Sunshine on a Rainy Day: A funny, feel-good romantic comedy. Bryony Fraser
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until our driver finally turned up again. I dragged Jack into the car, and we sat back with a sigh, his arm around my shoulders, and we stayed in comfortable, quiet stillness until we reached our reception venue twenty minutes later. Al didn’t attempt small talk either, just turned up the heaters in the back a little more.
As we pulled up the drive to our hired manor house, the first arrivals of our wedding party, Jack stroked my handbag with one finger. ‘This looks fancy, Zo.’
‘Gift from Mum and Dad last night. More Mum than Dad, I expect. In fact, probably more my sisters than either, but still …’
‘You’ve always wanted one of those.’ I shrugged, smiling, and Jack went on, ‘And if everything else goes wrong in life, at least we know we can flog this and live like kings.’
I clutched it to my chest. ‘You wouldn’t …’
‘Of course I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t dare, my dearest.’ He picked it up, and looked at it more closely. ‘It doesn’t matter how expensive it was – you deserve something this gorgeous.’
Jack pulled me in for another kiss and I wondered if we could tell Al to go back down the drive. No one’s seen us. We could still escape, just me and Jack. Then I remembered Dad’s words this morning – sometimes you just have to do what you think is right – and swallowed the feeling down.
‘Looks great, doesn’t it?’ I said, in an attempt to distract myself from the thoughts running through my head, as the car stopped at the manor house. The marquee beside it, spread out over the small lawns and laid with hard flooring for the dancing later, was swagged with winter wreaths; huge thermal jugs of hot mulled wine waited for our guests under a smaller, flower-laden gazebo near the main entrance to the manor house. I could see through the doors that the photobooth was set up in the entrance hall; the unseasonal ice cream van played its chimes softly by the outdoor heaters, accompanied by the gentle pop pop of the vintage popcorn stand in the marquee. I could hear our pianist already playing soft jazz inside the manor house, so the guests could hear her while they milled about with canapés and cocktails. It was a perfect wedding, copied dutifully from the wedding magazines and Pinterest boards everyone had sent me. Hadn’t I done it right?
Jack got out of the car and held the door open for me, then suddenly swooped me up in his arms and half ran with me towards the hot wine.
‘Quick! First toast. While everyone else is tagging along behind in the bus.’ He held out a glass to me before taking one for himself. A passing waitress smiled at us both – the happy couple. ‘It’s going to get busy any minute, and we’re probably not going to be able to talk until tomorrow. But I just wanted to say how amazing you look, how amazing this is, and how amazed I am that you’re now my wife.’
‘Don’t blow your whole speech.’
‘I mean it, Zoe. Sometimes I didn’t … I didn’t always know how we were going to end up, even though I always knew I wanted to be with you. And to look at us today, to look at all this …’ He was welling up.
I chinked my glass against his. ‘Happy wedding day.’
He smiled, and replied, ‘Happy wedding day, wife.’
I drank my wine in one gulp, burning my throat.
The rest of the reception was a blur. I noticed that Liz, my maid of honour, was there without her boyfriend. She hadn’t said that Adam couldn’t come, but she didn’t mention his notable absence, so neither did I, sensing it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss. Instead she cooed over my bag, gasping as I explained that Mum and Dad had insisted the bride should have a special gift on her wedding day. Esther, my responsible, married eldest sister, who had our dad’s smaller stature and our mum’s gentle stubbornness, had been clapping her hands with glee when Dad handed me the box last night, having received a Céline bag (also second hand) when she’d got married four years ago – it had swiftly become her nappy bag when William was born a year later. Ava, taller and quieter, the next eldest, looked on with peaceful, happy excitement, while Kat, the youngest of us four by four years, bold and foot-stamping ever since Mum and Dad brought her home from the hospital, had stood with folded arms and bright purple pursed lips while I’d lifted the layers of tissue paper to find an old, impossibly soft, black Chanel 2.55 handbag.
‘Now, it’s not brand new,’ Dad had said, apologetically.
We’d all laughed. ‘Dad! It’s beautiful. Thanks, Mum. Thanks, Dad.’
I hadn’t expected it. My wedding to Jack seemed so different, somehow, to Esther and Ethan’s, that I’d had no idea I’d get any kind of present. Their wedding had been all any of us had talked about for months – a happy event which had been a given since they’d got together – but ours just seemed to have arrived, surprising even me. I didn’t think anyone would take it as seriously, somehow. And yet this bag! I’d slept with it on my bedside table, intending it to be the first thing I saw when I woke up that day, but in the end that honour had fallen to the breakfast tray Mum had brought up to me, with her coral necklace from her own wedding day on the side plate next to the boiled egg.
The wedding party bubbled on: speeches and toasts to us and to absent loved ones, tears, food and dancing, hugs and good wishes from some of Jack’s employees at Henderson’s, his shoe shop. All the while I was aware of Dad watching us, and Liz too, each wearing concerned faces when they thought no one was looking. My sisters were too busy to notice; flirting with the bar staff, even Esther, the Sensible One, hugging her toddler to one hip and ogling one of the hot barmen.
Mum hugged me whenever she walked past, kissing me and saying how wonderful this whole day was, how perfect, how sorry she was that Grandma wasn’t alive to see it, but how much she would have loved it all – loved both me and Jack. Then she’d start to cry again, leaving Dad to come and steer her away and I would look at whoever I was with and laugh, loving my mum’s easy emotions.
At one point I looked over to see Benni, my boss, on the dancefloor with Iffy, making wild jigging circles and calling out, ‘Chidinma! Philip! Get on here!’ as she tried to lure my parents into dancing too; Benni’s wife Gina sat with Liz, watching them all and laughing fondly, enjoying a night off from her and Benni’s twin boys. Later on, Benni and Iffy took the mic from the DJ to croon ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ at Jack and me. We joined in, far from embarrassed at their drunken serenade – it didn’t seem too different to an average night out for us. Liz was unusually quiet without her plus one; she’d not mentioned anything to me recently about problems between them, but maybe she’d thought the run up to today wasn’t the time. I wanted to return the countless favours of support and tact she’d given me over the recent months, but it felt like it would have to wait.
Jack and I met occasionally throughout the rest of the reception party. We hadn’t wanted a first dance, so we mostly all danced together in a big group with our friends. I saw him at the bar; he kissed me while I was talking to his aunt. Then suddenly it was midnight, and our carriage awaited. I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave the moment of this party, didn’t want to leave my sisters and our friends. I didn’t want this party to be over, to face what days and months and years came next. I loved Jack, but I didn’t want to start married life.
A cheering crowd lifted us both up and carried us to our wedding car, driver Al looking more hangdog than ever, his vintage Triumph covered in foam and balloons. Whistles, hollers and cheers followed us back up the drive.
‘I’m sorry about your car,’ I shouted forwards to him. ‘About the foam and stuff.’
He waved his hand over his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, love, it’s all covered by the costs. Cleaning’s part of the package – it happens every time.’
Jack gave me a look.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’ He sighed. And I’d done everything I could to act the happy bride today. ‘Did you have a good time, Zo?’
I smiled at him. ‘When do I not have a good time at a party?’