by J M Donellan
“I know he’s not the angel he’s supposed to be. I’ve seen that photo before, you know. You might find it hard to believe, but I’m not a perfect fool. You don’t raise yourself with a drunk mother and an absentee father without becoming at least a little wise and resourceful. I knew about Elijah’s accident. That he killed that girl and her father. That he was drunk, on drugs, and that he was with an escort. I’ve always known.”
Rosaline wipes a tear away and draws herself up. “But I still love him. Aren’t we supposed to forgive our loved ones for their sins? He made a mistake—a big one—but he’s been paying for it with his life. Stuck in that room, trapped inside his own head. That’s worse than prison, worse than anything. He’s the man I love, Freya. And tomorrow, I will marry him. I want my wedding day. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. After that, the whole world can go up in flames, for all I care.”
Rosaline wipes her tears with her hands. Freya passes her a penguin jumper and says, “Listen, you can have your magical day, your moment in the sun. But after that, those fuckers are going to prison.”
“Sure, that’s the right thing to do! Just give me this one perfect day. To wear that dress. Like Mum did. After that, call the police, do whatever you need to do.”
Freya nods, her head heavy with pain. She picks up the bloodied friendship rock and turns it over in her fingers. “Thanks for the rock,” she laughs.
Her phone vibrates in her pocket, just barely managing to catch her attention over the thirty-one flavours of agony kicking in her skull. She pulls it out, unconcerned that she is smearing it with blood, and reads the letters on the screen. She attempts to assemble their meaning with the use of a brain that at present would much rather be spending its time processing the deluge of pain signals from her nerve endings, thank you very much. Nonetheless, moments before she slips into a short and quiet oblivion she reads:
*1 new message from: Niki*
Elijah is awake.
***
Excerpt from The Sins of Adonis
“Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.”
—William Blake
30
Our Happy Little Family
***
At the age of nineteen, whilst eating a bowl of Captain Choc’s Chocolatey Chocoflakes, Low-Fat Variety, Thomas P. Wortz read an article claiming that people with unusual or embarrassing names were substantially more likely to have shorter life spans, drug and alcohol addictions, clinical depression, and criminal histories. Ever since then, he has considered officially changing his name 11,782 times. Unfortunately, Thomas P. Wortz is very much a man of the “better the devil you know” variety, and has always had a crippling fear of the unknown.
It is for this reason he is entirely surprised to find himself planning his life beyond his current career as a marriage celebrant. A somewhat ironic choice of vocation given that his terminal reticence and general difficulty introducing himself to women has rendered his chances of procuring a date, let alone a life partner, all but impossible.
He stands at the lectern practising his speech while doing his very best impression of not being completely confused. The ridiculously large cheque awaiting him and the equally colossal bottle of brandy he will purchase will assist his performance greatly. He wonders how long it will take before the Attorney-General’s Department discovers he’s married a man in a coma and revokes his licence. With a wedding so high profile, it’s most likely to be in every tabloid by Monday morning. Or on a blog tonight. Or tweeted in the next thirteen seconds.
Thomas P. Wortz dabs at his sweating brow and mumbles, “Dearly beloved…”
***
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“Now, now, Elijah, don’t get all sentimental on me just cos it’s your wedding day.” Freya pulls his crinkled pyjamas off and reaches for his pressed white dress shirt. Her hands run lightly over his chest. “Might be the last time we get to do this little dance, Eli. Looks like that slew of secrets you’ve kept locked in that well-toned chest of yours are finally coming out to play.” She taps her finger on a tiny puncture wound she notices on the primary artery in his arm. “Like this, for example. You and I both know this wasn’t my work.”
She buttons him up and fastens his tie around his neck. Pulls it firm. Places his arms inside his jacket, pins a flower to his lapel. “Well, don’t you look the handsome prince, ready to claim his kingdom?” She reaches for the mahogany brush from behind his bed and brushes his hair. “Have you been listening to me all this time? Letting my words flow into your head? Storing them in little imaginary boxes stacked on a vast series of teetering shelves inside the catacombs of your brain?”
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“Well, if you have been listening, my sleeping prince, then I want you to pay very close attention to this.” She leans in, places her lips so close to his ear that they almost brush against it, and whispers, “I’m going to bring this evil empire of yours crashing down to the fucking ground.” Then she places one soft kiss on his cheek.
“Everything is ready, I trust?” Evelyn asks as she pushes open the door. She is in a red-and-white dress and has elected to go heavier than usual with the makeup. She looks like the Queen of Hearts immediately prior to her loss of tarts. Harland and Jack are both behind her, their eyes locked on Freya. For the first time, she notes the subtle family resemblance. Jack’s sharp, narrow cheekbones mirror those of his father. They share the same small, well-shaped nose, the same square, straight-down-to-business chin. In the right light and by an ample stretch of the imagination, Harland could very nearly be a future rendering of his elder son.
Jack looks away and the moment is gone. “Have you done something different with your hair?” he asks, inspecting her new wound-concealing fringe.
“Thought I’d go for something different. Special day and all,” she replies.
The three Vincettis enter the room and stand beside Elijah’s bed. “I’ve waited a long time for this day to come,” says Harland.
Evelyn smiles and takes his hand in hers. “The roses are arriving at ten, the bar will open at five and the guests will arrive between five and five-thirty for a six o’clock start. The fireworks are set up, and the band is about to sound-check. Everything is ready.”
Freya looks at the family and realises this is the first time she’s ever seen all four of them in a room together. They remind her of a classic Renoir painting. She can almost see them reduced to two dimensions, framed in old carved oak and hung on a gallery wall for tourists to glance at on their way to a Rembrandt.
The silence—apart from the beeps—sits heavily between them. Freya is about to leave when Rosaline enters, wearing a resplendent white dress, her neck adorned with a cluster bomb of pearls. Her smile is so bright that Freya is concerned about the threat of permanent retinal damage.
“Well! How do I look?” she beams.
Like a doll. Exactly like a beautiful, perfect porcelain doll.
“Absolutely gorgeous, my dear!” Evelyn opens her arms and encloses Rosaline in a firm and practical hug.
“You look like a million bucks, Rosaline,” says Harland, grabbing her by the shoulders and sizing her up as though she’s a boxer about to enter the ring.
“Isn’t it bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding?” asks Freya.
“Oh, it’s okay. He’s sleeping, so it doesn’t count. Well, here we all are, then! One happy family!” Rosaline places her arm around Freya.
“Yes. Our happy little family,” says Harland.
***
Callum steps out of his car like a model gliding off the front cover of GQ magazine: handsome, dapper, composed. He should really be in black and white, thinks Freya, as she runs up and throws her arms around him.
“Hey! You sure sc
rub up nice! Thanks for being my date.”
“I never say no to an open bar. Wow, check out all the security. It’s like the Vincettis hired a black-tie militia. How is everything here?”
“The worst kinds of weird. Did you get it?”
Callum nods and passes her a leather pouch. “Jane managed to get her hands on it. She got caught by her supervisor and had to agree to do night shifts for a month to placate her. Plus she’s pissed off that you haven’t called her since she gave you that job advertisement card that saw you wind up in this whole mess.”
“If this pays off I’ll buy her drinks from now until the next time Halley’s comet is in town. Thanks.”
She slips the pouch into her handbag and holds out her arm for Callum to take. He smiles and links arms and they stroll towards the house.
***
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
***
Jack sits on the roof, sipping a bottle of Peroni. He looks good in a suit, like a crooner in an indie rock band. Through a pair of sleek binoculars he watches the cars approaching the house.
“Thought we’d find you here,” says Freya as she and Callum clamber out and sit beside him.
“Freya, Callum. You can see the enemy approaching from all angles up here. Want a beer?”
“No thanks, we’ve got champagne,” says Callum, raising his glass.
“Suit yourself.”
The sound of a string quartet drifts up from below.
“They’re playing Chopin! I love this one. It’s so beautiful…so blue.” Freya watches the colours drift, reaching out her hands towards them and playing her fingertips between their ebb and flow. “I wish you could see this. It’s like the ocean, so calm, but with the hint of magnificent power just beneath the surface.”
“I wish I could see it, too.” Jack watches her hands move through the air and traces his fingers gently up and down the curve of her neck.
“There’s the man of the hour,” says Callum. “Check out the wheels.”
Elijah is rolled out in a wheelchair that more closely resembles a mobile throne than a medical aid. Freya grabs Jack’s binoculars and inspects the throne’s plush velvet upholstery and the oaken peak carved into a lavish medieval-style coat of arms bearing the Vincetti name. Elijah’s arms are flaccid on the armrests, a fine leather strap pulls his back against the chair, his head slumped forward. He resembles a bored dignitary having a boozy snooze at some unfathomably dull charity gala. Evelyn stands behind him, greeting guests with her here-are-my-teeth-but-don’t-think-that-means-I-like-you smile.
“Here comes Yvette,” Jack passes Freya the binoculars again. “Dressed to kill.”
“That, or maim beyond recovery,” Freya mutters, disapproving of Yvette’s midnight blue dress with neckline that almost plunges to her hip height leg-split. “Ugh. Did I mention I hate weddings?”
***
Freya listens to the chatter. Most of it is standard aristo-pragmatic gossip—marriages, divorces, best entrées and main courses, portfolios and water polo, holidays in the Bahamas and foreign exchange dramas—but among all this she detects flickers of more perceptive commentary. Behind her a portly, balding Gucci man whispers to his Versace wife, “Surely, I’m not the only one here who thinks this is crazy? The guy hasn’t opened his eyes in months. Is this even legal?”
“Shut up, Chris! Do you want to sour your chances with Halcyon?” she scolds. “They could take you to the cleaners if they felt like it! Keep your mouth closed, or at least shove in some more canapés to stop your tongue from wagging!”
Freya smiles, pleased that some of the villagers are getting restless. The problem with being insane is that insisting you are not demonstrates the opposite, and, given that sanity is a matter of popular perspective, it’s nice to know there are at least a few people questioning the event.
She moves from the appetiser table to the bar and procures another flute of champagne, then turns to find Yvette behind her. “Shouldn’t there be a puff of smoke and the lingering scent of sulphur when you appear like that?”
“Hush, child. I’m not in the mood to cross swords. I have all my energy focused on surviving this opulent travesty.” She swirls the champagne in her glass, then pours it down her throat with impressive speed. “Ugh. I’m going to need to be substantially more drunk if I have any hope of getting through this fucking mess.”
There is a trace of genuine sadness in her voice, albeit masked by her familiar veil of vitriol.
Despite everything Yvette’s done to her, Freya can’t help but feel a tinge of sympathy. She raises her glass and proclaims, “To opulent travesties!”
Yvette returns a begrudging half-smile, shares the toast, sighs and slinks away.
“Think you’ll catch the bouquet?” asks Jack.
“You’d better hope not,” says Freya. “I hardly think we’re ready to start building a nice little cage out of white picket fences yet.”
He smiles and kisses her gently. But his skin feels damp and she senses him trembling and pulling back, beads of sweat trickling down his face.
“Phew. It’s, ah…it’s sure hot out here, huh?” He tugs his collar and fans his face.
“Do you think so? I feel lovely and cool. That breeze across the river is gorgeous.”
Jack swigs from his drink. “What? I didn’t catch that.” His voice is shaky and uneven.
“You don’t like it out here, do you?”
He laughs nervously. “What’re you talking about? Drinks, a pretty girl on my arm? I feel like F Scott Fitzgerald.”
“You don’t like being outside. Not even in your own backyard. It makes you anxious.”
Jack opens and closes his mouth several times, his expression alternating between confused and irate.
“That’s…no, don’t be so silly! It’s just a little warm in this suit, is all. Look, I think the ceremony’s about to begin! You’d better grab a seat, I have to go take my place.”
He takes her by the hand and leads her towards a chair. She can feel his palms are sweaty even through her gloves.
As she sits, she overhears two men speaking in hushed, urgent whispers: “Am I the only one who thinks that this whole wedding is batshit crazy?”
“People are thinking it, they just aren’t saying it. If you really want the whole of Halcyon to blacklist you, go ahead. I look forward to visiting your new headquarters in Guatemala.”
Freya takes her seat next to Callum, who is holding a tray of eight full champagne glasses. “I always stock up before the event,” he passes her a glass.
Evelyn is standing under the garden pagoda, which is decorated in white lilies and ribbons. In front of her sits Elijah, implausibly upright in his throne-on-wheels, regal and ridiculous. Elijah and Evelyn are flanked by two dark-suited security guards and a triumvirate of Rosaline’s mannequin companions. They are mirrored by Jack and one of Harland’s business associates, who has promised himself that if he doesn’t get a fucking raise after this malarkey then he is going to work for someone more reasonable, like the next Bernie Madoff.
Thomas P. Wortz dabs the sweat on his face with a monogrammed handkerchief. He stares out at the crowd, watching the collection of CEOs, CFOs, PhDs, MDs, QCs, and OBGYNs take their seats and stare back at him, each pretending not to be appalled by the events he is about to officiate over.
He drains the glass of water in front of him and clears his throat as the string quartet strikes up Bach’s Arioso. The crowd murmurs its doubts, its concerns, its compliments on dresses, its inane comments about the weather. The strings hum through the cool early-autumn air.
And then Rosaline arrives and the quartet stops playing. A hush falls on the crowd, crushing all speech as effectively as the morbidly obese woman sitting next to Freya had crushed her designer sunglasses.
Standing there, bouque
t in hand, glowing virginal smile, her father-in-law-to-be at her side, she truly has transformed into Rosaline, her beloved childhood doll; as if freshly unwrapped from her packaging with the scent of plastic lingering on her alabaster skin. All eyes are on her. This is the moment she has been dreaming, planning, anticipating her entire life.
She closes her eyes, counts to three and, as she takes her first step forward, the string quartet launches into “Here Comes the Bride.” She breathes in the moment, feels the grass passing beneath her, the languor of the clouds, the music in the air. She drinks it all in, recording every minute detail in her head.
At a deeper level, her consciousness is nagging her with the fact that tomorrow this gossamer castle of fantasy will disintegrate into ruins. But right now, reason’s whisper is unable to compete with delusion’s roar.
She is almost there. At the altar, her comatose, dreaming lover awaits, strapped to his wheelchair. Harland’s arm is tucked tightly into hers. Perhaps a little too tightly. She turns to face the crowd and nods, then sits in the chair extravagantly decorated in white lace and laden with lilies that sits beside Elijah’s throne. She takes her betrothed’s limp hand in hers.
Thomas P. Wortz clears his throat and, for the 242nd and final time, recites the regulation atheist/agnostic vow: “Dearly beloved, We are gathered…If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”
The crowd remains deathly silent. A woman sneezes and several people around her jolt as if it were gunfire. Yvette, a few rows ahead of Freya and Callum, snaps a lighter on her first in a series of cigarettes.
“We won’t need the next bit,” Evelyn hisses quietly to the celebrant. Thomas, not the most courageous of men, is so terrified of her he would probably strip naked and do a one-man rendition of A Streetcar Named Desire if she asked.
“No…no…of course not. Shall we…?”
In the third row, an elderly, rotund man bulging out of his white suit begins to stand. Evelyn’s eyes immediately lock on to him.
