CHAPTER 23
I drifted into people-watching after that, as the happy couple headed for their honeymoon destination of, well, our house. Mam had been clear and to the point.

“We might have worsels a bit trip down to Spain later, like, but for now I just want me own bed and a Cup of Tea”

I could hear the capital letters. “Now, the rest of yez can all have a proper party, a bit loud music and that, aye? We shall be asleep right early”

Off they went, and I found Ginny at my shoulder, or, to be more exact, at my bum, which she squeezed. Larinda coughed.

“Er, that bit belongs to me, girl!”

“Yeah, well, just checking she ain’t gone all flab-arse with the ‘mones, yeah? Worked for Annie, and she was one right fat beardy cow! See your bro’s found friends”

And he had. Somehow, the weight of their experiences had worked like magnetism, and Stewie, Ian and Fossy were clearly swapping yarns and jokes. One thing was clear from their faces, and that was the avoidance of issues like burning vehicles and dead men’s faces. No, they’d be sharing experiences of beer and girls (or at least beer, in John’s case), fights and practical jokes. I realised that sometimes that was how people healed. They didn’t need to compare experiences; they just needed to know that the person with them had walked the same path. In a way, that was what bonded Larinda and Rachel.

The hall had polarised in other ways. Women were clumped together, their men at the bar or talking Men Things, as the three veterans were doing. The young people were similarly grouped together, and the one woman who defied categories was over with the DJ. And she got her way. As the music started up again, louder than before, the guests split up again, along different lines, the dance floor almost entirely devoid of males apart from Darren…and James. I wouldn’t have called it dancing, precisely, but it was in time with the music, and he was smiling like a Summer morning.

Traditions were upheld, as the music eventually settled to the slower stuff that brings the men to their feet and the arms of their lovers, and I wasn’t immune to that despite my departure from masculinity. Couples were together properly as the evening came to a close, but I did spot Rachel giving John Wilkins a slow dance, and Mark’s grandfather smiling happily as he just sat, with a pint, and watched. James was beside him, and Bethany next to James, clearly following my instructions not to confuse him. There were a few sidelong glances as Fossy and Alec stepped out, and then Neil and Will…

That brought me up short. Both were lonely, both single, yet the age gap was there…no, I could see from their eyes that it was just affection, friendliness. Will’s first dance with a man, no doubt, and a sudden thought made me search the dancers for Von.

Valley commando, indeed. She couldn’t have got much closer to Ian if she had stripped him. Why couldn’t life just, for once, try and be a little simpler? Larinda nibbled at my earlobe.

“Jill, relax, yeah? All safe, nobody fighting”

“Traditional at a wedding, aye, the punch-up”

“Your bitch-in-law did that bit already, lover. Neil’s not trying to jump Will, and Ian ain’t going off to shag that Welsh bit neither”

She paused. “Well, not tonight, anyway. Come on, winding down, and if this is the last smooch one this girl wants a smoochmmmmmmm”

The best way to shut her up. That was the end of the affair, and we broke up into pairs and trios to make our way to our respective beds. James was already disappearing back into his head, and I saw Darren’s face fall as he realised. Bethany said something to him, and he gave a grin, nodding sharply. Bethany ran to the bar for a serviette, found a pen and wrote something before handing the paper to Terry with her own smile. Terry read it, and just hugged her.

“Jill, Is there room at Mam’s if I leave the car? Had a few more than I intended, like”

“I don’t think she’d mind, Ian. Taxi to the motel?”

“Aye. Gets me out of the clutches”

“You didn’t seem to be objecting that strongly”

“Wife and bairns, Jill, wife and bairns. At least, for now, aye?”

“Go on”

“Ach shite, aye? That was one piece of crap too far, even for her. I mean, for the bairns, aye? I’ve stuck with her for them, but, well, Hays is sorted now, and Bethy is old enough”

He looked away, once more the thoughts swirling away.

“I know what I said to you earlier, but, well, I have my own secret, Jill. I’ve had enough of her. Shite, I had enough of her years ago, aye? So I’ve seen the shyster”

He turned his gaze back on me. “Drew the papers up a while back, Thought, whey, I’d see how she went, see if she could like learn a bit, grow up. Papers have been sitting at the solicitor waiting for a signature for a year now. I always backed off, always thought, like, Bethy, Hays…and, to be honest, what she said I always sort of agreed with her, aye?”

“Tell me about it. What was it? Bumboys, lezzers, trannies?”

He just nodded, standing in silence for a few seconds. “Nelly, he’s really looked after Mam, hasn’t he? While I played happy families down in Wiltshire. Years lost, Jill…years she hasn’t got. And those boys, Stewie, John, they know, and so does that copper, that Annie. And, well, seeing that friend of yours, aye? The Valleys girl?”

“Ian, you’ve only just met her…”

“Aye, and that’s not the point. I don’t mean I want to run off with her, like, just that I got a bit look at how life could have been, could still be, aye?”

This was a different man to the brother I had known before.

“Jill, how long have you known the mad one?”

“Ginny? She’s really a friend of a friend, aye? Mate of Annie’s”

“She’s…she sees how thing s are, better than me…”

I realised he was crying, very gently and softly. I did what I had to, and held him, and he squeezed me back.

“How much have I fucked up, lass? All those years. Ginny told me about Chantelle, aye? How she fought back, got her own life again after all that shite, rape, aye? And here’s me being such an arsehole over who Dad liked better! I just, I just…shite, sorry, love!”

I felt another pair of arms go around us both, and of course it was Larinda. We stayed wordless for a while, and then softly said, “There is a way to make us all feel better, Ian”

“What’s that?”

“Come to our wedding, yeah? We’re gonna have a proper one, not some civil partnership shit, and she ain’t marrying as no man, so either we wait for the law to change or we fuck off somewhere else to do it. And I am going to make a decision for her, cause she is going to need giving away, and that’s your job”

Ian whispered back. “Where would that be, then?”

“I’ve been following the news, yeah? Here, if they change the law, or Scotland, cause they say they will first. If not, Denmark”

He laughed softly. “Got it all worked out, then?”

“Well, someone has to. That one couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. Come on; clean your face, say goodnight to people, and then it’s Sunday lunch tomorrow, up at the carvery”

“I don’t know if we can, what with Ell, like”

“You will be there, for your Mam, your brother and your sister, yeah? And if she plays up there’ll be a queue to punch her up the bracket”

Ian was clearly feeling the effects of the roller-coaster. “I have to live with her…”

“Not what you were saying five bloody minutes ago!”

She turned to me. “He should speak to bloody Rach!”

I sighed. “Ian, it’s your shout, aye? Just remember: we are here for you. I know that sounds trite, but you earned a lot of respect from our friends tonight, and they don’t impress easily. And, well, my brother, aye? We work this one out as a family, and Bethy’s just as much my family---“

I looked at Larinda, and she nodded. “Just as much OUR family as you are, aye? Not alone, little brother, never alone, not any more”

It struck me then that he had been fighting this battle for years, but it had been on her ground, among her family, with nobody to back him up. Not any more. Never on his own again; I felt the decision take root in my heart.

I watched later as the taxi took him and Bethany back to Ellen, and realised Terry was beside me.

“You OK, Terry?”

“Just wanted to say thanks, but they’re away now”

I smiled at him. “Bethany quite fancied James, mate”

“Ah, Jill, it wasn’t that. It was this”

He handed me the paper napkin they had written on.

‘You are James. You are our friend. We are Bethany, Darren, Mark, Kelly and Chantelle. We are your friends’