Page 16 of The Spare

Benedict

Imay not be remotely convinced that marrying Slinky is the right call, but I’m finding the drama of today wildly entertaining. It’s from the privacy of the sacristy that I watch the cathedral fill with hundreds of unsuspecting guests while Pieter stays out front, shepherding the groomsmen. The line he’s feeding them is that ‘Xav’ has been spending some last quiet moments with his family and is on his way. We weren’t willing to take the risk of our indiscreet mates ruining our carefully planned execution strategy.

Like the de Vere family, the origins of Christchurch Cathedral date back a good nine centuries. Not too shabby. And, like the de Vere family, it was once proudly Catholic, built on the site of an Augustinian priory. In fact, Catherine of Aragon prayed here in the fifteen hundreds, beseeching the Lord to give her a son. He didn’t, of course; Anne Boleyn moved in on Henry VIII, and the rest is history, but I quite enjoy the irony that the college was founded by Cardinal Wolsey, one of the architects of Catherine’s downfall before Henry found him, too, lacking.

I love a good wedding. In our social circles, they tend to be high budget and raucous. Usually, I attend as a guest or a groomsman, well placed to enjoy the festivities. If today had gone the way my parents had intended it to go, I’d be standing at the front of the church right now, offering my brother my support, probably trying to gauge whether his misery was vague or abject as I attempted to keep his spirits up with my infantile brand of humour.

He should be here with me.

We were always supposed to be each other’s best men. While I don’t regret for a moment persuading him to stay away today, it doesn’t feel right that I should be left alone in this creepy sacristy, watching row after row fill up with the great and good of British society and hoping I don’t shit my pants.

Maybe I should have worn brown trousers.

It’s simultaneously sad and reassuring to know that Slinks must be finding today every bit as rough.

As four o’clock draws closer, Pieter slips back in beside me. ‘None of them have a clue,’ he reports. ‘Completely fucking oblivious.’

‘For now.’

‘Your mother’s sitting down.’

‘Good.’ My dickhead cousin Eddie, whom we couldn’t avoid making a groomsman, has walked her up the aisle, given that her eldest son is absent.

A couple of minutes later, Stephen Faulkner, Bishop of Oxford, slides into the sacristy in his robes. Christchurch Cathedral is a funny one, run by the university’s dean rather than the city’s bishop, but you can bet your cotton socks the de Veres have pulled out the big guns for the nuptials of their heir to the dukedom. It’s to the bishop’s credit that he’s taken the Great Groom Swap in his stride.

‘You doing all right, Benedict?’ he asks. ‘You’re looking a little green around the gills.’ He has an avuncular style which, at this moment, is not unwelcome.

‘Feeling it,’ I say.

‘Give me a second.’ He opens a cupboard, and I hear a cork being popped, liquid sloshing into a glass. ‘Here.’ He hands me an inch of what looks like port in a tumbler. ‘Best I can do at short notice. Unconsecrated communion wine,’ he clarifies. ‘Get that down you.’

That’s not a bad call, actually. I hold the glass up in salute. ‘Thank you, Your Excellency.’ I down it in one. Fuck, that’s rough. Jesus Christ. Tastes like paint stripper. I grimace as I swallow it down and wipe the back of my hand over my mouth like a little boy who’s just necked a glass of milk.

He smiles at me. ‘Good lad. That’ll put hairs on your chest. Big deal, what’s happening today.’

No argument here. ‘It certainly is.’

He glances down at his watch. ‘We are at… seven minutes to four.’

‘Got it.’ The wine is burning my throat, and I’m glad of the comforting warmth. ‘Let me text her.’ I pull up Slinky’s number.

How are you getting on?

She replies straight away.

Just on St Aldate’s. We’ll be there right on time.

That’s my girl. She’s a trooper. However fazed she is by this week’s events, she’s reliable as clockwork. I nod at the bishop. ‘Go for it.’

With a smile, he heads back out to the front of the church. Pieter opens the sacristy door fully, and we stand well back so that no one from the congregation can see us. I’m sure they’re all wondering by now where Xav is, why he and Pieter and I aren’t standing up front.

All I can say is that they’re about to find out. We’ve orchestrated this very carefully:

Step one: Faulkner alerts the congregation.

Step two: I step out and take my place at the top of the aisle, while our guests presumably go fucking apeshit around me.

Step three: at precisely four o’clock, Slinks will show up and David will walk her down the aisle.