The Men in her Life

happiness transcended the surroundings and the photographs would recall only their smiles.
    Holly thought about the English Eccentrics dress hanging on the rail in her clothes room and was unendingly grateful for Simon’s astute warning. In this setting it would have looked not just eccentric but stark raving bonkers. In the end she had gone to Emporio Armani and bought a silver grey chenille jacket with black velvet buttons to go over plain black trousers she already possessed. The jacket combined understated elegance with a hint of festivity.
    ‘You look very grown-up,’ Simon had said when she opened the door to him that morning, which was exactly the compliment she wanted to be paid, and it had got the day off to a good start.

    There was a banner strung above the entrance to the main hall that said Congratulations Eamon and Mo! The members of Eamon’s band, the Old Flames, changed their suits to jeans and their ties to bootstrings and hurried to their instruments to strike up the first number. The room had been set out like a dancehall with a horseshoe of tables all around the central floor where Eamon and Mo would start the dancing later.
    Holly and Simon joined the bridal couple at the top table and although he had never met him before, Simon fell easily into conversation with Eamon about England ’s qualification for the World Cup and the car that had broken the sound barrier in the Nevada desert days before. Holly watched Mo greeting friends who came to offer their congratulations. In the more subdued light of the hall, her skin seemed almost to have a golden tan. It made her teeth look very white as she smiled and laughed and held out both her hands to her star pupil who came up to present her with a bouquet of flowers. The girl then ran back to the group who had collected on the floor to perform a display of Irish dancing while everyone settled themselves down for their lunch.
    ‘Did folk used to get married in the early morning?’ Eamon asked nobody in particular, ‘why else would it be called a wedding breakfast, do you think?’
    He had a gift for putting people at their ease, Holly thought, trying to find reasons to like her new stepfather more. There was nothing wrong with Eamon, she knew that. It was just that she didn’t think he was good enough for Mo.
    ‘Isn’t it marvellous to see your mother so happy, Holly?’ Sonya asked her.
    ‘Yes,’ Holly replied, forcing herself to smile.
    ‘Seven hundred and sixty-three miles per hour, wasn’t it?’ Eamon asked Simon.
    Other members of Mo’s classes, dressed in their white school shirts and black skirts, brought plates to the table with slices of ham, chicken drumsticks, and bowls containing potato salad and coleslaw. The older girls took orders for the bar. Most of the men in the room were drinking pints of Guinness and the women sweet white wine.
    ‘I expect you’ll be next, will you?’ Sonya asked, nodding significantly at Simon.
    ‘I very much doubt it,’ Holly said.
    ‘Well, never give up hope,’ Sonya told her, ‘Mo’s living proof of that.’
    My mother has not spent her entire life waiting for the moment some bloke would ask her to marry him, Holly was about to reply, when it occurred to her that she did not really know if that was true. When she was younger, she had taken it for granted that Mo had been happy enough living with her, but maybe she had always wanted to have a man around?
    ‘Is this the boyfriend you’ve been keeping so quiet about?’
    Mrs Draper, who had lived on the ground floor of their block of flats for as long as Holly could remember, was using the back of Holly’s chair as a zimmer frame as she queued to kiss the bride and shake the groom’s hand.
    Holly’s heart sank as it gradually began to dawn on her that she had overestimated Mo’s friends by assuming that if she arrived at the wedding accompanied, they would be discreet enough to shut up about her marriage prospects. In fact, the novelty of a man at her side, particularly such a nice, approachable kind of a man had made them more curious than ever. It would have been better to come alone and suffer alone, she thought, than to subject both herself and Simon to this scrutiny. Simon’s presence alongside her also made it much more difficult to lie.
    For a moment she saw him as others must see him. Tall enough, good-looking enough, nice enough to be the sort of man to whom any woman would be fortunate to plight her troth. She wondered if he