A/N: I got the idea for this while watching one of my favourite episodes of Friends (so, thank you to the writers for giving me inspiration!). This is set about three years after "A Conflict of Feelings", in case you're interested, but you don't need to have read that story to understand this (although, obviously, I'd very much like it if you did read that too!).
…
Matthew set his comb down and checked his watch– it was 6.10pm. The taxi was to arrive at 7pm. Briefly checking his appearance in the mirror, he walked over to the ensuite bathroom door and knocked loudly, to make sure he was heard over the sound of the running water.
"Mary? We have fifty minutes." He called. The tap closed with a squeak, and a moment later the door opened to reveal his fiancée wrapped in a dressing gown. His attention was drawn, however, to the towel which was twisted around her hair. "You washed your hair?" He asked, aghast.
"Should I be offended by your surprise at my hygiene?" Mary asked drolly, brushing past him as she removed the towel and gently dabbed at her hair.
"Your hair's soaking wet!" Matthew exclaimed. "How are you going to dry it and get dressed in time?"
Mary smiled at him affectionately; although his worrying did get a little over-the-top sometimes, it was endearing. "Darling, we have almost an hour! And I am equipped with a very powerful hair-dryer; it'll be fine." She placed a reassuring kiss on his lips, careful to avoid dripping water on him. "Why are you ready so early?"
"I don't know…I just felt better getting dressed early. I suppose I'm a bit nervous." Matthew's awkward chuckle supplied Mary with evidence of his nerves, not that she needed any. As she knew, he was incredibly anxious about this evening; earlier this week he'd been promoted to partner, which was an impressive feat for someone who qualified as a solicitor only five years ago. The firm, in accordance with their tradition, was holding a dinner in a five-star hotel to celebrate and make it official. Matthew was allowed to invite a few loved ones to join him and, being the guest of honour, was expected to make a short after-dinner speech to the guests. All of his peers and seniors would be there, as well as representatives of some of the firm's longest-standing clients. All in all, it was a significant evening for Matthew (the most important of his career, in many ways), likely to be daunting and memorable in equal measure, and he didn't want anything to go wrong.
"You'll be fine." Mary smiled warmly at him as she plugged in her hair-dryer. Just then, the buzzer for the flat sounded.
Matthew breathed a sigh of relief. He'd asked his mother, Sybil and Tom to all arrive by 6.15pm, to leave ample time for any tardiness or last-minute mishaps. "With any luck, that will be all three of them now… " Matthew said as he made to leave the bedroom.
"I'm afraid you might be disappointed." Mary smirked. Her youngest sister was seven-months pregnant and, unfortunately for poor Tom, the hormones had recently transformed her cheerful, amiable disposition into something entirely unreasonable and stubborn. Mary imagined that Tom would have a bit of a battle on his hands trying to persuade Sybil to even leave the house.
Matthew opened the front door with a grateful smile as Isobel closed her umbrella; he could always rely on his mother to be fastidiously punctual.
"You look very smart, dear." Isobel beamed at her son in his tuxedo as he kissed her cheek.
"Thanks, Mum. What's that?" He asked, frowning slightly at the large carrier bag which Isobel was clutching.
"I'll need to impose on you a bit." Isobel began explaining as she hurried herself into the flat, Matthew trailing behind her. "I'm taking part in a charity bake-sale tomorrow, but I ended up staying late at the hospital today so I didn't have time to make anything at home. So, I thought I could bake some cupcakes here, before we leave." She finished, pulling out various cake decorations from the bag and arranging them on the kitchen counter.
"Er…Mum, I don't think we really have time for that." Matthew reached out to gently still her busy hands. "We have to leave at 7pm sharp."
"Oh, that's plenty of time." Isobel insisted, removing her hands from Matthew's and turning to rummage through his cupboards. "I've got a recipe for some cupcakes which only takes thirty minutes. I'm trusting that you have all the necessary ingredients?" She asked rhetorically as she dug out packets of flour and sugar.
Matthew could only look on uncertainly– he knew his mother was extraordinarily efficient, but he was unsure whether even she would be able to finish baking a batch of cupcakes within the forty-five minutes that was left before they had to leave. Before he had time to assess the situation properly, the buzzer sounded again, and he made his way back to the front door. Standing on the doorstep was a rather wet and miserable looking couple.
"Hi guys." Matthew smiled at them. He was slightly taken aback when Sybil, who usually greeted everyone with a broad grin and tight hug, rather violently pushed him out of the way so she could storm through the corridor and stomp up the stairs which led to his flat. He looked to Tom, his eyes wide and mouth parted in surprise, hoping to receive an explanation for why he'd just been shoved against the wall. Tom merely sighed, shook his head apologetically and wearily made his own way up the stairs.
"Where's Mary?" Sybil demanded once they were all in the living room.
"She's just getting ready." Matthew replied cautiously, afraid of saying something to anger her further. He was comforted to hear that the sound of the hair-dryer coming from the bedroom had ceased– hopefully Mary would be ready soon and all they'd need to do was wait for the cab…and for his mother to finish baking.
Sybil wordlessly waddled into Mary's room, flinging the door open without knocking. Before the door shut, Matthew caught a glimpse of Mary's startled, and rather frightened, face. If Mary was frightened, it must be pretty bad…
"What's wrong with her?" Matthew asked Tom. It wasn't like him to speak so bluntly, but Sybil did have an air of demonic possession about her this evening.
"Well," Tom sighed deeply, "the thing that set her off today was that I said I wanted to go on a protest march tomorrow."
"Oh, well that's understandable in a way. It could be dangerous." Matthew remarked, recalling the contentious causes which Sybil and Tom lend their support to.
"No, it really couldn't." Tom retorted matter-of-factly. "Our council is threatening to shut down the local library– that's what the march is for. It's going to be a bunch of librarians and bookworms ambling through a park. It's not going to be dangerous." Tom emphasised.
"That's not like Sybil." Matthew said; Sybil was one of the most passionate supporters of democracy and public protest he'd ever met. She'd usually be the one trying to persuade everybody to attend marches, not discouraging them.
"No, it's not." Tom agreed. "By the way, if you happen to see the old Sybil around anywhere, please send her my way and I can trade her in for whatever that is." He jerked his head backwards towards the bedroom, and Matthew would have laughed had he not noticed Sybil emerge from it at that very moment.
"I heard that!" She shouted, her face a vision of fury, and Tom winced before glancing up at the ceiling and muttering something which Matthew couldn't decipher. A prayer to God, he guessed.
"Is Mary ready?" Matthew quickly asked Sybil, hoping to divert her attention away from any plans to wring her husband's neck.
"She's trying a few things on." Sybil mumbled, fussing agitatedly with her own dress. Mary had mentioned to Matthew that the pregnancy had made Sybil extremely uncomfortable, as it does for all women– however, Sybil had been having problems with it for her entire pregnancy. Matthew supposed that being made to wear a sequined evening dress probably did nothing to ease her discomfort or lighten her mood.
"Matthew?" His mother's voice summoned him. He patted Tom on the arm sympathetically, feeling bad for leaving him alone with Sybil when she was in such a mood, before heading to the kitchen. "Do you have any cream?" Isobel asked once he'd joined her.
"No, I don't think so…" Matthew replied, growing apprehensive as Isobel frowned in concern at her cake mixture.
"This works best with cream." She stated. "I'll pop down to the Tesco Express and see if they have any. They should still be open." She began undoing her apron but Matthew halted her actions.
"Mum, we really, really don't have time." He said rather desperately. "Can't you just use milk?"
Isobel disliked doing things half-heartedly, but seeing her son's worried face, she conceded and reached into the fridge to retrieve the milk.
"Great." Matthew smiled, glad that he'd managed to avert a delay. "I'm going to see how Mary's getting on." He left the small kitchen and briskly walked through the living room, trying to avoid being caught in the line of fire as Sybil bellowed at an increasingly irritated Tom.
"It sounds like it's already kicked off out there." Mary said, glancing at Matthew in the mirror as he closed the door behind him.
"It certainly has. Mum's decided to bake some cupcakes, to top it all off." Matthew let out a deep breath before realising what his fiancée was wearing. "You look amazing." He smiled appreciatively at her as he encircled her waist with his arms, enjoying the feel of the blue silk beneath his fingers.
"Thank you." Mary hummed, also smiling broadly as Matthew peppered her neck with sweet kisses. Both of their smiles faltered as they heard what could only be described as a wail of despair coming from Tom. "She's giving him quite a hard time, isn't she?"
"Yeah, poor guy." Matthew sighed. "I think the fact that she got rained on on their way here didn't help matters." He chuckled, running his fingers through Mary's perfectly blow-dried hair. He had to withdraw his hand as Mary quickly spun round to face him.
"It's raining?!" She asked with a sense of doom, as if he'd just informed her of a giant meteorite about to collide with the Earth.
"Yes…why? What's wrong?" The apprehension crept back into Matthew's voice.
"I can't wear this." Mary said definitively as she moved away from Matthew and over to her wardrobe.
"Why not?" Matthew asked, following her.
"Because if this dress gets even one drop of water on it, it seeps through the material and won't dry out for hours. It's too much of a risk." Mary explained, rifling through the dozens of evening gowns on the rail.
"But...we have umbrellas." Matthew pouted. He didn't want Mary to have to decide on another outfit, not when she was the only one who was behaving rationally tonight.
Mary turned to smile at him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I know we do. But this is such a special evening and I'm engaged to the man of the hour, so I don't want to turn up with a big wet stain on my dress and embarrass you." She kissed his neck before turning her attention back to her glorious array of clothes.
"You could never embarrass-" Matthew began affectionately but was cut off by bellowing from the living room.
"You're such a pig!" They heard Sybil exclaim indignantly.
"Oh dear." Mary glanced towards the door. "She's having one of her 'all men are evil' days." She explained, having just received an earful of a rant from her sister a few minutes ago.
"Brilliant." Matthew said sarcastically as he gritted his teeth. "Then it's a good thing she's going to be spending the evening in a room full of men."
"Maybe it would be better if they stayed behind?" Mary suggested. "I wouldn't want Sybil to start beating Tom with her handbag during your speech."
The idea had occurred to Matthew, but it wasn't an option. "I told the firm I was bringing four guests. It'll look bad if two of them suddenly don't turn up. And it's too late to ask anyone else to take their place." Matthew sighed, looking at his watch again. "Anyway, you get ready and I'll try to calm them down." He rubbed Mary's arm and gave her a light kiss.
Back in the living room, Matthew had no time to attempt to referee the shouting match before his mother called for him.
"Your oven's broken." Isobel declared. She was hunched over, peering at the various buttons and dials on the oven as her cupcakes sat inside. "It was working for about ten minutes and then suddenly stopped."
"That's strange." Matthew replied, his brow furrowed. He knelt down and attempted to diagnose the problem. "I don't know what's wrong." He said after a few moments. "Sorry." His apology was insincere; he was rather glad that his mother would be unable to cause him more anguish through her baking.
"Well, what am I to do about the bake-sale?" Isobel demanded. "It's tomorrow morning, I won't have time to make anything else!"
"Can't you just buy something on the way there?" Matthew offered what he hoped was a sensible solution to this apparently massive dilemma.
"I will do no such thing!" Isobel seemed rather affronted by the notion of her taking store-bought produce to a charity bake-sale. "That would undermine the dignity of the event and I should much rather stay at home."
Matthew was about to suggest that she should indeed just stay at home, in that case. But he knew such a comment would only offend his mother more, so he bit his tongue and watched as she continued to fiddle with the appliance. Sensing that his presence was no longer needed, he ventured into the living room again, where Sybil and Tom were still having it out.
"All I said was that you looked nice tonight!" Tom cried, bewilderment in his voice. "How does that make me 'as sexist as Hugh Hefner'?"
Finding it impossible to get a word in edgeways, all Matthew could do was stand there and rub at his temples, which were now throbbing from the stress, and noise, of the last thirty minutes or so.
"Is this alright?" Mary asked the room as she stepped out of the bedroom in a strawberry-coloured, knee-length strapless dress.
Matthew nodded enthusiastically, having seen that they only had twenty-two minutes left, but Mary was looking specifically to her sister, seemingly seeking a woman's opinion. Matthew and Tom held their breath as they awaited Sybil's response.
"It looks fine." Sybil replied, surprisingly calmly. Matthew looked to Tom with optimistic hope in his eyes. "That is, if you're auditioning to be the next Special K woman." Sybil finished, her tone cutting even for a Crawley woman. Tom glanced at Matthew from under his brow as if to say, 'you were naïve to think she'd somehow been exorcised in the last thirty seconds'.
Mary looked down at her dress, uncharacteristically self-conscious. "You're right." She said, frowning. "I'll go and change."
"No, Mary-" Matthew began, but his protestations were futile– Mary had already retreated to the bedroom. He was about to run in after her to convince her to ignore Sybil's remarks and remain in that dress, when he heard beeping coming from the kitchen.
"What's that sound?" Matthew asked as he joined his mother.
"The cupcakes are ready." Isobel announced, putting on oven gloves and sliding the trays out of the oven. Matthew smiled with relief.
"Great, so you're all done?" Matthew asked what he thought was a rhetorical question, so was puzzled, and disheartened, to see Isobel shake her head.
"I still need to decorate them." Isobel began sorting through the small tubes of sprinkles and dragees.
"Right, so you just need to sprinkle these on?" Matthew sought clarification, hoping he could volunteer to hastily throw decorations over the cakes and tick one worry off his list.
"I need to ice them first, Matthew." Isobel chuckled, as if Matthew was being preposterous.
Again, Matthew's attempts at protesting were interrupted.
"I'm not going if you're going to be like this!" He heard Sybil shout, and he rushed into the living room. He didn't know how Sybil and Tom were going to manage to sit through a long dinner without winding each other up, but it needed to happen somehow.
"Fine by me!" Tom yelled back. "But just so I know– what exactly am I 'being like'?"
"Like an obnoxious, misogynistic oppressor!" Sybil replied dramatically, prompting Tom to roll his eyes to the ceiling and mutter something, which Matthew now recognised as Gaelic. "Why do you keep doing that?" Sybil demanded, her hands on her hips. "Why don't you just speak up instead of mumbling?"
"Because I'd rather not enrage the beast!" Tom cried, gesturing impatiently to her.
Matthew covered his face with his hands as he heard Sybil's sharp intake of breath. Deciding his sore head probably wouldn't be able to handle the barrage of scolding about to flow out of his soon-to-be sister-in-law's mouth, he sought refuge in his bedroom.
He walked in to find Mary, thankfully wearing another dress, frantically rummaging through her dressing table and sighing in frustration before beginning to search through her drawers.
"What's wrong?" He asked, and Mary jumped in surprise at the sound of his voice.
"Oh, Matthew." She said sadly, her brow creased. "I can't find the other earring." She held up a beautiful, intricate earring, which sparkled wonderfully in the light. After a few seconds' inspection, Matthew recognised it as one of a pair of earrings he'd presented her with for her birthday.
"That's alright." Matthew assured her, happy that the problem wasn't anything urgent which might delay their journey to the hotel. "We'll find it later, it must be somewhere around here."
"But I wanted to wear them tonight." Mary said, surveying the room, trying to think where the other earring might have escaped to.
"It doesn't matter, just wear another pair." Matthew replied absent-mindedly, looking at his watch again. They had less than fifteen minutes left.
"I'm leaving!" Sybil's voice thundered through the flat, and Matthew ran out of the room just as Mary opened her mouth to speak.
"Where is she going?" He asked Tom, who looked like he'd just been through a war-zone. Sybil was heading towards the door as quickly as her pregnant body would let her.
"She doesn't want to come. I still don't understand what the hell she's angry about." Tom said, rubbing his hands over his face. "But if she's not going then I can't go either; I can't leave her behind." He said apologetically.
"Tom, I need you guys there." Matthew said desperately. "I know it's a lot to ask, with Sybil being pregnant and all, but could you please try and persuade her to come?"
Tom saw the desperation in his best friend's eyes, remembered the promise he'd made that he and Sybil would be there to support him, and nodded. "I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks so much." Matthew let out another deep breath as Tom hurried out of the front door. If it were any other event he would have told Tom and Sybil to stay at home, but this evening meant a lot to him. Moreover, Tom and Sybil were both very knowledgeable, and he felt that his peers and his clients would take to them well. He heard some clattering coming from the kitchen. "Mum? Everything OK?"
He walked in to the kitchen to see his mother all in a huff, scurrying about the room looking for something. "Oh, Matthew." She began, in a similar tone to that which Mary had just used. This did not bode well. "I turned to get a spatula out of the drawer and ended up knocking over the cake decorations." She gestured to the floor, where Matthew saw what seemed like hundreds of small silver balls. Some had even nestled themselves in the cracks between the floor tiles. This would not be easy to clean. "Have you got a dustpan and brush?" Isobel asked.
Matthew could feel his blood pressure rising by the second. Would nothing go right this evening? "Look, mother, I don't think now is the time to be cleaning up. I wasn't even comfortable with the idea of you baking in the first place!" He tried to control the volume of his voice as much as possible, only allowing himself to use her 'full name' to show his displeasure.
"But I-" Isobel began, but was silenced by Matthew raising his hand.
"We have to leave in ten minutes." Matthew said firmly. "If you want, I'll attend to the cupcakes when we get back home from the hotel. I'll personally see that they get decorated, even if it means staying up all night. But for now, will you please-" Matthew was cut off by the sound of his phone– it was a text message from the taxi driver. He was already outside.
Running his hand through his hair in panic at the realisation that they needed to leave very soon indeed, Matthew fled from the kitchen and burst into the bedroom, stress flooding through him as he saw Mary wearing nothing but her under-slip.
"You're not dressed?" He cried, wondering how Mary could be so calmly browsing through her wardrobe at a time like this! "Why did you take that dress off?"
His irritancy grew as Mary glanced at him casually and shrugged. "I can't wear it if I'm not wearing those earrings– the dress is too simple without statement jewellery. So I need to find something a bit fancier." Mary frowned slightly as she held up a dark purple gown with small crystal embellishments, assessing its level of sophistication.
"Mary, we need to be in the taxi in just over eight minutes." Matthew said as assertively as he could while his hands were trembling with nerves. Turning up even two minutes late to what was essentially his event– what he saw as the first night of the rest of his career– would look awful in the midst of all the professionals in attendance. To make things worse, the bad weather was only going to prolong their journey.
Mary laughed, walking over to him and resting her hands on his shoulders. "Are we returning to your Sandhurst days, Matthew? Are we operating on military time?" His jitters were a mystery to her; they didn't have to be at the hotel until 8pm, and an hour was more than enough time to drive into central London, even with the heavy rain. "Now, what do you think of that purple one?" She asked, turning back to the gown she'd laid on the bed. "I wouldn't need to accessorise much with it, but I don't know if I should wear something more 'professional' looking-"
"For God's sake, Mary!" Matthew burst out, startling Mary. "Nobody bloody cares what you wear!" He threw his hands in the air exasperatedly.
"But-" Mary began, to defend herself.
"No, Mary." Matthew said, the firmness in his voice unmistakeable now that his anxiety had given way to frustration. "I don't want to hear it. I don't know why you're being so flippant about tonight! I have enough to deal with, with my mother and your sister and Tom, without having to put up with your unnecessary dawdling!"
"Matthew-" Mary tried again, herself growing irritated at Matthew's words.
"Look, will you just do me a favour and put on something, anything, and go and wait in the taxi?" Matthew pulled a random garment from her wardrobe and handed it to her. "I'm going to check on the others." He strode purposefully out of the room, leaving a disgruntled Mary behind.
His phone rang as he left the bedroom– it was Tom. Silently praying that Sybil hadn't gotten herself arrested for a public order offence, he answered.
"Where are you?"
"We're in the taxi." Tom replied, finally sounding like his usual self.
"'We'?" Matthew asked, his voice full of hope.
"Yep, me and Sybil. We were going to come up but Sybil didn't want to go up the stairs again if we're only going to come back down in a few minutes." Tom explained.
"So…everything's OK?" Matthew asked cautiously, not wanting to prematurely believe that a problem had been resolved.
"All good." Tom confirmed, his smile evident in his voice. "It seems the hormone shifts are quite sudden…I don't know, maybe the rain washed the bad hormones away or something." He mumbled into the phone so that Sybil wouldn't overhear.
"Great." Matthew breathed a big sigh of relief. He told Tom he'd meet them in the taxi, and disconnected the call. He spun around at the sound of footsteps approaching behind him. It was Isobel– apron off, handbag on.
"I decided that the icing and decorations weren't absolutely necessary, so I abandoned that and quickly cleaned up the mess instead." She announced, putting her coat on.
"You're finished, then?" Matthew asked, feeling very optimistic about the way this last minute went. He could've picked his mother up and spun her around with joy when she nodded her head.
"They won't be able to fetch as much money for the charity, but…" Isobel trailed off and smiled at her son. "I think this evening will more than make up for it." She patted her son's arm and told him she'd go down to the cab.
Two down, one to go...and five minutes left. He practically skipped his way to the bedroom, certain that Mary would by now be dressed and they could all leave! His heart sank, therefore, when he opened the door to see Mary back in her dressing gown, cross-legged on the bed with her laptop.
"Mary?" He approached tentatively. Although Mary was usually very direct, she could be rather passive-aggressive at times, and he sensed that this was one of those occasions.
"Hmm?" She hummed nonchalantly, not looking up from the computer screen.
"Are you…going to get ready?" Matthew asked cautiously. "We only have-"
"Oh yes, Matthew, please tell me how much time we have left again." Mary's head shot up to glare at him and her tone was fierce. Maybe this wasn't a 'passive-aggressive' occasion, as much as an 'aggressive' occasion…Matthew thought. "And please yell at me again and tell me that I'm being 'flippant' about your evening and then shove a hideous dress in my hands that Edith gave me as a gift and tell me to wear it." She finished, panting slightly, as her mini-tirade was all spoken in one breath.
"God, Mary, I'm so sorry." Matthew said softly and sincerely, it dawning on him how pushy he must have been with her. She had been the least troublesome out of the lot but it was she whom he took his anger out on. "I shouldn't have spoken to you like that." He settled on the bed next to her and gently took her hand. "It's just been a very stressful day for me– I'm so worried about how the dinner will go, especially my speech…I feel like I'm going to be under a fair bit of scrutiny tonight. So I was on edge anyway, and then my mother started baking and Sybil and Tom were arguing, which was stressful to listen to in itself, and then when you couldn't decide on your outfit it just set me off. But I shouldn't have lost my temper with you." He bent his head and placed a small, apologetic kiss on the back of her hand.
"It's alright." Mary said quietly. "I could tell that you were tense about this evening. What bothered me was you accusing me of not taking this dinner seriously." She explained, looking into his eyes.
"Sorry," Matthew repeated, "I shouldn't expect everybody else to care about it as much as I do. "
"But I do." Mary insisted. "Maybe not as much as you, because it's your achievement, but it is very important to me that tonight goes well. I'm so proud of you." Mary said genuinely, earning a warm smile from her fiancé. "I just wanted everything to be perfect, including my dress." She laughed slightly, thinking how silly it sounded.
"Is that why you kept changing your outfit?" Matthew asked. He'd presumed that Mary had simply decided to be particularly fashion-conscious today.
"Of course! Do you think I agonise this much about my outfit choices for all of Dad's dinners and Mum's parties? I wouldn't be able to get anything else done!" She chuckled. "But, I am sorry too. I should have helped you out with your mother and Sybil, rather than fussing over dresses." She said remorsefully.
Matthew shook his head vehemently as he leaned in. He kissed her slowly, enjoying the sound their lips made as they parted. "I really want to have you beside me tonight." He whispered, a request, and Mary squeezed his hand reassuringly.
"Well, if we're going to leave on time then I should get ready." Mary said teasingly, gently pulling Matthew's cuff back to look at his watch.
Matthew stepped outside the room while Mary changed, double-checking that he had his speech cards. No longer than a minute later, Mary emerged from the bedroom, wearing a beautifully-cut black dress and diamond earrings. It was simple, but show-stopping. Matthew watched her with his mouth open as she approached him.
"By the way, I forgot to tell you– you look like James Bond tonight." Mary said flirtatiously, sliding her arms under his jacket and around his warm body.
"Does that make you my Bond Girl?" Matthew asked suggestively, leaning forward to steal a kiss, but Mary turned her head.
"When we get home I will be." Mary replied with an alluring wink. "But until then," she declared, moving away from Matthew and gathering her coat and handbag, "I am the new partner's fiancée and we need to leave now."
Matthew sighed and trailed behind her, suddenly wishing that they didn't have to go to this dinner after all.
…
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this bit of silliness! I found it difficult to judge the timings, but hopefully it's not too unrealistic. I've also never come across a law firm which celebrates new partners in this way, but I used a bit of creative licence. Please let me know what you thought! xxx