Page 21 of The Stand-in Dad

20 MEG

35 Days Until the Wedding

‘So you have to outline. It’s really boring but you simply have to, and it’ll help later.’ Meg looked out at everyone in the flower shop, and turned back to the easel she’d set up on the counter, where she was beginning to draw. Her pencil scratched against the thick card. ‘Like this. It’s not the exciting bit … You’ll always want to get stuck into the parts that excite you the most, but do this first. I always picture it as scaffolding, if that helps. You need it to build the house. If you don’t know how it’s going to sit on the page, you can’t do the details accurately. This is especially important if you were drawing, I don’t know, say like a scene on a football pitch. If you get the dimensions wrong, soon enough, you won’t have space for the goal for example and it’ll be all squashed up and look … not very good. Worst-case scenario, you’d have to start all over again.’

As she drew, she could see the faces turn from boredom to intrigue. What is she making? she imagined them thinking. Could they create the same? She hoped they were itching to get started, as it was always more entertaining to try yourself than to be told how.

‘So, get the scaffolding down, ideally in pencil and then you can rub away the pencil as you go, and it’ll look like you just did this from scratch, which will seem really impressive. Give me just one moment on this, and I’ll show you.’

Meg turned back and started scribbling, now going over the pencil lines with a mix of her Sharpie and her biro. She hadn’t wanted to add colour this early, but thought thickness of line might not be intriguing enough for the group. Soon, she was getting closer to what she’d intended.

‘Sorry, I’m not great at talking and drawing …’

‘It’s us!’ Salma said.

‘No it’s not,’ Benji said.

‘I think Salma’s right,’ David said.

Meg smiled and allowed them to keep guessing. Someone else said it was a beach, and someone else guessed it was the dog groomer’s down the road. Instead, as she added a few more people in, everyone seemingly agreed that she had drawn exactly what she could see in front of her.

She turned back to the group and they were there, like she’d brought them to life from the paper to the shop. Nine children sat around the huge table in the middle, the one David usually made displays on. A couple of other kids, including Benji, were sitting at the individual tables David used for classes. David, Mark and Jacob were in a line at the front of the shop near the door, looking on, leaning against the surface at the back. There wasn’t a lot of space. They were all watching pleasantly as the group hung on Meg’s every word and her and Hannah’s friend Ailie who was up to visit stood next to them, smiling too, wearing a bright striped jumper and her hair tied up in a ponytail. In the background of Meg’s drawing, you could see the beginnings of the large houseplants in the window, and the tiniest hint at the houses opposite the shop, which you could see through the windows. Despite being late afternoon, it was still pleasantly light in the evenings now.

‘You’re right, it’s all of you guys,’ Meg said. ‘It’s not perfect, there’s not much detail, but that would come later. After the demonstrations, everybody’s going to have a go at drawing the florist’s from where we’re sitting, or rather, where you’re sitting. We’ll come round and help with scaffolding, and then we can talk about the detail and whether you want to use pens, or paints, or shading, or anything you want. How does that sound?’

The group cheered, and Meg gestured to Ailie to come forward, before flipping over the easel to give her a blank page. Ailie had been on their university course and they’d all been friends ever since. She had definitely begun as, and was still, better friends with Meg, and had offered to do live illustrations of guests at their wedding as a gift to them. Though she had planned on a social visit and to talk weddings, Meg had thought she might also be a good fit for the night the youth club had asked for. It was lovely to have time together, away from Ailie’s boyfriend and Hannah, and just to be with each other.

‘Everybody say hello Ailie,’ Meg said, stepping back to where David, Mark and Jacob were standing. ‘And listen to what she has to say. She’s brilliant.’

Once the youth group were off, the main job was trying to slow them all down. Everybody wanted to see the final result, not the planning, and so Meg felt like she was playing that arcade game with the moles, jumping between each of them as soon as they leapt past the early steps she and Ailie had described. Ailie and David were better at softly making suggestions, and letting them make mistakes. She and Mark were more likely to physically grab the pen from somebody’s hand.

‘That’s good!’ Meg said. She was pointing to Fred’s sheet, who was shaping areas of flowers and plants instead of immediately starting to draw leaves. A girl to his left was currently drawing half of David’s face, which was being squeezed onto the page, and had gone from unfortunate to startlingly unflattering. On the other side of the table, Mark was suggesting someone use a pencil instead of a pen – ‘like Meg told you’ – and David was pointing at Meg and explaining something about her that he was trying to get one of the kids to draw on the page, which she was trying to pretend wasn’t making her self-conscious.

‘How are you getting on?’ Meg asked Benji, who was sitting on Fred’s right.

‘Good,’ Benji said. His tongue poked horizontally out of his mouth when he was concentrating, and Meg noticed he’d drawn squiggles of what looked like animals and fireworks all down one of his arms. He put his pen down and looked back. ‘I think I actually am ready to go. Am I?’

She looked at his page, where he’d drawn the basics of the table, five people and the background in alarmingly strong proportions. Every person looked like a real human and he had even included small details that brought the whole thing to life, even in its simplest form.

‘Yes!’ Meg said. ‘Well done, this is … You’ve really got an eye for this, Benji.’

His mouth glitched into a smile involuntarily. ‘Do you think?’

‘Definitely,’ she said.

‘Cool, thanks, man.’

‘Do you do art at school?’

‘No, I didn’t have space,’ he replied. ‘You only get three other subjects.’

‘Well you can always keep this up in your own time. You’re good.’

‘Thanks, Meg.’

‘Do you know what you’re going to do, after your GCSEs?’

‘I thought about doing English,’ he said. ‘But the teacher’s really strict.’

Meg couldn’t help herself. She knew she shouldn’t be asking questions like this and yet she found herself saying: ‘What’s her name?’

‘Mrs Kirby.’

Meg paused. ‘She’s actually my mum.’

‘Shut up, Meg!’

‘No,’ she said laughing. ‘She is!’

‘I can’t imagine her having kids,’ Benji said. ‘She’s so … I dunno, that’s mad that is! How old are you?’

David looked up from who he was helping. ‘Benji! Why are you shouting? And you can’t ask people how old they are.’

‘It’s okay, David,’ Meg said. She turned back to Benji. ‘Would you believe me if I said I’m twenty-one?’

‘I’m not shouting! And you’re not twenty-one. I’m not stupid,’ Benji said, to the room who were now listening. He scowled at someone else in the club who looked away. ‘Sorry, Meg, it’s just crazy!’

‘Why is it crazy?’

‘Cos you’re so different. You’re so … I don’t know. Chill.’

‘Well people can be different from their parents,’ Meg said. ‘Sometimes on purpose.’

Benji looked deep in thought and didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure anymore if she wanted to hear her parents talked about in positive or negative ways or at all, so instead Meg asked Salma how she was getting on. She was wearing an oversized sweater and a short skirt, and the top seemed to have some band on Meg hadn’t heard of.

‘I’m okay I think.’

‘You’ve made my head massive,’ Benji said, leaning to take a look.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Salma said. ‘She said to draw it to scale.’

‘Guys, you’ve both done well,’ Meg said, standing between them before they started to bicker. ‘I reckon add some colour, some shading. Here are the felt tips, but you can use whatever. Oh, hi!’

As she was speaking, Angie arrived, bustling through the door with a bag under her arm and two cake boxes stacked on top of one hand.

‘Somebody help me!’ she shouted, and as always, or perhaps because they could see it was cake, Benji, Fred and Salma bolted to the door to take things off her, and lay them down on the counter. There was no chance now; everybody was too distracted.

‘They’re for after!’ David shouted, but Meg wasn’t sure if he could be heard, and she heard the rustling of the boxes opening.

‘We’re just looking, man!’ Benji shouted.

* * *

The next assignment, set by Ailie, was for everybody to draw something which was not in the room, entirely from memory, which she said would give them more freedom to be creative. ‘Some of the great art is of things that don’t exist,’ she told them, and it might be, she said, that they’d prefer this style of drawing and illustrating over the other.

All the adults agreed to be involved as well. They were sitting at a small table near the counter. Meg was working on a flyer for the suggested flower subscription package, and Ailie was drawing another of their friends who would be at the wedding. From where she was sitting, Meg couldn’t work out what David and Mark were drawing, and Jacob seemed invested in some kind of wizard or goblin whose outline Meg could see from upside down.

Meg had set a timer for half an hour, and she checked it again, seeing there were only ten minutes left. The initial burst of concentration set by the timer had made every member of the youth club completely silent. Now, as some finished, not utilizing the full half an hour, and some got bored or felt too challenged, the mutters of conversation in the room increased in volume. To set an example, the adults’ table – outnumbered – stayed completely silent, concentrating on their individual projects, which meant they were mostly listening, unnoticed, to the club’s conversations.

‘What’s that?’ Fred was asking, and somebody told him they were drawing a lake in Scotland they had been to on holiday.

Benji got up from his chair to walk around everybody’s work, and asked Salma what she was illustrating.

‘That’s my uncle,’ she replied, pointing down at her art on the table. ‘At his wedding last year.’

‘You’ve drawn so much,’ he said.

‘Well that’s his husband, and I had to draw guests.’

‘I’ve only done one thing.’

‘It’s good though, so far,’ Fred told him.

Meg peeked at the drawing Fred was working on, of a Tesco meal deal, in slightly cartoonish style, detailed and coloured in bright, exaggerated felt tip. Meg then noticed David staring at Salma, who was now holding her work up to show somebody else. There was a glint of something in his eye; was it sadness or confusion? She tried to remember to ask about it later.

Angie nudged the table suddenly as she got up, and she quickly apologized, before moving to the counter to portion out what she’d brought. Meg peeked at her drawing, which seemed to be a group of children sitting, watching the television. ‘I’ve done as best I can with drawing,’ she said. ‘But I’ll go and do what I’m good at.’

‘Do you need a hand?’ David asked, before getting up to help. He, too, was finished. Meg knew she should offer but she wanted to give David a great option for his flyer, and felt relieved when Benji instead got up to divide the cakes with them. She watched as Benji asked Angie questions about her process, about the design of the cakes, whether she had any social media for her shop. Meg played with a couple more elements on her flyer and then Benji came to sit with her.

‘Sorry if I said anything about your mum, or upset you.’

‘You didn’t, Benji, but thank you.’

‘Your mum’s chill sometimes,’ he said. ‘Kind of like my dad.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like, he’s not a bad person.’ Benji was playing with a napkin he’d taken from the table. ‘He just thinks things have to happen in a particular way and that there’s a right and a wrong. He doesn’t like it when we think differently about things.’

‘You think my mum’s the same?’

‘You should have seen when Paul said the mockingbird was the best character in the book. She went crazy.’

Meg smiled. ‘That sounds like my mum.’

‘It’s not his fault he hadn’t read it. The Euros were on.’

‘Anyway, Benji, I heard you went on a date,’ she said.

Benji suddenly went silent. ‘No I didn’t.’

‘Oh, I thought you did,’ she said. ‘I was just wondering who they might be, but you don’t have to tell us …’

‘Who told you?’

Fred and Salma looked up from their spaces on the table.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

He muttered something that might have been a swear word under his breath before shaking his head at David and going back to sit down.

‘No swearing, Benji,’ Mark said. ‘Come on, you know the rules by now.’

Confused, Meg mouthed an apology to David, and they both looked over at Benji who was now sitting with his arms crossed, glaring at them, knocking his feet against the table legs.

The night was complete by six-thirty, and so Meg and Ailie went to the pub for dinner after shepherding the club out of the shop and joining David and Mark to tidy, despite their refusal to accept help. Benji had taken a picture of everybody’s work, and had been one of the last to leave, his mood lightening with each slice of cake Angie gave him. By the time he walked out of the door with Fred, cookies in their hands, he seemed to have forgotten what he’d been annoyed about.

They both ordered veggie sausages and mash, which arrived at the table with thick brown gravy and whole roasted chunks of red onion, and the waiter seemed confused by Ailie’s faint Scottish accent, worn away by years in London. He didn’t seem to know where she was from, or how to ask. They began to eat, and Meg felt grateful for a moment of silence, like she’d been speaking for an hour, running Ailie through everything that had happened since they’d moved back just half a year ago.

‘So you said in one of your texts you were worried about Hannah?’ Ailie asked, sipping from her glass of water. ‘If your parents don’t come.’

‘Not worried, exactly,’ Meg said. ‘She just has to comfort me when I get upset about it, which feels so often now, and her work is so busy. I just feel like it’s a strain we don’t need.’

Meg told Ailie how she wanted an answer about the wedding, but was dealing with capricious and infrequent messages from her parents.

‘But you’re not worried?’

‘No, not worried, maybe that’s not what I meant,’ Meg said. She’d been having so much trouble figuring out how she was feeling recently, and neither texting nor talking seemed to help clarify. ‘Hannah’s so great and we’ll always be fine. I just think we’re having to adjust what we thought we were having for a wedding, compared to what we are having. Sometimes I feel so sad about how it is with my parents; other times I’m having such a fun time planning it with David that I completely forget that this isn’t what people normally do. Hannah offered to go and talk to my parents, but with how they are I don’t know if that will make it worse. I worry that it’s because she just wants an answer, for my sake. Rather than the uncertainty.’

‘Do you want an answer?’

‘I do, of course,’ Meg said. ‘Part of me wants to go round every day and just talk it out. I guess I’m not hurrying it, because what if the answer is … no?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t know what that would even feel like. At least now, I don’t know … at least there’s some hope.’

‘So you’ve got, like, a month to go?’ Ailie said, checking a calendar on her phone.

‘Yeah.’

‘I think you might have to ask, or yeah, get Hannah to. You don’t want to be upset on or close to the day.’

‘You mean if I’m going to cry, I should get it all out of my system well before?’

‘Well yes!’ she said, before adding: ‘Sorry.’

‘We have a rehearsal a few days before, so I could see if they come to that,’ Meg said, putting down her knife and fork. Suddenly, she felt less hungry than she had. She sighed. ‘It’s such a mess.’

‘Yeah but, Meg, it’s not your mess,’ Ailie said. She had finished eating too and reached a hand out to Meg across the table. ‘So don’t take that on as something you’ve done.’

‘Okay.’

‘Did you see Patty from uni got married?’

‘Oh yeah, I did see that.’

‘Go on her profile. I want to show you something.’

Meg knew what this was going to be but she followed what her friend said anyway. She shuffled up the banquette seating Ailie was on and they both swiped through her most recent post, caption: BLISS and a bride emoji. There were ten pictures of her wedding, all made up of people: her, her husband and a variety of group and candid shots, of grandparents and children, and of a different dress later in the night.

‘I don’t know how she’s picked two,’ Meg said. ‘I had enough trouble picking one.’

‘No, look. That’s not what I meant. You know she doesn’t know her parents,’ Ailie said. ‘And look how much of a good day she’s had. Family, as in blood family, isn’t everything.’

She was right; there were photos of all kinds of people, all smiling or laughing. All the styles and tropes of all the posts Meg seemed to usually see, that even Matty had mentioned when they talked photography – of families in a line, of brides with their two parents and grooms with theirs, all lined up identically – were not present here.

‘So, whatever happens, your wedding day will be amazing, Meg, trust me,’ Ailie said. ‘I can’t wait. I’ve got my trains and hotel booked and everything.’

‘Yeah, it is exciting.’

‘I was watching some documentary … what do they call it, chosen family?’

As Ailie talked, Meg’s mind drifted to all the new people in her life since this had all started. David and Mark, Martha and Carl, Matty, Angie, the youth club, Susan. Gus and Ramon, even. Meg clicked out of the profile, just in case she liked anything else by accident, and saw a new post from the Savage Lilies account. Benji had posted a series of the group’s pictures of the shop, in a video montage to Stormzy’s ‘Rainfall’. Underneath, he’d simply written, nine-thirty to five-thirty, fresh every day, savage lilies. In contrast to his somewhat frantic personality and his excitability, the voice and look for the flower shop was a kind of classic elegance, with modern touches like the music. It was really distinct and having worked on so many social campaigns with work, Meg knew how hard it was to get these things right.

‘Looks like they enjoyed the session,’ Meg said, passing the phone to Ailie. ‘Look at this.’

‘Oh that’s great,’ Ailie said. ‘Wait, isn’t that the shop’s profile?’

‘Yes but one of the kids from the club is doing the social media for a bit, showing David how.’

‘That’s so sweet,’ Ailie said. She was perusing a dessert menu that had just been delivered to the table. ‘It’s so nice round here, Meg, all the community action. It’s like living in some lovely old film. I can’t believe you used to knock it so much.’