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Found on the shores of The West Midlands. The Coventry Conch tells the tale of a young girl's experience growing up in Coventry in the 1990's.

Monday 20 July 2015

THE WEDDING: PART TWO



10am

Nanny Pam is curling my hair with her hot rollers in the living room. Aunty Mandy is getting ready upstairs with Mum, and Dad is trying to find a shoe.

Jenny’s really angry that the wedding is back on, and has said she’s not going to smile all day as a peaceful protest. She’s gone out the front to play in her bridesmaid dress. Nanny Pam keeps banging on the window at her, and shouts, ‘No!', every time Jenny picks up her bike.  

I tell Nanny Pam about Mandy crying last night. 

She says, ‘You can either love someone dangerously, or like someone safely, and thankfully Mandy’s chosen the latter.’  

I don’t really understand what she means, but it still makes me feel a bit sad. I forget all about it though, when Nanny Pam lets me put some blusher on.

12pm

Grandad and Candy have come round to take me and Jenny to the church with Mandy. 

He’s tied some ribbon to his car, but it still has all of his junk inside. I have to sit on top of a video player, and Candy has a box of garden ornaments on her lap.

Grandad has given Jenny and me a go of his camcorder. I’m filming Jenny pretending to be kidnapped.

She looks at the camera and says, ‘Help me. They’ve made me wear a dress against my will. And now I have to follow the alien queen up the aisle, where she will become a slave for all eternity.’

Mandy says, ‘Turn that bloody thing off!'

12.30pm:

We get outside the church and Jenny gets into a fight with my cousin Joe, because he laughed at our dresses. Jenny bites Joe on the elbow, and he punches her in the face, which makes her have a really big nosebleed. 

Jenny’s dress is covered in blood, and when Mandy sees her she starts crying again.  I think Jenny likes having blood on her dress; I saw her putting even more blood from her nose on it in the toilet.

3pm

After the church, we drive to the Unicorn Club for the party bit. 

Before we’re allowed to start eating the buffet, we have to listen to Grandad’s speech.

He says ‘Firstly, I’d like to thank myself for being here today, because I could barely afford the petrol, after Pamela took me for all I had when we got divorced….

 

3.20pm

…at first I doubted if Mandy was even mine, because Pamela always had a headache, if you know what I mean. Then, I remembered one hell of a night in Marbella, when Pamela and I had one too many Banana Breeze Cocktails at Maria’s bar….

…she was gorgeous…I could have had her there and then, but then Pamela pulled me off Maria, and dragged me back to the hotel.

3.30pm

…after the divorce she took everything, the car, the silver service set….

3.40pm

…. even the cat bowl, and the cat died fifteen years ago... 

4pm

…well, all that’s left to do is wish the groom good luck. He’s gonna fucking need it with this family.

6pm
The disco has started, and I’m practicing some of my new dance moves with Nanny Pam. We fall over twice, but Nanny Pam just laughs her head off. I tell Nanny Pam that I love her and that Grandad’s speech made me fall asleep.

 She says, ‘Grandad’s why you should be very careful about falling in love’  .