Nicola Marsh: A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge / Three Times A Bridesmaid…

She didn’t deny it. She was twenty-five. Young in years to be a partner in an events company but as old as the hills in other ways. And if her clothes, the purple streaks in her lion’s mane hair, were not conventional, they were as much a part of her image as Sylvie’s classic suits and pearls.

‘Sylvie was nineteen when she launched SDS Events,’ she reminded Marji. Alone, with no money, nowhere to live. All she’d known was how to throw a damn good party.

Despite their very different backgrounds, they’d had that nothingness in common and Sylvie had given her a chance when most people would have taken one look and taken a step back. Two steps if they’d known what Sylvie knew about her.

But they had worked well together. Sylvie had wooed clients with her aristocratic background, her elegance, while she was the tough working class girl who knew how to get things done on the ground. An asset who could cope with difficult locations, drunken guests—and staff; capable of stopping a potential fight with a look. And in the process she’d absorbed Sylvie’s sense of style almost by osmosis. On the outside she might still look like the girl Sylvie had, against all the odds, given a chance. But she’d grabbed that opportunity with all her heart, studied design, business, marketing, and on the inside she was a different woman.

‘And if I changed my appearance no one would recognise me,’ she added, and earned herself another of those patronising little laughs.

‘Well, yes.’ Then, ‘Of course there’s no design involved in this job. All that was done weeks ago and at this late stage…’

In other words it was a skivvy job and no one with a ‘name’ was prepared to take it on. The wretched woman couldn’t have tried any harder to make her feel like the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel and Josie had to fight the urge to tell her to take her wedding and stick it.

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she took a deep breath; she still had quite a way to go to attain Sylvie’s style and grace, but this was too important to mess up.

With this wedding under her belt—even in the skivvy role—she could paint herself purple to match her hair and clients would still be scrambling to book her to plan their weddings.

Not as a stand-in for Sylvie, but for herself.

But she’d had enough with the I-really-wish-I-didn’t-have-to-do-this delaying tactics.

‘Can we get on, Marji? I have a client appointment in ten minutes,’ she said and Emma, her newly appointed assistant, who was busy filling in details on one of the event plans that lined the walls of her small office, glanced up in surprise, as well she might since her diary was empty.

‘Of course.’ Then, ‘I’m sure I don’t have to impress upon you the need for the utmost confidentiality,’ she said, making it absolutely clear in her lemon-sucking voice that she did.

Not true.

Josie had seen the build-up to the wedding of Tal Newman, one of the world’s most highly paid footballers, to Crystal Blaize. The ferocious bidding war against all-comers had cost Celebrity a fortune—money that the couple were using to set up a charitable trust—and the magazine was milking it for all it was worth. Hyping up the secrecy of the location was all part of that. It also helped keep rival publications from planting someone on the inside to deliver the skinny on who behaved badly and grab illicit photos so that they could run spoilers.

If she let slip the location, SDS might as well shut up shop.

‘My lips are sealed,’ she said. ‘I’m not even sure where Botswana is,’ she lied. According to the screen in front of her, it was a ‘tranquil’ and ‘peaceful’ landlocked country in southern Africa.

Marji clucked at her ignorance. ‘It’s a very now destination, Josie.’

‘Is it? That information seems to have passed me by.’ But then she didn’t spend her life obsessing over the latest fads of celebrities.

‘And Crystal is such an animal-lover.’

Animals? In Africa?

‘So that would be…Elephants? Lions?’ No, smaller…‘Monkeys?’

‘All of those, of course. But the real stars will be the leopards.’

Even with his underdeveloped human sense of smell, Gideon McGrath knew Leopard Tree Lodge was close long before the four-by-four pulled into the compound. There was a sweet, fresh green scent from the grass that reached out across the sparse bush that drew the animals from across the Kalahari, especially now as they neared the end of the dry season.

Once his pace had quickened too, his heart beating with excitement as he came to the riverbank that he had claimed as his own.

The driver who’d picked him up from the airstrip pulled into the shaded yard and he sat for a moment, gathering himself for the effort of moving.

‘ Dumela, Rra! It is good to see you!’

‘Francis!’

He clasped the hand of the man who emerged from the shadows to greet him with a broad smile of welcome.

‘It has been a very long time, Rra, but we always hoped you’d come…’ His smile quickly became concern. ‘You are hurt?’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, catching his breath as he climbed down. ‘I’m a bit stiff, that’s all. Too many days travelling. How is your family?’ he asked, not wanting to think about the tight, agonising pain in his lower back. Or its cause.

‘They are good. If you have time, they will be pleased to see you.’

‘I have some books for your children,’ Gideon said, turning to take his bag from the back seat. He spent half his life on the move and travelled light but, as he tried to lift it, it felt like lead.

‘Leopards?’ Josie repeated. ‘Aren’t they incredibly dangerous?’

‘Oh, these are just cubs. A local man has raised a couple of orphans and he’s bringing them along on the day. All you’ll have to do is tie ribbons around their necks.’

‘Oh, well, that’s all right then.’ Maybe. She had a cat and even when Cleo was a kitten her claws were needle-sharp…

‘The wedding is going to be held at Leopard Tree Lodge, you see?’ Marji told her. ‘It’s a fabulous game-viewing lodge. Utter luxury in the wilderness. To be honest, I totally envy you the opportunity to spend time there.’

‘Well, golly,’ she said, as if she, too, couldn’t believe her luck.

‘You won’t even have to leave your private deck to view the big game. None of that racketing about in a four-wheel drive getting covered in dust. You can simply sit in your own private plunge pool and watch elephants cavorting below you in an oxbow lake while you sip a glass of chilled bubbly.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Josie replied wryly, recognising a quote from a tourist brochure when she heard one. Marji might believe that she was offering her a luxury, all expenses paid holiday; she knew that once on site she wouldn’t have a minute to spare to draw breath, let alone dally in a plunge pool admiring the view.

Relaxation in the run-up to a wedding was the sole privilege of the bride and good luck to her. Although, with half a dozen issues of Celebrity to fill with pictures, even she wasn’t going to have a lot of down time before, or during, the big day.

For the person charged with the responsibility of ensuring that everything ran smoothly it was going to be a very hard day at the office, although in this instance it wouldn’t be her own calm, ordered space, where everything she needed was no more than a phone call away.

As she knew from experience, even the best organised weddings had the potential for last minute disasters and in the wilds of Botswana there would be none of the backup services she was usually able to call on in an emergency.

And it would take more than a look to stop a leopard disturbing the party. Even a baby leopard.