It began years and years ago when some sort of celebrity was getting married. This woman, who had chestnut hair, a beautiful smile and notions, told everyone she was going to be invited to it - and in the event she wasn't invited to it at all. Now, that might be very galling to most of us: I don't think I know anyone so calm as to smile seraphically at being overlooked and sort of humiliated. But to the woman with the chestnut hair, it was the end of the world. She was absolutely crushed by it, and kept showing me the outfit she had bought and the hat she had borrowed. All totally wasted, and to think people would be wanting to see the photographs and everything.
And some friend said to her - joking, I think, but maybe trying to shut her up - "Why don't you just go anyway? Just get dressed up to the nines, turn up and mingle with the people outside the church and the long bit afterwards where they're all taking photos, and then go home."
And Chestnut listened to it carefully, pronounced it a terrific idea, and did that very thing. She has pictures of herself holding onto her hat with the celebrity bridal party in the background. Nobody knows she wasn't a guest, or that she never made it to the reception. Even if they saw her there, they could hardly ban her from being at a church, could they? It was not as if she had tried to crash the party bit to eat their food and drink their drink.
For Chestnut, it had worked like a dream, and no harm was done: everyone was happy and a perfectly innocent bit of one-upmanship or self-delusion had been maintained. Where's the harm in that, you might ask?
The only problem is that Chestnut became addicted to going to weddings. She may well be at one today.
She does get invited to several in her own right - she is a handsome forty-something, she's not a friendless, lonely Miss Haversham with long, wild locks. She does have a life of her own but it's not a very dressy-up life and if there's anything she likes, it's a bit of style. She doesn't have all these wedding garments herself but she borrows them from people from time to time.
She keeps them meticulously so nobody would resent lending her a good jacket or a silk coat.
Nowadays, she doesn't tell anyone that she's going to this place or that as a guest, like back at the time of the celebrity wedding.
It's not really a Walter Mitty-like thing, pretending she has a host of friends and an entirely different lifestyle. It just that Chestnut adores the whole buzz, and she likes to decide at the last minute whether she's a friend of the bride or the groom. Sometimes she gets talking to fellow guests in the church and if they say "How do you know John or Mary?" she is very vague and says it was from way back, and very complicated.
It's mind-boggling to think of the confusion afterwards when someone asks her cousin who that woman was in the gorgeous lemon outfit, with chestnut hair, and nobody has the slightest idea.
She gasps when the bride comes up the church, smiles indulgently at the little flower girls, sings tunefully when the congregation is required to, and must have countless little white and silver mementos of the order of service for weddings to which she was never invited.
Is this terribly sad or is it a harmless Saturday morning interest? Is it just silly or is it something which might not stop here? Perhaps next she'll be going on the honeymoon with total strangers.
Her own life, as far as I know, has not been particularly tragic in a way that would explain this odd behaviour. She is married herself, so it can't be purely a wistful thing - not like childless woman aching for a baby. I don't know how happily she's married. How does anyone know that about anyone? But, to put it mildly, she doesn't share much of a social life with her husband, his being mainly a short, perpetual track between pub and betting office. But he seems a perfectly decent fellow if you ever do meet them together, highly admiring of his wife's good looks and energy. She says she meets lovely people at these functions, fellow guests as she considers them, who are happy to make small talk with her. Yes, sometimes she is a little sad that she's not going back to have a meal with them. But she's not a complete fool, she knows what she's doing. She says she bets lots of people do it - that she's not the only one.
I said I'd inquire. In my heart, I think it's harmless. A friend of mine says it's not - that little by little she is separating herself from reality. But to my mind, it's only an extension of Ladies Day at the Dublin Horse Show or the races. I don't think Chestnut is crying out for help; I think she's crying out to walk in the company of other dressed-up clothes-horses.
She finds out where the weddings are by inquiring from hotels about large receptions, and she has a few friends in the florist and catering trades who innocently give her this information as well. If you are going to or giving a wedding today, she might well be there. This story is true. The only thing I lied about is the colour of her hair.