In Bed With Lord Byron

myself jumping to my feet. I knocked on the pew. And then everyone was staring at me. Mrs Prendeghast turned and started flapping her hand in wild surreptitious gestures. Kerry scowled.
Anthony looked as though he was going to faint.
    ‘I . . . I . . .’ God, this wasn’t as easy as it looked in the movies. ‘I just wanted to say . . . to say . . .’ Oh God, what did I want to say?
Go on, Lucy,
just say it. Tell him you love him. He loves you, you know he does, just have courage
. ‘To say . . . to say . . . congratulations! Congratulations!’
    I sat down, my face burning, my guts twisted in an agony of cowardice.
    ‘Well, Lucy, thanks for that contribution,’ Casanova said archly, and everyone tittered. ‘I’m sure that was very clear.’
    Anthony looked across at me, and I saw then that he knew. Why else would I stand up and make a fool of myself? But what did he feel? He just carried on standing there, letting the ceremony wash
over him, looking increasingly stunned, and it was all going too quickly and now they were on the vows.
    ‘Anthony Lewis Brown,’ Casanova rattled off his name without even looking at him, his eyes fixed on Kerry, ‘will you take Kerry Samantha Prendeghast’ – he drew out
each syllable, his tongue licking like a cat’s – ‘in all love and honour, in all faith and tenderness, to lie with her and cherish her in this bond of marriage?’
    There was a long silence.
    Then, once more, Anthony looked over at me. I looked back. And this time there was no doubting the look in his eyes. This time, I knew.
    I felt my heart twist sharply and the air suck out of my chest. I screwed up every last drop of my courage into a tight ball. The rest of the church faded away into a blur as I pushed out of the
pew blindly, ignoring their confused cries. I stepped out. I stood in the aisle, waiting for him to come down and meet me. Shaking with my daring, with my love for him.
    ‘Hey,’ said Kerry. ‘What the hell . . .’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Anthony, stepping away from her. ‘I’m sorry . . .’
    ‘Well fuck you!’ Kerry yelled. ‘I didn’t want to marry you anyway!’
    Her words reverberated around the hushed church. For a moment Anthony looked shocked. Then he came down the aisle to meet me. He flung his arms around me and kissed the living daylights out of
me. Finally we came up for air, and he gently rubbed my nose in an Eskimo kiss, pulling me against him, stroking my hair protectively, trying to shield me from the outrage around us.
    ‘Well,’ Casanova interrupted the cries of dissent, ‘for God’s sake!’ His voice rose to a passionate shout. ‘This wedding has been a farce from start to
finish! What was a lovely, beautiful woman like you thinking of when you decided to marry such a cad?’ He leaned down and grabbed Kerry and kissed her passionately.
    She turned back to look at us with a smile that was half hurt, half triumphant.
    ‘My darling, let us leave this haven of imbeciles!’ Casanova cried, scooping her up.
    Kerry let out a shocked, thrilled scream. As he ran down the aisle, carrying her in his arms.
    They were halfway to the door before the congregation began to cry objections.
    ‘Do something, Anthony!’ Mrs Prendeghast cried. ‘Stop them!’
    But Anthony merely burst into laughter, holding me tight against him.
    ‘Do something!’ Mrs Prendeghast bashed her husband with her handbag.
    The guests rushed to the church doors, forming a bottleneck of hats and handbags. Anthony and I followed them outside on to the gravel to see Casanova carrying Kerry jubilantly, like some
fantastic piece of prey he had just ensnared and was taking home to eat for dinner; her wedding dress trailed in the gravel, turning from ivory to grey. Casanova spotted a taxi and waved.
    As the taxi veered away, the Botox woman came up behind us.
    ‘Well,’ she declared, shaking her head, ‘I could have warned them that you can’t trust a man who goes around calling himself Casanova!’
    vi) The wedding speech
    ‘Come on,’ said Anthony, grabbing my hand, ‘let’s go to Paris.’
    ‘What!’ I cried, stopping him.
    ‘I’ve got the tickets,’ he said. ‘For the honeymoon. We could go instead.’
    We were standing outside the church. Guests milled about us; everyone seemed torn between wondering if it would be more polite to go home and wanting to stay and see what other scandal might
unfold next. So they hung about the graveyard, clustered in small pastel