Chapter 23
Above them the clouds had gathered. ‘Oh, this doesn’t look good,’ said Elodie. ‘As if things couldn’t get any worse.’
It seemed that the food fight was still going on. It was just a handful of gym bros now, all covered in food and grass stains and mud. It wasn’t so much a food fight now as a wrestling match.
Lightning turned everything acid bright. The thunderclap was almost immediate. Both Elodie and Mal ducked instinctively. The guests who had remained to film the nonsense all made a dash for the main building. Elodie and Mal joined them.
The disco had started already.
‘It’s not due on the running order for another forty minutes,’ said Elodie. She spotted the coordinator from the hotel hurrying across the foyer, speaking into the mic of her headpiece. She ran up to the woman.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me where the bride is?’
The woman took in her stained clothes and mascara-stained face. She pointed to a room off the main hall, then hurried off saying, ‘Sorry, say that again. I got distracted for a second,’ into her mic.
Elodie looked at Mal. The bruise on his cheek was coming up now, looking angry even under his dark skin.
He nodded to her. ‘Let’s go and see what we can do.’
When Mal and Elodie knocked, the door was opened a crack and the make-up artist’s assistant stood with her body firmly blocking their entry. ‘Yes?’
From inside, they heard Saffron say, ‘Now it’s raining as well!’
‘We’re the caterers. Can we speak to the bride, please?’
The girl glanced into the room. ‘It’s not really a good time …’
‘Who is that?’ Saffron asked.
‘It’s Elodie.’ She raised her voice. ‘And Mal,’ she added as an afterthought.
A loud sigh. ‘Let them in. May as well,’ said Saffron.
Elodie whispered, ‘Let me do the talking, okay?’ and went in, with Mal trailing in behind her.
The atmosphere in the room pulsed with tension.
Saffron was sitting in a chair, the dress spread out around her and the make-up artist was fluttering around, trying to fix whatever damage the crying had done. Jamie was perched on the windowsill, looking at his phone. He looked up. His eyes widened when he saw Mal.
‘Woah. He really got you,’ he said.
Mal shrugged. ‘It’s fine. Nothing broken. I’m going to have a cracking bruise tomorrow though.’
‘Was it you who got into a fight and destroyed my cake?’ Saffron’s eyes were narrow and cold.
Before Mal could answer, Elodie stepped in. ‘He was punched and he fell into the cake, yes.’
‘Punched?’
Next to her she could feel Mal cringe. She nudged him and gave him a warning glance. If he tried to be blokey in this scenario it could go very wrong. The fact that Jamie was sitting meekly at the other end of the room was a sign that Saffron was very, very delicate. Mal, to his credit, seemed to understand and looked at his feet.
‘Yes. One of the guests seemed to have had too much to drink and he … punched Mal. And once the bits of cake went everywhere, that started the food fight.’
Saffron glared at Jamie. ‘Was it one of your gym friends? I thought they didn’t drink? You said—’
‘It wasn’t one of the gym guys,’ Mal said. ‘It was a guy called Leon.’
‘Leon?’ Saffron frowned. ‘Lawyer Leon?’
‘Yes.’
‘One of your guests, then,’ said Jamie.
‘It doesn’t matter whose guest he is,’ said Saffron, tersely. ‘Does it, really? The thing that matters is that my wedding is ruined. I had collaborations involved. It was going to increase our visibility and break our channels out. It was all so carefully organised and then … this. Ruined.’
‘To be fair,’ said Elodie. ‘It’s only the cake that was ruined. And you’ve got some lovely photos and videos of it from before.’ She didn’t know where she was going with this, but Saffron seemed to be listening.
‘It’s not Elodie’s fault,’ said Mal. ‘If anything, it’s mine. I should … actually, I don’t know what I should have done, but it was me who got thrown into the cake. I can only apologise.’
‘And there’s some cracking footage of Mal landing in it,’ said Jamie, from his perch by the window. ‘It’s all over social media already.’
‘What? No. No one was supposed to see it apart from my official feed until the agreed time! Oh no!’ Saffron threw up her hands. ‘The collaborations—’
‘Saffron, honey, don’t cry again. I’ve only just fixed your eyes,’ said the make-up artist.
‘The key thing is,’ said Elodie, slightly desperately. ‘That there’s some lovely photos.’
‘And you’re married,’ said Mal. ‘That was the whole point, right? You’re married. Everything else is just … decorations.’
Jamie looked up. ‘The key objective,’ he said, quietly. ‘That’s right.’ He put his phone into his pocket. ‘The whole point was for us to get married, babe. Everything else was just a bonus.’
‘But it was meant to be perfect!’ Saffron wailed.
Jamie walked up to her and knelt down on one knee. He took her left hand. ‘See this?’ He pointed to her wedding ring. ‘And this?’ He wiggled his own hand with the gold band flashing on it. ‘We have that. So it is perfect.’
Saffron’s lip trembled, but her eyes held a different emotion now.
‘Guys,’ said Jamie. ‘If you’ll excuse us. I think my wife and I need a moment together.’ He turned back to her, and they seemed to retreat into a bubble where everyone else was irrelevant.
‘Um … right,’ said Elodie. Mal touched her elbow and gestured with his head that they should go. That was probably a good idea. The moment suddenly seemed very private.
Outside, in the foyer, they could hear the thump-thump of music coming from the function room. Elodie wasn’t sure where to go from here. She had no place going into the function room. That just left outside. With the carnage.
‘I guess we should go and see what we can do about the damage,’ said Mal.
‘I guess so.’
They walked together towards the door to the outside.
Mal’s phone buzzed. He read the message and sighed. ‘It’s late. Jake and the guys have to go.’ He looked up. ‘I guess it’s just you, me and Marty left to clean up.’
Elodie squared her shoulders. ‘I guess we’d better get to work.’
They were heading out into the gardens when Mal’s phone rang. It was Dilan.
‘Hello, mate, what’s the matter?’ He paused and waited for the reply.
‘Did you fall into a cake? Is that you?’
Oh no. He closed his eyes. ‘I did fall into a wedding cake, yes.’
‘I thought it was you. Have you seen TikTok?’
‘I’m not on TikTok …’
‘I’m going to send you a link,’ his nephew said. ‘You look well funny.’
‘Is there … a video of me being thrown into the cake? On social media? Already?’
‘Yes,’ said Dilan. ‘It’s been taken from some distance. I knew it was you because I know you and I recognised the colour scheme from when you got me to do those cards.’
‘Well great. Listen. I’ve got to go and help clean up now. The guys all have other commitments, so it’s just me, Elodie and Marty here and there’s a lot to do.’
‘You’re cleaning up after the food fight?’
‘You know about the food fight too?’ How much of this was on social media?
‘Oh, that’s everywhere. It looks like a lot of fun. There’s this one video of the cake lady being hit in the chest by … like, a burger or a bun or something. Someone’s slowed it down and put action movie music on it. It’s epic.’
Mal glanced over at Elodie who was pulling on gloves with a grim expression on her face. Maybe it was best not to tell her just yet.
‘Listen, I have to go. We’re going to be here all night if I don’t get a move on.’
‘Okay. Just remember me when you’re internet famous.’
Mal chuckled. ‘Of course.’
He hung up, pocketed his phone and pulled gloves on himself. Marty handed him a bin bag.
‘Come on, troops, into the breach,’ Marty said.
They marched outside. The rain had eased into a drizzle now, but the ground was soggy and unpleasant. They reached the lawn and stared at the mess. Sodden pieces of food lay everywhere. The wedding cake was a pawed-out mound of sponge and icing. It looked awful.
He glanced at Elodie. Her chin wobbled.
‘Elodie …’
She shook her head, bit down on her trembling lip, and said, ‘I’ll take the cake.’
Mal and Marty exchanged a glance. This was hard for her. It might be best to leave her to it. At least the cake had been under cover the whole time, so it was easier to scoop up.
‘Okay,’ Mal said. ‘I’ll start at that end. You take this end and we’ll meet in the middle.’
Picking up the food wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t rained. Or if people hadn’t trampled it into the ground. The worst of it was that each item had taken him so long to make. Each burger hand shaped, each pastry carefully made … only for it to be thrown around. He found a nearly intact cupcake and had a sudden memory of Elodie’s hand over his. He glanced across to her. She was scooping handfuls of cake into a bin bag with a determined expression on her face.
The sun was starting to lower. It would be impossible to find this stuff once it got dark. He turned back to his task.
‘Mal. Can I help?’
He looked up. Standing on the wet grass was the last person he’d expected to see. His big brother was in a faded pair of jeans and a T-shirt that Mal remembered from his teens. Mal frowned. Pubudu was usually either at home watching Star Wars–related shows with Dilan or out at the golf club on Saturday evenings.
‘Aiya? What are you doing here?’
Pubudu looked across at where Marty and Elodie had both paused to stare. He rubbed the back of his head. ‘Dilan said you needed some help to get a load of mess cleared up before sunset. So … I came to help.’
For a second, he didn’t know how to respond. When Pubudu said he was going to make up for lost time, he hadn’t been kidding. Mal was touched.
‘In that case … here. Let me get you a bag and some gloves. We’re sort of against the clock with sunset now. We’re trying to pick up as much of the food debris off the ground and the hedges and things as possible before it gets dark.’ He thrust a new bin bag and gloves towards his brother, who made a disgusted face, but took it anyway.
Mal expected Pubudu to go and work on a different patch to him, but his brother took up a place next to him and they worked together, moving in a zigzag from one side of the garden to the other and back again. Despite their chat the night before, it still felt strange to be together like this.
‘So, how come you’re not watching stuff with Dilan tonight?’ Mal asked.
‘He says he’s working. His side hustle seems to be taking off. He’s doing a menu for his friend’s dad’s takeaway now.’
‘Oh, wow. Well done, him.’
‘I gather you encouraged him to try it?’
Mal winced. He was probably supposed to have checked with Pubudu first. ‘I did. You don’t mind, do you? I did tell Priya all about it. I needed the work done and I thought it would be nice for him to have a way to earn money …’
‘I don’t mind at all. It’s making him really happy. He wants me to open a Fiverr account for him. He thinks he’s a hot shot entrepreneur now.’
Mal laughed. ‘He might be, you never know.’
‘I’m glad he’s found something that works for him,’ said Pubudu. ‘Thanks for supporting him. I … I don’t understand this business stuff, you know that. I was built to be a wage slave. So was Priya, really.’
‘Oh.’ He didn’t know how to respond to that. His conversation with Dilan hadn’t been premeditated. ‘Well, it was the least I could do.’
Pubudu was silent for a moment.
Mal crouched down to scrape up some squashed quiche.
‘You do so much for us,’ Pubudu said.
Mal straightened up and looked at his brother properly. When was the last time he’d spent any time with him, really? Priya and the kids, sure, but Pubudu was usually busy working. His brother looked tired and much older than he remembered. There was a reason he worked so hard. Dilan needed extra support. While social care provided a few hours here and there, it was still mostly on Priya, who was only just starting to ease back into working. Pubudu and Priya had once been an ambitious student couple. They’d worked out five-year career plans while they were at uni, but everything changed when Priya got pregnant with Dilan. Now Pubudu supported them all. Mal felt sad for them. He also still felt guilty about what he had done.
‘I owe you,’ he said simply, and picked up another half cupcake.
Pubudu clicked his tongue. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I know I was a proper shit to you about it back then. I was young and angry. But I’m not now. You’re … you’re like a rock to me and Priya and the kids now. I’m not angry with you. I’m grateful.’
Mal stared at him. All these years that he’d been feeling guilty and trying to make up for that one thing he did. Was that all a waste of time? ‘You’ve really forgiven me?’
‘Of course I have, dumbass. A long time ago.’
‘You could have told me sooner.’
His brother’s smile flashed in the gathering gloom. ‘What? And lose the guilt-induced babysitting? No chance.’
‘I would have babysat anyway,’ Mal protested. ‘What do you think I am?’ The next word would have been ‘selfish’. He had always assumed he was, because his parents had told him he was, and he’d spent so much effort proving he wasn’t.
Pubudu gave him an amused glance, as though he knew what was going through his head. ‘I don’t know how you judge yourself,’ he said, slowly. ‘But you appear, on the outside, to be a pretty great uncle.’
Mal tried to reply, but something caught in his throat. He swallowed. ‘Right.’
‘Hey. You two. Get a move on.’ Elodie dragged a full bin bag and dumped it on one side.
Both brothers chorused, ‘Sorry, miss,’ and got back to work. They combed the lawn side by side, like before, but something was different. It was as though a heavy weight that had warped Mal’s every interaction with his brother had become smaller still. He didn’t have the time or the energy to analyse it, but he was glad anyway.