meant to save it for after marriage, though?’
Will raises his eyebrows, all innocence. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jules and I were going through the table plan.’
‘Oh yeah? That’s what they call it now? Honest though,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry about the suit, mate. I feel like such a tool for forgetting.’ I want him to know I feel bad – that I’m serious about being a good best man to him. I really am, I want to do him proud.
‘Not an issue,’ Will says. ‘Not sure my spare’s going to fit, but you’re welcome to it.’
‘You’re sure Jules is going to be all right about it? She didn’t look all that happy.’
‘Yeah,’ Will waves a hand. ‘She’ll be fine.’ Which I guess means she probably isn’t fine, but he’ll work on it.
‘OK. Thanks, mate.’
He takes a swig of his Guinness, leans against the stone wall behind us. Then he seems to remember something. ‘Oh. By the way, you haven’t seen Olivia, have you? Jules’s half-sister? She keeps disappearing. She’s a little—’ He makes a gesture: ‘cuckoo’, that’s what it means, but ‘fragile’ is what he says.
I met Olivia earlier. She’s tall and dark-haired, with a big, sulky mouth and legs that go up to her armpits. ‘Shame,’ I say. ‘’Cause … well, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?’
‘Johnno, she’s nineteen, for Christ’s sake,’ Will says. ‘Don’t be disgusting. Besides, she also happens to be my fiancée’s sister.’
‘Nineteen, so she’s legal, then,’ I say, looking to wind him up. ‘It’s tradition, isn’t it? The best man has the pick of the bridesmaids. And there’s only one, so it’s not like I have all that much choice …’
Will twists his mouth like he’s tasted something disgusting. ‘I don’t think that rule applies when they’re fifteen years younger than you, you idiot,’ he says. He’s acting all prim now, but he’s always had an eye for the ladies. They’ve always had an eye for him in return, lucky bastard. ‘She’s off-limits, all right? Get that through your thick skull.’ He knocks my head with his knuckles.
I don’t like the ‘thick skull’ bit. I’m not necessarily the brightest penny in the till. But I don’t like being treated like a moron, either. Will knows that. It was one of the things that always got my back up at school. I laugh it off, though. I know he didn’t mean it.
‘Look,’ he says. ‘I can’t have you blundering around making passes at my teenage sister-in-law. Jules would kill me. She’d kill you, too.’
‘All right, all right,’ I say.
‘Besides,’ he says, lowering his voice, ‘there’s also the fact that she’s, you know …’ he makes that cuckoo gesture again. ‘She must get it from Jules’s mum. Thank God Jules missed out on any of those genes. Anyway, hands off, all right?’
‘Fine, fine …’ I take a swig of my Guinness and do a big belch.
‘You had a chance to do much climbing lately?’ Will asks me, obviously trying to change the subject.
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Not really. That’s why I’ve got this.’ I pat my gut. ‘Hard to find time when you’re not being paid for it, like you are.’
The funny thing is, it was always me who was more into that stuff. All the outward-bound stuff. Until recently, it’s what I did for a living too, working at an adventure centre in the Lake District.
‘Yeah. I guess so,’ Will says. ‘It’s funny – it’s not quite as much fun as it looks, really.’
‘I doubt that, mate,’ I say. ‘You get to do the best thing on earth for a living.’
‘Well – you know … but it’s not that authentic; a lot of smoke and mirrors …’
I’d bet anything he uses a stuntman to do the harder stuff. Will has never liked getting his hands that dirty. He claims he did a lot of training for the show, but still.
‘Then there’s all the hair and makeup,’ he says, ‘which seems ridiculous when you’re shooting a programme about survival.’
‘Bet you love all that,’ I say with a wink. ‘Can’t fool me.’
He’s always been a bit vain. I say it with affection, obviously, but I enjoy getting him riled. He’s a good-looking bloke and he knows it. You can tell all the clothes he’s wearing today, even the jeans, are good stuff, expensive. Maybe it’s Jules’s influence: she’s a stylish lady herself and you can imagine her marching him into a shop. But you can’t imagine him minding much either.
‘So,’ I say, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘You ready to be a married man?’
He grins, nods. ‘I am. What can I say? I’m head over heels.’
I was surprised when Will told me he was getting married, I’m not going to lie. I’ve always thought of him as a lad about town. No woman can resist that golden boy charm. On the stag he told me about some of the dates he went on, before Jules. ‘I mean, in a way it was crazy good. I’ve never had so much action with so many different women as when I joined those apps, not even at uni. I had to get myself tested every couple of weeks. But there were some crazy ones out there, some clingy ones, you know? I don’t have time for all that any more. And then Jules came along. And she was … perfect. She’s so sure of herself, of what she wants from life. We’re the same.’
I bet the house in Islington didn’t hurt either, I didn’t say. The loaded dad. I don’t dare rib him about it – people get weird talking about money. But if there’s one thing Will has always liked, maybe even more than the ladies, it’s money. Maybe it’s a thing from childhood, never having quite as much as anyone else at our school. I get that. He was there because his dad was headmaster, while I got in on a sports scholarship. My family aren’t posh at all. I was spotted playing rugby at a school tournament in Croydon when I was eleven and they approached my dad. That sort of thing actually happened at Trevs: it was that important to them to field a good team.
A voice comes from down below us. ‘Hey hey hey!’ What’s going on up here?’
‘Boys!’ Will says. ‘Come up and join us! More the merrier!’
Bollocks. I was quite enjoying it being just Will and me.
They’re climbing up out of the trapdoor – the four ushers. I shift over to make room, giving each a nod as they appear: Femi, then Angus, Duncan, Peter.
‘Fuck me, it’s high up here,’ Femi says, peering over the edge.
Duncan grabs hold of Angus’s shoulders and pretends to give him a shove. ‘Whoa, saved you!’
Angus lets out a high-pitched squeal and we all laugh. ‘Don’t!’ he says angrily, recovering himself. ‘Jesus – that’s fucking dangerous.’ He’s clinging on to the stone as though for dear life, inching his way along to sit down next to us. Angus was always a bit wet for our group, but got social credit for arriving in his dad’s chopper at the start of term.
Will hands out the cans of Guinness I’d been eyeing up for seconds.
‘Thanks, mate,’ Femi says. He looks at the can. ‘When in Rome, hey?’
Pete nods to the drop beneath us. ‘Think you might have to have a few of these to forget about that, Angus mate.’
‘Yeah but you don’t want to drink too many,’ Duncan says. ‘Or you won’t care enough about it.’
‘Oh shut it,’ Angus says crossly, colouring. But he’s still pretty pale and I get the impression he’s doing everything he can not to look over the edge.
‘I’ve got gear with me this weekend,’ Pete