Mhairi McFarlane - Who’s That Girl? - A laugh-out-loud sparky romcom!

The Old Swan in Harrogate was not, as the name suggested, modern. It had the exciting association of being the place Agatha Christie disappeared to during her ‘missing days’ in the 1920s, even though there was probably nothing exciting about being in a confused fugue state.

Edie loved it here. She wouldn’t mind absconding from her life into one of its rooms with four-poster canopied beds. Everything about The Swan was comforting. The ivy-clad frontage, the solid square portico entrance, the way it smelled like cooked breakfasts and plushy comfort.

It had been a blistering high summer day – Haven’t they been lucky with the weather becoming the go-to banal conversation opener – and the French doors in the bar opened on to the honey-lit rolling gardens. Children in shiny waistcoats were zooming around playing aeroplanes, high on Coca Cola and the novelty of being up this late.

Nevertheless, this was, for none of the reasons Louis described, the worst wedding Edie had ever been to.

Giving her order at the bar, she found herself next to a group of women in their seventies and possibly eighties, dressed as flappers. Edie guessed they were here for a Murder Mystery weekend; she’d seen a coach from Scarborough pull up earlier.

There was a ‘suspect’ with no legs, sitting in a wheelchair. She was wearing a feather headband, long knotted beads and draped in a white feather boa. She was sipping a mini bottle of Prosecco through a straw. Edie wanted to give her a cuddle, and/or cheer.

‘Don’t you look lovely,’ one of the group said to Edie, and Edie smiled and said, ‘Thank you! You do too.’

‘You remind me of someone. Norma! Who does this lovely young lady look like?’

Edie did the fixed embarrassed smile of someone who was being closely inspected by a gaggle of tipsy senior citizens.

‘Clara Bow!’ one exclaimed.

‘That’s it!’ they chorused. ‘Ahh. Clara Bow.’

It wasn’t the first time Edie had been given a compliment like this. Her dad said she had ‘an old-fashioned face.’ ‘You look like you should be in a cloche hat and gloves at a train station, in a talkie film,’ he always said. ‘Which is appropriate.’

(Edie didn’t think she talked that much, it was more that her father and sister were quieter.)

She had shoulder-length, inky hair and thick dark brows. Their geometry had to be aggressively maintained with threading, so they stayed something more starlet than beetling. They sat above large soulful eyes, in a heart-shaped face with small mouth.

A cruel yet articulate boy at a house party told her she looked like ‘A Victorian doll reanimated by the occult.’ She told herself it was because she was going through her teenage Goth phase but she knew it was still applicable now, if she hadn’t had enough sleep and caught herself glowering.

Louis once said, as if he wasn’t talking about her when they both knew he was: ‘Baby faces don’t age well, which is why it’s a tragedy it was Lennon shot instead of McCartney.’

‘Are you here with your husband?’ another woman asked, as Edie picked up her white wine and V&T.

‘No, no husband. Single,’ Edie said, to lots more staring and curious delighted ooohs.

‘Plenty of time for that. Having your fun first, eh?’ said another of the flappers, and Edie smiled and nearly said, ‘I’m thirty-five and having very little fun,’ and thought better of it and said ‘Yes, haha!’ instead.

‘Are you from Yorkshire?’ another asked.

‘No. I live in London. The bride’s family are from—’

Louis emerged from the restaurant, gesturing for her to join him with an urgent circling motion of the hand, hissing:

‘ Edie! ’

‘Edie! What a beautiful name!’ the women chorused, looking upon her with renewed adoration. Edie was touched and slightly baffled by her sudden celebrity status. That was Prosecco drunk through a straw for you.

‘Are you this young lady’s gentleman?’ they asked Louis, as he joined them.

‘No, darlings, I like cock,’ he said, taking his drink from Edie while she cringed.

‘He likes who?’ said one of the women. ‘Who’s “Cock”?’

‘No. Cock.’ Louis made a flexing bicep gesture that Edie didn’t think made it much clearer.

‘Oh, he likes men , Norma. He’s a Jolly Roger,’ said one, casually.

Attention shifted to Louis, the not-that-jolly Roger.

‘I prefer a game of Bananagrams and a hot bath, these days,’ another offered. ‘Barbara still likes a bit of cock, well enough.’

‘Which one of you did it, then?’ Louis said, eyeing their costumes. ‘Who’s the prime suspect?’

‘There’s not been a crime yet,’ one said. ‘Rumour has it there’s going to be a body found on the third floor.’

‘Well you can probably rule her out then,’ Louis said, tapping his nose, gesturing at the woman in the wheelchair.

‘ Louis! ’ Edie gasped.

Fortunately, it caused a cackle eruption.

‘Sheila used to dig her corns out with safety pins. You don’t mess with Sheila.’

‘Looks like she overdid it.’

Edie gasped again and the old ladies fell about, howling. She couldn’t believe it: Louis had found his audience.

‘Great meeting you, girls,’ Louis said, and they almost applauded him. Edie was forgotten; chopped liver.

‘Come back to the table. It’s all kicking off big style in the main tent,’ Louis said to her. ‘The speeches are starting.’

With a heavy heart, Edie excused herself. The moment she dreaded.

An Audience With The Hashtag Perfect Couple, Living Their Hashtag Best Life.

‘Was that free?’ barked the sixty-something man with the hearing aid, dressed as a posh country squire, eyes fixed on the glass in Edie’s hand. Edie and Louis had been put on the odds and sods, ‘hard work, nothing in common’ table. The others had immediately abandoned the hard work and scattered, in the longueur between meal and disco. This sod remained, with his timid-looking, equally tweedy wife.

‘Er, no? I can get you something if you like?’

‘No, don’t bother. You come to these bloody interminable things and they fleece you like sheep. As if the gift list wasn’t brass neck enough. Four hundred pounds for some bloody ugly blue cake whisk, the silly clots. Oh hush, Deirdre, you know I’m right.’

Edie plopped down in her banqueting chair and tried not to laugh, because she thought the KitchenAid was a rinse, too.

She swigged the acidic white wine and thanked the Lord for the gift of alcohol to get through this. The top table passed the microphone down the line to the groom, Jack. He tapped his glass with a fork and coughed into a curled fist. His sleeve was tugged by his new mother-in-law. He put a palm up to indicate, ‘Sorry, in a second, folks.’

‘What’s this crackpot notion of wearing brown shoes with a blue suit and a pink tie, nowadays?’ said hearing aid man, of the groom’s attire. ‘Anyone would think this was a lavender liaison.’

Edie thought Jack’s tall, narrow frame in head-to-toe spring-summer Paul Smith looked pretty great but she wasn’t about to defend him.

‘What’s a lavender liaison?’ Louis said.

‘A marriage of convenience, to conceal one’s true nature. When one’s interests lie elsewhere .’

‘Oh, I see. We’re having one of those,’ he grinned, clasping Edie to him.

‘Forgive me if I don’t scrabble for my inhaler in shock,’ he said, looking at Louis’s quiffed hair. ‘I had you down as someone who likes to smell the flowers. ’