A deep hush had fallen, not just over our table but over the whole pub.
David Blackwood was staring at Oliver with something almost like disgust. “I don’t know who you think you are. Your mother and I have given you everything. We fed you, we clothed you, we sent you to university, we put you through the bar, and now you’ve had your head turned by some artsy fairy who can’t keep his arse out the papers, and suddenly you think you’re better than us.”
I wanted to tell them that he was. Not because I was an artsy fairy but because he was a good person—the best person—and he’d got that way despite having parents who were total shits.
“Then how about this,” said Oliver, elegantly pulling on his jacket. “I make good money now, so if you really believe that our obligations to each other are based entirely on what you’ve spent, sit down, add up what you think I owe you, and I will happily cut you a cheque.”
Miriam made an imploring gesture. “He doesn’t mean that.”
“I’m afraid I agree with Lucien on this one.” Oliver’s eyes were the steeliest I’d ever seen them. “I think we’ve all meant exactly what we’ve said today. Now come on”—he looked at me, relenting slightly —“we’re leaving.”
I got to my feet so quickly I nearly overturned my chair.
Oliver righted it for me, then took my hand. “Oh, and Dad…” He shot one last look at his father. “Go fuck yourself.”
"OLIVER," I WHINED, "WHY DO we have to do this now?”
He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, shuffling around the colour-coded index cards that constituted our seating plan. “Because it needs doing.”
“But it’s Sunday afternoon. We could be having sex—”
“Lucien.”
“We could be having a lovely walk in the park.”
“The caterers need this information.” After a moment’s contemplation, he delicately swapped the places of two work colleagues whose names I didn’t recognise for what I presumed were reasons of office politics. “As does the venue.”
“But not six months in advance.”
“Five months,” Oliver corrected me.
Shit, time went quickly when you were caught in an endless whirlpool of logistics. “Not even five months. Half the RSVPs haven’t even R’ed yet even though we said SVP.”
“Yes, but we know who should be coming. And it’ll be easier to take people out once we’ve got the basic structure down than to rush everything at the last minute.” Picking up one of the cards I’d filled in, Oliver peered at it. “Who on earth is Peloton? Isn’t that a company who does something with exercise bikes?”
“Yes,” I told him. “I’ve invited an entire fitness company to our wedding and assigned them two seats between them.”
Oliver turned to me with a deeply disappointed expression. “You haven’t assigned them two seats. This is a yellow index card. A yellow index card means one seat.”
“Doesn’t yellow just mean my group, not your group?”
“No.”
I pointed at the seating chart. “Why would I have given the James Royce-Royces one seat between them?”
“You mean this guest who is apparently called Jarrow Robertson?”
“That does not say Jarrow Robertson. I don’t even know a Jarrow Robertson. You’ve met literally every single person in my extremely limited social circle. Who the hell would Jarrow Robertson be?”
Oliver gave me an infuriatingly cool shrug. “A friend of your mother’s?”
“As you’re very well aware, my mother has one friend.”
Calmly, Oliver directed my attention to the Peloton card. “So who is this meant to be?”
“Bridge. And Tom.”
“That’s definitely a P,” insisted Oliver, squinting at something that was definitely a B. A slightly top-heavy B, I will admit. A B that could in a certain light be misconstrued by an uncharitable person as having P-like qualities.
“Fine, give me a pink one. I’ll redo it.”
“Pink is for immediate family.”
I buried my head in my hands. “What if immediate family need two seats?”
“They’ll all need two seats, so it doesn’t have to be specified.”
“What about Mum?”
“I assumed she’d want to sit with Judy,” explained Oliver. “And it seemed allonormative to insist that a person’s plus-one had to be a romantic partner. Besides, I’m not sure we want Judy roaming the wedding breakfast unaccompanied.”