Wedded to Calamity

Chapter 1-2

“My shoes are ruined,” Gabi protested ten minutes later. I refrained from saying “I told you so.” We huddled under an inadequate umbrella waving at taxis as they hurtled by, ignoring us drowned rats on the pavement.

“Should we get a bus?” I asked, looking at our large cases and hating the thought of dragging them onto a crowded London bus.

“We should have booked a minicab,” Gabi said. “But no, there are always so many taxis on this road, you said.”

“Well, there are.” Just none of them are stopping for us. We could hike to the Tube station. It’s only about half a frigging mile…”

“Yes!” Gabi shouted “Yes! Yes!” Oh, good memories…A taxi was pulling up at the kerb. I nearly yanked the door off when it stopped. Gabi chucked our cases in, while I wrestled with getting the umbrella down without getting even wetter and climbed in behind her. It’s always a treat to follow Gabi climbing a step.

The taxi was a haven. Warm and dry. Us and our soaking wet gear soon filled it with dampness, but I didn’t care. I gave the address of the car hire place, while trying to wring out my jeans, which were soaked to the knees.

“Great weather for ducks, eh?” the taxi driver said as he pulled out into traffic and immediately stopped in the queue for the next junction. “You ladies heading somewhere warm?”

“Scotland,” I said, gloomily, wondering whose bright idea it had been to get married in a Scottish castle in late November. Mine probably. I’m full of great ideas like that, especially when they involve the words “out of season” and “cheaper.” Gabi checked her phone as we crawled through traffic. She frowned as she flicked through text messages. She was waiting for one from her parents. They were in Europe right now, and I’d heard many tense conversations in Portuguese over the last few weeks as she tried to persuade them to come to the wedding. I’m lucky that my folks are cool about it. Gabi had got a half promise at last from her dad that they’d be there. Now she was waiting for confirmation they were in the country and on the way to Scotland, like us and the rest of the wedding party.

“You should call them,” I said.

“I shouldn’t,” she said, with a firm shake of her head. “If my father thinks I’m nagging him, then even if he’s at Heathrow, he’ll turn back around and get a plane out of there. He doesn’t like to be told what to do. Especially not by his little girl.”

I snorted. “His little girl is getting married in a couple of days. You’d think he’d accept you’re a grown up when you told him that.”

“Married to you though, Kim. He thinks that means I’m still a rebelling teenager, trying to provoke him.”

We got a glance from the cabbie in the mirror for that, though he said nothing. Gabi put the phone away with a grimace.

“If they come, they come,” she said. “If they don’t, it’s their loss.” But I saw the pain in her eyes that she might marry without her parents there. My folks had accepted her as one of the family a long time ago. And we’d have a load of friends there. But it was too far to come for her siblings in Brazil, and if her parents refused to come either…I moved closer, so our arms pressed together, hoping the contact gave comfort and she smiled at me.

We’d been quiet for a while, checking phones for messages from friends who’d soon be on their way to Scotland too, when I realised we hadn’t moved for some time. Car horns honked all around us. I looked up ahead. Nothing was moving. s**t.

“What’s going on,” I asked the driver.

“Accident on Vauxhall Bridge Road,” he said. “And a burst water main on the best alternative route.” He shook his head. “Sorry, ladies, we’re going to be here a while.”

Oh, for God’s sake. I looked at Gabi. “If we’re too late they’ll give the car to someone else.”

She swore in Portuguese. Well, it sounded like swearing. She’d muttered the same words in the past when I was doing something she found annoying. I looked around. A hundred yards up the street was the familiar red circle sign of an Underground station. “Right,” I said. “Come on. We’re getting the Tube.”

I paid off the disgruntled cabbie and we got out. The rain was even heavier and Gabi squealed in disgust before we got the brolly up and made a dash for it along the pavement, splashing all the way in puddles, wheeled suitcases leaving a wake. I hoped they were keeping the water out. I didn’t want to arrive in Scotland to find our wedding clothes soaked and ruined.

We made it to the Underground station and got past the crush of people hanging around the entrance, keeping out of the rain. Then there was much digging in handbags to find our travel cards, which we hadn’t planned to use. Then there was more digging for her wallet when Gabi couldn’t find her travel card at all. Of course she found it two minutes after she’d gone through the barrier and paid with her debit card. So then there was much tutting and annoyed muttering.

Naturally with heavy cases, we had to pick a station with plenty of steps. But we got to the platform eventually and stood steaming gently.

“We should change at Tottenham Court Road,” Gabi said.

“No, better to go to Oxford Circus, then on the Piccadilly line.”

“No no, that will take much longer.”

“Hey, out of the two of us, who was born in London? The Tube map is in my DNA.”

“Then you should know better.” She sat on a bench, looking cross. Which is usually a sexy look on her. But today, all damp and irritated as we both were I couldn’t be patient with her sulking, so matter how sexy.

“We change at Oxford Circus,” I said.

“Fine.”

I’m sure I don’t have to tell any of you what it means when a woman says ‘fine’ in that tone of voice.

She turned out to be right—but only because the train we got on at Oxford Circus developed a fault and they turfed us all off it to wait for another one.

“If we’d changed at Tottenham Court Road—” Gabi began.

“It’s not my fault the train broke down.”

“No, but if we had changed—”

“Okay, okay, so you were right and I was wrong. Like always, I suppose.”

She frowned. “There’s no need to snap at me.”

I sighed and sat on my suitcase, already exhausted, frankly. This day could be going better.

* * * *

The rain was still hammering down when we got out of the station and grabbed yet another taxi to get to the car hire office.

“We do still have a car,” the lad behind the desk said, politely not commenting on how late—and bedraggled—we were. “Just one. We’re quite heavily booked up right now.”

So that meant the one car left was probably the lemon they tried not to give out to people if they could possibly manage it. I didn’t care. As long as it was warm and dry. Right then I’d’ve liked to go to sleep in it, not drive it. But there was no time for that. We had to get on the road.

I drove, because Gabi treats speed limits and road signs as vague suggestions and a ticket would have just put the topper on the day. Also, she was clearly feeling a bit tense, and driving in London makes dental torture seem like a fun and relaxing way to spend a day. The roads were full of a load of other tense people and Gabi’s towering road rage is a thing to behold. All in all, better if I drove. She could still call people donkeys and sons of a slum dogs from the passenger seat just as well as she could from the driver’s seat and with less chance of us smashing into anything.

The car proved as lemony as feared. The gears were stiff and crunchy and its SatNav wasn’t working, so Gabi had to use her phone to navigate while I drove. You ever done that? Let’s just say I’m surprised the wedding wasn’t off before we even reached the North Circular road.

We got out of London after being good and lost for a while. But at last we found the motorway and the big ol’ sign to ‘The North.’ I sped up along the slip road and joined the faster moving traffic on the motorway. We were truly on our way at last. The rain turned to hail. Winter is coming.