about licensing restrictions. I lapsed into lovely drunk time, where things just floated past, and I jumped in and out of different conversations at will. After dissecting the genius of Billy Connolly on one side, I tuned in like a radio to the other, where Angus and one of the Scottish boys were deep in serious conversation.
‘Just talk to him,’ Angus was saying.
‘Look, I only met her once. She seemed all right.’
‘She’s not all right. She’s a complete cow and she’ll make his life hell. This is why I got you all down here – to persuade him not to do it.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ I exclaimed brightly.
‘Nothing,’ said Angus shortly, turning back to his pint.
‘Have you met this “Amanda” that Frase is marrying?’ asked the other chap.
‘Course I have. I’ve known her all my life.’
Angus looked up at me.
‘What’s she like then?’ the bloke asked.
I paused, not quite sure what to say. Idiotically, I suddenly felt quite loyal. It was all right for me and Fran to talk about Amanda having her gizzards ripped out by vultures, but with anyone else it wasn’t really on.
‘Well, she’s … really pretty, and dead rich. She’s nice.’
‘Fair enough,’ said the bloke to Angus. ‘I’m not saying anything. You should never get involved in these things. My sister married this right bastard and she wouldn’t be told anything.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yeah, he turned out to be a right bastard. Left her with the kids and everything.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mel!’ burst out Angus. ‘She’s a complete bitch and you know it.’
I sighed.
‘Sorry, forgive me if I’m being slow here, but you talk about her non-stop. I mean, why do you hate her so much? And Alex, and Charlie – well, it’s OK to hate Charlie … But, I mean, when I met you, I thought you were really awful, ’cause you hated us all so much. But now I know you’re not, you’re actually really nice, so I don’t understand it at all. Are you a secret communist? Do you hate posh people? You’re posh anyway. Well, your brother’s a complete nob … I didn’t mean that last bit the way it sounded.’
‘Have you finished?’ asked Angus.
I thought for a second. ‘Ehm … yes.’
He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘if I tell you something, do you promise on your life that you won’t tell Fraser?’
The third bloke was still with us, unwilling to draw attention to himself by getting up and moving away, but embarrassed to be listening to something personal. He was staring very hard at the ashtray.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Maybe on my dog’s life.’
‘Be serious. You don’t have a dog.’
‘OK, no, I promise.’
He looked away. ‘I overheard her. On her stupid minuscule mobile phone. When she came up to visit our mum a few weeks ago and behave patronizingly towards her. She had to lean out of the window to get a signal, and I was in the next room.’
‘With a glass up against the wall?’
‘With the window open. Look, do you want me to tell you or not?’
‘Yes please,’ I said meekly.
‘Anyway, she was talking to Hello! magazine.’
He paused dramatically. I looked at him like he was crazy.
‘Hello! magazine? That’s it? You’re trying to wreck their marriage before it even starts because of Hello! and its … its inane pictures of unhappy celebrities??’
He ignored me and went on.
‘She was offering them the rights for the wedding. I heard her. She promised them she could “get Tara”. You know, they love all that minor aristocracy bullshit. “Aren’t Posh People Lovely? Here’s a picture of one standing next to a horse.” That kind of thing. Bitch!’
He grumbled into his pint.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘She was just trying to get her picture in the paper.’
‘No,’ he said slowly, as if I was an idiot. ‘She asked them for £15,000 to let them take photos and have an –’ he imitated her shrill tones – ‘“in-depth interview with me about the new castle … not much point talking to the aristo, darling – you know what they’ve got between the ears, hee hee.”’
‘Jesus. Did she get the money?’
He looked at me grimly.
‘I don’t know. Fraser certainly hasn’t heard anything about it if she did.’
‘No. You don’t think she half-inched it do you?’
‘You’re talking about …’ he turned away. ‘You’re talking about the woman who turned up, entirely by coincidence, in my brother’s life a month after our dad dies, we’re all completely fucking shell-shocked – still are – and guess what? He’s blinking in the daylight and they’re engaged. So she can get on the cover of fucking Hello! magazine. She’s probably been through every Right Hon in the country. I think she’s capable of it, don’t you?’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ I said, not sure at all. ‘I’m sure she loves him.’
‘Why? What, honestly, do you think someone like her sees in someone like him, apart from that stupid falling down piece of medieval crap in Kirkudbrightshire?’
I looked over. Fraser looked sweaty and dishevelled, and his curly hair was falling in his eyes. One arm was round his big pal Nash, the other round Amanda the blow-up doll, and they were all (the doll was faking it) singing ‘Danny Boy’ very very badly and making up the words.
‘I think losing one member of her family’s enough for my mum this year, don’t you? That fucking title. Just because you’re all modern women who can do anything, you think that kind of thing doesn’t happen any more. But it does.’
He reverted to staring at his drink. His face was red. I stared hard at the table.
‘I think we need another drink,’ I said.
‘I’ll get them!’ shouted the bloke at our table, jumping up and rushing across the pub. We both looked after him, startled. As we turned round, Fraser and Nash made a bravura attempt at the high note at the end of ‘Danny Boy’ then immediately fell away as, silhouetted in the doorway, stood the very wan, very dirty Johnny McLachlan, looking for all the world as though he had, indeed, just been mauled
