It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake

by Claire Christian

  ‘Of course,’ I’d replied. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ he’d said excitedly, and I was intrigued. ‘You’ll have to wear something nice,’ he’d added, kissing my neck lightly.

  I spun around to look at him. ‘How nice?’

  ‘Just something you feel brilliant in.’

  ‘Do you know how much anxiety these instructions will cause me all week?’

  Beau laughed. ‘I knew it as soon as I said it.’

  ‘Just give me a gauge of how nice, like fancy nice, or like lovely nice.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Constrictive underwear.’

  Beau shook his head as though what I was proposing was ridiculous. ‘Yeah, don’t wear that stuff. Just wear something you’ve already got, you’ll look great in anything.’

  ‘Okay,’ I’d said suspiciously, but smirking. What was he up to?

  ‘This is what the fucking brilliant jumpsuit on the back of the bathroom door over there is for, yes?’ Lil asks, tucking a pencil into her ponytail and nodding at my new purchase.

  ‘Yes. What do you think?’

  ‘LUSH,’ she says. ‘Tea?’ I nod, then I head to the kitchen to make it for us.

  I, of course, went and bought something new to wear for the weekend, something that very much fit in the proviso of the pleasure quest. Something nice, very nice, with a touch of sexy. A lilac caped wide-leg jumpsuit with a plunging neckline. Think Solange Knowles’ wedding jumpsuit, but in a pale, springtime purple. I figured that I had only two weeks left with this glorious man, in this glorious part of the world, on this glorious quest, and if everything wasn’t set with glorious pleasure-centred intention then what would be the point.

  I hand Lil her favourite tea in her favourite mug, and she nods in appreciation. ‘Noni, have either of you talked about life beyond you leaving?’

  ‘No more than I’m leaving and he’s staying and that’s where this will end,’ I say, sipping.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it, though?’

  ‘Yes. No. Of course.’ I exhale loudly, shrugging my shoulders. ‘I’m waiting to see if it comes up.’ I want to know what Lil thinks, but I also don’t want to know, in case I don’t like what she has to say. Because more often than not she’s right.

  ‘And he hasn’t brought it up?’ Lil asks.

  ‘Nope. Do you think he will?’

  ‘Do you want him to, is the question you should be asking.’

  Beau thinks we have talked about it. He thinks we’re on the same page, and we are. But I’m starting to wonder whether I’d like there to be more pages. Or at least the possibility of more pages. I don’t know what he thinks will happen once I leave. Will we stay in touch? Will we not talk anymore? Will we be done-done? Do we just get on with our lives and pretend it never happened? Will we be friends? What does he want? And more important, what do I want? I want him to go first. Tell me what he wants. I want our so-called ‘easy’ fling to be easy on me. My thoughts are spiralling, so I take a deep breath and look back at Lil. It helps that she’s not concentrating on me, she’s still assessing the photographs. ‘I’m very much in denial about leaving,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t feel real.’

  She turns to me, grinning, and throws up her arms at the whole beautiful mess. ‘You’re telling me, babe. We’ve got to get this whole fucking exhibition done before then.’ She softens. ‘Plenty of time.’ Her eyes scan the images on the floor. Beautiful images. They match landscapes with bodies with such beautiful subtlety that I don’t get sick of them, no matter how often I look at them. ‘Something is missing.’ She squints.

  ‘No, they’re all here.’ I’m instantly worried. I’d hate for her to think I wasn’t competent at my job. ‘I counted. Three times.’

  Lil smiles. ‘Of course you did. No, it’s—’ She picks up some of the photos and mumbles under her breath. ‘The balance is off.’

  I find it hard to believe that anything could be wrong with the photos. ‘They’re all so beautiful, Lil.’

  ‘Oh, I know that, darling, I mean the balance of subjects. I think we need to do another shoot.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say immediately, thrilled. I love going on shoots with Lil.

  ‘I think it needs to be a couple.’ She pauses, glancing over at me. ‘Maybe a couple where one of the people is incredibly tattooed.’ She looks at me with expectant and hopeful brows.

  ‘Lil, no.’

  ‘What? You loved our shoot.’

  ‘I did love our shoot, but those photos were for me. And people will see these.’ I shake my head.

  ‘If the fucking Mailchimp invite worked then yes, yes that is the hope of a public exhibition, that people will come and see these photos, yes.’ She smiles, and it makes me laugh.

  ‘I’ll ask Beau,’ I tell her, hoping this will be the end of it, and then that she’ll be so distracted by exhibition-related jobs that she’ll forget she asked.

  ‘You know he’ll be up for it,’ she says with a smirk.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So, this is all about you,’ she says, kindly mocking me.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look, it’s your call, but I’d love to shoot the two of you together. For this.’ She looks around the room. ‘But also for you.’

  ‘Let me think about it,’ I tell her.

  And I will. I will think about it. Could I pose naked knowing other people will see it? Well, yes, technically I could. I can do anything. But do I want to? Would it spark pleasure?

  33

  Beau has been noticeably edgy all morning. He was weird yesterday on the train down too. Himself but highly strung, tense. I kept trying to crack jokes and lighten the mood, but none of my tricks landed. It’s making me nervous. He won’t tell me anything about what we’re doing today, he just keeps telling me it’s a surprise.

  In the hotel, I get dressed while Beau is in the bathroom, and look at myself in the mirror. I feel fucking incredible. It’s one of those joyous moments where the outfit you plan in your head looks as good in real life.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say out loud to whoever the gods are that willed today to be one of those rare days. And then I very purposely place myself on a chair to do up my shoes. It’s a position that makes it look like I am nonchalant and oblivious to my own majesty, but when Beau comes out of the bathroom he’ll see me in my full regal glory, and I’ll just look up and blink my eyelashes a few times and say ‘What?’

  ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘You look amazing.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I say with a grin. Yes!

  He gets dressed and I watch him. He’d brought a suit bag with him, which surprised me as I’d never seen him in a suit. But now that I’m seeing him in a suit I wish it was all I’d ever seen him in. The man looks ridiculously good. He sits on the bed, putting on his shoes. I put in my earrings and then turn to him.

  ‘Is this too sexy for whatever we’re doing?’ I ask, pointing to my cleavage and stepping closer. Beau shakes his head, takes my hand and pulls me towards him, so my chest meets directly with his face. ‘I’d say this is the perfect amount of sexy.’ He kisses my chest. I run my fingers through his hair, which is neater than normal.

  ‘You look very handsome.’

  ‘This old thing,’ he says.

  ‘I think you should wear a suit every day.’

  He smiles. ‘Come on. We’re gonna be late.’

  Wherever we’re going is only a short walk from our hotel. Beau holds my hand as we walk, but he doesn’t say much. He’s focused, on a mission, and I get a giddy kind of anticipation, because we’re in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘Where the hell are we going?’ I giggle after a couple of minutes of silence.

  ‘Here.’ He points to an old grey-and-orange brick building with a clock tower. The building is beautiful. But I still don’t know what we’re doing here.

  ‘What is this place?’ I ask as we walk inside.

  ‘The registry office,’ Beau says but he doesn’t stop walki
ng, or look at me, when he says this. A REGISTRY OFFICE? Holy fucking shit. He wants to marry me.

  I am stunned. He squeezes my hand and I squeeze it back. I can’t talk. This is wild. What do I do? I feel giddy. Lindell will fucking kill me. Surely this is something we should have a conversation about? I mean, I guess it’s romantic. Maybe. Beau lets go of my hand as a flurry of limbs and squealing white tulle leaps into his arms. He clings tightly as legs are wrapped around his waist, arms tight around his neck.

  ‘You ready?’ the woman asks and he beams, not putting her down, just squeezing her in an enormous hug.

  ‘Fuck yes!’ he yells.

  I think I’m smiling as I’m wildly trying to process. First, I notice her dress. Her white dress. Her wedding dress. He doesn’t want to marry me. He wants me to watch him get married to squealing legs? The sadistic fuck. He puts her down and she launches at me. ‘You must be Noni.’ She hugs me tight. ‘Thank you for being here today.’

  ‘She doesn’t know why she’s here,’ Beau says.

  ‘What?’ The bride lets me go and stares at him.

  ‘You told me not to tell anyone.’

  ‘You could tell her,’ she says, annoyed, and she looks at me, shaking her head with an expression that reads as a massive apology as she squeezes my shoulders with her hands.

  ‘Oh my god.’ Beau says, grabbing another human into a big hug. A striking woman wearing jeans and a waistcoat. Her blue-black hair is short against her androgynous features. The woman in the tulle turns to her and takes her hand. ‘He didn’t fucking tell Noni anything.’

  The second woman whacks him hard. ‘You idiot.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She probably thinks you’ve brought her here to get married,’ she says, her voice deep, raspy with a thick Cockney accent.

  Beau looks surprised and turns to me. ‘Oh fuck, Noni—’

  I cut him off. ‘What?’ I laugh hard. ‘Oh god, hadn’t even crossed my mind.’ I think I say it with enough conviction to be believable.

  ‘I’m Ray. And this is Meg. And my brother is an idiot.’ The woman in the tulle smiles. Ray? Oh, Ray! Beau’s little sister, Ray.

  ‘And you’re gonna be a witness at our wedding today,’ Meg says.

  ‘Oh my god. Really?’ I stare at Beau. ‘Wow. Congratulations. This is—it is so nice to meet you both. I’ve heard a lot about you,’ I say as the girls look at each other and the only thing that feels like it makes any sense is to just hug them both as I would hug anyone I was meeting for the first time.

  ‘That’s Gregor.’ Ray points to a skinny guy hiding behind a camera snapping the whole interaction in the distance. We all turn and look at him and he nods discreetly. Meg heads towards him as Ray whispers something to Beau and he laughs with his whole body. I finally look around and take in the building. It’s beautiful in here. Pale pink and forest green walls, white balustrades, a grand staircase and checkerboard tiles, ornate architraves and marble. Why didn’t he tell me this is what we were doing today?

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks coyly as he steps closer to me.

  ‘Yeah. Of course,’ I say, trying to hide a million thoughts and feelings. ‘Are you sure this is—’

  He takes my hand. Okay is what I want to say. Are you sure this is okay? That I’m here. That I’ll be in your sister’s wedding photos. But instead all I say is, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘It all happened pretty quickly, the girls telling me, I didn’t want you to overthink it.’

  ‘Overthink what?’ I ask.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Beau—what? This is—’ I’m reeling with what this all means.

  ‘Just be in the moment with me, yeah?’

  And that sentence cuts through all the crazy building in my mind. I take a deep breath and nod, smiling.

  We move into a small room with wooden floors and white walls. A plump, red-nosed man cheerfully officiates the ceremony. I stand to the side with Beau and watch. Ray beams the same way that Beau does. With her whole face. She’s radiant. Like she might actually defy gravity and shoot happiness beams right out of her feet that lift her from the ground. I wonder if I’ve ever looked, let alone felt, that happy. Beau slides a hand around my waist, pulling me in as close as he can. He squeezes my hip tenderly and when I look up at him he kisses my forehead as a single tear glides down his cheek. I wilt.

  Ray tears up, but she smiles wide. Through smiley, happy sobs she says, ‘You are everything I want and everything I need. You are my every thought. My every happiness. Every action from now will be made to make our home the happiest it can be. This is my home. You are my home.’

  Meg says the same thing. I cry. Beau cries more. Gregor wipes his eyes with a hanky. The officiant laughs at us all as he lovingly says, ‘I now pronounce you married.’ We all whoop and holler and hug tightly, smiling and jumping up and down. We sign the necessary paperwork and I push down any feelings that suggest that this is weird and just try to lean into all of it. The privilege of being here, of witnessing this kind of love, and feeling these kind of feelings, overwhelms me.

  We head out of the room and down the grand staircase, where Gregor snaps wildly, and then outside into the afternoon sun. Beau pops champagne and we all swig from the bottle and throw confetti at Ray and Meg, and my heart can’t take any more of this.

  ‘I’m just so happy to have been here,’ I gush. ‘That was, you both are…’ I start crying again and they sweep in and wrap me in a hug.

  We walk up to a park and Gregor takes more photos of the girls as we laugh and drink and eat crisps straight from the bag and recount the day to each other. Meg gets out her phone and hits play on a song and she and Ray entwine around each other with such ease that they seem like they’re one entity.

  ‘May I?’ Beau asks, holding out his hand.

  ‘You may,’ I tell him. ‘That was glorious.’

  ‘You are glorious,’ he says as I push against him, and he wraps his arms around my waist and I link my arms around his neck.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ I tell him. ‘Sneaky, but beautiful.’

  ‘I’m just so glad you are here with me today for this, and no matter what happens, I will always remember how I felt watching that, with you.’

  ‘How did you feel?’

  ‘I felt—’ Beau is cut off by Ray.

  ‘Oi! Love birds. We better get going.’ Meg hands me the rest of the third bottle we’d opened. ‘Noni, you finish this off, you’re going to need it.’ She smirks.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘Just the pub.’ Beau smiles and Meg and Ray laugh knowingly.

  Fuck. What next?

  ‘You two head in, we’ll follow in a sec,’ Ray says when we get to the pub.

  Beau and I walk inside hand in hand. As we step through the doorway, a beautiful woman stands up from her seat and grins at us in the same way Ray and Beau do. She’s like a human firework, and I half expect joyous colours to burst from the top of her perfectly blow-dried head as we walk towards her. Beau sweeps her into a hug, lifting her off the ground.

  A grey-haired man puts his hand out to shake mine. ‘Noni. Call me Paul.’

  ‘Hi Paul,’ I say, assuming this is Beau’s dad.

  The joyous woman grabs me in a tight hug. ‘I’m Jackie.’

  ‘Hi. Hello.’

  ‘Where’s Nan?’ Beau asks, hugging Zeppelin hard. Zep waves at me as they sit down on a bench seat next to each other.

  ‘In the bathroom,’ Paul says, pulling a chair out for me across from Beau.

  An old woman approaches the table and Beau stands up and hugs her. ‘My boy. My boy.’ She touches his face lovingly, and then she looks at me. ‘Oh Noni, you’re beautiful. He said you were beautiful but you’re beeeaaauuutifuuulll.’

  ‘Nan.’ Zeppelin laughs. ‘He’s trying to play it cool, you’ve blown his cover.’

  ‘Oh, he’s never been cool, love,’ she says, sitting next to me and holding my hands.

  ‘This
is my Nan,’ Beau says, ‘Dorris.’

  ‘Call me Nan.’

  ‘Okay. Hello Nan,’ I say, trying to take all of this in. I’m meeting his family. He’s told his entire family about me.

  ‘We’re so happy to meet you, Noni,’ Jackie says. ‘When Beau said you two were coming down and asked if we wanted to meet you, I said to Paul—didn’t I?—I said, I don’t care what our plans are, change them all.’ Jackie laughs. I suddenly realise they have no idea about the girls and I look at Beau, my eyes wide. He just raises his eyebrows, smiling.

  ‘So what are you two doing down here?’ Paul asks.

  ‘We’ve got a friend’s show to go to later,’ Beau says.

  ‘How lovely,’ Jackie says.

  ‘That’s why you both look so nice.’ Dorris smiles. ‘I feel underdressed.’

  ‘You look lovely,’ I tell her. She’s still holding my hand in hers.

  ‘Is that Deirdre?’ Paul asks, looking over at a woman with long grey hair in a braid running down the middle of her back.

  The others turn. ‘Yeah, it is!’ Jackie looks stunned.

  ‘What a bloody coincidence,’ Paul says, getting up from his chair and waving to Deirdre, who looks surprised and starts to head over.

  ‘Deirdre is our daughter’s partner’s mother,’ Jackie says to me, filling me in.

  ‘What are you all doing here?’ Deirdre says.

  ‘Beau and his girlfriend are down from Edinburgh so we’re having dinner.’

  His girlfriend.

  ‘I’m meeting the girls.’ Deirdre seems happily shocked.

  ‘You are?’ Jackie glows. ‘I called and asked if they were coming but they said they were busy, and so that’s what they must’ve been—well, this is just—Paul, isn’t it? Quick, let’s pull another table over, we can all eat together. Let’s grab some more—’

  At that moment, the girls enter through the doors of the pub holding hands and radiating joy. Ray smiles at us and laughs, swishing her skirt. Meg spots her mum and is instantly emotional. They look so happy that it catches my breath and makes me clutch my chest and laugh. As they approach our table time goes into slow motion as Jackie starts squealing and jumping up and down. The girls stand in front of the table, holding up their ring fingers. Deirdre bursts into tears. Jackie has already swept the girls into her arms.