The Wedding in Carlton Square

‘You’ll need another bridesmaid, Emma,’ Uncle Barbara says. ‘It’s bad luck to have an odd number. We had three at my wedding and look what happened.’

‘It made you queer,’ Auntie Rose chips in. ‘Only joking. I know the difference between a queer and a trannie.’

But not the difference between being offensive and not, clearly. ‘Mum,’ I shout over to their table. ‘How many bridesmaids did you have?’

‘Four,’ she says. ‘Why?’ She gasps, throwing her hands over her mouth. ‘Have you got only three? Oh no, Emma! You’re doooomed.’

‘You’re all taking the piss,’ I say. ‘Hilarious.’

‘It does look better for photos to have an even number on each side, though,’ Uncle Barbara points out. ‘If you’re looking for another, I’d be willing to step in.’

He sounds jokey, but he’s blushing under his beard.

Aside from my parents, Uncle Barbara is my closest relative under seventy and I’d love for him to be one of my bridesmaids, but can you imagine the looks on my new in-laws’ faces seeing him come up the aisle? ‘Thanks, Uncle Barbara, I’ll let you know, okay?’

‘Just don’t wait too long, like I said. I’d have to get me dress. And shoes, accessories …’

‘There is such a lot to think about,’ Daniel says, turning to me. ‘So many decisions to make. How would you feel about chocolate?’

‘I’m all for it!’ Auntie Rose says.

‘Is this another question like your mother’s about fish? You’re not going to suggest making the entire reception out of seventy per cent dark, are you, or have a Kinder vicar filled with toys?’

He laughs. ‘Mummy mentioned a chocolate fountain, that’s all. Guests can dip fruit in it. She thinks it will be such great fun.’

Of course she does. She’ll probably want fruit that has to be airlifted in individually by private jet and chocolate sourced from some remote Aztec civilisation and made with leprechaun’s tears.

‘Mmm, maybe.’ The reception would look like there’d been a massacre at Willy Wonka’s factory five minutes after this lot gets into a chocolate fountain. ‘Let’s see where we find for the reception first.’

Daniel grimaces. ‘Right, it’s just that she’s got an image of the wedding in her head now,’ he says. ‘Of course we’ll do what we want. It is our wedding. It’s only that I wouldn’t want to disappoint her if we don’t use any of her ideas.’

‘The last thing I want is a disappointed mother-in-law, so of course we’ll use some,’ I say. Just don’t ask me how.

The pub has thinned out by the time Kelly nudges me later. ‘The prawn man’s here.’

‘Told you we’d eat,’ I say to Daniel, who can’t take the grin off his face. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ve read about them,’ he says.

‘What, prawns? They swim in the sea.’

‘You sometimes eat ’em with Marie Rose sauce,’ Kell adds.

‘Cockle men,’ he says. ‘Or prawn men. I didn’t think they were real.’

‘Aw, bless, he looks like he’s seen a unicorn,’ Kell says, waving the man over.

‘All right?’ the prawn man asks, tipping his basket of seafood toward us so we can have a look. We politely glance into the basket even though he always sells the same things. He’s getting on a bit now and I’ve been eating his prawns since I was a little girl in here with Mum and Dad. He never says more than he has to. He just tips his cap as he goes from table to table, passing out snacks and collecting money.

We get three pints of prawns, which we demolish in about a minute. As I watch Daniel go to the bar to get his round in for us all, I get a little misty watching everyone’s smiling faces. That’s my fiancé, the most popular toff in East London.

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