The Aisle and Skye (The Skye Series Book 2)

by Fox Brison

  “Seriously?” I regarded the outfit like it was made out of nuclear waste and by wearing it I would mutate into a tutu wearing antihero. Skye Donaghie, HistoryWoman, boring bad guys to death one inane fact at a time.

  “Count yourself lucky. I’m going easy on you because you’re marrying my little sister, and if anything bad were to happen, Mam would string me up.” Sara had a point. I was getting off very lightly indeed after the hand I played in her hen do in Blackpool. Words could do no justice to the carnage we wrought in that one weekend, the piece de résistance of which…

  Andy’s mother was born with a broom handle up her arse and never thought Sara was good enough for her precious baby boy. So when Andy’s younger sister, Cara, came home from Blackpool with pubic lice in her eyebrows from the, as it turns out, unhygienic manslut/stripper I hired? (No, I’d never heard of it before either. Mind I heard a lot about it afterwards. An awful lot.) Let’s just say the relationship between Sara and her future in laws progressed to even rockier ground. In fact, it was filled with that many boulders and craters, their relationship was like the surface of the Moon after a meteor storm.

  “Fine,” I grumbled, but half-heartedly at best. As I went to change I glanced back at the five women laughing and joking in my front room and couldn’t believe my luck. They were the sort of friends I could rely on, the sort of friends who would shower me with affection no matter how fast or hard I pushed them away.

  The sort of friends I never thought I’d need.

  ***

  “Dear god, I can’t go out like this!” I groaned to myself. The pink tutu wasn’t awful, not even when paired with an ‘L’ plate and plastic tiara. However, the pink Doc Martins were overkill to my mind, as was the little letters after the L declaring ‘lesbian in training.’

  Trust me I lost my training wheels a long time ago!

  Whoops greeted me when I returned to the living room to find everyone wearing matching t-shirts, rainbow ones with my year nine school photo printed on the front. Oh. Dear. God. Any picture but that one!

  “You like?” Angie grinned wickedly. Just call her Elphaba and be done with it.

  “I thought I’d destroyed all of those,” I scowled. I looked like a 1970s porn star, a male one, all that was missing was the moustache. I had the tightest perm ever, topped off with platinum blonde highlights. I don’t know what drug I was on, thinking I would look good with curls. And as for Sara? Allowing me to walk out of ‘Cutz’ with that atrocity should have resulted in her BFF title being revoked.

  I gulped down another glass of punch in the hope that the picture would morph into any other. Jesus, even one of me as a naked toddler would have been less embarrassing. It was a little disconcerting if I’m honest. Actually it was more than a little disconcerting, it was damned scary.

  Next to the punch I spied a plate of covered sandwiches. Yes! We were staying in. Sara saw me eyeing them up as if they were the Messiah here to save me from hen party hell.

  If only.

  “They’re for when we get home tonight. Soak up the alcohol,” she explained. “Mam made them. She didn’t want us doing our usual.”

  Our usual was a dodgy kebab and garlic sauce from a van parked on Berwick high street. Which in fairness we hadn’t done for over seven years, not since Sara went respectable.

  “So the Ship for a couple, followed by the Anchor for a nightcap?” I asked more in hope than expectation.

  “Nope, we’re going into Berwick. We might even hit Bedrocks,” Angie and Sara high fived.

  I didn’t think the night could get any worse than punch designed to make you blind and a picture that wouldn’t have been out place on one of those clickbait websites, you know the ones, the ten worst celebrity school photos ever.

  I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

  Bedrocks, one of only two nightclubs in the town, was practically as old as me. The décor was nouveau tacky with an archetypal sticky floor thrown in for good measure. “Are the toilets still called Fred and Wilma?” Like I said it wasn’t classy, but I had to admit it was kinda fun.

  “They sure are. It hasn’t changed since we used to sneak in there when we were fifteen,” Angie said with a grin and I did a pretty good impression of someone eating a holly leaf.

  “It’s me you should feel sorry for, Skye,” Tara whispered, “I’m the designated driver and even though I’m thinking fuck it we can get a taxi home, I still can’t drink ‘cos I’m preggers.” She rubbed her hand over her expanding stomach. “Damn Michael!”

  ***

  Despite my best efforts to avoid the inevitable, we did indeed end up at Bedrocks. Two minutes inside the nightclub and Brooke appeared to have entered a cultural coma version of the Twilight Zone. Except for poor brave Tara, the rest of us were tipsy. Actually the rest of us had passed tipsy and were swiftly heading towards rat arsed. Whoever invented shots should be, well, shot. However Ali?

  Ali was completely capybara arsed.

  “You know, Skye,” she slurred, “I really love you.”

  Oh. Dear. God. I’d never been around her when she was drunk, heck I’d barely been around her when she was sober, and didn’t know what to expect. “I love you too, Ali,” I said loudly and embarrassedly. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world for me to be having this conversation. “C’mon, let’s dance.” I stood up and took her hand hoping to stop the conversation before it started. Yeah, Ali owned several other ideas and she pulled me back down onto the long padded bench.

  “No, you don’t understand. What I did was wrong, but it wasn’t all my fault.”

  This was taking an unexpected turn.

  “And I’m gonna tell them.” She picked up her phone and it took me several seconds to grasp what she was doing. In fact it wasn’t until I heard… “Mum, Dad…”

  Oh… oh shit… she was drunk calling her parents, which, trust me, was a million times worse than drunk texting an ex! I attempted to snatch the phone from her before she said something we would all regret but I was as effective as a butterfly in a tornado.

  “Yes it’s me… yes of course I know what time it is.” She moved her phone further away from her face and then nearer, and then further away again as she struggled to focus on the clock.

  By this epically bad stage, Angie, Brooke and Sara had tuned into what was going on. Their mouths were agape like the carnival game where you have to toss a ping pong ball into the gaping maw of a plastic clown. Tara? Well she was eyeing up my shot glass!

  “It’s one o’clock in the morning and I lost my best friend because of you… no you listen… there’s nothing wrong with Skye Donaghie… no this has nothing to do with… no you need to shut the fuck up and listen to me!” she demanded and even the booth next to us quietened down after that! “I love her… oh for goodness sakes, no I’m not a lesbian, but if I was it would be okay because love is love and I love Skye and Natalie. And if Melissa grows up to be like them I’ll be the proudest Mam in the world. Because they accept people and treat everyone with respect and that’s what Jesus taught us.” She hung up, downed her shot to whoops and cheers from the rest of the party, and took my unresisting hand. “Now let’s dance! I lurve this song it was the first one Cam and I fu-”

  “Woah there, too much information!” I held up both hands, “We get the picture.” After listening into Ali’s side of the conversation, it confirmed what I’d suspected for many years –Ali’s rampant homophobia had less to do with mine and Nat’s sexuality and more to do with her parent’s intolerance. My respect for her ratcheted up a million points after that moment and I only hoped she didn’t live to regret what she’d done when she sobered up.

  We boogied the night away until near closing, but there was enough time, according to Ali anyway, for two more shots. “I think Melissa has a crush on Ms Daily at school. The PE teacher. Who was your first crush, Skye? I bet it was Nat.”

  “And if you’d put money on it you’d have been collecting big time. I only wish we could have married on Hobthrus
h, that’s where I realised I loved-”

  “Throb Bush?” Ali giggled. “That would be the right place for a lesbian to marry. Throbbing bush. I bet Nat makes your bush-”

  “And on that note, I think we’d better head back or we might miss the tides,” Tara interrupted to my consummate relief.

  ***

  Turning over I snuggled into Nat’s back. “Gerroff,” a voice beside me growled. I sat up gingerly, extremely gingerly, and faced the detritus of my first ever adult sleepover. It was carnage, pure and simple. The camping mats and inflatable air beds that Mrs Jeffries, God bless her, thoughtfully laid out for us, resembled a campsite which had suffered a stampede; there were empty paper cups and half eaten sandwiches everywhere. Well not quite everywhere, most circled Ali. It was like she was the pilgrim wagon train and the leftover cheese and ham sarnies were the native Americans.

  The door opened and light spilled in.

  “Close it, for the love of all that’s holy, close that bloody door,” Ali moaned.

  “Someone looks like they had a wild night.” After gently closing the front door, Nat bent down to kiss me.

  I put my hand over my mouth and saw Brooke do the same when Abby neared her. “Next time we might arrive after the hen party,” I heard her say and laugh.

  “Don’t it’s like a hazardous waste site in there,” I said, my voice husky through lack of sleep and giggling. It was one of those nights when everything was funny.

  “It was good?” Nat asked.

  “Epic,” I groaned.

  “I saw.”

  “You did?”

  “I did. Ali. Facebook. Need I say more?”

  I hid my head in my hands. I wished someone, somewhere had owned the foresight to steal Ali’s smartphone after she spoke to her… oh… oh crap a doodle. Ali’s parents. I chanced a glance and Ali was frowning. Suddenly she laughed at something on her phone.

  “Parents?” I mouthed.

  She grinned and winked. “Yup.”

  Whilst I had enough on my plate to be worrying about, I was pleased Ali could smile about her drunken, albeit truthful, rant, and her parents subsequent riposte.

  It’s probably a couple of Bible verses and an emailed mass card.

  ***

  Later that afternoon once we’d sobered up, much, much later for certain people, we went for a walk along the beach and I’m not sure how it started but we ended up having a manic game of tag. Yes, we were adults, and yes it was a child’s game, but I hadn’t had so much fun in a ages. It felt good not thinking about anything other than not being caught. Another reason for having children – you get to play more!

  “Happy?” Natalie put her arms around my waist and I leant back into her arms.

  “More than I ever thought possible,” I whispered. “And tomorrow when I say I do, I’ll feel even happier.” I couldn’t help but smile. I felt like I’d spent my life as a caterpillar, and falling in love with Natalie was the catalyst for my metamorphosis into a butterfly. Now everything else was slotting easily into place and it felt the precipitous point to talk to her about something else that had been on my mind recently. “Nat, I was thinking about kids.”

  “They’re sorted aren’t they? The boys are gonna be page boys and the girls-”

  “No I mean our kids,” I began. Confidently. Nervously. A curious juxtaposition I wasn’t used to. Normally I was by far the latter and it showed what a change Natalie had wrought upon my life. Now the only coldness in it was the wind flying like a Norse invasion over the North Sea bringing with it a taste of the past and heralding a future I once only dreamed of.

  “I hadn’t planned this today. It’s not ideal, but who’s to say what is ideal.” I was rambling. Here goes nothing. “I was wondering, what you thought about children? I mean possibly start our family sooner rather than later?”

  “Our…” her voice trailed off.

  “Yes, ours. If what’s been going on has taught me anything, it’s that life is short.”

  “Skye, sweetheart,” she raked her hands through her hair. “It’s not that I don’t want kids, because I really, really do. The thought of seeing you pregnant with our child? It gives me goosebumps. I can imagine you glowing, eating a large jar of gherkins.” She smiled, a touch apologetically. “But honestly, I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

  “Oh no, it’s okay. I understand.” And I did. “It was a stupid idea. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I should have waited until after I have my tests.” I looked towards our friends and family. What had started out as a romantic notion, to me anyway, ended up being another catastrophe.

  “Skye it has nothing to do with the tests, I promise you. I’m not saying no, I’m saying not yet. My career is in a weird place at the moment and-”

  “It’s okay,” I said much brighter than I felt. “I totally, totally understand.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.” Although I wasn’t, not completely.

  She may not have said never, but right now that’s what it felt like.

  ***

  Sara called a stop to the game of tag and a start to the production line in the marquee erected that morning. Flower arranging 101, she called it.

  I called it the Holy Island sweatshop.

  Natalie stuffed the last of her white roses into the oasis and then scrutinised the little basket, twisting it this way and that. Admiring it, she seemed pleasantly surprised by her efforts. Creative pursuits, however, were not Natalie’s forte. She picked up the picture Sara had given us, then twisted her basket again.

  Before casting a nervous glance left.

  Brooke’s was flawless. Right turn? Ah yes, Abby, she won’t let her down… I grinned, knowing exactly what was going through my fiancée’s mind. Nope, Abby’s was spot on too.

  “Nat, that looks like a blind monkey with the shakes made it,” Sara growled. The rest of the flower party stopped to look at Natalie’s creation.

  “It’s not that bad,” she protested, weakly.

  “It’s-”

  “It’s beautiful,” I interrupted the beginning of another condemnatory outburst from Sara. I kissed Natalie and sat on her lap.

  “B…b…but-” Sara stuttered

  “But nothing.”

  Natalie wriggled beneath me; and that didn’t raise a tingle for both of us. “I love when you use your no nonsense tone,” she murmured. “You get all throaty and sexy and I-”

  “It. Is. Beautiful.” I said before Natalie went a tad too far. “Do you want everyone to start calling you Bridesmaidzilla, Sara?”

  “She rose from the deep,” Nat intoned.

  “Twenty stories high, with a pink flowery dress,” I continued to laughter from the cheap seats. “And a fervent gleam in her eye.”

  “Hardy, har, har. I just wanted everything to be perfect,” Sara said with a pout.

  “If Nat’s there it will be perfect.” There was a collective awww and a chuckle as I added, “It isn’t too late to elope to Gretna, Nat!”

  Chapter 46

  Natalie

  If there is one thing I hate, it’s waking up in a panic. Opening my eyes on the morning of the wedding, I was faced with my Hugo Boss suit hanging on the back of the bedroom door. The sun was streaming in through the window, and despite it only being the beginning of February, it warmed my cheek.

  Nothing there to instigate panic you may think.

  Turning my head slightly to the left, I glanced at the clock on my bedside locker; nine am and nuttin done, I smiled, saying my grandfather’s favourite phrase. Nine am?

  And nothing done… and that’s when the meltdown started.

  “Fuck!” I swore. I was due at the castle at eleven! I leapt out of bed and hurried towards the door. I would not be a walking cliché and be late for my own wedding.

  Which made me stop and think for a millisecond.

  We were both brides so it was our prerogatives to be late; but we both couldn’t be late otherwise we’d get there at the same time… my mind bega
n to boggle. It was a circle of the vicious kind! I rapidly spun on the spot like the seventies version of Wonder Woman, except surprise surprise, I wasn’t miraculously changed from my shorts and vest into my suit. Nor did I have big hair or a snazzy costume.

  No, I was left feeling incredibly dizzy and in an even bigger panic.

  Breathe.

  That was the first thing on my to do list this morning. That was easy. Okay next. Shower then breakfast. Or should I have breakfast first? I gave myself a mental slap. You can do this, Jeffries, it’s not that complicated!

  “Knock, knock,” my Dad’s voice interrupted my mini-breakdown. The door opened a smidgen and his head poked through. “Alright, pet? You got a minute?”

  A minute? Was he serious right now?

  “Not really, Dad, why didn’t anyone call me?”

  “You’ve got two hours to get ready and I’ve seen you up, shower, breakfast and out of the door in under twenty minutes before. Besides, you looked so peaceful we thought you needed the rest; it’s been a savage month for you.” He sat down and patted the bed. I was silently cursing him. Okay, not so silently and he chuckled. Yes, I had a couple of hours but I wasn’t getting ready to go for a run or to training - this was my wedding day for Christ’s sake!

  “I wanted to have a word with you, like, before things got too busy. I know I’m a man of few words, mainly because I struggle to get any in edgeways with yer Mam!” I gave him a shrewd look. It was funny because it was true. “I know I’ve been at sea more than on land your whole life, but I love you and Sara more than anything in this world.”

  “I know that, Dad.” I placed a hand on his knee. I was grateful to him for saying it, but this love in couldn’t have come at a worse time. “You were doing what you had to do, to provide a roof over our heads and food on the table.”

  “Aye, but looking back I do regret missing out on things, not the big stuff, but the little stuff. Sitting at the table and talking to you about your day, watching you and your sister play hockey... The little stuff, you know? If I’d been at home more, things might have turned out differently.” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I hoped, I really, really hoped, he wasn’t suggesting that I turned gay because I didn’t have a male influence when I was growing up.