The ceremony is perfect, pitched exactly right, not too long, not too short, great hymns that everyone recognises. Bea and Ruth both look dignified and beautiful at the same time, in their different ways.
There are maybe a hundred people in the church – family and friends gathered over long lives – and it feels like an honour to be one of those friends.
* * *
Afterwards, Carole, Nadia and I join the other guests on the lawn outside the church and are given champagne while the photos are done. Everyone’s been struck by the good humour that accompanies a wedding that feelsright, and the vibe is friendly delight.
I strike up a conversation with two men a few years older than me who turn out to be Ruth’s nephews and Arsenal supporters. I see out of the corner of my eye that Nadia and Carole are talking to a group of women; there’s a lot of laughter coming from their direction.
I’m not listening to the wedding photographer’s instructions, because they clearly aren’t going to involve me unless we do a whole-wedding-guest group photo at the end, which I’ll notice anyway, because everyone will be doing it, so I’m surprised when Nadia pops up at my elbow with Carole behind her.
When there’s a lull in our conversation, she smiles at my companions and says, ‘Hi, I’m Nadia. Sorry to interrupt, Tom, but we’re up. Photo.’
‘Us?’
‘Yes. A Waterloo Five one.’
‘Oh, that’s very nice.’
I say, ‘Great to meet you,’ to my fellow Arsenal fans and off we go.
‘Honestly,’ Nadia chides. ‘The Arsenal obsession.’
‘You’re just a philistine,’ I tell her. ‘Footballisbetter to watch than tennis.’
I catch Carole looking at us with eyebrows slightly raised. Maybe she isn’t a football fan either.
* * *
Bea and Ruth arrange the five of us in a row, the two of them in the middle, with Carole on one side and Nadia and me on the other. For the first couple of photos we all just stand and smile, and then the photographer directs us to loop our arms round each other’s shoulders. And, quite ludicrously, I’m very conscious that I’m standing very close to Nadia, and my arm’s along her shoulders and hers is around my waist. It shouldn’t feel odd. I also have my arm round Ruth, and that doesn’t feel odd at all.
I can feel everywhere Nadia and I are touching. She’s taller than usual because she’s wearing heels, and her hair’s brushing my face. It smells lovely, as it did when I carried her down the steps.
The whole thing is weird.
I don’t have long to analyse it (a good thing) because the photographer, on hearing that we met at Waterloo station, has the bright idea of asking us to line up holding each other’s waists like we’re doing the locomotive.
So Ruth has her hands on my waist (fine) and I have my hands on Nadia’s waist (less fine, because it feels weirdly intimate. I mean, it is absolutelynotintimate because we’re in the middle of a lot of people at a wedding and lots of people are looking at us and we aren’t doing anything intimate whatsoever and I’ve beentoldto place my hands there. But it stills feels odd).
I’m very pleased when the photos are done.
While we’re still grouped there, but slightly separately from the other three because Bea and Ruth are asking Carole about Roger and she’s given in after they said no theyreallywant to know about him, even though yes it is their wedding day, and she’s now filling them in on lots of details (that I think Nadia got while I was talking Arsenal), Nadia lowers her voice and says, ‘Could I possibly ask a huge favour? A very low-maintenance fake-plus-one thing?’
‘Er, yes, I think so. If I’m free,’ I find myself saying, because even though I really don’t want to how can I say no when she went to such great blister and frilly pant lengths to help me.
‘Ha, your face is a picture. Don’t worry, no mingling with my colleagues required. I’d just love to get a selfie with you if that’s okay. And then I can post it on our work group chat and that’ll be confirmation that I’m still with the same person three weeks after they met you.’
‘Oh, that’s genius,’ I say. ‘You’re right; very low maintenance. Definitely.’
‘Would you mind if we…’
‘What?’ I ask, alarmed.Surelyshe isn’t going to suggest that wekissor something.
‘Put our heads fairly close together? In one of those heads-next-to-each-other beaming kind of poses?’
‘Oh, yes, no, absolutely.’ I’ve lost my mind; ofcourseshe wasn’t going to suggest we kiss. There are so many reasons that she wouldn’t. Not least because it’s the middle of the day and we’re at someone else’s wedding. And it would be incredibly awkward because fake snogging is a whole other level beyond fake dating. Which we are not even doing right now.
‘Sooo,’ she says. Oh yes. I think I might have been internally panicking for weirdly long.
