Will climbs out of the trapdoor carrying a pack of Guinness. We’re up on the Folly’s battlements, looking through the gaps in the stonework. The ground’s a long way down and some of the stones up here are pretty loose. If you didn’t have a good head for heights it would do a number on you. From here you can see all the way to the mainland. I feel like a king up here, with the sun on my face.
Will breaks a can out of the case. ‘Here you go.’
‘Ah, the good stuff. Thanks, mate. And sorry I walked in on you back there.’ I give him a wink. ‘Thought you were meant to save it for after marriage, though?’
Will raises his eyebrows, all innocence. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jules and I were going through the table plan.’
‘Oh yeah? That’s what they call it now? Honest though,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry about the suit, mate. I feel like such a tool for forgetting.’ I want him to know I feel bad – that I’m serious about being a good best man to him. I really am, I want to do him proud.
‘Not an issue,’ Will says. ‘Not sure my spare’s going to fit, but you’re welcome to it.’
‘You’re sure Jules is going to be all right about it? She didn’t look all that happy.’
‘Yeah,’ Will waves a hand. ‘She’ll be fine.’ Which I guess means she probably isn’t fine, but he’ll work on it.
‘OK. Thanks, mate.’
He takes a swig of his Guinness, leans against the stone wall behind us. Then he seems to remember something. ‘Oh. By the way, you haven’t seen Olivia, have you? Jules’s half-sister? She keeps disappearing. She’s a little—’ He makes a gesture: ‘cuckoo’, that’s what it means, but ‘fragile’ is what he says.
I met Olivia earlier. She’s tall and dark-haired, with a big, sulky mouth and legs that go up to her armpits. ‘Shame,’ I say. ‘’Cause … well, don’t
tell me you haven’t noticed?’
‘Johnno, she’s nineteen, for Christ’s sake,’ Will says. ‘Don’t be disgusting. Besides, she also happens to be my fiancée’s sister.’
‘Nineteen, so she’s legal, then,’ I say, looking to wind him up. ‘It’s tradition, isn’t it? The best man has the pick of the bridesmaids. And there’s only one, so it’s not like I have all that much choice …’
Will twists his mouth like he’s tasted something disgusting. ‘I don’t think that rule applies when they’re fifteen years younger than you, you idiot,’ he says. He’s acting all prim now, but he’s always had an eye for the ladies. They’ve always had an eye for him in return, lucky bastard. ‘She’s off-limits, all right? Get that through your thick skull.’ He knocks my head with his knuckles.
I don’t like the ‘thick skull’ bit. I’m not necessarily the brightest penny in the till. But I don’t like being treated like a moron, either. Will knows that. It was one of the things that always got my back up at school. I laugh it off, though. I know he didn’t mean it.
‘Look,’ he says. ‘I can’t have you blundering around making passes at my teenage sister-in-law. Jules would kill me. She’d kill you, too.’
‘All right, all right,’ I say.
‘Besides,’ he says, lowering his voice, ‘there’s also the fact that she’s, you know …’ he makes that cuckoo gesture again. ‘She must get it from Jules’s mum. Thank God Jules missed out on any of those genes.
Anyway, hands off, all right?’
‘Fine, fine …’ I take a swig of my Guinness and do a big belch. ‘You had a chance to do much climbing lately?’ Will asks me,
obviously trying to change the subject.
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Not really. That’s why I’ve got this.’ I pat my gut. ‘Hard to find time when you’re not being paid for it, like you are.’
The funny thing is, it was always me who was more into that stuff. All the outward-bound stuff. Until recently, it’s what I did for a living too, working at an adventure centre in the Lake District.
‘Yeah. I guess so,’ Will says. ‘It’s funny – it’s not quite as much fun as it looks, really.’
‘I doubt that, mate,’ I say. ‘You get to do the best thing on earth for a living.’
‘Well – you know … but it’s not that authentic; a lot of smoke and mirrors …’
I’d bet anything he uses a stuntman to do the harder stuff. Will has never liked getting his hands that dirty. He claims he did a lot of training for the show, but still.
‘Then there’s all the hair and makeup,’ he says, ‘which seems ridiculous when you’re shooting a programme about survival.’
‘Bet you love all that,’ I say with a wink. ‘Can’t fool me.’
He’s always been a bit vain. I say it with affection, obviously, but I enjoy getting him riled. He’s a good-looking bloke and he knows it. You can tell all the clothes he’s wearing today, even the jeans, are good stuff, expensive. Maybe it’s Jules’s influence: she’s a stylish lady herself and you can imagine her marching him into a shop. But you can’t imagine him minding much either.
‘So,’ I say, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘You ready to be a married man?’
He grins, nods. ‘I am. What can I say? I’m head over heels.’
I was surprised when Will told me he was getting married, I’m not going to lie. I’ve always thought of him as a lad about town. No woman can resist that golden boy charm. On the stag he told me about some of the dates he went on, before Jules. ‘I mean, in a way it was crazy good. I’ve never had so much action with so many different women as when I joined those apps, not even at uni. I had to get myself tested every couple of weeks. But there were some crazy ones out there, some clingy ones, you know? I don’t have time for all that any more. And then Jules came along. And she was … perfect. She’s so sure of herself, of what she wants from life. We’re the same.’
I bet the house in Islington didn’t hurt either, I didn’t say. The loaded dad. I don’t dare rib him about it – people get weird talking about money. But if there’s one thing Will has always liked, maybe even more than the ladies, it’s money. Maybe it’s a thing from childhood, never having quite as much as anyone else at our school. I get that. He was there because his dad was headmaster, while I got in on a sports scholarship. My family aren’t posh at all. I was spotted playing rugby at a school tournament in Croydon when I was eleven and they approached my dad. That sort of thing actually happened at Trevs: it was that important to them to field a good team.
A voice comes from down below us. ‘Hey hey hey!’ What’s going on up here?’
‘Boys!’ Will says. ‘Come up and join us! More the merrier!’ Bollocks. I was quite enjoying it being just Will and me.
They’re climbing up out of the trapdoor – the four ushers. I shift over to make room, giving each a nod as they appear: Femi, then Angus, Duncan, Peter.
‘Fuck me, it’s high up here,’ Femi says, peering over the edge.
Duncan grabs hold of Angus’s shoulders and pretends to give him a shove. ‘Whoa, saved you!’
Angus lets out a high-pitched squeal and we all laugh. ‘Don’t!’ he says angrily, recovering himself. ‘Jesus – that’s fucking dangerous.’ He’s clinging on to the stone as though for dear life, inching his way along to sit down next to us. Angus was always a bit wet for our group, but got social credit for arriving in his dad’s chopper at the start of term.
Will hands out the cans of Guinness I’d been eyeing up for seconds. ‘Thanks, mate,’ Femi says. He looks at the can. ‘When in Rome, hey?’
Pete nods to the drop beneath us. ‘Think you might have to have a few of these to forget about that, Angus mate.’
‘Yeah but you don’t want to drink too many,’ Duncan says. ‘Or you won’t care enough about it.’
‘Oh shut it,’ Angus says crossly, colouring. But he’s still pretty pale and I get the impression he’s doing everything he can not to look over the edge.
‘I’ve got gear with me this weekend,’ Pete says in an undertone, ‘that would make you think you could jump off and fucking fly.’
‘Leopards don’t change their spots, eh, Pete?’ Femi says. ‘Raiding your mum’s pill cabinet – I remember that kit bag of yours rattling when you came back after exeat.’
‘Yeah,’ Angus says. ‘We all owe her a thank you.’
‘I’d thank her,’ Duncan says. ‘Always remember your mum being a bit of a MILF, Pete.’
‘You better share the love tomorrow, mate,’ Femi says.
Pete winks at him. ‘You know me. Always do well by my boys.’ ‘How about now?’ I ask. I suddenly feel I need a hit to blur the edges
and the weed I smoked earlier has worn off.
‘I like your attitude, J-dog,’ Pete says. ‘But you gotta pace yourself.’ ‘You better behave yourselves tomorrow,’ Will says, mock-sternly. ‘I
don’t want my groomsmen showing me up.’
‘We’ll behave, mate,’ Pete says, throwing an arm around his shoulder. ‘Just want to make sure our boy’s wedding is an occasion to remember.’
Will’s always been the centre of everything, the anchor of the group, all of us revolving round him. Good at sport, good enough grades – with a bit of extra help here and there. Everyone liked him. And I guess it seemed effortless, as though he didn’t work for anything. If you didn’t know him like I did, that is.
We all sit and drink in silence for a few moments in the sun.
‘This is like being back at Trevs,’ Angus says, ever the historian. ‘Remember how we used to smuggle beers into the school? Climb up on to the roof of the sports hall to drink them?’
‘Yeah,’ Duncan says. ‘Seem to remember you shitting yourself then, too.’
Angus scowls. ‘Fuck off.’
‘Johnno smuggled them in really,’ Femi says, ‘from that offie in the village.’
‘Yeah,’ Duncan says, ‘because he was a tall, ugly, hairy bastard, even at fifteen, weren’t you, mate?’ He leans over, punches me on the shoulder.
‘And we drank them warm from the can,’ Angus says, ‘’cause we didn’t have any way to cool them down. Best thing I’ve ever drunk in my life, probably – even now, when we could all drink, you know, chilled fucking Dom every day of the week if we wanted to.’
‘You mean like we did a few months ago,’ Duncan says. ‘At the RAC.’
‘When was this?’ I ask.
‘Ah,’ Will says. ‘Sorry, Johnno. I knew it would be too far for you to come, you being in Cumbria and everything.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ I think of them having a nice old champagne lunch together at the Royal Automobile Club, one of those posh members-only places. Right. I take a big long swig of my Guinness. I could really do with some more weed.
‘It was the kick of it,’ Femi says, ‘back at school, at Trevs. That’s what it was. Knowing we could get caught.’
‘Jesus,’ Will says. ‘Do we really have to talk about Trevs? It’s bad enough that I have to hear my dad talking about the place.’ He says it with a grin, but I can see he’s got this slightly pinched look, as if his Guinness has gone down the wrong way. I always felt sorry for Will having a dad like his. No wonder he felt he had to prove himself. I know he’d prefer to forget his whole time at that place. I would too.
‘Those years at school seemed so grim at the time,’ Angus says, ‘but now, looking back – and Christ knows what this says about me – I think in some ways they feel like the most important of my life. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t send my own kids there – no offence to your dad, Will – but it wasn’t all bad. Was it?’
‘I dunno,’ Femi says doubtfully. ‘I got singled out a lot by the teachers. Fucking racists.’ He says it in an offhand way but I know it wasn’t always easy for him, being one of the only black kids there.
‘I loved it,’ Duncan says, and when the rest of us look at him, he adds: ‘honest! Now I look back on it I realise how important it was, you know? Wouldn’t have had it any other way. It bonded us.’
‘Anyway,’ says Will, ‘back to the present. I’d say things are pretty good now for all of us, wouldn’t you?’
They’re definitely good for him. The other blokes have done all right for themselves too. Femi’s a surgeon, Angus works for his dad’s development firm, Duncan’s a venture capitalist – whatever that means – and Pete’s in advertising, which probably doesn’t help his coke habit.
‘So what are you up to these days, Johnno?’ Pete asks, turning to me. ‘You were doing that climbing instructor stuff right?’
I nod. ‘The adventure centre,’ I say. ‘Not just climbing. Bushcraft, building camps—’
‘Yeah,’ Duncan says, cutting me off, ‘you know, I was thinking of a team-bonding day – was going to talk to you about it. Cut me some mates’ rates?’
‘I’d love to,’ I say, thinking someone as minted as Duncan doesn’t need to ask for mates’ rates. ‘But I’m not doing it any more.’
‘Oh?’
‘Nah. I’ve set up a whisky business. It’ll be coming out pretty soon.
Maybe in the next six months or so.’
‘And you’ve got stockists?’ Angus asks. He sounds rather put out. I suppose it doesn’t fit with his image of big, stupid Johnno. I’ve somehow managed to avoid the boring office job and come out on top.
‘I have,’ I say, nodding. ‘I have.’ ‘Waitrose?’ Duncan asks. ‘Sainsbury’s?’ ‘And the rest.’
‘There’s a lot of competition out there,’ Angus says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Lots of big old names, celebrity brands – even that UFC fighter, Connor MacGregor. But we wanted to go for a more, I dunno, artisanal feel. Like those new gins.’
‘We’re lucky enough to be serving it tomorrow,’ Will says. ‘Johnno brought a case with him. We’ll have to give it a try this evening, too. What’s the name again? I know it’s a good one.’
‘Hellraiser,’ I say. I’m quite proud of the name, actually. Different to those fusty old brands. And a little annoyed Will’s forgotten – it’s only on the labels of the bottles I gave him yesterday. But the bloke’s getting married tomorrow. He’s got other stuff on his mind.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ Femi says. ‘All of us, respectable adults.
And having come out of that place? Again, no offence to your dad, Will.
But it was like somewhere from another century. We’re lucky we got out alive – four boys left every term, as I recall.’
I couldn’t ever have left. My folks were so excited when I got the rugby scholarship, that I got to go to a posh school – a boarding school. All the opportunities it would give me, or so they thought.
‘Yeah,’ Pete says. ‘Remember there was that boy who drank ethanol from the Science department because he was dared to – they had to rush him to hospital? Then there were always the kids who had nervous breakdowns—’
‘Oh shit,’ Duncan says, excitedly, ‘and there was that little weedy kid, the one who died. Only the strong survived!’ He grins round at us all. ‘The ones who raised hell, am I right, boys? All back together this weekend!’
‘Yeah,’ Femi says. ‘But look at this.’ He leans over and points to the patch where he’s going a bit thin on top. ‘We’re getting old and boring now, aren’t we?’
‘Speak for yourself, mate!’ Duncan says. ‘I reckon we could still fire things up if the occasion demanded it.’
‘Not at my wedding you won’t,’ Will says, but he’s smiling. ‘Especially at your wedding we will,’ Duncan says.
Thought you’d be the first to tie the knot, mate,” Femi teases Will. “You’re such a magnet for the ladies.”
“And I figured you’d never marry,” Angus chimes in, ever the sycophant. “You’re too popular for that. Why settle down?”
“Remember that girl from the local school?” Pete pipes up. “The one with that topless Polaroid? Good grief.”
“Definitely a classic for the spank bank,” Angus admits. “I still think about that pic sometimes.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like you’re getting any action these days,” Duncan retorts.
Will winks. “Anyway, since we’re all together again—even if we’re old and boring, as you so kindly put it, Femi—I think it’s time for a toast.”
“I’m in,” Duncan says, lifting his can. “Me too,” adds Pete.
“To the survivors,” Will declares.
“The survivors!” we echo back. For a moment, as I glance around at everyone, they seem different, younger. It’s like the sun has cast a warm glow over them. Femi’s bald spot is hidden from this angle, Angus’s belly less noticeable, and Pete looks like he might actually socialize during the day. Even Will appears brighter. I get a fleeting feeling of being back on that sports hall roof, before anything went wrong. I’d give anything to return to that time.
“Right,” Will says, finishing the last of his Guinness. “I should head downstairs. Charlie and Hannah will be here soon, and Jules wants us to greet them at the jetty.”
Once everyone arrives, I know the weekend will really get started. But for a moment, I wish it could just be Will and me again, chatting like we used to, before the crowd showed up. I haven’t spent much time with Will lately, yet he knows me better than anyone, and I know him just as well.
