David Mitchell - The Bone Clocks

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I STEP ASIDE for a stream of flouncy-frocked girls who run giggling down the aisle of All Saints’ Church in Hove, Brighton’s genteel twin. “Half the florists in Brighton’ll be jetting off to the Seychelles on the back of this,” remarks Brendan. “Kew bloody Gardens, or what?”

“A lot of work’s gone into it, for sure.” I gaze at the barricade of lilies, orchids, and sprays of purples and pinks.

“A lot of dosh has gone into it, our Ed. I asked Dad how much all this set him back, but he says it’s all …” he nods across the aisle to the Webbers’ side of the church and mouths taken care of . Brendan checks his phone. “He can wait. Speaking of dosh, I meant to ask before you fly back to your war zone about your intentions regarding the elder of my sisters.”

Did I hear that right? “You what?”

Brendan grins. “Don’t worry, it’s a bit late to make an honorable woman out of our Hol now. Property, I’m talking. Her pad up in Stoke Newington’s cozy, like a cupboard under the stairs is cozy. You’ll have your sights set a bit higher up the property ladder, I trust?”

As of right now, Holly’s sights are set on kicking me out on my arse. “Eventually, yes.”

“Then see me first. London property’s dog-eat-dog right now, and two nasty words of the near future are ‘negative’ and ‘equity.’ ”

“Will do, Brendan,” I tell him. “I appreciate it.”

“It’s an order, not a favor.” Brendan winks, annoyingly. We shuffle along to a table where Pete-the-groom’s mother, Pauline Webber, gold and coiffured like Margaret Thatcher, is handing out carnations for the men’s buttonholes. “Brendan! Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after last night’s ‘entertainments,’ are we?”

“Nothing a pint of espresso and a blood transfusion couldn’t fix,” says Brendan. “Pete’s not the worse for wear, I hope?”

Pauline Webber’s smile is a nose-wrinkle. “I gather there was an afterparty party in a ‘club.’ ”

“I heard rumors of that, yes. Some of Sharon’s and my Corkonian cousins were introducing Pete to the subtleties of Irish whisky. That’s a work of art you’re wearing, Mrs. Webber.”

To me Pauline Webber’s hat looks like a crash-landed crow with turquoise blood, but she accepts the tribute. “I swear by a hatter in Bath. He’s won awards. And call me Pauline, Brendan — you sound like a tax inspector with bad news. Now, a buttonhole — white for the bride’s side, red for the groom’s.”

“Very War of the Roses,” I offer.

“No, no,” she frowns at me, “these are carnations. Roses would be too thorny. And you’d be?”

“This is Ed,” says Ruth. “Ed Brubeck. Holly’s partner.”

“Oh, the intrepid reporter! De light ed. Pauline Webber.” Her handshake is gloved and crushing. “I’ve heard so much about you from Sharon and Peter. Let me introduce you to Austin, who—” She turns to her missing husband. “Well, Austin’s dying to meet you too. We’re glad you got here in time. Delayed flights and bovva?”

“Yes. Iraq’s not the easiest of places to depart from.”

“No doubt. Sharon was saying you’ve been in that place, Fa — Faloofah? Falafel? Where they strung up the people on the bridge.”

“Fallujah.”

“Knew it began with ‘Fa.’ Appalling. Why are we meddling in these places?” She makes a face like she’s smelling possibly gone-off ham. “Beyond the ken of us mere mortals. Anyway.” She hands me a white carnation. “I met Holly and your daughter, yesterday — Aoife, isn’t it? I could eat her with a spoon! What — a— sweet ie.”

I think of the sulky goblin on the pier. “She has her moments.”

“Pippa! Felix! There’s a live baby in that pushchair!” Mrs. Webber dashes off and we proceed up the aisle. Brendan has a lot of hello-ing, handshaking, and cheek-kissing to do — there’s a big contingent of Holly’s Irish relatives in attendance, including the legendary Great-aunt Eilísh, who cycled from Cork to Kathmandu in the late 1960s. I drift up to the front. By the vestry door, I spot Holly in a white dress, laughing at a red-carnation young male’s joke. Once upon a time I could make her laugh like that. The guy’s admiring her, and I want to snap his neck, but how can I blame him? She looks stunning. I stroll up. My new shirt is rubbing my neck, and my old suit is pinching the temporary bulge around my middle, which I’ll dispose of soon with a rigid regime of diet and exercise. “Hi,” I say. Holly basically ignores me.

“Hi,” says the guy. “I’m Duncan. Duncan Priest. My aunt’s buttonholed you onto Sharon’s side, I see.”

I shake his hand. “So you’re, um, Pauline’s nephew?”

“Yep. Peter’s cousin. Have you met Holly, here?”

“We bump into each other at weddings and funerals,” Holly says, deadpan. “These irksome family events that get in the way of one’s meteoric career.”

“I’m Aoife’s father,” I tell Duncan Priest, who’s looking baffled.

“ The Ed? Ed Brubeck? Your”—he points to Holly—“other half? Such a pity you missed Pete’s stag do last night, though.”

“I’ll learn to cope with the disappointment.”

Duncan Priest senses my pissed-offness and makes an o- kay face. “Rightio. Well, I’ll go and check up on, um, stuff.”

“You have to forgive Ed, Duncan,” says Holly. “His life is so full of adventure and purpose that he’s allowed to be rude to the rest of us lemmings, wage slaves, and sad office clones. By rights we ought to be grateful when he even notices we exist.”

Duncan Priest smiles at her, like a fellow adult in the presence of a misbehaving child. “Well, nice meeting you, Holly. Enjoy the wedding, maybe see you at the banquet.” Off he walks. Tosser.

I refuse to listen to the onboard traitor who says I’m the one being the tosser. “Well, that was nice,” I tell Holly. “Loyal too.”

“I can’t hear you, Brubeck,” she says witheringly. “You’re not here. You’re in Baghdad.”

FLANKED BY THE Stars and Stripes and the widely reviled new Iraqi flag, Brigadier General Mike Klimt gripped his lectern and addressed a press room as full and wired as I’d seen it since Envoy L. Paul Bremer III announced Saddam Hussein’s capture to loud cheers last December. We had hoped that Envoy Bremer would make an appearance today, too, but the de facto Grand Vizier of Iraq has cultivated an imperial distance between himself and a media that daily grows ever more critical and ever less “post–9/11.” Klimt referred to his notes: “The barbarity we saw in Fallujah on March 31 runs counter to any civilized norms in peacetime or wartime. Our forces will not rest until the perpetrators have been brought to justice. Our enemies will come to learn that the Coalition’s resolve is strengthened , not weakened, by their depravity. And why? Because it proves the evildoers are desperate. They now know that Iraq has turned a corner. That the future belongs not to the Kalashnikov but to the ballot box. And this is why President Bush has pledged his ongoing full support to Envoy Bremer and our military commanders for Operation Valiant Resolve. Operation Valiant Resolve will prevent the dead-enders of history from terrorizing the vast majority of peace-loving Iraqis, and move this nation closer to the day when Iraqi mothers can let their children play outside with the same peace of mind as American mothers. Thank you.”

“Clearly,” Big Mac muttered in my ear, “General Klimt’s never been a mother in Detroit.”

Shouts broke out as Klimt agreed to take a few questions. Larry Dole, an Associated Press guy, won the verbal brawl for attention: “General Klimt, are you able to confirm or deny the figures from Fallujah Hospital, claiming that six hundred civilians have been killed in the last week, with over one thousand seriously wounded?”