At the Wedding

by Matt Dunn

  He readied himself by the window, poised, cat-like, hoping the next thing he heard would be the sound of a healthy pair of lungs from an equally healthy baby, loudly announcing its arrival to the world.

  Though what he actually heard, following Livia’s massive fart, was the sound of Patrick’s relieved laughter from the hallway.

  ‘It was just wind?’

  Patrick was laughing again, though Jed’s anxiety levels hadn’t quite recovered to where he felt he could join in. ‘Seems like that. Last night’s tapas, apparently. It turns out that being pregnant plays havoc with your digestion.’

  ‘Who knew?’

  Jed lowered his voice as a young couple walked past them in the corridor. ‘Most of the hotel guests, probably, given the sounds coming out of our window. And not to mention . . .’ He screwed his face up and waved a hand in front of his nose, and Patrick grimaced.

  ‘Well, that’s going in my speech.’

  ‘Don’t you dare.’

  Patrick grinned, though when Jed didn’t respond in kind, he nudged him gently. ‘Hey – you okay?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s just . . .’ Jed leant heavily against the wall. ‘That was a little scary. Funny, in the end, but scary.’

  ‘A bit like this weekend, I’m hoping?’

  Patrick was watching him carefully, as if waiting for him to say something, so Jed raised both eyebrows. ‘What?’

  ‘What are you going to tell her?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘Come on, Jed. I’m not a betting man, but if I was, when I left you after the bar I’d have got good odds on you coming back to tell Liv that you couldn’t go through with the wedding, and if that’s the case, you better do it now, because . . .’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’ve got less than an hour before you’ll embarrass her in front of everyone.’

  Jed looked at him strangely. ‘Why would you think I’m not going through with it?’

  ‘Well, because . . . earlier, you said . . .’ Patrick shook his head as if trying to clear it. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You know that phrase, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”? Well, you also don’t know what you might lose until you think you’re about to lose it. Back there, for a moment, I thought I was about to lose Liv. I’d do anything to keep her. And if this is what it takes . . .’

  ‘So you’re marrying her because you don’t want to lose her?’

  Jed nodded. ‘Isn’t that what most men end up doing?’

  ‘I’d better not put that in my speech.’

  For the first time in a while, Jed laughed. ‘Is that so bad?’

  Patrick thought for a moment. ‘I suppose not,’ he said, though in a tone that suggested the opposite, so Jed widened his eyes.

  ‘Hey, you said it yourself. Marriage means a lot to Livia. It doesn’t mean that much to me. But she does. Therefore, if it’s what it takes to keep her, to make her happy . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Then that’s fine by me.’

  ‘What about all this “we want to be the different ones”?’

  ‘Like you said, we are the different ones.’ Jed began counting off on his fingers. ‘She proposed to me. We’re getting married in Barcelona, in a private ceremony with our closest friends. We decided to have a baby first. And – no offence – we’re going to stay together not because we have to, but because we want to.’

  Patrick stared at him for a moment, as if weighing up what to say in response, then he smiled. ‘Well, I’ll drink to that. To the bar?’

  Jed shook his head. ‘Get hold of Liam, and meet me there in half an hour,’ he said, heading off towards the elevator.

  ‘Where are you going?’ said Patrick, suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m coming back. I just need to go and get something first.’

  ‘Drunk?’

  Jed let out a short laugh. ‘That’ll be later. After we’re married.’

  ‘You mean you and Livia, right?’

  Jed laughed again. ‘Right,’ he said.

  Patrick slipped back into his room, feeling all was well with the world. Livia was fine, he’d single-handedly managed to prevent Jed from running away, and he’d also managed the best part of a couple of hours (he’d timed it on the clock on the bedside table!) of hot sex with a hot twenty-two-year-old who was currently fast asleep in the bed in front of him.

  In truth, he’d been grateful when Izzy had finally climbed off him and dozed off, so – doing his utmost not to wake her – he’d gently disentangled himself from her embrace, quickly dressed and headed downstairs to meet Jed as arranged. And while she might be annoyed at him leaving like that after everything they’d talked about, at least he had Livia’s ‘wind’ story as an excuse. Besides, he was back now. Izzy might not have even noticed that he’d been gone.

  He tiptoed past her, silently got undressed and jumped in the shower, wincing when the jets of hot water hit the scratches Izzy’s nails had left on his back. Still, if spending the majority of your time in bed in your hotel room was what a weekend away with Izzy entailed, Patrick decided he’d just have to get used to it. It was better than a typical Saturday afternoon when he’d been married, trudging round Sainsbury’s, or heading off to the garden centre, or – towards the end of his marriage, at least – sitting on his own in his London flat, trying not to picture Sarah and her younger lover ‘doing it’ in every room of the house he’d paid for. No, despite what Livia had said earlier, a relationship didn’t have to be serious, or ‘going somewhere’, and if this was Izzy’s idea of fun then there was no reason it couldn’t be his as well.

  In truth, he hadn’t thought about where they might be headed when the two of them had first hooked up, and now he found himself a little relieved that he evidently didn’t have to. Sex and shopping . . . There were worse ways to spend your free time. He dried himself carefully, inspected his battle scars in the mirror, then padded back into the room to find Izzy stretching herself awake like a cat might.

  ‘Well?’

  Patrick sat down beside her on the bed. So much for his escape having gone unnoticed. ‘She is now.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Livia. She was having stomach problems. We had to find a doctor. Though, funny story . . .’ Izzy reached up and put a finger on his lips. ‘Save it for afterwards.’

  ‘Afterwards?’

  Izzy pulled the duvet to one side and indicated he should join her back in bed. ‘Yeah,’ she breathed, biting her lower lip provocatively.

  ‘As tempting as that sounds, we need to get ready.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Patrick reached across and stroked Izzy’s hair, then he stood up and headed across to the wardrobe. ‘Anyway, long story short, Livia’s fine,’ he said, locating his suit and draping it over the back of the nearest chair. ‘Which means I’m all yours now.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’ Patrick smiled. ‘Well, after I’ve given Livia away, obviously. Then I’m all yours. And especially tomorrow.’ He stood up and retrieved his shirt from the wardrobe, inspecting it for creases, happy it had survived the journey with a few less wrinkles than he had. ‘On that note, what did you fancy doing tomorrow?’

  Izzy raised both eyebrows at him. ‘We don’t have a carefully timed schedule?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, we did, but I thought I’d ignore it to do what you want. Even if it’s just shopping.’

  Izzy’s eyebrows went even higher, though Patrick felt a little guilty at misleading her. Spain was a heavily Catholic country, and unlike England, where what Napoleon had once described as a nation of shopkeepers had become a nation of shoppers 24/7, here the shops were closed on Sundays.

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘what might you want to do?’

  Izzy hopped out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom. ‘Baby, do we have to make plans?’

  ‘Of course not. We can wake up in the morning and decide. Though our flight’s at four p.m., so . . .’ Patrick had a sudden vision of Izzy frowning at him. �
��No, you’re right. Let’s just wake up, have a lazy breakfast, then see how we feel. Maybe we could even just spend the day in bed . . .’

  ‘Now that sounds like fun,’ said Izzy, and Patrick felt his back twinge. While walking along Las Ramblas to fetch the GoCar earlier, someone had offered to sell him some Viagra. Though ibuprofen was more what he’d need if a day in bed was Izzy’s plan.

  ‘Great,’ he said, pulling his shirt on and looping his tie around his neck.

  ‘Even though we’re in your favourite city?’

  ‘And that’s what’ll make it so special. Hey,’ he said, popping his head round the bathroom door, relieved to see Izzy wasn’t on the loo, ‘I’m sorry about earlier.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For trying to show you my Barcelona. When perhaps I should have been more interested in you showing me yours.’

  ‘Kinky!’

  ‘Not like that.’ He shook his head, a smile on his face, and joined her in front of the mirror. ‘All I’m trying to say is . . . it’s easy to moan when you don’t think a relationship’s working, and try to change the other person. When perhaps what you should be thinking is, “What am I prepared to change?”’

  Izzy looked up at his reflection, then swivelled round and kissed him tenderly on the lips. ‘I don’t want you to change at all,’ she said. ‘Except for maybe that.’ She pulled the tie from round his neck, dropped it on the floor and draped her arms where it had been. Then she suddenly pulled away.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Izzy was frowning up at him. ‘Earlier. When you said you weren’t sure it was working. Were you about to break up with me?’

  Patrick kept his expression as impassive as he could, and shook his head. ‘Why would I want to do a thing like that?’ he said, surprised to find himself hoping she wouldn’t give him a reason.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Because we can’t split up.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m . . .’ Izzy couldn’t meet his eyes, and her lip started to tremble, and Patrick felt his stomach set off on a rapid descent towards the floor, conscious he probably wouldn’t like her answer, whatever it was.

  ‘You’re what?’ he said.

  ‘In love with you.’

  Chapter 8

  Liam sat at the bar, staring blankly at the equally blank piece of paper in front of him. Why oh why had he left it until now to think about what he was going to say in his best man speech?

  He anxiously chewed the end of the cheap plastic pen he’d found in the stationery set in his room, along with a postcard featuring the hotel, and a notepad, and even an envelope (all of which he’d made a mental note to take with him when he checked out tomorrow, along with his slippers, bathrobe, a couple of towels, and as many tiny bottles of the hotel’s lovely smelling shower gel as he could steal from the maid’s trolley). While he always preferred to leave things to the last minute, theorising how that way he’d only need to spend a minute on them, right now he was regretting that particular approach. Plus he always got nervous in front of an audience. Big Brother had been different, in that all he’d seen were the cameras, not the actual viewers (although by the time he appeared on it, viewing figures were so low that they were hardly fear-inducing), and even though the audience tonight were just friends and family, and only a handful of them at that, for some reason that made it worse.

  He’d read somewhere that if you were nervous about giving a speech, all you had to do was picture the audience naked and your fear would evaporate. Trouble was, that was when you already knew what you were going to say, plus Liam had a habit of doing that with every woman he met anyway, so he didn’t think it’d have much of an effect – and besides, when the audience included your brother, that possibly wasn’t the best thing to do. No, much better to actually think of something funny to say . . . But what? Livia’s earlier gas explosion probably wasn’t appropriate. Nor was the fact that she was his ideal woman. And as for Jed’s severe bout of cold feet, followed by his disappearing act? Probably best to leave that out too.

  What was the old showbiz adage – always leave them wanting more? Well, that was certainly going to be working for him as things stood, because unless he pulled his finger out, they wouldn’t be getting anything at all.

  Liam had never been a best man before. Possibly because he didn’t really have a best friend. He had male friends, of course he did, but they weren’t really the marrying type, and because of that, he hadn’t actually been invited to that many weddings. And while he used to joke that the last one he’d been to was his parents’, that wasn’t actually that far wrong. Though they hadn’t been getting married to each other at the time.

  He narrowed his eyes, took another sip of his beer, and then another, hoping to find inspiration in the ice-cold Estrella. ‘Star’, the name meant, and when he’d found that out yesterday, Liam had thought it had been particularly appropriate. He’d been drinking it ever since, hoping someone might make the connection – but so far, he’d drawn a blank. A bit like he was doing in terms of ideas right now.

  All he had to do was be sincere, he knew; but then again, Liam didn’t really do sincere. Wasn’t exactly known for his depth. Though there was no reason why that couldn’t change. So he’d simply say something nice about Livia – and he loved Livia, so that shouldn’t be hard – then make some rude joke about Jed (and almost three decades as his little brother had certainly given him a fair bit of material for that) . . .

  But what could he say about Livia? That she’d been like a big sister to him – and right now, given that she was up the duff (to use a technical term), she was an even bigger sister – so actually, today was a bit like his sister and brother getting married . . . Liam jotted the ‘bigger’ sister’ line down, then gave a brief shudder, shook his head and crossed that line out. Then he underlined it, hoping it might give him the laugh he needed, as right now, his speech was short on laughs . . . He pulled his phone out and googled ‘funny best man jokes’, though when he scrolled through the results, everything was either a cliché, or too rude, or inappropriate, or just not that funny. Maybe he should just say how lucky Jed was. How lucky anyone would be to be marrying someone like Livia. But Liam knew it wasn’t luck. People like Jed got people like Livia. People like him didn’t. And to be honest, that was starting to worry him a little.

  His ‘babe-dar’ suddenly fired and Liam glanced to his left, where he spotted Patrick making his way through reception, Izzy on his arm, so he waved them over.

  ‘Looking good, you two.’

  ‘You too!’ said Patrick, and just as Liam was about to point out that he was there on his own, Izzy leant in and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Sorry, Liam.’

  Izzy’s apology took him a little by surprise, and he reached up to touch the spot where her lips had just been. ‘For the kiss?’

  ‘For drawing a dick on your back with sunblock.’

  ‘Hey.’ Liam shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, which only reminded him how painful his sunburn actually was. ‘I probably deserved it,’ he said, then he paused, waiting for either Patrick or Izzy to disagree, but when neither of them said anything, he cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I need help,’ he said.

  ‘Professional?’ Patrick raised an eyebrow, and Liam smiled sarcastically.

  ‘No,’ he said, pulling out the stools either side of where he was sitting and patting the cushions. ‘Well, maybe. But right now, with speech-writing.’

  ‘Speech . . .?’ Patrick raised both eyebrows this time, and looked at his watch. ‘You do know the ceremony starts in about half an hour?’

  ‘I know.’ Liam gave him a pained look, then nodded towards his mostly empty piece of paper. ‘And I’ve been sitting here, waiting for inspiration to strike. But it seems to be on strike instead.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Patrick. ‘You should start with that.’

  Liam nodded, and quickly jotted the phrase down. ‘That’s why I need your help,’ he said, clic
king the end of his pen nervously. ‘You’re funny. I’m just . . . well, I’m not sure what I am, to be honest. And I don’t want to fuck it up – excuse my French. Especially in front of Jed.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ Patrick smiled. ‘Do you know what I recall most about the speeches at my wedding?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘And nor do I. Trust me, Jed will be too nervous – and then too drunk – to remember anything about what you say. Plus it’s not like you’ve got a mother-in-law to offend, or a stag do to give away any secrets about, so as long as you don’t insult Livia . . .’ He grinned. ‘Actually, a little dig probably wouldn’t hurt. Tell you what, if you really want my advice . . .’ He reached over, took the biro from Liam’s hand, clicked the nib away and placed it ceremonially down onto the bar. ‘Don’t prepare anything.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Nope. Just stand up and say what you feel.’

  ‘You mean . . . wing it?’

  ‘It’s an approach that’s got you this far in life, isn’t it?’

  Liam nodded, then he frowned, unsure if Patrick was having a dig. ‘You think?’

  ‘At least it’ll be honest,’ chimed in Izzy. ‘And spontaneous. And that’s all you can ask for. All people want to hear,’ she said, giving Patrick a sideways glance.

  ‘Besides,’ said Patrick, peering at a spot somewhere over Liam’s left shoulder. ‘It’s too late now for anything else.’

  Liam looked at the two of them, and nodded. ‘You’re right,’ he said, following Patrick’s gaze, then – spotting his brother approaching – he realised what Patrick had meant.

  With a grin, he balled up the sheet of paper, lobbed it towards the bin behind the bar, and – trying not to read anything into the fact that he missed – swivelled round on his stool to greet Jed.

  ‘All right, bro?’

  Jed looked at the three of them suspiciously. ‘I wondered why my ears were burning.’

  ‘At least it was just your ears.’ Izzy gently probed Liam’s sunburn. ‘Most of him is.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Liam, I hardly touched—’