And when he says nothing, she ploughs on.
Robin’s got his brother, Goose, ashisbest man. AndI’m not doing the whole bridesmaid thing, or the maid of honour thing, because the word maid is even worse than marriage.
Bren can no longer feel his hands; his toes, too, are numb with cold. The countryside looks the same, the grass and hedgerows and pylons dull shadows in the night, the signpost saying he’s only half a mile now, from home, and yet the night feels unfamiliar, somehow, surreal.
He is staying for Nora’s wedding.
She wants him to be her best man.
She is marrying someone, soon. Someone with a brother named –
Goose? he asks.
Yeah, she says, and Bren hears her smile down the phone. It’s a family nickname, obviously. Something about his long neck when he was little. Plus his real name is Ryan.
When Bren doesn’t respond, she says like the actor, Ryan Gosling? A baby goose?
That’s pretty tenuous.
In-jokes always are though, aren’t they, Nora says. You’ll like him. He’s like Robin, but a bit more … blunt. And really funny.
I’m sure, Bren says, and Nora exhales, as if satisfied.
I’m so happy, she repeats, and for the first time since the party, she sounds it. That fizzing, inside him, crystallising into something small and hard, like a seed, as he wonders – no,knows –that he’s the one who’s made her so. By coming home. Agreeing to stay.
What about you, then, Nora asks, as he follows the road past the church, the graveyard creepy as hell. Flicker of saying no, we can’t bury him, he’d hate that, all that earth, down in the dark, he liked the dawn, the trees, Mum, please.
What about me?
Past the church, now. Nora’s voice has changed octave with interest, and it is nearly three in the morning and she is still wanting to talk and the graveyard is behind him and that seed grows a tiny shoot inside him.
Areyouhappy? she asks. You said you don’t regret … the past. And you seem happy enough, whenever we talk. But I just wanted to … check.
I’m good, Bren says.
So was there anyone for you, out there?
Anyone …?
You know. Special.
God, Nora, he says. You sound like my mother.
Well, I don’t know how to ask these things! Did you … date?
Not really.
Take anylovers?
Nora, stop, he says, but despite himself, he starts laughing, because that’s what she’s doing. They’re still laughing as the road opens out onto the green, the swing set skeletal on the black grass; lights on in his mother’s living room window, even though her bedtime was over an hour ago.
Shit, he says, but Nora says I was just joking. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.
He’s picked up his pace again for home, but at this, he slows down; her prior question weighing between them. A few, is all he says. What do you care, anyway?
I don’t, Nora says, as he crosses the green. I was just curious, that’s all. You’ve never talked about it.
You’ve never asked.
