Page 36 of Five Gold Rings

‘But Abs, my stuff is all here… I can’t just go out in the street like this…’

‘SEE IF I CARE!’

The room door is slammed, and the girl turns slowly; if her anger could fume out of her nostrils then it would. ‘You are so dead!’ she says, pointing to the scared man at the end of the corridor. I don’t know what to do but I feel I need to tell that man to run rather than just standing there trying to explain himself with his fire extinguisher. It’s the two of them now and she has pretty fierce looking nails and, from the looks of it, some speed as she sprints down the corridor after him. The room door opens again and this time it’s a couple of ladies carrying bags, cameras and hairbrushes, dressed head to toe in black, their eyes wide in shock.

‘Excuse me, is that the Piper wedding?’ I ask her as she heads to the lifts.

She sniggers, unimpressed. ‘It was. She’s just thrown us out. I don’t think it’s happening.’

‘What happened?’ Joe whispers.

‘I thought I’d seen it all with weddings. Turns out the father of the bride has been sleeping with the maid of honour who she’s known since school. Anyways, it gets better… The best man caught them shagging last night in the loos and put the video on a wedding group chat.’

Joe and I stand there, our mouths agape at the drama. That balding man must have been in his fifties, the maid of honour much, much younger. We hear raised voices in the distance and what sounds like a punch. I don’t even want to know who that came from.

‘Is the bride OK?’ I ask.

‘She’s not great,’ one of the ladies tells us. ‘She’s already made phone calls. They’re turning away guests. The bridesmaids are literally at war. Phones being smashed, someone’s been taken to hospital because someone threw a champagne bucket at their head. It’s not pretty…’

‘Really? You’re not hanging around then?’ I enquire.

‘One of them torpedoed my hairdryer across the room. It’s fucked. A £500 hairdryer. If you do go in there, tell her she’s getting the bill for that. I’m done here. I don’t need this before Christmas,’ she says, hurriedly pushing the buttons on the lift. ‘I don’t know who you guys are, but I’d go home.’

Both of them disappear into the lift as I lead Joe towards the bride’s suite, staring at the door.

‘Eve, maybe we should just…’ Joe says, putting a hand to my arm. ‘If this has gone to pot then I think the last thing she needs to see is a ring to remind her of the event.’

But I stand there quietly, the echo of a fight on a stairwell still happening and the sounds of some very loud crying coming from behind that door. This has very little to do with us, but I think back to myself this time yesterday, processing the same sort of emotional havoc. How I couldn’t face telling anyone, not even my twin brother, and how isolating and overwhelming that felt. Just before Christmas, too. I knock softly on the door.

‘Hello?’

Joe

‘I TOLD YOU ALL TO PISS OFF!’ a voice echoes out of that hotel suite and we step back in shock.

This is not a good idea. I don’t know how to tell Eve this, but when a proper fist fight is happening and someone has grabbed for a fire extinguisher, then you know it’s time to take your leave. Don’t get involved. We can go downstairs to the foyer of this very fancy hotel, grab an overpriced Christmas cocktail and share a chocolate truffle.

‘Eve…’

She looks at me, those big eyes wide with concern. ‘But it’s her wedding day,’ she says, softly. ‘And none of it is her fault. She must feel awful…’

And I sigh, deeply. That’s Eve’s kind, empathetic side coming to the fore, the sort of quality that made me fall for her, but it’s that same emotion I saw on the boat. She wants today to mean something, she wants to root for love, she wants these ring deliveries to go well, without any problems. I watch as she tries the latch on the door and it opens. As we pop our heads around the door, the first thing I see is a wedding dress in the middle of the room; in fact, it takes up most of the room like some sort of ice cream bombe, covered in diamante and lace. However, around the dress, you see the signs of some sort of fight. Someone has thrown a bowl of crisps to the floor that line the carpet like confetti. I flinch a little at what I at first assume to be the bodies of small woodland animals strewn around the carpet that reveal themselves to be hair extensions. There’s a champagne bottle on its side, bleeding bubbles onto the carpet. I rush over to rescue it before it can do any more damage. On the double bed lies a bride, sobbing. She sits up as soon as she sees us.

‘Who are you? Are you from the hotel? God, you’re not the bird people, are you?’

I shake my head.

‘The wedding’s off. I’m so sorry. I… I…’ She falls to the bed again in tears and Eve slowly approaches her, grabbing at a box of tissues.

‘We’re actually from Caspar & Sons, the jewellers. We have your husband’s wedding ring. It’s been engraved. I am Eve and this is Joe.’

She eyes us curiously. ‘Well, you can take the ring back. There is no wedding,’ she sobs. I want to say sob, but it’s more of a wail, the sort you hear from toddlers in supermarkets who’ve been denied treats. ‘I can’t… I don’t…’

Eve goes to sit on the edge of the bed. I feel less inclined to do that so grab the fallen bowl and pick the crisps off the carpet, trying to be useful. Eve does very little but sits there, putting an arm around her back. She waits for a moment. ‘Can I get you anything?’ she whispers.

The bride is silent for a while. Then she sniffs, inhaling a fair amount of mucus through her nose. ‘Do you have any chocolate?’ she mumbles.

Eve rifles through her handbag. ‘I have a Snickers?’

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