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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2018

Copyright © Charlotte Butterfield 2018

Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Charlotte Butterfield asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008302719

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008302702

Version: 2018-04-18

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Acknowledgements

Also by Charlotte Butterfield

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

To Team P: Ed, Amélie, Rafe and Theo

Prologue

H ow to be the perfect bridesmaid. Rule number one: Start mourning the friend you love, because once she becomes entangled in wedding planning, she doesn’t exist anymore.

Gone are the easy chats about life, love and the universe, and in its place are endless one-sided monologues about whether it would be unreasonable to ask all the bridesmaids to pierce their ears so they can wear matching earrings (answer: yes). Evenings will be spent pondering the question of whether tulips are too cheap, orchids too expensive or peonies too try-hard. Who cares? They’ll either end up swept up with the confetti by an Eastern European cleaner on minimum wage in the morning, or carefully preserved in an airing cupboard by the groom’s granny. You know the friend that’s always been very supportive about your extra curves? Well, as soon as that sparkly solitaire gets slipped on her finger she’ll ‘accidentally’ order your bridesmaid dress a size too small forcing you to eat blended kale for a month before the wedding.

Let’s talk hen dos for just a moment. What a wonderful opportunity for some sisterhood solidarity, where dignity and self-consciousness are checked in with your coat at the door and the order of the day is friendship and fun. Wrong. Don’t even think about surprising the bride with an activity, theme or outfit she hasn’t approved. In writing. She may say that you have the power of attorney on this weekend, but she doesn’t mean it, she’s lying through her newly-whitened teeth – which brings me onto the subject of beauty. The role of a bridesmaid is to be pretty, but not too much. Save those fake eyelashes for another occasion, because God forbid you should have longer lash-action than the woman in white. By all means brush your hair, possibly even add a bit of bounce, but do not consider having an up-do that takes more than two minutes to construct. That’s her arena. The only part of your grooming routine you shouldn’t scrimp on is deodorant. You’ll need at least half a can sprayed into your armpits at all times to counteract the iron-woman training that you’ll be forced to do in the week before the big day. Fill your car with petrol, top up your oyster card, stash your heels for another day, and flex those limbs because good God are you going to be using them. Unless you are already a PA to the president of a small country, never before will you have been faced with a To Do List of the gargantuan proportions that you will soon be handed. And the best part is, you have to smile like Mary Poppins while cheerily crossing each item off. Hem curtains? Check. Polish floors? Check. Dog-sit for a fortnight? Che— Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

Eve had no idea that her legs could even move that fast. Weaving in and out of office workers, shoving tourists out of the way, hurdling over open drains, and banging on the sides of open-top buses, she finally made it to the front of her friend Tanya’s apartment block. Steadying herself on the gate for a moment to let the burning sensation in her lungs subside, she silently offered up a little prayer that she wasn’t about to walk into the rotting carcass of a pedigree pug.

The stench hit her before the key was fully turned in the lock. Covering her mouth with her sleeve and trying not to retch, Eve slowly pushed open the door and braced herself for whatever sight she might find. The flat was still. Silent. Too still and silent for an apartment with a dog in it.

‘Coco, here girl, there’s a good girl.’ Eve wandered quickly from room to room, giving a small gasp at the doorway of each one at the carnage that assaulted her eyes. The thought crossed her mind that perhaps Tanya had been burgled, the flat ransacked and the dog stolen. It would certainly make explaining this slightly easier. But robbers wouldn’t chew the sides of sofas until their filling spilled out, or wee on the expensive dhurrie rug from Peshawar. The ridiculous thing was, Eve was actually a little heartened to see the mess that Coco had made, as it meant that at some point over the last three days she’d had enough energy to create this bloodbath, rather than spend her final hours festering into a pile of bones.

The door to the bedroom was ajar, and, not having fully shaken away her intruder theory, Eve approached it cautiously. ‘Coco? Coco?’ A shoebox lay open at the foot of the bed, its lid chewed off. The distinctive red soles of Tanya’s prized black patent Louboutin heels were thankfully unmarked by tiny teeth marks, but instead, they’d been used as a portaloo. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’

At the sound of her voice, a sleeping Coco eagerly jumped up from the satin pillows she’d been snoozing on and gave a yelp of sheer joy. Flinging herself at Eve, in all her stinky glory, she covered her with slobbery kisses, which Eve couldn’t help but tearfully return. ‘Oh God Coco, I’m so sorry, please don’t tell anyone,’ she picked her up, snuggling her face into her fur. ‘It’ll be our secret.’

After giving her some water and filling her bowl with dried pellets that promised they contained organic chicken, she grabbed her lead from the back of the kitchen door. The destruction of the flat could wait, it was more important to breathe air that hadn’t been contaminated by excrement.

Chapter 1
One month earlier…

‘No offence Eve, but I don’t like your ideas for the hen party.’

Any sentence that starts off with the words, ‘No offence’ could surely only ever result in the other person being immediately and instinctively offended, Eve thought. And how on earth did Tanya know what her plans even were as they were meant to be top secret? Every subject line of every email Eve had sent about the hen do had said so. In capitals. As if she had read Eve’s mind, Tanya followed up with, ‘Maggie forwarded me the emails.’

Maggie. Eve should have known. One of Tanya’s work colleagues, who Eve had not yet had the pleasure of meeting, had Replied All to every message, finding fault with each element.

‘I mean, a roller disco? What were you thinking Eve?’

‘We used to love the roller disco!’

‘When we were at university! I do not want to turn up to my wedding in a plaster cast!’

‘So I guess that you don’t want to go zorbing either?’

‘No, Eve, I do not. Honestly, I thought that you of all people would be able to come up with something original, fun, and safe for us all to do. It’s meant to be in three weeks’ time!’

‘What do you mean, me of all people?’

‘You work for a wedding magazine, Eve! If anyone should be able to pull a fantastic hen do out of a hat, it should be you.’

‘To be fair Tanya, it’s taken flippin’ ages to get everyone to confirm if they can come or not, then everyone had a different idea about what it was they wanted to do – you’d already vetoed any kind of cocktail-making, naked male bodies and making things.’

‘How many cocktail-making hen parties have you been to?’ Eve didn’t say so out loud, but Tanya had a point. ‘And I’m going to be looking at Luke’s naked body for the rest of my life, I don’t particularly want to see another one on my hen do.’

‘Which is why I made the plan I did, there’s not a cocktail or a penis in sight.’

Eve’s colleague, Kat, the magazine’s beauty director who sat at the adjacent desk to Eve’s, raised a pencilled-on eyebrow at hearing Eve’s last sentence.

Tanya wouldn’t let up. ‘So out of everything else in the world we could do, you chose roller disco and zorbing?’

‘And a meal out; believe me, finding a restaurant that would cater for a vegan, a coeliac, a lactose-intolerance, a shellfish allergy and two nut allergies, was pretty bloody difficult. You have very tricky friends.’

‘Yes, Maggie told me that you’ve booked a Lebanese place. I hate Middle Eastern food.’

‘Hate’s a pretty strong word Tanya, how can you hate an entire continent’s cuisine? I’m sure there’ll be something you’ll like.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Eve said, cradling the phone under her chin while she scrolled through the local dog shelter’s website for photogenic mutts for a feature she was writing on Instagram engagements. She had a lovely image in her mind of two cute dogs holding up a sign saying, ‘our humans are getting married’.

‘Are you being sarcastic?’ Tanya barked. ‘This is the only hen do I’m ever going to have, Eve, and I want it to be perfect. I want a country club, a few beauty treatments, lots of champagne and sushi.’

‘You said you wanted it to be a surprise.’

‘Well, I don’t. That’s what I want.’

‘You could have saved me about thirty hours of planning and phoning round if that’s what you had just said in the beginning you know?’

‘You’re one of my best friends, you’re meant to know what I’d like.’

Labelling the two of them ‘best friends’ was a bit of a stretch. Eve was starting to realise that being contacted by Tanya out of the blue to be asked to be her bridesmaid, a decade after they were at university together, had little to do with nostalgia or fuzzy feelings of friendship and more to do with Tanya wanting to take advantage of Eve’s little black book of wedding contacts.

Eve absentmindedly pulled another paperclip out of her stationery pot and added it to a long line of clips that was now stretching across her desk. ‘Fine. Leave it with me.’

‘Oh, and one more thing, do you have your ears pierced?’

That was an odd question. ‘No, why?’

‘Could you get them done before the wedding? I’ve bought all the bridesmaids the same earrings to wear on the day as your gift from me.’

This took the biscuit. ‘Um, not really Tanya, I’ve never liked the idea of it.’

Eve could sense Tanya’s lips pursing over the phone line, possibly accompanied by a hint of an eye twitch too. ‘Maybe you could think about it, Eve.’

‘I have thought about it Tanya, and I don’t want to do it. I’ve got long hair anyway, so you wouldn’t even see them.’

‘Well, I want you to wear it up, nothing fancy like mine’s going to be, just a simple ponytail.’

Eve wanted to say more, to inject her friend with a hearty dose of realism and perspective right into her toned behind, but instead took a deep breath. ‘A ponytail is not a problem, the ear piercing is. But I promise you it’s not going to ruin your day.’ Eve hung up the call and slammed it down on her desk.

Kat looked up from a row of carefully-ordered pink lipsticks that were standing sentry on her own desk for a feature called Kiss-proof lipsticks that will stay on your lips not your groom. ‘Which one of your bridezillas was that?’

‘Tanya. Taking bridezilla-dom to another level entirely. I now have to find a country hotel that can fit twelve women in for beauty treatments in three weeks’ time. And a Japanese restaurant that doesn’t use shellfish and delivers to the arse end of nowhere. Oh, and she wants me to mutilate my body in order to accept my present which has quite clearly come from the heart.’

Sighing, Eve turned back to her computer screen. Her Dear Eve inbox was heaving under the strain of the many unread emails that had come in over the weekend. As well as writing three or four features for Your Wonderful Wedding per month, Eve was also the magazine’s resident agony aunt. But as wedding magazines were beautiful and aspirational, and not angst-ridden drama sagas like her last magazine, What a Life!, most of the questions were about how to stop the groom’s buttonhole from drooping, rather than anything more gritty. It made a nice change to be writing about the highest point in someone’s life rather than their lowest. Writing features with headlines like Blooming lovely, or Love at first blush certainly beat ones like My nephew is also my uncle or Why our 50-year age gap doesn’t matter.

Hi Eve!

I’m torn between wanting a French manicure for my day or a dusky pink to match the roses in my bouquet and the bridesmaid dresses. My mum thinks that a pink will be better, but I’m worried it might chip and look more obvious? At least if a French manicure chips, you can’t really see it. What should I do?

Thanks,

Helen, Staffordshire.

Eve was only meant to select the best five emails for the monthly Q&A page and to ignore the rest. Print-worthy, this one was not, but as she could sense the desperation in Helen from Staffordshire’s email, Eve replied nonetheless.

Hi Helen,

Firstly, congratulations on your big day, and well done for choosing such an on-trend colour for your wedding, dusky pink is a timeless choice. The best solution would be to wear the pink varnish and ask one of your bridesmaids to carry a spare bottle of the matching colour in their clutch bag to solve any chipping disasters.

Enjoy your day!

Eve xx

It wasn’t strictly what she was paid to do, and Eve knew that her editor, Fiona, wouldn’t approve of her taking time out of her working day to personally reply, but it had taken all of fifteen seconds to stop Helen from Staffordshire losing any more sleep.

Eve’s phone buzzed again. It was another university friend, Ayesha, who was getting married a month after Tanya. ‘Babe, where can I buy lawn flamingoes?’

Eve looked heavenward. ‘Lawn what?’

‘Flamingoes.’

‘That’s what I thought you said. What are lawn flamingoes?’

‘You know, big sculptures of flamingoes that stand on your lawn. I thought it would be really nice to have one for everyone coming to the wedding and you have to find the one with your name on it and it’s got your table number on it too.’

Eve had to take a deliberately slow breath in before replying in case an expletive slipped out. ‘Um, Ayesha. I thought the theme for your wedding was The Wizard of Oz? At what point in the film were there flamingoes?’

Ayesha laughed. ‘Oh, there weren’t silly, I just really really love flamingoes, and I thought that getting lots of dwarves to stand on the lawn dressed like Munchkins might be in really poor taste. Unless you don’t think so?’

Not for the first time, Eve questioned her choice in friends.

‘You’re too nice.’ Kat remarked as soon as Eve had put down the phone. ‘If I said yes every time one of my friends asked me to help them with their weddings, I’d never have time for anything else.’

‘Welcome to my world,’ Eve muttered.

‘How many weddings do you have again this summer?’

‘Five.’ Eve pointed to the noticeboard that hung on the wall above her desk, which was crammed with save the dates, invitations and gift list registry cards. A couple, like Tanya’s, were classically white with embossed words while others, like Ayesha’s, were colourful and contemporary. Regardless of their style or size of swirly writing, all Eve could see when she glanced at them was the potential of stress and financial ruin.

‘Five? That’s insane.’

‘But it’s not just the weddings is it? It’s all the hen dos and rehearsals, I literally have one free weekend between now and the end of August.’

‘Eve, they’re not your weddings though, you are allowed to have fun outside of being chief wedding planner you know. Look at you, you’re gorgeous, in a very English sort of way, with your long red hair and alabaster skin—’

‘You can tell you’re a beauty journalist,’ Eve interrupted. ‘I’m pale and freckly.’

‘And interesting. You’re young, and you’re wasting the summer by being at the beck and call of people who have already found their other halves.’

‘Cheers.’

‘I’m serious!’ Kat said, emphasising how serious she was by waving a lipstick in Eve’s face. ‘How long have we worked together now?’

‘Two years.’

‘Two years. And in those two years, how many boyfriends have you had? You’re never going to find someone if you don’t put yourself out there.’

What was the opposite of rose-tinted, Eve wondered, because it was exactly the same any time a friend of hers became coupled-up; they looked back on their solo days with hand-on-heart relief that they had dragged themselves out of the cesspool of single life.

‘See, that’s the difference Kat, it barely crosses my mind to look for a boyfriend, let alone “put myself out there!”’ Eve shuddered. ‘When the time is right, he’ll just turn up.’

‘Eve, Eve, Eve,’ Kat shook her head the way you would to a child that’s put their left shoe on their right foot for the fortieth time. ‘Finding a partner requires a massive amount of effort, he doesn’t just “turn up”. Have you learnt nothing from writing about weddings?’

Kat had a point. It always amazed Eve how much effort some of the brides, and some grooms too, had put into finding someone to marry. If she’d had the job of interviewing couples twenty or thirty years ago about how they met, the stories would have invariably included the words ‘school’, ‘pub’, or ‘nightclub’, but nowadays the hoops that brides jumped through to get to the altar were staggering.

‘I like being single,’ Eve said. ‘Anyway, I am far too busy.’

‘It’s just that in the two years I’ve known you, you’ve never had anyone special in your life, and you’re pretty cool so I just wonder why, that’s all.’ Kat started putting the lipsticks away in their boxes. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘There’s no big mystery, Kat. I really liked someone once, and I’m just waiting to meet another person that I like as much, that’s all.’

‘So, what happened to him?’

Eve used the time it took to sweep all her paperclips into her hand and pour them back into their pot to think of an answer that was completely devoid of sentiment. There was no point getting upset about it after all this time. She settled on, ‘I honestly have no idea.’ Which, as it happened, was completely true.

Chapter 2
The wedding with the wizards

There weren’t many instances when you could use the word puce in daily life, but as Eve lay on her back in the park looking up at the sky darkening above her, she knew that puce would be a legitimate description of her face at that moment. She’d been so disappointed when her name had been called out as the winner of a series of ten personal training sessions rather than the chocolate hampers in the raffle at her work’s Christmas party. She’d tried to give the prize away, but everyone she knew either had their own gym membership already or were too much like her and couldn’t think of anything worse than being shouted at while you huffed and puffed in a park after work as dog walkers sniggered by.

The personal trainer, Juan, had been in regular contact through January, February, even into March, calling her to set up her first appointment – but it wasn’t until early May, when Tanya had admitted that she’d made a ‘mistake’ with the order of Eve’s bridesmaid dress and it was ‘accidentally’ a size too small, that Eve thought that maybe the personal training sessions might not be such a bad idea after all. The first session had been a success. She was measuring the success of it by the fact that she was still alive. And Eve was very hopeful that at some point later that evening, her face would return back to its normal shade.

‘Same time on Wednesday?’ Juan asked, his kit bag slung over his shoulder, casting a long shadow over the patch of grass where Eve lay. She didn’t yet have the lung capacity for speech, so just weakly raised her hand and gave him a thumbs up. She thought that she’d just wait a little while longer before heading back home. It was a beautiful evening, perfect for lying back and enjoying the setting sun, and her choice had nothing at all to do with the fact that her legs felt like they were made of concrete.

The trumpet player downstairs was in full flow when Eve let herself in the front door of Becca’s flat. She had to stop calling it that. It was now her apartment too, and it was an absolute palace compared to the cupboard in New York she’d called home for two years before moving back to London. Living above a live music pub was a godsend when the iPod ran out of charge, but a tad annoying when the band in question was an avant-garde experimental Cuban quartet. Which, thankfully, tonight’s wasn’t. Toe-tapping jazz seemed to be the soundtrack to her evening, which suited Eve just fine.

Becca had already set up camp on their tiny balcony, which overlooked the pub’s beer garden, placing two beanbags next to a wine cooler that had a couple of bottles already chilling in it. Eve smiled, this was the perfect way to spend the evening. Tonight’s workout had been brutal. Juan’s girlfriend had just dumped him, and his hatred of all women seemed to extend to his clients too. Forty burpees was thirty nine too many for Eve, and every inch of her was crying out for a restorative shower, a glass of something with a strong alcohol content and a night with her best friend listening to Sinatra classics.

‘Evening!’ Eve shouted from the hallway through the open door to the living room. ‘Just going to de-sweat myself and be out in a minute. Have you got snacks out there?’

‘I have the Chinese delivery menu, which is sort of the same thing,’ Becca shouted back. ‘And you had some post, it was heavy, a book or something. I put it on your bed.’

Eve knew what it was. She’d recently organised the delivery of sixty-five guidebooks to addresses all over the world ahead of her brother Adam and his boyfriend George’s nuptials on the last weekend in August. The fifth, and final, wedding of the year. It was in the South of France and they wanted all their guests to get as excited as they were, so despite being three months away, stage one of Operation Hype Up The Wedding was the delivery of the guidebooks about the local area. There were three more deliveries planned over the coming months: a bottle of the local wine, passport holders and luggage tags. All of which Eve had dutifully sourced, ordered and, at the moment, paid for on her credit card.

Ten minutes later, wearing her pyjama bottoms with her long wet hair dampening her hooded top from university, Eve settled down onto the spare beanbag and gratefully took the glass of white wine from Becca’s outstretched hand.

‘Now this, this is pretty darn perfect.’

‘I’ll say so.’ Becca agreed, stretching her legs out in front of her to poke them between the railings of the balcony, which must have looked pretty odd to anyone sitting in the garden beneath them. ‘They’ve been practising since I got home from work,’ Becca said. ‘It’s been great, like having a mini concert in our living room. I’m going to miss this.’

Eve knew when she’d moved in that it wasn’t a long-term arrangement as Becca’s wedding to military man Jack was wedding number four of the summer and Jack had been faithfully promised a family house on the base after the wedding. Whenever the thought of Becca moving out popped into her head, Eve batted it away. She and Becca had lived together all the way through university, sharing a tiny semi in one of Brighton’s less salubrious back streets with Tanya, and another friend, Ben. Even though eight years lay between them sharing that semi and this flat, Eve and Becca had slotted straight back into being flatmates.

‘Have you sorted your costume for Rob’s wedding on Saturday?’ Eve asked, trying not to wince at the word costume rather than outfit. She really didn’t understand why some couples insisted on their guests joining in their theme by donning superhero capes or flapper dresses; what was wrong with a nice wrap dress?

‘I’m raiding the school drama department’s store cupboard tomorrow.’

‘If you see something for me, can you pick it up?

Perhaps now, Eve thought, with the chilled wine in hand and the soft jazz rising from the bar below, Becca would be open to talking about the logistics of her own wedding. Considering that she’d been engaged for nearly three years you’d have thought she’d have been further along in the planning process. Eve remembered back to when Becca had broken the news of her engagement, calling her across the Atlantic, as she did most evenings. Their calls were Eve’s favourite part of the day, which she had admitted to no one but Becca, because after all, living in New York was supposed to be fun. If you were to ask any single thirty-year old whether New York was a fun place you’d have to cover your ears with the deafening volume of the resounding yeses, which would be promptly followed by the clink of ice into gin martinis. If you were in media in New York it meant you’d made it. Hit the big time. Written your own success story. You were playing in the major league. Everyone knew that. It was only Becca who knew this wasn’t really the case for Eve.

That night, almost three years ago, Eve had just carried her dinner across the tiny hallway to her windowless bedroom in a dodgy part of Brooklyn, when she had felt her phone vibrating in her back pocket. She had set the hot bowl of microwaved soup down on a pile of coffee table books that doubled up as her dining table, desk and nightstand and answered the nightly call from her best friend.

‘Evening lovely, how’s your day been?’

‘Exhausting, soul-destroying, murderous,’ Eve had replied.

‘Murderous. That’s a new one.’

‘I think that one has staying power. Today, I’ve interviewed a man who lived his life dressed as a baby, a woman whose plastic surgery on her bottom went so wrong it was impossible to sit down, a couple who raised pot-bellied pigs in their house instead of children, and I wrote a feature with the headline “My boyfriend has a Spiderman mask tattooed on his face.”’ Back in the beginning, when Eve had fought off hundreds of other journalists and got the job as Features Editor for What a Life! in the Big Apple, she was horrified at the people knocking on the magazine’s doors to share their stories for the set fifty-dollar fee. There was no way this type of magazine could ever be sustainable, Eve had thought, surely the weirdness would dry up? There must be a finite number of bizarre people around the world? It turned out there wasn’t. And thanks to the page at the front of the magazine listing all the staff members and their contact details, every single weirdo had Eve’s email address.

‘Ask me how my day’s been,’ Becca had demanded.

‘Becca, how has your day been?’

‘Absobloodylutely fabulous. Jack and I got engaged!’

Eve’s face had burst into a spontaneous smile. ‘That’s amazing news! I’m so happy for you, honestly that’s made my day. My week! Heck, you know what? That’s the best news I’ve heard all year. And it’s the middle of December, so the year is almost up.’

‘Jack was such a sweetheart. We went down to Devon to visit Mum and Dad and he took my dad for a pint and asked him, then he took me for a walk through the woods and proposed to me at exactly 3.33pm, my favourite time.’

Eve mumbled through the spoonful of tinned minestrone she’d just scooped into her mouth: ‘You have a favourite time?’

‘Of course I do! Doesn’t everyone? Anyway, stop talking. I wanted to ask you something important. You’re so amazing at planning stuff, and such an organisational fiend, and you’re my best friend, so will you be my chief bridesmaid and also help me plan the wedding?’

‘Yes and yes! Oh my goodness, this is so exciting! What are you thinking? A city do in a posh hotel, or a manor house in the country, or a… oh Becca, we could do it abroad!’

‘I want a really low-key thing in my parent’s cow field.’

Eve stopped chewing.

‘Eve? Are you still there?’

‘I’m sorry, for a moment I thought I heard you say that you wanted to get married in a cow field.’

‘Well, not actually married, we’ll do that at the local church, but I want to have the reception in the field behind my folks’ farm.’

‘Won’t the cows mind the intrusion?’

‘We’ll move them silly. But I love the idea of a festival feel, with bunting and barrels and picnic baskets. Do you think we could pull it off?’

‘If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get. I’ll start my research tomorrow. This is so exciting, and just the thing I need to take my mind off how shitty my life is.’

‘You don’t have to stay in New York you know, you could just come back,’ Becca had reminded her, not for the first time.

Eve had pretended not to hear her, just like she did every time Becca had said it. Going back to London wasn’t an option. ‘So what time of year are you thinking? If it’s going to be outside, I’m guessing summer?’

‘Yes, not the next one though, that’s too soon. Maybe the one after that. Or the one after that.’ It was typical Becca, laid-back to the point of comatose. The vague date did little to quell Eve’s enthusiasm for planning though, and Becca’s engagement had resulted in a new job for Eve too. The following day she’d quickly realised that there was no better antidote to the gritty seediness she usually spent her day delving into than the swirly pink and turquoise fonts of online wedding magazines that had headlines like Super-pretty princess dresses and Best day ever! Every website Eve looked at had little hearts doodled into their company logos. Each photo of couples staring adoringly at each other had a soft-focus finish that made their love seem even more magical. How could you ever be miserable writing about romance every day?

Scrolling down the page past a link to an article on bouquets called Everything’s rosy and one on honeymoon destinations entitled Paradise found, Eve’s eyes had rested on a little pink box on the right of the page. Above the editor’s email address, were two words that had made Eve’s eyes widen: We’re hiring.

Without giving herself any time to change her mind, Eve had quickly typed out an email, attached her CV and pressed send. And Eve-the-wedding-guru was born.

She’d stayed with the American wedding magazine for a year before reluctantly moving back to London to work for its English edition when her dad had died. It had been as though the universe had aligned everything to slot into place: the job opening in London, Becca’s former flatmate moving out; call it coincidence, fate, luck – whatever it was, it meant Eve’s transition back into London life wasn’t as awful as she had thought it might be. It didn’t stop the ghosts taunting her around every corner though.

A sudden drum solo from the bar below brought Eve back to the present day, and their balcony. ‘So,’ Eve started gently, ‘have you thought about a band for your wedding?’

‘Jack’s friends are going to bring their guitars.’

‘Oh.’ Eve said. This did not sound good. ‘Are they, um, professional musicians?’

‘No, not at all. You know Gavin, Jack’s friend from work? Well, he used to play, and Jack’s brothers, and a couple of other people too – we’re encouraging everyone to bring whatever instruments they have and just have a mash-up.’

‘A mash-up?’ Eve realised that she must sound incredibly middle-aged, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘That might be good for the end of the night, for the people that want to stay and carry on the party, but don’t you want some dancing and music that people know?’

Becca lay her head back on her beanbag. ‘Eve, you’re stressing me out. I’m not like Tanya, who needs everything planned to within an inch of its life. What will be will be, it’s going to be fine. Now be quiet and listen to the lovely music.’

Eve refused to give up. Not when she’d just published an article about how vital good entertainment was to a wedding. ‘See, that’s my point. Music is really important. If you like this band so much, why don’t you pop down in the next break and ask them for their card?’

‘Why don’t you?’

In the end, Eve did a lot better than that and paid them a fifty-pound deposit to put the date of Becca’s wedding in their diaries. She would tackle the issue of what on earth Becca was intending to feed her guests in the cow field another night.

***

‘So I got these.’ Becca dumped two big carrier bags full of clothes and props onto the kitchen counter next to where Eve was chopping up some onions for their sausage and mash dinner.

‘Oh my God Becca, I only wanted a witch’s hat, not a wardrobe for the entire magic circle!’

‘The invitation said to come in your wizardry finery, a witch’s hat wouldn’t cut it. Anyway, I spoke to a few of the other people at work that are going, and everyone is making a massive effort. Rob’s even had a prosthetic nose made like Voldemort’s. Can’t wait to see what his fiancée’s wearing – what’s her name again?’

‘Jackie. You’re going to have to remember that tomorrow, it’s very bad form to forget the bride’s name, even if you do only know the groom.’

‘Jackie. Got it. And do you reckon Jackie is fully on board with marrying the Dark Lord?’

Eve smiled. ‘I can’t say that he would be my immediate choice for a groom, come to think of it. Neither would Rob, but that’s by the by.’

‘They’re both massive Harry Potter fans, they even got engaged at King’s Cross station next to the Platform 9 ¾ sign.’

Eve’s knife kept slicing. ‘That’s lovely. Nothing shouts I love you quite so much as the smell of tramps’ urine and fourteen thousand Japanese school kids on a magic tour.’

‘You are so unromantic Eve. I think it’s really nice that they share a hobby. Now do you want to see what’s in the bags or not?’

‘Absolutely, let’s have dinner first though.’

‘Oh, and don’t forget we need to cook the rice for tomorrow as well.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘There was a note with the invitation to say that we’re not allowed to throw confetti, so we have to throw rose petals or rice.’

‘Oh my God Becca, they don’t want you to cook it first! It’s dry rice, you muppet, did you think that everyone was going to be hurling handfuls of risotto into the bride’s face?’

‘I did think it was a bit odd, if I’m honest.’

‘I love you, I do,’ Eve put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. ‘But I honestly don’t know how you manage to get through each day alive.’

***

The next morning Becca and Eve, wearing matching black graduation gowns, waist-length grey wigs and carrying chopsticks as wands, got off a train somewhere in the middle of Sussex and boarded a waiting bus that said Hogwarts Express on the front. Becca wasn’t wrong; the other guests had taken the dress code very seriously indeed, one man even sported an ankle-length white beard that looked like he’d grown it specially for the occasion. A few women seemed to have mistakenly interpreted ‘wizardry finery’ to mean St Trinian’s tarty schoolgirl. The bus was unbearably hot and Eve’s wig was itchy. She could feel beads of perspiration on the back of her neck but felt immediately better when she spotted a woman who was sweating herself into an early grave in a full-on feathery owl costume.

The vows were taken over a goblet of fire, the bride’s veil was held in place with a golden snitch comb, and when the happy couple knelt down to receive their blessing, written on the sole of the bride’s left shoe were the words, ‘From Muggle…’ and on the right in matching writing, ‘…To Mrs’. At the point where the vicar asked for the rings the couple turned around and looked up expectantly into the sky. The congregation followed their gaze.

Nothing happened.

Then Voldemort Rob, the groom, held out his gloved arm and started shouting. ‘Barney! Barney!’

Silence.

‘Barney, Barney!’

Then Jackie, who had sullied the effect of a two-thousand-pound wedding dress by accessorising it with a stripy red and yellow knitted Gryffindor scarf, joined in, shrilly calling, ‘Barney, Barney.’

Eve’s shoulders to shake with silent laughter.

‘Stop it.’ Becca whispered, stifling her own giggle.

‘Barney! Barney!’ Jackie’s father, wearing a stuck-on bushy beard like Hagrid joined in, and before too long the whole wedding party were staring up at the sky shouting at the clouds. It was too much for Eve and Becca who let themselves be taken over by uncontrollable laughter that had tears running down their faces.

Finally, after what seemed like days of waiting, a bemused looking barn owl, with the wedding rings tied to his claw, swooped in and landed with a thud on Rob’s outstretched arm.

‘I can’t breathe,’ Eve gasped.

Please don’t misunderstand me, Eve wrote in her diary that night. I love a good fancy dress party as much as the next person, actually scrap that, probably more than the next person – but would I want to marry the love of my life wearing Princess Leia style Danish pastry hair buns while my handsome groom donned a Chewbacca costume? Not really, no. It’s not even about what people would say, or what the grandkids would think when they looked through the wedding album. It’s because I don’t really want to marry a hairy Wookiee warrior, I’d rather marry the person I fell in love with, thanks very much.

There are times and places for costumes – the theatre, for one. Plays would be rather dull and uninteresting if everyone was just wearing normal clothes. Macbeth wouldn’t seem h alf as loony if he was wearing Diesel jeans and a Lacoste polo shirt and there’s no way that Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat would work if he was wearing a mac from Superdry. Bedrooms – there’s another place where the odd roleplay outfit can work a treat. New Year’s Eve parties, birthday parties, anniversary parties, parties for the sake of having parties. All good occasions for a raid of the old dressing up box. But when I go to a wedding I like a bit of glam; a reason to blow dust off the fascinator that’s on top of the wardrobe; the chance to wear heels and perhaps carry a bag that doesn’t go over both shoulders. It’s very difficult to dance when you’re wearing a head-to-toe owl costume. And I know this for a fact because I’ve seen it firsthand.

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