“I’ve never noticed. And he’s never said it before. He said I was a brilliant dad.” I kissed her head, my arms wrapped around her now as we both came down from the orgasms.
“You are. The one thing you were worried about not being good at, you’re amazing at. Not sure Lucy thinks that after you gagged her before, but I’m sure she’ll recover after therapy.”
We both laughed, knowing the words that she’d be spouting tomorrow, still mortally offended at me for it.
“She’d have been ejected if she’d carried on.”
“The umpire couldn’t hear her. But some of the parents could. I heard one dad say she should be the coach.” Vic sipped at her champagne again. “I could see her doing that.”
“I can see her doing a lot of things. It’ll just be a case of what she chooses. She reminds me of you.”
“What’s that? Brilliant and amazing?”
I grinned, knowing exactly what this next comment would earn me.
“No. A smart-ass and stubborn.”
It was a good job I’d remembered the strawberries.
MEMORY TWELVE
GRANT
The four weeks both dragged and went insanely quickly. I did debate going up to Gretna Green where the notice period was shorter to get married, but at the same time we were in the process of a very quick house purchase and going through a lot of crap at the house in Oxfordshire.
Tempers were lost. Tantrums were had. I nearly murdered Bernadette and made her a saint in the same day and I learned to master the art of cooking a Sunday lunch and found I was actually decent in the kitchen at cooking for my fiancée and fucking my fiancée -again in the same day.
The polished veneer of a new relationship wore off quickly given we were living in something of a pressure cooker – I learned to use one of those too – and I discovered that Marie had a fiery Celtic temper which could explode quickly when I was purposely slow or deliberately ignored the points she made.
But, unlike with my first wife, Marie made it perfectly clear how she was feeling and why and what I needed to do to stop her from being mad at me. My children heard me say sorry for the first time, they heard us row and then laugh ten minutes laterand they saw that you could be cross with someone and still love them.
They heard Marie tell me she loved me in front of them and they heard me say it back, and then I started to say it to them when I read their bedtime stories or when Max read a newspaper article to me and asked some really astute questions, blowing me away with how bright he was now he wasn’t as angry and sad all the time.
Four weeks. Four semi-irritated parents. Four very excited children and an about to be sister-in-law who could definitely not keep a secret and we were pulling up in a limo outside the local registry office.
Last night had been our second in London. We’d had a pyjama party and eaten ice-cream and made dens before hanging the children’s clothes up in the playroom on the third floor, going through the events of tomorrow.
Which was now today and we were about to get married. I’d seen the bride last night, this morning and now as we got out of the limo, offering a hand so she didn’t go arse-over-tit as the train of her wedding dress was just outside of her comfort zone.
I knew things like this by now. I knew a lot by now. Like how she would always brush her hair as soon as she got out of bed in the morning; how she’d start the day with a cup of tea with just a hint of sugar, but no sugar in any drink after that; how she liked to be outside when it was drizzling because it reminded her of her Irish summers and how her hair would frizz up afterwards, which amused me but not her.
“If I think about this too much I’m going to realise how crazy we actually are.” She stepped out of the car, holding onto my hand and using her other hand to sort out the bottom of her dress.
“We’re crazy anyway, so don’t overthink it.” I helped her steady herself. Bernadette was child wrangling, although Clairehad escaped from her and was standing next to Marie, gazing up at her as if she was solely responsible for how the sun had been made.
She crouched down to fix something on Claire’s hair, a flower that wasn’t quite placed right. “Are you comfortable?”
My daughter nodded. It wouldn’t have mattered if she wasn’t, she’d still be smiling. She touched the gold bracelet Marie was wearing, blue stones embedded in the metal. It’d been couriered over from her mum in New York, a something blue and new which was also bribery for agreeing to have another ceremony in the small chapel in the grounds of our house in Oxfordshire.
It hadn’t been easy, the last few weeks. We were in the midst of chaos with getting the London house ready to live in, which didn’t involve any building work, thankfully, but a lot of carpet and curtains and furniture, and starting the plans for the renovation of the Oxford home. It was being gutted, remodelled inside to have a different layout, a bigger kitchen, the annex would be an area for the kids for now, but it would be nothing like the house that Rachael had lived in, which seemed healthy, although we had created a rose garden for her, one filled with little garden ornaments and roses and lavender. When it matured, it would be something gorgeous and a way for the kids to remember their mum.
“Okay. I feel nervous. I don’t need to be fecking nervous.” She brushed her hands down her dress, a simple white dress that she’d found during a shopping trip with Claire and Amelie, the little girl who lived next door to us in Oxfordshire.
“Language.” Ironically, that was Bernie, whose mouth was never clean. “And look to your left because there’s someone here to see you.”
“You mean right,” I said. Bernie had no idea of the difference between left and right.
Marie looked in both directions and then saw what her sister was trying to point out.
