Page 5

Chapter Five

Leon

Unfortunately for me and my non-existent speech, the flight to Barcelona is on time. Not cancelled due to poor weather conditions, not even delayed.

I’m sweating and breathless as I get on the plane, so flustered it takes me a couple of minutes to find my seat.

It’s also not a sign that the space overhead is full, and two air stewards have to come and rearrange other people’s things to make my suitcase fit. It might as well be flashing at me in neon letters: You’re not supposed to be here! The universe is trying to tell you; why won’t you listen!

And, typically enough, I’ve got the window seat, so two people have to get up and shuffle out so I can get in. The strap of my bag snags on something and the lady in the aisle seat yelps.

‘Ow!’

I turn and realise that I’ve caught one of the myriad enamel pins on her denim jacket. It’s too big on her frame, looks more like a man’s coat. Her long brown hair is drawn back in two French braids, then left loose over each shoulder. She’s got huge eyes, framed by long, thick, lashes.

She’s pretty – very pretty – and I’m staring, which makes this whole thing feel a thousand times more awkward.

‘Sorry—’

‘No, no, it’s my fault!’ she says, trying to disentangle us.

‘No, my bad, I wasn’t—’

‘ Excuse me ,’ huffs the man in the middle seat, currently cramped between us. ‘Can we hurry this along a bit?’

She frees my bag strap, both of us blushing and apologising, and that neon sign over my head screaming YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! flashes even brighter.

None of this, of course, is an omen.

Except I can’t shake the feeling that it is .

Some great, glaring, cosmic sign from the universe hammering home that this is all wrong and shouldn’t be happening. I can practically hear Nana hollering at me from beyond the grave: Do something already! What are you waiting for?

I buckle my seatbelt, rest my palms on my thighs – one leg is still damp and gross from the coffee spillage earlier – and take several long, deep breaths to ground myself.

I’m not even the superstitious sort. It’s all bloody ridiculous, if you ask me. But Kay’s been harping on about something blue this and something old that, all these wedding traditions that are meant to be good or bad luck, so I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s rubbing off on me.

I feel eyes on me, but determinedly don’t look over at the girl in the aisle seat; I can’t afford any distractions. This flight to Barcelona is my last-chance saloon: I need to write my speech, suffocate my own doubts, and get on with my sister’s wedding.

It comes to something when you have to ‘get on with’ a wedding.

We’re all to blame, I know. Me and the rest of the family.

None of us really took to Marcus when Kayleigh first introduced him to the family – but bloody hell, she brought him home at Christmas , what were we meant to do?

Of course we welcomed him in and made him feel right at home.

’Tis the season, and all that crap. We all kept our mouths shut about how rushed it seemed, that they were already talking about moving in together when they’d just met two months ago.

And when they showed up to Mum’s sixtieth with that sparkling new engagement ring on Kay’s finger – what was anybody meant to say, except ‘congratulations’?

Mum got swept up in all the wedding planning, but I know she has doubts. She’ll tut sometimes and say things like, ‘Well, at least she’s happy,’ or, ‘I’m sure there’s a side of him we’re not seeing. Maybe he’s just a bit nervous around us all.’

She’ll deny it profusely if Dad tries to bring it up, of course, and claim the pair of them are in love and that Marcus is family now, but we all know.

We all know that we don’t like Marcus and don’t think he’s right for Kay, and maybe we could get past that if he hadn’t turned her into someone we hardly recognise anymore, but none of us have told her , and now … Now she’s marrying him, and it’s too late.

We should’ve stepped in earlier. Should’ve just said something – taken her aside in the kitchen that Christmas and said, ‘God, he’s a bit up himself, isn’t he?

Not sure I’m keen on him, did you notice him interrupting all the time, like he’s got something more important to say?

’ We should’ve had a quiet word with her on the phone after the engagement, said, ‘Are you sure about this, Kay? He’s so arrogant and standoffish, is this really what you want?

You’re not just falling for all the nice gifts and expensive dates, are you? ’

Mum will keep her mouth shut. She’ll pretend to buy into the fairy-tale romance of it all, and not want to upset the balance for the sake of Dad’s health, wanting to spare him stress that might trigger his MS. Dad will keep his mouth shut, because Mum is.

And God knows my youngest sister Myleene won’t say anything: she’s just a kid, she’s too excited to see the romance unfold to stop and think too hard about it.

Nana would’ve said something.

She did , actually. Plenty, and loudly, until Kayleigh told her, ‘But Nana, I really think he’s the one!’ and she decided it wasn’t worth wasting her breath. Not that it mattered anyway, because Kay didn’t exactly bother to visit in Nana’s last few months.

The whole thing is a shitshow.

And I wish I knew what to do about it.

I half listen to the safety announcements as we taxi down the runway, and wait until my ears pop after take-off before I reach into my rucksack for the little notebook that’s supposed to contain my speech.

Dad hates public speaking. He’s dreaded this day, I know, when he’ll have to give a father-of-the-bride speech. He’s a man of few words at the best of times, but pandering to a crowd is his idea of hell. Kay took pity on him and suggested I do it instead. A brother-of-the-bride speech.

Which should be easy enough. Talk about her childhood, how she always wanted to play dress-up and made me play Barbies with her where they were doing impressive, girl-bossy jobs like she has now, and what a romantic at heart Kay’s always been, how she told us she knew with Marcus from the very start …

I can write something formulaic, bland and nice and just sentimental enough. Hell, I can ask ChatGPT to churn out something for me, and then tweak a couple of bits and call it a day. This doesn’t need to be Shakespeare.

I open the notebook, smooth the blank pages flat.

We’ve got drinks and dinner tonight, and then tomorrow … Tomorrow, I’m supposed to stand up and give this speech. I have to write something . Anything.

The first time we met Marcus , I write, we hoped that’d be the last time we ever saw that pretentious, preening arsehole .

Which is exactly the thing you don’t put in a speech for your sister’s wedding, but is exactly what I wish one of us had said to her, and it’s all it takes for it to all come pouring out.

I’ll rip the pages out later and write the proper speech, but right now …

It’s cathartic, so I let it happen.

Putting it all on paper, shaping these feelings with words – it makes a thought snake out from the back of my mind, one that says, But what if you told her all this? What if you took her aside before the wedding, and laid it all out for her to see?

We all feel like we lost Kayleigh to her new relationship. Nana was the only one who might’ve had the spirit to say it to her face this late in the game, but she’s gone now, and …

I remember what she said to me, when Dad first got sick. I remember what she said to me, a couple of days before she passed.

And I know what I have to do.

So, I keep writing.

I’m not aware of the turbulence until the plane jolts so hard that my pen scrawls a rogue line all the way across the page in the middle of a word, and I look up in time to see the seatbelt signs ping on.

There’s a slight crackle as the PA system comes on, and a sinking feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with the turbulence.

‘Hi, everybody, this is your captain speaking. Unfortunately, the weather conditions have worsened and we’re going to have to make an unscheduled stop for safety reasons.

We’ll be landing shortly at Orly Airport, and ground crew will be waiting to assist you on your onward journeys.

We apologise for this change in circumstances. ’

The PA turns off, and leaves a ringing in my ears.

I can just hear Nana cackling in my ears. What was that you were saying about no such thing as bad omens, boy? How’s this for a sign?

Really, I can’t argue with that.