Best Man by Matt Dunn

Author:Matt Dunn [Dunn, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Chapter 11

Great. Less than four weeks to go until the big day, and I’ve blown my best and only chance of talking Nick out of it, particularly because he’s not even speaking to me at the moment. By Monday evening, I decide that I can’t face any more of his barely polite grunting in the office, and some R&R away from it all in Snowdonia seems a good idea. When I call Charlie, she answers after the third ring.

‘What are you doing for the next couple of days?’ I ask her.

‘Er, nothing. I’ve got to work on Friday, but . . . Why?’ she says, drawing out the last word.

‘I thought I’d take you away somewhere. Dirty weekend and all that.’

I hear her laugh down the phone. ‘A dirty weekend – and in the middle of the week, too! Where are we going?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘Will I need my passport?’

I try and remember whether there’s border control on the Severn Bridge. ‘Er, no.’ I suddenly feel cheap.

‘Oh. A posh frock for the evening?’

‘I was thinking more like hiking boots and waterproofs . . .’

There’s a slight pause before she answers. ‘Oh. Lovely.’ But I can hear the disappointment in her voice, and have to think on my feet.

‘Only kidding. Posh frock would be good.’ I tell her. Damn.

‘Sounds great,’ she says, sounding much happier all of a sudden.

My next call is to the B&B I’d booked in North Wales to cancel, and then, in a moment of inspiration, I ring the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Being my old ‘stamping ground’, I reason, it will be a good excuse to show Charlie where I spent some of my formative years. I’m worried they won’t have a room at such short notice, but fortunately they have a suite with a sea view that the receptionist describes as ‘stunning’, and although the price is pretty stunning, too, I just grit my teeth and book it anyway.

The next afternoon, when I pick her up as arranged, Charlie seems to have packed for two weeks rather than two days, and I almost give myself a hernia as I struggle to carry her luggage down the stairs and squeeze her bags into the Impresser’s boot next to my small holdall. Heading out of the capital, we join the thousands of other Londoners intent on spending three hours in their cars driving at five miles an hour through the biggest car park in the world – the M25. My turbocharged engine sits there in danger of overheating, but thanks to the automatic climate control, which I always think is an interesting concept in England, we don’t.

As we near Gatwick Airport, Charlie pretends to get all excited, and asks me if this is our exit, telling me she’s brought her passport just in case. I take the off-ramp just to see her jaw drop in amazement, and then rejoin the motorway straight away without saying a word.

A few miles further on the traffic lessens, as does the ache in my shoulder from where she’s punched me.

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