For at least an hour, Octavia and Tamsin had been sat in the living room, chatting away as they planned the ceremony, while Russel sat in the corner, observing them.  But the moment Tamsin left the room to go and check on the baby, Russel got up and moved across the room.

“Thought I should apologise for Tamsin,” he said, as he sat down in the seat his wife had just vacated.

“What do you mean?”

“Showing off that bag.  I warned her.”

The bag was a little black one that Tamsin had bought from Miss Selfridge at the weekend.  She had been eager to show it off… an hour ago, when Octavia had first arrived.  Since then, they’d been so preoccupied with musicians and caterers that Octavia had forgotten all about it until now.

“Piece of cheap tat.”  Russel looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to work out whether Tamsin was directly above their heads or not.  “Buys some plastic crap off the high street and thinks that makes her a trendsetter.”

Apparently Russel had declared all-out war on Tamsin’s bag, and he badly wanted Octavia on his side.  “It looks alright to me.”

“Oh, come on.  Some of your clients must spend thousands of pounds on designer bags.  That thing barely cost a tenner.”

“Some of my clients spend thousands of pounds on bags that don’t look half as nice as Tamsin’s.  I once knew a woman who paid a designer a quarter of a million to superglue diamonds all over her bags and belts, and they still fell off in the wash.”

Russel didn’t seem to have heard this.  “The trouble with Tamsin is, she’s immature.”

That strikes me as something you should have thought of before you married a woman thirty years younger than you, Octavia didn’t say.  There was such a thing as tact.

“She reads things in magazines, and suddenly it’s the gospel truth.  That’s what this whole vow-renewal thing is about- she read that Beyonce or someone had done it, and suddenly she’s got her heart set on it.”  Russel caught Octavia’s eye and smirked.  “It’s no wonder- look at her parents.  Father’s a miserable druggie- spends all his time doped up to the eyeballs.  As for her mother…”  He chuckled.  “I’ll tell you something about her mother.  First time Tamsin introduced us, she was offering me a threesome by the end of the night.  God’s honest truth!  With her own daughter!”

Octavia wondered if Tamsin had been in the room when that conversation had been going on.  She also wondered exactly how old Tamsin had been at the time.

“Anyway.  Point is, the ceremony’s what she wants, so I’ll indulge her.  We’ll let her have her way with the fairytales and that, eh?”  He winked.  “But just keep in mind, it’s not her money we’re spending.  Alright?”

At that point, the stairs creaked- Tamsin was on her way down.  Russel got up and went back to his original seat, and no more was said.

(To be continued)