The Wedding

'I can't believe the stupid bugger just did that,' snarled Dave, rushing to unfasten his seat belt. If he's damaged my car he'll regret it.'
Steph looked across at him anxiously and grasped his arm. 'Don't do anything stupid Dave, let's just stay calm shall we?'

The green Volvo reversed a couple of feet away from them and the driver climbed out. A tall, stringy guy dressed in someone else's suit and wearing shoes clearly designed for the gym. Dave climbed out to confront him, bristling with indignation and staring intently at his front wing.

'Sorry about that mate,' said stringy guy, as lightly as he could, 'I thought you would've given way there, but you obviously didn't.'
'Because I got here first you dick. Why the hell did you keep coming when you could see the space was mine?'

There were the makings of a really good confrontation here and there was nothing Dave liked better than a good confrontation. He was just on the point of ratcheting up the aggro when a vision in pink loomed into view from the passenger side of the Volvo and tottered towards them in six inch heels.
'Everything OK, Martin?' enquired the vision. 'Is there any damage?'
'Don't think so Mabel. Just a slight scuff, but that'll polish off with a bit of T-Cut. It's your lucky day mate. No damage done.'

A second vision appeared at Dave's side, dressed in powder blue, holding down her matching hat against the stiffening breeze. 'Not the best way to meet new friends at a wedding was it Dave?' she smiled. 'No damage I hope.'

'Just a T-Cut job,' chirped Mabel at her new friend. This is Martin and I'm Mabel. Pleased to meet you both.'
'This is Dave,' replied Steph, 'and I'm Stephanie. You'll have to excuse Dave, he's always grumpy.'
Dave busied himself stroking imaginary damage on his front wing, trying
not to look skewered. 'Nothing serious,' he mumbled; fortunately.'

The new friends made their way across the car park towards the hotel, with the girls gelling instantly, as girls do.  The boys followed in silence some distance apart, taking an unusual interest in everything but each other.

The Mansion Hotel had at one time been a splendid Georgian house, sitting gracefully in hundreds of acres of sculptured parkland. Today, it was a hotel and wedding venue being slowly suffocated by an expanding housing estate and doing its very best to maintain any sense of dignity. It had just received its fifth makeover and now boasted tartan carpets, twenty four hour concierge service and embossed Lincrusta wall panels in a delicate shade of nicotine. The new friends negotiated the revolving door into the foyer and stood in silence as their brains came to terms the impact. Glazed eyed stag heads mounted on the walls above arrays of crossed claymore swords stared blankly at them, luring them into a macabre Victorian depiction of life in the Highlands.

'Bloody hell,' giggled Mabel loudly. 'Who designed this, Angus McCoatup?'
The receptionist smiled at them from the safety of her matching tartan waistcoat.
'The Culloden Room is along the corridor and to the right,' she beamed. 'The ceremony is due to begin in fifteen minutes.'
A little nonplussed at being so easily rumbled, the group set off in search of adventure.

* * *

The Culloden Room was yet more Highland macabre, softened a little by a snowstorm of white fabric draped chairs with a central isle dividing the opposing clans. Many were already occupied by brightly polished guests chatting aimlessly, whilst carefully assessing the opposition across the isle. The new friends halted in the doorway as they were challenged by a giant of a man with drooping eyes and matching carnation.

‘Spear or distaff?’ he demanded, in his least menacing voice.
‘Neither,’ quipped Mabel, staring defiantly straight up his barbed-wire nostrils, ‘I’m a guest.’
Realising instantly that he’d met his match, the burly usher dragged a weak smile from the far reaches of his armoury.
‘I meant are you guests of the bride or the groom?’
Fearing an early skirmish, Martin stepped between them and beamed.
‘Mabel and I are guests of the groom and our friends here, the bride,’ he interjected hastily. Which side is which?’

As they sought refuge from the spotlight, the two couples were visibly assessed and graded as they slid self-consciously into the nearest vacant seats. A woman across the isle, dressed like a luminous lime green candy floss, made the mistake of aiming a disapproving glance in Mabel's direction. Mabel's vigorous finger gesture hit home like an exocet, forcing Martin to hastily seek sanctuary in the pages of the order of service . As they settled, Steph shrugged and waved surreptitiously at Mabel from the other side of the great divide, as if to further strengthen their ten minute long relationship. Dave gave her an admonishing nudge.

As the guests waited uneasily for something to happen, a short, stout lady in a dark suit and very sensible shoes marched in and took up position behind the small table at the head of the room. She stood, glowing with purpose and waited pointedly for her presence to take effect. The room responded with an almost instant silence.

* * *

‘Have they kicked off yet Jess?’
‘Just about to. The dragon’s just taken up position.’
‘What’s this lot look like then, trouble or not?’
‘Trouble, definitely. I bet they’re at it before five.’
‘That bad?’
‘You ever known me to be wrong Bill?’
‘No I haven’t Jess. Shall I put the second best cloths on, just in case?’
‘Better had Bill, we never did get those stains out properly after the last lot.’

* * *

Apart from a sound system blip, when it gave out a sudden burst of ‘Bat out of Hell’, instead of Mendelsshon’s Wedding March, the ceremony went as planned. Derek and Janice became man and wife by new civic powers invested in stout lady, and before you knew it, eighty expectant diners were seated and ready for action in the Macbeth Room. Is this a dagger I see before me?

Charles Darley and Cindy, his most recent conquest, found themselves sharing their table for six with Dave and Steph and Martin and Mabel. Charles wore his polite company smile as he scanned their faces for any signs of weakness and something made him dwell for a split second too long on Mabel’s inscrutable gaze. She noticed, and went instantly onto red alert. The cleaner and the cleaned had never actually met before, but two primeval instincts had just been triggered.

The prawn cocktail starter had been devoured and the main courses were now being served. Bottles of both red and white wine had been provided and many already consumed, far too quickly. Stephanie put down her glass and decided it couldn’t wait any longer.

‘Have you ever met Janice before, Dave?’
‘Don’t think so,’ replied Dave, as casually as he could muster. ‘Why?’
‘Because when she and Derek received us at the door, I’m sure she blushed when she saw you. Are you sure you don’t know her?’
‘Look Steph, I’ve just told you. I’ve never met her before.’
‘Janice and I were at school together Dave and we’ve been mates for years. Shall I ask her, or are you going to tell me?’
Dave hesitated for too long and Steph knew she had him cornered.
‘She might have been a customer Steph, that’s all I can think of. I can’t be expected to remember them all can I?’
‘Well it was obvious that she remembered you David and what she remembered made her blush.’
The conversation was over, for now at least. Stephanie had called him David.

* * *

Charles’s companion, Cindy, chatted to him relentlessly, as if to avoid the prospect of engaging with anyone else at the table. Charles appeared to be listening, but his eyes were busy scanning the room. He picked up his phone and focussed its camera on Cindy. She giggled and posed whilst Charles took pictures, but they weren’t all of Cindy.

A loud rapping of knife against glass brought activity to a halt, as the traditional round of speeches began. Charles quietly continued surveying the guests through his viewfinder, whilst Mabel watched him like a hawk. Stephanie glared at the back of Dave’s head, as he’d turned away with some relief to listen to the best man. Cindy busied herself filling her glass with house white for the fifth time.

* * *

‘Any sign of trouble yet Jess?’
‘Not yet Bill, but table twelve is all blokes and they’re knocking it back like fish and getting very noisy.’
‘What, even during the speeches?’
‘Afraid so; poor best man’s having a hard time out there.’
‘Don’t like the sound of that Jess, that’s just what happened last time.’

* * *

The best man sank back into his seat to sympathetic applause from the room and to raucous cheering from his Morrison’s mafia comrades on table twelve. Derek glared across at them from top table, willing them to shut up, but they were already too far gone. Janice’s father, Reg, radiating indignation and assumed authority, rose theatrically from his chair and made his way across the room, determined to sort them out.

Table twelve fell silent for some seconds as it listened with amusement to his fluent displeasure, but the brief respite was short lived. As Reg retreated, a crusty sourdough roll pursued him with impressive accuracy, bouncing playfully from his shiny Vaselined pate and ricocheting onto top table. Horrified eyes gave witness as the missile clattered against Janice’s generous measure of Pinot Noir, discharging the contents effortlessly across the pristine white tablecloth and into her pristine white lap. The look of abject horror on Janice’s face was captured perfectly on Charles’s camera.

* * *

Several arrests were made after police were called by hotel staff, to what they described at the time as a riot. Drunken wedding guests had apparently begun throwing food at selected targets, followed closely by fisticuffs. Accounts differed as to exactly what happened, but the headline in the Courier used the words chaotic, pandemonium and pantomime. Other witnesses had apparently resorted to a more colourful invective, unprintable in a family newspaper. An advert featuring prominently in that week’s edition politely advised customers that the Mansion Hotel would be closed temporarily for what it described as ‘deep cleaning’.

Many guests not initially involved in the early skirmish were drawn in to the ensuing fracas through a heady mixture of indignation, retaliation and playful enthusiasm. A bride rushing from her table distressed, stained, humiliated and defiled is not a sight to behold. Neither is having mashed potato lobbed at you from the next table by an intoxicated oaf.

In all, eleven people were arrested when police broke up the mass brawl that ensued and one police officer was assaulted in the execution of his duty. PC Ted Brookes is now back at work after intensive physiotherapy and when asked for comment, said that in all his years in the force he’d never come across a woman so strong for her size. It had taken four officers to finally get Mabel into the van. She had apparently been offended by a fellow guest taking sneaky photographs, with quote,  ‘ a funny look on his face’. She had, she said, ‘decided to knock it off.’ She is currently on bail, pending further investigation.

Steph continued to pursue her enquiries into any input Dave may have had in the bride’s telltale blush, but never got any further than a vague recollection of a possible u-bend rectification years earlier. The matter is currently in her pending tray.

The atmosphere in Morrison’s warehouse has been somewhat tense since Derek returned from honeymoon; the teamwork ethic now somewhat strained. Derek’s demand for contributions to the cost of damage at the Mansion Hotel was met by a combination of selective deafness and outright apathy. ‘It's your lass’s dad you should be talking to; he started it not us.’
There was however, a collection towards the cost of dry cleaning Janice’s wedding dress, but Janice sent it straight back; with a rather curt note suggesting where the donation might come to rest!

Charles Darley’s black eye and split lip took the best part of two weeks to heal, and Apple decreed his phone beyond repair. When asked by police if he wanted to pursue charges against his assailant he politely declined. He had been rumbled, assaulted and humiliated in front of Cindy and worst of all, his loyal secretary Janice. He never wanted to set eyes on Mabel again and indeed never would, providing of course, he didn’t return to his apartment any Friday morning when his contract cleaners were in.