We watched him go, and then we looked at each other for a long moment. 'I didn't expect to see you here,' I said. 'I'm on the bride's side.' 'Of course. Siobhan really likes you. So - how's it going?' 'Okay, okay. Really okay. And how's Pat?'
'He's living with Gina now. It seems to be working out. You'll see him later.' 'Pat's coming?' Peggy asked. 'He's a pageboy.' 'Good,' she said, and ducked back inside the church.
'And he's happy?' Cyd said, and I knew it really mattered to her, and I wanted to hold her.
"There's a few teething problems with the boyfriend. He's a bit alternative. He doesn't like it when Pat hits him around the head with his light sabre. I keep telling him - no, no, Pat - if you're going to hit him, go for his eyes.' She shook her head and smiled. 'Where would you be without your little jokes, Harry?' 'I don't know.' 'But you see him?'
'All the time. Every weekend and once during the week. We haven't worked out about the school holidays yet.' 'You must miss him.'
'It's like he's still there. I can't explain it. Even though he's gone, I feel him all around me. There's just this big gap where he used to be. It's like his absence is as strong as his presence.'
'Even when they're gone, they still hold your heart. That's what being a parent is all about.' T guess so. And Jim's all right?'
'I wouldn't know. That didn't work out. It was a mistake to even try.'
'Well, you tried for Peggy.' At least I hoped she had tried for Peggy. I hoped that she hadn't tried because she still loved him now the way she had loved him once before. 'It was worth trying for Peggy's sake.' 'You think so?' 'Definitely.'
She indicated a Daimler driving slowly past the church. In the back seat was a woman covered in white and a nervous middle-aged man. The car disappeared around the corner. 'We'd better go inside.' 'Well, see you later. We can share a vol-au-vent.' 'Goodbye, Harry.'
I watched her move off to take her place on the bride's side of the church, holding the brim of her hat as if it might fly away. Then Pat was beside me, tugging at my sleeve, dressed in some sort of sailor suit. He looked dapper in a maritime sort of way. I put my arm around him as Gina and Richard came up the church steps.
T told you we wouldn't be able to park so close to the church,' he said.
'We did park, didn't we?' she said. 'Or did I miss something?'
They stopped bitching when they saw me, silently collecting their buttonholes from one of the ushers and passing into the church. I smiled at Pat. 'I like your new suit. How's it feel?' 'Scratchy.' 'Well, you look great.' 'I don't like suits. They're too much like school.'
T guess you're right. Suits are far too much like school. You still on for the weekend?' He nodded. 'What do you want to do?' He thought about it for a moment. 'Something good.'
'Me too. Let's do something good this weekend. But right now we've got a job to do, haven't we?' 'We're pageboys.'
'You might be a pageboy. But I'm the best man. Shall we go to a wedding?' He shrugged and grinned. My beautiful boy.
We stepped inside the church - it smelled of lilies, cool and dark apart from the shafts of honeyed light coming through the ancient windows, the women in their hats -and Pat ran ahead of me, the heels of his new shoes clicking against the flagstones. And watching him run to where Marty was waiting for us at the altar gave me a pang that was somehow very happy and very sad all at the same time.
I don't know. It sort of felt like he was already his own man. The vicar was tall, young and nervous, one of those sweet-natured toffs from the Shires who the Church of England sends into the tower blocks of the inner city, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he spoke of the day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed.
He was looking at Marty, fixing him with a stare, asking his questions as though he really expected honest answers - Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, as long as ye both shall live?
And I thought of Marty with his long line of opportunistic couplings that invariably ended up in the Sunday papers when the women he quickly humped and almost as quickly dumped realised that sleeping with him was not the first rung to a career in the entertainment industry.
And I looked at Siobhan standing with her father by her side, her pale Irish face impassive behind all that white lace, and - although it wasn't the time or the place - I couldn't help thinking of her weakness for married men and dodgy boyfriends who chained themselves to trees. But none of it seemed to matter very much today. Not the stung former lovers who gossiped about Marty, or all the wives who had eventually beaten Siobhan into bitter second place. It was all behind them now.
Both of them seemed redeemed today, renewed by these promises of love and devotion, by pledging their troth -even though I was pretty sure that Marty had absolutely no idea what a troth was or indeed how to pledge it. I felt an enormous affection for both of them. And I couldn't find any cynicism left in me. Because this was what I wanted too. It was everything I wanted. To love and to cherish.
I turned to steal a look at the congregation, Cyd was staring at the vicar from under the brim of her hat. I could just about make out the top of Peggy's head. Pat caught my eye and smiled and I thought again what a great little kid he was. I winked at him and turned back as the vicar talked about remaining in perfect love and peace.
As the vicar asked his questions, I was forced to ask some of myself. Such as - can I truly be a positive thing in Peggy's life? And do I really think that I can make a good job of raising that little girl when I know for certain that we will never have the easy bonds of blood? Am I really man enough to bring up another man's child? And what about Cyd? Can we stick by each other for more than the usual five or six or seven years? Can we love and cherish as long as we both shall live? Will one of us - almost certainly me - eventually fuck up, fuck around or fuck off? Do I really believe that our love is big enough md strong enough to survive in the lousy modern world? Well, do I? Do I? Do I?
T do,' I said out loud, and for the first time ever Marty looked at me as though I were the fruitcake. I tapped a silver spoon against the side of my champagne glass and rose to give my best man's speech.
As all those relatives and friends and business colleagues looked up at me, content after the wedding breakfast and ready to be tickled, I looked down at my notes.
They were mostly jokes written by Eamon, scrawled on the back of postcards. They seemed quite useless now. I breathed in and began.
'One of the great thinkers once said - "You drift through the years and life seems tame, then a stranger appears and love is his name.'" I paused dramatically. 'Plato? Wittgenstein? Descartes? No, it was Nancy Sinatra. And she's right, old Nancy. Life just seems so tame, so empty without the stranger. In fact, now I come to think about it, it's worse than that.'
They didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. I don't think I knew myself. I rubbed my throbbing temples. My mouth was dry. I gulped down some water, but it was still dry.
'Worse, much worse,' I muttered, trying to work out what I was trying to say. It was something about the importance of Marty and Siobhan always remembering how they felt today. It was something about never forgetting.
I looked across the crowded room at Cyd, hoping for some sign of encouragement, but she was staring down at the remains of her dessert. Peggy and Pat were running among the tables. Someone coughed. A baby was grizzling. The crowd were getting restless. Someone went off to find the toilet. I quickly glanced down at my notes.
'Wait, I've got some good stuff here,' I said. 'There's the one about love beginning when you sink into someone's arms and ending when you put your arms in someone's sink.' A couple of drunken uncles guffawed.