So Joanna was crying, thinking about her dad, and I was crying, thinking about him too, and Paul walked back in with two cups of tea and said, ‘I couldn’t find the sugar either, but I was too scared to ask,’ which is just what Gerry would have said, and then I realized I didn’t care about a big wedding or a small wedding, I only cared about my beautiful daughter and this lovely man. Though, small or not, Joanna couldn’t stop me buying a new hat.
Paul gave us both our teas, and a tissue each, and I told Joanna I loved her, and she told me she loved me, and Paul said, ‘For future reference, where is the sugar?’ and I said the cupboard above the microwave, and Joanna asked if there were any jewels or cocaine in my microwave, or a gun perhaps, and I said no. It’s been a quiet year in that regard.
We still meet every Thursday, of course, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim and I, and we’re in and out of each other’s flats on a daily basis (less so with Elizabeth – she still needs a bit of time), but we’ve managed to stay out of any real trouble for a while now.
I told Joanna that Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim would be so excited for her, and that they would understand it was a small wedding, so there wouldn’t be invitations for them, and Joanna said that of course they were invited, and I said, ‘That’s too much, a small wedding is a small wedding, and there must be other people who should be invited first,’ and then Joanna said, ‘Mum, when you say you want a “big wedding”, how many people do you mean?’ and I said, ‘Well, about two hundred, that’s the number in my head,’ and she laughed. She said that her friend Jessica (Jacinta? Jemima?) had eight hundred people at her wedding, in Morocco.
And so I asked Joanna what she thought a small wedding was and she said, ‘About two hundred, Mum.’
And so there we have it. Joanna is having the small wedding she has always wanted, and I am having the big wedding I have always wanted. Sometimes it pays to be different from your children.
I then asked if Bogdan and Donna could come, or perhaps Chris and Patrice, and Joanna told me not to push my luck, and that they could come to the evening do, which would be four hundred-odd. That’s some small wedding, Joanna.
Anyway, my wedding clothes are ironed and laid out on the spare bed. I keep going in and looking at them. My new hat is in a box. Mark from Robertsbridge Taxis has got hold of a minibus to take us all to the venue tomorrow. It’s not a church, which, again, in my dreams it had been, but a lovely house in the Sussex countryside, which is actually much more beautiful than a church would have been, and has taught me you mustn’t always trust your dreams. Or that you must allow others to have their dreams instead.
So next time you hear from me I will be a mother-in-law. Also, Paul’s dad, Archie, is a widower, early eighties, with a moustache and the air of someone who needs to be looked after. I can see from the table plan that I am sat next to him on the top table.
Because if trouble has been in short supply, so has love.
So here’s to tomorrow, and here’s to love, and to no trouble.
THURSDAY
2
Elizabeth is starting to feel again. Precisely what she is starting to feel, she couldn’t say. But there’s something there, and it’s not just the brandy. She’s on alert, but, as yet, with no idea why.
To her left, Ron raises a pint to the Sussex sunset. ‘I’ve been to a lot of weddings, mainly my own, but that was the best yet. To Joanna.’
‘To Joanna,’ says Ibrahim, raising a whisky. During the ceremony he had cried even more than Joyce.
‘And to Paul,’ says Joyce. ‘Don’t forget Paul.’
‘Hell of a speech his best man made,’ says Ron.
The best man. Elizabeth has been thinking about him.
‘He was nervous,’ says Joyce.
‘Either way,’ says Ron, ‘you don’t throw up. It’s not your wedding, mate.’
‘He pulled focus,’ agrees Ibrahim.
Even before the unfortunate vomiting, there was something off about the man. Was that what Elizabeth has been feeling? She could have sworn he looked at her at one point. Just a glance but a deliberate one.
‘What did you make of it all, Elizabeth?’ Ibrahim asks.
Elizabeth thinks for a while, and musters a small smile. The smile is real, she knows that, and she knows that one day it will be bigger. ‘It was wonderful – they looked very happy. And Joyce looks very happy.’
‘She’s half a bottle of Champagne to the good,’ says Ron.
Joyce gives a slight hiccup. The four friends watch the sunset in silence, the stone terrace of the grand house all to themselves. From inside, the sound of music and laughing.
Elizabeth looks at her friends, and thinks about Stephen. Joyce spots it – Joyce spots everything – and puts her hand on Elizabeth’s arm.
‘Thank you for coming though, Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘I know it’s still hard.’
‘Nonsense,’ says Elizabeth, ready to launch into a lecture about self-reliance. But Joyce is right: it is still hard. Almost impossible, in fact. She takes another sip of brandy and looks down. ‘Nonsense.’
Elizabeth turns as Joanna steps through a set of double doors onto the terrace. ‘Well, I wondered where you’d all crept off to. What are you doing? Shooting up?’
Ron stands and hugs her. ‘Just looking for five minutes’ peace. How’s the best man?’
‘Nick?’ says Joanna. ‘He’s rehydrating.’
Nick, that was the name. Nick Silver.
‘And the tablecloth?’ Ibrahim asks.
‘Ruined,’ says Joanna. ‘That’ll be coming out of the deposit. Now who’s coming for a dance? Mum? Everyone wants to dance with you. They seem to find you charming.’
‘I am charming,’ says Joyce, then hiccups again. ‘That’s where you get it from.’
Ron helps Joyce to her feet. ‘Perhaps Paul’s dad might like a dance, Joyce?’
‘Not interested,’ says Joyce.
‘I mean,’ says Ibrahim, ‘you did have your hand on his knee for the entire meal.’
‘I was welcoming him to the family,’ says Joyce.
‘Never heard it called that before,’ says Ron, and downs his pint.
‘And, Ibrahim,’ says Joanna, ‘I wonder if you would like to dance with me?’
‘Well, that would be my pleasure,’ says Ibrahim, standing. ‘What will it be? A foxtrot? A quickstep?’
‘Whatever you can manage to “Like a Prayer” by Madonna,’ says Joanna.
Ibrahim nods. ‘We shall improvise.’
Everyone is standing now, and they begin to head to the door. But Elizabeth stays where she is. Joyce puts her hand on her friend’s shoulder.
‘Are you coming?’
‘Ten minutes,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You go and have fun.’
Joyce gives her shoulder a squeeze. How gentle Joyce has been with her since Stephen died. No lectures, no homilies, no empty words. Presence when she sensed it was needed; absence when she knew Elizabeth needed some time. Ron has been there with hugs; Ibrahim, the great psychiatrist, would try to nudge her this way and that, thinking she wouldn’t notice. But Joyce? Elizabeth had always known that Joyce possessed an emotional intelligence she lacked, but the sheer grace with which she had conducted herself this last year was extraordinary. The gang disappear through the doors, and Elizabeth is alone again.