Chapter Twenty-Four
‘No.’ Jonah shakes his head, his eyes never leaving mine, boring right into them to show how serious he is. ‘I am not interested.’
‘But why not?’ I break the eye contact to peek over at Ellie, who’s chatting to the brides over by the intact heart-shaped pinata hanging from a ceiling beam.
Keisha and Cerys are now officially wife and wife, and we’ve had the meal and the speeches and now it’s time for the real fun to begin.
While the meal was classy, with elegant centrepieces running the length of the tables, the reception has Keisha’s playful spirit written all over it.
The wedding band has got the place abuzz with party classics and there are already a dozen or so people bopping away (my canary-clad aunts among them), and the sweet station is proving popular, as is the caricaturist, who has a line snaking from his booth to the bar, passing the doughnut wall and the kids’ colouring station.
‘Why not?’ Jonah gives me a look, as though it should be obvious why he isn’t interested in getting to know Ellie. And by ‘getting to know’, I mean snog her during the fireworks display tonight.
‘She’s very pretty.’ I sneak another look at my cousin. She is very pretty, with waist-length strawberry blonde curls and pale freckles across her nose. She looks like a doll, but not in a creepy sex industry kind of way.
‘She is pretty, but she’s also very young.’
I scrunch up my nose and tilt my head to one side. ‘She’s twenty-two.’
Jonah glances over his shoulder, seeking Ellie out. ‘Is she? She doesn’t look it.’
‘Well, she is. And you’re hardly edging towards your pension. You’re twenty-five. It isn’t icky.’
‘But…’ Jonah holds his arms out, his mouth open as he flounders for a reason, an excuse. ‘…She lives in Bolton.’
I look at Jonah. Hard. ‘And?’
‘And that’s far away.’
I laugh, though I’m not amused. ‘It’s half an hour away. Not what I’d class as long-distance.’
‘And she’s your cousin!’ Jonah widens his eyes and points at me, as though he’s delivered an infallible gotcha.
‘I know she’s my cousin. That’s why when I introduced her I said hey, Jonah, this is my cousin, Ellie.’ Has Jonah suffered a blow to the head I’m not aware of? The beams of the converted barn are quite low, but not dangerously so.
‘That makes it messy. It puts you in the middle, and that’s not a place you want to be in when a relationship goes tits up.’
‘Who says it’ll go tits up? It might go really well. You might end up in lurve.’ I poke Jonah in the ribs as I say the last bit and he bats me away. ‘Why are you so opposed to having a bit of fun?’
‘Why are you so adamant it has to be with a member of your family?’
‘It doesn’t have to be with a member of my family.
Why?’ My eyes light up. ‘Are you interested in someone else here? Who are they?’ Rising up on my tiptoes, my eyes dart around the room as though Jonah’s love interest will be lit up in neon lights to alert me of their identity.
I don’t spot any neon-lighted love potentials, but I do see my dad striding towards us.
‘You need to help me.’ He stands beside me, pulling me by the shoulders so I’m standing in front of him.
‘Help you how?’ I turn and crane my neck to look up at Dad. If my help is to be a human shield, I’m not going to be much use. I didn’t inherit his height, and my five-foot-four frame is like holding up a mouse to hide a lion.
‘Duncan Jelly.’ Mum descends and grabs Dad by the arm, tugging unsuccessfully on it. Mum is even shorter than I am, so it’s like that mouse trying to tow the lion with its tiny paw. ‘Come and dance with me.’
‘Nope.’ Dad shakes his head, resisting as Mum continues to tug on his arm. ‘I’ve gone fifty-five years without setting foot on a dance floor and I’m not about to break that record now.’
‘But I love this song.’ She pouts, but it has no effect on Dad. He may be the king of romantic gestures at home, but his royal highness never makes an appearance in public.
‘I’ll dance with you.’ Jonah holds his hand out and I narrow my eyes at him as he leads Mum away. Our conversation is not over.
‘I like that kid.’ Dad nods at Jonah, whose fingers are entwined with Mum’s, their arms jutting back and forth to the beat of the B-52’s ‘Love Shack’.
‘You don’t like anyone other than me, Mum and that guy at work who knows you sneak off early on Fridays but has never ratted you out.’
Dad frowns at me. Or at least I think he does. His face looks like that most of the time, to be honest. ‘I wouldn’t say I like Eddie. I tolerate him. I… appreciate his discretion.’ Dad winces, as though the act of appreciating another human being is painful. ‘But I don’t like him.’
‘You know his name.’ I fold my arms across my chest. ‘Can you name one other person from work?’
Dad snorts. ‘Of course I can. There’s Coffee Breath, and Waxy Ears, and Doesn’t-Shut-Up-About-His-Girlfriend.’ He holds up a finger. ‘Not to be confused with Doesn’t-Shut-Up-About-His-Wife or Doesn’t-Shut-Up-About-His-Kid.’
‘Dad.’ I groan and throw my head back. ‘Those aren’t names.’
‘What about Snaggle-Tooth Tony? Does he count?’
‘Is his name really Tony?’
Dad shrugs. ‘How the hell would I know? I saw him eating one of those tiny boxes of cereal once, you know the individual-portion ones you get in a multipack. It was a box of Frosties.’ Dad frowns (I think.
Like I said, he always looks mildly furious) when I give him a blank look.
‘You know, Tony the Tiger from the adverts?’
I shake my head, not because I don’t know who Tony the Tiger is, but because I can’t believe my Dad works with these people every day and he doesn’t bother to remember their names.
Apart from Eddie, who he claims he doesn’t even like.
How did my mum, who remembers the names of the grandkids of the woman three doors down, end up with a man like him? It makes no sense.
‘Don’t you think it’s mean to give people nicknames like that?’
Dad narrows his eyes as he considers my question.
‘Maybe, but then I was nicknamed the Jelly Green Giant all through secondary school, so sod ’em.
’ He sticks his tongue in his cheek and shakes his head.
‘I don’t know why I ever passed that name down to you.
I should have taken your mum’s name when we married and let it die.
It would’ve only meant changing one letter from Jelly to Kelly but it’d save all that sniggering.
’ He slings his arm around my shoulder and stoops, so we’re almost face to face.
‘Promise me you’ll get married and change your last name to your husband’s.
I don’t mind you being a feminist, I really don’t, we all should be, but that name… ’
I pat Dad on the arm. ‘I promise that if I ever get married, I’ll change my name. Unless it’s something worse than Jelly.’
Dad makes a pfft sound. ‘What could be worse than Jelly? Something with cock in there, I suppose. Some poor bugger was called Cockburn in the year below me. It was Bogwash City every day for Knobs on Fire.’
‘And on that note, I’m going to pop to the loo.’ Not because I’m particularly desperate, but because I’d quite like this conversation to end.
The toilets are down a short corridor off the main event space.
Only the first cubicle is occupied and, as it’s locked and there’s nobody else around, I take the opportunity to do a little twirl in front of the mirror, trying not to giggle as the skirt lifts.
I do love my baggy combats and T-shirts, but I’m enjoying the novelty of being dressed up.
The cubicle opens and I dash into the nearest stall, locking the door behind me.
Making sure my dress isn’t tucked into my knickers before reaching for the lock to leave, I turn the little handle but instead of releasing the latch, it simply spins, round and round, without unlocking the door.
I try again, but the same thing happens.
I try to wedge my fingers in the gap between the lock and the catch, to try to manually move the latch, but the gap is way too small.
I’m stuck.
In the toilet.
Oh my goat. What am I going to do?
The woman from the other cubicle has left: I heard her washing and then drying her hands before leaving and the door hasn’t opened since.
I’m trapped and alone, so I do the only thing I can do under the circumstances: I phone my dad.
Except he mustn’t have switched his phone back on after the ceremony because it goes straight to voicemail.
I try Mum, but it rings and rings until it eventually goes to voicemail too.
I imagine her phone in her bag, tucked under a table while she boogies away with Jonah.
Jonah. I try him next and thankfully he picks up after a couple of rings, his voice deafening as he shouts over the music in the main event space.
‘Jonah, I’m stuck.’ I cringe, not quite believing I’m going to have to divulge this embarrassing scenario to him. ‘In the toilet. The lock’s broken. It won’t let me out.’ My voice gets whiny towards the end but I’m too mortified by my situation to care.
‘I’m on my way.’
I don’t get the chance to say thank you because the line goes dead, and within thirty seconds or so there’s the sudden sound of ‘Come On, Eileen’ blasting through the open main door of the toilets, followed by muffled voices.
Pressing my ear against the cubicle door, I strain to hear what’s being said.
‘…I’m not a pervert… Friend’s in there… She’s stuck… Christina?’
Relief floods through me as I hear Jonah’s now clear-as-day voice calling out my name, and I bang on the door.
‘I’m in here. The door won’t unlock and I don’t know what to do.’
‘I think we’ll need a screwdriver to take the lock mechanism off. Just give me a minute and I’ll go and speak to the staff. See if there’s one knocking about.’
‘There’s no need for that.’ There’s another voice out there, a male one I don’t recognise.
‘Stand back, love.’ I scuttle as far back as I can in the cubicle, pressing myself into the small space between the toilet and the wall milliseconds before the door swings open.
I yelp as the door slams into the wall with a thud, but the fear quickly gives way to relief when I see Jonah on the other side.
‘Are you all right, love?’ The owner of the second voice – and, presumably, the foot that booted the door in – steps into the cubicle and puts his arm around me to guide me out.
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.’ I think. I lift my hand and see it tremble. Being locked in the toilet wasn’t nearly as traumatic as almost being taken out by the door was.
‘Come on.’ The guy’s arm tightens around my shoulders. ‘Let’s go and get you a drink.’
I nod and let him lead me out of the toilets and to the bar, because my brain has turned to mush. Did that really just happen? And if it did, why did it happen to me?
I know why, of course, but it doesn’t occur to me until I’ve gulped back my G&T and Tyrone, my toilet cubicle hero, asks me if I’d like to dance.
First the lift in the shopping centre and now a toilet at my cousin’s wedding.
What else am I going to get trapped in before I find my one true love?
I tried to find Kit, I really did, but I don’t know what else to do, other than camp out at the bar in the hope that he may one day return – except that Jonah has categorically refused to keep me company if I do this.
So, if the universe sent me into Kit’s path, it needs to find another way of nudging me back on track.