The Christmas Surprise
Page 52

Roy looked bemused.
‘What, like you guys?’
‘Um, YES,’ said Rosie.
‘And me,’ said Pamela, stroking his arm. Roy looked befuddled but extremely pleased.
‘That’ll show her, won’t it?’ said Rosie. ‘Plenty of drink, plenty of food, dancing, everyone having a wonderful time, all in honour of you. Hmm, if only I knew where we could do it. Hmm.’
There was a short silence.
‘Well,’ said Tina, ‘we’ll be having a lot of food and drink for, you know, our wedding party.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I wouldn’t mind sharing it at all. But, oh, we don’t really have anywhere to have it.’
‘Yes we do!’ said Roy, banging down his glass. ‘Yes we bloody do! I’ve got a hut we can use, you know! It’s mine, I own it! Plenty of space! We’ll show that stupid cow! We’ll make a fine noise! Yeah, then they’ll all know about it!’
He frowned.
‘I don’t know who to ask,’ he said. ‘I don’t get to see many of my dentist friends these days.’
‘I know at least … a hundred people who’d love to come,’ said Rosie boldly. ‘And it will hardly cost you a penny.’ She thought about it briefly. ‘Well, unless you want people to have champagne, of course.’
Tina gasped. Rosie glanced at her. She was actually shaking.
‘Of course I want champagne!’ said Roy. ‘We must have champagne! It will be the best “sod off, bitch” party of all time!’
He took out his phone.
‘When are we having it?’
‘On Saturday!’ said Rosie. ‘Better to have it soon! Really Christmassy, too.’
‘RIGHT!’ slurred Roy, and dialled a number in his address book.
‘Yes. Hi. Right, I need to order … six cases of your best champagne. No. Wait. Your cheapest champagne.’
There was a pause. Then he said, ‘Yup. Yup, on the account. Deliver it to the sweetshop in Lipton. Good stuff. Bye.’
He hung up the phone, smiled beatifically around the table, then sat back in his chair and immediately fell asleep with his mouth wide open, snoring loudly.
Stephen took Roy home, whilst Moray took Lilian. Rosie, incredibly tired, tidied up as Tina and Jake stumbled over themselves with excitement and planning in the tiny kitchen, both quite tiddly.
‘You know we’ll probably have to let him make a speech,’ said Rosie. ‘People will think he’s your dad.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Tina. ‘I don’t care. Oh my God, champagne!!! Lots of it, not just a little glass!’
‘I know! And free space!’
Pamela stumbled in elegantly from the sitting room.
‘Great job helping us with Roy,’ said Rosie. ‘Seriously, we’d never have managed it without you.’
‘Managed what?’ said Pamela, whose eyes looked sleepy, but still magnificent.
‘To get him to give us the venue for the wedding, of course! You pretending to flirt with him was a masterstroke. Well, that and whatever that terrifying drink was.’
Pamela still looked puzzled.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘I like him. Can I stay, Rosie? My house is full of builders. Right, I’m going to bed. Oh, and by the way, there’s lots of glasses still round the windowsill.’
Rosie managed not to growl, as Stephen came through the back door again.
‘Okay, off you go, everyone,’ he said cheerily. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. And you have totally knackered out my—’
It must have been the lateness of the hour, the tone of the discussion, the alcohol consumed that made him do it. But he knew – and Rosie knew, and they swapped significant looks as he stopped himself – that he had been about to say ‘my wife’.
Chapter Fifteen
Two nights later, the snow that had been threatening for weeks began in earnest; proper heavy-flaked settling snow. It was freezing up in the little attic, even when Rosie let Apostil in to cuddle up after his early-morning feed. He was nearly eight weeks now; she couldn’t believe how fast he was growing.
Rosie looked at Stephen and he looked at her. Then they both looked at the gigantic green down-lined waxed jacket hanging on the back of the bedroom door. It had been a birthday gift from Stephen and Moray together. Rosie hadn’t even pretended to be pleased.
‘You have to,’ he said.
‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I swore I never would.’
‘There are a lot of things you never thought would happen,’ pointed out Stephen, with some justification.
‘Yes, but …’
‘Do you still think you’re a swinging London Town girl hopping up and down Carnaby Street in a miniskirt?’
‘I was never like that,’ protested Rosie. ‘But …’
They both looked at the jacket again. It was Thursday, two days before the wedding and a week before Christmas. The last few days had been a blur of activity. Everyone had texted Roy the morning after the dinner party, assuring him he had been completely splendid and what a brilliant guy he was. The champagne had arrived that same afternoon, and was crammed into the tiny storage room at the shop. It made Rosie’s heart leap with joy every time she saw it, and Tina was beside herself. Although the payout from the wedding insurance didn’t really help when it came to hiring new catering rather than taking what the hotel arranged as a package, Rosie had had the brilliant idea – and she was very proud of this – of asking Stan from the chippy to bring his van down, along with the pizza van that swung past occasionally. Even if everyone there ate a cod supper and a pizza, it would still be substantially cheaper than what they’d planned before. A few of the local teenagers would be serving drinks, and the cake could double as pudding.
‘I didn’t really care for the salmon anyway,’ pointed out Jake. ‘We were only having it because she saw it in a magazine.’
‘I did see it in a magazine,’ said Tina. ‘I thought that’s what you had to have. I don’t like it either.’
Rosie smiled.
‘You’re not too fussed?’ she said. ‘About it not being like those wedding mags you like?’ She knew what a shopaholic Tina was, and how long she’d dreamed about having the perfect wedding.