Читать книгу William Walker’s First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story - Matt Rudd - Страница 10

Official reason from Alex, while sadly not choking on his goat’s-cheese pizza (amazing, he can even manage to find a pretentious flavour of pizza): ‘She wanted marriage, but it felt too soon. You can’t rush such an important decision, can you? Marriage should be for life, not a month or two. I’m so upset that she couldn’t give me more time.’ Misty-eyed nods from bridal group, eye-rolling from me, Andy and Johnson. He’s confusing marriage with rescue dogs, and the girls lap it up.

Real reason: she’d had to find her own way to the church and reception because Alex, after much begging, had been given the job of chauffeuring. He’d been told ‘nothing flash’ then turned up with a white coach and six horses, none of which he could properly control. He had worn tailored tails and a waistcoat strikingly similar to mine except not from Hong Kong. He’d spent the whole service muttering gloomy imprecations, especially during the vows, which meant the vicar, sensing possibilities, had repeated the ‘Can anyone see any lawful impediment?’ question … twice.

Even before our first dance had finished, he’d tapped me on the shoulder, then refused to give Isabel to anyone else for the next three dances. And, once prised away, he’d marched up onto the stage, handed out sheet music to the band, declared how much he loved his best-friend-in-all-the-world Isabel, spat out how delighted he was she’d found the perfect man, then sang Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’. If I hadn’t been so busy vomiting, I would have stormed out too.

Home late to the flat. More lugging over the threshold on Isabel’s insistence, accompanied by what I took to be slightly sarcastic clapping from one of the idiots from the upstairs flat. India tomorrow. Tired, so tired.