Mark Haddon - A Spot Of Bother

She’d worried about asking Ray. Would he believe her? Would he want to take the risk of her getting cold feet a second time?

Then she thought, Fuck it. What else were you supposed to do when you loved someone and wanted to marry them? And if the invitations had already been sent, well, it seemed wise to pop the question pretty quickly.

So she girded her loins and asked. On bended knee. So she could make it funny if it all went horribly wrong.

He lit up. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

She was so surprised she found herself trying to make him change his mind. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Hey.” He took hold of her shoulders.

“What?”

“I said yes. I said I wanted to marry you.”

“I know, but-”

“You know what?” asked Ray.

“What?”

“You’re back again.”

“Meaning?”

“The old you,” he said.

“So you really do want to get married? In a fortnight?”

“Only if you promise not to ask me again.”

“I promise.”

They stared at each other for five seconds or so, letting it sink in. Then they jumped up and down like children.

She expected Mum to be angry. Given the hassle. But she seemed oddly resigned. Apparently, she hadn’t even got around to telling the guests it was off. Maybe she suspected this was going to happen all along.

Katie said they’d arrange everything. All she needed were the phone numbers. There was nothing Mum had to do. “And Ray and I are going to pay. After all we’ve put you through it seems only fair.”

“Well, if you insist,” said Mum. “Though I’m not sure how your father is going to feel about it.”

“Richer,” said Katie, but Mum didn’t laugh. “How is Dad, incidentally?”

“He seems fine.” She didn’t seem very happy about this.

“Good,” said Katie. Perhaps Mum was just having a bad day. “That’s really good news.”

The florists were downright rude. They could still squeeze the job in but it would cost more. Katie said she’d get flowers from someone nicer and put the phone down, full of an uplifting righteous indignation she hadn’t felt for a long time, and thought, Bugger flowers . Ray suggested they pick up a bouquet on the morning of the wedding and this struck them both as very funny.

The caterers were more understanding. Indeed they seemed to think she’d just come out of hospital, which involved some rapid footwork on Katie’s part, and when she mumbled something about tests coming back negative there was actual cheering from the other end of the line. “We’d be honored to provide the food.”

The cake people weren’t even aware that the wedding was off and clearly thought Katie was insane.

When George gave Jeanthe flowers she cried. It was not the reaction he was expecting. And she was not crying because the flowers were especially beautiful, that much seemed obvious (he had been forced to buy them from the little supermarket near the bus stop and even he could tell that they were not superior flowers).

She was, perhaps, still upset about his misadventure in the bath. Or about the carpet (the fitters were not coming till the following week). Or about the row she had had with Katie and Jamie. Or about the wedding being off. Or about the wedding being on again. Or about the fact that Katie and Ray were now organizing it themselves so that she no longer had a controlling stake in the event. The possibilities were numerous. And, in his experience, women could get upset about things that never even occurred to most men.

He decided not to pry.

His own feelings about the wedding were ones of weary acceptance. He would wait to see what happened and deal with it when it did. If Katie and Ray made a hash of things they were, at least, paying for it.

The idea of giving a speech was less worrisome than it had been. He was feeling stronger now and the problem did not seem as insurmountable as it had done previously.

If only he’d known that her marriage to Graham wasn’t going to last, he would have kept a copy of the speech he used first time around.

He could do a little potted biography, perhaps. Illustrate how the small tearaway of thirty years ago had turned into…into what? “An accomplished young woman”? “An accomplished young woman and a wonderful mother”? “The woman you see before you”? None of the phrases sounded quite right.

“The best daughter in the world”? That was perhaps overstating the case a little.

“Into my very favorite daughter.” That was it. Lightly humorous. Complimentary without being sentimental.

Maybe he should run it past Jean. To be honest, tone was never his forte. Striking a serious note. Striking an ironic note. Which is why he had always ducked out of making speeches at leaving do’s and Christmas parties. There were always smoother men than him eager to step into the breach.

He would leave out the first marriage and some of the more serious teenage misdemeanors. No one was going to be amused by Katie spilling coffee into a bar fire and causing an explosion that took wallpaper off. Or were they? These things were so hard to judge.

He would tell them about her plans to be a racing driver, and the morning she borrowed his car keys, loosened the hand brake of the Vauxhall Chevette and rolled into the garage door, very nearly chopping Jamie in half.

The one thing he wasn’t going to do was to write the thing till a couple of days before the event. He did not want to tempt fate, and his daughter was entirely capable of canceling the wedding a second time.

Another subject he ought to avoid.

He rang the restaurant in Oundle and booked a table. Jean was still under the weather and stronger medicine than flowers was clearly called for. And the reports were correct. The fish was very good indeed. George had sea bream with spinach and pine kernels and one of those nouvelle cuisine puddles of sauce. Jean had the trout.

There was a little black cloud over her head during the main course. So when dessert came he threw caution to the wind and asked what the matter was.

She took a very long time indeed to answer. Which George could understand. He had suffered from a few mental wobbles recently which were not easily put into words.

Finally, Jean spoke. “In the hospital.”

“Yes?”

“I said something to Katie.”

“Yes?” George relaxed a little. It was mother-daughter stuff. High temperature, short duration.

“I was rather stupid.”

“I’m sure you weren’t.”

“I told her I was relieved,” said Jean. “That the wedding was off.”

“OK.”

“I said we’d had our doubts about Ray from the beginning.”

“Which, of course, we had.”

“She told Ray. I’m absolutely sure of it. I could see it in his eyes.”

George chewed this over for a minute or two. When men had problems they wanted someone to give them an answer, but when women had problems they wanted you to say that you understood. It was something David had told him at Shepherds, the summer when Pam’s son joined that cult.

He said, “You’re worried that Ray hates you.”

“Hates us, actually.” Jean’s mood lifted visibly.

“Well, I suspect he’s always known that we don’t see eye to eye with him.”

“That’s not quite the same as having it spelled out.”

“You’re quite right. And now that I come to think about it, his behavior was a little strange when he came to pick me up at the hospital.”

“In what way?” Jean looked nervous again.

“Well…” George scanned his memory of the meeting rapidly to make sure it contained nothing that might upset Jean. “He said everything was a bloody mess back at the house.”