‘Are we going then or what?’ he calls to her.
‘Yes, love. All set.’ She bustles round the children, kissing both of them on the cheek. ‘Be good now, kids, all right?’
‘M-Mum, stop f-f-fussing.’ Graham speaks with his mouth full.
‘Graham Watson,’ she says. ‘Mouth. How many times?’
He makes a great show of swallowing. His hair is thick and black like his dad’s. ‘B-beautiful M-Mother, please may you stop f-f-fussing?’ He opens his mouth wide, to show that it’s empty, making Nicola giggle.
‘Don’t be cheeky.’ Carol gives him a wink, lays her hand on her daughter’s cheek and smiles at them both: her world, her two reasons to keep going. ‘Nicky, be good for your big brother, all right? I don’t want any nonsense.’ Holding on to the door handle a moment, she charges the batteries of her heart with the sight of them. They’re getting older, bigger, living proof of time passing. ‘Right, troops,’ she says. ‘I’m off.’
‘Carol,’ Ted shouts from the front door.
‘Coming!’
‘Mum,’ says Graham.
She turns back to her son. Quick, love, she wants to say, but she can’t, of course – that’ll only make him worse. ‘What, love?’
He gives her an awkward smile; his eyelids hover, almost close with the effort of speaking. ‘Y-you look really n-n-nice.’
* * *
The waiting room of the register office is packed, the smell of shoe leather and cigarettes just about held at bay by a medley of perfumes and aftershaves. Ted still hasn’t come back. He said he needed the gents, but Carol knows better. He’ll be outside, smoking, swigging, looking common.
Tommy and Pauline, the happy couple, are over on the far side, by the entrance to the wedding suite. Carol’s brother, Johnny, is chatting to them, waving his hands about as he does. He hasn’t brought anyone by the looks of things. Shame, Carol was hoping he might have a date. There’s a chap she doesn’t recognise next to a green plastic plant on a pillar, chatting to Trevor from Trev’s Tyres. He’s fair, very tall. He has to bend forward to hear what Trevor is saying.
From behind the closed door, music drifts into the foyer. The previous wedding finished, the newly married couple will be on their way out through the back. This place is a conveyor belt, she thinks, waiting for one couple to tie the knot before the next can go in – a sausage factory, twisting links.
For a few minutes then there’s no music at all, only chatter bubbling in the air, before the far door opens and a song plays out: ‘How ’Bout Us’, Pauline’s favourite. She and Tommy go ahead into the wedding suite, laughing. ‘Some people are made for each other,’ Carol whispers, allowing herself the smallest private moment of something like bitterness or regret.
The crowd follow the happy couple, surging in through the double doors. Still no sign of Ted. Carol has to go in with the others, she knows that. She’s chief witness. But if she doesn’t wait for Ted, that might make him cross, and his anger will write itself on her body later, invisible ink that reveals its black message by degrees. Where the heck is he, though, really? A frantic scan of the foyer, a quick look out onto the car park at the front – but nothing, no sign. Pauline will be waiting. It’s not right to keep her hanging about, not after all she’s done.
After another few seconds, Carol steels herself and goes alone into the wedding suite to find Pauline looking preoccupied at the front, standing next to a little table with a red ghetto blaster on it. Two silver-haired women fuss over paperwork. When she sees Carol, Pauline’s frown breaks into a smile.
‘Here she is,’ she calls out, waving, and to Carol’s horror, everyone turns to look at her.
A last glance over her shoulder in case Ted has returned, then she pulls at the shallow brim of her hat and makes her way over to her friend. In a cloud of Poison, Pauline throws an arm around her, presses her to her ample bosom and plants several kisses on her cheek. She’s wearing the pillar-box-red suit with short sleeves that Carol helped her choose in John Lewis, and a small matching beret with black netting at the front and a little dove-grey feather.
‘You look lovely.’ It’s true, she does. Carol glances down at her own flowery blouse, long-sleeved, elasticated wrists; her ancient blue skirt already creased across the tops of her thighs. ‘Ted won’t be a minute.’
‘Never mind Ted.’ Pauline takes Carol’s hand and squeezes it. ‘Bloody Tommy only forgot the money for the registrar. Can you believe it? I had to borrow twenty quid from me dad.’
‘Pretty cheap to get rid of you once and for all, I’d say.’
‘Cheeky cow.’
The two of them snigger, bump hats and snigger some more.
Pauline turns away then to fix Tommy’s tie. Adrift, Carol searches for Ted along the rows, her stomach a fist. The tall, sandy-haired man is sitting at the back. At that moment, the woman in front of him bends down to fish something out of her handbag, and Carol sees that he’s wearing a kilt. That explains the frilly white shirt. Scottish, then. Either that, or he’s wearing the whole lot for a bet.
He meets her eye, gives her a broad smile. Without thinking, she smiles back and then, flustered, turns away and sits down next to Pauline. She’s never seen a kilt in real life before. It makes him look hearty, she thinks, like he could carry a wench under each arm or something; tear the meat off a ham bone with his teeth.
Out of nowhere, in a pungent cloud of smoke, Old Spice and cold air, Ted slumps next to her. Whisky, not vodka; she can smell it on him now. How must he have looked standing outside, propped against the wall, his red face glistening, ripe. His hip flask pushes a square bulge in his pocket; his double chin presses on his chest. The bloody shame of him. Not that he’s completely out of it yet, just dazed. But she knows that once they get to the reception, he’ll be worse, much worse; that this is just the start.
Four
Nicola
2019
‘Nick?’
‘Seb! Hi, honey.’ I pour the last dregs of a bottle of fizz into my flute.
‘You OK? Funeral go all right?’
‘God, yes. Graham did a great job. Seb, he made a speech.’
‘Graham? You’re joking! Wow. Good on him.’
‘I know. He seemed to want to do it so I … well, what could I say?’
‘So did you do yours as well?’
‘No! It’s still in my bag. Don’t tell him.’
‘Of course not, why would I? It’s great that he did it. That must have been a big deal.’
We both know what we’re saying. Graham hardly stutters these days, but public speaking is another thing. With my confident barrister’s rhetoric I would have walked it, but it was better that my brother did it. Sometimes the less polished speech is the more affecting. And by the time Graham had finished his halting, heartfelt tribute, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
‘Thanks for the bouquet, by the way,’ I say. ‘That was a lovely thing to do.’
‘Oh good, you got it.’ Down the line, I hear him sigh. I wish I could summon him to me. We could sit in the almost darkness, hold hands and say nothing at all.