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34 MEG

Meg and Hannah rushed to the pub as soon as they heard the news. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe Rod, or wanted to see the damage, but that it felt so strange to suddenly be alone in their home with the new information. They both felt like they wanted to do something.

When they arrived, a sign on the door, hastily printed out in Comic Sans and stuck with Sellotape, read: FLOOD DAMAGE – CLOSED FOR FORESEEABLE. David and Mark were standing with Rod on the raised area that seemed to have escaped the worst of the damage, but Rod was filling them all in. It was bad. Everything was waterlogged, even the beer pipes, and it would be a health and safety issue to have customers. Water had got in through the roof, pooled in the pub’s beer cellar, and wrecked the storage room downstairs. He didn’t know when they’d be able to open. David looked flushed and upset.

‘Rod, I’m so sorry,’ Meg said.

‘It’s me who needs to apologize,’ Rod said, shaking water from the bottoms of his trousers. ‘I can’t believe tomorrow’s off.’

‘I know,’ David said. ‘It’s crap. Have you got insurance?’

‘We’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘I thought everything was safe. I was following the alerts, we were prepared, but … that marquee is a little old, and I guess this building is old enough that maybe it’s finally given up. I won’t show you the marquee, but it’s … I’m really sorry too. The stuff in the basement storage room, it’s ruined. Did you take anything out of there?’

‘No nothing,’ Hannah said. Meg thought about everything that was there – the nonsense from her parents but also the décor, Angie’s cake would be in there by now, and even her dress. She’d asked David to take her mum’s dress home so she wouldn’t have to see it. If only she’d got him to take hers too. Though she wanted to ask about the dress, she knew there were more important things.

‘You need any help?’ Mark said. ‘I feel bad us turning up and adding pressure.’

‘It’s okay, we’ve got the staff that were meant to be in helping, and these are my sons here.’ He pointed at two boys carrying sopping cardboard and beer bottles upstairs in plastic buckets. ‘I don’t know when they’ll get shifts back so I want to give people work. We’ve got enough people, but thank you. It’s not glamorous, but we should be fine.’

‘Well call us if there’s anything we can do,’ Hannah said.

‘I really wanted to host the wedding, you know,’ Rod said, turning to Hannah and Meg. ‘It was really important to us, that you picked me, even after our little hiccup. I was so happy you … you know, I was so behind it all. You’re a great couple.’

‘It’s okay,’ Meg said. ‘And thank you for saying that; it means a lot.’

‘We’ll get out of your hair,’ David said.

‘Maybe you can just do it anyway, in the flat or something.’ Rod looked at them blankly. ‘Go to the park or do it over the phone or however you do it now.’

Mark laughed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, me and the missus, we didn’t have a big wedding,’ he said. ‘She didn’t have a big family and we didn’t have any money so we just went to the registry office and came here for food and a dance. I broke the council’s volume limit that day, but it was worth a little fine. All you need for a wedding is your wife and a drink in your hand.’

The entire group stared at him.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Hannah said. ‘Meg?’

David smiled. ‘Thanks, Rod. Wise words.’

‘I try.’

Meg was silent.

‘Do call us,’ Mark said, as they began to walk out. ‘For anything.’

They got outside the front of the pub, weirdly bright end-of-day sunshine peering through the clouds after all that had happened.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ David said, turning to the group. The streetlights were turning on, which David had always thought was lucky, to see the switchover.

‘David, we don’t have a venue, or a dress, or a cake or …’ Mark was shaking his head. ‘I didn’t want to say in there but …’

‘Yeah, David,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s just so much to do. I don’t know if—’

‘We have two brides,’ he said. ‘We know so many people who want this wedding to happen.’

‘I don’t know, David,’ Meg said. ‘I’ve been looking for signs and maybe this is one …’

‘What if it’s a sign the other way?’ Hannah said.

‘What?’ Meg said.

‘That all of the stuff around us doesn’t matter, and that it’s us getting married that’s important.’

‘It’s entirely your choice,’ David said. ‘But the taco truck is fine. That’s one thing – the food is sorted. I’ve spoken to Angie; I’ve spoken to Martha. Everyone’s happy to muck in, even if it wasn’t what was planned.’

‘David …’ Mark said. ‘I knew you were up to something.’

David looked curiously at Mark, in a way Meg had never seen before. ‘I just thought it would be such a shame, after all our work. They’re on hand, if you want them to be. We can sort it. I don’t have all the answers, or barely any of them actually, but I never do and things usually turn out all right.’

They were both staring at him, and Mark too.

‘Basically, if you both trust me, and you want to get married tomorrow, in a different way than you thought, then I can sort it. You two try and sleep, try and relax, and in the morning I’ll have some form of a wedding for you. If that’s what you want – it’s entirely your call. It might not be perfect, and you might just want to wait, but we’ll have you and we’ll have guests and really those are the only things you need, and the celebrant obviously.’

‘What do you think, Han?’ Meg turned to her.

Hannah smiled sheepishly. ‘I think … we should do it? I don’t want to wait any longer. I want to marry you and I don’t care how we do it.’ She took Meg by the hands. ‘I just want to get married.’

‘Thank you,’ Meg said quietly. ‘I do too.’

‘And of course we trust you, David,’ Hannah said. ‘You’re family.’

Meg thought back to her engagement to Hannah, a moment between the two of them sitting by their favourite canal in London. It wasn’t flash; it was a bench with rotting wood and bent cans littered all around them. Meg had been certain, at some point, she saw a defiant fox in the bushes, but it was where they rested for a second on a walk and with solitude and quiet, Hannah had pulled out a ring and asked her. It wasn’t what a lot of people would want, but Meg wasn’t a lot of people. All she’d cared about was Hannah.

‘Let’s do it then,’ Meg said. ‘David, tell us if you need any help. We can’t just—’

‘No need,’ David said. ‘I’ve got this. Count it as your wedding present. Go get some sleep. We’ll see you brides tomorrow.’

‘But I have so many questions …’ Meg looked stunned, and stood unmoved. ‘What if something else goes wrong? What if my parents come but they hate it? Oh my God, what am I going to wear? Do you think we could dry-clean the dress?’

‘Meg,’ Hannah said, touching her face. ‘We’ll be becoming wife and wife. I don’t need to know anything else.’

‘Are you sure we can do this, David?’ Mark asked.

‘We can do anything,’ David said. ‘And everything.’