A Spot Of Bother

rather proud.

In fact, he was so swept up in the general sense of relief that he was surprised when he turned to his mother and found her still weeping.

She looked over at Katie and said, “I’m so, so sorry. It’s all my fault.” She wiped her eyes with a napkin and got to her feet and said, “I have to go and talk to your father,” and Katie said, “Are you sure…?” but she was gone.

And Ray materialized beside them and said, dryly, “I am really looking forward to going to Barcelona.”

And Jacob said, “Grandpa had a fight.”

And Ray said, “I know. I was there.”

And Katie said, “The man he hit. That was-”

“I know,” said Ray. “Your father explained. In some pretty graphic detail. That’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to Barcelona. He’s having a little rest, incidentally. I don’t think he’s planning to come downstairs in a hurry.”

And Jamie suddenly realized the one blindingly obvious fact that had somehow escaped him up until now. That his father had known all along. About his mother and David Symmonds.

His head was spinning a little.

He turned to Katie. “So did Mum know that Dad knew that Mum and David Symmonds were…?”

“No,” said Katie, even more dryly than Ray. “Dad obviously chose our wedding day to break the happy news to her.”

“Christ,” said Jamie. “Why did they invite the guy?”

“That,” said Katie, “is one of several questions I’m planning to ask them later on. Assuming they haven’t killed each other.”

“Do you think we should…?” Jamie got out of his seat.

“No I don’t,” said Katie tartly. “They can sort this one out themselves.”

Ray walked over to check that his own parents had survived the ordeal and Tony appeared carrying an open bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses. He sat himself down in Jean’s empty chair and said, to Katie, “This is the first wedding I’ve ever been to. And I have to say, they are a lot more entertaining than I realized.”

Which struck Jamie as pretty risky given Katie’s state of mind. But he clearly knew the terrain, perhaps on account of having Becky as a sister, because Katie removed the champagne bottle from Tony’s hand, took an almighty swig and said, “You know the best bit?”

“What?” said Tony.

“You being here.”

“You are very kind,” said Tony. “Though I didn’t expect my entrance to be upstaged quite so dramatically.”

“God,” said Katie, “I am in serious need of a disco.”

“A woman after my own heart,” said Tony.

“And David…?” said Jamie.

“Headed off to his car,” said Tony. “I think he wanted to avoid a second encounter. Which was probably wise, in the circumstances.”

At which point, a man carrying a large speaker bearing the words “Top Sounds” appeared like a rather overweight angel in the doorway of the marquee.

But Jamie was more worried about his father than Katie, and less keen to let his parents sort it out between themselves, so he made his excuses to Tony and slipped into the house, stopping en route to reassure several friends and relatives that his father was OK, and earnestly hoping that he was.

He knocked on his parents’ bedroom door. The faint voices went quiet on the far side. He waited then knocked again.

“Who is it?” said his father.

“It’s me. Jamie. I just wanted to check that you were all right.” There was a brief pause. Obviously they weren’t all right. It was a stupid thing to say. “It’s just that people are concerned. Naturally.”

“I’m afraid I made a terrible mess of everything,” said his father.

It was hard to know how to respond to this through a door.

“Will you tell Katie and Ray that I’m desperately sorry for causing them such embarrassment?” said his father.

“I will,” said Jamie.

There was a brief silence.

“Is David OK?” said his father.

“Yeh,” said Jamie. “He’s gone.”

“Good,” said his father.

Jamie realized that he hadn’t heard his mother speak yet. And it seemed very unlikely that something awful had happened to her, but he wanted to be absolutely sure this time. “Mum?”

There was no reply.

“Mum…?”

“I’m fine,” said his mother. There was a note of irritation in her voice, which was strangely reassuring.

Jamie was about to say that if they needed anything…Then he wondered what “anything” could possibly be (wine? wedding cake?) and decided to end the conversation. “I’m going back downstairs now.”

There was no reply.

So he went back downstairs and out across the lawn, reassuring more people about his father’s health as he did so. The disco had begun and he slipped into the marquee and sat himself down beside Tony who was chatting about lath-and-plaster ceilings with Ed.

Ed slipped away and Jamie took a cigarette from the packet in front of Tony and lit it and Tony poured him a glass of dessert wine and the two of them watched Uncle Douglas dancing like a wounded ox, and the music was good because it filled all those little gaps during which people were tempted to wonder about the implications of what had happened earlier, though if you knew precisely what had happened earlier you did have to try not to listen to the lyrics too hard (“Groovy Kind of Love,” “Congratulations,” “Stand by Your Man”).

For the last two weeks he’d been desperate to talk to Tony. Now, sitting next to him was enough, touching, breathing the same air. Last time they’d been together they seemed like two separate people. Somehow, in the interim they’d become a…what? a couple? The word seemed wrong now that he was finally on the receiving end.

Maybe it was good to be something you didn’t know the name for.

They talked to Mona about the perils of shagging one’s boss (which she had done, inadvisedly). They talked to Ray’s parents who were weirdly unperturbed by the unorthodox nature of the reception (Ray’s brother was in prison, apparently, which Katie had failed to mention, and Barbara’s ex-husband was once discovered by the police sleeping in a skip). They talked to Craig, Jenny’s gay caregiver, who was technically not meant to be talking to people on his own account while he was on duty but, sod it, Jenny was pissed and getting along famously with the spectacularly boring guy from Ray’s office.

Half an hour or so later his mother came into the marquee. And it was a bit like the Queen coming into the room, everyone suddenly stopping dancing, going quiet and panicking slightly about how they were meant to behave. Except that the man from Top Sounds didn’t know what had happened earlier so Kylie Minogue carried on singing “Locomotion” very loudly.

Jamie was going to jump out of his seat and run over and save her from all this unwanted attention, but Ursula (who had been doing a surprisingly athletic Locomotion with a group of Katie and Ray’s friends) went over and hugged her and Jamie didn’t want to trump her a second time. And within a few seconds Douglas and Maureen had joined her and his mother was soon sitting at a corner table being taken care of.

Consequently when his father entered the marquee a few minutes later he created slightly less of a stir. Again, Jamie wondered whether he should go and look after him. But his father headed straight to Katie and Ray and presumably made some kind of direct apology for his earlier behavior which must have gone down reasonably well because the encounter ended in a hug, after which his father was similarly led to a table by Ed with whom he seemed to strike up a firm intergenerational friendship (Jamie later found out that Ed had suffered a breakdown some years earlier and not left the house for several months). And it was a bit odd, his parents sitting at different