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40 MEG

‘Ahem, right, can everyone hear me?’

Time for the speeches. Usually, these were Meg’s favourite parts of a wedding, but given today it was her who had to speak to a crowd of people in the hundreds, she felt sick with nerves. She tried to pretend the crowd wasn’t there and concentrated instead on those she could see immediately in front of her – Hannah, Ailie, Angie, David and Mark – and not her parents who were somewhere to the left, slightly out of focus. She still hadn’t spoken to them.

She put her hand down on top of one of the speakers to steady herself. ‘I never thought my wedding would look like this,’ she said to polite laughs. ‘Obviously. I don’t think any of us did!’ Her fear had been that once she started speaking, people would start shouting from the back of the crowd that they couldn’t hear her but luckily it seemed like the last-minute rigging Martha had done had worked.

‘When I was younger I never really knew what my wedding would look like,’ she said. ‘Initially, I imagined what every little girl imagines when they’re playing with the dolls they’re given. A nice man, tall and handsome. When I got a little older, double digits, I realized maybe that wasn’t what it was going to be. Hannah is still quite tall though.’

She looked at David and Mark, smiling and laughing encouragingly.

‘It wasn’t even possible for me to marry Hannah a decade ago, when we met. A wedding wasn’t always on the cards.’ She took a big breath in. ‘I’m so glad it is, now. Against all the odds, and throwing away everything we thought might take place today, here we are. You and me, Han. People have said this isn’t normal, or it’s too different, and you know what? I’m glad this isn’t normal, because whatever we have, and whatever this is—’ she gestured out to the crowd ‘—it’s better than whatever normal is. I feel a lot of Pride, today.’

She looked at the people in front of her, the community she had found, and it was this, the antidote to loneliness she had found through David, that made her begin to well up. Come on, Meg, she told herself, you can get through this.

‘When I grew up, just around the corner,’ she said, ‘I never realized there was so much love around here. You can be quite in your head as a teenager, I guess. The community and its people have changed and I’ve discovered that putting yourself out there, well … It’s given me more than I ever thought I deserved. Hannah, I can’t wait to make our life here.’

As the crowd applauded, Meg knew there would be just one hard part of the day left. She could see her parents clapping politely, standing in front of a chicken van called I Just Fried in Your Arms.

‘Thanks, everybody, again for coming,’ she said. ‘Hannah’s up next, and she’s going to do the thank yous, because we thought I would cry too much!’ Meg added, before coming down from the platform and bursting into tears. ‘She was right!’

David looked at Meg as Hannah reached the end of her speech. ‘No, you didn’t have to!’

Hannah’s voice came booming through the speakers: ‘We’ve actually got some flowers for someone who absolutely doesn’t need them but certainly deserves them. Meg wanted to do this but thought she might be too emotional … If everyone can applaud or raise a glass to David, our … what shall we call him? Father of the Pride seems appropriate.’

Meg presented the flowers to David and they both hugged to cheers from the crowd.

‘Now, Meg, don’t worry I was coming to you.’ Meg jokingly hid her head under her hands. ‘The thing with Meg, the first time we met, it was in a café at university and Meg moved to make space for me. I kept going back, not just because I had a hell of a lot of work to do, but because I hoped she would be there. Looking back, we were both doing that, but it took months to figure out what we were to each other. Were we friends, or something more?

‘I think with Meg, she brings people together. Little did she know it but by the February after the Christmas break and our first exams, we were together and we had a group of friends around us that we’ve had ever since.’

There were cheers from the girls, standing in front of the taco truck, some of them holding two drinks each.

‘That’s what you do, Meg, even when life’s hard you’re still a beacon of light, and people are drawn to you, and if I have to spend every day of the rest of my life making that clear to you, that’s what I’ll do. It’s no surprise you’ve somehow got hundreds of people here to support you, and us. We could be doing this in Wembley Stadium and the crowd still wouldn’t be enough.

‘So, before I get Meg to myself for the rest of our lives, I’d like everyone to raise a glass to my wife, and to love, and to community.’

Meg smiled, embarrassed by all the attention. She tried to hold back her tears, and instead look as though she was smiling at people. She could see the shop full of people, whether official wedding guests or not, taking photos in the photo booth, and the plants that were still in the shop looked amazing with the light from the sun streaming through the windows.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the youth group hovering near the bar, working out who could try and get served, pushing each other forward one by one. Not long to go, she thought, watching them. A couple more years.

There were people she’d seen in the shop whenever she’d been in speaking to David, or the girl who worked with Angie, or Salma’s parents she had seen picking her up from the shop once, there with her uncle. Hovering near one of the food trucks, Jacques, despite all his décor being ruined, had come, and he was trying not to spill ketchup on his suit.

Standing under the awning of the shop were her parents. Though she had not been avoiding them, she felt somewhat uneasy about what they might say, after everyone else had said so many wonderful things. She walked over, and before she had said anything her mum grasped onto her and hugged her so tight she had to push her arms off a little bit.

‘Congratulations,’ her dad said.

‘You look … beautiful.’ Her mum reached out to touch the fabric of the dress. ‘This … They’ve done an amazing job.’

‘Thanks,’ Meg said to her parents, standing awkwardly apart from them.

‘Shall we have a little talk somewhere private?’ Ava said, her eyes full of tears. ‘Is there time? If you can.’

‘There’s time,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a couple of things to do, and people to talk to, but yes I’d really like to talk.’

‘Okay, darling,’ George said, hovering awkwardly next to his wife. ‘You can’t do everything. Whenever you’ve got a moment.’