by Lovett, Jo
Euan whispered something in her ear that she didn’t catch. Simultaneously, the vicar started talking. Evie hadn’t been to that many weddings in recent years, since her mum had stopped getting married – she’d had three short-lived marriages when Evie was at school – and she wanted to hear what the vicar had to say. And this was a nice traditional one and a relative biggie: someone she knew, who she’d known most of her life, her best friend’s older sister, was getting married, and hopefully she was going to stay married a lot longer than Evie’s mum used to.
She edged away from Euan so that she could hear the vicar better. He edged after her. She edged more. He followed. Evie gave up and stayed put and Euan spoke in her ear again.
‘I can imagine us at the altar maybe next year or the year after,’ he said.
Evie froze. What? It sounded almost like he was proposing. They’d only been going out for just over a year. And no-one said things like this in the middle of someone else’s wedding.
‘Will you marry me?’ he whispered. Good heavens.
Evie shot her head round to look at him and the top left of her forehead connected hard with his chin.
‘Ow,’ she said.
‘Umph,’ Euan said.
Both really loudly.
A lot of people turned to look at them.
Evie screwed her face up. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.
Oh, for God’s sake. Euan was mumbling something else now. Yes, it was lovely and very kind of him to have proposed, very flattering, yes, but honestly. What was wrong with him? No-one proposed in the middle of a wedding service and the way he was carrying on everyone was going to be staring at him when their attention should be focused on the actual ceremony. Her head hurt too but she wasn’t mumbling.
‘What?’ she said out of the side of her mouth, staring straight ahead, and trying not to hiss Shut up.
‘Blood,’ he said, his consonants very dulled.
Evie turned with reluctance to look at him. Yep, quite a lot of blood actually, dripping out of his mouth and onto his pristine white shirt and pale-yellow silk with little foxes – not very nice actually; the foxes looked evil – tie.
‘Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,’ she said.
He opened his mouth and showed her more blood and his tongue, which looked almost bitten-through, and she nearly gagged.
She shouldn’t have gagged. It looked awful, so painful. Poor Euan.
She took tissues out of her handbag – she’d taken to carrying all sorts in there because with a two-year-old in the family you never knew what might happen and her mum usually forgot practical stuff – and passed them to him. He pressed them to his mouth and made a kind of eech sound, very quietly but quite persistently. Not surprising; it must be so sore. She put her hand on his knee and squeezed, hoping that that might feel comforting.
Had he actually just proposed to her?
The vicar was going through the marriage ceremony. She should listen. Hard to concentrate, though, with Euan’s ongoing eeching in her ear.
Euan had actually just proposed.
What if this was the only proposal she ever got and it was a) inappropriately timed, because surely it was rude to propose to someone at someone else’s wedding in case the proposee told someone and stole the bride and groom’s thunder; and b) rubbish, because shouldn’t a proposal be romantic in some way, like on a famous bridge in the moonlight, or on a beautiful beach, or in a lovely restaurant? Or just out for a quiet walk. Anywhere, basically, other than in the middle of a crowded church during someone else’s wedding ceremony.
It would be a good story for the grandchildren: I was so shocked when your grandfather proposed that I inadvertently headbutted him.
Grandchildren. With Euan.
They’d be very sensible grandchildren.
Euan made a weird gurgling sound. Evie turned back towards him to see what was wrong.
‘I think my tooth’s loose,’ he whispered, as the vicar asked the groom if he’d take Lucie to be his wife.
‘Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. I hope not,’ Evie whispered back, trying simultaneously to look at Euan’s mouth and watch the ring exchange that was now happening at the front of the church.
It was one of his front teeth. Clearly, an important tooth. Well, all teeth were important. But front teeth were really important. If it was loose they should do something about it immediately. But they couldn’t stand up and go anywhere because they’d disrupt the whole ceremony. They’d have to make a dash for it at the end.
Euan gurgled and moaned away – very understandably – next to her during the remainder of the service until Lucie and her new husband processed down the aisle, hand in hand, looking both gorgeous and gorgeously in love.
As they walked past the end of Evie and Euan’s pew, Evie’s mind conjured up an image of herself walking down an aisle hand in hand with Euan. It was a stretch to imagine either of them having eyes only for the other in quite such a besotted way. Euan would probably be finessing some financial calculations in his head, maybe discussing aspects of them with Evie, and Evie would probably be… a bit bored.
No. She was being unfair. He was lovely. Sensibleness and prudence were great attributes.
‘Can we do something about my tooth?’ he said, dribbling a bit more blood.
It was totally understandable thing to say, and Evie should not find the whiny tone to his voice at all annoying. And yet… She could see Max, Sasha’s other brother, out of the corner of her eye. He’d had the most horrendous accident in his late teens, and Evie had never heard anyone in the family whine about it, ever.
But Euan was clearly in a lot of pain and everyone reacted differently to things and probably a lot of people would be whining right now. And they did need to do something about it as soon as possible.
‘Let’s find a loo and clean you up a bit and check your mouth properly and then we’ll go and find a doctor or dentist as quickly as we can,’ she said.
‘It’s definitely loose,’ Euan said five minutes later, peering at himself in the cracked mirror outside the church’s one – brown-carpeted – loo, as he touched his tooth gingerly.
‘Okay. Why don’t I call your dentist and ask them what to do?’
‘Fine.’
An answer machine message told Evie that Euan’s dentist was closed on Saturdays.
‘Okay. We need to do something. I’ll order a taxi. Do you think we should go to A&E?’ Evie tried very hard to squash any feeling of disappointment about missing the rest of the wedding, which she’d been looking forward to. Obviously, her possible-fiancé’s loose tooth was infinitely more important than a wedding, even if the bride was Lucie, who she’d known practically her whole life.
‘I don’t know. Can’t you google it?’ She understood why Euan was tetchy, but did he have to sound quite so irritable? It wasn’t like she’d headbutted him on purpose.
When she and her mum had been moving a big chest in the summer and Evie had dropped her end and it had landed on her mum’s foot and broken a bone, her mum hadn’t been tetchy at all. Evie had apologised a lot and her mum had told her a lot that it hadn’t been her fault and it was just one of those things. Euan clearly did not feel like that. But maybe it was different between mother and daughter. Maybe you’d always be reasonable with respect to your daughter because you loved her so much.
Although, shouldn’t a man really love the woman he’d just proposed to and not blame her for something that she obviously hadn’t done on purpose? If your relationship with your husband was going to be worse than your relationship with your mother, what was the point of getting married? Not a comfortable thought to be having as you googled broken teeth.
‘What does it say?’ Euan said.
‘Well, Google isn’t conclusive,’ Evie told him. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘This is ridiculous. It’s Google. Did you even look properly?’
Evie took a big breath and didn’t snap back at him. He was in pain, after all. She had a sudden b
rainwave.
‘Why don’t I ask Sasha’s brother Dan?’ she said. ‘He’s an A&E doctor.’
‘Thank you,’ Euan said. ‘I’ll wait here. I can’t go outside looking like this.’
* * *
Dan – apparently without the girlfriend Sasha had thought would be coming – had just finished doing family photos and was talking to some people who Evie thought she recognised as his aunts and uncles.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
‘Hey, Evie. How are you?’
‘Hi, Dan. Good thank you. How are you? Your sister’s a married woman!’
‘I know. Very grown-up.’
‘I have a question for you.’
‘Oh-kay? I’m intrigued.’ Dan’s smile made Evie want to smile too.
Evie suddenly remembered their pact – weddings, marriage, word association – and shoved the thought away.
She started talking rapidly. ‘Basically, during the service, I headbutted my boyfriend Euan, by mistake, obviously, and there’s lots of blood and his tooth’s loose. I think he might need a stitch in his lip or his tongue or both, and I’m not sure where I should take him to get his tooth seen. Do we take him to A&E?’
‘Where is he? He’ll need to get his tooth seen by an emergency dentist rather than A&E. Why don’t I take a look to see if I think he needs any stitches?’ There was something very sexy about how Dan had just flipped straight into doctor mode.
It was difficult not to compare Dan and Euan while Dan checked out Euan’s mouth. Obviously she shouldn’t be comparing anyone with anyone. But. Dan was slightly shorter and quite a lot wider and a lot more fun to be with. Euan was more kind of classically handsome, but – to quote Sasha – in quite a boring way. Euan’s smile – when he was smiling, which he certainly wasn’t this afternoon, understandably, of course – was not infectious.
Dan was speaking right now and, totally inappropriately for the situation, Evie now wanted to smile too. ‘I think you’ll be okay without stitches but you do need to get your tooth seen. Don’t go to A&E because you’ll be wasting your time – you’ll have to wait and then they’ll send you to a dentist anyway. I’m sure you’ll find one that’s open on a Saturday afternoon.’
‘Thank you so much,’ said Evie. ‘I’m so sorry that we’ve dragged you away from Lucie’s reception. I’m sure we can sort things from here.’
‘Do you know of a dentist?’ Euan said.
Dan took his phone out of his pocket. ‘I’m sure I can call a couple of people.’
‘No, honestly, we’ve already taken up a lot of your time and you need to get back to the wedding party. I’m sure we can find somewhere.’ Evie took her own phone out of her clutch.
‘It would be great if you could give us a couple of names,’ Euan said to Dan.
Dan knew a lot of people, via his father’s GP surgery, and after three calls had found a dentist who could see Euan within the hour.
‘Right,’ Euan said, ‘we’d better get going.’
‘Thank you so, so much for all your help,’ said Evie. Was it bad to find your boyfriend embarrassing? Obviously it was awful to have a loose tooth, really awful, so it was totally understandable that he wouldn’t be that effusive with his thanks, but equally Dan had definitely gone above and beyond and it wasn’t hard to say a proper thank you.
* * *
Ten minutes into their – silent until then – journey in the back of the cab to the dentist in Cheltenham, Euan sneezed three times in a row.
‘Bless you,’ Evie said.
‘There must have been a cat somewhere.’ Euan looked around him, like one might be clinging to the taxi upholstery.
‘Oh dear,’ said Evie, horrified that her lips were twitching a bit. It was awful to be tempted to laugh, but Euan had been a county-level athlete when he was younger and he always put his speed and jumping ability to good use whenever they were within about a hundred metres of a cat, and now every time he mentioned the allergies Evie struggled not to snigger at memories of him vaulting fences and sprinting miles if he suspected a feline presence. Even though Evie had twice witnessed him unknowingly being in the same garden as a cat and completely unaffected by it.
If she married him, she was going to have to live forever with his – possibly imaginary – cat allergy. What if he developed new imaginary allergies? What if he developed real allergies? How would he behave if something genuinely affected him?
Euan harumphed and they spent the rest of the journey alternating between looking out of the windows on their sides of the taxi and at their phones.
They’d been in the dentist’s waiting room for a few minutes, still not doing a lot of chatting, when Euan’s mother turned up.
She rushed over to Euan. ‘Darling, how are you?’
When Euan’s mother had finished inspecting his mouth and she and Euan had had a chat about his week at work, his work dinner last night and his breakfast this morning – yes, really – Evie said, ‘Hi, Elspeth.’
‘Evie and I are engaged,’ Euan said. Evie’s head shot round for the second time in one day. Good job his head was safely beyond butting distance this time. Had she replied to his proposal? Absent-mindedly? Had she said yes at any point? She was pretty sure she hadn’t. In front of his mother, in a dentist’s waiting room, wasn’t the time or the place to discuss it, though.
She looked back at Elspeth, who was as open-mouthed as Evie felt.
There was a long pause before Elspeth said, ‘Wonderful news.’ She adjusted her pearls and smoothed her skirt, opened her mouth and then closed it again. Not smilingly.
‘Why don’t you go back to the wedding?’ Euan told Evie, then dabbed at his mouth again. ‘We can manage without you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Definitely,’ Euan said.
‘Absolutely,’ Elspeth said, a lot more enthusiastically than when she’d been talking about her son’s supposed engagement.
This was very good news for the rest of Evie’s day. She snuck a look at the clock above the reception desk. Yep, if she got her skates on, she’d be back in the middle of the pre-dinner champagne reception at the hotel where the wedding dinner and dance were.
‘Are you sure?’ she repeated, trying very hard not to beam in delight.
Euan nodded, winced and put his hand to his mouth. ‘Ow. Yes, certain.’
‘Okay. Well. I hope you’re alright. I’ll call you later.’ It felt like she should say something loving and maybe kiss the top of his head or hug him or something at this point, except it felt awkward in front of Elspeth, plus he wasn’t even looking at Evie any more.
* * *
‘What happened?’ Sasha asked her about half an hour after she’d got back. ‘Where did you go? Where’s Euan?’
Telling the story took quite a long time because they both started laughing halfway through, which they really, really shouldn’t have done – and Evie obviously really hoped Euan would be okay – but aspects of it were funny, and he’d never know that they’d laughed.
‘Soooo, congratulations?’ Sasha said.
‘I mean, maybe,’ Evie said. ‘Except I don’t totally remember accepting his proposal.’
‘But you’re going to?’
‘I mean, maybe. Probably.’ Evie adored her mum, obviously, but since as far back as she could remember it had been like she was the adult and her mum was a teenager, and she wanted a calmer adult life than that. Less chaos. Euan was very calm and unchaotic. He had a nice, tidy house. He was very pleasant when he wasn’t stressed about a loose tooth. ‘Yep, I think so.’
‘Well, that’s great,’ said Sasha, far too over-heartily, like a parent at sports day pretending that coming second-from-last in a race was amazing. She clinked her champagne flute against Evie’s. ‘Congratulations.’
Thirteen
Then – October 2016
Dan
‘Congratulations on what?’ asked Dan. Maybe Evie had a new job or was moving house.
‘Evi
e’s engaged,’ Sasha said.
‘Nothing,’ said Evie, simultaneously, swivelling her eyes and shaking her head at Sasha.
Sasha mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ at Evie, and then, a moment later, said, ‘I was joking,’ to Dan.
Wow. Evie blatantly was engaged. Secretly, apparently. To Euan, presumably. His tooth must have been alright for them to be back so quickly. Good news. He must be in the loos or something right now.
The engagement seemed a shame. If he was honest, Dan hadn’t really taken to the man. He’d seemed a little petulant and lacking in humour. Although to be fair he had just been smacked in the mouth. And it was clearly nothing to do with Dan. In fact, he was pleased for Evie. It had to be three years now since the Christmas when she’d told him that she wanted marriage and babies. So this was great for her. It didn’t feel like that man was the right one for her, though. She deserved someone better. Not that it was any of his business.
Maybe he’d leave Sasha and Evie to their conversation now.
‘I’ll catch you later. Evie, I think we’re on the same table at dinner.’
He left them and meandered over towards the bar, smiling and nodding at various people as he went.
This was the way to enjoy a wedding. Knowing a lot of the people there but having no duties beyond that of usher, which he’d now fulfilled.
‘Hey, Dan.’ His cousin Harry slapped him on the back. ‘Saw you earlier at the church doors but no time to chat. It’s been too long.’
