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‘I haven’t had a cig in a year and a half,’ he said, wafting the smoke away from Shay. ‘I bought my first packet yesterday and this is the last one.’
‘What on earth’s the matter, Jamie? Are you all right?’ asked Shay.
‘No, I’m not,’ came the reply. ‘I’m at my wits’ end to be honest.’
The hand not holding the cigarette rose to rake through his thick brown hair. ‘I don’t know what to do, Mrs B.’
‘Jamie, calm down,’ said Shay in her best no-nonsense mum voice. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this but I have to.’
Shay felt all the muscles in her back tense. ‘What?’ That inner rumble was mounting.
‘I wish those bleeding bells would shut up.’ Jamie puffed on the cigarette, forcing the nicotine into his lungs. He looked at his watch, muttered an expletive. ‘I haven’t seen Sunny for ages, right. I’m busy, new woman, jobs, you know the stuff. We used to see each other at rugby but…’ Another deep puff.
‘You’ve stopped?’ she guessed.
‘No, I haven’t, he has.’
‘Sunny doesn’t go to rugby any more?’
‘He hasn’t been to rugby for over a year.’
Sunny had lied to her then. Why had her boy lied?
‘So… the two things that were always going to happen were that I’m best man today, yeah… and the stag do.’
‘Okay.’ Shay nodded that she was still with him because Jamie looked at her as if he wanted to be assured of that.
‘I rang him. He said he wasn’t going to have a stag do because Karoline didn’t want him to be tied to a lamppost naked or stuck on a ferry to Rotterdam, as if we’d have done that. I pushed it a bit and he went to ground, wouldn’t answer his phone. So on Thursday night, we kidnapped him from work.’
‘Kidnapped?’
‘Yeah, we had a van waiting outside his office: Phil was driving, Jon, Pete, Daz Waterhouse, Mark Harrod, Mark Collier, you know, the usual gang. We loaded him in the back of the van, we weren’t going to do anything stupid. He really kicked up a stink. We were just going to dress him in a T-shirt with a picture of a stag on the front that we’d had printed, a hat with antlers, we’d all got ’em on, just daft. We knew how Karoline felt so we weren’t going to push it, only have a couple of beers and we’d booked a Chinese banquet; he’d have been home for nine but we couldn’t let him get married without… something.’
Shay had no idea where this was going.
‘Mrs B… oh shit… when we got Sunny’s shirt off, he was covered in bruises, scratches, bite marks… I’ve never seen owt like it.’
Shay went cold as Jamie paced up and down in front of her.
‘Phil pulled up in a car park. Sunny just broke down. He said every time he was going to walk out, she’d promise tostop, and it was okay for a while, then it would start all over again. She’d go mad if he didn’t pick up his phone, she put a tracker on his car, she was convinced he was seeing someone else and once she hit him so hard she fractured his eye socket and he had to lie and say he’d done it playing rugby, which was a bit of a wake-up call. He was ready to leave but then she said she’d kill herself and he called her bluff and she took some pills.’
Shay’s blood started to heat up then. She could feel it begin to bubble and boil in her veins.
‘She said she was sorry, begged him for another chance, promised to get some help and he fell for it because he’s too bloody nice; cue bust lip. Psycho cycle: lovely, loving, this could work, Mr Hyde comes out again… Last month, he realised he couldn’t take it any more, tries to end it with her, and she drops the bombshell that she’s up the duff. She even did a test in front of him to prove it. Oh, and if he left her she’d have an abortion. He thought his only option was to go through with the wedding, stick around until the baby was born safely and then take it from there. Then Thursday morning – the day we saw him – he was looking in a cupboard and found a pack of joke pregnancy tests that would all read positive. In other words, she’s as pregnant as I am. She’s fucking evil, Mrs B – excuse my French.
‘Needless to say, we didn’t have hoisin duck pancakes. We sat in the back of the van and tried to talk him out of this shit show. I begged him, Mrs B. I said he could stay at ours. He’s ashamed, he’s scared, he doesn’t know what to believe any more, he doesn’t know where he is. The other lads haven’t turned up because they can’t face watching him do it. She’s made him believe that if he called the wedding off her father would sue him, have his legs broken, have your legs broken,crucify Bruce’s business on social media… you name it, she threatened it. And that’s supposed to be love. I don’t know what to do. I haven’t slept for two nights. He said the only thing he could do was let her have her day and then get out after. Shereallywants this wedding. I reckon her plans were made for it before she even fucking met him. He made us promise not to tell you, said he knew what he had to do, but I saw you and I… can’t… lie.’
Jamie was shaking. Shay put her hand on his arm and had to check that he wasn’t standing on a vibrating plate.
Mother’s intuition, eh?she thought. Something you really shouldn’t ignore when it knocked on the door.
Jamie was now smoking the butt of the cigarette. He’d end up smoking his fingers in a minute.
‘I want to stand up and say I object but I’m not sure I dare. Sunny made me swear I wouldn’t do anything stupid. Am I letting him down by not doing anything, more than I would be by doing something? My head’s as cabbaged as his is. I don’t—’
‘Shhh. Jamie, go into the church, take your seat and leave everything to me,’ said Shay. Her blood was now the equivalent of magma but she felt strangely controlled because shedidknow what to do, without a doubt.
