Insights & End-Game:
And so the day of the wedding loomed ever closer; all the invitations had gone out, all the RSVP’s were back in, dozens of polite variations on ‘yes of course I’m coming’, with the unseen subtext ‘he’s marrying an American? Wasn’t an English girl good enough? This I gotta see!’, and all Sophie’s preparations were finally, irrevocably in place.
Davey’s Best Man was an old school buddy of his, Jack Cameron, a tall, handsome, quietly witty man, who brought his pregnant Japanese wife, Teruko. I was awestruck at her flawless beauty; she looked like every man’s Asian Movie-Girl fantasy, taller and shapelier than most Japanese girls I’d seen, with huge dark eyes, clear, fair, skin and a little snub nose, with fine, classic features. She had long, smoky blonde hair so fine and silky that it stirred and fluttered in the slightest breeze, and the most charming, sweet voice I’d ever heard.
According to Davey, Jack had been seriously injured before Davey had ever come home, and Teruko had been with him through it, willing him well and whole again, but that had been several years earlier, and Jack was now fully completely recovered, and back in the pink again.
All of Davey’s school friends, people I’d often heard him mention, but faces I’d only ever seen in photo-albums, were there. Harry Waterfield was possibly the most handsome young man I’d ever seen (barring my Davey). He looked like the hero of every romance I’d ever read in secret, my one guilty pleasure, along with his unfeasibly beautiful Eurasian wife, Sai Fong, also pregnant, and obviously completely familiar with Davey, if the greeting she gave him was anything to go by; oddly enough, she had the same gray-hazel eyes as Harry, and hair the exact same shade of warm, chocolate-brown as his, which I thought was an odd coincidence, but on her they looked spectacular, and just made her even more exotically beautiful.
Davey’s fellow medical student, Andy Edgeworth, and his lovely wife, Linda were also there. Of all Davey’s old friends, Andy was the one I was most familiar with; even though he was studying medicine all the way up in Edinburgh, and I’d never actually met him, I felt like I knew him best of all Davey’s friends; he was Davey’s go-to when he needed his confidence boosting, or when he’d had a rough time from one of his mentors, or if one or the other had muffed an exam or test, and they often had long, incomprehensible conversations about medical stuff that made me feel nauseous if I happened to eavesdrop on them.
Andy looked nothing like how I thought an English doctor would look; he was something like Davey, but different, less gorgeous, of course, and from his overheard accent and manner of speech, I had expected tweedy and hearty in a ‘country gentleman, field-sports and gun-dog-owning’ sort of way, possibly driving around in a classic Morgan or MG A; instead, he looked like all the arctic explorers and mountaineers I’d ever pictured reading adventure stories when I was a girl; tall, craggy, rugged, and burly, with big, gentle hands, and a sense of immense physical strength barely held in check.
No-one would have seemed to me less likely to be a surgeon; he looked more like he should have been mushing a dog-team across the Great White Waste, or playing defensive tackle for the Chiefs (hey, I’m from Iowa, who else am I gonna shout for…?), but Davey told me he was consistently winning praise from his mentors for his technique and the delicacy of his touch; one day he was going to be a world-renowned surgeon, Davey was convinced of it.
Linda, on the other hand, looked exactly like how I’d always supposed a proper English rose would look; she was tall, slender, graceful, and beautiful without being obvious, not a cutesy beauty queen, rather the kind of beauty that would stay with her for life; you could tell just by looking at her that when she was a little old lady, she’d still be luminously beautiful, because some kinds of beauty remain and resist time when cute and pretty fades.
To go with her air of refinement she had a bell of shining walnut-brown hair that fell almost to her waist, clear, fair skin, and large, expressive, cornflower-blue doll-eyes (just like Andy’s, now I come to think about it…) framed by long, sooty lashes, and a refined, ‘received pronunciation’ English accent even more ‘Home-Counties Boarding-School’ than Sophie’s.
She was yet another girl who was well-known to Davey; she’d obviously known him since she was very young, judging by her easy, almost sisterly familiarity in his company, and her deep fondness for him was plain to see. Her lips were naturally coral, framing a sweet, generous mouth, and she had a clear, fresh complexion and softly delicate, rose-pink cheeks, with just a hint of a spray of freckles across her classic cheekbones and the bridge of her pert nose. Her eyebrows were perfect, perfectly symmetrical arches, and she had a long, elegant neck. If you look up ‘English Rose’ in any dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Linda Edgeworth there, I can almost guarantee it.
These then were Davey’s oldest, closest friends; he’d known them since school days, and they were as tight a bunch as I’d ever seen; one would have thought they’d last seen each other that weekend, the way they fell into their banter and ease in each other’s company, not years earlier, and the fact they’d made time and come from all over Britain to be there for him on this day spoke volumes about the regard they held him in. I was proud my Davey had such special and enduring friends.
Sophie greeted all Davey’s friends warmly, but most especially Harry and Andy; apparently she and Uncle Richard had known Harry’s father when they were posted to Hong Kong; he had been police commissioner before Hong Kong was handed back to China, a senior member of the Governor’s staff, and Andy’s family and connections were well known to Sophie’s family, being as they were all from Devonshire or Somerset, in the West Country of England.
I remarked in private to Davey how connected and adoring his friends seemed when it came to their wives, and Davey gave me that patented raised eyebrow and quizzical look he keeps in store for when he’s going to point-out the obvious to me.
“Darling Girl, I’m going to share a few things with you, regarding my friends; it’s kind of personal, and I really don’t want them to know I shared this with you, but I won’t keep secrets from you. Swear you’ll keep shtum? On Mummy-Bum?”
I had to grin at him invoking my childhood swear, but I nodded and hooked pinkies with him, knowing he knew I was psychologically incapable of breaking a Mummy-Bum swear…
“OK, I swear on Mummy-Bum; there, good enough?”
Davey grinned, and I had to grin back, he looked so boyish and sweet.
“So what’s the scoop, Blondie? What’s this deep, dark secret you made me swear Mummy-Bum on? Are you all some kind of secret society of assassins? Star-Lizard people from the Horsehead Nebula? Illuminati? The Jedi Council is for real, and they’re it? Talk, Denham, I’m bursting here!”
Davey pulled me closer and nibbled my lips, something I’m pretty much unable to resist, so I nibbled back, but I still wanted to know what was going on, so I stared soulfully into his eyes then pinched his ass, making him jump.
“Tell me!” I demanded, so he did.
“Darling Girl, you and me, us, we’re… we’re not alone; what I mean is, you and I, what we are, what we really are, well, Harry and Sai, Andy and Linda, and Jack and Teruko, they’re like us too; they’re in exactly the same boat as us. Most of our friends know. Jack’s been in love with Teruko since forever, and everyone’s always known how Sai Fong felt about Harry; I mean, look at him; is it any wonder?”
He paused and looked vaguely at me, that pensive look he gets when he’s working out what to say next.
“Sweetheart, I always thought, if I even thought about it at all, that nothing like that was ever going to happen for me; you have to admit, how it was between us, there was fat chance of that ever happening with us. But it did, and now I know how Harry feels, and Jack, and Andy; all I can say is that if they’re even one tenth as happy as I am right now, then they must be truly happy indeed and fully committed to the girls they love, just as I am to the girl I love. Just looking at how happy they are makes me realise just how happy I am, and how happy I’m going to be; we made the right choice, baby, just like them, and I have no regrets at all.”
He grinned again, and tapped the tip of my nose with his forefinger.
“So now you know; we’re not as unique as maybe you thought, but then, we’re not alone, either. I think Sai Fong’s already caught-on; don’t ask me how, but she’s got a mind like a diamond-drill, and we’ve probably been leaving clues for those to read who can, like Sai, but know this: I trust her completely; I’ve known her it seems like forever, at least since she was ten years old anyway, likewise Linda, although I don’t think she’s worked it out yet. Jack gave me a very strange look when I told him who I was marrying. I think he remembers I had a snotty little brat sister thousands of miles away called ‘Lori’, so he’s probably put it together now, and I’d be surprised if Andy doesn’t already know if Jack knows; he and Jack have always been very close, and they share, but he won’t say anything, for obvious reasons.”