Alex Preston - The Revelations

When the organ stopped and the local vicar lisped his welcome, Marcus began to panic. There was a pigeon trapped in the roof of the church. It made circles of the low roof, trying to find a way out; its hysterical wingbeats kept time with Marcus’s heart. Marcus looked at Abby and, behind her, the sisters who seemed like a dreadful premonition of her future. Lee smiled wickedly at him. He saw Abby’s mother glaring with tiny black eyes at her ex-husband and his wife. Marcus’s own mother was already sobbing quietly into a handkerchief, his sister looking over at him with something like pity.

Marcus tried to slow his breathing as he stepped forward to join Abby in front of the altar, but his heart thumped violently in his chest and his palms were coated with cold, sticky sweat. He felt as if he had entirely lost control of his life, as if he had abjured any sense of agency when he joined the Course, and he was now about to marry at the age of twenty-five, to tie himself for life to a girl and a religion he felt that he had stumbled upon by accident. He stammered his way through the service, looking at Abby as if she were a stranger, feeling no sense of the holiness of the occasion, of the joy that he saw in the faces of the Course members looking up at him. When Mouse jokily patted his pockets searching for the ring, Marcus felt the panic rising into his throat. He was convinced that he would pass out, that he would have a heart attack like his father and die, there, in front of his family. The church held none of its usual comfort. He felt terrified and alone standing up in front of people who suddenly seemed very distant; he saw something cold in the clear eyes of the Course members. Then, very quickly, the service was over, and Marcus and Abby walked out into the wide, bright day through a cheering crowd.

Abby took his hand in hers as they sat in the Rolls-Royce outside the church. There was confetti in her hair and her palms were as cold and moist as his own. She looked at him with nervous, hopeful eyes, a smile twitching the corners of her mouth. He reached over and kissed her as the car pulled away and he heard cheering behind them. They sat in silence for the remainder of the journey to the venue. Marcus couldn’t shake the butterflies in his stomach, the feeling that he didn’t have the final say in his own life any more. He cracked his knuckles and wondered when he would be able to smoke.

The venue was a four-star hotel on the outskirts of Derby, twenty minutes’ drive from the church. Marcus looked out of the window of the car as they passed rows of down-at-heel shops, council estates and abandoned factories. His mother had wanted them to get married in Surrey, where there would have been room to hold the reception in the garden. But after a series of negotiations in which he had not been involved, but which had clearly led to some chilliness between their respective mothers, it was decided that the wedding would take place near Abby’s home in Derbyshire.

The driveway that led to the hotel wove between the pristine fairways of a nine-hole golf course. The car stopped to allow four pastel-clad golfers to cross. Their silver hair shimmered in the sunlight and one of them turned to give Marcus a thumbs-up. He smiled wanly back. The hotel was an old manor house built of dark stone that seemed to absorb the day’s bright light. Attached to the main building was a low modern wing that housed the swimming pool and gym. When they had come to visit the venue with Abby’s mother, the hotel manager had insisted on showing them the sports complex, which she assured them was unrivalled in the whole of the East Midlands. The manager was now waiting, hands linked in front of her, outside the entrance to welcome them. A marquee had been attached to the hotel and French doors led out from the dining tables to the dance floor. A gentle breeze ruffled the tent’s white fabric as they stepped from the car.

Later, as the sun sank slowly over the trees that blocked the grey council high-rises of Derby, Mouse and Marcus stood on the putting green smoking. The hours had raced by, aided by gin-and-tonics and the champagne that Marcus’s mother had paid for.

‘I can’t quite believe you’ve done it,’ said Mouse.

‘There were a couple of times when I thought I might not make it. You were an excellent best man. To tell you the truth, today has been one long panic attack for me.’

They stood and watched the sun disappear.

‘Abby looked grand.’

‘Yes, she did. I was proud to be marrying her.’

‘She’s not like her family. You know that, don’t you, sport?’

‘Of course.’

‘You know what it made me think of, standing there with you today?’

‘What?’

‘It reminded me of when we’d go to listen to Abby sing in the choir at university. It occurred to me today how none of her family ever came along. If I had a child who had that kind of talent I’d want to be there for every performance, you know? It’s strange that neither of her parents came to hear her, even for Christmas carols.’

‘Mmm. I don’t think any of them really like her very much. It’s funny, we spent a lot of time in church back then. I mean, given that it was before the Course. I suppose I must have gone at least once a week all the way through university.’

Mouse took a drag on his cigarette and turned to Marcus with serious eyes.

‘I wonder sometimes if those days laid the foundations of our faith. Even though we were drunk or stoned some of the time — most of the time — and even though I never listened to the words really, it did give us an appreciation for that kind of beauty, set in our minds the idea that there was something better, purer, than the life we were leading.’

They stubbed out their cigarettes and made their way into the marquee. Dinner had finished and it was time for the first dance. Toddlers were strewn like obstacles across the dance floor; blitzed on ice cream and wedding cake, they screamed and stamped and roared. ‘Love Cats’ began to play, and Marcus bashfully held out his hand to Abby, who took it and allowed herself to be guided to a clear space of dance floor. Marcus was a bad dancer. It didn’t help that he and Abby were more or less the same height. Neither of them seemed able to decide who would lead. His feet grew independently shy of the rest of his body, curled themselves up bashfully when called upon, tried to hide under the hem of Abby’s dress. She was drunk and threw herself gamely into the dancing, but her enthusiasm merely served to highlight Marcus’s own awkwardness. Finally, as the song jittered towards its end, Marcus felt a hand on his waist and Mouse stepped in to dance with Abby.

Even though Mouse was much smaller than Marcus, he seemed to be able to reach above Abby, to harness her energy and turn the two of them into a swirling image of graceful recklessness. Marcus felt a small shot of jealousy as he watched them. Abby let out howls of delight and continued to dance wildly with Mouse as the next song came in and others stepped onto the dance floor to join them. Lee was slow-dancing with Daffy even though it was an upbeat number. Marcus could see Daffy’s thigh working itself slowly between her legs. Course dads danced with their children, who, having worked off their sugar rushes, now nuzzled sleepy chocolate-stained faces into their fathers’ crisp white collars. David and Sally Nightingale jitterbugged together, eyes locked, revelling in the weight of shared history conferred by the vintage of their perfectly synchronised dancing. Marcus stood holding his glass of champagne until his sister came and dragged him onto the dance floor, her small white face turned up lovingly to his as they danced.

Much later, Mouse and Marcus were again out on the putting green smoking. One of Abby’s cousins was sleeping on the first tee behind them. Mouse had grabbed the last two bottles of champagne as they made their way out of the marquee. He passed one to Lee and Abby, who were in drunken conversation at a table in the corner, and opened the other as they strode across the squares of light thrown from the hotel windows onto the wide lawn. Marcus had found a golf ball in the bushes and dribbled it from one side of the putting green to the other, finally punting the ball as far as he could into the distance, hopping and holding his foot in pain as the white ball flew off into the black night.