Tales From a Hen Weekend Read Online Free PDF Page A

Charlie and Molly, who’ve both just trotted in, to the accompaniment of the closing music of a kids’ cartoon show on the TV in the other room.
    Charlie and Molly are lovely kids. If I wanted kids, I’d want them to be clones of these two. Lisa’s a great mum. Like she’s great at everything.
    ‘But I don’t want kids,’ I mutter, half to myself. Not yet? Or not ever?
    ‘You’re thirty-one,’ Mum reminds me with great solemnity.
    ‘Thanks. I know.’
    ‘In my day, you would have been considered an elderly primigravida.’
    ‘Great. Thanks. I’m actually not any sort of gravida, elderly or otherwise. Matt and I haven’t even thought about having kids, OK?’
    At this there’s a silence, broken only by Charlie asking for a drink and Molly going ‘Daddy gone? ’s Daddy gone? ’s Daddy gone?’ over and over.
    ‘I don’t mean we haven’t discussed it,’ I backtrack quickly. ‘Just that it hasn’t been high on the agenda… it hasn’t been an issue… it hasn’t been…’
    Actually, we’ve barely spoken about it.
    Any more than his bloody stag party.
    ‘So he’s off tonight, then, Katie?’ says Lisa as if I’ve spoken aloud.
    ‘Yes,’ I say, a bit curtly.
    ‘Ten days, eh? Blimey, you’re really letting him off the leash, aren’t you!’ she laughs.
    There’s a trace of admiration in her voice. Am I a good girlfriend, then, for allowing my bloke to go off and bankrupt us just before the wedding? Like I had any choice in it?
    ‘In my day,’ says Mum, predictably, ‘the bridegroom just had a night out at his local pub. There wasn’t any money for jetting off on these separate holidays.’
    Don’t worry about it. There isn’t now, either.
    ‘What about the bride?’ says Lisa. ‘Didn’t you have a hen night, Mum?’
    ‘Of course I did!’ She shrugs to herself and I wonder what exactly she’s remembering. How it felt to be happy, and in love with my dad, before it all started to go wrong?
    ‘We went down to Southend on the train,’ she says wistfully. ‘Four of us. We all worked together at the hospital. We got drunk and went on the Big Dipper. I was sick on the train home.’
    ‘Sounds lovely,’ I say.
    ‘It was,’ she retorts quite fiercely. ‘It was – because we didn’t expect too much.’
    ‘Fair enough.’
    ‘That’s the trouble, you see,’ she adds darkly as she picks up our mugs and takes them out to the kitchen. ‘That’s the trouble, nowadays.’
    Lisa and I look at each other and smile.
    But I don’t want to ask her what she thinks the trouble is. I don’t really want to dwell on trouble, this close to my wedding, thank you very much.

 
ABOUT HELEN
     
    The flight takes off on time. I’m sitting in the middle seat of three, between Lisa and my friend Helen, and as we lift off the Stansted Airport tarmac a cheer goes up from the row behind us, where Emily’s sitting with our two other friends from Uni – Karen and Suze.
    ‘YEAH!! DUBLIN HERE WE COME!’ shouts Emily.
    ‘Watch out you Irish lads!’ adds Karen, and everyone starts laughing and cheering, even people further down the plane who don’t know us.
    They might not know us, but they certainly know why we’re going to Dublin. Emily’s made sure of that. We’re all wearing bright pink T-shirts, with Katie’s Hen Party printed on the back. Mine also states in bold print (in case anyone had any doubt): BRIDE. Emily’s says CHIEF BRIDESMAID , Lisa’s says BRIDE’S SISTER and Mum’s says MOTHER OF THE BRIDE. Mum, sitting across the aisle from me with Auntie Joyce, has put her cardigan on over the top of her T-shirt so nobody can read it. Anyone would think she was ashamed of me!
    ‘You’re quiet,’ Helen says to me as the fasten seat belt signs are turned off and everyone bustles about, putting their seats back, their trays down, getting their magazines or books out and settling down for an hour before we start to descend again. ‘You OK?’
    ‘I’m fine.’ I flash her a grin.