Stranger at the Wedding

by Jack G. Hills

  Even someone though as insensitive as Tom Cox, had realised that there must be some shitty job in the offing. Why else would the slightly overweight and balding man invite him anywhere… Of course it was the rule of thumb that any free meal offered during the working day, was the sort of baited hook to be avoided at all costs, but he’d had a blazing row with Rachel the night before and his dinner had ended up in the kitchen sink rather than on his plate. Of course being a man of principle, he’d taken his bat home and had sat watching the football in the spare room all night, whilst his stomach had grumbled bitterly about the lack of food.

  The only problem though with such bullish stupidity was that by the time he’d walked into the office the next morning, he’d been so ravenous that as soon as Daniel had suggested lunch at Alfredo’s, Tom had snapped up the offer and had swallowed the bait before he’d remembered the old maxim that stated categorically… ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’.

  On reflection, he now wished that he’d not been asked to lunch by Daniel… his life would have been simpler and anyway the project and the big fat bonus were Daniel’s, so if anyone should have gone to Paris then surely he would have been the obvious candidate. But the client had refused to postpone the meeting. They had their own deadlines and didn’t care if it was the Jewish Shabbat. Neither, quite frankly, were they a bit concerned that Daniel had organised his son’s bar mitzvah for that particular weekend… an event that couldn’t be changed or missed, especially as the chairman of the company was also the boy’s dotting grandfather, guest of honour and Daniel’s father-in-law all rolled into one.

  “Tell you what Tom, why don’t you take Rachel with you, make a weekend of it. You’ll be there anyway and it will make a nice surprise… I mean, when was the last time you took the little lady away?” Daniel had offered with all the grace of someone who’d just kicked him in the bollocks. “Think of it as a perk of the job, a thank you for all your hard work. The company will pick up your half of the tab… and you’ll get to tell her that you’ve splashed out on a surprise weekend away. I mean what woman wouldn’t want a weekend in Paris?”

  Even Daniel had been convinced that he was doing Tom a huge favour asking him to give up his weekend in exchange for a few hours in Paris on company expenses. But for the life in him and as he took another sip of his brandy, he couldn’t understand why Tom didn’t look as happy over the arrangement, as he was.

  “Hey wait a minute, didn’t I hear Janet say it was Rachel’s birthday soon? I’m sure she said it was her thirtieth?” Daniel whistled with amazement, as he shook his head in disbelief. Tom though, irked by the thought that the pompous twat sat opposite him might think he’d forgotten Rachel’s birthday, missed the slur over her age.

  “No offence Tom, but I don’t mind telling you that I was amazed when I heard she was so young. Quite honestly, I thought she’d reached that particular milestone five or six years ago.” But if Tom missed the insult the first time round, on its second circuit it caught him smack between the eyes and by the time Daniel had finished being his normal obnoxious self, Tom had really wanted to reach over the table and smash his colleague’s smug face so fucking hard that thereafter he really would be only able to talk through his arse.

  Tom sat and watched Daniel, as he took the first long draw on the fresh Havana cigar, which the waiter had just prepared for him. If ever there was a more revolting and obsequious man, Tom couldn’t think who it might be. Everyone knew that Daniel was talentless and an idiot to boot with the possible exception of his choice of girlfriend. A girlfriend who on their very first date, he’d got pregnant. Even Tom had to admit that if you were going to jump into bed with anyone that unattractive and get them knocked up… the daughter of the firm’s chairman was as good as it got, especially if it resulted in the ugly duckling carrying the old man’s first grandchild.

  No Tom thought begrudgingly, as a great plume of cigar smoke wafted upwards towards the ceiling and freedom, Daniel might be an ignorant moron with all the grace of a Gloucestershire Old Spot eating a bucket of swill… but he couldn’t fault his choice of breeding sow.

  Suddenly, as the soothing effects of the cigar and its nicotine took effect, Daniel remembered something more important than Rachel’s age or her birthday present.

  “By the way Tom, that’s not an invite to splash out. The firm’s normal expense’s policy still applies. I don’t want you bankrupting the company just to try and impress the little lady.” He said in the most condescending way possible. Tom though wasn’t sure if his colleague was being deliberately obnoxious or whether it all just came so naturally to him.

  What he wondered, as he watched Daniel drone on about the company’s expenses policy, did his wife think as she lay inanimate under the fat slob, whilst he mauled her and tried to push his little pinkie into her. Involuntarily he shivered as the picture came and went in a flash.

  Sometimes he just wished that Rachel would show a little more gratitude when they were making love… he’d never had any complaints from all the others but oh no with her it was always more than just size. Until he’d met Rachel, his idea of foreplay had stopped at the pathetic fumbling which had seemed to happen every time he tried to get past the bra and pants of any woman lucky enough to draw his attention.

  Tom didn’t know why, but as Daniel’s cigar smoke continued to test the restaurant’s air-conditioning system, he suddenly thought of his secretary and wondered if she went on and on about foreplay or was she the type who wanted nothing more than to satisfy her husband…

  “Oh and we can’t afford any cockups or fucking mistakes either…” Daniel boomed across the table and shattered the picture building in Tom’s head. “…so get up to speed with the project… stay late, work through the night. I don’t care whatever it takes but be ready.” He took another draw on his cigar and thought a little longer.

  “Thirty eh? So when was that photograph taken then, you know the one that sits on your desk?” Tom thought it a strange question to ask, if not a little personal.

  “We were on holiday in Alicante… about this time last year.” He replied defensively, as he wondered just what other insult Daniel was dreaming up.

  The photograph had been the highlight of the whole week. Tom had taken it on the day they’d arrived, just before he’d started talking to the divorced woman at the pool bar. He’d only had the photograph printed because it reminded him of just why he’d fancied Rachel so much. Without her clothes, clad only in that skimpy bikini she sure as hell looked hot… everyone said so… well all his male colleagues anyway. Of course there’d been that one prude from accounts who’d complained that the image degraded all the women in the office. The mere thought of that woman made Tom down the rest of his brandy in one swallow, if there was one thing he hated more than foreplay, it was bloody lesbians.

  “Last year! Sweet Jesus. What the hell have you been doing to the little lady over the last year? Rachel looks to have aged ten years and if you don’t mind me saying, when she came into the office a couple of weeks ago, she seemed to have gained a few pounds. I bet she couldn’t get anywhere near that bikini now, not if her life depended on it.” Daniel added shaking his head in disbelief.

  As Daniel shot off to meet his father-in-law at the synagogue, to discuss his son’s up-coming celebrations. Tom took the long way back to the office, if he was going to have to work late then he couldn’t see any point in rushing back, especially as it was such a gloriously sunny afternoon and the three glasses of Soave he managed with his lunch were starting to weigh heavy on his eyelids.

  He stopped in the small park just round the corner from the restaurant and sat down on one of the benches that had just been vacated by the previous incumbents who had raced back to work, their lunch hour and sandwiches now over. He sat down and searched the tranquil green oasis for the familiar face of a colleague or a friend but thankfully saw no one he recognised. The only people left enjoying the afternoon sun were a tramp, who from the empty bottl
es littering the path in front of him looked to be sleeping off his latest intake of cider, and a woman throwing a ball for her dog. Although from where he was sat, it appeared that the little terrier seemed more interested in chasing the small flock of pigeons than fetching some woolly old tennis ball.

  Ignoring the pair, Tom put his head back and let the warm rays of the sun massage his face… instantly transporting him back to Alicante. Instead of a bench in the park, he was sat on a lounger round the hotel’s pool and the constant yapping of the small dog was replaced by the shrieks and laughter from the busty, loud woman in the pool… the same woman that he’d so innocently flirted with at the bar and the same woman who had been the cause of their row.

  The holiday had been meant as a second honeymoon or as Rachel had so succinctly put it… the honeymoon we never had! But that first disaster hadn’t been his fault either… he’d taken the whole week off from work to spend with his new bride and it was only during the best man’s speech that he’d taken the call from work asking him if he could do the chairman a huge favour.

  He’d started his excuses before they’d stepped onto the dance floor for the first dance… anyway, they were only planning to go to Brighton for a few days and the bonus he’d been promised for interrupting his honeymoon would more than cover the cost of the entire wedding. In Tom’s book it had been a no-brainer and personally he couldn’t understand why Rachel had made such fuss, after all, his three meetings would only intrude into two of the five days that they’d planned to be away on honeymoon and she’d planned to take all those books with her… plus the weather forecast looked disappointingly wet, so what, he’d told himself, would they have done to amuse themselves?

  There had been times, usually after he’d forgotten something important, when Tom had wondered if perhaps they hadn’t got married too soon… putting that ring on Rachel’s finger had changed her. She’d become very possessive, paranoid and jealous… always seeing fault where there was none and always assuming he was jumping into bed with every woman he talked to or worked with… even when he wasn’t.

  “Do you mind if I sit down? Jasper’s fair worn me out.” The woman said in a most inviting manner. Her accent had echoes of Chelsea and Epsom with just a hint of Norfolk and Sandringham.

  Tom, still smarting from Rachel’s imaginary accusation that he’d shag anything in or preferably out of a skirt and without opening his eyes, immediately imagined a naked forty-something-year old woman staggering from one of the estate’s barns with bits of straw tangled in her matted, shoulder-length hair, closely followed by some bronzed Adonis called Jasper who looked more like the farm’s stallion just after he’d serviced their mares than the son of the woman’s best friend.

  Tentatively, Tom opened one eye and shielded it from the bright sun with his hand. Standing on the path was the outline of a woman whose features were not immediately obvious in the afternoon sunlight but who was most clearly dressed and who had obviously been playing ball with her dog, Jasper. Feeling awkward and caught off guard by his own thoughts, Tom sat upright and looked around for the yapping mutt, which had run off as soon as he’d moved.

  “Has he gone for a lie down?” Tom replied, opening both his eyes and blinking furiously in an effort to appreciate the view more fully. If the face and body matched her voice, he thought work might have to wait a while.

  Unfortunately, the voice had only been God’s way of having fun at his expense. The woman must have been in her late sixties but looked nearer eighty and if that wasn’t enough of a reason to run a mile, her looks had nothing to do with age… Tom decided that that such ugliness could only be congenital… time, the weather or even being hit in the face with a frying pan couldn’t manage to create such a misshapen visage. Only God on a bad day at the office could manage that.

  Suddenly as her smile revealed a set of teeth only a Harley Street orthodontist would appreciate, he knew why the woman’s only companion was her dog, although even Jasper had apparently received a better looking offer. But as Tom continued to rudely stare at the woman, even he had to admit that from the neck down she’d kept her shape and whatever else may or may not have happen during her life, the woman sounded classy enough to walk from any barn.

  “Please.” He offered her part of the bench. “It’s a free world and I’ve got to get back to my office.” Now had she been twenty something with the looks to match, he might have been more interested in striking up a conversation but as it was he felt content to just watch the world go by for a little while longer.

  His mere mention of the office forced his mind to drift away from the woman and back to Daniel’s earlier comments about Rachel. Thinking about it, whilst they’d talked about eating healthily and cutting down on the fatty foods, he’d not noticed that Rachel had put so much weight on, but as he tried to visualise her sat around the breakfast table that morning, he was inexplicable startled by the realisation that not only could he not remember how big Rachel looked but neither could he remember what she’d been wearing.

  Surely he thought, if she’d put so much weight on and had bought a new wardrobe to match, he would have noticed. After all her figure was the first thing that he’d found attractive. She was five foot five, a size eight and he’d prided himself on their first date that he’d placed her firmly in the ‘not bigger than 32B category’ and just in case there had been any doubt in his mind, the quick fumble in the back of his car just before he’d dropped her home had confirmed his theory. So if she’d put on two or maybe even three stone, how the hell hadn’t he noticed that? …she’d be huge.

  “Christ Almighty!” He blurted out loudly without thinking. What if she was pregnant? Tom’s sudden bout of anxiety mellowed, as the thought occurred to him that if she were indeed pregnant then at least after the birth she’d be able to regain her figure and weight, because the alternative scenario was unthinkable… there was no way he could live with some obese, drab woman, especially not one that was only five foot five tall. It would be like living with one of the Roly Polys… the thought made him shiver and quiver uncontrollably.

  “Are you alright? You suddenly seem quite shaken.” The woman with the soft deep voice asked.

  “What? Oh yes thank you… I just realised what the time was. It was nice to meet you… do you come here often?” He’d opened his mouth before his brain had kicked in and instead of his question sounding polite and considerate, he sounded more like some pervert with the worst chat-up line in history.

  “Every day young man, same time. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

  “Maybe.” Tom replied with a smile, which belied his true feeling of revulsion at the thought that the woman might think him remotely interested in her. As he walked off towards the gate and his escape route, the woman moved her attentions to the tramp. The unwashed and dishevelled man seemed to have taken a fancy to Jasper, who was playfully retrieving the ball, each time it was thrown along the gravel path.

  At the black, cast-iron gate Tom stopped and watched the trio for another moment before the thought of what might have been nearly made him deposit his well-earned lunch in the nearest bush.

  By the time he’d dug out all the files and had got himself up to speed on the case, the office had emptied, the cleaners had finished their evening contract and outside it was pitch black. In fact the only light in the entire building came from Tom’s chrome desk lamp, which he’d purloined from one of the other offices when its incumbent had left for sunnier climes and a bigger salary.

  As he’d walked back from the park, the thought had occurred to him that the other blokes in the office and some of the partners might think him a little weird if he took Rachel on the Paris trip… it was something, which in their misogynistic world might be thought of as limiting his ability to play the field. So not wishing to upset the status quo and place himself at odds with the office troop of male baboons, he’d decided that it would be best all round if he simply went by himself, attended the meeting and then flew straight back home
. Anyway, he’d consoled himself, Rachel would only think of him as being mean for trying to combine both work and pleasure… and if his honeymoon had taught him anything it was that the two, like oil and water, never mixed well.

  So as soon as he’d got back to his desk he’d asked Janet to book the flight, the hotel and arrange for a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to his home in his absence, on the Saturday morning.

  “Ten pounds should be enough, don’t you think? After all it is Rachel’s birthday and I thought she deserved a treat, especially since I won’t be there.” He’d said insensitively but with a kind tone, which was more to impress Janet than assuage any guilt he might have felt at missing his wife’s birthday.

  “Maybe that’ll be enough of a treat.” His secretary had replied sarcastically under her breath. She’d only ever met the woman once… at an office Christmas party but she’d seemed a nice person, who was pretty enough to turn most of the men’s heads and who had a figure that Janet could only dream about.

  “What was that Janet?” Tom had asked, as he’d searched through the mountainous pile of files on his desk for the one that he needed.

  “I said you’re right, that’ll be a real treat.” She’d added with a false smile that was lost on her boss. “Perhaps I should arrange a small box of Dairy Milk as well… you know push the boat right out. Make it a really special day… since you’re not going to be there yourself. We women…we like nothing better than to console ourselves staring at a bunch of wilting carnations and making ourselves sick by stuffing our spotty faces with a box of cheap chocolates.”

  Tom’s thick skin easily fended off the barbed slur and in blissful ignorance he’d nodded his appreciation at Janet’s endeavours, whilst adding a beaming smile for good measure… girls he found, always appreciated a man that smiled. As Janet disappeared from his office, he wondered if he shouldn’t do the same on her birthday… as a sort of thank you.