“That’s when you pulled us over. And anyway, Bekki was more interested in the size of the cheques Mo’s father sent than in the number of husbands. What about you? What did you find out about Woody?”
“Tell you later.” Gail pushed open the pub doors. “But talking of Bekki — if I dress like that or behave like that when I’m her age you have my permission to take me out to the country and shoot me.” She narrowed her bright eyes and searched the shadowy interior of The Sun in Splendour.
“The pub time forgot,” she murmured, picking on the only man there with a sense of style and all his own teeth. He was nursing half a pint, a hand-rolled cigarette, and a hangover. “Go on, Liza, or do I have to do everything?”
I steeled myself. Talking to attractive men always leaves me short of breath.
“Yeah,” he said when I accosted him. “I am supposed to be at the chapel, but we’ve had practically zero visitors in since we opened.” He was older than us, tall, fair, and wore an antique Armani suit over a granddad vest.
“Hmmm?” said Gail, flicking an eyebrow at me as we followed him along the narrow pavement. He moved well and she could see I was hyperventilating.
“He might be Mo’s third husband,” I said gloomily. Men I liked often liked someone else more.
“Trigamy,” Gail said. “Is there such a word?”
“We’ll have to ask Alastair,” I said, even more gloomily. I was supposed to be the writer but he was still better at words than me.
The fair guy wielded a key as big as a tire iron. “Don’t come in till I see to the lights and music.”
“What do we call you?” Gail asked.
“Mick,” he told her as he disappeared into the chapel.
“Mick, eh?” Gail looked at me to make sure I was paying attention. She was the only one who didn’t seem cold or depressed. Bekki was still clinging to Alastair like ivy to a wall and Woody stood, hands in pockets, with his head bowed.
And I thought, Today is one of the weirdest days of my life and when I go back to Canada I’d like to be able to take with me a coherent narrative of all these improbable elements.
Just then, the music started, and I cannot begin to describe how inappropriate it was — the voice, Morrissey’s, was like a cat being neutered without anaesthetic; and the words hit me in the heart like a hammer: “Take me out tonight / where there’s music and there’s people / and they’re young and ali-i-i-ive.” Drawn by the strangulated voice, we stepped one by one into the chapel, into a series of compartments.
Mo’s installation was in the first compartment. It began with a tumble of boxes wrapped in silver, gold, and white. Some were torn open revealing the presents inside: a toaster with burnt toast already popping out, a steam iron crusted with lime scale, china with dried-on food, stained and crumpled bed linen. Congratulatory cards were tossed around. It was all about wedding presents several years after the wedding when the shiny new gifts had become symbols of servitude.
“I don’t understand,” said Bekki. No one bothered to explain.
A screen suspended from the ceiling came to life and there was Mo, stepping out of a church in a pearl-embroidered white dress, holding Joss’s hand, posing for a photographer. She looked archetypal and triumphant. She was beautiful and alive. And for the first time on that awful day Alastair looked as if he was holding back tears. Then the tape went into reverse — Mo and Joss were sucked back into the church. There was a jump cut to another church door and Mo came out in a far more elaborate dress with...
“That’s me,” Woody said unnecessarily. “That’s my wedding video.” But he too was sucked backwards into the church, still with the stupid but proud expression on his face that bridegrooms always seem to adopt.
Mo, however, emerged from what, this time, looked like a small cathedral. She was floating in clouds of lace and froth accompanied by a small plump man in full morning suit, grey top hat, with ownership on his mind and stunned disbelief in his eyes. He was not Mo’s usual type. Or rather, he was not mine. But I’d had too many surprises that day to be certain about anything Mo did.
“What a lovely dress,” said Bekki.
“Who the hell is that?” said Woody.
“It’s art,” said Mick. “It’s a statement about marriage as a Performance Art in the twenty-first century.”
“No it bloody isn’t,” said Woody. “It was my wedding. My marriage. I loved Moselle.”
The video looped back to Mo and Joss, and I noticed that the soundtrack was also stuck on a loop where Morrissey was singing, “To die by your side I well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine.”
“Can you turn the sound off?” Gail asked. “It’s freaking me out.”
“It’s meant to.” But Mick moved away to the sound-desk.
When I could hear myself think I said, “Is she equating marriage with death? Isn’t it time someone told me how she died?”
“Pneumonia, dear,” said Bekki.
“Then why did bloody-nose Joss say arty freaks killed her?” We all turned to look at Mick.
“Don’t look at me,” Mick said. “I’m not a freak. All I can tell you is what the police told me. They found her, in her wedding dress, chained to the railings outside the chapel with a pair of those fluffy pink handcuffs you pick up at sex shops. She was soaking wet and suffering from hypothermia. They cut the cuffs and rushed her to the Royal Free Hospital but, you know...”
Woody said painfully, “They told me it was some sort of publicity stunt gone wrong. There were broken eggs and posters and stuff written on the pavement all the way from the main road to the chapel.”
“The posters were for the North Camden Art Exhibition,” said Mick.
“Only someone added a T to Art.”
“North Camden Tart Exhibition,” Bekki said, slowly explaining it to herself. “What were the eggs for?”
“Hen party, I suppose,” Gail said.
“And there were arrows painted on the pavement,” Woody said angrily. “ ‘This way to the TArt,’ and, ‘Only 50 yards to the TArt.’ Which is why she was found by a bunch of drunken bastards who were actually looking for action.”
“Where were you while all this was happening?” I asked. I would have liked to ask all the husbands that, but Woody was the only one available.
“You think I should’ve stopped her? She was in London to set up the exhibition. I was at home in Weymouth. She’d been gone for a week. How was I supposed to know what all this was about?”
“It’s about art,” Mick insisted.
“It was a real marriage,” Woody said. “But now I think maybe they were all real marriages. I shouldn’t have hit that guy.”
“Who’s the third man?” Gail said. “Does anyone know who he is?” Again we all looked at Mick.
“Don’t ask me.” He shrugged his elegant shoulders. “I thought they were all actors. I never imagined she’d go so far as to actually marry anyone.”
“I don’t understand,” said Bekki. “Are you saying that it was all a joke? Because in that case, it was a very expensive joke. Those were real cheques her father sent. And by the way, dear,” she added to Woody, “I don’t know what you mean by being at home in Weymouth — my stepdaughter lives in St. John’s Wood. Her father pays the rent on a two-bedroom flat there.”
“Well, I knew she had a pied-a-terre...”
Gail nudged me and whispered, “Three homes and a pied-a-terre?” Aloud she said, “What about drugs? Didn’t Joss mention drugs?” I nodded.