Chapter 1 #2
‘Freddie,’ Grace O’Neill said breathlessly. ‘What’s Kate doing? I was just on my way up to tell her the hairdresser will be here any minute. Rachel’s in a state and Kate should be calming her down, smoothing things along. That’s the bridesmaid’s job.’
‘I’ll tell her about the hairdresser, Mrs O. I was just going down to get her a cup of tea.’
‘There’s some champagne in the fridge – help yourself. And call me Grace.’ She hated the way Freddie addressed her as ‘Mrs O.’ – it sounded so working class, like something off EastEnders.
‘Hi, Rachel,’ Freddie called as he passed the sitting room, where Rachel was enthroned in an armchair, wearing a silky robe open over some very sexy underwear and having her nails painted by a beautician. ‘How’s the blushing bride?’
‘Hi Freddie – where the hell is Kate? Tell her she’s to come and have her nails done – the hairdresser will be here any minute. Orla is just finishing mine and then she’ll be ready for Kate. And Kate has to help me get into my dress. And tell her—’
‘You look sensational,’ Freddie purred, cutting into the stream of demands.
‘Thanks.’ Rachel gave him a sugary smile.
‘Kate’s just getting into her dress, actually,’ he said.
‘What?’ Rachel exploded. ‘She can’t get into it before she has her makeup and hair done. Tell her to get out of it again and come down here in her dressing gown.’
‘She was just trying it on for size.’
‘Should have done that a month ago,’ Rachel huffed. ‘How does it fit?’
‘Frightfully. Could I borrow a needle and thread?’
‘You’ll find some in a box in that cabinet,’ Rachel replied, indicating it with her foot.
‘It’s her own fault,’ she went on, as Freddie rummaged for the sewing box.
‘She shouldn’t have agreed to be a bridesmaid if she wasn’t going to take it seriously.
She missed the fittings for her dress and then she goes and loses weight after all the trouble we’d gone to, modelling it on one of her old tents.
She missed the hen party. She even missed the rehearsal, after swearing blind she’d be home by then.
Then, to top it all, she turned up here last night looking like Worzel Gummidge on crack. ’
Freddie nodded non-committally and started to back out of the room to avoid any further onslaught. ‘Tea?’ he offered hopefully.
‘G and.’ Rachel giggled. ‘Would you be an angel and get me a drink, Freddie? There’s some champagne in the fridge – have some yourself.’
‘You had enough champagne at breakfast, Rachel,’ Grace shrilled, suddenly appearing and flapping about in the doorway.
‘You don’t want to be staggering up the aisle.
’ As Freddie wandered off towards the kitchen to get the drinks, she added, ‘And you shouldn’t be sitting there talking to Freddie in your knickers. ’
‘Oh, Freddie doesn’t mind. He’s gay.’
‘I know he’s gay. What’s that got to do with it? He’s gay – he’s not a woman.’
‘Well, the point is he might as well be, for all the excitement he’s going to get out of seeing me in my bra and knickers.’
‘What’s he doing here so early anyway? He’s not in the wedding party.’
‘He’s sort of Kate’s date.’
‘You mean the Tree-hugger isn’t coming?’
‘No, and don’t mention it to Kate. I don’t want her walking up the aisle with her eyes all red and puffy, looking like the bridesmaid of Dracula.’
* * *
In the kitchen, Freddie found the remains of a vast champagne breakfast. He was just hoovering up some congealing cocktail sausages and helping himself from the fridge when Kate’s father walked in.
‘I’ll have a triple whiskey, please, son.’
‘Wedding nerves, Mr O?’
‘I need something to numb the pain. These bleedin’ shoes they’re making me wear are pinching the bejaysus out of me.’ He winced graphically.
Freddie loved Kate’s father. He was the most easy-going member of the family, and Kate very much took after him. He popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and began to pour it into glasses. ‘Champagne instead, Mr O?’
‘Better not.’ Jack patted his stomach. ‘That fizzy stuff gives me wind and I had enough of it at breakfast. Don’t want to be farting like a buffalo when I’m walking up the aisle.’
‘Rachel would never forgive you.’
‘What do you think of this business of the Tree-shagger not turning up?’ Jack asked.
‘It’s a bad business, Mr O.’ Despite his misuse of the family’s favourite epithet for him, Freddie knew that he was referring to Kate’s boyfriend, universally loathed by her entire family. ‘Apparently he’s working.’
‘Huh! That lad wouldn’t know work if it jumped up and bit him. Some day I’d like someone to sit me down and explain to me exactly what he does.’
‘Well, apparently today he’s teaching people to scream.’
‘Jaysus!’ Jack raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Mind you, they’ve got the right man for the job. He’ll have them all tearing their hair out in no time flat. Can’t stand the little git, with his recycled jumpers and his tofu cigarettes.’
‘And his holier-than-thou attitude,’ Freddie joined in. ‘He lords it over anyone who has a real job, but he’s always scrounging money from Kate.’
‘I know. Still, she seems to like him. We just have to hope she eventually sees sense.’
Freddie was buttering bread and dividing the remaining sausages and bacon between two slices. ‘If she’s on her own at the wedding maybe she’ll meet someone nice.’ He slapped the sandwiches together and cut them in half, then piled them onto a plate.
‘You’ll look after her anyway, won’t you, Freddie?’
‘Course I will, Mr O. She’ll always have me.’ Freddie finished filling the glasses and sailed out.
After he had distributed drinks to Rachel and her mother, he returned to Kate’s room and kicked open the door. He was laden down with the sandwiches, sewing box, champagne bottle and glasses.
‘How are things downstairs?’ Kate asked.
‘Well, it’s safe to say you’ve pissed off Rachel. And your mother’s wigging out big-time.’
‘What’s new?’ The O’Neill children often joked that their mother, a former actress, had retired from the stage but had never given up drama.
‘Rachel says you’re to take the dress off again and come down in your dressing gown to have your hair and nails done.
’ He deposited his booty by the bed and began rummaging through the sewing box.
‘But keep it on for moment while I pin it. And tell me about Africa,’ he said, through a mouthful of pins.
‘Oh, it was fantastic! Bloody hard work, but worth it.’
‘There, done,’ he said, a few moments later.
Kate took off the dress, got into her dressing gown and flopped onto the bed. ‘Oh God, I just want to sleep for three days.’
‘Tired?’ Freddie ruffled her hair.
‘Absolutely knackered.’
‘That reminds me – I’ve got an extras job for us Monday. D’you mind?’
‘No. I could do with the cash. I’m flat broke. What is it?’
‘Northsiders.’ Freddie supplemented his income as a costume designer with occasional work as an extra, and Kate sometimes joined him when she was between jobs, which was often. Northsiders was the latest home-grown soap opera.
‘I told them I’d bring you along, too, but you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.’
‘No, that’s great. Financially Africa was a disaster.
I barely managed to scrape the money together for the flight home – thought I’d be stuck there for life at one stage, unless I sold myself to a camel trader.
So I’ll have to start hauling my arse around looking for a job – at least now I can put it off until Tuesday.
’ She heaved herself up. ‘I suppose I’d better go down and get tarted up. ’
‘First things first,’ Freddie said, pouring champagne.
Kate joined him on the floor and they sat leaning against the bed. ‘Brilliant breakfast sandwich,’ she said, through a huge bite.
‘Did you meet anyone nice on your travels?’
‘Oh please, Freddie, don’t start that – I’ll get enough of it later from my relations.’
‘Oh come on, you must have some gossip – you’ve been gone three months. No bed-hopping on the road?’
‘No beds, remember? It was a camping trip.’
‘Well, sleeping-bag hopping, then? You really expect me to believe you kept to your own little tent the whole time?’
‘Of course I did,’ Kate replied, grinning guiltily.
‘You didn’t open your flap to anyone?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘there was this Australian guy who joined the trip in Nairobi.’
‘That’s more like it.’ Freddie refilled their glasses. ‘Tell me more – fit or flabby?’
‘Oh, fit. Definitely fit.’
‘Smooth or hairy?’
‘Smooth.’
‘Mmm – I like him already. Circumcised or un?’
‘Un.’ Kate wrinkled her nose.
‘Oh well, can’t have everything, I suppose. Big or puny?’
Kate smiled smugly. ‘Not so much big as—’
‘Humungous?!’
‘Like if the Grand Canyon needed a shag, he’d be the man to fill it.’
‘Oh my God!’
* * *
Tom McAuley was waking up, or coming round from a coma – he wasn’t sure which.
Sensation was creeping back into his body.
His mouth felt numb and furry, and everything hurt.
Everything he could feel, that was. He concentrated hard, trying to figure out where he was, what day it was, and what was wrong with him.
Perhaps he’d been in an accident. Maybe he was in hospital.
He opened his eyes a fraction and the sharp stab of pain from the blinding light seemed to confirm his suspicions.
Something nudged his leg. ‘Do you suppose he’s still alive?’ a voice said from very far away.
‘Dunno… try giving him a kick,’ said another voice.
If these were doctors, Tom thought, their bedside manner left a lot to be desired.
He struggled to open his eyes, thinking he’d better show signs of life in case he was about to be consigned to the morgue.
He almost passed out again from the pain but managed to keep his eyes open long enough to see his best friends, Will Sargent and Lorcan O’Neill, towering over him.
Well, if I’m dead I’m definitely not in heaven, he thought. Those two would never make it there.