled her eyes. ‘White wine, obviously!’
‘Obviously,’ Cole grinned back, moving to open the first bottle of wine of the evening. ‘Sarah, come say hi to Claire,’ he called as he worked the corkscrew. Sarah smiled on cue, but even she felt how thin it was on her face. Claire didn’t even bother with that; her lips just pressed together like she was trying to stop herself from saying something she shouldn’t. Sarah wearily filled in the blanks herself: Randomer; Chav from the Valleys; Interloper. Blah, blah.
‘Of course,’ Sarah managed. ‘Hi, Claire, how have you been?’
Cleo read Claire from across the room and knew she should probably head over and rescue poor Sarah, but she was trapped – quite literally, cornered – by Eileen and one of the twins (even after over a decade of knowing the Dervan family, she still couldn’t quite tell the identical girls apart).
‘But she must have an idea,’ wailed the twin. ‘A shortlist?’
‘Well, I don’t know, I don’t know, but there are only a very few acceptable colours for a winter wedding,’ sniffed Eileen. ‘And she could never pick red. It would be ghastly. Just ghastly.’
‘Do you have the Pinterest app on your phone?’ The twin asked suddenly, setting a beady eye on Cleo’s clutch bag. ‘Can I just have a look at the sort of things she’s pinning?’
Cleo clutched said clutch bag a little tighter. ‘Sorry, it’s a secret board. You should ask your sister. She’s really not done much, er, pinning yet anyway. Honestly. We’ll all try on some bridesmaids’ dresses when we go into the shops for her wedding dress, apparently, and we’ll go from there.’
‘A nice sage green,’ Eileen continued, mostly to herself. ‘Or champagne. And definitely sleeves. Or those nice fringed pashminas, Alanna, you know the ones. They sell them down that market on the Kilburn High Road, I’ve seen them.’
Cleo, paling at the thought of wearing fringed-anything, desperately tried to change the subject. ‘Are your other children coming tonight?’
Eileen looked at her calmly, but a bit like she was simple. ‘Cillian will be along later, with that fancy piece he had at Christmas.’ Cleo could only make the assumption that Eileen was referring to her son’s new girlfriend, who she’d actually met and thought was thoroughly nice and acceptably un-fancy. ‘But no young child of mine will be setting foot in a public house. Finola has the babysitter in.’
Cleo supressed a sigh on behalf of the no-doubt frustrated fifteen-going-on-twenty-five-year-old Fin. It had been hard enough for the others, but Fin was Eileen’s baby – an identity she would probably never be able to shed.
‘Mrs Dervan,’ Barlow arrived to save the day. ‘Can I get you a drink? I’ve got that sherry in that you like.’
Eileen flushed prettily and even patted at her hairspray-armoured bob; she adored Barlow, mostly because he insisted on calling her Mrs Dervan, no matter how many times she insisted in turn that he call her Eileen. And because he always remembered to get that sherry in.
‘Oh, well, I think I will. It’s a celebration, isn’t it? But a small one, now, a small one,’ she smiled, knowing as well as Barlow did that this was their code that he should pour the sherries large and often until she went home. Cleo took the opportunity to slip away, feigning the need for an urgent conversation with Daisy.
Daisy,