13 Dates, page 21
The woman sighs exasperatedly. ‘We do have other venues.’ She slides a leaflet across the table. ‘There’s the York Room. It holds a hundred and fifty people. But it’s booked up until’ – she tabs through to another screen – ‘October seventeenth.’ She looks at Angel, then back at me. ‘And it’s more expensive.’
I open my mouth to protest the implication that I’m cheap, but to be honest, if it is just going to be the two of us plus a couple of witnesses, even if we did ask my parents, and Angel’s parents, and Marlon, and Mary – a venue that holds a hundred and fifty people would be a bit of an overkill.
‘People actually get married in here?’
‘They do,’ says the woman, more pleasantly than perhaps I could expect, seeing as I’m slagging off the state of her office.
‘It’s hardly the most . . .’ I struggle to find the word, but Angel rests a hand on my arm.
‘It’s fine,’ she repeats levelly. ‘We only want a small wedding.’
‘It couldn’t get any smaller.’
The woman turns her attention to Angel, obviously having decided I’m trouble. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I now have to ask you a series of questions individually. So one of you will have to leave the room.’
I sit there for a moment, then realise she’s referring to me. ‘Oh. Right. Well, I’ll just . . .’
So I do.
Back in the waiting room, I can’t help wondering why the woman behind the glass screen is casting strange glances in my direction, until I catch sight of my reflection and realise I’ve been sitting here grinning like an idiot since I sat back down.
But I can’t help it: I’m getting married. To Angel. And while it’s perhaps not quite how I’d pictured it, what with everything happening so quickly, and the registry office, and Angel’s illness – the fact that she’s prepared to make a commitment to me, for however long that might last . . . it’s all pretty amazing, to be honest.
There’s nothing to read, apart from a couple of brochures about Richmond Council, which I manage to get through from cover to cover in about thirty seconds flat, and for some reason, there’s a sign saying ‘No Mobile Phones’, perhaps to stop people from eavesdropping what’s happening back in the office, so I’m faced with having to amuse myself for the ten-or-so minutes it takes Angel to undergo her grilling. By the time I’m so desperately bored that I’m counting the carpet tiles, the door opens, and Angel marches back into the waiting room, closely chaperoned by the registrar, as if to stop us comparing answers.
‘Noah, would you follow me, please?’ she says, so I briefly lock eyes with Angel, but she’s giving me a look that could either be ‘oh my god!’ or ‘get on with it!’, so I ignore her and follow the woman back into the office. Once I’m sat in my original chair, the registrar turns to me.
‘Noah.’
‘Yes.’
‘And what’s the name of the person you’re marrying?’
‘Angel,’ I say confidently. If this is going to be the level of the questioning, I’m going to ace it.
‘Full name.’
‘Angel Fallon.’
‘A little bit fuller?’
‘Um . . . Angel-a?’
‘You sound like you’re asking me.’
‘No, it’s definitely Angela. Angela Fallon.’
‘And is she, or has she ever been known by another name?’
I think for a moment. ‘Another name?’
‘And I don’t mean “Angel”.’
‘Oh. Well, in that case, no. I don’t think so.’
‘Right.’
‘Unless . . .’
‘Unless?’
‘Well, all couples have got their pet names, haven’t they? So sometimes I call her . . .’
‘Officially, I mean. Has she ever changed her name?’
‘I wouldn’t know, would I? I mean, she was Angel when I met her. Though – funny story – the guy in Starbucks got my name wrong, and . . .’ The registrar is glaring humourlessly at me across the desk, and I realise even if the story was peppered with jokes pinched from top comedians, it probably wouldn’t be funny to her. ‘I’ll, um, save it for the wedding.’
The registrar looks as if she’s not convinced there’s going to be one. ‘And your full name is?’
‘Noah Wilson.’
‘Right.’ She narrows her eyes at me, as if she fears she’s about to regret asking the next question. ‘And have you ever been known by any other name? And I don’t mean joke name, shortened name, pet name or name in the ‘insult’ way.’
‘No,’ I say, suitably chastised. ‘That’s “no” as in “no, I haven’t”, not “no” as in “short for Noah”.’
‘And what is it Angela does for a living.’
‘Design.’
‘So what’s her profession?’
‘Design . . . er?’
‘I’ve got something different.’
‘Design . . . person?’
‘Consultant.’
‘That’s hardly that different, is it? I mean, we can all call ourselves a consultant. You could be a registry office wedding consultant, for example, and . . .’ I stop talking, realising I’m not doing myself any favours. ‘No, I’ll go with what she said.’
‘And what’s her date of birth?’
I smile and reel it off, happy that this is one I know.
There are a few more questions – my father’s full name and occupation, though when I say he ‘was’ a teacher, the registrar’s face falls.
‘When you say “was”, is he not with us anymore?’
‘Oh no. He’s retired. Living the life of Riley in Stanmore. Well, as much as that’s possible.’
‘Fine.’ She taps a few more keys on her keyboard, scans quickly through the form on the screen in front of her, then turns back to face me. ‘Now, I need to take payment from you. It’s seventy pounds.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘No asking me what her favourite colour is?’
The registrar sighs. ‘Do you know her favourite colour?’
‘I do, actually! It’s—’
‘Seventy pounds,’ she repeats.
Realising I better pay up and get out while the going’s, well, if not exactly ‘good’, then in the right direction, I reach for my wallet, and the registrar produces a card machine, jabs a couple of the buttons, then passes it across the desk to me. And while this seems a little clinical – administrative, even – well, neither of us are religious, so really, it is just a formality. A tick in a box. A filling in of forms. Even though it means so much more.
‘So, what happens now?’ I ask as she hands me my receipt.
‘Well, we display your notice to marry for twenty-eight days. If, during that time, we’ve received any legal objections, then the marriage authorities—’
‘Will arrest us? What type of legal objections?’ I ask, slightly panicky.
‘Relax. The marriage authorities aren’t people. They’re the documents we need to issue so your wedding can go ahead. And by “legal objections”, I mean whether it turns out you’ve given us, say, a false identity, or one of you is still married.’
‘Phew. Right. Well, we haven’t. And aren’t. Not that either of us ever was . . .’
‘Oh-kay. So, we’re done here,’ announces the registrar rather abruptly. ‘And we’ll see you back here on the . . .’
‘Eighth.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Great. And, um, will it be you who’s doing the marrying? I mean, obviously we’ll be doing the marrying, but will you be, you know, doing the . . .’
The registrar shrugs, in what looks like an ‘I hope not’ kind of way. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Right, well, thanks,’ I say.
I head back to the waiting room, take Angel by the hand and lead her back outside into the sunshine, where she turns and smiles at me.
‘Wow!’ she says, glancing back towards the registry office. ‘We’re getting married!’
‘I suppose.’
‘Thanks very much!’
‘I don’t mean it like that. I just mean . . . That room. That woman. Talk about taking all the fun out of marriage.’
‘Start as you mean to go on, I suppose,’ says Angel, then she bursts out laughing so hard, so breathlessly, I worry something will happen to her.
And when she still hasn’t stopped a good five minutes later, I’m worried something has.
22.
It’s Thursday, two days after our ‘notice giving’, and my ‘Happy birthday!’ when Angel answers the door to her flat that evening isn’t quite met with the reaction I’d been expecting.
‘You sure about that, are you?’
‘Oh. Have I got the wrong . . . ?’
‘No, it is my birthday. It’s just, you know, “happy”, and turning thirty?’ Angel makes a face as she kisses me hello, hopefully because of the ‘ageing’ thing. ‘Though I suppose I should be glad to turn anything, given, you know . . .’
‘You don’t look so bad.’
‘For a woman with a congenital heart condition?’
‘For a woman of your age!’
Angel purses her lips at me. ‘Thank you. I think.’
‘I got you something.’
She takes the envelope I’ve been hiding behind my back, slits it open with a fingernail and peers inside.
‘A card?’
‘Not just a card.’
‘Huh?’
‘There’s an envelope too.’
‘Be still my beating heart!’
‘I’m not sure that’s something you of all people should say.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Besides, what do you get the woman who has everything?’ I say, pointing at myself.
Angel gives me a look, and it’s full of irony, though that’s perhaps not aimed at me – as we both know, the one gift she really needs, she doesn’t seem to want.
And even though I might not agree with that choice, I’m just going to have to accept it.
I offered to take her out to a restaurant of her choosing this evening to celebrate à deux, but it turns out (as she oh-so-casually informed me via text earlier, as if she were scheduling something as innocent as a coffee) we’re going to her parents’ for dinner. And while that should be something to celebrate too, given how last time I met her mum, Angel practically disowned me, her ‘I suppose we’d better tell them we’re getting married’ has kind of cast the evening in a different light.
‘Have you thought this through?’ I say, staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror on Angel’s wardrobe door, making a last, nervous check that I haven’t got spinach in my teeth and that my flies are done up.
Angel walks over and undoes the top button on my shirt. ‘Thinking things through where my parents are concerned is normally a waste of brain power.’
‘So you’re just going to rock up, and say, “Hi, remember Noah, the guy I told you was just a friend? The one I joked with you that I was going to marry? Well, we are getting married.”’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Shouldn’t we maybe make some sort of phased announcement? Maybe start tonight with the “boyfriend” bit, do that a couple of times and then drop the bombshell?’
‘Noah, in case you’ve forgotten, we’re getting married in a month. Even if we took your “phased” approach, there’s no disguising that this is still going to be pretty quick. It’s pointless dragging it out.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Relax. My mum will be thrilled at the news.’
‘And your dad?’
‘He’ll be beside himself,’ says Angel, as I follow her out through the door.
Though it’s only when I’m pulling into Angel’s parents’ driveway that I realise that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Angel’s parents live in a big house on Queens Road. No, scratch that, the biggest house on Queens Road. And while most of the houses on Queens Road would probably fit the term ‘mansion’ more than simply ‘house’, her family home has a touch of Castle Dracula about it, given the gothic-style turrets and gargoyles staring menacingly down at us, which I hope aren’t an omen for the evening.
And while Angel’s a bit quiet on the drive here, I put that down to the fact that she’s probably embarrassed about making me put the roof up when we last drove this way. Given what she’s told me about her parents, I can understand her not wanting to be spotted with me back then. Although, now, things are somewhat different.
I steer the MG along the gravel driveway, squeeze it carefully in between the his-and-hers Range Rovers that make my car look like a toddler out with its parents, and climb apprehensively out. Up close, I can’t help but marvel at the sheer size of the building: it’s got three normal storeys, with what look like a couple of the type of bedrooms where your mad aunt would live in the pointy bits under the eaves, and one of those cellar/basement things that’s exactly halfway under street level, though we have to climb up a set of stone steps to get to the rather imposing front door, so I’m not sure which one actually counts as the ground floor.
‘Millions,’ says Angel, in answer to the question that must be written across my face, as if she’s admitting having a sixth toe, or a third nipple.
‘Christ! What does your dad do?’
‘Marry well, obviously – he does something high-powered in the City that I still don’t understand, but this is all thanks to my mum’s family. Some ancestor back in the day invented . . .’ She mentions the name of an ointment that’s about as household a name as you can get whenever you have a certain embarrassing affliction down there. ‘Sold it to Johnson and Johnson. Made an absolute pile. From, you know . . .’
‘Piles?’
Angel grins. ‘Exactly.’
‘But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘If your family’s this rich, why do you live somewhere so . . .’
‘Shit?’
‘I was going to say small. But now you come to mention it . . .’
Angel digs me in the ribs. ‘I work for a charity, remember? They’re not the greatest of payers. And flats in Richmond aren’t cheap.’
‘Couldn’t your mum and dad help?’
‘They thought they were helping by having me live here so they could keep an eye on me, and no thank you to that. Plus, what’s the point in getting used to this? I probably won’t be around to inherit anything,’ she adds, in a tone that makes me want to change the subject.
‘Okay. Well . . . shall we?’
‘Right. Now remember, it’s Julia and Lawrence.’
‘Julia and Lawrence. Right. With Julia being your mum, obviously?’
Angel leans over and pokes me in the stomach, then grabs me by the shoulders and looks at me earnestly. ‘And good luck!’
‘Why will I need—’
‘Just ring the bell, will you? Quicker we’re in . . .’
I do as instructed, then press it again when I don’t hear it ring, then try a third time, suspecting it’s broken, before I suddenly realise the reason I can’t hear anything is simply because the house is so big, and in effect I’ve been ringing it repeatedly. After a few moments, a frantic barking comes from the other side of the door.
‘Your parents have a dog?’ I say, picturing a Dobermann, or some similar sharp-toothed attack hound about to leap out at me.
‘Relax. That’s just Rocket. His bark’s a lot worse than his bite.’
‘I sincerely hope . . . Hang on. What did you say his name was?’
‘Rocket.’
I freeze, hoping against hope there are two dogs named Rocket in Richmond – either that, or Angel’s dad loans him out to someone else for parkruns, but it’s too late to do anything anyway (i.e. turn around and sprint for the car) as, following the sound of a rather sturdy lock being unfastened, Angel’s mum – rather than the butler I’d almost been expecting – grinning from ear to ear, cracks the door open. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but there’s something about her that lights up when she sees Angel. Although it doesn’t occur to me until later that that something is ‘relief’.
‘Hello, darling,’ she says, throwing the door wide open and enveloping Angel in a one-armed hug that seems to squeeze the breath out of her. With her other hand, she’s holding an over-exuberant Rocket by the collar, and when she lets him go he – perhaps not surprisingly – makes a beeline for me.
‘Mum,’ says Angel, smiling sheepishly.
‘Happy birthday! And Noah,’ she says, as Rocket leaps up at me, ‘lovely to see you again.’
‘Mrs . . .’
‘Please. Call me Julia,’ insists Angel’s mum. ‘Seeing as you are Angel’s boyfriend.’
‘She told you?’
‘A mother knows these things.’ Julia winks at me. ‘Come on through.’
With Rocket tailing me excitedly, Julia leads us through the house, down some stairs and back on ourselves, and it’s so far that ‘coming on through’ takes a good thirty seconds until we eventually reach the semi-underground level. It’s three times as big as Angel’s whole flat, with one of those space-age kitchens that are all gadgets you’d need a degree in astrophysics to work and surfaces made from materials that sound like ancient Greek gods, supplied by companies whose names make you sound drunk when you try to pronounce them. At the far end, in front of a glass wall looking out over a garden that’s probably half the size of Richmond Park, there’s a dining area with the kind of table that would normally seat about twenty people. One end of it is currently set for four, though Angel’s dad seems to be occupying around three of those places, and as we walk into the room, he hauls himself up out of his chair, blocking out most of the view of the garden. He’s even more imposing than when he’s in his running gear, dressed in that off-duty wealthy City uniform of chinos and a pink shirt, with a jumper draped around his shoulders in that way they must teach you at private school, and it takes all my effort not to turn around and run for the stairs. Though given our relative parkrun times, he’d probably catch me before I reached the door.
I brace myself for what I already know is going to be one of the firmest handshakes of my life, but even that can’t prevent me from feeling I’m not going to be able to pick up my fork later with my broken fingers.
