“Look,” said Jamie. “If he rings-”

“He hasn’t.”

“But if he does-”

“You’re serious, aren’t you,” said Becky.

Jamie steeled himself. “I love him. I just didn’t realize until…Well, God, Tony chucked me. Then my sister canceled the wedding. Then my dad had some kind of nervous breakdown and ended up in hospital. And we all drove to Peterborough and everyone basically scratched each other’s eyes out. And it was horrible. Really horrible. Then the wedding was back on again.”

“This is going to be a really fun event, isn’t it.”

“And I realized Tony was the only person who-”

“Oh Jesus. Just don’t cry. Please. Men crying does my head in. Have another drink.” She poured the remains of the wine into his glass.

“Sorry.” Jamie wiped his slightly moist eyes and swallowed the lump.

“Drop an invite round,” said Becky. “Write something soppy on it. I’ll stick it on top of his post pile. Or on his pillow. Whatever. If he gets back in time I’ll kick his arse and make him come.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She lit another cigarette. “I met his previous boyfriends. Nobheads. In my humble opinion. Obviously you and I haven’t known each other long but, trust me, you seem like a major improvement.”

“Ryan seemed nice.” In his mind, Jamie was introducing Becky to Katie and wondering whether the two of them would become friends for life or spontaneously combust.

“Ryan. God. What an arsehole. Hated women. You know, you can’t work with them because they’re not tough enough and they bugger off to have children. Probably not even gay. Not properly. You know the type. Just can’t stomach the idea of sex with women. Hated children, too. Which always winds me up. I mean, where do you think adults come from, for God’s sake? You want bus drivers and doctors? You need children. I’m glad I’m not the poor bloody woman who spent a chunk of her life wiping his arse. Didn’t like dogs, either. Or cats. Never trust a man who doesn’t like animals. That’s my rule. You don’t fancy sharing a Tesco curry, do you?”

88

Jean rang David. The boiler was fixed and he had the house to himself again, so she dropped in on her way back from the bookshop.

She told him about the wedding and he laughed. In a kind way. “Oy oy oy. Let’s hope the day itself is less eventful than the buildup.”

“Are you still coming?”

“Would you like me to?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes I would.” She wouldn’t be able to hold him. But if Jamie and Ray had a row, or Katie changed her mind halfway through the ceremony, she wanted to be able to glance across the room and see the face of someone who understood what she was going through.

He gave her a hug and made her a cup of tea and sat her down in the conservatory and told her about the eccentric plumber who’d been working on the boiler (“Polish, apparently. Degree in economics. Says he walked to Britain. German monastery. Fruit picking in France. Bit of a roguish air, though. Not sure whether I entirely believed him”).

And good as it was to be talking, she realized that she wanted to be taken to the one remaining place where she forgot, however briefly, who she was and what was happening in the rest of her life. And it was a little scary, wanting something that much. But it didn’t stop the wanting.

She took hold of his hand and held his eye and waited for him to realize what she was thinking without her having to say it out loud.

He smiled back and raised one eyebrow and said, “Let’s go upstairs.”

89

George missed his second therapy session on account of being in hospital. As a result he was rather dreading his next meeting with Ms. Endicott, much as he had once dreaded being sent to Mr. Love to explain why he had thrown Jeffrey Brown’s satchel onto a roof.

But she listened respectfully to the story and asked some very specific questions about what he had hoped to achieve and what he felt at various points during the whole process, and George got the distinct impression that he could have announced that he had eaten his wife in a pie and Ms. Endicott would have asked about the kind of gravy he had served with it, and he was not sure whether this was a good thing or not.

It was beginning to annoy him. He explained that he felt a good deal better now and she asked in what precise way he felt better. He described his feelings about Katie’s wedding and Ms. Endicott asked for a definition of “Buddhist detachment.”

When, at the end of the session, Ms. Endicott said that she was looking forward to seeing him the following week, George made an ambiguous “Uh-huh” noise because he was not sure whether he would be coming the following week. He half expected Ms. Endicott to pounce on his deliberate ambiguity, but their forty-five minutes were up and they were now clearly allowed to behave like normal human beings again.

90

Jamie got back late from Tony’s flat. Too late to ring people with children at any rate. So he decided to drive over to Katie and Ray’s the following day, pick up an invitation and offer his congratulations in person.

He liked Becky. She had softened over the microwave curry, even if her opinions of estate agents hadn’t. He liked most stroppy women. Growing up with Katie, no doubt. What he really couldn’t stand were winsome head tilts and hair flicking and pink mohair (why they appealed to rugby players and scaffolders was a mystery he was never going to solve). He wondered briefly whether she was a lesbian. Then he remembered a story of Tony’s about her and some boy breaking their parents’ toilet seat during a party. Though people changed, of course.

He talked about Katie and Ray’s roller-coaster relationship and managed to convince Becky that Ray was a suitable candidate for castration, then had to steer her carefully round to thinking he was an honorable kind of guy, which was considerably harder because, when he thought about it, it was very hard to put his finger on precisely what had changed.

She talked about growing up in Norwich. The five dogs. Their mum’s allergy to housework. Their father’s pathological devotion to steam railways. The car crash in Scotland (“We crawled out and walked away without a scratch and we turned round and the back of the car was torn off and there was, literally, half a dog on the road. Had a few nightmares about that. Still do”). The boy they fostered who had an obsession with knives. The time Tony and a friend set light to a powered model plane, launched it from the bedroom window and watched it bank slowly at the end of the garden, flaming dramatically, then turn and fly into the half-built house next door…

Jamie had heard most of the stories before, in one form or another. But he was listening properly this time.

“Sounds grim.”

“It wasn’t actually,” said Becky. “It’s just the way Tony tells it.”

“I thought your parents chucked him out. After that thing with him and…”

“Carl. Carl Waller. Yeh. But Tony wanted to get chucked out.”

“Really?”

“Being gay was a godsend.” Becky lit a cigarette. “Meant he could be an outlaw without having to mainline heroin or steal cars.”

Jamie digested this slowly. A thousand miles between them and he felt closer to Tony than he’d ever done. “But you and Tony. You were sort of estranged, too, weren’t you. And now you’re flat-sitting.”

“We met up when I moved down to London. A few weeks back. Suddenly realized we liked each other.”

Jamie found himself laughing. Out of relief, really. That Tony could make the same kind of mistakes he’d made himself.

“What’s so funny?” asked Becky.

“Nothing,” said Jamie. “It’s just…It’s good. It’s really good.”