Marry Him

by Marina Ford

  It’s the same feeling I had when my family was D-ed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We’d sit in the Kingdom Hall at the very back, my mother, my father, and I, and all our friends would sit with their backs turned to us. They’d cross the street when they saw us in town. They’d blank us when we reflexively greeted them, as though they didn’t know us.

  Throughout this time, my father would do the very same thing in a private capacity, only to me, at home. He wouldn’t look at me, pretended he didn’t hear when I spoke. And when my mother left him, he, too, would cross the street when he saw me coming.

  I can’t describe how absolutely terrifying it is to be treated as though you’re nothing.

  I wake up on my wedding day, drenched in cold, prickly sweat. Perhaps I should have cancelled it, considering that I haven’t heard from Harry and he isn’t back. But, paralysed by fear, I did absolutely nothing.

  The last thing he said to me was yesterday morning. He sent a text message saying: I messed up, Joe. I’m sorry.

  When I responded asking what he meant, he didn’t get back to me. I rang, I texted. Nothing.

  Now, with the sun invading our bedroom, with the sheets still retaining some of his scent, I try to gather my energy to start the day.

  In my head, I decide how to feel. My fiancé has left. A week before the wedding, he took off on a mysterious journey, lying to me about its purpose, and refusing to talk to me. His ex, the man who he would be married to if that man weren’t an idiot, is on that journey with him.

  I feel like I may have been a little naïve for thinking that there was any normal explanation for this.

  The late-night phone calls, the emails, the bank statements.

  I reach for my phone. I wish, I hope to see a little red dot with a 1 over the text message icon, or a tab saying I have missed calls from Harry. But when I look at my phone, there’s nothing. I ring him, even though now I don’t expect an answer. It goes straight to voice mail.

  “Hi, Harry.” I sound dejected, but what would you sound like in these circumstances? “So today is the Big Day. If you’re freaking out right now, I get it. I’m freaking out right now too. We don’t have to get married today. Or ever. It was probably a stupid idea to begin with . . .”

  I press my fingers into my tear ducts and try to choke my tears down.

  “Mate,” I say, “just fucking talk to me. At least once. I mean . . . Fuck.”

  I ring off.

  Kieran’s in Sweden. Harry’s in Sweden. And yet, I don’t believe it. And even if it’s true, which I don’t buy, I’m not letting it happen.

  I call again.

  “Okay, level with me here,” I say to the voice mail. “What is it? I thought you wanted to get married. I mean, I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t something I thought you wanted. Or did I get the wrong signal? Was it about Kieran all along? Is that what it is? Did my proposing to you finally open his eyes? Is that what you’re doing in Sweden? Fuck, Harry, honestly?”

  I hang up, because I start crying and I don’t want him to hear me cry. Then I get pissed off. I ring him again. Voice mail again.

  “Listen,” I say, “Kieran isn’t the guy for you. He never was. I’m the guy for you. Okay? I am. I can prove it to you. Just bloody come back, and we can talk, and I’ll show you. He’s just a fucking poser who never knew what he had until he lost it, and the moment he has you again, he’ll go back to behaving like a fucking bellend. And even if he doesn’t, even if he’s all changed and promises you the world, well . . . well, I’ll give you more than the world. I’d do anything for you. Just come back. Okay? I promise I won’t be cross or anything. I love you. I love you more than Kieran ever did or could.” I take a deep breath. “Just send me a text or something. Anything. Talk to me.”

  There’s a knock on my door.

  “Listen,” I say to Harry’s voice mail, “I’m going to be there today. At our wedding. And I hope to see you there too.”

  Chloe and Frank come in. They’re both already dressed for the wedding. Frank has shaved even, which, in his frame of mind, is a small miracle. Chloe looks pretty in an emerald-green dress, her grey hair pinned up. Like an old Hollywood star, I tell her.

  “Any news?” she asks.

  I shake my head. Frank gazes at me with wonder in his eyes.

  “Man,” he says, “it’s like looking in the mirror. Fucking scary. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m getting dressed,” I say. “And then I’m going to check in to the hotel. And then I’m going to shower and get dressed for the ceremony.”

  Frank and Chloe stare at me like I’ve lost my mind.

  “Oh, Joe,” Chloe says. “Oh, I don’t know . . .”

  “What, are you fuckin’ nuts, pal?” Frank goes down the less delicate route. “Face it, the man’s bolted. Like a fuckin’ . . . like a fuckin’ bolter. It’s like I’m telling you all this time! Marriage is—”

  “Enough,” I say, and it actually works. Frank shuts up. “I know what you think. I know what you both think. But maybe he will come back. You don’t know that he won’t. Well, I’m going to be ready for him if he does. Now, before I lose it, will you help me pack?”

  Frank mutters under his breath that I’m a lost cause and the only kind thing to do now would be to send me to a good shrink. Chloe says nothing, but she eyes me apprehensively, even as she picks up the wedding suits from the wardrobe, both of them still in their plastic covers. I have the shoes, two boxes, and Frank grabs the two overnight bags. I packed them the night before. They’re for our wedding night at the hotel.

  We were going to spend last night doing a stag do, but with one of the stags missing, I wasn’t really in the mood for partying.

  The three of us move solemnly down the stairs in a procession and then load it all into Frank’s car. We don’t speak on our way to Chelsea. I do, however, receive phone calls, one from my mother, the other from Harry’s mother, each asking me how I am. They ask about Harry too, and when I say that I haven’t seen him, there’s the same little silent pause that I expect to hear all day.

  A normal person, I reckon, would turn back right now, and ask his friends to call it all off. And perhaps this is me living in denial, but I can’t believe Harry would do this to me. No, it’s not that I can’t believe it. It’s that I know he won’t. Determined, therefore, to see this through, I set my jaw and ignore the ominous silence from Frank and Chloe.

  Arabella rings just as we’re arriving in front of the hotel.

  “Daah-ling! Been trying to reach you all morning! Can’t get hold of your groom. Where is he? Late night last night?”

  “Er, no,” I say. “He’s not come back yet.”

  The fucking pause again.

  “Ah,” she says. “Well. That’s . . . unfortunate. Okay, then. Are we . . . Oh, I see you’re here now.”

  She hangs up and then comes over to the car, in her enormous heels and power pantsuit, and air-kisses both my cheeks.

  “You look . . . nice,” she lies unconvincingly, and then shakes hands with Frank and Chloe. “So let’s get you up to your room. I’ve got some foundation on me that might help.”

  I smile wryly, though I don’t feel like smiling. “Somehow I don’t think your shade would suit me.”

  “Oh that.” She waves her hand dismissively. “I have every shade. This is not my first rodeo.” She winks at me, and I’m actually a little grateful for the pretence.

  I iron my suit pants in silence. Frank is sitting in the armchair, readjusting his leg. Chloe is telling me that my mother has brought all her poodles after all. I told her not to. The hotel has a no-dog policy.

  “Go and ask Arabella,” I tell Chloe. “She can maybe find somewhere to put them.”

  Just as Chloe is about to do so, Siobhan enters the room, screaming.

  “There you are! Can I use your loo?”

  “There’s a loo for guests downstairs,” I say, but she’s already locked herself in mine.

  “Okay, then,” I mutte
r, returning to my bloody suit trousers. I just want to give them a quick swipe with a not-too-hot iron. Harry taught me how after the disaster in Dublin. When I say he taught me, I mean that he stood behind me, with his chin on my shoulder and guided my hands, teasing me gently as we ironed one of his shirts together, and all I took from that lesson was that sex on the floor isn’t comfortable. My heart pinches at the memory.

  He’s going to come back, though. I know he will.

  I check my phone, again, but there’s nothing. Probably because he’s too busy getting to me. It’s fine, I tell myself. I’ll be ready for him. I read the text message again. I messed up.

  Siobhan makes a weird squealing noise in the loo.

  “Siobhan?” I ask.

  There’s no response.

  I look at Frank, who shrugs. So I head for the bathroom door, when several things happen at once. The door to my room opens and Arabella, Chloe, my mother, and my mother’s four poodles all burst in, at the exact same moment as Siobhan rushes out of the bathroom, falling into me and spilling the warm contents of a small glass on me.

  I cry out. “Fuck! What is that?”

  It stinks like . . .

  “Oh God, it’s my wee!”

  Siobhan has her hand on her mouth. Arabella and my mother gape. Chloe and Frank gape.

  “Tell me that’s not your—” Arabella starts.

  “Dress shirt. It is,” I say. Siobhan breaks out in tears. My mother hands Arabella the reins of the poodles.

  “I’ll go out and get a new one,” she says. “Never fear, dear, you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  She leaves. Arabella looks at the leads in her hand, then at the bathroom.

  “Okay, I’ve too much to do. They’ll be all right in there, won’t they?”

  And without waiting for a reply, she tosses the leads in there and closes the door on the dogs, and then quickly leaves. The dogs start barking. Siobhan throws herself into the armchair, crying. I feel at the end of my tether here.

  “If anybody has a reason to cry right now, it’s me,” I say. “Come on, it’s not that bad. I’m going to get a new shirt.”

  She looks up at me, her face blotchy, her eyes swollen and red with tears. She says something in a voice so high-pitched I can’t hear her. There is the vague smell of something burning in the air, but I’m trying to hear Siobhan.

  “I’m pregnant,” she says at last between sobs. “Pregnant!”

  “Oh my God!” I say. Chloe shakes her head in commiseration. There isn’t space enough here to go into detail about her views on pregnancy.

  “Yer with child?” Frank cries, trying to cheer her up. “That’s bloody fantastic!”

  Siobhan can’t stop crying, though.

  “I spent the last two weeks getting drunk,” she says. “My baby will be an al-al-alkie . . . I didn’t know! We weren’t even trying! I shouldn’t be ah-ah-allowed to care for a baby . . . Look at the sta-a-ate of me . . .”

  Someone find Ollie . . . I’m about to say, but as I turn, I see that my trousers, which I left on the ironing board with the iron, are on fire.

  Suddenly everybody is in my room. Ollie and Siobhan are sobbing together in the corner. Someone let the poodles out, so they are milling in between the legs of the hotel staff, Arabella, my mother, Harry’s parents, Frank (with his leg now attached so he can yell at people better), and Chloe, with her dress covered in patches of extinguisher foam. It’s not a big enough room to hold everybody comfortably, but there’s a silence that falls over us all when the manager, a Mr. Alan Yates, tells me that it’s time for me and my party to vacate the premises.

  So this is how it ends. I know now that I won’t get married today. I should have known days ago, but I kept on hoping. And now it’s official.

  I want to protest, but I’m speechless. Out of hope, and out of words.

  “Well,” I say, lifting my chin at Alan Yates, who has been so pleasant when Harry was negotiating our stay here with him. Now he looks pissed off and implacably so. “I suppose I’ll have to go downstairs to tell my guests.”

  Frank puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “I’ll go and tell them.”

  “No, I’ll do it,” says Chloe. “You take Joe home.”

  “Okay,” Frank says.

  The crowd starts discussing who is taking whose car to go where, but an angry roar of “Hey!” makes them all go silent once more.

  It’s Mr. Byrne.

  “What is this?” he demands, outraged. “Where are you all going?”

  “Sir . . .” Mr. Yates clears his throat.

  “Don’t sir me,” Harry’s dad says. “We’re sorry about the curtain getting burned, but there’s no need for you to just kick us out like that. It was an accident. Accidents happen.”

  “And the dogs, sir . . .” Mr. Yates says.

  Mr. Byrne shrugs. “What about them? They’re gone. They were just here for a quick visit, they didn’t destroy anything, and they’re out the door now, see?”

  When Mr. Yates turns his head, my mum is disappearing out of the door with her dogs in tow.

  “Harry isn’t here,” I say, miserably. “There can’t be any wedding if he’s not—”

  “Nonsense!” the old man says. “He’ll be here. Harry’s a gentleman, that’s how I raised him. If he made a commitment, he’ll stick to it. You don’t lose faith in him now, son.”

  I stare at him wide-eyed. He stares back. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean to say it, but then he decides to ride it out, even though the colour in his cheeks is slightly heightened.

  “So,” he says, clearing his throat. “Let’s go downstairs and see how we can entertain the company in your fine hotel while we are waiting for the, er, final touches to be done.”

  He puts his arm around Mr. Yates and turns him out towards the door. Bonnie follows, saying, “I do think your reception room looks so sweet. You have done such a good job . . .”

  Their voices disappear as they go down the corridor.

  Siobhan, Ollie, Chloe, Frank, and Arabella now all look at me. As though I hold any answers. I don’t.

  “Well,” I say, a little bitterly. “At least this is precisely what a wedding organised by me would look like. True to form, that’s what this is.”

  Arabella takes out her phone. “Would you like me to call the police? Maybe they could track Harry down?”

  “What? No,” Siobhan says, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “Maybe try calling him again?”

  “It goes straight to voice mail,” I say.

  “Okay, radical idea,” Ollie says putting his hands up, “but have you tried ringing Kieran?”

  Chloe hisses like a cat. Siobhan punches him reproachfully in the arm. Frank frowns.

  “Not really keen to hear from him right this minute,” I say.

  “Okay, but he was in Sweden when Harry was there,” Ollie says. “Maybe he knows something.”

  I meet his eyes. He knows it and I know it. If we’re calling Kieran, it’s only to find out if he and Harry are making another go of it. Even at this stage, with all evidence pointing to it, I can’t believe it. In fact, the more the evidence points to it, the less I believe it.

  However, I have about fifty people downstairs, waiting for a wedding that probably won’t happen. If nothing else, I owe them an explanation.

  “I don’t have his number,” I say. My heart feels heavy and numb now. Frank goes over to the hotel fridge and takes out all the liquors.

  Ollie takes out his phone, shoots me an apologetic look, and then presses the Call button. I don’t think I can bear this. Siobhan puts her arm around me, then remembers her urine on my shirt, and whispers, “Maybe we should take this off?”

  “I don’t have another one,” I say, and then we both hear Ollie say: “Hello?”

  I freeze. Kieran picked up.

  “Hi, Kieran,” Ollie says, looking at me, wide-eyed, like he doesn’t know what to do—as though he expected, just like I did, not to be able to reach Kieran. I s
tretch out my hand for his phone and he hands it over. Kieran is mid-speech when I put Ollie’s mobile to my ear.

  “. . . so weird to hear from you,” he’s saying.

  “Hey, Kieran,” I say. “It’s Joe Kaminski here.”

  “Oh!” Kieran sounds surprised. I’m not sure why he should be.

  “Quick question, any idea where my fiancé is right now?”

  “Your— You mean Harry?” Now he sounds amazed. “I don’t know. Why? What happened to him?”

  “You haven’t heard from him?”

  I can feel a collective sigh of relief escape everyone in the room at once.

  “No, mate, I haven’t heard from him in months,” Kieran says. “Why? What’s the matter? Did something happen to him?”

  “Er, no. He was in Sweden these past few days, I thought maybe you bumped into him.”

  “No, I never knew he was here. Sorry, mate. Did he go missing? You want me to contact the police here?”

  Now I feel like a complete idiot. What if something has happened to Harry? Oh my God, what if he was kidnapped, or killed, or in an accident? I messed up, Joe. I’m sorry suddenly has a terribly sinister ring to it. And all he has on his phone are my stupid messages full of jealousy and rage . . . Now I feel sick to my stomach. I lower myself slowly to my chair.

  “Oh God, I don’t know,” I say. I rub my eyes. When I move my hand away from my face, it’s wet with tears. “I don’t know, mate. I don’t know what to do! I hardly heard from him since he left. It was really weird. Has he ever done something like this with you? Do you think I should call Interpol? What do I do?”

  I can hear Kieran’s breathing on the other side. “Relax. I’ll look into it. I know people. I will find out. Send me his flight details.”

  “I don’t have them! He never gave them to me!”

  “That’s all right, it’s all right, honestly, calm down,” he says, and in a weird way his self-assured way of speaking does comfort me on some level, even though my hands are shaking and I feel like I’m on the brink of a nervous breakdown. “We can do this together, all right?” he says. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll call the local police, and they’ll instruct me how to proceed. Meanwhile, how about you talk to his parents, and get them to talk to the police in England.”