‘No, the Pope. Of course Max, who else is my only daughter planning to marry?’
‘Our daughter,’ Molly said tersely.
‘Whatever. The thing is, what is he like?’
‘You’ve met him, haven’t you?’
Jonathon sniffed. ‘Of course I’ve met him. Once or twice but only in the “Hello, pleased to meet you, so you’re the bastard who is sleeping with my little girl” kind of way.’
Molly laughed; sometimes, Jonathon could also be delightfully self-aware.
‘They dropped in on their way back from somewhere or other and then Jess brought him over to have Sunday lunch with us,’ Jonathon continued. ‘What does that tell you about anybody? He seemed nice enough, but who knows? He could be an axe-murdering psychopath for all I know. Something in banking, isn’t he?’
‘No, that was Glenn. The one before, the one who went off to America? San Francisco?’
‘Ah.’ There was another pause and then Jonathon asked, ‘So what does Max do?’
‘IT, project management, I think. I’m not sure what exactly.’
‘Ummmm, not a banker then? I suppose we should be grateful really.’
‘We have to trust Jess to make her own mind up, after all she knows him better than we do. These are her decisions to make. She’s not a child any more.’
‘So you say.’
‘Jonathon, we’d already got her and Jack by the time I was her age.’
‘Yes, but we were different,’ said Jonathon. ‘Things were different.’
True, now it seemed that adolescence lasted until you were well into your thirties, thought Molly ruefully, whereas when she and Jonathon had been dating, it ended as soon as you left school. She felt younger now than she had in her twenties – probably looked younger too, she decided, catching sight of her reflection in the monitor.
‘Right, well, I suppose we should get together and discuss the wedding, then. Money and the arrangements and things. I know that in the good old days the bride’s father used to stump up for the whole shebang but as you said, times have changed.’
Molly groaned inwardly; the one time Jonathon took notice of something she’d said it was obviously going to rebound.
‘Before all this kicked off I had been thinking of giving Jess something towards the deposit on a house or a flat,’ Jonathon said.
‘They still might prefer that…’
Molly looked back at the website she’d been browsing through. With the cost of a wedding today Jonathon wouldn’t be far out. The price of a deposit on a first time home equalled just about what it would cost to throw a half-decent wedding. In fact the all-inclusive charge on a featured venue of the month cost more than Jonathan and Molly had paid for their first house.
‘How about we talk everything over once Marnie and I get back?’
‘Fine by me. So you’ll ring Jess and make the arrangements?’
‘Oh.’ Jonathon sounded genuinely surprised. ‘I was rather hoping you’d do that.’
‘But if we’re coming to yours…’
Jonathon gave a funny little throaty cough.
‘You want everyone to come to mine?’ said Molly. Mindreading was right up there on the list of talents required to deal with Jonathon. She certainly didn’t miss being married to him one little bit. ‘Not your place?’
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, do you? I don’t want to upset Marnie,’ he said.
‘But it’s all right to upset Nick?’ asked Molly, her tone level.
‘You know how things are, Molly –’
What Jonathon actually meant was he didn’t live with Nick and therefore he didn’t give a rat’s arse about how upset Nick might or might not get, because Nick wasn’t anything to do with Jonathon, and Marnie – five foot two, six stone wet, with a tongue that could strip paint, and a temper to match – most definitely was. Seeing the way Jonathon ran around trying to placate Marnie, Molly had come to the conclusion that sometimes it paid to be difficult.
‘Besides,’ he was saying, ‘your place is so much easier to get to, and you’ve got more parking. Our place is a bit tucked up for all those cars.’
All those cars – two more at most. Molly wondered just how many reasons Jonathon would be able to come up with before she put him out of his misery. On screen she had found a really beautiful oyster-coloured suit with a hat – apparently a complete snip at nine hundred pounds.
‘Fine,’ she agreed.
‘Fine?’ said Jonathon.
‘Look, I’m at work, Jonathon, I’ll email you. Have a nice holiday.’
‘See you when we get back, then.’ Jonathon sounded crestfallen at not having managed more sparring. ‘So you’re all right about everything?’
Molly looked heavenwards. What was that supposed to mean? She decided not to ask him. ‘I’ll ring Jess when I get home and then we can arrange a time for you to pop over.’
‘Oh,’ said Jonathon.
‘Oh? What do you mean, “Oh”?’
‘Well, I’d rather assumed I’d be coming over for lunch. We’ve got a lot to talk about. And I am going to be coughing up the lion’s share for the wedding.’
The sheer gall of the man took Molly’s breath away. What she wanted to say was, ‘In that case maybe you should invite Jess and Max over to your place instead and count me out. You could arrange it between yourselves – after all, it is your only daughter who is getting married.’
But she knew from years of experience that the resulting hissy-fit wouldn’t be worth it, so what she actually said was, ‘I have to go, Jonathon. I’ll let you know what Jess says.’ And with that she hung up, which was perfect timing as she could see their boss, Rob Harwood, making his way into the conference room.
Picking up her notepad and clipboard Molly hurried over to catch him up. For all his apparent bonhomie and great show of just being another one of the station crew, one of the team, no one was under any illusions about who was top dog or what would happen if you ever made the mistake of treating Rob as just one of the boys.
In the conference room Stan was already sorting out a drink for Rob, Nina was there to ensure no one forgot budget or logistics, a girl from the front office was there to take notes while someone up from the sales department was there to talk about advertising.
Molly had already emailed her outline plan for next month’s shows, although it was fairly academic; the framework for programme content in the broadest sense
