Beta Male

by Iain Hollingshead

  Not that you would have known it to observe Alan on the morning of his wedding. Once fully conscious, I was the only one capable of thinking straight. Having helped him find his clothes, I had to help him get dressed. Having helped him get dressed, I had to help him find his car keys. Having found his car keys, he couldn’t remember where he had parked the car. All the while he babbled incomprehensibly, fretting about everything from last-minute changes in the seating plan to how rude I was planning on being in my speech.

  ‘Shut up!’ I yelled, my patience finally exhausted as he started to drone on about the organist’s choice of music. I banged my head against the kitchen door until the drone stopped. ‘Just shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut – ’

  ‘Sorry.’ He fell quiet at last, surprised by my outburst. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper. ‘It’s just that I’m not sure if I can go through with this.’

  We sat down on the sofa while Alan stared at the floor in agonised silence. Eventually he continued, his gaze barely rising above his freshly polished shoes: ‘It’s just that it’s all so scary. So grown-up. I mean, look at me, Sam. I’m about to be a married man, but most of the time I still feel like the nervous five-year-old you threw pebbles at all those years ago. Maybe you were right when you said that growing-up was overrated, because a large bit of me just wants to crawl back under the covers and not face today.’ He ran his hand over his tidy hair and turned to look at me directly. ‘I’m about to make a public promise to stay with one woman for the rest of my life. And although Jess is the woman I love, the only woman I’ve ever loved or ever will, and although I don’t want to be with anyone else, I know that, when I’m there in that church, about to say that vow, there’s going to be a voice in the back of my head whispering: “Don’t do it, Alan. Don’t trap yourself. This is not what you want. Be free. Be selfish. Be a man.”’

  Alan took his expensive new handkerchief out of his button-hole and blew his nose, loudly and messily. I offered him mine as a replacement and looked again at my friend. There was no doubt that I knew what he meant. I was well acquainted with that voice in the back of one’s head, even if mine tended to shout instead of whisper. It was another good reason why I was unlikely ever to get married. I could, therefore, have indulged Alan. I could easily have said that I shared his concerns, that he was right to panic, that it was only natural for bridegrooms to have last-minute doubts. But something told me that, after almost nine years of dating Jess, Alan would respond better to a bit of tough love. So I read him the riot act, toughly and lovingly. I told him he was being a tit – a great big sexually harassed tit of a former accountant – and that Jess was the best thing that had ever happened to him. If he didn’t pull himself together, I concluded, I would go and marry her myself.

  ‘Thanks, Sam,’ said Alan, at last, getting up from the sofa and brushing himself down. ‘That was just what I needed to hear.’

  We hugged – a good, solid hug without any awkwardness – while I looked over the top of his head at the flat that had been my home for so many years. Alan had said he’d have a word with his uncle about my staying on there. But it wouldn’t be the same, would it? Alan wouldn’t be there; he’d be living somewhere else with Jess. And when would we get to see him, anyway? Friends get married and then they vanish, however much they protest they won’t, into Marriage-Land, a small country like Lichtenstein or Andorra, which no one who isn’t married can ever find. I stifled a small sob of my own – so small that Alan wouldn’t have noticed. This was his day and I was there to make it go smoothly. I led him to his new car.

  For once, it appeared that the course of true love would run smooth. All the things that have to happen at church passed without mishap. Alan choked just enough on his vows for the women in the congregation to think he was sweet but not so much that the men would think him a wimp. Jess looked prettier and thinner than usual, and didn’t fall over her dress, while her bridesmaids were sufficiently attractive to give the relatives a bit of eye candy, but not so beautiful that they upstaged the bride. Amanda didn’t turn up and demand to be screwed sideways before Alan got married. The vicar didn’t even bother to allude to God, but did manage a weak joke when no one said anything after the ‘hold your peace’ bit. I fumbled with the ring, but caught it before it hit the floor. Alan’s mother managed a fixed smile when she congratulated Jess outside. Claire dropped the bouquet.

  After the service, we walked along well-tended Home Counties hedgerows to the huge marquee provided by Jess’s parents and I started to get nervous. Everyone assumes that actors are great at giving speeches. They forget that the words are normally provided for us. Even that is nerve-wracking enough.

  ‘I’m on top table.’ I turned to Ed, who was also studying the seating plan and looked pleased to have been placed next to Claire.

  ‘Of course you’re on the bloody top table. You’re best bloody man.’

  ‘Yes, mate, I know.’ I patted him on the shoulder. ‘Bad luck.’

  However, life on the top table, I soon discovered, was a great deal less fun than on the lower rungs of the wedding pecking order. No one drank properly. Everyone faced outwards. And the only person to flirt with was Jess’s ninety-three-year-old grandmother.

  The first course came and went, mainly untouched by me. Pudding. Coffee. Unidentifiable chocolates. And then, just as the shadows were beginning to lengthen outside, someone tapped a glass and Jess’s father, ‘unaccustomed as he was to public speaking’, was on his feet. He stayed there for half an hour, a feat of heroic, epic dullness which he started with a somnolent anecdote about where he was when Jess’s mother went into labour (work, I think), continued through Jess’s first words (‘I want’, probably), her Grade 2 cello exam (in which she achieved a merit) and her GCSE results (‘more A-stars than I could count’), and ended, tearfully, by welcoming Alan (‘my new son’) into the family.

  As this was Jess’s wedding, she decided that the traditional mute role of the bride was not for her. She followed her father and spoke eloquently, briefly and from the heart, leaving no one in any doubt of her love for Alan. I admonished myself, quietly and for the final time, for ever having doubted that fact.

  It was a tough act to follow such a sweet speech with a string of puerile jokes about Alan’s boyhood and early adult life, but I think I rose acceptably to the occasion. Once I was on my feet and the first laugh had tumbled out, I actually began to enjoy myself. When I got to the nice part at the end about how much I had always loved Alan, and how I had grown to love Jess as well, I noticed a rather pretty girl on a distant table wiping a tear from her eye. I wiped away an imaginary tear of my own and made a mental note to share my top-table magic with her as soon as my duties were over.

  ‘And so,’ I concluded, ‘I used to be a little cynical about marriage. I used to think it was what you did when you turned thirty and the music stopped. I used to think weddings were simply an endless round of hymns and in-laws and seating plans and first dances and speeches and cakes and bands that think they can play The Beatles and “champagne” that’s not quite champagne. I used to think all that applied to everyone. And I was wrong. It was Alan and Jess who made me realise I was wrong. They’re perfect for each other. They’re perfect for marriage. Always have been. Always will be. And I will always be a friend to both of them.’

  I sat down again, to enthusiastic, smiling applause, making way for Alan. ‘On behalf of his wife and himself’ – to a huge and predictable roar of approval – he thanked the bridesmaids, the organist, the friends of Jess’s mother who had arranged the church flowers, the ushers, the designer who had helped with the Order of Service, the vicar, the choir, the caterers, the waitresses, everyone who’d come, from far and wide, near and narrow, everyone who hadn’t been able to come… By the time he’d showered the entire room, many of them twice over, with heartfelt gratitude, I was starting to fidget impatiently. This was why I’d always thought weddings were one big sham. What had we learned about Alan and Jess as a couple? />
  Get a bloody move on, mate, so I can go and chat up pretty, weepy girl on Table 11.

  But then Alan put down his notes, took off his glasses and started talking about Jess. I stopped fidgeting and everyone else woke up as he described how they’d met, how he’d felt when he’d first seen her, how he hadn’t slept for a week between asking her out and their first date. ‘And you know what?’ he added. ‘I still feel that sense of excitement every day.’

  And if I really thought about it, I think I did know that. It was obvious in the way he spoke about her, the way he acted around her. It had always been obvious. I had just chosen to ignore it because I was jealous. Alan could have inconsequential last-minute doubts like any normal man, but his love for Jess was evident to everyone. I’d said it in my speech, but now I actually believed it. Maybe soulmates did exist after all. Maybe some people were actually lucky enough to find them. And keep them.

  I looked across at Ed and Claire, as he performed a nervous cinema-yawn and draped his arm over her shoulder. She gave him a half-smile and allowed him to leave it there. Matt, who was sitting on the same table, caught my eye and gave a thumbs-up. I returned it. We were one-down then – maybe even one or two more on the way – two to go. Matt and I would be all right, though. We were copers. Maybe we were still too immature to find someone for life. Or perhaps we never would. Matt had finally ditched Debbie. Claire wasn’t my soulmate, nor Lisa nor Mary Money-Barings nor Christine. And if Rosie was, I didn’t deserve her. But we still had our mates, didn’t we? Just as long as I didn’t end up like Amanda.

  And then Alan did something quite remarkable.

  We thought he had finished. He’d wound up the anecdote about proposing to Jess in Istanbul. There were no dry eyes left in the marquee, just as everyone had shed tears of mirth when he’d described her pre-emptive proposal to him outside his office. He was a much better speaker than anyone had imagined. But then he paused, the room in his hand, and whispered something in Jess’s ear. She smiled and handed him something unidentifiable and made of metal. Alan straightened up again and continued.

  ‘There is one final thank-you I’d like to say, if you’ll forgive me, and that is to my best and oldest friends, Sam, Ed and Matt. They have stood by me for over twenty-five years, through thick and thin, good times and bad, and I love them all like brothers. I want to say a very personal thank-you to all of them and also, I hope, a practical one.’

  I looked across at Ed and Matt who both looked as confused as I did. None of us had any idea what he was talking about.

  Alan went on: ‘My wife and I have talked this over at length, and we are agreed that marriage can be an isolating experience while you’re still young. We don’t want to live alone in a small, cocooned flat. We don’t want to lose touch with some of our oldest friends. We’re not convinced that two is enough these days. Now, as most of you know, I recently came into a rather large sum of money in somewhat unfortunate circumstances.’ A knowing murmur went up around the room. Alan continued: ‘While Jess and I are moving into our new marital home in Camden, I hope Ed, Sam and Matt won’t think it too presumptuous that I have also invested in the three-bedroom house next door.’

  There was a long, stunned silence while Ed stared at Matt, who stared at me, who stared at Alan, who was, I now noticed, dangling a front-door key and staring anxiously into the void. Everyone stared at all of us. And then Matt smiled, and Ed grinned, and I beamed from ear to ear. Alan and Jess looked at each other and laughed, allowing the rest of the wedding party to break into spontaneous applause at the sheer, contagious joy of it all.

  Did I think it was presumptuous? No, I thought it was bloody marvellous. I’d given Alan a set of tablemats; he’d given me one third of a house.

  Not that it would work long-term, of course. We’d argue, and fight, and maybe even meet other people ourselves with whom we wanted to organise a £20,000 party with a forty per cent chance of ending up in divorce. And in the meantime, it would be difficult to moan to the landlord about the leaking boiler when the landlord was your best friend. Plus, no doubt we’d get on Jess’s nerves if we popped round the whole time. But until we were absolutely sure Ed was okay, until Matt had finished retraining and had a secure job, until I’d properly found my feet as an actor… Until then, whenever, and if ever, that might be, what was wrong with growing older in small steps?

  Jess and Alan made their way out onto an empty dance floor. The lights dimmed, the band started and Alan slipped an arm round her waist. She let him lead and they moved as one fluent whole, spinning away from each other and drawing back close again. They had clearly been practising. A circle formed around them, the music gathered tempo and Jess beckoned the rest of the party to join them. Matt needed no second invitation; he’d grabbed pretty, weepy girl from Table 11 before I was even out of the starting blocks. Ed was close behind with Claire. I turned left. I turned right. No one. And so I went up to Jess’s grandmother and asked if she would do me the honour. She gripped me tight with the hand that wasn’t holding her stick and we cleared a path out to the middle of the floor.

  ‘It has been the most wonderful wedding, hasn’t it?’ My voice sounded alien, but I meant it nonetheless.

  Jess’s grandmother looked up at me and smiled. ‘You have no idea how happy it makes an old lady to see her granddaughter on a day like this.’

  I looked around at all the people who had been brought together by Alan and Jess. I looked at Alan’s mother, laughing as Jess’s father twirled her across the floor. Behind her, Jess’s mother was helping Alan’s father remove his jacket as he prepared for the dad-at-a-wedding dance to end all dads-at-a-wedding dances. I looked at all these people and thought, well, maybe, just maybe, I did have a little bit of an idea after all.

  ‘It’s all about the family, isn’t it?’ I replied, spinning Jess’s grandmother in a very gentle celebratory arc as the drummer rolled out the final bars of the first song.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, as I bumped clumsily into Ed and Claire, locked in a passionate embrace. ‘It’s all about the family. And the friends.’

  There was a tap on my shoulder as the next song started up. I looked round.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Alan. ‘Do you mind if I cut in?’

  ‘Really, mate, this is taking the love-in too far. I don’t want to dance with you.’

  ‘No, you idiot. I want to dance with Jess’s grandmother. In the meantime, perhaps you’d do me the honour of dancing with my wife.’

  Alan let go of Jess’s hand and I took it instead. We started to dance.

  ‘Mrs Muir,’ I said. ‘You look absolutely ravishing.’

  ‘Thank you, Sam. And thank you for your speech.’

  ‘Thank you for the house.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to being neighbours.’

  ‘Me, too. Until death do us part.’

  Jess let out a small, ambiguous noise. It might have been a sigh of pleasure. It might have been a muted howl of despair.

  ‘Until death do us part.’

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank:

  My wonderful parents, and the rest of my family, for not disowning me after my first book

  Diana, Matt and Ali, for their helpful suggestions and invaluable encouragement

  Charlie Campbell, my ever-supportive agent at Ed Victor Ltd

  Mary Morris, my excellent editor at Duckworth, and her brilliant colleagues

  Michael McManus, for saving me from the wrong career path all those years ago

  Christopher Howse, for generously finding me a new one while I wrote this book

  Jimmy Ellis, the ur-alpha male, for unwittingly giving me the idea

  Ed A-B, for his entrepreneurial good humour

  Gaby’s lovely book club, even if they didn’t get their way on the colour of Rosie’s hair

  Literary Review, for teaching me, very gently, that I can’t write about sex

  I’d like to apologise to:

  My delightful evangelica
l Christian friends, especially if they turn out to be right