Well, the best man won, he says. Or lost. Depending on my job title, in absentia.
Josie laughs. Little, lovely sound.
Lovely.
It’s catching, see.
You’ll always bemybest man, she says, as she puts her hand on his arm. And it is this simple, meaningless complimentthat does it. That unleashes something that for so long, he’s tamped down. He puts his hand on top of hers, and tells her he’s sorry. I know you get why I left, when I did, he says. But I am sorry … that I never came back.
If you didn’t come back, Josie says, then who am I talking to?
He is not sure he deserves to be let off the hook, like this, but then she says don’t hold on to any guilt, here, Bren. There are other emotions that take priority.
Bren had thought, after his meltdown on the green, that he wouldn’t be able to cry for at least another twelve years. But it’s only been thirty-six hours and he feels a rise of internal colour and heat, presses his empty coffee cup, cool now, to the side of his face.
You’re quite wise, really, aren’t you, he says.
It’s all this alone time, Josie says. Makes you reflective, and opinionated.
Or maybe that’s just living next to Freya, he says, and she laughs again, and he recognises that laughter, from his childhood, because ithadbeen there. Often enough. Between all the things he’d worked so hard to leave behind.
_
At ten o’clock, Nora is waiting in her wedding dress outside the registry office.
She got ready in her flat, called a cab, arrived on time. Half an hour early, even, but she’d been told in the email from the registrar that this was advisable.
Robin’s shoes and shirt had been gone when she woke that morning. No note, just a vague, half-sleeping memory of him saying he’d see her later. Left to garner their witnesses; his brother, and his brother’s flatmate, he’d suggested, lastnight, which doesn’t surprise her; Shay would’ve kicked up a fuss, had to travel in from London; ease and spontaneity here was key, and she’d agreed. Whatdoessurprise her, though, is that her watch now reads five past the hour, and still, Robin is not here.
She looks up and down the street.
Strangers everywhere, traffic lights changing.
A flicker, then, of doubt. Worrying he is not quite over what they have not quite talked about; Bren, and the fight they had, and all the things she thought she’d resolved with her dress. This thing she’d made and is wearing, for this appointment she’d never cancelled – so lucky, so serendipitous, thank you universe, as Robin would say, thank you fortune and luck and aligning stars.
She’d thought that was, surely, enough.
That they’d hold hands and sign the papers and get lunch for two afterwards, walk along the river feeling happier than they’d ever done, the same as before but different, because they were a family now, officially, as if sharing some open secret with the world, he hers and she his, and yet he is nowhere to be seen.
_
She’d texted Shay a selfie that morning. After she’d slipped into her dress, her hair left loose over her ears. No ranunculi. No jewellery. And just as she was going to leave the house, Shay sent ten exclamation marks and then phoned her, said, mate, you’re beautiful.
Nora couldn’t help thinking how Freya would’ve scoffed at Shay’s choice of word. Brides, only ever reduced to beauty, no matter what they do or stand for, make or say or care about, but she thanked her friend, all the same, not just forthe compliment but because Shay had stopped teasing her about Bren, as soon as Nora had explained her plan. Who was chuffed, the night prior, when she texted her to tell herhe said yes.
Go get married, already, Shay said. And give Robin a kiss from me.
Thanks, Shay. I will.
After they’d hung up, Shay sent her a stream of emojis, for luck; horseshoes interspersed with clovers, to which Nora replied:no luck needed. Three yellow stars. Then she’d grabbed her key and slid her phone into her pocket because of course, she wasn’t going to spend weeks altering the wedding dress of her dreams, labouring over the memories and composition and the symbolism of the thing, and not give it pockets, in what world.
_
But maybe shedidneed the luck, because now it is quarter past and still, she’s alone. She calls Robin for the fifth time, sixth, but he does not pick up. Goose doesn’t answer, either. She tries to sign herself in at reception to save time, keep her panic at bay, but they say they can’t move forward without the second attendee present so she steps back for another couple who are both there, both attendees, presumably, both committed and on time, a guy in a leather jacket and a woman with piano-playing hands who get to go ahead of her at the time she is supposed to be signing the marriage certificate, a piece of paper, everyone says, but a piece of paper, it turns out, that she’d really wanted to sign.
At half past ten, instead of signing that paper, Nora is standing outside again, still in her wedding dress and stillwaiting for the man she wanted to marry, who she’d thought had wanted to marry her.
Cars pass.
