David Nicholls - One Day

But glasses were being tapped with knives. The speeches. As tradition demanded, the Father of the Bride was drunk and boorish, the Best Man was drunk and unfunny and also forgot to mention the Bride. With each glass of red wine Emma felt the energy leeching out of her, and she began to contemplate her hotel room up at the main house, the clean white dressing-gown, the reproduction four-poster. There’d be one of those walk-through showers that people go crazy for, and far too many towels for a single person. As if to make her mind up, the band were tuning up now, the bassist playing the riff from ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, and Emma decided that it was time to call it a day, take her slice of wedding cake in the special velvet drawstring bag, head up to her room and sleep the wedding off.

‘Excuse me, but don’t I know you from somewhere?’

A hand on her arm, a voice behind her. Dexter was crouching by her side, grinning woozily, a bottle of champagne in his hand.

Emma held out her glass.

‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

With a squeal of feedback, the band began to play and all attention turned to the dance floor, where Malcolm and Tilly were frugging to their special song, ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’, twisting rheumatically at the hips, four thumbs held aloft.

‘Good God. When did we all start dancing like old people?’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Dexter, perching on a chair.

‘Can you dance?’

‘You don’t remember?’

Emma shook her head. ‘I don’t mean on a podium with a whistle and your shirt off, I mean proper dancing.’

‘Course I can.’ He took her hand. ‘Want me to prove it?’

‘Maybe later.’ They were having to shout now. Dexter stood and tugged on her hand. ‘Let’s go somewhere. Just you and me.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. Apparently, there’s a maze.’

‘A maze ?’ A moment, then she stood. ‘Well why didn’t you say?’

They took two glasses and discreetly stepped out of the marquee and into the night. It was still warm, and bats were swooping overhead in the inky summer air as they walked arm in arm through the rose garden towards the maze.

‘So how does it feel?’ she asked. ‘Losing an old flame to the arms of another man.’

‘Tilly Killick’s not an old flame.’

‘Oh, Dexter. .’ Emma shook her head slowly. ‘When will you learn?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Must have been, let me see. . December 1992, that flat in Clapton. The one that smelt of fried onions.’

Dexter winced. ‘How do you know about these things?’

‘Well when I left to go to Woolworths you were massaging each other’s feet with my best olive oil and when I got back from Woolworths she was crying and there were olive oil footprints all over my best rug and the sofa and on the kitchen table and half way up the wall too, I remember. So I carefully examined the forensic evidence and came to that conclusion. Oh, also, you left your birth control device at the top of the kitchen bin, so that was nice.’

‘Did I? Sorry about that.’

‘Plus the fact that she told me.’

‘Did she?’ He shook his head, betrayed. ‘That was meant to be our secret!’

‘Women talk about these things you know. It’s no use swearing them to secrecy, it all comes out in the end.’

‘I’ll remember that in future.’

Now they had arrived at the entrance to the maze, a neatly trimmed privet hedge affair, a good ten feet high, its entrance marked by a heavy wooden door. Emma paused, her hand on the iron handle. ‘Is this a good idea?’

‘How hard can it be?’

‘And if we got lost?’

‘We’ll use the stars or something.’ The door creaked open. ‘Right or left?’

‘Right,’ said Emma, and they stepped into the maze. The high hedges were lit at ground level with different coloured lights, and the air had that summer smell, thick and heady, almost oily from the warm leaves. ‘Where’s Sylvie?’

‘Sylvie’s okay, she’s being Callumed. He’s being the life and soul, the charming Oirish millionaire. I thought I’d leave them to it. I can’t compete with him anymore. Too tiring.’

‘He’s doing very well, you know.’

‘So everyone tells me.’

‘Crayfish, apparently.’

‘I know. He just offered me a job.’

‘Crayfish wrangler?’

‘Don’t know yet. He wants to talk to me about “opportunities”. Business is people he said, whatever that means.’

‘But what about Sport Xtreme ?

‘Ah,’ Dexter laughed and rubbed his hair with one hand. ‘You’ve seen it then?’

‘Never missed an episode. You know me, there’s nothing I like more in the early hours of the morning than stuff about BMX. My favourite bit is when you say that things are “rad”—’

‘They make me say that stuff.’

‘“Rad” and “sweet”. “Check out these sweet, old skool moves—”’

‘I think I get away with it.’

‘Not always, pal. Left or right?’

‘Left, I think.’ They walked a little way in silence, listening to the muffled thump of the band playing ‘Superstition’. ‘How’s the writing going?’

‘Oh, it’s okay, when I do it. Most of the time I just sit around eating biscuits.’

‘Stephanie Shaw says they gave you an advance.’

‘Just a bit of money, enough to last ’til Christmas. Then we’ll see. Back to teaching full-time probably.’

‘And what’s it about? This book.’

‘Not sure yet.’

‘It’s about me, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Dexter, it’s a whole thick book entirely about you . It’s called “Dexter Dexter Dexter Dexter Dexter”. Right or left?’

‘Let’s try a left.’

‘Actually it’s just a book for kids. Teenagers. Boys, relationships, that kind of thing. It’s about a school play, that production of Oliver! I did all those years ago. A comedy.’

‘Well you look very well on it.’

‘Do I?’

‘Absolutely. Some people look better, some people look worse. You are definitely looking better.’

‘Miffy Buchanan tells me I’ve finally lost my puppy-fat.’

‘She’s just jealous. You look great.’

‘Thank you. Want me to say you look better too?’

‘If you think you can pull it off.’

‘Well you do. Left?’

‘Left.’

‘Better than during your rock and roll years anyway. When you were giving-it-large or whatever it was you were doing.’ They walked a little way in silence, until Emma spoke again. ‘I was worried about you.’

‘Were you?’

‘We all were.’

‘Just a phase. Everybody’s got to have a phase like that, haven’t they? Go a bit wild.’

‘Do they? I haven’t. Hey, I hope you’ve stopped wearing that annoying flat cap too.’

‘I haven’t worn a hat for years.’

‘Pleased to hear it. We were thinking about staging an intervention.’

‘You know how it is, you start with the soft hats, just for kicks, then before you know it, you’re into flat caps, trilbies, bowlers. .’

Another junction. ‘Right or left?’ she said.

‘No idea.’

They peered in either direction. ‘Amazing, isn’t it, how quickly this stopped being fun.’

‘Let’s sit down shall we? Over there.’

A small marble bench had been set into the hedge walls, lit from beneath by a blue fluorescent light, and they sat on the cool stone, filled their glasses, tapped them together and bumped shoulders.

‘God, I almost forgot. .’ Dexter reached into his trouser pocket, and very carefully removed a folded napkin, held it in his palm like a conjurer and unfolded it, a corner at a time. Nestling in the napkin like birds’ eggs, were two crumpled cigarettes.