his legs, stretching them onto the bed. The dent left by Geri’s body is still warm. He briefly wonders what life will be like when two becomes three, before parrying the thought and turning to Seb. ‘So, where are you living now, Seb?’ he asks, holding out his tumbler for a refill. ‘You were probably ten when I last saw you.’
‘Thirteen. Swimming gala.’
‘Of course.’ Dan pictures the boy clutching his bronze medal, his face broken. He pushes the uncomfortable image away. ‘Did you keep it up, the swimming?’
Seb rocks his head and stares at the ceiling. ‘For a while. All good things come to an end though.’ Then after a moment, ‘I’m living back home in Withington with my mum, just for now. I was living in France with—’
He’s interrupted by a knock at the door. It’s Ian Kenning, his pale ginger hair sticking out on one side. ‘I’ve come for my wife … Ah.’ He laughs, looking at the bed. ‘As I suspected! Ready to go, love?’ He picks up Jen’s shoes, pulls her gently to her feet and guides her from the room, her eyes almost closed.
Clearly too gone, Jen doesn’t speak. ‘See you tomorrow at the walk,’ Ian says, closing the door behind him.
Seb pulls off his shoes and socks, then his waistcoat and cravat and lies in Jen’s place. He puts his arms behind his head. ‘The funny thing is that I can’t work out if I dumped her or if she dumped me. Claudia,’ he adds. ‘Fucking beautiful, hot-tempered, impossible.’
Dan laughs. ‘Not all bad, then.’
‘Fantastic sex. Course that’s what I’m remembering. Not the tantrums, the viciousness, the lack of support. She’s a cunt, Dan. I just need to remember it.’
‘Fair enough.’ Dan stretches his arms, still feeling the muscular pull from yesterday’s brutal game of squash with Will. Or perhaps from his fall backwards earlier, his best friend’s wife like a cold mannequin on top. Surreal. He really needs a piss but his legs seem paralysed by brandy, though his head feels surprisingly fine. ‘Sex?’ he says after a moment. ‘What’s that then?’
Seb looks at him and smiles. ‘Timing,’ he says.
‘What, with women?’
‘No, your jokes. You have good timing.’
‘Like the swimming,’ Dan replies, thinking how different Seb looks when he smiles. From chiselled moody to an easy white grin in an instant.
They chat about sport for a while, Dan remembering Seb was a great sportsman at school. Like the A Team at St Mark’s, each sport came easily, though swimming was his forte. He had a place at the University of Edinburgh to read Biomedicine, but his father died unexpectedly.
‘I’m beat,’ Seb says abruptly. Scraping his hair from his forehead, he stands. ‘I need sleep.’ He heads for the bathroom. ‘Kip here if you want.’
Absently stroking the dark stubble already appearing on his chin, Dan nods. I’ll go in a minute, he thinks, closing his eyes. When he opens them again, Seb’s back in the room, rubbing his angular face with a towel. Broad shoulders, hairless toned chest, he’s just wearing briefs. Swimmer turned model, he now remembers, his mind far too sluggish. Of course Will had mentioned it. But things had gone sour, hadn’t they?
Trying to remember the story, he gazes at Seb, then pulls his legs off the bed. ‘I’ll just have a piss and then go.’
In the bathroom, he puts a hand against the wall to steady himself. The pee doesn’t come for a while. Then he stands at the sink, drinking water, briefly catching his tousled hair in the mirror, which he rakes into place.
The room is dim when he returns. The glow from a bedside lamp accentuates Seb’s sculpted face. He props his head on his hand and gazes at Dan languidly. ‘Do you want to stay?’ he asks. The sheets are pulled away and he’s naked; his long limbs and tight torso are bathed in soft light.
Dan’s impulse to make a joke is overridden by outrage. ‘What the fuck? You’ve got this all wrong.’ Backing away from the bed, he grabs his jacket, then points a finger at Seb. ‘Totally fucking wrong. Do you hear me?’
His fringe falling forward, Seb sits. For a moment he stares, then shrugs and falls back. ‘Whatever,’ he says, pulling up the crisp sheet and turning onto his side.
Nick
The tension finally squeezed from his face, his limbs, his whole bloody body, Nick winds his way around the balmy room, chatting to university friends and their partners, to people from work, to his aunties and uncles and cousins on his dad’s side. Everyone offers him a drink, but there doesn’t seem to be time to accept. The evening has rushed by; he and Lisa stayed close at first, holding hands tightly as they greeted their guests. Then the coven descended and Lisa was whisked away, enveloped in their noisy cachinnations at one end of the room. He hasn’t spoken to her since their first dance, but every now and then he watches for a few moments, taking in her laughter and friendly grin as she chats to the guests, still incredulous that the smiley girl he first saw on a dating site is now his wife. There was always a sense of something missing from his life, but that void has been filled like a foot in a snug-fitting trainer. The feeling of possession surprises him. ‘She’s mine,’ he says inwardly. ‘She belongs to me now.’
He approaches his godparents. ‘Sorry it’s taken so long to say hello. Exhausting, this groom business,’ he says with a smile.
Uncle Derek stands. ‘Let me get you a drink,’ he says. ‘You can’t be at your own wedding without a glass in your hand. What would you like, son?’
‘Pint of lager would be good,’ he replies, suddenly realising how thirsty he is. He takes Derek’s seat and turns to Iris. Although now into her seventies, her features are pretty and petite, and with her softly curled hair she looks much younger. But her knuckles show her age as she clutches his hand.
Her eyes shine and she beams. ‘Hello, lovey. Don’t you look handsome. You and Lisa make such a beautiful couple. We’re as proud as punch.’ She digs into her handbag and pulls out a horseshoe-shaped trinket. ‘Course we’ve got you a proper present and a nice large cheque from Derek, but here, love. It’s for good luck. Remember to keep it upright.’ She slips it into his pocket. ‘Matt and Jamie send their love and congratulations.’
‘Thanks, Iris. How are they both doing? How many grandchildren is it now? I think Mum said five at the last count.’
They chat for a few minutes about her sons and their children. ‘What’s she called again? Jamie’s wife?’ Iris asks, sliding her hand into his.
Startled by the question, Nick has to think back to information gleaned from his mum. The younger son Jamie had married again, but what was her name? ‘Judith? Jude?’ he asks.
‘No, the other wife. The one who kept our Jamie too far from home. He wanted to come back from Bristol, but she wouldn’t let him. That one.’
Ruffling his hair, he tries to remember the name of Jamie’s first wife, but Iris appears to have lost interest. She’s nodding towards Patrick, sitting apart from Lisa’s brothers who’re propping up the bar. ‘We need to find someone for Patrick now. But I don’t know who’d take him on at nearly fifty. Even when he was little and played with my boys he was a funny little bugger.’
The description takes Nick by surprise, but as he looks into Iris’s bright eyes, he realises she’s tipsy, very tipsy.
‘He’d have these uncontrollable tantrums over nothing and the only person who could bring him round was your Susan,’ she continues. ‘She just had a way with him, even though she was so much smaller. He’s talking to someone now, mind. They say people often meet a new love at a wedding. Wouldn’t that be nice?’
Nick