The father of the groom
Viraj wonders if he’s sometimes been too hard on his only child.
Perhaps he should have trusted him to work in the restaurant.
Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed so hard for him to be a doctor, or at least a dentist; shouldn’t have spent so long trying to convince him that being a vet did not count quite as much.
He has always loved Nimesh, has always known there is a sweetness and a softness in his son that can only have come from his mother.
Sujani said it this morning: our little boy is getting married.
Now Viraj fixes his son’s tie, allows himself a moment to stroke his head.
‘I’m glad you cut your hair,’ he says.
He can’t quite bring himself to say what he means, but he hopes it’s there, in the silence. My son is a vet, and he is a good man. My son is marrying a poet, an academic at the university. My son has made me proud.
The moment is over as soon as it began, because everyone wants a piece of Nimesh today.
The boys are fussing over him, Smudge checking again and again that the right song for the first dance is at the top of the playlist, Ryan panicking that the one he’s supposed to be playing on acoustic guitar during the ceremony isn’t too obvious, too already-done-before.
Seb is the only one who is silent, because he’s giving away his brother as much as Viraj is giving away his son.
He steps forward, pats his breast pocket to check for the rings.
Nimesh pulls his lucky guitar pick out of his own pocket.
Seb nods, then lays a tanned and tattooed hand on the side of his friend’s clean-shaven face.
‘I’m proud of you, buddy,’ he says, and Viraj cries for the first of many times today.
It is a winter wedding, a black-tie affair.
Viraj had not been sure about the choice, but today, in a frosty field, then in a hall filled with pale blue flowers, he can see the beauty in their vision, his son and his soon-to-be daughter-in-law.
Maisie is radiant, of course, her red hair glowing as she stands proud upon the brightly coloured poruwa.
His son looks handsome. His beautiful boy.
Helen is in the front row, bouncing Nimesh’s son, Finn, upon her knee as he beams a one-toothed smile above his little bow tie.
From beside her, Enzo does an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Viraj cries loudly through the vows. Sujani shakes her head, squeezes his hand.
After the ceremony, Viraj can’t help but notice that Seb is acting strangely.
Tapping his large fingers against his glass of champagne.
Casting his eyes, every so often, towards the door.
He’s looking for someone. He’s hoping someone might come in.
When someone does, it seems like she isn’t the person he was hoping for.
‘Who’s this?’ Viraj says, in the spirit of making friends with everyone, of letting everyone know that it was his son who just got married.
‘This is Noémie,’ Seb says. ‘My partner.’
Noémie is very tall and very angular, with straight dark hair and impossible cheekbones.
She’s just flown in from Milan, apparently.
The uncles can’t keep their eyes off her.
The speeches haven’t started yet, so Noémie has ample time to meet the newlyweds, to give them a gift.
Viraj doesn’t see what the gift is, but he sees the surprise, the genuine gratitude on Nimesh and Maisie’s faces.
Viraj knows that Noémie works in art, that she’s a high-flyer, because Enzo has told him so.
She is speaking to Seb’s parents, now, though the interaction is a little stilted.
If Seb and Noémie have something in common, it’s that they’re both sparing with their words.
Viraj is impatient, because the food comes after the speeches, and the food is being laid on by his restaurant.
He wants to do his son proud. There will be steaming silver banquet dishes filled with black chicken and jackfruit curry and ambul thiyal, a formidable array of colourful sambals and steaming mounds of roti fresh from the pan.
Enzo has provided the cake for later, and it’s a mirror image of the man: gigantic and Italian and soaked in rum.
Enzo is Viraj’s best friend of almost forty years, and they’re still always arguing.
About whether Sri Lankan food beats Italian, or whether fish and chips wins over either.
Or whether their sons and the boys were ever any good at making music, Enzo calling it an unbearable racket, Viraj quite liking it, hence why he let the band stick around in his garage for so long.
As everyone looks for their seats, Viraj takes a moment to observe his son and his son’s new wife, Finn clambering between their laps, turning his dad’s tie into a teething toy.
Seb, on the other side of them, is talking quietly with Noémie, her slender hand linked around the inside of his jacketed elbow.
He looks nervous. She’s whispering words of encouragement. She’s helping him breathe.
‘I know what you expect from a best man’s speech,’ Seb says, when it’s time, microphone in one hand and crumpled notecards in the other. ‘But public speaking has never been my strong point. And I don’t think I’ve ever been especially good at jokes.’
Everyone laughs at this. Seb looks around the room like he hadn’t meant it to be funny.
‘I’ve known Nimesh for as long as I can remember,’ he continues. ‘Our dads are best friends. We might as well have been neighbours.’
Viraj beams at the mention. Enzo has returned to his own table, from which he waves enthusiastically. Helen puts her head in her hands.
‘There are people in your life who are just always there, so you never think too hard about them.’ Seb is staring stiffly down at his notes.
‘You don’t need to. I guess you’d only realise how much they meant to you if they were gone.
’ He looks at the door. It seems like an involuntary reflex.
He lowers his eyes again. ‘For the first ten years of our friendship, I didn’t think too hard about Nimesh.
I was lucky that I didn’t have to.’ He pauses.
His mouth sounds dry. His hand is trembling. ‘Then we—’
An awkward silence falls over the room. Only those who know the Bonamis know what he’s trying to say. Viraj looks to Enzo, sees his lip trembling even at this distance. Maisie leans into Nimesh. Nimesh breathes out shakily, places a hand on Seb’s back.
‘When we lost Ellie—’ Another pause, in which Seb tries to steady his wavering voice.
‘When we lost my sister, I remember looking around and thinking, why does everyone else still get to be happy?’ He looks down at Nimesh.
‘And there you were. Ready to show me why.’ Seb smiles.
‘You saved my life, mate. You might have saved a million dogs and cats since then, but you saved me first.’
Maisie is crying. Nimesh is crying. Noémie doesn’t look like one to cry, but she is holding Seb’s hand tightly, nodding at him to continue.
Seb nods back, squeezes Nimesh’s shoulder.
He looks over the assembled guests, nods towards Viraj and Sujani, allows himself another glance towards the door. Then he laughs.
‘I know, I know,’ he says. ‘Death at a wedding.’
Laughter. Nimesh makes a show of dabbing his face with his napkin, mimes whipping Seb with it for the injustice of making him cry.
‘I guess what I’m saying is that I always wanted to be the one to make you happy,’ Seb says. ‘Because you deserve it. But it took me a while to realise that it wasn’t my job. Because Maisie came along, and she made you happier than I ever could.’
Viraj whoops. Maisie reaches out her hand, and Seb takes it.
‘Besides,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t look anywhere near as good in that dress.’
More laughter. Seb reaches his last notecard, looks relieved to have made it to the end.
‘We never did move to the other side of the world to rescue stray dogs,’ he says.
‘I guess life got in the way. But what a life, huh?’ He looks down at Nimesh, and Viraj’s son nods.
‘Sharing that life with you has been the greatest pleasure of mine,’ Seb says.
He looks to Maisie. ‘He’s yours, now, Maisie.
But I’d love to share a bit of your life together. If you’ll have me.’
You know it’s been a good speech when everyone makes a beeline for the speaker afterwards.
Viraj does the same, though it’s Enzo he moves towards, hugging him, telling him he’s happy to know him.
At the end of the function room, Smudge is testing out the decks, looking like he might already buckle under the pressure.
There’s going to be a Kandyan dance first, a drumbeat that always carries Viraj back home.
Before that, the food. Viraj is nervous about the food.
So when Finn toddles up and asks him for a cuddle, he’s happy to oblige.
He hoists his grandson to his chest, breathes in his soft, black hair. Then he heads over to congratulate Seb.
‘You should be proud,’ Noémie is saying, when he arrives. ‘Everyone here loves you.’
She smiles at Viraj when she sees him, greets him warmly.
But when Finn reaches out for her, Noémie raises one hand as if turning down a canapé.
The child looks confused, reaches for Seb instead.
He’s stiff, too, but only for a moment. Then he smiles, takes hold of his godson, tickles the boy beneath his chin.
Noémie watches with something like fascination.
Then Maisie arrives, giving Seb an enormous hug that almost crushes the child between them.
‘That was beautiful,’ she says.
‘I meant every word,’ Seb replies.
Finn climbs into his mother’s arms, smears sticky hands over her wedding dress. Viraj grimaces, but Maisie doesn’t seem to mind.
‘How long are you sticking around for?’ Maisie asks.
‘The winter,’ Noémie says, answering for Seb. ‘We leave in spring.’
‘Brave new world,’ Maisie says.
Noémie excuses herself for another drink. She heads to a nearby table, picks up a wine bottle. Reads the label, arches an eyebrow, then puts it down again. She heads for the bar. Seb watches her with a mix of amusement and affection.
‘She’s a character,’ Maisie says.
‘She’s been good for me,’ he says.
Maisie puts a hand on his arm. ‘I know she has.’
Seb sighs. His eyes are once again on the door. Viraj follows his eyeline, wonders what he’s missing. But Maisie can read Seb’s mind.
‘She’s not coming,’ Maisie says, quietly.
Seb gives himself away by not asking who Maisie means. Viraj is about to ask, but Nimesh has arrived. He slaps his dad on the back, then looks from Seb to Maisie. His face becomes serious.
‘Oh,’ he says.
Finn is getting fussy, so Viraj offers to take him. He steps away, rocking the child back and forth. He can’t help but keep listening in.
‘I’m sorry,’ Maisie is saying. ‘We stopped relying on her a while ago. I guess she would have, she might have, if it wasn’t for—’
‘Maisie,’ Nimesh says. Noémie is on her way back.
Seb looks from one of them to the other. He narrows his eyes. ‘What?’
‘You really haven’t googled her?’ Maisie says. ‘After all this time?’
‘I’d rather not,’ Seb says. ‘Should I have?’
Maisie and Nimesh share a look.
‘He should know,’ she says.
‘Know what?’ Seb says.
Another moment. Another look. Nimesh shakes his head ever so slightly. Maisie relents.
‘A screening,’ she says. ‘She’s doing a screening.’
Seb doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t push it. Instead, his eyes darken, and he rubs his beard with the heel of one hand. ‘When?’
Before they can answer, Noémie has returned, and she’s kissing Seb gently on the cheek, asking if everything is alright. He’s saved by the waiters emerging from the kitchen. The smile comes back to Viraj’s face. The food smells even better than he’d hoped.