‘Come on. Come on, Des. End of the line!’
‘We here?’ He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes with both sets of knuckles.
‘Who made the first move?’ Dawn was asking as she rummaged in her straw bag. ‘Did Lionel reach out to Marlon? Or the other way around?’
‘Uh, back channel.’ He got to his feet and straightened his tie. ‘Ringo. Uncle Ring. And Troy. Troy Welkway. They brokered it.’
‘But you said Ringo hates Marlon.’
‘Yeah. He does. And Troy hates him too.’
‘… Ooh, Des, will it be all right?
‘Course it will. It’s a wedding party. Uncle Li’s been working on his speech. The best man’s speech. You know. The eulogy.’
3
IT WAS EASY to find — the Imperial Palace, a broad low-rise hotel set back from the road beyond a strip of lawn and a crammed car park. Doormen dressed like town criers were guiding the guests through the foyer, past the Beefeater Bar, and into an L-shaped anteroom where you could already hear a wall of sound, like the clamour of a schoolyard but on a lowered register — the contraltos of the women, the baritones of the men, in festive concord. Springtime, amatory union, massed revelry … With due allowance made for the imperfections of all those present, this wall of sound was a wall of love.
Dawn at once hurried off to the ladies’ room, and Des was at once confronted by a cream-jacketed waiter with a silver tray: prosecco! The bubbles sizzled in his nose and romped and swarmed round his brain and after a second sip he was already feeling tremendously happy and proud. Dawn joined him, and together they advanced through the tall doorway.
Now, Des had never been in a hotel before, and he was a little overawed, perhaps, by the way the place seemed to set itself the task of pampering his senses — the smiling, dipping waiters, the limitless refreshments, the soft music, the padded chairs in lines against the walls, the thick rayon drapes, the twinkling plastic chandeliers, the fitted nylon carpet (orange, with attractive sprinklings of yellow), and the brilliant company, all around, in their Whitsun best.
‘They’re not so bad, Dawnie,’ he said, reaching for a second glass. ‘They’re all right, I reckon. They’ll do. Look at them.’
Of the ninety-odd souls gathered in that lofty ballroom, the most august, probably, was Brian ‘Skanker’ Fitzwilliam (Uncle John’s father-in-law), his compact head adorned by a scythe of snow-white hair, together with his lady wife, Minnie, spryly wielding her black crutches. Next in seniority was Jayden ‘One Mile’ Drago, father of the bride, in all his immovable girth, together with his current partner, Britt, half his age, with her miniskirt, her freckled poitrine. Then, too, there was Dennis ‘Mumper’ Welkway, and Mrs Mercy Welkway (née Pepperdine), and her younger sister Grace, with her walking-frame and her hairnet and her …
‘You look lovely, dear. Lovely. Doesn’t she, Des.’
‘Yeah, she does. Eh, what’s that, Gran? Orange juice?’
‘No. Buck’s Fizz!’
‘Prosecco, me! Gaw, all this. Must be costing a —’
‘Oops,’ said Gran, turning away. ‘Here comes summer. And I can tell. He’s got that look in his eye.’
Lionel Asbo moved smoothly through the crush, patting a back here, giving a wrist-clasp there, embracing Uncle John, Uncle Paul, Uncle George, Uncle Ringo, and Uncle Stuart, slapping hands with Marlon’s brothers, Charlton, Rod, Yul, Burt, Troy, and Rock, bowing in solemn introduction to Gina’s innumerable siblings (bowing to Dejan, to Shakira, to Namru, to Aaliyah, to Vassallo, to Yasmine, to Oreste, to little Foozaloo) … And Des thought: Could it be possible? Could it be possible that Lionel Asbo, the great asocial, was in certain settings a social being?
Dawn said, ‘And over there, Des. Ooh. There’s posh.’
A waistcoated string quartet, up on the stage, rose as one and began playing the theme of The Godfather. Yes, there would be dancing, after the formalities, and then a great array of traditional Maltese dishes, artichoke hearts, beans with parsley, vegetable medleys, ricotta pie, nougat. But for now the fingerfood was reassuringly English — honest tavern fare — and Des said,
‘You’d better eat your fill now, Dawnie. You won’t be wanting that foreign muck. Horace wouldn’t like it. Here. Have a nice ham bap.’
‘Oh, get off … What are you smiling at?’
‘I’m just thinking. I’m thinking about tonight.’
‘Mm. So am I.’
They kissed.
‘Oy!’
And here he was (in his one good suit, his white shirt, his cord-thin blue tie), scrubbed and shaven, with a stubborn tin of Cobra in his meaty hand.
‘Lionel, can I ask you something?’
‘Course you can, girl,’ he said, leaning over the table. He speared a rollmop and reached out, with impatient fingers, for two bite-sized pork pies.
‘Why’s Mr Drago called “One Mile”?’
Crunching his way through a mouthful of pickled onions, Lionel explained. Jayden Drago’s cars were very cheap; but ‘One Mile’ was as far as anyone ever got in them before they broke down.
‘Sorry — but how’s he stay in business?’
‘Ah you see, Dawn, one mile’s a uh, an exaggeration. It’s more like five miles. Or even ten,’ he said through the gingery crumbs of a Scotch egg. ‘I bought one off him once. It’s worth it if you going all the way across town. Same as a cab.’
‘Your speech, Uncle Li. You were going to dictate it to me. But you never.’
His head tipped back, Lionel negotiated a ziggurat of salt-and-vinegar crisps, dusted his palms, and gave his brow a sharp knock with his knuckle. ‘It’s all up here, son. It’s all up here … Beautiful ceremony this morning. No, it was,’ he went on, looking lost and wistful. ‘The little bridesmaids with they bouquets. The stained glass … Gina. Gina, she took me aside in the garden. All in white, with them little white ribbons in her hair. And she said, Lionel? Thank you, Lionel, she said, thank you for helping to make this the most perfect day of me life. And her smile was like a little ray of sunshine. I tell you, it warmed me heart. It warmed my heart.’
The string quartet withdrew. After a skirling volley of whoops and yells, and then a gurgling hush, the groom, the bride, and the best man approached and mounted the low stage. Lionel and Marlon embraced; Lionel and Gina embraced, and, as she too lingeringly stepped back and to the side, he kissed her hand (a nice touch).
And Lionel Asbo began.
‘Can you all hear me, my friends?’ A mutter of assent. ‘… Marl and me? What can I tell you. We been best mates’, he said scathingly (as if settling the hash of anyone who claimed otherwise), ‘since we was babies.’ The womenfolk led a soft chuckle. ‘Sometimes, for a hoot, our mums’d take it in turns to feed us both at once. Didn’t you, Grace. Didn’t you, Auntie Mercy. That’s how close we were, me and Marl — he was the bloke on the next tit along.’ More maternal mirth. ‘So the months passed. Then, when we stopped brawling over the next bottle of formula, well, we started putting ourselves about like normal little boys. All right. We was so-and-sos. There’s no other word for it. We were right so-and-sos. Scallywags, if you like.’