CHAPTER 7
Benedict
Imay not be remotely convinced that marrying Slinky is the right call, but I’m finding the drama of today wildly entertaining.
It’s from the privacy of the sacristy that I watch the cathedral fill with hundreds of unsuspecting guests while Pieter stays out front, shepherding the groomsmen.
The line he’s feeding them is that ‘Xav’ has been spending some last quiet moments with his family and is on his way.
We weren’t willing to take the risk of our indiscreet mates ruining our carefully planned execution strategy.
Like the de Vere family, the origins of Christchurch Cathedral date back a good nine centuries.
Not too shabby. And, like the de Vere family, it was once proudly Catholic, built on the site of an Augustinian priory.
In fact, Catherine of Aragon prayed here in the fifteen hundreds, beseeching the Lord to give her a son.
He didn’t, of course; Anne Boleyn moved in on Henry VIII, and the rest is history, but I quite enjoy the irony that the college was founded by Cardinal Wolsey, one of the architects of Catherine’s downfall before Henry found him, too, lacking.
I love a good wedding. In our social circles, they tend to be high budget and raucous.
Usually, I attend as a guest or a groomsman, well placed to enjoy the festivities.
If today had gone the way my parents had intended it to go, I’d be standing at the front of the church right now, offering my brother my support, probably trying to gauge whether his misery was vague or abject as I attempted to keep his spirits up with my infantile brand of humour.
He should be here with me.
We were always supposed to be each other’s best men.
While I don’t regret for a moment persuading him to stay away today, it doesn’t feel right that I should be left alone in this creepy sacristy, watching row after row fill up with the great and good of British society and hoping I don’t shit my pants.
Maybe I should have worn brown trousers.
It’s simultaneously sad and reassuring to know that Slinks must be finding today every bit as rough.
As four o’clock draws closer, Pieter slips back in beside me. ‘None of them have a clue,’ he reports. ‘Completely fucking oblivious.’
‘For now.’
‘Your mother’s sitting down.’
‘Good.’ My dickhead cousin Eddie, whom we couldn’t avoid making a groomsman, has walked her up the aisle, given that her eldest son is absent.
A couple of minutes later, Stephen Faulkner, Bishop of Oxford, slides into the sacristy in his robes.
Christchurch Cathedral is a funny one, run by the university’s dean rather than the city’s bishop, but you can bet your cotton socks the de Veres have pulled out the big guns for the nuptials of their heir to the dukedom.
It’s to the bishop’s credit that he’s taken the Great Groom Swap in his stride.
‘You doing all right, Benedict?’ he asks. ‘You’re looking a little green around the gills.’ He has an avuncular style which, at this moment, is not unwelcome.
‘Feeling it,’ I say.
‘Give me a second.’ He opens a cupboard, and I hear a cork being popped, liquid sloshing into a glass. ‘Here.’ He hands me an inch of what looks like port in a tumbler. ‘Best I can do at short notice. Unconsecrated communion wine,’ he clarifies. ‘Get that down you.’
That’s not a bad call, actually. I hold the glass up in salute.
‘Thank you, Your Excellency.’ I down it in one.
Fuck, that’s rough. Jesus Christ. Tastes like paint stripper.
I grimace as I swallow it down and wipe the back of my hand over my mouth like a little boy who’s just necked a glass of milk.
He smiles at me. ‘Good lad. That’ll put hairs on your chest. Big deal, what’s happening today.’
No argument here. ‘It certainly is.’
He glances down at his watch. ‘We are at… seven minutes to four.’
‘Got it.’ The wine is burning my throat, and I’m glad of the comforting warmth. ‘Let me text her.’ I pull up Slinky’s number.
How are you getting on?
She replies straight away.
Just on St Aldate’s. We’ll be there right on time.
That’s my girl. She’s a trooper. However fazed she is by this week’s events, she’s reliable as clockwork. I nod at the bishop. ‘Go for it.’
With a smile, he heads back out to the front of the church. Pieter opens the sacristy door fully, and we stand well back so that no one from the congregation can see us. I’m sure they’re all wondering by now where Xav is, why he and Pieter and I aren’t standing up front.
All I can say is that they’re about to find out. We’ve orchestrated this very carefully:
Step one: Faulkner alerts the congregation.
Step two: I step out and take my place at the top of the aisle, while our guests presumably go fucking apeshit around me.
Step three: at precisely four o’clock, Slinks will show up and David will walk her down the aisle.
Only when the ceremony is well underway, at four fifteen, does step four kick in.
The press release I’ve crafted will be broadly disseminated by the De Vere Estate’s PR manager, at which point I assume all hell will break loose online and on the many TV networks unofficially covering events from outside the cathedral.
Meanwhile, back to step one.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Bishop Faulkner begins into his mic, with all the gravitas his age and status afford him, ‘if I might have your attention please.’ He waits calmly for silence.
Far more calmly than I wait—my heart is thumping so hard it might break through my ribs.
I think I’m going to throw communion-wine-coloured puke up all over my morning suit.
Pieter must sense this because he clamps a reassuring hand to my shoulder and doesn’t let go.
‘I have a short announcement before we begin,’ the bishop continues.
‘Due to various machinations over the past week, upon which I am not at liberty to expand, we have a slight change to today’s scheduled proceedings.
This wedding ceremony will take place between Miss Selena Wentworth, who will be arriving shortly’—he pauses for breath—‘and not Lord Xavier de Vere but, in fact, Lord Benedict de Vere, who has declared himself profoundly in love with Miss Wentworth and has therefore requested that he take his brother’s place today—and, indeed, forevermore. Thank you for your understanding.’
‘Deadpan as fuck,’ Pieter mutters behind me. ‘That was epic.’
There’s a momentary pause as the congregation, presumably, attempts to absorb this unhinged news, and then everyone goes fucking nuts—gasping and shouting and standing up.
A few brave souls clap; I hear some definite F-bombs; I only hope none of the oldies faint.
The bishop stays in place, looking amiably around at the carnage his bombshell is causing, while the noise level in his church goes through the roof.
‘And that, I believe,’ says Pieter, ‘is our cue.’
I bow my head for a second. ‘Most surreal moment of my life. Makes Burning Man feel like the Calm app.’
‘Amen, brother.’
He slaps me hard on the shoulder, and we walk out into the church.
It’s time for step two.