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Chapter 15
‘I think that’s sixty-two points to me,’ says Charlie, who has just put a Q on a royal blue triple letter score, next to an I to its right and another one below it. Bugger. Should have seen that coming. There aren’t many letters left, and neither the Q nor the Z has been played till now.
‘What kind of word is that? Qi?’ Alison pronounces it like the French interrogative pronoun.
‘I’m afraid he’s right,’ I say. ‘It’s pronounced chee and it is valid. It’s to do with chakras and stuff.’ Eloquent and knowledgeable as ever.
‘I want to look it up.’ Alison stumbles to her feet (we’re sitting on the floor) in search of a dictionary.
Charlie and Alison’s ground-floor flat in Highgate is just what you’d imagine from such a nice, well-read, well-fed couple. Plumped-up sofas from Heal’s, books, CDs and DVDs, neatly contained in their respective shelves, standard-issue middle-class polished wooden floorboards. It’s Sunday, and with, I suspect, some prompting from Max, who was worried about me worrying about Dad, they have kindly invited me over for an afternoon of late lunch and board games. Alison’s rare roast beef, crisp-edged potatoes and airy Yorkshires were fabulous, if not exactly summery.
After the recent events of my somewhat sordid existence, it’s lovely to be welcomed to warmly reassuring normality. Looking at them, so comfortable and happy, I feel a brief envious pang, then remind myself I’m lucky to be here, under their hospitable wing. I take another swig of my red wine.
‘OK, you’re right.’ Alison admits defeat. ‘But I still think foreign words have no place in the English dictionary.’
‘Come on babe, we all know the best thing about English is that it’s constantly evolving. That’s why it’s the most expressive language in the world,’ says Charlie. ‘And why we’re better than the fucking Frogs with their Académie française and innate xenophobia.’
Alison laughs. ‘You do realize what you’ve just said, you Alf Garnett you? Innate xenophobia indeed. Physician, heal thyself.’
I laugh and Charlie turns to me.
‘Good to see you looking a bit happier, Belles.’ It’s nice he’s using the affectionate version of my name. ‘The last few weeks must have been bloody grim for you.’
‘Bloody grim is about right, but I’m OK at this precise moment, thanks to you two. You’re absolute stars.’
‘Apart from this cheat with his made-up dirty foreign words,’ says Alison, kissing Charlie. I look at them, trying to enjoy their happiness vicariously. Alison is wearing boyfriend jeans, which don’t really flatter her, and a pale pink, low-cut top, which does. Her rosy cheeks (which are getting rosier by the glass), round face and blondish hair put me in mind of a seventeenth-century serving wench.
‘You look just like a shaggable seventeenth-century wench,’ I say, too much booze having already loosened my lips.
‘I’ve always wanted to look exotic and slim, like Lucy Liu or – what’s that Bollywood one called? Freida Pinto?’
‘Phwoaaargh yes, she’s gorgeous,’ says Charlie, chuckling. God, men can be insensitive bastards. I say to Alison innocently,
‘He’s got a point. Those dark, slender, high-cheekboned men can be nice too – like Jude Law? Or Johnny Depp?’
‘Oh yeah, God, Johnny Depp.’ A lusty smile creeps over Alison’s face. ‘He’s one of my all-time fantasies …’
Charlie looks surprised and offended, while I shout, delighted,
‘You mean you wank over him?’
At this moment I hear somebody shutting the front door quietly; Alison said she was leaving it on the latch as Andy and Alison might pop by. A few seconds later, Andy’s head pops round the corner. Oh great.
‘Sounds like you guys are having a good night.’ His dark eyes look amused behind their specs.
I stand up to greet him and knock my red wine onto the floor with a stray foot. ‘Oh bugger, sorry, sorry Alison.’ I bend down idiotically. What am I intending to do? Slurp it out of the grooves in the floorboards with my tongue?
Alison laughs, ‘Hey no worries, this is the best thing about not having a carpet,’ and goes to get a cloth.
Andy crouches behind me and looks at my Scrabble letters, which are a measly TNREARI. No big hitters at all. Quietly he rearranges them into TERRAIN, then gives me a little nudge to show me what he’s done.
Yay. That extra fifty for making all seven into a word might just give me the edge on Charlie. I scan the board for somewhere to place the word and spot an S, with a double word score too. I grin up at Andy, wanting to kiss him. Strangely, it looks as if he might want to kiss me too.
‘Well, it’s my turn now,’ I say, dragging my gaze away. Luckily Alison and Charlie are too engrossed in their own letters to notice. I plonk down TERRAIN and nudge Andy back.
‘That is so not fair,’ says Charlie, like a stocky Valley Girl who specializes in bought ledgers, pushing his thick blond hair away from his forehead. ‘Bella wouldn’t have had any idea what to do with those letters …’
‘Oy mate, calling me thick?’ Bloody cheek, I’d have got there eventually.
The doorbell rings. Andy must have left it off the latch.
‘That’ll be Al,’ he says, jumping up and adjusting his glasses. ‘We’re off to The Wolseley tonight, which should cheer her up. She’s been working all day.’ He goes to let her in.
Alison walks in looking stunning (as long as you don’t look at her face, which is trying to smile) in rolled-up safari shorts and a white silk vest that would look gross on anybody with an ounce of flesh on them. And who was capable of sweating.
‘Hi Ali,’ she says, walking over and giving Alison a kiss. ‘You look pretty.’
‘Thanks Al,’ says Alison, trying to mask her surprise. ‘You look great.’
‘I’m so tired you wouldn’t believe it. Hi Charlie.’
‘Hi Al.’ Charlie gets to his feet and gives her a dutiful peck.
‘Bella.’ She looks over at me. ‘Thanks for the shirt.’ Feeling guilty about not replacing the Jil Sander number after Andy had been so kind about Dad, I maxed my dodgy Egg card on a new one and gave it to Max, who had it delivered to her office by one of his eager Dalston minions. ‘Better late than never, eh?’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sorry for being so stupid … I s’pose you don’t need me to tell you I was pissed?’
‘No, that was quite clear. But I may have been a bit out of order too,’ she concedes, accepting a glass of merlot from Charlie. ‘God, what a day.’ And she sits elegantly on one of the plump sofas, pale slim legs displayed to good effect against the navy blue twill.
‘Why? What’s happened?’ I am so glad to be forgiven that I’ll accept any scraps. I may sometimes (in my cups) be a bit of a loose cannon, but generally I can’t bear to think of people not liking me.
‘Apart from the child torture case I’m working on, you mean?’ She smiles briefly and I can see the strain on her face. ‘Oh I’m sorry, but one just gets so caught up in the hideous details of these things that one forgets other people only read the bits they can actually publish in the papers.’ Jesus. Puts me in my place.
‘Shall we talk about the wedding instead?’ says Ali. ‘I had a look at the flower girls’ trial bouquets today and they are totally adorable.’
‘Thanks Alison, but you know what? For once I’d just like to forget about the wedding.’ Andy’s head jerks up in surprise and the rest of us follow suit. ‘On top of everything else, I’ve had my bloody mother on all day, and she goes on and on and ON …’ She bashes her forehead against her palm in time to her words. Good God, she’s human after all.
Andy laughs, putting an arm around her shoulder. ‘My future mother-in-law is a bit of a control freak.’
‘You know what they say,’ says Charlie, laughing drunkenly and slapping his thigh. ‘Look to the mother-in-law to see what you’ll be lumbered with in years to come!’
It’s too close to the bone and we sit in uncomfortable silence for a moment or two, Groove Armada reminding us to think of sand dunes and salty air rather too loudly.
‘Can you talk about the case?’ I ask Alison, changing the subject.
‘Shouldn’t really, except to say that some people shouldn’t be allowed to procreate.’ She looks sad again and I almost see what Andy sees in her. Without the frown or Gordon Brown fake smile her features fall naturally into a droopily pre-Raphaelite version of beauty.
‘So, Bella.’ She turns to me again, and I am terrified, as if I’m about to be summoned to the headmistress’s office. ‘I heard about your dad. I’m sorry. Andy and I both agree that even though your father – may I say it? – has issues, that silly little whore was absolutely out for everything she could get.’
‘My father doesn’t have issues!’ I am immediately in defensive mode. There is silence apart from Groove Ar-fucking-mada, who are now singing about ‘shaking that ass’. ‘Well, OK, maybe. But he’s not a rapist. Thanks for the vote of confidence anyway.’
‘Bella,’ says Skinny, looking me straight in the eye. Am I about to get detention? ‘I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I appreciate what you must be going through. Occasionally the legal system really sucks. Your father being named, whether he’s guilty or not, while Kimberly keeps her anonymity, for starters.’
‘Yeah, I know. I really don’t see how that’s fair.’
‘And if your father had raped a thousand times before – hypothetically, of course – they couldn’t bring that up in court …’ She’s on a roll now, her voice rising. ‘And in this case I’m working on, even though the stepfather of the child that’s just been tortured to death actually raped a baby girl less than a year ago, I’m not allowed to bring THAT up in court either.’ She puts her head in her hands again and I notice, shallowly, how silky and shiny her black hair looks. Andy strokes it.
‘Darling, we do know that everybody is entitled to legal defence, however horrific their crime. It’s one of the first things you learn at law school. It’s part of our constitution.’
‘Shut up, Andy, you’re sounding like a Yank,’ says Charlie. I’m glad he said it.
‘But how can you do it?’ I ask, for it is something that has bothered me for years. How can the cream of the country’s intelligentsia actually get people off heinous crimes, knowing they’re guilty, and live with themselves?
‘You know what?’ Alison looks up. ‘I honestly don’t know any more. It’s all about gamesmanship and beating your fellow lawyers, which I’m very good at.’ She laughs, slightly bitterly. ‘But it’s not about justice, which is what I signed up for.’
Nobody knows what to say to this, so Charlie changes the subject clumsily, asking Andy to go next door with him to look at something manly and utterly incomprehensible on his computer.
Ali gets up to go to the loo. I top my glass up from the bottle of merlot on the table and offer some to Alison. She puts her hand over her glass and shakes her head.
‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ Her eyes are glittering with malice, just as they did that time at Osteria Basilico.
‘I’m not sure it’s any of your business.’ I am so surprised I don’t know what else to say.
‘And don’t you think you’ve outstayed your welcome? Charlie and Alison only invited you to lunch, and it’s nearly eight o’clock now. I know they both have to get up early tomorrow.’
‘What, you mean with their proper jobs?’ I say, utterly unprepared for such a volte-face.
‘Oh come on, I’ve apologized for that. I just think it can’t be nice to be a millstone round people’s necks, constantly dependent on their kindness and goodwill. I mean, just look at you. You drink far too much, you look an absolute mess, your so-called career –’ she does the inverted commas fingers sign, smiling evilly – ‘is only just starting to go somewhere because Ali feels sorry for you. Quite frankly, I’m surprised Ben stuck around for as long as he did.’
Jesus. Just as I start to think she’s not all bad, she comes out with this? She must have just been trying to fool the others into thinking she’s human. Well, I won’t be making the same mistake twice. Traumatic job or no traumatic job, she’s a fucking bitch and I hate her.
She’s right about me looking a mess though. I’m in flip-flops, holey old Levis with fraying hems as they’re too long if I don’t wear heels, and a faded T-shirt that used to be a vibrant shade of green. My clothes are hanging off me (the only good thing to come out of my recent traumas), my hair is tied up in a messy ponytail and my fringe is so long that I can hardly see out. I try to curl my feet up under my legs as I notice how badly chipped the ancient red polish on my grotesquely long toenails is.
I am trying to work out how to respond to the wounding personal attack when Ali comes back into the room, followed by the boys. She offers more drinks all around, but Andy shakes his head.
‘Thanks, but we’d better get going. The table’s booked for eight thirty.’
They drain their glasses and walk out, Alison back in gracious and charming mode, her small bottom and long legs looking far too attractive for my liking in the khaki shorts.
‘Bugger me,’ says Charlie. ‘She’s almost the Alison she used to be at Cambridge.’
‘Slim and dark,’ says Ali wistfully.
‘BUT NOT EXOTIC!’ I shout, also wistfully – if it’s possible to shout wistfully. Pride prevents me from repeating what the bitch has just said to me as I secretly suspect she’s right on every count. ‘God, what a horrid job. I’m so glad I just paint pretty pictures for a living. It will be a living, won’t it?’ I ask Ali, touching wooden floorboards.
‘There are no guarantees, but I reckon so.’ She smiles. ‘Shall we finish this silly game then?’
Mindful of what Alison has just said, I tell them I should be going, but they insist I stay to finish the game, at least. I lower the tone and cheer myself up by putting down an F next to RIG and happily plonking ROT underneath, giggling to myself.
Charlie wins with ZEN, then asks, ‘How about a game of Trivial Pursuit?’
‘You and your bloody oriental mysticism. Zen indeed,’ says Ali. ‘I’m a bit tired, but you’re welcome to stay if you want, Belles.’
I’d love to stay for Trivial Pursuit (which I know I’d win, trivia being my specialist subject, after all) and more booze, but, hating the idea of being a millstone, I feign tiredness too. Charlie, by dint of twisting my arm, persuades me to stay for one more drink, but soon it’s time to say goodbye.
‘Thanks so much for a lovely day – it’s the best I’ve had for months. And that food was exceptional, Ali. Byeeee and thanks again!’
The minicab driver puts Magic FM on the radio at my request and we sing along to things as random as Carole King’s ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, Jet’s ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, the Kinks’ ‘Waterloo Sunset’ and, best of all, Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ – to which our mutual screeching is as heartfelt as it is unharmonious.
When we get to Portobello I notice a couple of photos of children in school uniform on the dashboard.
‘Gorgeous kids! What are their names?’ I ask effusively.
‘Harrison and Rhianna. They’re my angels.’
I so don’t want tonight to end; I so don’t want to be reminded that everybody except me has someone to love. And as I walk up the rickety staircase to my empty flat, I don’t think I have ever felt so alone in my entire life.
Chapter 16
The next few days are a blur of lawyers and police, and countless crisis meetings with my nearest and dearest. Dad has been given bail, on the condition that he doesn’t leave the country, so Mum is putting him up until the trial; the date has been set a month from now. We all agree that the most important thing is to try and keep the story out of the Press for as long as we can. Once the case comes to court, it will be nigh on impossible, which doesn’t bode well. As Dad says, ‘Even if I am acquitted, I’ll be ruined. Shit sticks, and I’ll always be known as the photographer who was tried for rape. No smoke without fire …’ That bloody expression again. It appears that Bernie has friends in high places who so far have stopped any police leaks, for which we’re hugely grateful.
Dad has only told a handful of friends whom he thought he could trust, but two of them, on the instigation of their wives, have actually stopped speaking to him. If this is the reaction, even pre-trial, I can’t bear to imagine the global vitriol that will be poured on him once the papers get hold of the story. There are bound to be judgemental editorials, commenting with pious disapproval on every aspect of Dad’s life. Old girlfriends (of whom there are literally hundreds) will no doubt come out of the woodwork. So much of his career is based on image that not only will the lucrative commissions stop, but a shadow will be cast over his entire lifetime’s body of work. I can imagine people looking at all the photos he’s taken of nude models over the years and speculating over which ones he might ‘also have raped’.
And this is the good version, the ‘Not Guilty’ version. If he’s found guilty … Well, let’s just say I can’t get Bernie’s comment about rapists ‘not having a good time of it inside’ out of my head. I honestly cannot imagine my father surviving it. He is such a free spirit, such a traveller, such a lover of nature and beauty. Being banged up for years for something he didn’t do will absolutely destroy him. And that’s before you start thinking about the prison buggery potential.
So Andy is trying to find out if there’s anything about Kim that might preclude the case coming to trial at all. It transpires that she claims not to have shagged Dad at all until the final night in Mallorca, when she says he forced her. She only went with him to Mallorca, she says, for professional reasons. Which is of course true. According to Dad, he did take some photos of her in his studio there, so this might hold water. On the other hand, we all know that she’s a lying cow, and I, for one, am willing to stand up in court and testify to what I heard from the kitchen garden.
It’s a horrifically tense time, clearly, but it has at least taken my mind off Ben and Poppy. Now the pain and madness have worn off I probably miss being part of our cool little gang more than anything. Poppy, Damian, Ben and occasionally Mark were the hub of my social life for much longer than my ill-fated romance (if it can be called that). And after spending my formative years in what might kindly be termed a social wilderness, I loved the feeling of being in with the in-crowd.
So I fill the void with painting, determined to give the exhibition my best shot.
One balmy evening I am standing on my balcony, glass of white wine in one hand, paintbrush in the other, when my phone rings.
‘Hey Maxy.’
‘Belles, listen.’ His voice is excited. ‘Are you free tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Erm, yes. Why? What’s going on?’
‘I’ve been doing a bit of detective work of my own and I’ve found something out about Kimberly!’
‘Bloody hell, what is it? Tell me, quick!’
‘I think she’s part of some weird cult.’ What? ‘They’ve got some sort of ritual sacrifice going on tomorrow afternoon in a wood near the South Downs. We’ve got to go and see what dirt we can get on her.’
I laugh. ‘Maxy. Don’t you think that’s clutching at straws?’
Max laughs too. ‘Well, don’t you see we’ve got to at least go and see what they’re up to? We might find out something about the bitch.’
He goes on to tell me he overheard Kim’s name being mentioned in Divine Comedy, in connection to whatever this ritual sacrifice thing is. The whole thing sounds extremely far-fetched, but I can absolutely see where my brother is coming from. We’re both dying to do something to help, and anything is better than the constant impotent waiting.
‘Apparently the ceremony starts at three, so I’ll pick you up at twelve thirty. That should give us plenty of time to get there. Oh and sis …’
‘Yeeesss …’
‘Wear something that will blend in with the woodland surroundings.’ His tone is hushed.
‘You mean camouflage?’ I laugh. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The next day I am looking in the mirror, wondering whether I should paint camouflage stripes on my face with some greasepaint I bought for a fancy dress party a couple of years ago. I am wearing the khaki combat-style mini that I wore at Glastonbury, a camouflage-print vest top and an olive green baseball cap. My hair is in plaits, my feet in old grey Converse and an oversized pair of shades covers half my face. I think my urban warrior look is rather cool, and decide the greasepaint might ruin it.
I am doing martial arts stalking-type movements in the mirror when the doorbell rings.
‘I’ll be right down!’ I shout.
Outside, I am in for a surprise. Instead of Max in his flash new Lotus, Andy is sitting there, in the driver’s seat of his old green Renault. He takes one look at me and bursts out laughing. I am so glad I didn’t bother with the greasepaint.
‘Glad you find it amusing,’ I say, holding my head up high and going to kiss him through the window. ‘So what’s up? Where’s Max?’
‘He called me an hour ago in a total panic. Geronimo has gone nuts with a knife, and Max has to stay behind and pick up the pieces.’ Seeing my look of horror, Andy laughs again. ‘Not literally. But he has to calm him and the rest of the staff down, which he says could take several hours and all of his powers of negotiation.’ Geronimo is Max’s very temperamental chef. I shudder.
‘Poor Max, but surely he didn’t need you to come and tell me that in person? Why didn’t he just give me a ring?’
‘Because he knows you can’t drive, and he is desperate for this – er – mission to go ahead. So today, Bella Brown, I am your chauffeur and fellow sleuth. Lewis to your Morse, Cagney to your Lacey.’ He’s laughing again. I’ve never seen him so jolly. ‘Jump in, then! We don’t want to miss the bit where they sacrifice a virgin pygmy goat.’ Ah, I get it. He’s laughing at us.
‘You must think we’re awfully silly,’ I say, looking at him out of the corner of my eye as we head down towards the river. ‘I’m really sorry that Max lumbered you with this. It’s probably a complete dead-end. Don’t you have to be at work?’
‘I’m allowed out and about – part and parcel of the job. If I’d had a deadline, you wouldn’t have seen me for dust.’
‘Well, thank you very much anyway. And you never know, we might find out something …’
‘Indeed.’ But he can’t stop a smirk creeping up one side of his mouth.
We drive in silence for a bit, as the inner-city landscape becomes progressively suburban. It’s slightly cooler today, with a lovely fresh breeze coming through the open windows and a few wispy clouds floating across the cornflower sky. Andy puts on a CD and the opening guitar strains of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez fill the car.
‘Oh my God, I love this,’ I say. ‘My dad used to play it all the time when we were kids in Mallorca. It takes me right back to the smell of lavender and rosemary and thyme. They grew wild across the mountains.’ Andy looks surprised.
‘How funny,’ he says. ‘My parents used to play it all the time too. But the smells it conjures up for me aren’t nearly so exotic – freshly mown grass, Camel Lights and shepherd’s pie, I’d say.’ He laughs.
‘Do you want to talk about them?’ I ask, quickly doing the sums. If he was seventeen when they died, he’s lived for as long now without them as he did with them.
‘You know, then?’ He briefly takes his eyes from the road to look at me. ‘You know what, I’m thirty-four now. It’s seventeen years since they died. I’ve lived as long without them as I did with them.’ What? ‘That’s a really weird thing to come to terms with.’
‘What were they like?’ I ask.
‘What’s anyone like? They were my parents. I loved them. Sorry, that’s not a very satisfactory answer, is it?’ He smiles briefly. ‘Well, Mum was a music teacher; Dad was a history teacher. They were both very keen on education. They seemed to have fun a lot too, though. We had a lot of fun, the three of us. I think they really loved each other. You take all that stuff for granted, when it’s all you’ve ever known, but knowing what I know now of the world, I think my parents probably had an exceptional relationship.’ A lump comes into my throat.
‘What a horrible waste,’ I say quietly.
‘Yes.’
We drive on in silence for a few minutes, then Andy says,
‘When it happened it felt like my world had come to an end. But now I am just grateful that for seventeen years I was so happy. I’m grateful every day that they gave me that. Which isn’t to say that I don’t still miss them, of course.’ He stares steadily at the road.
‘No, of course not.’ The lump is getting bigger and I can sense that his is too. We are both silent again.
His hands on the steering wheel look male and capable. I look around the car. Neither horribly neat nor as messy as mine would doubtless be if I could a) drive and b) afford a car, it has a comfortable, lived-in feel about it. The back seat is strewn with newspapers – The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, FT, New York Times and International Herald Tribune. Some crosswords look as if they’re completed, which impresses me. The open glove compartment is stuffed with maps, pens and unopened letters – bills by the look of them. A well-thumbed Penguin paperback of Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop lies at my feet. I pick it up.
‘I must re-read this,’ I say. ‘One of the funniest books ever.’
‘Absolutely,’ he says. ‘And a must-read for all journalists. Borrow it if you want, I’ve just finished it.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, surprised. ‘I’m pretty sure my copy is at Mum’s.’ I put it in my handbag.
Eventually, after some piss-poor map reading on my part, we reach the turn-off for the wood.
‘Look, this is where it says we need to get out,’ I say, pointing at the big red cross on the map Max gave to Andy.
‘So it is. Well, Bella, time to put your best foot forward, old girl.’
‘Good luck,’ I say in my best Agatha Christie heroine voice, leaning over to shake his hand.
We sneak through the wood as quietly as we can, every twig breaking sounding like gunshot. I am such a private investigator. When Poppy and I were thirteen, a careers counsellor came to our school and, immersed at the time in Agatha and Dorothy L. Sayers, we both told her we wanted to be private detectives; we were given pretty short shrift. As the memories hit me, I find myself hoping that Pops is coping OK with her father’s decline without Damian’s support. I swiftly put the thought out of my head.
Soon, sounds come floating through the air, faintly at first, then gradually louder and louder. Pan pipes, a fiddle, drums, chanting … oooh, how exciting. I grin at Andy, and he grins back, also caught up in the excitement, by the look on his face, as he treads carefully through the undergrowth.
He stops abruptly, with his finger to his lips. Gesturing to me to hide behind the trees, he points into a large clearing.
A motley crew of face-painted tree-people and creatures that probably think they are druids or shamans are sitting cross-legged in a circle. I spot Kimberly among them, her red ringlets loose around her face, eyes closed, face lifted up to the sky. I’d forgotten how young she is – twenty-five at the very most. And how exquisitely pretty. God, I hate the self-centred moron. How dare she sit here, serenely sucking up whatever mindless bollocks this is, while my father is enduring a living hell?
Andy nudges me, whispering, ‘I think we’ve gate-crashed a wedding.’
Oh for fuck’s sake, Max.
The bride and groom are kneeling at the centre of the human circle, palm-to-palm, smiling beatifically, eyes half shut. The groom is wearing a kilt and a grubby brown shirt; the bride, faintly Grecian robes the colour of snot, with a headdress that looks like something a Red Indian squaw might sport. Statues of Ganesh, pagan effigies, Egyptian cats and Buddhas form an inner circle between the happy couple and the ersatz congregation.
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