37. Carl
37. Carl
I smile at the sight of her toothbrush sitting in the glass on the shelf above the washbasin. At the shocking-pink hairbrush next to it, matted with long strands of Sarah’s golden-yellow hair.
Then I spot her perfume. I take the lid off and hold the bottle to my nose. The unmistakable smell of Sarah, all citrusy and gorgeous. It’s so immediate and wonderful, it’s as if she’s standing right next to me.
And then I see the bottle of painkillers next to a glass of water, and my smile vanishes. I pick it up and turn it over in my hands. The tiny tablets rattle as they ricochet off the orange plastic container.
The pills Sarah has to take because she’s in so much pain from being attacked by Danny. An attack that should never have happened – that I should never have allowed to happen.
I poked my head around the door to the bridal suite earlier, to see if there was anything they needed, and she told me she’d forgotten her tablets, asked if I’d grab them for her and held out her hotel-room key card.
The bruising and the scars, they looked so painful still. A bitter reminder of how much I’ve let her down.
Sarah must have read my mind, because after she handed over the card she kept her hand on mine and her touch was like magic. For a brief moment everything inside me, all the noise, all the regret, fell silent.
She smiled. ‘I’m okay, I promise.’
Staring at myself in the bathroom mirror now, I fear that Maggie was right, I do look like a bouncer. I feel ridiculous.
The new, crisp white shirt feels stiff and uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I was thinking buying a real bow tie instead of a clip-on one. There’s nothing for it, I’m just going to have to get Cherub to redo it for me.
I hold up the cuffs of my shirt to look at the cufflinks again – cufflinks with my initials on, which Cherub gave me this morning to thank me for being his best man.
It’s the most expensive gift anyone has ever given me.
My phone rings, chirping noisily in the hotel bathroom, and makes me jump. It’s Cherub. He’s downstairs in the lobby.
It’s time.
Cherub fidgets anxiously as we wait in the pews at the front of the church.
‘You’ve definitely got the rings?’ he asks for the third time.
‘I’ve definitely got the rings.’ I smile and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Then I turn to the back of the church.
Jobbo, who is posted by the door to signal Jenni’s arrival, nods briefly. I, in turn, nod at Jenni’s nephew Maddock, who solemnly nods back and presses ‘play’ on the CD player.
‘She’s here,’ I tell Cherub, and we both stand.
Then, for all my nerves, for all Cherub’s nerves, we both start to laugh as the sound of ‘You Sexy Thing’ by Hot Chocolate echoes through the high-ceilinged church. I should have known Jenni wouldn’t go for the traditional wedding march. There is nothing traditional, nothing ordinary, about Jenni.
Everyone turns to look at her as she walks down the aisle, but my eyes go straight to Sarah. Her beautiful face, dancing in and out of the shadows of the candlelight.
Then Jenni arrives next to Cherub, and there is a loud click as her nephew turns off the CD. Her face, beaming up at Cherub, is bathed in the jewelled colours of the stained-glass windows behind her so that she literally looks radiant.
Cherub grins back at her, and his hands that have been twitching since the minute we left the hotel are suddenly, miraculously, still.
The church is packed – maybe a hundred people or more, all with their eyes trained on the four of us.
I expected to feel nervous. I’m not used to big crowds any more. I’m not used to the attention. But seeing Jenni and Cherub so happy, being aware of Sarah standing so close to me, I don’t have anything left in me to be nervous. For the first time I can remember, I’m too busy being happy.
The vicar clears his throat. ‘We are gathered here today,’ he begins.
Then it all happens very quickly. Before I know it, I’m handing over the rings and Jenni says, ‘I do,’ and Cherub says, ‘I do,’ and they promise to love each other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. ‘Till death us do part.’
Everyone claps and cheers as the vicar announces they are man and wife, and tells Cherub he may kiss the bride.
I cheer along with them, because suddenly those words mean everything.
The organ starts up and Cherub and Jenni walk down the aisle. Sarah smiles and slips her hand in mine, and we take our place behind them.
I rub my thumb across her knuckles for reassurance and then we follow the newlyweds out of the church. As we step outside, I notice that alongside the clusters of roses and ivy that make up the arch of wedding flowers over the entrance, there are poppies too.
Bright red, beautiful poppies.
‘Look!’ says Sarah, happily. ‘It’s started to snow!’
She takes a deep breath of the icy air and reaches out her hands to touch the snowflakes. But I’m not looking at the snow, I’m looking at her, and I can see that she is shivering. She is wearing a white fur wrap and I reach over to pull it more closely around her shoulders.
I’m hit with a sense of déjà vu; not for something that actually happened, more of a feeling. A feeling I used to have when we were out on patrol in Afghanistan. The urge to make sure everyone had the right kit. An instinct to protect them all. To bring everyone home safe.
Dear God , I whisper silently, let me keep Sarah safe from now on .
Up ahead, Jenni and Cherub are supposed to be posing for their official wedding pictures. The photographer is impatiently trying to get them to stand still and smile for the camera, but neither of them is listening.
Jenni is waving her arms around in the snow, while Cherub is laughing and holding out his hand for her, and I think that is the wedding picture the photographer should be taking. The real Jenni and Cherub. They don’t need forced smiles or clichéd poses – because just look at them.
The perfect, happy newlyweds.
The chair scrapes behind me as I stand up and tap the side of my glass with a fork. The room dutifully falls silent.
‘Those of you who know me know I’ve always been more a man of action than a man of words,’ I say. ‘But today is a very special day, and words are called for. So here goes.’
I delve into my pocket and take out the carefully folded piece of paper on which I wrote my speech the very day Cherub asked me to be his best man. I’ve rehearsed it so many times that the paper is worn at the edges and coming apart at the folds.
‘Firstly, I’d like to say how beautiful the bride looks,’ I read.
At which point Jenni, already on her way to being very drunk, stands up. ‘I really do,’ she says, then she curtsies.
Everyone cheers.
‘And the bridesmaid.’
Sarah smiles, and there are more cheers.
‘Cherub is …’ I begin.
The room goes silent. Words and letters dance on the page i n front of me. I know every word by heart, but these words don’t come from the heart. They don’t come close to saying what I want to say. I screw up the piece of paper and look directly at Cherub.
‘… brave and strong and good and generous, and there for you when the chips are down.’
He has his arm around Jenni, and they are both staring at me intently.
I go on. ‘I used to pride myself on being all of those things, but lately I’ve come to see that I’m not. That being strong is about more than brute strength. It’s about being the sort of man Cherub is. Don’t get me wrong – he does have brute strength.’
Everyone laughs.
‘There was plenty of that on display in Afghanistan. I was lucky to have Cherub by my side. He looked out for me. He looked out for all of us. He brought me home. Cherub is so much more than just a good soldier. He’s a good man. A good teacher. A good dad. And I know he’ll make one hell of a husband …’ I pause.
The room is completely silent. Even the children are quiet.
‘Jenni’s pretty amazing too, by the way,’ I add.
Everyone laughs as she stands up and does another curtsey.
‘All of which is to say, I’m so honoured to be Cherub’s best man. I would – I did – trust him with my life. I know Jenni can trust him with hers. I love you both.’
There is a chorus of ‘ahs’, and I feel myself go red.
‘To Cherub and Jenni, and to absent friends,’ I say, raising my glass.
Everyone stands up and the room erupts with echoes of, ‘To Cherub and Jenni, and to absent friends.’
Before anyone has the chance to sit down, the first bars of ‘London’s Burning’ by The Clash come screaming through the loudspeakers.
‘Uh oh,’ says Jenni, before downing her champagne in one. ‘The DJ’s gone rogue.’
A bustling team of staff have moved the tables to the edge of the room, and Eileen – who looks even more orange than the last time I saw her – taps me on the shoulder and tells me it’s time for the dance.
I walk over to where Sarah is sitting chatting to an old couple, and I hold my hand out for her.
‘Ready?’ I ask.
She nods.
‘Excuse me,’ she says to the old couple. Then she clasps my hand and gets to her feet.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ I ask. ‘Have you taken your tablets?’
‘I have,’ she smiles and then adds, when I raise my eyebrows, ‘really. Let’s do this.’
I lead her to the centre of the dance floor. Eileen nods at Jenni’s nephew, who has both hands dramatically cupped over his headphones. He takes one off to give her a thumbs up, and the first bars of ‘Young At Heart’ start to play.
Jenni and Cherub walk hand in hand on to the dance floor, to a round of applause.
I take my jacket off and throw it to the side. Eileen catches it and winks at me, and someone wolf whistles. Then the four of us start to dance in unison and a loud cheer goes up.
Noah and some other kids totter on to the dance floor and start trying to copy us, and then Eileen joins in and a few others too.
I lose myself in the dance, my body twisting and tapping and clapping, and when it finishes, I pick Sarah up and swing her round, and then I immediately put her back down in case I hurt her.
Then Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’ comes on, and I’m worried the DJ is going to be in trouble again. I watched Eileen actually clip him around the ears earlier, then stand over him while he switched the song from ‘London’s Burning’ to ‘You To Me Are Everything’.
But Cherub just takes his bow tie off and starts pogoing, jumping up and down on the dance floor like a man possessed. Then Jenni joins in too, flinging her arms in the air. I remember her dancing like this in the NAAFI bar in Camp Bastion the night she met Cherub.
Her dad starts doing the exact same arm moves, and I realize where she got her dancing skills from.
And there they all are – grannies, soldiers, ex-soldiers, teenagers, little kids – all dancing, laughing and happy. Noah tugs my trousers and I scoop him up and swing him around. By the time I put him down, Sarah has vanished.
I turn to look for her and see a bunch of old army buddies knocking back flaming sambucas. They gesture for me to come and join them, but then I spy Sarah out of the corner of my eye. She’s falling into a chair next to the old couple she was talking to earlier.
I make my way over. ‘Let’s get you out of here,’ I say, crouching down beside her.
‘I’m fine,’ she insists.
But her face tells a different story. She is struggling to keep her eyes open and she is rubbing her temples as if her head hurts. The make-up that has hidden her bruises all day is starting to wear off, and suddenly she looks just as vulnerable as she did when she was lying in that hospital bed.
‘That’s an order,’ I say, but gently, and she smiles and holds out her hand.
I slide my arm around her and lead her into the lobby. She leans into me, resting her whole body against mine, as we wait by the lift.
‘Remind me what floor you’re on,’ I say.
She looks straight ahead and swallows. ‘Is it okay if I come back to your room? I don’t think I’m ready to be on my own.’
‘Of course,’ I tell her, helping her into the lift.
We get out on my floor and, still with my arm around Sarah, we walk slowly to my room. I fumble with the key card, swiping it again and again, but my big hands feel clumsy and I can’t get the card to work.
Sarah laughs. ‘Give it here,’ she says, and immediately, effortlessly unlocks the door with one easy swipe. ‘After you, Jason Bourne,’ she says and laughs again.
I must have heard Sarah laugh before, but I can’t remember it sounding like this. Or experiencing this warm, mysterious feeling of joy that is spreading through me, making me want to laugh too.
Laughter. It has been in such short supply for so long. But that isn’t what makes the sound of Sarah’s laughter so magical.
It’s the sound of listening to someone you love laugh.
And I don’t ever want it to stop.