I’ve looked all over this stupid roof terrace, discarding a thousand willy straws and knocking over a million more sticky shot glasses, but no ring. Shiny Naked Man briefly shook Jill off and helped me search, but after a few minutes he muttered something about his insurance not covering this, and wandered back over to resume being pestered. Actually, he is starting to seem fairlyOKabout the groping situation. Ooh, maybe he and Jill will fall in love? That would be so romantic! Wait,wouldthat be romantic? I’m not sure I’ve got romance right.
I turn to Harriet, who is staring forlornly at her empty glass. It’s hard to tell if she’s more upset about the missing jewellery, or being momentarily out of alcohol. ‘You’re absolutely sure you didn’t leave it back in your room tonight, Harri? Maybe in the bathroom? Can I not just go down and check?’ I ask for the third time.
She wails again, ‘I’ve already told you: no! Definitely not! I’m not an idiot, Delly. Oh God, I’m sure I left it at the cocktail class earlier. I remember taking it off there. Or maybe it was at the life drawing class we did? Or maybe the karaoke? Why did we go to so many different places today? I’m pretty sure it must be at one of those. I’m ninety-nine per cent certain it’s at the cocktail class.’ She looks at me pointedly and then adds slowly, ‘I guess someone is going to have to go back over there to check.’
Oh shit, she wants me to go. I pause, thinking about retracing the many, many exhausting steps we’ve taken today and knowing I’m the only one here sober enough to do it.
Harriet seizes on my reluctance and starts shrieking again. ‘Oh, forget it! What’s the point? My hen do is ruined; everything’s ruined. We might as well go home right now and I’ll just cancel my wedding since clearly no one gives a shit about me.’ She covers her face with her hands.
I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
‘Of course it’s not ruined,’ I say, knowing I’m being manipulated and hating it. ‘You stay here and keep having... fun. This is going to be fine. I’ll go to the cocktail place and find it.’
I locate my bag under the maid of honour, Nina, who is flopped across one of the sofas. There’s a sick bucket next to her head and a really rather surprising amount of bright green vomit in there.
‘Nina, are you all right?’ I ask, genuinely concerned. She lifts her head up from the sofa and nods, blearily. I look again at the bucket. ‘Er, I don’t suppose you have the phone numbers for any of the venues we’ve been to today?’ I say, enunciating as clearly as I can. ‘Or maybe an itinerary or something? Harriet can’t find her engagement ring.’
Nina looks momentarily stricken. ‘Oh no, that’s...’ She stops, confused. ‘Wait, what’s happened? Sorry, Nelly, what do you need?’ She tries to stand and immediately lurches back down.
Nelly, now, is it? Fabulous.
I save her hair before it flops into the green liquid, and say as nicely as I can, ‘OK, Nina, never mind. You stay there and keep that bucket close. I’ll sort this out.’
She gives me a weak thumbs up. ‘Thanks, Nelly.’
It’s fine. I can do this all by myself. I will handle it. And Nelly is at least a nicer name than Delly.
Three hours later, and I am totally broken as I trudge back into the villa. I have been all over town looking for this fucking, fucking ring. I managed to figure out the names of the various places we’d been to, even without Nina’s help, and got their phone numbers off Google, using up all my O2 data. But it’s a Saturday night so obviously no one was really answering when I rang around. Oh, except that one guy who just kept asking me what I was wearing, and when I mentioned looking for a ring, he said he wouldn’t mind looking for my ring sometime. So I got a cab to each of the three places we’d visited, to search them properly for myself. Sadly, all I found were yet more drunk groups of women, and barmen who smirked and made the exact same joke about my ring as the other guy.
At some point in my travels, my phone died, and I had to admit defeat and head back to the apartment, empty-handed and miserable.
I know Harriet has been a pain, but I feel really, really awful. I told her I’d find the ring and I haven’t. I’ve failed the bride. I’ve let her down. Everyone knows that’s the one thing you’re not supposed to do. If a bride says jump, you bloody well jump and then jump higher and then you find a lost fucking engagement ring.
I find everyone gathered back in our apartment, playing pin the willy on the donkey in the large living room. The mood has lifted decidedly since I last saw them, and I feel a pang at having missed out on so much of the fun. I was so desperate to get away from them but now I’m sad and resentful at having missed out.
I’m surprised to see Shiny Naked Man is still here. His allotted booking with us must’ve run out ages ago. But yep, that’s definitely his apron I can see in the corner, covering those hairless legs poking out from underneath Jill.
Oh God, I hope he’s not dead.
But at least that might distract everyone from my failed ring mission?
Harriet looks up, surprised as I come in.
‘Where have you been, Delly?’ she says delightedly.
I wince – she’s going to be devastated. Come on, Lilah, woman up. Just tell her the truth. It’s not like you lost the ring yourself, and she’ll understand that you did everything you could to get it back. She’s not a monster.
She is a bit of a monster.
Deep breath.
‘I’m really sorry, Harri, I couldn’t find it,’ I say, covering my eyes.
‘Find what?’ she says, and I peek through my fingers. She looks confused.
‘Your engagement ring,’ I say, waiting for the crying to start again. There really should be crying at this point. Maybe she’s saving up the tears for telling the fiancé – that conversation will require a lot of crying to avoid shouting.
But instead, she waves her hand dismissively. The hand glitters.
