“How many? Four? Five?”
“Jesus, does it matter?” I asked, recalling a similar conversation I had had with Alice and how I had been uncertain whether I wanted to know her number out of interest or perversity.
“Yes, it matters. Maybe it’s just a phase and—”
“Oh come on, Julian,” I said. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m past phases.”
“How many then?”
“I don’t know. Two hundred maybe? Probably more.”
“TWO HUNDRED?”
“Which is probably a lot less than you’ve slept with.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, panicking now, making perfect circles on the carpet as he marched around. “You can’t be fucking serious. You’ve been lying to me for the last twenty years.”
“I haven’t been lying,” I said, desperate for him to tell me that it was all right, that everything would be fine in the end. That he’d fix things. That Alice would understand and life could return to normal.
“Well, what else would you call it?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“So you thought you’d wait until today? Until now? When you’re about ten minutes away from marrying my sister? Jesus Christ,” he added, shaking his head. “And I thought that fucker Fergus was bad.”
“I’m nothing like Fergus,” I said.
“No, he’s a fucking saint compared to you.”
“Julian, you can’t hate me because I’m gay. That’s not fair. It’s 1973, for God’s sake.”
“You think I hate you because you’re gay?” he asked, looking at me as if he had never heard anything so stupid in his life. “I don’t give a fuck that you’re gay. I never would have cared. Not for a moment, if you had bothered to tell me. If you had treated me like an actual friend instead of someone you were just lusting over. I hate you because you’ve lied to me all these years, Cyril, and, worse still, you’ve lied to Alice. This is going to break her heart. Have you any idea what it was like for her after Fergus?”
“She’ll understand,” I said quietly.
“She’ll what?”
“She’ll understand,” I repeated. “She’s a very empathetic person.”
Julian laughed in disbelief. “Stand up, Cyril,” he said.
“What?”
“Stand up.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so. And if you love me so much, then you must want to make me happy. And it would make me very happy if you stood up.”
I frowned, uncertain what was going to happen next, but I did as he asked and stood.
“There,” I said. “I’m standing.”
But not for long. A moment later, I was on the floor, sprawled on my back, a little dazed and with a pain so sharp running through my jaw that I wondered whether he’d broken it. I put a hand to my face and could taste blood inside my cheek.
“Julian,” I said, looking up at him, close to tears. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t give a fuck if you’re sorry,” he said. “Do you know something, I’ve never felt more contempt for anyone in my whole life than I do for you right now. I swear to God if it wasn’t for the fact that I have no intention of spending the rest of my life in jail I would break your fucking neck right now.”
I swallowed, feeling pitiful inside. Everything was ruined. When he retreated to one of the side walls, rubbing his chin with one hand as he thought all of this through, I stumbled to my feet and sat down again, nursing my jaw.
“I should go,” I said finally.
“Go?” he said, turning around and frowning. “Go where?”
“Go home,” I said with a shrug. “There’s no point in me staying here, is there? I’ve done enough damage. You’ll have to tell her, though,” I added. “I can’t do it. I can’t face her.”
“Tell her? Tell who? Tell Alice?”
“Of course,” I said.
“You think I’m going to tell her?”
“She loves you,” I reasoned. “She’ll want you with her today, not me.”
“I’m not telling her anything,” said Julian, raising his voice again and advancing on me with such ferocity that I shrank back in the seat. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen here today, you stupid fucking prick, and what’s not going to happen. If you think that I’m going to allow my sister to be humiliated for the second time in front of all her family and friends, you’re completely fucking delusional.”
I stared at him, uncertain what he was getting at. “So what do you want me to do?” I asked him.
“What you promised to do,” he said. “We’re going to go out there together, you and I. We’re going to stand side by side at the altar while Max walks my sister up the aisle. And we’re both going to wear the biggest shit-eating smiles that anyone ever wore in their entire lives, and when the priest tells you to say I do, you’re going to say it as if your entire life depends on it. And afterward, you and Alice are going to walk back down the aisle as husband and wife, and you, my friend, are going to be a good and faithful husband to her and if I ever, if I ever hear of you going off with some queer behind her back, I will come after you and personally cut your balls off with the rustiest penknife I can find. Do I make myself clear, Cyril?”
I stared at him and swallowed hard. It was impossible to believe that he meant any of this.
“I can’t,” I said, trying to hold back the tears. “It’s the rest of my life we’re talking about.”
“And it’s the rest of Alice’s. You’re going to fucking marry her, Cyril, do you understand me?”
“You’re saying that you want your sister to marry me? Knowing what you know?”
“Of course I don’t want her to. And if she walked in here right now and said she didn’t want to marry you, I’d lift her off the ground and carry her out on my shoulders. But she’s come here to get married and that’s what’s going to happen. She fucking loves you, Cyril, if you can believe she would love someone so morally vacuous.”
“And what about us?” I asked, his words hitting me like arrows.
“Us? What us? What are you talking about?”
“You and I. Will we still be friends?”
He stared at me and started laughing. “You’re unbelievable,” he said. “You are absolutely unbe-fucking-lievable. We’re not friends, Cyril. We never have been friends. I never even knew you, that’s the truth of it. The person I thought of as Cyril Avery never even existed. So, no, we won’t be friends ever again. When we see each other at family functions, I’ll be polite to you so no one finds out the truth. But don’t ever think that I feel anything toward you other than total and utter loathing. And if you dropped dead on your honeymoon, I’d cry no tears over you.”
“Don’t say that, Julian,” I said, starting to weep again. “Please, you can’t mean it. I love you.”