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15 DAVID

47 Days Until the Wedding

David invited Meg to the shop for lunch before they went to see wedding venues. He felt they were true friends now. She often spent her lunchtimes, she had said, watching television with food on her lap, or eating a sandwich while she worked, so he thought she might enjoy the company. Savage Lilies only had two lunch options, unless you wanted one of your three meals a day to be a chocolate muffin, and so the choice was the savoury pastry or cheese and Marmite roll he ordered in from Angie. While they ate, they caught up, and despite the fact he should be wishing for customers, it felt good to talk alone.

David wanted to talk to Meg about what Mark had said about them marrying. He wanted to be able to give Mark a definitive answer but there wasn’t any definitive answer in his head. How did you know if you wanted to get married? How had Meg known?

However, they talked about the venues and then they spoke about options for décor and what Meg thought about Hannah’s playlist choices, and he hadn’t worked out what to say. He asked instead, wondering if it might come up naturally, about their engagement.

‘It was very casual,’ Meg explained. ‘We both knew we wanted to marry, and she said she wanted to propose so I was just waiting. Then, one day, on a walk by the canal where we used to live, she just did it. I didn’t expect it, not then or like that. She had a lovely speech ready and I said yes and a few random people cheered. It was nice. We went for dinner, called all our friends when we came home. Told our parents.’

David felt strange at the thought of doing something similarly low-key with Mark and he didn’t know what to say. He wondered if their after-dinner walk would work. Would Mark want it in public, or private? Too much to think about. Instead, he said, ‘Shall we get going? Don’t want to be late.’

The first appointment with a venue was at David’s preferred pub, The Sheep’s Inn. It took just twenty minutes to have a tour and discuss prices, and then around three o’clock, they walked together to the other pub on the high street. It was called The Old Oak, and sat neatly at the bottom of the hill. In the front parking area, there was a large tree that shadowed and protected the building itself, and then round the back was a huge garden area, which was where Meg would want to erect a marquee.

Hanging around outside the front were a group from the youth club, all finished school for the day, and seemingly daring each other to try and go in and get served. Benji was laughing, and Salma was standing closest to the door, as if she might try.

‘All right, everyone?’ David said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, not much.’ Fred was laughing.

Salma looked sheepish, but Benji looked more confident.

‘Maybe if we go in with David, they’ll serve us,’ he said. ‘Or let us have a drink with a meal.’

‘I don’t think so,’ David said. ‘You guys be careful.’

He heard one of the others mutter that they should go to The Sheep’s Inn, the other pub, but David laughed because that was the one he would count as his regular, and the one where he and Mark were much more likely to see them.

‘Do they try this a lot?’ Meg asked.

‘I think it’s more like something to do,’ David said. ‘Whether they get in or not doesn’t matter. I mean, there’s not a lot to do round here and this’ll pass an hour or so.’

‘I won’t tell them but it’s much easier at The Hope, in the village over.’

‘Meg! Definitely don’t tell them that.’

‘We only did it once or twice.’ Meg sighed. ‘There was so much more here for kids when I was young.’

‘Was there?’

He and Mark must have moved here around the time Meg had left, and David had felt curious about how the town compared from when Meg had grown up here to now but he didn’t want to upset her by asking.

‘Yeah, there was the pool with the slide, and that only cost a pound to get in,’ Meg said. ‘The park was better before too. They’ve got rid of the bus route I used to get into town – I noticed the other day when I wanted to go shopping. I would have hated if that had happened when I was in Sixth Form, I’d have had no way to get into town without relying on Mum and Dad, or Gus when he learned to drive.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ David said. ‘I really feel for the kids.’

‘I guess you don’t miss what you didn’t know existed before, but, yeah, it’s tough. I get why the club is so valuable.’

Inside, they were greeted by Rod, who ran the pub, and who sat with them at a table in the corner.

He was a large man, with a loud voice. He was wearing boat shoes, jeans, and a polo shirt in a dark green colour and he was wearing a big metal watch on his wrist. When he spoke, his face broke into a smile, and David noticed he had combed his hair over to cover a receding hairline. He must also, thought David, be somewhere in his fifties.

‘So, a wedding,’ he said, getting out an old binder. ‘That’s exciting. We never normally do weddings.’

‘Yeah, it’s …’ Meg looked at David as if he were better placed to describe her wedding to this stranger, but of course this was her job and he let her explain. ‘It’s not very traditional. We don’t want a big thing. Me and my partner, Hannah, she and I would like something intimate, and easy and casual.’

David noticed her deliberate pronoun use, something familiar to him, the taking of the power out of the hands of someone else to force you to come out and to do it instead on your own terms.

‘Great,’ Rod said. ‘Well that’s no problem and we can certainly host it. We’ve got the date saved. What would you need on the day?’

‘I’d want the marquee outside, for the ceremony, and that can turn into where people sit and eat. We might need to hire some chairs in, but that’s fine. Fingers crossed, it’ll be sunny, in June. We’d want a microphone, and a DJ will be coming until, what … midnight, or one o’clock? Whenever you can be open until, really. We have a food truck we’d like to bring in, since I know you said you can’t do food on that scale, but looks like they could drive into the garden from the road?’

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’

‘No problem at all,’ Meg said, smiling at him. ‘I think that’s everything. We’ve got a bit of money for a bar tab and then people can order themselves at the bar afterwards.’

‘Great,’ he replied. ‘We also have a small outside bar we could open. So you can make that just a second bar, or a cocktail station or whatever. That sound good?’

‘Okay.’

‘We also have a storage room in the basement, which is good for events and things. We can clear it out slightly, give you more space, put anything in there the week before.’

‘That would be great,’ David said. ‘Save us carrying things back and forth on the day.’

‘It’s quite short notice for a wedding, isn’t it?’ Rod said.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s no problem. A tight deadline, but we can make it work. I just have to make sure the regulars don’t turn up annoyed we’re closed. Can you let me know in the next week?’

‘Brilliant,’ Meg replied. ‘I’ll come back to you as soon as I can.’

‘How are you feeling then?’ Rod asked, turning to David. ‘Daughter getting married – it’s a big day. I remember my wedding day. The in-laws were all over the place.’

‘Oh,’ Meg said.

‘I’m actually not her father.’

‘Uncle?’

‘No.’

‘… Grandad?’ Rod said tentatively.

‘No, none of those.’

‘Sorry, I’ll stop guessing.’ Rod put his hands up in surrender, in a way that annoyed David, like he was mocking him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter, actually.’ David could feel his chest tighten. He, as happened incredibly rarely, was getting angry. Meg was looking at him strangely from across the table.

‘Okay, how do you … know Meg?’

‘I’m a friend of hers and I’m … I guess you could say standing in for her father.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Because she’s gay and her parents are currently not looking like they’ll attend the wedding,’ David said. ‘And I’m gay too.’

They all looked at each other for a moment, and then Rod spoke again. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You just didn’t look gay.’

David was stunned. ‘What does gay look like then?’

‘David …’ Meg said.

David could feel bile rising in his throat, his whole body tensed with the stress of confrontation. He was already too warm in his jumper, and now he could feel sweat pooling at the base of his back.

‘Why are you getting so mad, mate?’ Rod asked. He had pushed his chair back slightly away from the table.

‘Because I am gay,’ David said. ‘Whether you think it or not! Mate! ’

David worried too he shouldn’t have said about Meg’s parents. She was looking at him funny, like he’d let her down, and that she wished she was anywhere else.

Rod was fumbling with how to fix the situation. ‘I literally never said …’

‘Maybe we should go,’ Meg said.

‘Maybe we should,’ David said, taking Meg’s hand. She waved it off.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Rod said. ‘I genuinely didn’t mean to offend, or to upset anyone …’

Suddenly their small table felt much too cramped. David was desperate to get up, to be anywhere but here.

‘I know,’ Meg said, turning back to him when they were already steps away from the table.

‘No, don’t say that, Meg,’ David said, looking at Meg. ‘He didn’t say it to you.’

Meg looked up at him, with surprise and hurt in her eyes. ‘Let’s just go.’

‘I really didn’t mean to upset—’ Rod tried to speak, but they were already several feet away.

‘Well you did,’ David said.

‘Sorry,’ he said again, as David pushed open the door.

They got outside, and David took his jumper off, stood underneath the tree in the car park taking in big gasps of air.

‘Are you okay?’ Meg asked him.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head, pushing her away. ‘I didn’t expect … I need to sit down.’