All She Ever Wished For. Claudia Carroll
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making the icing for my wedding cake.
‘Where did you disappear off to? You’re supposed to be here helping your dad and me,’ she says crossly when she sees me coming into the kitchen. Bear in mind this is a woman who’s got about two hundred pounds of lamb cutlets in the deep freeze. You don’t mess with a woman with two hundred pounds of anything in the deep freeze.
‘Yeah, I know,’ I say in a wobbly voice I barely recognise as my own, ‘but the thing is, Mum, something a bit, well, unexpected has just come up—’
‘You’re as bad as that oaf out the back garden. Now grab an apron and start making yourself useful. You can drain the rum marinade off the sultanas and dump them into the mixture. Barring your father hasn’t already drunk the rum himself, that is. Which, to be honest with you, I wouldn’t put past him.’
‘Mum, you’re not listening to me—’
‘Jesus, Tess, you’re worse than useless! What was the point in you taking time off work to help if all you’re going to do is stand there and let me do everything? May I remind you, madam, that getting married at home was all your bright idea?’ Then turning back to her Magimix, she mutters darkly, ‘getting married to Bernard in the first place was all your bright idea too, let’s not forget.’
Now normally that last sentence would automatically trigger The Conversation. The same bloody conversation I’ve been having with just about everyone ever since Bernard and I first got engaged. But under the circumstances I let it slide and instead just shove the letter under Mum’s nose, then wait the approximate two-second delay while she processes it.
But there’s silence. A long, bowel-withering silence.
‘Well, this has to be a joke,’ she eventually says, all the blood suddenly draining from her face. ‘Maybe something Monica and Stella would do to get a rise out of you before the hen night?’
Monica and Stella are my two best pals and although they both love a good giggle as much as we all do, there’s no way in hell they’d ever contemplate doing something this cruel.
‘It’s not a joke. This isn’t the girls messing. Look at the headed notepaper. This is legit. Believe me, it’s about as legit as it gets.’
It says a lot about just how serious this is that Mum abandons her Magimix and slumps down wearily at the kitchen table, unable to say much else.
She doesn’t need to though.
The crumpled look on her face tells me everything I need to know.
Your Daily Dish.ie
October 2014
TROUBLE IN PARADISE?
Here at Your Daily Dish we’re receiving troubling reports from the Castletown House residence regarding billionaire Globtech founder Damien King and his well-known socialite wife, Kate.
The Gardai have said that following a ‘complaint of a most serious nature’, a court order was issued to Mrs Kate King at the property earlier today. A source close to Mrs King says that the order is in relation to a valuable painting, an end-period Rembrandt known as A Lady of Letters, which we’re told, is ‘a source of contention between Damien and Kate King at the present time’.
The painting is said to have been valued at upwards of €95 million. The Kings are well known to have a notable art collection, the jewel in the crown being A Lady of Letters. Sources tell us that Mrs King ‘is cooperating with the police in any way she can’. It’s not yet known if charges are to follow or not.
This of course has our heads spinning at Your Daily Dish. Can our favourite celebrity couple really be warring over a painting? To such an extent that a court order was issued?
Rumours have been rife for some time now that the couple have been living apart and are on the brink of separation. This troubling report would appear to confirm it.
Remember, you read it here first, on Your Daily Dish.
The present
‘The main thing is not to panic,’ says Bernard, my hubby-to-be, when I call to fill him in on what’s just happened, my imminent heart attack, etc.
‘Try not to panic?’ I say, doing the exact polar opposite. ‘Bernard, I’ve just been summoned for jury service, bloody jury service and you’re telling me not to panic?’
I consult the now half-scrunched letter in my hand for about the thousandth time today. ‘Here it is in cold, hard print. I’ve got to be at the Criminal Courts of Justice at 9 a.m. this coming Monday morning. So forgive me for panicking when this lands on me less than a month and counting before D-Day! Do you realise how much there’s still left to do?’
It’s a rhetorical question; of course Bernard hasn’t the first clue what’s left to do. After all, he’s a forty-three-year-old heterosexual male. What the hell does he know about weddingy floral centrepieces or alternate menu choices for coeliac lacto-ovo vegetarians?
‘Now I strongly suggest you stay calm dearest,’ Bernard says patiently. ‘All this panic is getting you nowhere. A nice cup of tea, that’ll soon set you to rights.’
Bernard, it has to be said, thinks that there’s no drama in this life that can’t be instantly righted with a cup of Clipper gold blend.
‘The thing you have to understand,’ I sigh, regrouping and trying my best to keep cool, ‘is that with a wedding like this, there’s a whole clatter of stuff that you can only leave till these last, precious few weeks. So there’s no way in hell I can handle something as huge as jury service right now. Besides, I’ve got my family and pals all roped into helping me out before the big day, how could I possibly just skive off to court and leave them to do all the heavy lifting for me?’
‘Well, I’m sure they’d be most understanding, under the circumstances—’
‘No, I can’t do it, Bernard, it just isn’t right. I won’t do it to my friends and I certainly wouldn’t put my family through that. I need to be here working around the clock along with everyone else, that’s all there is to it. After all, we’re talking our dream wedding here.’
‘I suggest you just try to put this whole thing into perspective,’ he says calmly. ‘Remember, it’s nothing personal. Being summoned for jury service can happen to any of us, at any time.’
‘I know, but I’ve got my whole life ahead of me to deal with stuff like this! Why does it have to be right now? Landing on me out of a clear blue sky?’
‘Such a pity you don’t live in the UK,’ Bernard muses calmly. ‘Because over there, you know, you’re allowed to turn down jury service twice and only on the third time are you obliged to serve.’
‘But, sweetheart, I don’t live in the UK. It’s totally different here; if you’re summoned, you’ve got to turn up, simple as that. And you know the nightmare I had at work trying to get time off – I can’t have all that precious time eaten into with this crapology.’
‘Now there’s absolutely no need for neologism,’ he chides gently, and it’s all I can do to bite my tongue and ask him to stop using words I don’t understand. ‘The critical thing is to remember that this is how our judicial system works. That’s how our democracy works.’
‘I