Five Months Later
I was back in Mum and Dad’s house, and my dad was helping me get dressed. It was like being a toddler again, only without the risk of impending temper tantrums and/or toilet accidents.
Although mind you, Dad was getting on a bit.
Gary had managed to convince us that there would be dire karmic consequences if me and Phil were to lay eyes on each other on the morning of the wedding. We’d agreed they’d mostly consist of Gary bringing it up in tones of doom and gloom every time one of us so much as stubbed a toe, but that was bad enough to persuade us to go along with it. So I’d moved back into Mum and Dad’s for the night so Phil could have our house to himself, his mum’s place not having enough spare room to fit in a hamster. Christ alone knows how him, his sister, and his two brothers managed to grow up there with both parents still alive, although I had a fair idea that his mum’s wardrobe had expanded exponentially since those days. On that hopefully far-off day when she finally departed this mortal coil, Phil would probably be able to open his own branch of Primark.
At least it meant I didn’t have to struggle into all the gear unaided, Dad having rather greater experience with formal wear than I did. He adjusted my cravat, gave my buttonhole a jiggle to make sure it was secure, and stood back. “You look very smart.”
“Yeah, you too.” We grinned at each other for a mo.
Then he stared down at his feet. As his shoes had been new for Cherry’s wedding and not worn since, and had been freshly polished last night, I didn’t reckon he was finding fault with his footwear. He coughed. “I want you to know, it never made any difference to me.”
“Uh, it didn’t?” That was what I said out loud. Inside it was more like, What? That I never went to university? That I’m gay?
“That you’re not . . .Well. Who your real father is.”
Oh. That. “You are,” I said, my voice coming out a bit thick for some reason. “You’re my real dad. You’re the one who brought me up. Taught me how to shave and . . . and all the other stuff. You’re my dad.”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, which felt bonier than you’d think in his posh suit, and squeezed him tight.
Only for a moment, mind. Then we both backed off and cleared our throats while checking out the carpet.
“Shouldn’t we—” Dad said, just as I started with, “Think we’d better—”
Then we both looked up, and I’m assuming my face was as red as his. “Right,” I said decisively. “Here we go, then.”
So we went. Down the stairs, out the door, and into the posh car with a ribbon on the front that’d take me to get hitched. Picking up Mum on the way, obviously. She’d have been a bit miffed if we’d left her at home.
What can I say? If you’ve been to a wedding, you know what it was like.
We were having the ceremony outdoors, in the very extensive Cottonmill Hall gardens—they’d assured us they had contingency plans for the likely event of rain, but for once the British weather smiled upon us. Chairs were set up in the traditional his and his sections, divided by an aisle, down which we would be walking any minute now towards a gleaming white gazebo housing a beaming (and also white, as it happened) registrar.
Phil was waiting for me at the back of the chairs. Always easy on the eye, in that suit, on our wedding day, he was . . . bloody hell, I had to pinch myself to be certain it was all real. That this bloke, Phil Morrison, my crush since I’d been a spotty teenager and he’d been so deep in the closet that his best mates were talking animals, was actually getting married to me.
I kind of wanted a time machine so I could go back and tell both our past selves about it. Then I thought better of it—past me wouldn’t believe it, and past Phil would probably throw a punch at me.
“You look gorgeous,” present Phil, the one I much preferred, whispered as I joined him.
“You too,” I said, my voice hoarse. There was only the faintest trace now of where Tarbox (currently banged up awaiting trial, where I hoped they’d throw the flippin’ book at the bastard) had hit him. He filled out his posh togs like he’d been born to wear them, top hat and all.
“Ready for this?” he asked, with a hint of a smirk.
“Whoops, no, changed my mind—joking, all right?” I swallowed down a stray bit of sentiment and added, “Never been more ready in my life.”
It seemed to go down pretty well.
Greg, being a Church of England bishop-elect—yeah, he’d got that promotion—wasn’t allowed to officiate at a same-sex wedding, which he’d been good enough to apologise for. Weird to think he was now in a position where he might be able to do something about that. So instead, we had the Deputy Registrar for St. Albans come out to do the honours. She was a jolly middle-aged woman who dressed like the Queen: everything matching and everything thirty years out of fashion but still looking lovely on her.
Mum sat in the front row in her brand-new Country Casuals frock, dry-eyed but smiling, holding Dad’s hand. Cherry, wearing something shapeless and navy blue, bawled her eyes out, which was frankly worrying, while Greg held her hand. Phil’s mum (tight pink skirt and matching jacket) blew her nose loudly, while Leanne (who was in a posh white dress and got herself mistaken for the nonexistent bride more than once) did that flapping motion women do to try to stop their mascara running. It worked, which goes to show the benefits of professionally applied makeup.
Phil’s brothers, Jase and Nige, were squeezed into M&S suits and clearly uncomfortable—whether with the formal wear or the occasion in general, was hard to tell. We hadn’t been certain Nige would come all the way back from his North Sea oil rig to watch us get hitched, but we hadn’t reckoned with Phil’s mum. My brother looked like he’d shined his bald head especially for the occasion, but fair dues, it was pretty warm. Mike Novak and his wife and son were sitting in the row behind Mum and Dad, which I’m sure didn’t make the two women involved feel uncomfortable in the slightest. Their ramrod-straight posture was almost certainly down to some particularly vicious shapewear. Mike and Dad, of course, had greeted each other like old friends. Maybe by the time I’m attending my kid’s wedding, it’ll have stopped weirding me out.
Phil and I didn’t go in for any of that write-your-own-romantic-novel vows bollocks, because we’re way too British for all that. And there were no words I could have come up with would have done justice to how I felt. This was it: me and my bloke, standing up in front of all of our family and friends, and it was the act, not the words, which was important. We kept it simple, promising our commitment to each other in a few short sentences and swapping the rings over from our right hands to the left.
Okay, I might have thrown in an off-the-cuff “I promise to always come and rescue you when you go off to get yourself murdered,” and Phil might possibly have added, “What he said.”
There was a loud sniff from Cherry’s direction at that point, and she disappeared entirely into one of Greg’s voluminous hankies when we turned round after being pronounced “Husband and husband” (we’d reckoned partners for life didn’t have enough of a married vibe).
Then it was confetti and photos. And further photos. I suspected Dad of having a word with the photographer, quite aware he’d never get me this well-dressed ever again. Although some of it could have been down to the ridiculously photogenic venue.
Nobody asked why Mike Novak appeared in half the family groupings, so I guessed they’d all quietly got the gossip at Cherry and Greg’s do. I made a mental note to appreciate the two of them more in future.
I got started on this after the photographer had finally allowed us to slope off for the wedding breakfast. “So what’s with all the waterworks?” I asked Cherry as we ambled into the hall.
She gazed mistily at Greg. He beamed and patted her hand.
Phil huffed. “Got an announcement to make?”
“Oh, we wouldn’t dream of trespassing on your joyous occasion with our own happy news,” Greg boomed out with a definite twinkle in his eye.
I stared. “Bloody hell, Sis, are you up the spout?” I mean, I’d noticed she’d put on weight, but I’d thought that was just Greg’s cooking.
“Yes! Isn’t it fantastic? I know you’re both going to be wonderful uncles.” Cherry’s eyes weren’t merely misty now; they were threatening to drown the whole wedding party.
“That’s great. Congrats.” I was trying to wrap my head around the idea of my big sister being a mummy, and failing dismally. “Uh, you planned it, right?”
“Honeymoon baby,” Greg put in with a smirk and, ye gods, an actual wink.
I managed not to shudder, but come on, mate. This was my sister we were talking about.
“Still, no danger of that for you two,” he went on, looking between me and Phil. Then he burst out in a hearty guffaw.
Catching sight of Raz, my sort of honorary step-cousin (long story) who happens to be trans, spurred me on to say, “Oi, some blokes are capable of getting knocked up.”
“Ah, but I’m quite certain that’s not the case for you, Tom. Don’t forget, we’ve shared a bed.” Greg winked again and nudged me painfully in the ribs. I manfully held back a wince. I wasn’t sure if it was the winks, Cherry’s subsequent giggle, or just the memory I’d up till now been doing a decent job of repressing that traumatised me the most.
Mind you, the horrified looks sent me by Phil’s brothers made up for a lot.
“I don’t understand it,” I muttered to Phil after Greg and Sis had tripped blissfully off together, the glint of impending parenthood in their eyes. “She hasn’t fainted, she hasn’t been rubbing her stomach with a dreamy look in her eye, and if she’s been chucking up at the drop of a hat, I haven’t flippin’ noticed.”
Phil huffed a laugh. “Right, because every pregnant woman behaves like they do in EastEnders. If you’re expecting the baby to pop out in ten minutes flat in a taxi on the way to hospital, be prepared for a disappointment.”
Mum had insisted on a formal receiving line, so we got to shake everyone’s hand as they went in. Luckily she’d also insisted we all have a glass of bubbly before we had to deal with forty-seven variations on “Don’t you both look handsome?” and “Haven’t we been lucky with the weather?”
Hazel Lovett was wearing an outfit her mum clearly hadn’t picked out for her: a high-necked lacy blouse tucked into a full skirt that covered her down to her ankles. It showed she had a figure without actually revealing anything, and she could have been an extra from Downton Abbey—the early series, before Lady Mary chopped her hair off and started looking like she ought to be off running a chocolate factory. Okay, it wasn’t remotely like the sort of outfit your average nineteen-stroke-twenty-year-old would be seen dead in, but the whole look suited her, down to the wispy little fingerless mitts.
Pete, on her arm and appearing even skinnier than usual in his drainpipe trousers and dapper waistcoat, seemed to have more colour in his chops, most likely because Darren had found him a job with a mate working days. Of course, Darren’s mate being in the market trade, days actually started in the wee small hours, but it was a step in the right direction.
We still hadn’t found out if Darren’s insistence on taking a paternal interest in Hazel was due to him literally having a paternal interest in her—after all, if it was down to a work-related incident, maybe he didn’t know himself, so Phil reckoned it’d be rude to ask—but it’d seemed safest to send her and Pete an invite just in case.
She’d even brought a dainty parasol, so if nothing else, she’d raised the tone of the wedding pics a notch.
“How’s it going, Hazel?” I asked her. “Business doing okay?”
She’d started her own designer knitwear company, the Smithy having closed for the foreseeable on account of all the rest of its staff and management being either dead or in jail.
“It’s early days, yet, but yeah, it’s doing okay. And Axel’s doing really well,” she added, which had been going to be my next question. “Mum’s hired someone to help with the business and she’s been spending loads more time with him. They’ve been seeing a counsellor too.” She’d probably clocked the doubt on my face as to whether Lilah spending time with her son would actually help him in the slightest, based on what I’d seen of them together. “She’s really trying.”
“Yeah? Good to hear it.”
“And congratulations to both of you. You both look so handsome. Oh, and I’m going by Lorelei, these days. Or Lola.” She beamed at Darren, who flashed his gold tooth at her fondly in return.
“She’s a chip off the old block, this one is, ain’t you, babe?” he said.
Yeah, but which block, mate? That was the question.
I didn’t ask it, obviously.
The conservatory, where we were eating, was a picture. They’d done us proud, Cottonmill Hall had. Everything was decked out in white with a forest of greenery to set it off, and the tables were in serious danger of making me feel underdressed.
I’m sure the food was delicious, but I’m buggered if I can remember what we ate. Too busy looking at the ring on my finger and the husband by my side. Yeah, I know. But if you can’t be mushy on your wedding day, when can you be?
Me and Phil both stood up to speak, but we kept it short and sweet. Or, as Darren might have put it, I was short and Phil was sweet. We’d used Phil not having a dad still alive as an excuse to avoid the whole Mike/Dad question for my side of the family, but then his mum insisted on standing up and saying a few words anyhow.
It wasn’t too embarrassing. Although Leanne, Jase, and Nige all squirmed in their seats when she made a pointed dig about wanting to know when she was going to get to buy a hat for their weddings, seeing as here was Phil on his second one already and wasn’t it way past bleedin’ time they all pulled their fingers out?
Okay, Phil might have looked uncomfortable at that point too. She ended on a high note, reminding us all she wasn’t getting any younger and it was about time someone made her a granny. Dad, who’s never had much of a head for bubbly, interrupted her with “Oh you’re far too young to be a grandmother,” and she was so gobsmacked she sat back in her chair, lost for words. Phil gave Darren a nudge, sharpish, to stop her getting any ideas about standing up again.
Our best men, Gary and Darren, had been firmly (and repeatedly) instructed to keep it clean when it came to the speeches. They managed—just—and Darren in particular did a bang-up job of the traditional best man’s task of (a) entertaining the masses and (b) embarrassing the grooms. All in good fun, mind. DCI Dave, who was wearing the suit he kept for court appearances and funerals, and bouncing the littlest Jedi proudly on his knee, certainly seemed to enjoy the anecdotes about yours truly. Actually, come to think of it, he’d probably supplied some of them.
After the speeches, the tables were shifted to the side to make way for the band. Some people danced (mostly Gary, Darren, and Phil’s mum in an unholy trinity), some glued themselves to their chairs for the foreseeable (Mum and Dad and the rest of the pensioner brigade), and some spilled out through the French windows into the gardens to enjoy the evening sunshine (the rest of us). It was pretty bloody idyllic. I was almost sorry when it was time to leave to get changed for our flight.
Seeing as we were heading off in a taxi, there was none of this tying tin cans to the bumpers malarkey, and although Darren was seen lurking with a can of spray snow, Phil managed to catch him before he spray-painted the cab with Just Married (or, knowing him, something much, much worse).
Everyone came out the front to wave us off. I might or might not have had recourse to the silk hanky in my top pocket.
“Don’t forget to see Naples and die,” Gary called after us, which I personally found less than encouraging.
Still, I couldn’t wait to be on honeymoon with my—get this—husband. Two weeks of hot sunshine and even hotter . . . well, do I have to spell it out? And not a dead body in sight. And, okay, maybe I was tempting fate there, but whatever went wrong in sunny Italy?
Apart, obviously, from volcanoes erupting and swallowing Pompeii; the Mafia; the fall of the Roman Empire . . .
Nah. We’d be fine.
Definitely.