Chapter 6
SIX
Yeah, Nora says. After a rocky start.
That’s okay, though, you tell her, she’d anticipated that, right. With their history.
You’re not entirely clear on that history but she’s implied it’s difficult, there’s a lot of hurt there, they were young, friends that were more than friends, not family but close to it, you’ve got the gist. And Jon dying was – she doesn’t like to talk about it – so painful, in more ways than an ordinary death.
She’d told you all about it once, after a lot of wine; she had cried, then, too, then panicked that she’d said too much.
You’d told her she’d said just the right amount, and held her, through her tears. Unfazed.
Now you hand her an – uncracked, perfectly washed and preserved – mug; she takes it, dries it carefully. It is late, and you are both tired and quiet.
I told him I’d missed him, she says. When you were out here, making the drinks.
That’s very sweet of you, you say, because it is. What did he say?
Not a lot, she says.
He’s a man of few words, you say. I got that. Is it, er.
You consider your next sentence; run the hot tap, squirt in some more Fairy Liquid, because the wok needs another go-round. You’d been soaking it since making the coffees, but the sauce is stubborn, still congealed at the sides.
Is it hard, you ask her, hearing him talk about his travels, like that?
Nora makes a small noise, something she keeps back in her mouth. Mm.
It’s okay if it is, you say.
Sort of, she says. It’s just strange to think about what didn’t happen, I guess. Not that I feel regret, or anything. About what I did, instead.
She says this last part in a rush, as if she doesn’t want to think about it, and you say Nora, it’s normal to have regrets. It’s one of the things I love most about you, in fact.
She frowns a little as she dries the last mug, says, what, my capacity for regret?
Your capacity for seeing the wondrous possibilities in everything, you tell her, waving your Marigold-clad hand in an arc. This paint shade, or that paint shade. A wedding, or no wedding! You care, so deeply, Nora. More than most. You’re so … diligent, about living.
She protests at the praise, but is frowning less, now. Appreciates your attempts at profundity, you think, when it slips out like this. That old art school rhetoric still inside you, somewhere, Adrian Searle, eat your heart out.
Plus I regret a ton of things too, you tell her, like how I didn’t soak this damn wok straight after dinner.
You do?
Sure. But it doesn’t mean I yearn for any of it.
I think about what could have been, sometimes.
If I’d pursued architecture, like my parents wanted.
If I’d taken that Rome residency, after graduation, I mean, who knows where I’d be.
But just because I think about them, doesn’t mean I wish they’d happened.
Nora is putting the mugs away, now. You can’t see her face because of the open cupboard door, and you keep scouring at the scum in the wok.
I was so upset with him for going, Nora says, from her place on the floor. But I was so fixated on being upset with him, I’m not sure I realised how … upset I was, with myself.
You nod. Just let her talk.
We’d spent so long planning our trip, she says.
There were so many things I wanted to see and do, and because I was so mad at him I just retreated into staying, as hard as I could.
Helping Josie grieve, and managing Freya, and applying to the best art schools as a kind of reaction, for something to do, and not ever thinking for a moment that I’d get in. And then I did. And then I met you.
And now here you are, putting mugs in a cupboard with your dreams having died a wingless death, you say, and there is a marked pause before Nora lets out her dazzling laugh, because she hadn’t expected that, and she straightens up, closes the cupboard, says yep, pretty much.
You are still at the sink, still battling the wok.
She puts her arms around your waist and rests her face in the curve of your back.
You start to dance, a little, swaying your hips, and she moves with you.
Thanks, she says, her voice muffled, and you slow to a stop.
Seeing Bren just brings up a lot, I guess.
And he makes me feel … unworthy, somehow.
You tell her he shouldn’t.
Not least because you don’t need anyone else to prove your worth, you say, in a mimicry of her mother, and she snorts. But because – back to your own voice, now – he clearly adores you, Nora.
She stays entwined around your waist.
He came home for our party, you say. The idea that you’re unworthy, or dull, by his standards, is all your own reading of this – it’s not coming from him. And hey. He’s sticking round for the wedding, now. That’ll patch things up between you, don’t you think?
Another mm from her, then. She lets you go, rootles around for a dishwasher tablet in a drawer; places it inside the cap, clicks it shut.
Speaking of which, you say, as she closes it, and the machine whirs into life. Jed wants a clearer idea of the wedding party.
Jed?
The venue owner? Or manager. Whatever he is, I’m not sure. But he wants to know if you’re having bridesmaids, and if I’m having groomsmen. Get a rough idea of a guest list and all that jazz.
You belt out the last line, and Nora replies as if you haven’t just broken into Broadway song, saying she’s not having bridesmaids; you’ve established this.
Well I’m having Goose as my best man, you say. Predictably.
Can you imagine if you didn’t?
Tears, tantrums, cut ties, you say, and all that just from my mother.
No laughter from her at this, just a sincere outbreath, like right. You wipe the draining board down, say doesn’t she want someone like Shay as her maid of honour, or something?
Nothing with the word maid in it, Nora says. My best woman, maybe? But I also kind of hate that.
You are not surprised; she is her mother’s daughter, after all, but you ask her why, all the same, as you drain the water from the sink.
The fact that I have to have a favourite woman and you have to have a right-hand man, and all this hierarchical nonsense that is best, she says, when my mum, or even Josie or Shay or, I don’t know, Gill from primary school – they’re all really important women, in my life.
Nobody’s best, or more honourable, than the rest. It can really end up hurting people, this stuff.
You have suspected, in the past, that this is why a wedding had been off the table all this time.
Not because of her feminist mother. Not because Nora herself had no interest. But because she didn’t want to cause any upset to herself or others; preferred to carry on, as they were. In an unrocked boat.
So ask Bren, you say.
What?
Have a best man, too, now he’s sticking around. Or a brides-man, maybe. If you don’t like the term best.
Umm, Nora says. I don’t know how that would … land.
Your mother would love it! you say. Defying convention. And it’s an olive branch, to Bren, too, isn’t it? You said yourself he was your best friend. Although there is, you admit, one stark problem with that plan.
What? Nora says, and she sounds worried, so you scoop her into an embrace, the yellow Marigolds still stretched up your forearms.
The wrath of Shay, you say.
Oh, I don’t know, Nora says. She’d probably be fine, if we made Horace the ring bearer, or something.
Now there’s an idea! A dog-friendly wedding? Maybe that’s what’s different, about our day! Forget plus ones, everyone bring a dog!
We don’t even have a dog!
And I still don’t understand why, you say, as you pull off the Marigolds and leave them hanging over the kitchen tap to dry.
Discuss it, once more, as she puts on her moisturiser, quiet, then, as you each read a chapter of your books.
Turn the lights off, bubbling with how thrilled you are.
How excited you are for the months – and indeed, the rest of your life – ahead, and you are thinking this as you drift into that flickering film-like lucidity as she lies there beside you, looking up at the ceiling.
Too still, as though she is firmly awake, but before you can ask if everything’s all right, you’re gone, and a dream has taken you under.