'I mean, you get married to Jess, obviously, and Franny can marry Simon, Emmanuella can marry Franny's older brother what's his name? Miles. He's tall and blond. And I'll marry Nicola. And we should all live together in a big house in, let's say, Tuscany. Or Provence. Or Oxford.'

He stretched out on the chaise longue, showing a slice of hairless stomach as he did so.

'Don't you think so, James? I mean, really, don't you think so? We should all be together. It's so silly that we're not. Together, all the time. I could do it. I'll buy a house, a huge one so we can all have separate kitchens and living rooms: you and me and Franny and Jess and Emmanuella and Simon. All together like in Oxford.'

'We can't, Mark. That's just not the way things work.'

He sat up, cross-legged.

'I know,' he said, 'but why not? Doesn't everyone want this? To stay together with their university friends forever? For things to stay just as they were at college?'

'Well, perhaps,' I said. It was like talking to a child. 'But it can't be like that, can it? We have to go out, get jobs, make a living.'

'Oh, a living. I can take care of all of that. Really, I can. It's no problem.'

I sighed. 'I know you can, Mark. But we don't want you to.'

'I don't see why. I mean, I'm marrying Nicola now and so it's OK for me to pay for things for her. Why can't I just pay for things for all of us? Why can't I, sort of, marry all of you? You don't have to stop doing things. You don't even need to be there all the time. Franny can write her books on economics, and Simon can live there when he's not travelling around the world, and Jess can play her music and you can, oh, I don't know, just lie around all day in a pair of swimming trunks.'

He smiled his wolfish grin and I thought again with surprise, oh, it can be like this, then. We can talk like this and it needn't mean anything at all.

And Mark is so persuasive; his vision for a moment seemed reasonable to me. We could live like children forever: in freedom and unknowing, dependent on the good graces of others. Even Mark's dependence was absolute, for his money had come to him as a gift and if he were ever to reach the bottom of it, he would have no way to replace it. Isn't this the paradise that the religious always imagine themselves to be in? Dependent forever on the beneficence of Almighty God and forever grateful for His bounty?

He yawned, suddenly, as cats do a yawn that looked as though it might dislocate his jaw.

'Sorry,' he said, stifling another yawn, 'I'm awfully tired. I've been driving back and forth to Dorset a lot and it's making me sleepy.'

He rolled on to his stomach and pulled a rug over himself. I stood up to leave, but he caught me by the cuff.

'No,' he said, 'stay. Until I go to sleep. Like we used to do in Oxford.'

I couldn't remember having done such a thing for him in Oxford. I wanted to remember it, though. He made me want to remember it.

I sat down.

I looked out of the window at the restaurant with its little busy lives. I looked at Mark, his fair hair fallen across his eyes like a schoolboy. I waited. When his breath became deep and regular, I put on my jacket. I pulled the blind down and lit one of the smaller electric lamps. It cast a slight orange glow across the room. I pulled the door closed quietly behind me and walked down the passage to the front door.

I felt something then, as I let myself out of his flat. I didn't know what it was. I thought of him lying there asleep and how easy, how terribly easy that conversation had been. And his flat, the smell of cigarettes around the walls, the discarded clothes among the first editions. The squalor of it and yet the beauty. I stood with his front door open, staring at the green wallpaper of his hallway for a long time.

17.

Mark and Nicola married in May, in an open-air ceremony in the grounds of a house near to the Wedmore family home. The day was sunny, the venue picturesque, the flowers eloquent in their simplicity. Nicola carried a bouquet of Michaelmas daisies, Mark wore a yolk-yellow tie, and the guests kept their doubts in check even at the moment of 'speak now or forever hold your peace'.

I was an usher, but my duties were soon over. I had handed out Orders of Service and directed honoured relatives to front-row seats, but after the service began there was nothing for me to do other than listen to the words of God and hold Jess's hand. The thing was stiff, it seemed to me. Formal and so strictly ordained that Mark and Nicola were like characters in a play and we the audience. Mass, a sermon and words from the Bible, Simon bravely working his way through 'love is not jealous, it does not boast' with seeming conviction, although half the people there knew that, even until the previous day, he had been suggesting with increasing force that the wedding should be postponed.

But Mark and Nicola had continued doggedly through all protestations and concerns. 'Love is patient, love is kind.' I would not have thought Mark had such persistence in him; he had never shown it before. 'Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking.' They had simply made their plans, booked the venue, talked to caterers, decided on colour schemes, while all around them shells of anxiety and anger burst and left them unscathed. 'Love always trusts, always hopes, always per- severes.' Was this love? Nicola, seventeen years old and shining-eyed, thought so. Mark, delivered from dilettantism, thought so. Franny said, 'It won't last a year,' and even Jess said, 'They do seem to be hurrying it rather.'

'But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled.' They made telephone calls, they filed important papers in ring binders, they invited Mark's mother with all due graciousness. They held each other's hands throughout. And they came to their reward. This very moment: 'What God has joined together, let no man put asunder,' and an eruption of applause.

As we watched Nicola's aunt apply powder to her bosom before the photographs were taken, Jess leaned in to me and whispered in my ear, 'Promise me we'll never have to do this.'

I said, 'I promise.'

'What are you two up to?' said Franny from behind us. 'Planning your own announcement?'

She was a little drunk already and of course it was a wedding, but I wondered when I had last seen her without a drink, or spent an evening with her which she had not ended tottering and staggering. I felt for her, though, remembering what had gone before.

I said, 'You needn't worry about us. We'll never do it. Jess wants to be free to have affairs and ditch me at a moment's notice, don't you?'

And Jess smiled and said nothing.

There were speeches later; Mark was less entertaining than he could be, but irreverent and self-mocking. He said, 'Now that I've found Nicola, I'm delighted to announce that no one can accuse me any more of having more money than sense,' and raucous laughter and scattered applause followed. I was astonished; he had never joked about money before. He made his new bride a little presentation: a gift from his childhood. I knew what it was before she had the box open: the music box, glittering glass and gold, finally finding a suitable home. Nicola and Simon's father, David, gave a rambling, slightly choked speech, remembering Nicola when she was a little girl and saying how quickly this day had come. I was almost certain I heard someone whisper, 'A damn sight too quickly, if you ask me.' Mark gave gifts to the little flower-girls, hoisting them up towards the tiered canopy in his arms, pretending to drop them as they screamed and giggled. He hugged them and planted kisses on their foreheads and Franny, sitting next to me, muttered, 'Yeah, yeah, Mark, we get it.'

I had not realized how much of a wedding is show until I saw this one. No one ever wants to look beyond the trimmings on a wedding day, to see the doubts and the insecurities, the compromises and the fears that lie beneath. It is a parade, a theatrical performance in which all lines have been learned in advance. It is a necessary fiction; without our beguiling fictions how would we ever dream grandly or live boldly? We need the trappings as much as the substance.

I watched Mark's face during his first dance with Nicola, looking for signs of discomfort or pleasure. There was nothing, though, but a smooth confidence which was so new that I could not help but stare at his face. And I saw as he flicked his eyes from the surrounding tables back to his bride his wife, how astonishing and turned the full power of his smile on her. And she, excited, smiled back and moved her head a little towards him, and he moved in towards her. And they kissed. I could not help watching; this was what we had all come to see, after all.

The dancing turned, soon enough, from sedate and ceremonial to fast and energetic. They played the Macarena and all Nicola's friends charged forwards, with Mark at their head, to dance, clapping and shimmying and jumping and placing their hands on their hips and swaying. A few of the older relatives began to make their way home. This was not their time any more, after all. Jess knew better than to suggest I'd want to dance; my knee could not bear it. But I sat comfortably while she and Franny joined in with the jumping, staccato throng. Sweat gleamed on Mark's forehead. Nicola rotated her hips and leapt.

A short while later, at our table, Franny became definitively drunk. She had found a man, one of Simon's schoolfriends, and was engaging him in vehement, incomprehensible conversation until she noticed me. She wheeled around in her seat and said, 'James! At last. I need ... you are the one I need to talk to.'

She had a glass of whisky in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, and fiddled with her hair so indiscriminately, not caring which hand she put up to it, that she was in constant danger of setting herself alight.

'Oh yes?' I said.

'Yes,' she said, and leaned towards me.

Her dress, a loose wrap of black silk which clung to the curves of her body, had fallen a little too low, so that when she leaned forward her nipples popped over the top. I tried not to look, but my eyes were drawn inexorably back down as they disappeared, reappeared.

'So,' she said, 'honestly, honestly now, how long d'you think it'll last?'

She gestured towards Mark and Nicola with her whisky glass, slopping a few heavy drops over the side. I looked at Mark and Nicola. They were exchanging goodbyes with Nicola's grandparents: tears and hugs.

'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'It could last a lifetime. It does sometimes happen.'

Franny gave her short bark of a laugh. Her breasts wobbled and one nipple poked over the top of her dress and stayed there.

'A lifetime! Two years, tops. Maybe a bit more if Nicola pops a sprog.' She leered at me. 'But he'll be back in the cottages within a year, I say.'

I smiled and said that I could see Jess calling me from the other side of the room.

On my way across the room, I was caught by Isabella. She was older now, her age was beginning to be unconcealable, her bosom in her sequinned dress was growing crepey and she herself was strangely vacant. I wondered if she'd taken a tranquillizer to get through the day, as Mark said had often been her habit.

'James!' she said. 'Do you remember me?'

'Of course,' I said. 'Congratulations. You must be very happy.'

She nodded complacently. 'It is what I always wished for him.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Nicola's a lovely girl.'

'After his terrible trouble,' she said, and looked at me intently, beetling her brows.

'Mmmm.' I was only half paying attention.

'There was one time,' she said, plucking at my sleeve, 'I thought he would surely kill me! Or worse! We consulted an exorcist, you know, in case there was a demon in him. But it was long ago now.'

'Really?' I said, suddenly intrigued.

'He is safe now,' she said, 'safe from all of that.' And she would not be drawn further on the subject.

I found Emmanuella sitting at a table, calm and smiling, an undrunk glass of champagne by her elbow and her hand resting on the knee of her dark-skinned, blond-haired boyfriend. She smiled when she saw me, tipping her head to one side and allowing a curtain of hair to fall like water.

'Ola, James,' she said. 'Have you met Alfonso?'

The boyfriend stood up smartly almost, but not quite, clicking his heels together and shook my hand. So this was His Excellency Alfonso Urdangarin y de Borbon a name Jess and I had sniggered at when we spotted it on the table plan.

'Charming,' said Alfonso. 'Tell me, is this the house where Mark and Nicola intend to live when they are married?'

I laughed. This was a country house rented for the occasion by Mark because Nicola had wanted the wedding to be near her family and he had wanted it to be far away from his.

'No, no,' I said. 'People often rent houses for the day for their wedding.'

Alfonso frowned. 'But I thought ...' He turned to Emmanuella and they exchanged a few short sentences in Spanish. He turned back to me and bowed gravely. 'I apologize, you are entirely correct.'

I wondered what would happen if I refused to accept his apology. Rapiers at dawn did not seem out of the question.

'No problem,' I said. And then, because I could not think of anything else, I said, 'So ... what do you do?'

He frowned at me and said, 'Do?'

'Ah,' I nodded. 'Right, yes, OK.'

I made my excuses and moved on.

I found Jess again, talking to Simon. Or standing next to Simon while he watched the dance floor balefully. I slipped beside her and took her hand. Simon said, 'Hi,' and went back to staring at his sister, who was now dancing a vigorous jive with Mark.

Simon had not brought a girl to the wedding. Instead he was flanked by two tall broad-shouldered farming men, friends from schooldays with dark tans from outdoor work.

'Hello,' said one, 'I'm Dick.'

'I'm Richard,' said the other.

We shook hands.

'I'll get the beers in,' said Richard. Or it might have been Dick.

'Top man,' said Simon, 'I'm too bloody sober.'

Mark and Nicola had taken swing lessons. They were dancing together, eyes wide, mouths open with excitement, feet kicking out to the sides. Mark pulled at Nicola's hand and spun her energetically three, four, five times.

Simon said, low and several times, 'Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.'

I nodded, unsure what to respond.

Dick, or it might have been Richard, said, 'Too true, mate, too true,' and the other came back with the beers.

They were all three leaning back in their chairs, tilting as far as they could without falling over. They began to talk while tilting, taking swigs of beer, like commentators at a cricket match.

'I see Amanda is on the pull tonight,' said one, nodding at a blonde woman in her thirties wearing a short purple dress and matching heels.

'She'll be after you if you don't mind,' said another, and they laughed deep, humourless laughs.

My final memory of Mark from that day is of the minutes before their going-away, when he came racing up to me, conspiratorial, pulling on my hand to bring me close to his lips as he whispered, 'Did you hear? Franny's thrown up all down the front steps!'

I looked at him. He was very close to me so close that I could smell the sharp scent of his cologne and the musky scent of his sweat. His face was that of an excited schoolboy, flushed and delighted. He raised his eyebrows, grinned, and raced off again.

Jess had to go then, to see to Franny, to help her wash her face, to find a place for her to rest, to get a cab to take her to the hotel. I tried to help too, but Franny was sobbing and swearing, and Jess shook her head at me and mouthed, 'I'll come and find you.'

I thought of her saying, 'What a painful person Mark must be to love,' and I nodded and walked away.

In the main marquee, several teenage couples were kissing each other hungrily on the dance floor, hands under clothes, inside dresses and dress shirts. On the tables, brandy-snap baskets of ice cream were melting into puddles of sticky, milky foam. I took my jacket from the back of my chair, pulled it on and walked out into the cool night air.

The night was cloudless, the moon paper-bright and high in the sky. The walkways all around were lit by flaming torches. Couples were talking, flirting, snogging. Friends were drinking or sharing a joint. I walked around the lake at the bottom of the hill, where the torches showed a path. After a few hundred yards I passed a clump of bushes where a couple were unmistakably fucking. The branches of the bushes were shaking rhythmically and I could hear the 'hn, hn, hn' grunting of the man, the woman's half-excited, half-pained 'ah, ah, ah'. I walked past as quietly as I could and if they heard me they gave no sign of it.

The lake was fed by a thunderously tumbling weir. An overhanging branch trailed across my face and I remembered that it was in a similar spot, far from people, by a river, that I had injured myself so severely that I had never quite risen again. As I walked, the loud crashing water soon blotted out the noise of the party.

On a wall covered in a soggy sponge of moss, I sat down, stretching my legs in front of me. I found I could not help thinking of Mark. I hadn't seen a great deal of him in the past months. But when I had seen him I'd felt glad to be his friend. Yes, that was it. Glad to hear the little woes and triumphs of the business of the wedding. A wedding is bound to make the bride and groom seem glamorous. Mark and Nicola had been like movie stars today; one could not help wanting to be close to them. That was it, too.

But this thinking could not hold. I began, almost without willing it, to observe my own thoughts. And I laughed. I could not help it. I sat in the roaring silence of the weir and laughed like a madman. What a pathetic thing to realize. What a stupid thing to want. How typical of myself I always was. For it had become suddenly clear to me, horrifically and hilariously clear, that I was in love with Mark.

18.