Chapter 12
12
TOM
I m spending a lot more time with Nadia than I bargained for today.
Obviously I knew that I was seeing her. And obviously I knew that I only knew two guests at the wedding. But I wasn t really expecting this .
To be spending so much time being close .
You can t help sticking with someone when they re injured, though. Clearly, she needs someone to help her, and clearly, I am the only person who can be that someone, because she doesn t know any other guest other than Carole who a) still isn t entirely sober and b) will not benefit from being made to feel guilty, so we do need to continue to pretend that Nadia is basically fine.
So here I am, physically helping her.
I don t like it. I don t like how much I notice things about her when I hold her in my arms, or indeed when I m not holding her, just looking, or even not looking, just listening to her. Or breathing in her scent.
Right now she s holding a tree with one hand and leaning on my arm with her other, and I am necessarily standing very close to her so that she won t fall over.
Carole s hovering nearby and you d think that her presence would stop me being incredibly aware of the softness of Nadia s skin, the rueful smile that she just shot at me, the line of her slim neck, but no.
I think we should just get this torture over and done with. I want to deposit her on a chair inside next to Carole and then go off to the bar and have a drink (or several) with some of the other very nice wedding guests that I met earlier.
Hopping seems pretty tricky, I say.
Trickier than I expected, Nadia agrees.
So I m wondering whether maybe I should just carry you or give you a piggyback? Quickly. From here. Given that very few people – you would think – could hop up the steps, so you ll need to be carried then anyway? I m not sure why I m making such a big deal of it; I m making it sound a way more significant thing than it is. I should stop talking.
I ll help. Carole s words are a statement, rather than a suggestion. We ll link hands under Nadia s bottom and she ll put an arm round each of our necks.
It s very difficult not to laugh at Nadia s open-eyed over-my-dead-body expression.
I get the feeling Nadia wants to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, I say. Probably fastest if I just carry her myself.
I insist that I help. Let s go. Chair lift. Carole moves so that she s next to Nadia s right side and holds her arm out towards me.
Erm. I look between Carole and Nadia.
After several seconds, Nadia says, Thank you, very miserably.
Okay, then. I transfer Nadia s weight to my left arm while Carole and I are getting our arms locked into the chair position, and then we re off.
For two steps. And then Nadia says, Sorry, no, please put me down on my left foot now . Now. Now! We scramble to lower her as she continues, Carole, I m sorry, I don t want to upset you and you must know that it was in no way whatsoever your fault that I fell over – anyone can splash a drink and it is not normal to dodge out of the way in quite such an overenthusiastic manner – it really was entirely my own fault – but James thinks I ve broken my ankle and I agree that it feels as though I ve done myself an actual injury and I don t want to be dropped. And again I don t want to upset you but being chair lifted is really unpleasant and I felt as though I was going to be dropped on your side, which is my bad foot side, and I just want to go inside and sit in a chair and enjoy the karaoke but not drink and not breathe a word to Bea and Ruth and then go home tonight and sort it. I m sorry – I didn t want to offend you. She turns away from an open-mouthed Carole and says to me, Could you possibly just carry me to the room as fast as possible and get me onto a chair and then I ll be fine? Thank you.
Carole s recovered. So sorry, my love. Tom, what are you waiting for?
Yep, sorry, on it.
I hoick Nadia up into my arms and stride off, and, actually, with Carole trotting along next to us giving directions it s all fine. Her presence stops me from feeling as though it s any kind of intimate experience; it s just like I m carrying a regular friend who s hurt her foot.
Shortly afterwards, Nadia s on her chair in the dining room of the hotel, Carole s finally stopped apologising for apologising, and I ve discovered that I will not be leaving Nadia and Carole to it and going and propping up the bar with some nice new friends, because there s a seating plan and, yay, I m seated between the two of them.
* * *
It s fine, though, I realise, once we re all at the table and chatting. The others on our table are great, Carole and Nadia are both good company, and I can totally ignore the entirely inappropriate feelings of attraction for Nadia that I m experiencing.
We eat fantastic food, we talk, we laugh; it s a very nice way to spend a Tuesday.
The speeches are brilliant too. Warm, entertaining, and a little risqué but staying on the right line of appropriate, and after the toasting we all clap and cheer for a long time.
Eventually we ve quietened down from House of Commons rabble levels to mere loud chatter and wolf whistling and Bea takes the mic and hollers, Okay, everyone, karaoke time. Every table has to do at least one song, or you re out on your ear before the cake cutting, which is happening later. She looks pretty serious and I can t imagine anyone daring to not comply.
We re the third table up.
I m coming, Nadia tells Carole and me.
Let s go for an arm round the waist each and basically drag her across the floor, Carole says.
Er, thank you? Nadia says, laughing.
She holds her injured foot up bent at the knee, flamingo-like, and off we go.
A flip-flop slide across a polished wood floor works a lot better than a flip-flop hop on grass, it turns out, and the hauling is very successful; I don t even think we look particularly odd as we go.
Our song – appropriately – is Abba s Waterloo .
None of our table are that drunk but we do not hold back. Nadia, in particular, goes for some truly spectacular soprano harmonising, ably backed up by Carole, at a more contralto pitch, with me belting the words out in my best bass.
While I am always happy to join in, I am not a natural singer. It s only because my voice is low that I don t make people cry with my singing. I love music but the notes just don t come out the way I was expecting. Nadia, though, her voice soars in a truly wonderful way.
You could have been in Abba yourself, I tell her when the song ends.
Yeah, kind of gutted not to have been Swedish in the nineteen-seventies. I love the flares and the platforms.
You have to do a song by yourself, Carole commands. We ll be your backing group.
We all bow to her natural CEO demeanour and form a line behind Nadia, who gets going on Super Trouper .
It s amazing. Nadia s voice is stunning . We all stop singing quite quickly so that we can just listen to her.
You could have a career in singing, Carole says when we re finally off the stage and have slid Nadia on her flip-flop back to her chair. Can I pull some strings for you?
Ha. Nadia buries her face in her drink for a moment and then says, Oh, I love this song, as the group on the stage start singing Miley Cyrus s Flowers .
I haven t seen such a blatant subject avoidance since my mum asked my nephew Rafe where the rest of the chocolate log had gone last Christmas.
Are you a singer? I whisper while Carole s looking the other way.
Shhh. Nadia looks all round like she s imitating a Cold War spy and says, For very obvious reasons I don t like to mention this in certain situations, but on the side I am— she leans very close and lowers her voice even further —a wedding singer.
As she pulls back, I stare at her. I did not know that.
No, she agrees.
How come you ve never mentioned it? How many weddings do you do?
Shhhhh.
Oh, yes. I see her point. If you aren t involved in your friends wedding it s clearly awkward to mention that you have a wedding-related side hustle.
Sorry, I whisper. But wow. Cool job?
Very cool. A lot better than accountancy, which I m not saying is bad, because it isn t and loads of people love it, but isn t really for me. And to answer your questions: I do maybe twenty weddings a year; and I ve never mentioned it because— she looks at me a little oddly, her head slightly tilted and her eyebrows up a bit —we really hardly know each other.
For some reason, which I cannot immediately put my finger on, her words make me sit back, like I ve been almost physically struck.
She s right, of course. We do barely know each other.
I nod. True.
And that seems to be the end of that conversation. I have nothing else to say now, even though a minute ago I had a lot of questions about the wedding singer thing, and Nadia evidently doesn t think we re still chatting because she s moved her chair slightly and is clapping and swaying to the music.
Karaoke makes for a great wedding reception. It s fun. It s noisy. It s interactive. It really is good.
Except I don t like sitting next to Nadia like this any more because somehow it feels as though a barrier has sprung up between us. I keep noticing it, but I don t want to, because I don t want to analyse it.
A lot of singing later, some people are dancing in a space they ve made at the end of the table, while others are still sitting, which, as Carole points out, is handy for Nadia.
How are you feeling? I ask. The painkillers have probably worn off by now.
Fine, thank you. Her face looks a little pale. I think I ll make a move, though, soonish. Maybe in about half an hour so it doesn t seem too early. I have my eye on the door; I don t want to be the first to leave but I think I might definitely be the second.
I m thinking there s no shame in being the first. Someone s got to be. I pull my phone out of my pocket. And I d like to go now too. So why don t I get us an Uber?
I don t want to be the first to break the party up, though. The domino-effect thing. I don t want other people to copy us and leave too and ruin the wedding-party vibe.
It ll be fine if we go quietly. People will just think we ve gone to the loo. Let s have a chat with Bea and Ruth when they get to our table— I can see them two tables away, clearly trying to get round all their guests —and we ll tell them we re leaving quite soon, and then we ll just sidle out.
That s actually very tempting.
Why don t I go and let Carole know as well— Carole s displaying some fairly outrageous moves on the dance floor —so that we can get going as soon as we ve said goodbye to Bea and Ruth?
* * *
Our Uber driver is very chatty and very keen to hear details about the wedding, so Nadia and I aren t alone together until we get to the station.
So. Many. Fecking. Steps, she says, glaring at the big flight down in front of us.
I know you don t want to be carried, but the next train s in three minutes.
Yes. Fine. She looks sideways at me. That might have sounded a teensy bit grumpy.
Not at all, I lie.
She laughs. What I mean is, thank you and I m very, very grateful for all your help today.
And just like that, it seems the most natural thing in the world to lift her and carry her down the steps and onto the train that s just pulling in.
I m going to go straight to A my father tempted it out from under the oven with cheese and caught it under a bowl – to everyone s admiration – and my mother won t tell us what happened next because, even though she hates mice, she doesn t like animals being killed unless they re going to be eaten.) I hadn t told Nadia before because she seemed quite focused on being pissed off about her ankle.
I love your family, she says when we reach the end of the messages. And I love your mother s sweariness. She knows some serious words .
She s an English lecturer.
Oh well that explains it.
Yeah. I grin at her and then say, So tell me about the wedding singer thing. Twenty a year s a fair number? An actual business?
Yep, I started with the wedding of some friends who were very brave and trusting, but mainly skint and out of any other options, and went from there with word of mouth, and it just kind of escalated. I only do weekends because I work full-time, which is kind of limiting, because I have to turn down offers, and also it takes up a lot of my Saturdays but I do love it. I love the singing and you meet a lot of fun people and it s so nice to be involved with their happy day. I honestly haven t had a single bad experience.
What, none ?
I mean, stuff happens occasionally, but it s always okay. Your average person is nice. There are always enough of those people around to help on the odd occasion that something nearly happens.
I decide not to dwell on the somewhat terrifying thought of Nadia s trust possibly being misplaced. It s nice, lovely , that she s so glass-half-full.
We chat about inconsequential stuff for the rest of the journey until we get to Clapham Junction.
We do a hop-carry combo to get out of the station. Marisa s waiting with a taxi and they hop straight in. (I mention that pun out loud – it sounded better in my head – and Marisa looks at me pityingly while Nadia gives me a bless-you-it s-cute-how-bad-your-humour-is smile.)
It feels weird waving them off.
I feel as though it should have been me going to the hospital with Nadia.