What We Hide (25 page)

What I wished was to be rid of Simon Muldoon. Facedown on a bed of steaming rubbish would be my first choice, but seeing him married and moved into a council flat in Leeds was still worth celebrating.

Not as best man. No possible way of me fitting that bill. I’d be what they call an usher. Best man would be Felix. Ha. Joke’s on Simon. Felix up from London where
he worked in a nightclub hanging lights, making different colours flash onto a dance floor. Sounded dead exotic to us stuck carting boxes from one end of town to the other.

I wondered how would it be seeing Felix, now that I had Luke.

The church was out of the question, but Lanny’s mum saved face, having them married at the parish hall and then a party at the Red Lion. Barmy, you ask me, seeing as Lanny might last two years before she came boohooing home. Two years? Two months would be a bleeding miracle worth calling the pope about. I was given a monkey suit with a waistcoat the colour of grape jelly, matching the bridesmaids’ gowns. Everything rented and paid for with the sweat off Simon’s arse from his night job pulling pints at the Red Lion.

All because of a shag.

Course, I’d had me lights clocked thanks to same, so the Muldoon brothers weren’t too clever that way. They’d got me in the dark and from behind. First a grab around the neck, then a kick in the nuts so I was crippled with pain. They tied a knit cap over my head and zipped their lips except for grunts. If Simon had been there, I’d’ve known. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t his idea. I’d bet ten quid one of them was Alec, him being frantic ugly on the topic of queers.

I told Luke I wished he could come to the wedding.

“Not bloody likely,” he said.

“If you were a girl, it’d be all right.”

“I’d like to see you dressed up as James Bond.” He slid a hand under my shirt. “Tuxedo with lavender bits.”

“Seems daft to bash me up for being queer and then prance about like poofters wearing something called a
cummerbund
on their wedding day, eh?”

“Your brother?” Luke caught my slip.

“His sort,” I said.

My aunt Pat, being chums with Lanny’s mum, had been baking sausage rolls by the dozen and organizing girls to serve at the supper in the pub.

“She was ticked when I told her the list,” said Aunt Pat. “Brenda’s coming, you know the one?”

“Kath’s sister,” I said.

“Ever such a good girl, she’ll be a big help.” She opened the oven door and slid in the next baking sheet. “But the high-and-mighty mother of the bride is taking exception to the … 
prior connection
.”

“She’d better get used to Simon’s prior connections,” I said. “Every girl in the village …”

“Too bloody true.” Aunt Pat’s splodgy fingers shaped raw pastry around little sausages. “Lanny will be wishing she’d run the other way before that baby’s born, you mark my words.”

No argument.

“If your mum hadn’t passed on, may she rest in peace, your brother might’ve had a softer side.” Aunt Pat scraped the last shreds of pastry from the bowl. No sausage left,
so she made a lonely little tart shell, sprinkled with brown sugar, dotted with butter. “As for
you
 …”

“What about me?”

“A little
too
soft, from what I’ve heard.” She wagged her head back and forth, weary with the weight of her nephews, giving my long sleeves a particular look that made the scabbing cuts itch.

“That’s crap,” I said.

I’m the opposite of soft. You have to be, if you’re the sort people hate.

Inside the parish hall Saturday noon, it was nippy as Norway. People kept their coats on, jiggled their feet. Lanny, being a bit dim, had me as one usher and Alec as the other. Alec looked even more of a prat than I did, gussied up. He kept scowling till I finally winked, making him yank sharp on Dickie’s mum’s arm, and her with a cane. Didn’t look my way again. When everyone was settled on the folding chairs and the creaking had subsided, I sat next to my dad in the front row. What did he think, really, about his shiny new daughter? And what about Mum? Would she have been dolled up, looking grand and proud, a bit of lipstick? Or with a pout on, having a shadowed heart? Would wedding bells even be chiming if she were here? Like Aunt Pat said, there’d likely be a different sort of Simon.

I had a flash of Mum, working the jumble sale in this very hall. She never bothered with the pies or the potted plants, too many ladies making it a contest whose plum tart was juicier or whose geranium boasted the most blossoms. Mum liked to be at one of the junk tables.

“Here, Robber,” she’d say. “See if you can find a lucky penny in one of these.” I’d spend an age sliding my fingers into every wee pocket inside the ladies’ handbags, chuffed to come up with the odd pence or two, along with bus tickets or buttons or safety pins. Then we’d move on to the books, looking for pressed leaves or scribbled notes. Once I found a hanky with a shiver of fancy scent. Might’ve belonged to a duchess, my mother said, the book being poems. And then, the best time, a ten-pound note, smooth as the day it was printed.

“Always worth looking.” Mum combed her fingers through my hair, untangling the knots. “You never know what’s inside.”

Only we gave the money to the jumble, so the thrill didn’t last long.

The service was short, because what could they say beyond,
We gather here today to sanctify the shag that can only lead to misery
…? Not those words, but everyone was thinking it. Simon mumbled his
I do
. Lanny said hers and started to giggle till they got to the snogging part, which was over so quick the audience hissed, so we had to watch it again.

Outside after, Simon’s mates had plenty to offer in the way of bedroom advice. Lanny just smiled, teetering a bit on her wedge-heel shoes. Had they ever
used
a bedroom? A sofa was likely the most plush they’d ever encountered. Simon caught sight of me, loitering like an idiot beyond the cluster of gooning yobs. If I’d been hoping for a big brotherly handshake, all crimes forgotten, I’d’ve been drenched in disappointment.

“You can piss off now,” he said. “Done your duty. Sat a few twats in chairs. Big help. Ta.”

“Simon!” Lanny linked her arm through mine. “Robbie’s coming to the party, aren’t you, sweetie? I want you to meet my cousin Elaine.”

Harry the bartender had strung up Christmas lights at the Red Lion, early but cheery. The music was cranked on high, the Beatles playing “Two of Us.” Very bleeding romantic.

Aunt Pat bustled back and forth, laying out plates of cut-up cheese, rows of biscuits, tray after tray of sausage rolls, baskets of crisps, bowls of nuts. Brenda was slicing pork pies, another girl stuck plastic forks in mugs and stacked serviettes.

Harry was laughing it up, everybody’s friend for a change. Not often he had forty extra customers dead keen on getting blind drunk enough to forget it ever happened.

“No, lad!” He nudged Simon out from behind the bar. “It’s your wedding day, nod nod, wink wink. You’re not to be pulling pints. You’re to be drinking them!”

“You won’t send me home with a lousy drunk on my wedding night, will you?” Lanny was flushed and pretty, tits big and round. Simon always said she’d got the best ones. Tits get bigger when a girl is knocked up, right? Simon’d be in heaven till the rest of her caught up.

I stood next to me dad while he nattered on with Mr. Darrow, a nosy old codger, the two of them slurring a bit already.

“Simon’s second, eh?” Mr. Darrow had a voice like fingers
scraping a screen door. “Or is there a third and a fourth Muldoon brat out there that none of us knows about?”

“No need to be sarky,” said Dad. “As if your Sharon didn’t stop off at the church on her way to the maternity ward.”

Mr. Darrow showed us a few grey teeth. “And her mother before her, truth be told. I’d’ve never … if she hadn’t been …”

“And that’s a fact,” said Dad.

“You were the lucky one,” Mr. Darrow told Dad. “Your Aileen was a prize.”

“Lucky for how long?” Dad rubbed his eyebrows. “Barely ten years.”

“Well, your pup Simon didn’t get stuck his first time, did he? With that lass who works at Bigelow’s and her young ’un.”

“There is a God after all,” said Dad. “But the little boy is bright as a button and twice as clever, I’ll say that. A scrap of sunshine in a dark room.”

“That’s a grandpa talking!” Mr. Darrow shuffled off to find his wife.

Surprised as hell, I asked Dad. “Have you seen him?”

“Seen who?”

“Little Jerry. That Kath has. Didn’t know you’d ever met him.”

Dad glanced around like a thief checking for coppers. “You won’t say to Simon?”

I shook my head, not a bleeding chance.

“I pop by some Sundays,” he said. “Take the boys in the road to kick the ball while Kath has her tea. She’s a snapping
turtle, that one. But Jerry …” He got quite a foolish look on his old face. “He’s a corker.” Nice for him, I thought. There wouldn’t be grandkids from any time
I
spent in the sack.

“Mum’s the word, eh?”

“Secret’s safe with me.”

Second Dad shock of the day, he said, “You’ve got a hairy handful of secrets, haven’t you?” He laid a palm on my sleeve, patting ever so gently. “Does it hurt, lad?”

He’d never said a word about what happened, not one. Not while he rolled cigarettes beside my hospital bed, or when he fetched me home, or anytime since. He picked a crowded pub on his son’s wedding day?

“Not anymore.” My scabs were instantly itchy, but scratching would mean blood. No way would I cough up extra cash for the rental shirt.

Dad waggled his empty glass at me and toddled to the bar for another drink.

“Here you are!” Lanny pounced. “This is
Elaine
! My cousin from Scunthorpe, I was telling you about?”

Elaine from Scunthorpe was a bridesmaid, livid purple from titline down. She was endowed as roundly as Lanny, honey-coloured ringlets fixed on the side of her head with a violet paper blossom as big as a turnip.

“Hallo,” I said.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Lanny gushed to her cousin. “Even dishier than Simon! Go on, get cozy! See you later!”

I was stuck. Elaine was a grinner. I’d’ve sidled off, only I spotted Banger and Alec watching me over their pints.

“Well, darlin’,” I said. “Think you’ve got a dance in you?”

My timing was terrible. The Beatles had just started “The Long and Winding Road,” an eternal three minutes and thirty-eight seconds with my arms around Elaine from Scunthorpe, my nose itching in her sticky curls, my hips bumping close enough to hers to seem randy and keen.

The song finally ended. “That was … lovely.” She sighed. Her eyes slid over to catch Lanny’s, the bride perched on her husband’s knee. The cousins would be off to the loo, if I played it right, girls always needing to discuss events as they unfold.

“Nice locket.” I tapped the crap charm that rested on the doughy swell of her tits, running my fingers up her neck for the benefit of Banger, who had such an ugly mug he probably bonked his bulldog.

“Eeep!”
squealed Elaine.

“Fancy a bite?” I tipped my head at the food table.

“I’m on a diet,” she said.

Was I meant to say
You look fine to me?

“Robbie, may I borrow Elaine for a mo?” Lanny, about ruddy time. “Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.”

I’d’ve nipped out and gone home, only a hand cupped my bum just long enough to show it meant to be there.

“Buy you a pint?” said Felix. He didn’t need to be standing so close. “If you’re done with the lady-killing portion of the afternoon?”

I laughed. Felix had always been a star at noticing. We stepped into an alcove by the coat stand, letting the girls go right past when they came out of the ladies’. They’d found
another purple girl, so Elaine was occupied for a minute or two.

“What the hell, eh?” Felix meant Simon and Lanny.

The Beatles were strumming “Let It Be,” the speaker right over my head. Lanny got Simon up to sway with her where tables were pushed aside. We leaned against the wall, watching. Lanny stopped dancing to tug at the crown-thing in her fancy updo. Simon tipped a paper cup to his mouth, while his new mother-in-law helped the bride.

“Ow!”
Lanny pulled away. “Leave off!” But her mum unhooked the little tiara, along with only a few strands of Lanny’s hair. Simon drained the cup and smashed it flat between his palms.

“You couldn’t pay me enough,” I said. “You couldn’t buy me a van or a house or a holiday in …” I tried to think of the craziest destination. “In Morocco.”

Felix grinned. “Me neither.”

He was so close I could smell him. I nearly teared up, thinking how I had Luke because of him. This was
Felix
. If anyone knew me, he did. Better than Luke, even, because how could Luke ever suss what my house was like, what an arse of a brother I’d had me whole life?

“Was it Simon?” I said. “Was it him, told them to do it?”

Felix put his empty pint glass on a table. “Smoke?”

“No, ta. I’ve stopped for a bit.”

He lit one for himself. “Step outside?”

Yeah, better outside, despite the chill.

“What I heard …,” he began.

“Yeah, what did you hear?” I rolled my shoulders.

“What I heard,” said Felix, “is that no one knew about you.”

“No one did? I’m baffled.”

“Until,” said Felix.

He took a pull and spoke as smoke streamed out. “Until a girl from that school told Alec, and Alec asked your brother was it on to show you what’s what.”

“A girl?”

“Some bird out to get you?”

Only one bird at Ill Hall who even knew me, apart from Brenda. I pictured Penelope with her hand on Alec’s zipper, calling me queer last time I’d said no.

I wished I’d taken a smoke.

“You’ve got someone, haven’t you?” said Felix. “A boyfriend.”

“Yes.”

He dropped his fag and crushed it under his heel. “In London,” he said, “it’s like a different bleeding planet. No questions asked. Just be who you are.”

I checked his face. Was he joking?

“You’ll get there,” he said. “Or somewhere else that’s not here.”