Four Takeaways and a Funeral

1. The Fish Supper

Chapter One

The Fish Supper

We all want to believe in a happy ever after, even if it’s someone else’s.

Mavis wanted a wedding like Sheryl’s, except for the secret bit. Mavis wanted everyone to know about her wedding, while Sheryl didn’t tell a soul. In fact, it was only once Sheryl had blogged about her wedding that anyone knew—apart from me.

Mavis, on the other hand, was as public as a celebrity on Big Brother. Within minutes of Lumpy’s proposal, she was on not only the phone but f*******:, i********:, and Twitter, hashtagging selfies like a teenager.

She was so happy it was sickening.

“We have been together six months,” tweeted Mavis. “Barely time to change the sheets and there he was, ring in one hand and bubbly in the other.”

Lumpy had pushed the boat out with a ring the size of a bath plug, along with promises of a ceremony no one would forget…

The day Lumpy proposed, he said little; instead he spent the day with Mavis making his kitchen “their” kitchen and then “nipped out for a fish supper.” Mavis had no idea about a ring.

Lumpy returned “all romantic and sheepish” with a cod and chips under one arm and a bottle of Prosecco in the other.

Mavis, engrossed in The X Factor, didn’t notice until Lumpy, on one dodgy knee, handed her her cod.

“For you,” he said. “A woman any good man would want.”

Mavis was confused. “Cod?” she said. “I asked for haddock.” Then, from behind his back, Lumpy pulled the ring. Mavis was swept off her feet.

Later that night, Mavis, tucked up in bed with the “man of her dreams,” tweeted:

“Dinner’s in the dog; who could look at batter after a proposal?”

In the months that followed, Mavis and Lumpy talked, discussed, and finally disagreed over the wedding; each had different ideas. Mavis saw a chandelier setting, an outfit that would be talked about for weeks, and a professionally made video.

“The sort of video,” said Mavis, “that would even have my mother tearful – a woman who never cried at anything apart from fistful of onions.”

Lumpy on the other hand saw a cheap-as-chips venue, DIY decorations, and a mobile phone video knocked up by his good pal the Roadworks Man.

Neither of which was anything like Sheryl’s wedding.

Sheryl and Steven were married on a beach a few miles from Campbeltown. The celebrant was a good pal of Sheryl’s, while Steven’s cousin and his wife were the witnesses.

The wife, known only as “the wife” due to her caustic nature, was tolerated by many because everyone felt for Campbell, the “gem of a husband” who “put up with so much.”

Campbell, being a farmer, offered Steven half a sheep to celebrate. His wife, who came from the suburbs, said “a leg” and, before Steven could answer, changed the offer to “a shank with a few turnips thrown in.” Steven, reading between the lines of a half-hearted offer, suggested cake and sandwiches, which he would bring.

Steven made Sheryl’s favourite chocolate cake with cream icing. The cake was completely over the top, with three layers and a twirling belly dancer for each member of my now de-flunked troupe – mine being a likeness as much like me as co-op curry being like…a curry.

Sheryl was married in a lemon outfit that most people wouldn’t be seen cleaning an oven in, let alone wear to a “do.” Yet, somehow, it worked. Sheryl, voluptuous and sparkling, looked radiant in lemon dungarees, see-through blouse, and glitter-covered bra. While Steven, in a white shirt and a Kris Kristofferson beard, looked like he had won not only a watch but the factory it was made in.

Sheryl’s Married in Lemon blog inspired people with a mixture of hope, romance, and “why not me?” feeling. But then Sheryl’s blog always inspires. She blogs about wearing what you like, enjoying food, and how large is just a five-letter word.

Mavis took one look at the Married in Lemon blog and saw romance, an unusual setting, and a whole new colour scheme for her wedding.

“That’s what I want,” she said.

I thought she was joking. I mean, Mavis is not what you would call a beach person, and I couldn’t see her in dungarees eating sandwiches.

Mavis’s mother thought the same and launched into a spiel about dungarees not “suiting” a mature woman whose waist had “left years ago.”

While Lumpy thought Mavis, like him, wanted marriage on a shoestring. And, without asking, Mavis accepted a “too good to be true” offer from work.

Lumpy, after years of keeping the toilet to a standard high enough to “eat your lunch off” in the community centre, had been offered a room in the community centre along with free use of the kitchen with all the teabags at his disposal. Lumpy was over the moon, and when the after-school playgroup had offered to decorate, and the Woman’s Guild make a “fab” cake, Lumpy was ecstatic.

“It will be fab,” he said to Mavis…

Mavis thought he was joking. Lumpy saying “fab” is as believable as Campbell’s wife saying “help yourself.”

“Aye right,” she said with a laugh, and then she saw his face.

Now disappointed and confused, Mavis is not sure what to do next. Lumpy told her he was going to give her “a day to remember.”

Now it seems that it was going to be a day she would rather forget.