‘Oh!’ William feels hot.
‘So, we’re getting married!’ says Ray, a rictus grin on his face. ‘In fact, we’d like you to be our best man, wouldn’t we, Gloria?’
‘Oh!’ he repeats.
Mr Finch looks at his wife, transfers the bowl of roast potatoes from her placemat to his and unceremoniously drops them onto everyone’s plates.
William realises he can’t stay a second longer. ‘I think it’s best if I leave you all to it.’ He’s standing now. ‘Thank you, Mrs Finch, it looks lovely, I just …’ Words won’t work for him, and it’s all he can do not to run down the hallway to the door.
‘Bloody hell, William,’ says Ray that night in their room, ‘what the hell was all that about at lunch?’
‘Shut up,’ William says, turning to face the wall. ‘Shut the bloody hell up.’
‘I don’t see why you’re in a state. It’s me who’s got to get hitched all of a sudden, me who’s going to have to work for her bloody father, when I was hoping to live a little.’
Before he knows it, William is out of bed. ‘And it’s me who loves her!’
Ray stares up at him from the edge of the bed where he sits in his vest and pyjama bottoms. ‘You saying I don’t?’
‘You wouldn’t catch me complaining if I was in your position.’
‘But there’s the difference, William. You’re not in my position, because you let me take her from under your nose, and didn’t do a damn thing to stop me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I thought at least you’d put up a fight’ – he laughs – ‘and the stupid thing, William, is that you wouldn’t have had to fight very hard. You know, when I asked her out, she said she needed to clear something up, and I thought, damn, she’s going to ask you – give you a last chance to declare your love, or something daft. But I’m guessing she can’t have, because I can’t believe even you would have been that stupid.’
William steps towards Ray, his chest like a bellows, feeling the only conclusion for the forces at work in his body is a thump on Ray’s nose.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ says Ray softly, looking intently back at William. ‘She did, didn’t she?’
William can’t speak.
‘You idiot.’
William clears his throat to try and stop the weird fluttering sensation.
‘You bloody idiot.’ Ray climbs under his sheets.
William sits on his bed, hating himself far more than he hates Ray. What if he’d told her that yes, he did mind her going out with Ray? He minded with every muscle, every bone, every drop of blood in his body, that he knew he could make her happy – he knew he could. But not now Ray’s baby is nestled inside her warm body.
‘All that matters,’ he says, exhausted, ‘is that you look after Gloria.’
‘I know, I know,’ Ray says quietly, ‘I’m not a complete bastard.’
William gets back into bed. ‘Don’t ask me to be your best man.’
‘Oh, come on, I haven’t got any other friends in London.’
‘Ask Roger, or Simon.’
Gloria and Ray are to be married in three weeks, on 23rd July, in the local registry office. The hope is Gloria won’t be showing too much. William can tell already. It seems he knows her body too well; the curve of her stomach, the fullness of her breasts. It’s torture.
Six days after William walked away from his roast dinner, he and Gloria are the only ones at home. This rarely happens. Mrs Finch is at her sister’s, Ray’s on an evening home visit with Mr Finch. Now it’s a given that Ray will work for him, Mr Finch is taking an interest in his training. Assignment finished, William slips down to the kitchen for a cup of tea. After the scream of the kettle has died down, and the fridge door has clunked open and shut, and his teaspoon has been swilled under the tap and dried, William has no more excuses to ignore the sound coming from the sitting room.
Gloria’s sobbing connects with some deep anxiety he doesn’t understand. She must know he’s in the kitchen, that he can hear her crying. He fights the strong feeling he has that he mustn’t intrude, quickly makes a second cup of tea and takes them into the sitting room.
‘Cuppa?’ He holds it out to her, waits for her to thrust her tissue up her sleeve.
‘Ta,’ she says, sniffing a few times. She doesn’t look at him as he sits next to her.
‘You OK?’ he says after a few moments.
‘It’s going to be awful.’
‘What is?’ Her life, he thinks, her marriage?
‘The wedding. There’ll be hardly anyone there.’ She’s about to cry again. William’s arm lifts to rest across her shoulders, but he lowers it. ‘Ray said his family are Catholic and would only disapprove, Mum’s too ashamed to invite her family, so it’ll just be my sister’s lot and Dad’s brother and his family – who I can’t stand.’
She looks at him for the first time. ‘Oh, William! This isn’t the sort of wedding I thought I was going to have!’
‘It’s not the sort you deserve,’ he mutters.
‘And you won’t be best man!’ She frowns. ‘It’d make a bad day bearable to have you there, being kind and calm.’ It melts him to hear her say that. ‘Too good for us, are you, now I’m pregnant?’
‘No. No!’ He’s appalled that’s what she thinks. ‘That’s not why.’
‘Why then?’
Is she daring him? How can he? He’s not just sitting next to Gloria, but her and Ray’s unborn child.
‘Of course I’ll be best man,’ he says softly, ‘I’ll be the kindest, calmest best man to set foot in the Stepney registry office.’
She leans her head, heavy, on his shoulder. ‘Thanks, William.’ He doesn’t dare move until she sits back up.
Later in his room, he remembers the nights he spent listening to his mother’s sobbing after his father died. He feels leaden with the same sadness and impotence.
The sun is burning away the glisten of last night’s rain on the pavement, and a soft layer of mist surrounds Ray and William as they walk to college, for most of the way in silence.