Boys and Girls (33 page)

And Susan, now that she was quite sure that everyone had looked, that everyone had seen, abandoned with reluctance her pose in the doorway and picked her way with determination and gingerly up and down the potholes, across the treacherous swathes, the green and undulating mounds that carpeted her bridal path, aware that it was her own quite implacable insistence that had ensured that this was the spot where all of her dearly beloved were to be gathered here today. She smiled at Alan, who simpered back – a dart of worry stabbing her face as she caught sight of Amanda – and signalled imperceptibly with just the one brief closure of her eyes that the burly nurse clasping firmly her once so fabulous father should now and this moment begin to shuffle him forwards … and then on
Black she lavished her very most liquid and enveloping smile, a tangible blandishment that made him sigh. And his eyes, she saw, were just about molten. Father Flynn was moaning softly. Susan's father jerked away suddenly as if shocked by a current and shouted out and wildly ‘
Jacaranda
 …!' before he saddened, and subsided.

‘Daddy – don't make noise. Just hold my arm. There. That's it. You are now to give me away. Oh Alan – there you are. Ask the musicians to stop now, would you? I think we can begin. Ready, Father Flynn?'

Father Flynn grinned quite worryingly.

‘You look … lovely.'

‘Thank you, Father Flynn. You're very kind. Shall we proceed?'

‘Quite … lovely.'

‘Yes. Thank you. Shall we, then? Alan – try to get Daddy to understand that now he must give me away.'

‘I've tried to. He says we ought to haggle.'

Amanda said, ‘I think I'm going to be sick.'

Susan whispered something reassuring to Black, who gazed at her wonderingly, and then she turned back to face Father Flynn.

‘Begin, yes? Let's start now, shall we?'

‘We will. We will. Oh God yes, we will. And may I just say to you, Susan, how very very lovely you are looking today.'

‘Alan … why does he keep saying that …?'

‘Jealous of your husbands, I think. So come along then, Father Flynn – let's kick off the proceedings, shall we? All right, Blackie? Yes? All right, are you? Hello? No – Blackie's gone mute. Fair enough. Amanda – do try to remain vertical, won't you? Off you go then, Father Flynn.'

‘Oh yes, oh yes. Oh yes. Oh God, yes. Now then I have to tell you all, that this wedding, this holy, em … wedding, yes, oh God yes, it's going to be conducted, em – informal. Not, that is to say, the usual, em – formal wording, and so on. Do you see? More personal, it'll be.'

Amanda guffawed. ‘You can't remember it, can you? How it goes. Oh man, this so blows! Earlier on he was going to me how he couldn't, like – remember? Thought he was joking.'

‘It will all be there in
spirit
,' insisted Father Flynn. ‘Now then – who is, em – come here to give away this woman in holy matrimony …?'

‘
Panorama
 …!' shouted out Susan's father, and his nurse smacked him firmly on the wrist, which nearly made him weep.

‘I think,' adjudged Alan, ‘we can sort of take that bit as read. Now come on now, Blackie. Edge up. You're on. This is it. Why do you keep staring at me like that …?'

‘Oh God,' groaned Amanda. ‘I so think I'm going to be sick …'

‘Ignore her, Father Flynn. Let's get going.'

‘Yes – oh yes. Oh God, yes. Now then – do you, Susan, take this man … oh but by God you're looking so lovely – do you know that? I'm sure you do. Lovely. Just lovely. Well now – do you, Susan, take this man, em … oh do you know, his name now, it's just slipped my, em …'

‘Black. It's Black.'

‘What's black, now?'

‘The name. His name. It's Black.'

‘His name is black?'

‘Yes. Get on with it.'

‘Ah but sure you can tell me. I'll never give it away to a
living soul. And sure it can't be as black as that … I once met a man in Drogheda, name of Lucifer …'

‘Just … oh Jesus. Say Black. Do you, Susan, take this man Black …? Yes? It's his
name
. Just say it.'

‘Oh well now – if that's the way you want it. Susan … oh God, Susan, I do have to say how lovely it is that you're looking this day …'

‘Alan … I don't think I can bear it …'

‘Come on, Father Flynn. Mind on the job, yes? Do you, Susan …?'

‘Yes. Right enough. Yes yes. Oh God yes. Do you, Susan, take this man, em – Black? Is that right? Black? Thought you were having me on. Do you take this man Black to be your lawful wedded husband? You know – before you answer that, I'm just thinking it's the feller I ought to be asking the first. I doubt it matters, though. Will we go on the way we are? We will? OK, then. Do you, Susan, take this man, em … oh God, do you know – his name, it's gone clean out of my head again. Oh no – tell a lie. Got it now – it's Black, is it not? 'Tis, yes. Is it really that? Black? Well God in heaven. Thought you were having me on. Well. Do you, Susan …'

‘Yes. I do. I do. Yes.'

‘You do? Well that's very nice. And now – Black, is it? Do you, Black, take this woman Susan to be your lawful wedded husband?'

‘Wife. Oh God, Alan …!'

‘Wife. I said wife. Did I not say wife? I'm sure to God I said wife. Well there now. Well of course, wife. Do you – Black, is it? Do you, Black, take this woman Susan to be your lawful wedded wife?'

Amid the silence, everyone's eyes were shifted on to Black.
All was hushed until Susan's father was suddenly screaming out ‘
Macadamia
 …!'

‘Come on, Blackie,' Alan was urging him. ‘Answer the man …'

Black just looked concerned.

‘What …?'

‘Do you, Black – you heard him. Come on. Oh … ah. Oh dear. He's pointing at his ear, Susan. I think he's lost his thing. Yes – he's nodding. He's lost his thing. Right – have to find it. Help me Amanda, will you?'

‘Urrgh. Can't. So like sick …'

‘No, Alan,' said Black. ‘Get up off the floor. Don't bother. You won't find it. It's quite undetectable. That's the whole point of the thing.'

‘Oh Jesus. All right, Blackie. Well just say “I do” – OK? Watch my lips. I DO. Yes? Got it? Hear me?'

Black was nodding. ‘I do.'

‘Yup. But not quite yet. When the padre says so. Jesus – I don't know why I'm talking to him. Man can't hear a bloody thing …'

The nurse was ramming a pill in between Susan's father's tightened lips and keeping his hand flat across the mouth as if in an attempt to smother his next exclamation. And Black had a couple as well.

‘Will we try again, my brethren? We will. Do you – Black, is it? Do you, Black, take this woman Susan …'

‘Don't say I look lovely or I'll kill you, all right?'

‘Susan, my child! This is the House of God!'

‘It isn't.'

‘Well no, it isn't. Fair enough. And how can I help it if it's lovely you're looking? Well now, Black is it? Do you, Black,
take this woman Susan as your lawful wedded husband? Wife. I said wife.'

The pain from Alan's pinch to Black's arm was severe, he couldn't deny, but nothing compared with the acid in his stomach and the bite and breaking aching from each of his arches.

‘I do. That right? Right moment? Good. I do.'

‘Well then. If any person here knows of any, em – lawful impediment to this man and this woman being joined in holy wedlock in front of the congregation and before the eyes of, em …'

‘God.'

‘God, yes – I knew that. Of course I knew that. Em – let him speak now or forever hold his, em …'

‘Yeh – I do. I
so
have a reason.'

‘Oh God's
sake
, Amanda …!'

‘And what, em, young lady, would that reason be?'

‘Oh don't listen to her, Father Flynn.'

‘I'll tell you the reason. The reason is, she's already married. Like
so
married. To my Dad who is standing right there.
Jesus
 …!'

‘Oh yes, my child – I know all about
that
. I mean any
other
reason.'

‘Any
other
 …?! You're mad, you lot are. How can there be another reason? You talk about like lawful wedded wife – well it isn't, is it? Lawful.'

‘Shut up, Amanda. Tell her, Alan.'

‘But it
can't
be, can it? Lawful. You know that, Black – tell them.'

‘What …?'

‘No good talking to him, Amanda. For ever holding his
peace. I'm the Best Man, so talk to me. Or rather, don't. Here, Father Flynn – I've got the ring.'

‘Oh that's very kind … oh I see – for Susan, yes of course. Yes. Oh God yes. Well then I now pronounce you man and, em. Wife.'

And Black slid the ring on to Susan's finger so that it just touched the simple platinum band that Alan had placed there, how many years in the past? When she looked at him, the way that she looked at him, Black felt his more prominent features warm and dissolving into a mash of placidness and knew for certain that if his stomach had been not quite so punishingly restricted, it would surely have suffered a major lurch, even maybe so much as a convulsion. He glanced up at Alan, whose lips were compressed and there were tears in his eyes. Sometimes, he thought, it was good to hear nothing. Just sometimes, silence is all.

After, the string quartet threw themselves with gusto into exhausting their repertoire, and struck up again from the top. Black went to the lavatory for seemingly an age, and Alan just stumbled across the hearing aid a little to the side of Susan's father's mad and energetic foot – and the poor old sod, he roared out ‘
Taramasalata
 …!' as he was more or less kindly bundled away. The last Alan heard of him was his urgent and insistent questioning of the totally impassive nurse before the ambulance door was clanged shut and locked up noisily: ‘Why am I here? Why am I here? What
is
this place? Tell me, please – what is its
nature
 …?' Father Flynn had been persuaded to go out into what some day would evolve into a remarkable garden; he had a bottle of Jameson in his left hand, and in his right he clutched another. And just by the caviar that everyone had agreed they didn't really care for, and
that Susan had insisted upon (being, as she said, a sensualist by nature) – just by the crystal bowl of ice in which it was glisteningly suspended in a frosty silver sling – Amanda was sick: said she felt fine, cool as, and then she was sick. And Alan sat with Susan, sipping champagne. And he was right, the whisky priest – a ruined idiot, well yes of course, but he saw it, didn't he? As how could anyone fail to? That she was lovely, quite lovely. How very lovely she looked this day.

Yeh so that, it was all like a zillion years ago? My first really proper hangover? Dying, that would have been totally good. And vodka, though – it doesn't smell like all the others do, and if you have some you feel like really a whole lot better, which is something I've learned. The house now, oh God – it's just so really cool, it's just so really fantastic. All the rubble in the atrium, that's all white marble, if you can believe, like a hotel in a movie or something. The stairs, they kind of wind round and you can see right through them and the rail thing, that's all chrome like in a bathroom? And this you
won't
believe: there's like a
lift
? No really. And Blackie, he's in there all the time – says it's made a new man of him, but he still looks like a bloody old one to me. He's OK, though – pretty cool, in an old man way. Tons of money, which has got to be good. I don't have to invent all stuff about needing something for school – I just go, hey Blackie, can I have some money? And he's like, sure. And he gives you, I don't know – whatever, yeh? Say twenty. And if you just like stand there, he gives you more. So cool. Oh but my room! That's the best bit. In the old house, in the crappy house, I had like nothing. Laptop, CD thing and
that was about it, if you don't count all the Barbie pink shit, which I can't believe I really used to go for. In my room now – oh wow. I've just got
everything
 – and Tara, Jesus, you just should've seen her, her face, when she came over the first time. She said oh wow, Amanda, this is
so
the room I'd like just
die
for, and I can't tell you how good that was. You know – made me feel. She went through all the cable channels and looked at all my DVDs, loads of them 18s, and the Bose iPod dock I've got, she really went for that like big-time. And I've got all like mirrors and fitted window seats and my very own bathroom all shiny and I've got these huge like framed photos in there of Marilyn and Humphrey Bogart, just so cool. It's funny how old people are totally OK when they're dead and in black-and-white. And then she started going on about her mum and dad, who are going to split up, yeh, because her mum says she's worried that if they like stay together for much longer she might end up killing him, Tara's dad – and Tara's dad, yeh? He's pretty worried about it too. She went on and on – like I give a shit. But it got me thinking, though – my setup, it's really OK. Not too bad. Pretty fucking cool, actually. Mum, she maybe isn't so crazy, just lately, I don't know. Still don't like her, though. She's weird. Spends all her time with this like landscape gardener and they talk about vistas and pleaching and pergolas and box bloody balls: Jesus. But the other two – Dad and Blackie? They're OK. Like kind of two old fogies. Like Statler and Waldorf, if you know them. Like from
The Muppets
? Anyway. And then Tara, she starts going on about school and how she can't keep up with the coursework because at home there's always like teacups flying around and blood and stuff and all over the floor there's like crunchy bits of dishes, and sometimes her dad. And I was like – there's
coursework
 …? Oh yeh – and talking of school, we've got this really sick person there, real saddo called Miss Levin, so totally creepy, and she's something like … I don't know what they call her, pastoral something, which I thought was all fields in the country and
Shropshire Lad
and ploughman's lunch and crap old music but it can't be. Anyway, it's Miss Levin you go to if there's something you want to talk about that isn't to do with lessons and shit. She's got glasses which are red a bit and she probably thinks they're really cool and make her look, I don't know, intelligent or human or something, but they don't – they just make her look old and sick and totally creepy, and she kind of looks over them at you, and her voice when she talks is just like stupid?