LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL

by Ronan Hession

  The two men then did their best to get ready and dressed for the wedding, while sensitively avoiding any unnecessary embarrassment, although, inevitably, when you share a small hotel room you can’t help but notice things like the surprisingly ostentatious colour of a clean pair of pants laid out on the bed.

  For the third time that week Hungry Paul wore his new suit, to which he had added his purple Quality Street tie and another new shirt, this time with single cuffs. Leonard wore the suit he had bought for his mother’s funeral, its sombre greyness transformed by his birch leaf green tie.

  When the time came, they met with Helen at the hotel reception where she was chatting with Andrew’s parents. Hungry Paul often marvelled at Helen’s ability to set aside any occasion and engage in small talk. If she were taking the penalty in a cup final she would still find a moment to chat to the opposing goalkeeper about his plans for when he retired, or if she were transplanting a baboon’s heart into a sick child on the operating table, she would comfortably enquire of the nurse whether her grandson still had braces. Her interest in people was genuine and inquiring, her view being that people often opened up more easily over the smaller things.

  When they returned to the church, there were some young men from Andrew’s extended family smoking outside, something Hungry Paul thought looked wrong at a wedding though he couldn’t say why exactly. The sacristan was lingering and looking to speak to someone discreetly about his honorarium, and was eventually put in touch with the best man, who had been among the smokers. Inside, Leonard and Hungry Paul took up their positions at the foot of the aisle to guide people to the bride or groom side, and to hand out the homemade wedding missalettes, the typing and formatting of which had caused Grace to develop a maritime swearing habit. Most guests seemed to know instinctively which side to go to, even Grace and Andrew’s shared friends, who revealed a subtle bias in electing for one side over the other. Leonard was happy to help out, especially as it spared him a socially awkward half hour idling in his seat alone, but also because it legitimised his status at the wedding—a ‘friend of the brother of the bride’ didn’t otherwise sound like someone who ought to have made the cut at a wedding where numbers were known to be tight.

  Things were a bit more complicated for Hungry Paul. His lack of assertiveness and lifelong social invisibility meant that people tended to walk by him before he had a chance to establish eye contact and offer to help. Also, he was not good with faces and worse with names, a failing that was not helped by the passage of time during which he had forgotten the existence of grown-up cousins who now looked very different to their childhood selves. They all seemed to know him though. His father’s brother, Uncle Michael, came up and gave Hungry Paul a two-handed handshake and called over his two adult sons to say hello. As kids, they used to like sniffing the glue in Hungry Paul’s art box whenever they visited. Uncle Michael’s wife, Jane, had died a few years previously and he had gone off the rails a bit, doing sex tourism in the Far East, then becoming a seminarian, before settling back to a more normal retirement mix of volunteering for the church and doing evening courses.

  Hungry Paul’s Aunt Sarah—his mam’s sister, who had made the cake at his parents’ wedding—came over and gave him a warm hug and a kiss which landed on his ear. She had never married but had a long-time ‘special friend’ Colette, who came with her everywhere, including to the wedding. Sarah hadn’t been asked to make the cake this time, and was expected to be hard to please when it was being handed out later on.

  Hungry Paul also recognised a few of Grace’s old college friends and friends from the local area: a mix of Taras, Susans, Lisas, Lindas and Louises, who were all a lot taller than he remembered because of their wedding heels, and who had between them a mixed taste in plus ones. One couple did catch his eye though: a dapper man in his eighties with a glorious, wave-like backcomb and his elderly wife whose hair was dyed dark brown, which made it look as though her face was emerging happily from a hedge. Neither of them was above five feet tall and they smiled the whole time. The man clapped Hungry Paul on the lower back and leaned in to speak, but then seemed to change his mind and instead offered his elbow to his wife and glided off to sit in the second row on the groom’s side, smiling and waving to everybody.

  The church had been filling up steadily, with a gentle simmering of conversation around the place. The women were complimenting each other’s outfits; the more experienced of them knew to bring a coat or fake fur stole to an April wedding. The men did that usual male small talk thing, keeping it light and general. Friendliest of all were the plus ones who had no choice but to be amiable good listeners for the day. The sacristan was busy at the altar making sure all was as it should be, like a roadie for the headline act. The priest was speaking with Andrew’s parents and with Helen, who had been feeling self-conscious sitting by herself. Up at the very front, Andrew was chatting away with his best man, and exuded his usual composure, every bit the consummate groom. He wore a beautifully-cut blue Italian suit, a burgundy tie and a crisp white shirt, with double cuffs and a set of pearl cuff links his father had worn at his own wedding. The only signs of his nerves were the quick little glances he made towards the frosted glass of the vestibule, where Grace would arrive whenever she was ready. Throughout it all, the organist, who was no slouch as a negotiator by all accounts, played background voluntaries, a mix of warm gelatinous chords and some playful cantering with the right hand, ignoring the church organ’s demonic side.

  It was the sudden scurrying of the outside smokers into the church that confirmed the arrival of the bridal party. The organist paused his playing and a general, giddy hush fell on the church as everyone stood up. Hungry Paul stood beside his mother at the front of the church as Helen got a tissue ready for herself. Leonard, a natural people-watcher, looked ahead at the priest who had an avuncular smile spread across his face, giving away his secret that the early romantic stages of the ceremony were the bits he liked best. Andrew stood calmly and happily, privately grateful to Grace for being punctual on the one day that it truly mattered to him.

  The bridesmaids entered first, slightly shy under the paparazzo enthusiasm of the guests and their phones, and walked up the aisle one at a time to take their places at the front.

  Then, with a nod from the photographer and with no small appreciation of dramatic tension, the organist struck the opening notes of Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto No.5 in F Minor, otherwise known to Andrew as the song Grace had picked from Hannah and Her Sisters.

  And there she was.

  She stood for a moment, demure and delighted, wearing an expression intended to sing ta-da!

  She wore a stunning tea-length ivory satin dress. But everyone’s eyes were drawn to the flash of colour in her jade green shoes, a choice that was both unexpected and yet somehow quintessentially Grace. She walked up the aisle linking Peter’s arm as he made every effort to go slowly, a beautiful pride welling inside of him. Andrew had watched Grace through every step and thanked Peter with the subtlest of smiles as he took Grace’s two hands in his own.

  ‘Well, here I am,’ said Grace simply.

  ‘You look so beautiful,’ answered Andrew, simpler still.

  All around the church, girlfriends were squeezing the hands of their plus ones, and wives were leaning into their husbands’ shoulders. The priest, not wishing to break the moment but nonetheless duty-bound to get on with things, offered some welcoming words to Grace and Andrew and to the wider congregation. He introduced each part of the service by explaining its symbolic importance, which was an experienced way of tipping the participants off that it was their turn to approach the altar for their bit. His homily was a light-hearted meditation on love and family, emphasising the philosophical over the spiritual, churchmen being well used to glossing over the question of religious commitment in order to focus on a longer game, with baptisms, communions and confirmations all still to play for.

  Throughout th
e previous few weeks Grace had consistently said that the religious service was the bit she was least looking forward to, as she felt fraudulent in her lack of faith, but now that it was under way she wanted it to go on forever. Even though she had slaved over the missalette, and so should have known the readings and prayers off by heart, she sat in rapt attention listening to them as fresh new words and sentiments, lived advice about abiding love and its many depths and difficulties. Though her recollection of mass as a child was one of countless long hours, the wedding service seemed to flash by, happiness bending her sense of time.

  When the moment came to repeat their self-composed vows, the rings that they had sworn to wear for life slipped on easily. And so, among their family and friends, through an ancient ritual that never gets old, they became married.

  When the service was over, they made their smiling way back down the aisle to Handel’s ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’, the organist worth every penny.

  After photos, congratulatory hugs and choruses of good wishes, Grace and Andrew climbed into the back of their Regency Red Jaguar Mark 2, which Grace had chosen in homage to her TV hero, Inspector Endeavour Morse. Sitting there, on red leather seats and with limited leg-room, they held hands and waved out the window like a pair of royals.

  ‘Well now,’ said Grace. ‘That was nice.’

  Chapter 25: Reception

  At the hotel reception, Hungry Paul had to abandon Leonard to help with the family photos, having been assigned responsibility for rounding up stray relatives who had become bored and wandered off just when they were needed.

  As Grace and Andrew were both a little older getting married, the crowd was that bit older too, and less prone to heavy drinking on an empty stomach during the pre-dinner hiatus in what would later become the residents’ bar. Instead, there were a few yawns as the early start caught up with people; the male partners of pregnant guests went looking for seats; and couples who had come without their kids were checking in by text with babysitting grandparents.

  Other than Hungry Paul and his immediate family, Leonard didn’t know many people at the wedding. He wandered through the reception with his complimentary flute of champagne and picked up a few nibbles from a tray—an onion bhaji and a salmon something. The hotel pianist was playing tunes from the Great American Songbook, and all around suit jackets were hanging on the backs of chairs and women were slipping out of their heels for a few minutes. In the past, Leonard would have felt a little too conspicuous in a situation like this, as though his aloneness was the talking point of the whole room. He would have had that familiar sense of social retreat: the desire for invisibility among the crowd, his confidence having folded itself away. But now that he had found a little shelf of peace within himself, he could feel the happiness in the room and no longer felt excluded from it.

  The hotel manager walked through the bar ringing a school bell, which was the cue for the starving masses to find their names on a mounted table plan near the main dining room. The guests took their seats, making introductions as best they could from opposite sides of the large round tables, while waiting for the bride and groom and, of course, the food. Leonard was to sit between Hungry Paul and someone called Gloria Grimes, Andrew’s aunt, who had only made the invite list because Leonard had surrendered his plus one. Grace had seated her next to Leonard because she was a writer, but it soon became clear that she was also a talker.

  ‘I always say that a wedding is the best way to meet new people,’ she began, ‘I mean the very best way. Where else do you get to meet people without an agenda? I mean, I write, as I think you may be aware, so I do a lot of these book launches and wine and canapé things, but everyone’s always looking over your head or past you, worried about who they’re missing. It’s like they have this radar of who can do something for their careers and they’re forever anxious about committing to a conversation because they are so worried about who they are not speaking to, and as I always say, the greatest courtesy you can pay someone is to give them your full attention. I mean, what kind of writers could they be if they are simply not interested in people—’

  Leonard was trying to interject a question, but his timing was off.

  ‘—of course I never thought I’d be a writer. A journalist maybe, as I was always good technically, but I have always doubted my imagination, but I suppose we never really know where our imagination comes from, perhaps it’s not created at all, but just a manifestation of what’s already inside us. But as I always say, I may not have the strongest ideas, but I know how to get the most out of what I have, and that’s the greater part of the battle. I mean there used to be this writer I knew, poor man had pancreatic cancer—cheated on his wife, God rest her—but you should have seen how he transformed the house after she died. Such an eye! I mean, who knew?’

  Leonard took his chance, ‘So what type of boo—’

  ‘He had a wonderful way of making you read in the accent he was writing in. Dutch, Welsh, Indian, I mean even if you can’t do accents, and I certainly can’t, it doesn’t mean you can’t read in an accent. Such a wonderful man. Left his money to the cats and dogs home—of course his son was furious, but he wrote accents so well. I mean, ask any professional writer and they will tell you how hard that is.’

  She paused to butter some of the bread that was being passed around—Leonard was already on his second slice. He enjoyed her in a strange way. He realised that he kind of liked weird people. Maybe it was their intensity.

  She started up again, having quartered her bread without eating any.

  ‘The one thing I cannot stand, I mean I just cannot bear, is this whole business of people sticking to one thing and doing it over and over again. I mean, what’s the point? It’s just cutting short your whole career because you lack confidence. That’s all it is! A lack of confidence. Call it what you will. This woman who used to be in my writing class—I mean, I was giving the class and she was a student—every story she did was about her childhood and she was always using phrases like: “There was an empty chair by the door.” You know, trying to be depressing, because she thought it was more writerly, but I’m sure you’ve seen it yourself, some people get so lost in writing they forget to tell a story. It drives me mad!’

  She waved her butter knife from side to side as if to dispel the spirit of bad writing.

  ‘So, Grace tells me you’re a writer, not that she needed to tell me, I mean, I can always tell—it’s a way you have about you. Maybe I have read one of your books? Crime fiction isn’t it?’

  ‘No. Children’s encyclopaedias,’ answered Leonard.

  Aunt Gloria went quiet.

  ‘Oh. Very nice,’ she said, having her first bite of the bread.

  A waiter approached Leonard, having first lifted his nameplate to check that he had the right person.

  ‘Excuse me sir, your sister is in reception for you.’

  ‘My sister?’

  ‘Yes, sir. In reception. Through the double doors, past the cloakroom.’

  ‘Oh, I see. She’s not actually my sister, she’s my friend’s sister,’ said Leonard pointing to Hungry Paul’s empty seat beside him.

  ‘She did ask for you by name, sir. Just letting you know.’

  ‘Grace probably has some minor emergency she needs help with—back in a mo,’ he said to Aunt Gloria, who had already turned to her other side to talk to the dapper elderly man with the backcomb and his wife with the hedge-like hair.

  Leonard walked towards the reception with the jaunty gait of someone in a polite hurry.

  When he got there he saw Shelley standing by herself at one of the bookshelves, chewing on her thumbnail.

  ‘Oh. Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Surprise,’ said Shelley with half-embarrassed jazz hands.

  ‘Well, this is unexpected. What brings you here?’

  ‘I came to see you. I even drove, if you can believe that. I had to
borrow my sister’s car.’

  ‘Oh. I see. I’m actually at a wedding at the moment.’

  ‘I know that. You told me it was on here today. I asked them to call you out. Sorry, I had to tell them you’re my brother. I thought they might not help if I said I was your ex-fire warden.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, nonplussed and looking around. ‘Why don’t we sit down over here?’

  He led her over to a quieter spot near a log fire, where they sat facing each other on opposing couches, a low wooden table between them.

  ‘Would you like some tea, coffee maybe?’ he asked.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘So, how are things? It feels like ages since I’ve seen you.’

  ‘I’m okay. Well not really. Y’know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s been a strange week.’

  Shelley tried to use her fingers to peel off the bit of nail she had been half way through chewing.

  ‘Shelley, I don’t mean to be direct but… is everything okay?’

  ‘Margaret called over today. From work. She brought over the egg you bought for Patrick and your book.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Your book is beautiful, Leonard.’

  He wasn’t sure what to say.

  ‘Thanks, Shelley.’

  The conversation stalled. She looked at him directly.

  ‘I just wanted to tell you that.’

  ‘How come you came all this way? I’ll see you in the office tomorrow, you know. I’m not disappearing or anything.’

  ‘I left my job Leonard. I won’t be in the office.’

  ‘Not because of me, I hope.’

  ‘No. Not because of you. It’s thanks to you, but not because of you. I saw how much of yourself you put into your work, all your ideas, and how you have never lost touch with the passion you had as a kid. You’re still so alive inside. You haven’t become cynical or drowned in practicality. You’ve never lost your curiosity. I decided I’d ring work to take a few days’ leave because I just felt so off, so sick of running around and trying to handle everything: Patrick, the job, money. I was overwhelmed, especially after things just seemed to slip away between us. My boss, who doesn’t even work in the building and wouldn’t notice if I took a month off, said he wasn’t allowing leave until the two vacancies were filled, so I told him my side of things and, well, you can imagine. So, anyway, I left and now I need to figure out my next move.’