Jenny Colgan - Do You Remember the First Time?

‘Flo! Ol!’

Tash had that massive, slightly manic grin people get when they’ve been welcoming people for hours. She looked splendid, as well she should, given the draconian diet she’d been on for the past six months ‘so my bingo wings don’t flap all through the service’.

I gave her a huge hug.

‘Elle Macpherson or Martine McCutcheon?’ she asked, turning round 360 degrees.

‘What, are you kidding? Kate Moss,’ I declared.

She beamed even wider. ‘Excellent.’

We’d been spending quite a lot of time, in the last few months, going through celebrity magazines and slagging off people getting married. We particularly liked those who go rather – ahem – over the top, like Posh Spice and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Max thought we were being incredibly childish. Oliver didn’t know about it, in case he thought I was trying to give him hints, which I wasn’t, in a way, although I was also getting to the point where I thought it might be a bit embarrassing if he didn’t ask, which I know isn’t very romantic.

Tashy is small, occasionally a bit chunky, but thanks to the no-fat, no-bread, no-booze, crying-oneself-to-sleep-with-hunger-pains regime she’s been on lately, there was not a pick on her. Her hair was currently extremely glossy and straight, though was, once upon a time, very wild and curly, and her sparkly green eyes betray her past when she went through a career a week and was constantly getting into scrapes. Now she’d settled into being a software designer, which sounded more glamorous than it was (and doesn’t sound very glamorous at all, really), and was marrying Max, who also worked in computers and who was tall, bald, and very, very dull, but a much better bet, on the whole, I suppose, than the good-looking unruly-haired rogues Tashy had spent most of her twenties waiting to call her, then get off with somebody else. And her boho look had gone too. Feather earrings and deep plum clothes had given way to a slightly more appropriate look for a nice middle-class North London girl. In fact, Good God, was she wearing Boden?

She grabbed me by the arm. ‘Come on! Come on! They can’t mix a Martini, but I’m getting married so we’re starting on the champagne we towed back from France.’

‘Yes, but you’re getting married tomorrow. Isn’t not having a full-on death hangover meant to be part of the whole big idea?’

‘Oh, sod that. One, I’m not going to get any sleep anyway, and two, someone’s coming in with that full body foundation spray thing Sarah Jessica Parker uses. Believe me, you won’t be able to tell if I’m alive or dead underneath it. You won’t believe the work that goes into making all us haggard over-thirties brides look like freshly awakened virginal teenagers.’

‘You want me to take the bags up then?’ said Olly, standing grumpy in the chintzy hall, which was filled with copper kettles and random suits of armour.

‘Well, do you mind?’ I said guiltily.

‘Then what am I supposed to do whilst you two go off and cackle like witches for three hours?’

I stared at him. I looked into his big likeable face. Why was everything he said tonight really irritating me?

‘Can’t you go and talk to Max?’

Olly dislikes Max in the way that you’re always a little chippy about people in whom you recognise a bit of yourself. Plus, he loves Tash to bits and has always been overprotective, vetting anyone she goes out with.

‘Is that Ol?’ came Max’s loud voice from the bar. ‘Thought I recognised that clapped-out XR5.’

‘I’ve got some work to catch up on,’ said Ol. He yawned ostentatiously, winked and headed upstairs.

‘Don’t work too …’ my voice petered out.

I heard the general sound of merriment through the big oak doors that led to the original ye olde trusty inne section, and sighed.

‘Can we not go to the bar?’

‘I think if there was ever a good minibar-emptying excuse it’s tonight,’ said Tash.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Yes, because we usually require a parental consent form.’

‘How’s the lovely Ol then?’ she asked as we quietly crept upstairs to avoid the revellers. ‘Getting in a romantic mood?’

I think it’s a bit insensitive to ask after someone else’s love life when you have a big white dress hanging on the back of your door.

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I think we must have one of those relationships where you bicker a lot to show you care.’

‘Is that true?’

‘Yes. People who are too affectionate are overcompensating,’ I said blithely. ‘Apparently.’

‘OK,’ said Tash.

‘I took a test in a magazine.’

‘OK!’

I bounced on the bed in her honeymoon suite. ‘Well? Are you excited then?’

‘Do I look excited?’

‘Not as much as I’d expected, actually.’

She threw herself dramatically on the bedspread to join me, widening her eyes. ‘Oh, Flo, I just can’t believe it … you know. It’s the dreamiest thing that’s ever happened! I’m the luckiest girl in the whole wide world.’

‘Oh, shut up. You know what I mean, though. You must be a bit nervous, or something.’

‘I am. I really am. It’s just, what’s as exciting as it’s cracked up to be? Nothing.’

‘Getting into our first nightclub?’

‘Yeah, we were twelve.’

‘It was very exciting.’

She grinned. ‘Still. It is quite cool.’

‘You’re actually doing it!’

‘I know!’

‘That’s better.’

I rolled over onto my stomach. ‘So is it not going to be what we always thought it was going to be?’

Tashy stuck her lip out a little as we remembered the many hours we’d spent sprawled over her bed (I always liked going to hers; her slightly sluttish mother let us eat in front of the TV) in pretty much the same positions, discussing how it would be.

‘Well, I suppose I’ve had sex already …’

‘You haven’t! You filthy bitch!’

‘So that’s out of the way. And, also, he’s not royal and there aren’t six million people lining The Mall with flags to cheer us on our way.’

We were quiet for a moment, and I jumped off the bed and ceremoniously declared the minibar open. It even had Baileys in it. Ooh, we used to love that. Sugary milk!

‘Hey – remember these?’

Tashy eyed one up balefully. ‘A feature of my first night of unmarried intercourse … and, possibly, my last.’

I tore them open and we toasted each other.

‘To true love,’ I said.

‘Aha-ha-ha.’

Actually, I’d meant it. I took a swig.

‘Just think – you’ll never have to make love to a man who slaps you on the rump and calls you a filly ever again!’

‘Neiighhhh!!!!’

‘Or date ANYBODY SHORT.’

Olly and Max were both very tall. These were our minimum requirements. We’d always reckoned that short men for girls were the equivalent of that horrible joke blokes tell – ‘What have fat girls and scooters got in common? They’re both fun to ride, but you wouldn’t want your mates seeing you with one.’

‘Or snog anyone for a dare.’

‘Or sympathy.’

‘Christ, yeah. Remember Norm?’

‘It was charity work,’ I replied indignantly. ‘Helping the less blessed in the world.’

Norm had been something of a mistake, something of a long time ago.

Norm had been a snuffling pig, outright winner in an ugly pig competition.

‘Anyway, why are you starting, Bridezilla? What about Pinocchio?’

Pinocchio told a lot of lies and had a very long narrow woody.

‘Pour me some more Baileys immediately,’ demanded Tashy.

‘I don’t want to give you a headache.’

‘Are you joking? We’ve booked singers from the local choral society to sing the hymns. No one’s getting out alive without a headache.’ She rolled over.