Marry Me

by Sarah Ball

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Like most girls, Abby has always dreamed of her wedding day. When she was eight she imagined she'd look like a fairy princess. At thirteen it was the perfect meringue and yards of ivory tulle, at sixteen jeans and her favourite Doc Martins. The only constant in her wedding plans has been Nathan Priestly.

Nathan was the school heartthrob and for Abby, the one that got away. Only now Nathan's about to get married to one of Abby's best friends and Abby is having to accept that over a decades' worth of unrequited love will remain just that. The better part of Abby is happy for them both. She's even volunteered to be their DJ at the reception, although her secret play-list consists of: 'Don't Marry Her', 'Temptation' and the complete works of Alanis Morissette. Is Abby destined to be always the DJ and never the bride . . . ?

Discover Piatkus Entice: temptation at your fingertips - www.piatkusentice.co.uk

Release date: November 1, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 384

Sample

I could only just glimpse Nathan in a gap between the rows of guests that lined the pews in front of me. He had his back to me, as you would expect, but I could still sense that he was nervous. His shoulders were unnaturally straight and motionless, his neck stiff and his hands looked lost as they hung empty, resting close to his thighs. An unnecessarily large pink hat bobbed into my line of vision obscuring the view altogether, probably a good job as my eyes had already been lingering on Nathan’s thighs for longer than was socially acceptable in situations such as these.

Rocking back onto my heels I closed my eyes, blocking out the chessboard of grey suits and pastel sundresses. As the minister spoke I felt as though I could have been standing in my kitchen at home, listening to a play on the radio. I wished I was. Not that I ever listened to plays – Radio One had not to my knowledge ever made a habit of broadcasting them – but you know what I mean.

I caught the minister saying, ‘But first I am required to ask if anyone here present knows a reason why these persons may not lawfully marry, to declare it now …’ and I turned to peer at the door behind me. A woman with a little girl perched on her lap frowned at me and I realised I must have looked a little too eager for the kind of eleventh hour showdown that soaps can’t resist throwing in. I turned back, blushing furiously and fixed my eyes on the parquet flooring. I could tell that Vicky was looking at me, wanting to share a conspiratorial smile, but the herringbone pattern on the floor really was fascinating.

A tune had been playing over and over in my head and it was really beginning to niggle at me, tempting me to sing it out loud. I wasn’t sure what the song was, but words were forming, teasing me. I cleared my throat and tried to concentrate on what is going on up ahead.

‘Nathan Jack Priestly, will you take Rebecca Frances Conway to be your wife?’

God, what is it? It’s on the tip of my tongue.

‘Will you love her—’

It was a woman singing.

‘—comfort her—’

Something to do with marriage and socks smelling of Brie.

‘—honour and protect her—’

I think it was the Beautiful South.

‘—and, forsaking all others—’

Of course. I remember now.

‘—be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?’

It’s ‘Don’t marry her, have me’.

‘I will.’

Oh bollocks!

Vicky looked at me quizzically and whispered, ‘Did you say something?’

I shook my head vigorously and gave her a wobbly smile. This seemed to convince her, as she bent down to whisper something to her son who was now shuffling from one foot to another, holding his crotch with one hand and tugging at his shirt collar with the other. This morning, when Vicky had told him that he would have to wear his best shirt, he perplexed us all by crying, ‘yes!’ and punching the air. It wasn’t until he returned clutching his favourite football shirt that we clicked and a scene not dissimilar to the Battle of Britain then emerged in Vicky’s living room. When Jack looked up in my direction I rolled my eyes skyward as if to say, ‘Bo-ring!’ and he giggled until Vicky nudged him then looked around to see why he was laughing. Looking forward again I saw that Nathan and Rebecca were now holding hands, gazing at one another as they said their vows. I swallowed hard as my head pounded and I fought the urge to vomit right there in the pew.

Years ago I used to dream about this moment, standing in a beautiful lofty church decorated with flowers at the end of every aisle, Nathan looking incredible and gazing at me as we repeated our vows. This was not what I had in mind at all, something had gone horribly wrong. Mind you, it had also been Rebecca’s fantasy back then too, and Vicky’s. The three of us were relentless in our pursuit of Nathan at school, and united in our appreciation. We never fell out over him or became competitive. Even Rebecca didn’t try her usual tactics to ensnare him, although in hindsight maybe she had been all along. Still, at the time we thought it was pointless to fight over him, we never really believed he would want to go out with any of us.

I first really noticed Nathan at Little Beat, a record shop that had recently opened on a back road between Clifton and Bristol city centre. He was leafing through records in the second-hand room at the back of the shop, nodding his head in time with a Cure song. I vaguely recognised him as being in the year above me at school. He was one of the boys that hung out in the computer room rather than go out into the courtyard so I didn’t know his name or much about him. I was fourteen then and he was the same height as me and, being skinnier than most of his peers, possibly the same size as me as well. He had an old grey bag slung over his shoulder that I noticed was scrawled with names of bands that read like my bedroom play-list. This boy, I decided, was a kindred spirit.

From then on I hung out at Little Beat every chance I could. I befriended the owner, Ed Little, who was only twenty-two and attractive in an inaccessibly older and cooler way. He took it upon himself to educate me on my music taste, introducing me to bands he knew instinctively that I’d like.

I didn’t often see Nathan there, and when I did he was always preoccupied, absorbed in the music, but I liked that. I found him mysterious and intense.

Vicky and Rebecca didn’t share my enthusiasm then. Vicky agreed that he was cute, but not her type, and Rebecca was more interested in the already nearly-six-foot-tall, Michael McCallister. Michael was the popular choice for girls at school, with his thick blonde flick, Don Johnson in Miami Vice dress sense and his hilarious ability to take off Rik Mayall from The Young Ones. They couldn’t see what I saw in Nathan and teased me for having unique taste in boys.

The year Nathan returned from the summer holidays ready to join the sixth form he must have grown a foot in height. His jaw had developed a sculpted masculinity and his hair was cut back enough to see that his rich hazel eyes were framed with incredibly long, dark eyelashes. Time had also caught up with him and his charity shop dress sense and army boots were no longer a reason for him to be teased. His individuality earned him respect and he was suddenly deemed fashionable, with alternative edge.

Vicky and Rebecca noticed the change in him almost immediately. We were walking arm-in-arm to school on the first day back after the summer holidays, discussing how unfair it was that the year above us were starting their A levels. They were losing compulsory PE, and instead acquiring free periods and a common room. We had heard rumours that, in the sixth form, the teachers treated you more like adults and not like the spotty plebs our maths teacher always referred to us as. We longed to feel grown up and taken seriously.

‘Nisha’s brother told me that her Humanities teacher swears in front of them all the time,’ Rebecca whispered.

Vicky looked horrified and gaped at us, making us laugh.

‘Did you know they can play music on the common room stereo?’ I asked.

‘Erm, I think you may have mentioned it once or twice,’ Vicky said sarcastically.

‘Oh God Abby, I hope you go off those dreary Smiths albums before next year, they’ll do my head in,’ Rebecca moaned, riffling through her bag for a lipstick.

We were standing at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the lights to change, when I spotted Nathan approaching us on his mountain bike. He had a personal stereo on and was obviously so involved in the music that he hadn’t noticed the road ahead. He braked hard just before he reached the curb, clipping Rebecca’s arm and knocking the lipstick out of her hand and into the road. His bike slid at a dangerous angle and he toppled off, skidding along the tarmac on his side.

‘God, are you all right?’ Vicky cried, rushing to his aid.

Rebecca and I stood watching as he got up and brushed off his black Levi’s.

‘Cheers,’ he mumbled as Vicky picked his bike up and handed it back to him. He took his ear piece out and I caught a snatch of the song he had been listening to. ‘The Boy with the Thorn in his Side’ by The Smiths. I stared at him open mouthed. I had been listening to that song whilst I had been getting ready. My eyes travelled down to his legs and I wondered if he had indeed got a thorn in his side, just to complete the coincidence. Fate, I decided, had engineered this moment. It was a sign.

We watched as he mounted his bike and, with a brief wave and a shy smile, he rode off, bunny hopping a curb.

‘Oh my God, was that really Nathan?’ Vicky whispered, looking from me to Rebecca with a twinkle in her eye.

I smiled, proudly. ‘He’s different, isn’t he? Taller, and kind of manlier.’

‘Just a bit!’ Rebecca whistled and grinned at me. ‘He’s looking good. I have to hand it to you Abby, you’re a bloody good talent spotter. Who’d have thought he’d, er, develop so well.’ She raised her eyes scandalously and I laughed, glad that they could finally see where I was coming from. Now I could talk about Nathan without them pulling faces. They would be my allies.

I wasn’t quite so thrilled later that week, when I realised every other girl in the school had also come to the same conclusion about Nathan. Rumours were rife that his talents on the bass guitar had earned him a place in the school band, Reverb, that played in the theatre room at the end of every term and was occasionally offered gigs in local pubs. When these rumours were confirmed, his popularity was sealed and his status elevated to ‘man of the moment’.

The first time Rebecca, Vicky and I went to see them play was in the Hat and Feather, a grotty pub out of town, one Thursday night. We walked into the pub laughing nervously, only to be greeted by the vacant stares of half-a-dozen locals and an enormous sheepdog that lazed under a bar stool.

A group of Reverb’s friends sat on the table opposite where the band had set up. They looked over as we walked in then turned back, sharing a private joke. The rest of the pub was empty. We stood out like sausage rolls at a bar mitzvah.

Rebecca looked the oldest so she bought each of us a bottle of Diamond White and we tried to make ourselves invisible in a corner as the band started their next number. Nathan stood at the front mike and I realised that although he wasn’t the lead singer of the band, this song was his. They started into a rendition of Velvet Underground’s ‘Pale Blue Eyes’.

Nathan’s voice wasn’t perfect; it wavered and broke, but with a soulful style which suited the song and the way Lou Reed had originally sung it. I watched him transfixed as he sang with his eyes half shut, his lips almost touching the microphone. His arms were dropped loosely and his hands were touching the microphone stand at waist height. Not grabbing it tightly, the way singers often do, but gently, his fingers only just touching the stand and moving unconsciously as he sang. It was the most sensual thing I had ever seen.

The icing on the cake for me was that being the only one of the three friends that had blue eyes, I could be lulled into thinking that the song was mine. That nobody else existed in that dingy pub and he was singing directly to me. Whatever I had felt for Nathan before paled into insignificance at that moment and I knew then and there that I loved him.

That was more than ten years ago, and the memories of his voice and the feelings it stirred in me are as clear as they have ever been. I had bought a Velvet Underground album the following day, and the song ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ was on my play-list for that night’s disco.

I stood on the lawn outside the church with Vicky and her husband Alistair, watching as the bride and groom gathered their family together in various unfathomable sequences for photographs. It seemed to be taking forever, yet the smiles on their faces were still convincingly genuine and spontaneous.

Rebecca looked incredible with her hair pinned up elegantly with delicate flowers woven into the back. Her dress reminded me of a BBC Jane Austen adaptation as it was fitted around her bust with a low scoop neck that showed off her round cleavage. From just under her chest, folds of silk fabric fell loosely in a simple empire style. Nathan was also dressed in traditional wedding attire. He wore a grey morning suit and even had a top hat, although I noticed he never wore it for long, opting, instead, to hold it in front of his trousers like a footballer waiting for a penalty kick. He tugged at his cravat and I was reminded of Vicky’s son Jack in the church, a lad at heart, not wanting to be restricted. Marriage doesn’t suit him, I thought, then immediately flushed with shame. Bitch, bitch, bitch I silently chastised, trying to drum it into my thick skull how completely out of order I was. How could I think that about my own friend’s husband? How could I look at him and wish he was mine?

I turned away and looked at Vicky and Alistair instead. They were laughing, their arms wrapped tightly around each other, enjoying the romance and excitement that was in the air. I wondered if it had been Vicky that had finally ensnared Nathan, would I have been more capable of switching off my feelings for him? I had always been closer to her. I cared a lot for Rebecca, but Vicky was different. I loved her like a sister. But although the thought upset me, I still couldn’t imagine feeling different about Nathan, no matter who he was with. After all, I had decided Nathan was the one when I was just fourteen years old. How could I just switch that off?

‘Can I have all the friends now please, no family, just friends of the bride and groom,’ the photographer announced, clapping his hands then waving them in the air, directing people over to the church entrance. I looked at Rebecca, she was grinning, gesturing for us to hurry up.

Vicky grumbled, ‘Oh God, I hate being in wedding pictures, I either get moved to the very front where everyone can see me, or I just end up with the top of my hair bobbing about in the middle somewhere.’ She was only five foot two and after having had two children she had been left feeling self-conscious about her figure.

‘You’d better hide at the back then,’ Alistair said taking her hand. ‘You don’t want to upstage the bride.’

‘Flatterer,’ Vicky said, laughing as Jack ran behind us shouting, ‘Daddy, why are you touching mummy’s bottom?’

Vicky and Alistair were so sweet together, always touching and kissing.

‘You’re very quiet Abby, are you all right?’ Alistair said, looking over at me.

I smiled at him, then looked away, pretending to be distracted by watching Jack, who ran up to the gathering ensemble and jumped about singing a Robbie William’s song, emulating his hero to a captive audience.

Vicky gave me a withering look. ‘He is just too embarrassing,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe I should have left him at home with Clarice and mum.’

‘Oh, you don’t mean that,’ I said, watching him affectionately. For a four-year-old, Jack had an amazing amount of confidence. He charmed everyone.

Clarice, Vicky’s two-year-old, was quite different. She shied away from strangers. Almost every time I saw her, she would clamp herself to Vicky’s leg like a big shin pad and not let go until she was sure I wasn’t going to do anything sudden or scary.

We joined the group of people by the church steps, trying to worm our way near the back.

‘Can the lady in the pale-blue suit and the little boy come and stand at the front?’ the photographer called out, pointing to Vicky and Jack. Vicky rolled her eyes and reluctantly trudged to the front, where a group of children had already gathered.

After a couple more rearrangements, the photographer was ready to take the picture, Rebecca and Nathan turned to each other and kissed and I sighed a little too loud.

‘OK, smile everyone!’

Alistair bent down to me and said, ‘Don’t you worry Abby, it’ll be your turn soon I’m sure.’ He gave my shoulder a consolatory squeeze just as the camera clicked.

The photographer looked up from his lens. ‘OK, let’s just try this once more, only this time can the girl at the front try not to fiddle with her skirt, it looks beautiful as it is, and the lady at the back there, the one with the suede jacket …’

I looked around me.

‘Yes, you. Try to smile this time, I want happy vibes. Think wedding ring, not boxing ring,’ he quipped, laughing at me, then looked back down through the lens of his camera.

Everyone’s a sodding comedian, I thought, blushing to the roots of my hair.

‘I can’t believe Alistair said that to you,’ Ed said, tutting and looking at me with sympathy in his eyes. This only succeeded in making me feel more embarrassed and I stared at my coke, avoiding his gaze.

I was having a drink in the hotel bar with my two friends, Ed and Harriet, before I had to start setting up the equipment for the reception disco. Ed and Harriet only knew Rebecca and Nathan through me and so had just been invited to the evening reception. They had agreed to help me set up and give me some much needed moral support in the process.

Harriet was my oldest friend. Her dad had worked with mine for a brief period in the early 70s and had hit it off immediately. They introduced their wives over dinner and a lifelong friendship begun. Harriet being older than me by about three years can remember me being brought home from the hospital, she apparently used to help my mum bath and dress me and sometimes jokes that that was when she first developed an aversion to babies. We went to different schools but remained close, and when I wasn’t with Rebecca and Vicky, then I would get together with Harriet after school and in the holidays. We would play 45-and-in, in the long grass of the meadow that Harriet’s house backed on to, until the sun went down and my parents fetched me home.

When I first befriended Ed, I had this romantic notion that he would meet Harriet and they would fall in love. Two of my most favourite people, the two people I looked up to and admired. It would be so perfect. Harriet was closer in age to Ed than I was. Ed, to me, was just the most knowledgeable, worldly person I had ever known. Maybe if I had been older I would have fallen for him myself. Perhaps in the early days I did have a mild crush on him, but it didn’t last long. He took on the role of an older brother figure, teaching me, protecting me and ruffling my hair affectionately whenever I said something daft. My crush was pointless and Nathan soon became the only person I could imagine myself with.

Of course the idea of Ed and Harriet together was also crazy and if I had been older I would have realised immediately just how unsuited they were. They were poles apart. Harriet was serious, goal orientated and smart. She knew exactly what she wanted out of life and saw no reason why she couldn’t have it. Ed was laid back and loud, with the sense of humour and the dress sense of a fashionably scruffy teenager. Occasionally he would let me see the Ed underneath, the confused and sensitive Ed who couldn’t even decide on his own sexuality, let alone his future. They were very different people, and when they met sparks flew all right, not from any romantic frisson, but instead from the verbal sparring they fell in to and have kept up ever since. I had only agreed to let them both help on the condition that they would behave, be nice, and keep the playful insults to a minimum.

The handy thing about being the wedding DJ was that it gave me the perfect excuse to get out of that afternoon’s sit down meal and speeches. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting and listening to Rebecca’s dad tell the tale of how the happy couple had first met. I knew they would all be laughing at the way we used to follow him around like faithful puppies and how Nathan’s friends used to call us the ‘fan club’. How Nathan had always dismissed us as silly kids until years after he returned from university and bumped into Rebecca at a bar, where he started chatting her up, without even recognising who she was. Everyone would expect Vicky and I to laugh along at our own foolishness, and the daft things we got up to, to try and make him notice us. Well, it was easy for Vicky to laugh along, she had forgotten Nathan as soon as she went to university and met and fell in love with Alistair. And as far as they were all concerned, I had moved on too. I’d had a string of boyfriends, my most serious being Chris, who I had been with for a year when Rebecca brought Nathan back into our lives. I couldn’t keep it together with Chris after that. Nathan was always turning up at the pub and when we all went out as a group I couldn’t help comparing the two of them. Chris’s bad points seemed to magnify themselves and he began to complain that I seemed distracted, as though I had lost interest. Eventually I let our relationship fizzle out.

‘I can’t believe Vicky hasn’t guessed how you feel about Nathan,’ Harriet said. She downed her gin and tonic and proceeded to suck the juice out of the lemon she had fished from the bottom of the glass. ‘I mean, you’ve been on edge for weeks now.’

I cringed, feeling utterly ashamed of myself. ‘I feel like I must be the most evil woman on earth. I mean, it’s the ultimate sin against feminism isn’t it? We’re supposed to stick up for each other no matter what. Our women friends should always come before men. I can’t believe you don’t hate me for this.’ I was tempted to go and order a large Bacardi to lace my coke and dull the pain in my heart, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly if I’d drunk more than one or two that night.

Ed took one of my hands and Harriet took the other. ‘We love you babes,’ Ed said affectionately.

‘Of course we do, you’re one of my only true friends and I would trust you with my life,’ Harriet agreed. ‘You know how intolerant of people I am, if I thought you weren’t trustworthy I wouldn’t be living with you, would I? You’ve got to stop beating yourself up about this. You can’t help being attracted to Nathan and it’s not as if you’ve done anything about it either. You don’t even flirt with the guy, which, let’s be honest here, is pretty damned controlled of you, you have to admit. The guy is so sexy I’d find it hard not to flirt with him myself,’ she said with an uncharacteristically wicked glint in her eye.

‘I’ll second that,’ Ed said, faking a camp accent and licking his lips. ‘But you’ll get over Nathan, you just need to find someone that matches up to him and you haven’t yet.’

I smiled gratefully at him, secretly thinking that no one could match up to Nathan.

‘Besides,’ Ed whispered, leaning in towards us. ‘You know what I think of Rebecca, she’s the one that shouldn’t be trusted. If you ask me she’s a bit of a cow!’

‘Ed!’ I cried, feeling disloyal for just having this conversation. ‘You’re about to go to her wedding do, I hope you’re going to behave yourself.’ I was beginning to worry that he would get drunk and say something out of turn. He did have a habit of being outspoken, a side of his personality that was reflected in his dress sense, I thought, eyeing his loud, short sleeved shirt. ‘Besides, you don’t know her like I do. She’s actually a really selfless person.’

Ed just arched his eyebrows and took a long, thoughtful drag on his cigarette.

I checked my watch. ‘Shit! I can’t believe the time already. They’ll be arriving in an hour and a half!’ I leaped up, downing the last of my coke and grabbed my jacket. ‘Come on you two,’ I cried to Ed and Harriet, who were still lingering over their drinks.

Usually, for a big gig like this, it took two hours to set up all my equipment, although granted I normally did it on my own. Still, I wanted everything to be perfect tonight and go without a hitch. It would be my way of showing Rebecca and Nathan that I was capable of being big about this, that I could handle them being together and just wanted them to be happy. And it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the fact that I wanted to show Nathan how talented I was and impress him with my collection of fantastic, eclectic music, because that would be wrong – wrong and shallow, which I was not.

When I discussed the play-list for the disco with Nathan and Rebecca, they had chosen maybe a dozen songs that they wanted played, songs that were special to them. The rest, Nathan insisted, was up to me. He knew from all the discussions we’d had about music in the pub that we shared very similar tastes. Rebecca had never been really into music and only asked for ‘Chaka Khan’ and ‘Crazy for You’, which Nathan reluctantly agreed to. The song they chose for their first dance together was, ‘Kiss Me’ by Sixpence None The Richer, a song I had always loved. Nathan wasn’t a big fan of traditionally slow love songs, but Rebecca hadn’t minded. She told me how Nathan had played it to her one night when she was in the bath and now it always gave her goose bumps. I didn’t even want to think about that.

The room where the disco was to take place was huge. I had never been inside the Country Hotel before now and was slightly intimidated by how grand it was. It had been decorated beautifully with large vases of white flowers and white and silver balloons. An enormous banner was draped from the ceiling saying CONGRATULATIONS! and they had left baskets of party poppers on the few scattered tables at the far end of the room. I didn’t expect they’d last long. The windows were floor to ceiling and backed onto the hotel gardens. The glass doors were propped open as it was a warm and sunny evening, and a marquee was set up in the grounds with a long table where some hotel staff were busying themselves with the final touches to the most delicious looking buffet food. The room we were in had a high ceiling and a heavily polished wooden floor that didn’t help with the acoustics. I clapped my hands and frowned at the echo.

‘Don’t be so fussy Abby, no one will know the difference,’ Ed said, looking up from my cases of records.

‘It’s really beautiful isn’t it?’ Harriet said, returning from the toilet. She looked around and whispered, ‘They’ve got all kinds of goodies in the ladies, you’ve got to go and see. Sweet little bottles. . .