There are three types of old lady who attend theFU(why yes, I do enjoy sayingFUevery time, thank you for asking). There’s the aforementioned Category A – the really grumpy, angry-at-everything women, who want to tell you specifically and furiously about how many fields this whole area used to be made up of and how everything has been ruined by their disappearance. Category B is a smaller group, comprised of ladies who act bewildered and afraid of everything you say. But they will definitely still ask you about Facebook. Over and over. And it doesn’t matter how many times you explain it to them, they still don’t get it, and will never get it, so stop spending half your evening every single week going through it. And definitely don’t let them look at it on your phone because they will totally ‘like’ photos of your bastard ex-boyfriend from 2010.
NB: This is more advice for myself.
Oh, and they also want to talk about the fields this building used to sit on.
Then there’s Category C: the mischievous grandmas. These women are totally on Snapchat, and like to wind the other two categories up with the tales they bring back from the frontline of ‘young people’ and their ‘filters’. Although, if pressed, Category C do also enjoy talking to you about fields that are long since gone.
I’m going out on a limb right now and saying fields are a big thing for old ladies.
Franny rules them all, as a Category A-, B- and C-type grandma, and the smartest of them all.
Today she is clearly in C – Mischievous Grandma – mode as she smiles widely at my sneaky entrance, pronouncing loudly, ‘Ah, Delilah, you’re here at last! Tell the group about that mad wedding you went to at the weekend.’
I freeze in the act of sitting quietly down at the back. Catherine’s wedding. She wants me to tell everyone about the wedding. Of course she does. Oh God.
Obviously, Franny’s already heard about it during our lunches together this week, but these ladies have not. We stare at each other now for a full ten seconds. She knows this story will infuriate and confuse the group – that’s why she wants me to tell it.
They all turn in their chairs towards me, knitting paused mid-stitch around the room.
I clear my throat and make eye contact with 84-year-old Molly’s always-watering right eye. She’s a Category A.
A for Angry.
‘Oh, Franny,’ I hedge. ‘They don’t want to hear about yet another one of my weddings! We have much better things to talk about. We have to start preparations for our breast cancer tea party next month. And I haven’t downloaded the sudoku update yet, but I hear really great things.’ I nod encouragingly at the room, waiting for someone to chime in.
Franny takes a step towards me, menacingly. ‘Tell. Them. About. The. Wedding,’ she repeats, that damned left eyebrow going again. There will be no more debate.
I swallow. Dammit, this is meant to be my respite from wedding nonsense.
‘Right! Well, yes, the wedding. It was lovely...’ I say. ‘The bride wore pink, and so did the groom.’
Molly’s right eye starts watering angrily.
Franny’s smile gets wider, more wicked. ‘And then later?’
I hang my head, defeated. ‘Later on, things... things got out of hand. It was meant to be a cash bar, but the groom was so drunk by five o’clock that he volunteered his credit card to buy everyone’s drinks for the rest of the night. He then bought seventeen separate rounds of Jägerbombs for the entire room. And for some reason, he insisted that every glass came topped with whipped cream. There was whipped cream everywhere – on the floor, on the walls of the marquee, on the ceiling. Then one of the cousins broke his ankle slipping in the cream and got taken away by ambulance.’
The group is silent, staring at me.
‘Then?’ says Franny merrily.
I sigh. ‘Then the groomsmen all got into a fight and they knocked down one whole end of the marquee. Unfortunately it was the section where all the parents and grandparents were hiding. The groom tried to help his new mother-in-law out from underneath the tenting and she thought he was attacking her, so she punched him in the groin, which then made him throw up all over her.’ I take a deep breath. ‘So it was around then that the management started going crazy and shouting that the bar bill had hit fifteen thousand pounds and that they’d also have to pay for all the damage. The bride started crying and screaming hysterically, and said the money was meant to be the deposit for their new house. She said she wanted a divorce and then the groom – who was still being sick – also wet himself.’
There is a long, heavy silence as the ladies in the group process what I’ve said. Franny looks the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time as she surveys the room and waits for reactions from its occupants.
At last, Molly speaks. She islivid. Her left eye has now joined the right in the angry watering.
‘A... a...’ She can’t even get the words out. She is spitting with the effort. ‘A...PINK DRESS?’
The room erupts in delighted gossip about new fashions and what’s-wrong-with-tradition comments and, of course, some stuff about fields that used to be here.
Oh God, I wish we didn’t have to talk about this. TheFUis meant to be my one escape from wedding chat. I’m here to feel better about my life and hit them with my latest quiz questions. They’re my practice audience and they always get every single question right. They’re amazing.
One of the Category-C ladies, Annabel, shuffles closer to me. She can barely contain her excitement. ‘Do you have any pictures of these pink wedding outfits?’ she says in a low, conspiratorial voice. She wants to see it first so she can lord it over the others while they’re distracted. I pull out my phone for her to review Facebook. She flicks expertly but disinterestedly past the carnage shots – kindly uploaded by the best man, who has tagged the mother-in-law in an action shot, dripping with Jägerbomb puke.
‘Are you not interested in the boozy, fighty stuff too?’ I ask curiously, as Annabel shrieks with happiness at shots of the pink ceremony.
‘Ha!’ she huffs, not looking up. ‘You think we didn’t get up to that kind of nonsense when we were young too? Getting drunk and being sick on each other hasn’t changed much in centuries. That’s not shocking at all, love, but wearing a pink wedding dress... nowthat’sexciting. Look at this poor, silly child!’ She jabs a gnarled finger at my phone screen. ‘She looks like a walking blob of candy floss! Can you even imagine what my mother would’ve said about this? She would’ve sent me to live in a convent just for suggesting such a thing.’ She sighs, adding dreamily, ‘Isn’t the new world we live in just wonderful? What I wouldn’t give to be young now.’
