The Wedding Speech

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

A CBS COMPANY

Copyright © Isabelle Broom 2014

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

The right of Isabelle Broom to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.

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EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47113-898-0

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Ed waited until all the eyes in the room were on him before he began. He took a deep breath, inhaling as he did so the sweet scent from the lilies, which were arranged
extravagantly in front of him. ‘Ladies and gents, I promise to try and keep this short and sweet. If you don’t believe I can, just ask the chief bridesmaid over there –
she’ll confirm it.’

There was a smattering of laughter. Ed was gratified to get a small smirk from Amber, who, as the bride’s lifelong best friend, had been the only choice for the coveted role.

‘When Billy asked me to be his Best Man, I was over the moon,’ he went on. ‘But then I realised that I’d have to do this. Stand up here, in front of all of you, and do
him justice – not be the dickhead I usually am. So then, well . . . then I got so terrified that I had the trots.’

Billy’s grandfather, who had combed his last remaining wisps of white hair into a fairly alarming quiff for the occasion, let out a bellow of mirth and slapped his bony thigh with
pleasure.

‘Billy made me promise,’ Ed went on. ‘He said to me, he said, “Ed, swear to me that you’ll be there on the day. I need you there. I don’t think I can do it
without you.”’

There was a pause. Billy’s mum, Patricia, discreetly flicked a stray tear off her cheek.

‘Come on now, Pat,’ Ed exclaimed. ‘At least wait until I get to the slushy bit before you start all that!’

Patricia nodded and gave him a wide smile. The hat she was wearing had a tiny little veil attached, Ed noticed. And she was wearing gloves. Not wool gloves, but a smart, dressy pair to match her
outfit. In fact, everyone looking up at him had really made an effort today. Ed felt a swell of pride in his chest.

‘I’m going to tell you all a secret now,’ he told them. ‘When I first met Amelia, I was an absolute arse to her. You’re all looking shocked now, but it’s
true. I was all like, “Who’s this bird that’s come out of nowhere and pinched my best mate?” Pathetic, I know, but there you have it. Of course, I was bloody jealous, too.
How Billy Big Ears ever managed to pull a bona-fide babe like Ames, I will never know.’

There was more laughter. Ed looked over to where Amelia’s mum and dad, Sandra and Brian, were sitting. Brian gave him a ghost of a wink as he squeezed his wife’s hand. They were both
smiling. Beside them, Billy’s dad, Sid, was running his thumb and first finger over his thick black moustache, and Ed wondered fleetingly if such a thing required special wax. He made a
mental note to ask Sid about it later.

‘So, as many of you will know and a few of you may not, Billy and me became mates when we were at infant school, so we went through all the big life stuff together. He was there when my
voice broke, when I had my first shave, when I lost my virginity . . .’

‘Last week, then?’

Ed laughed as Billy’s grandfather rocked back in his seat with a cackle, clearly delighted to have caused what Ed could tell was a flush of red on both his cheeks.

‘Anyway, as I saying, before you all had a good laugh at the poor state of my sex life – Billy and me go back a long way, and up until the day he met Amelia, no girl had ever made
him laugh quite as hard as I could. He was dead casual about her in the beginning, of course. We were watching the footie down the pub one Saturday, and he just dropped her name into the
conversation, all cool and stuff: “I met this girl, Amelia, she’s all right.” He gave me the whole ‘whatever’ shrug, but I knew. I knew before he knew that he’d
fallen for this one. One time, he turned up late for a lads’ night out because he’d been with her. He denied it, of course, but his shirt was all done up wrong, and his hair was
sticking up at the back. Then, when we hit the dance floor later on, a pair of red knickers fell out the bottom of his jeans!’

Amelia’s mum, Sandra, audibly gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. Ed threw her an obvious wink before continuing.

‘Well, us being lads and all that, of course we picked these knickers up and started throwing them to each other, ribbing him like crazy. Usually, Billy would have been laughing along with
us. Hell, he’d been the instigator most of the time. But this time, he got dead angry with all of us. He snatched those knickers right out of my hand and stormed out of the club like a proper
madam.’ Ed laughed as he pictured the scene. ‘There were other signs, too. I’d catch him smiling to himself like a wally when he thought nobody was looking. He’d get a
message on his phone and start grinning like he’d swallowed the Cheshire Cat and had the Laughing Policeman for dessert.’

Ed was getting into his stride now. The room was rapt, every pair of eyes on him. He cleared his throat.

‘So anyway, six months after Billy and Ames met in the frozen aisle down Tesco – I know, right, you couldn’t make this stuff up – me and him were supposed to be going
travelling. We’d always said we’d go somewhere sunny for a few months when we’d finished Uni. Live the high life in Thailand, watch some ping pong . . .’ Ed waited for the
giggles and wasn’t disappointed.

‘But on the day we were meeting to finally book some flights, Billy turns up all weird. He was as white as a sheet and told me he needed to talk. Obviously, I thought the worst, but it
turns out that he hadn’t gotten Ames pregnant – sorry Sandra – he’d just gone and fallen so madly in love with her that he couldn’t bear to leave the country –
even for a place with year-round sunshine and zero morals.’

It was clear to Ed that quite a few people sitting in the room were hearing this story for the first time. Amelia’s friends, in particular, were suddenly sitting up extra straight. The
Vicar, who was sitting to one side, smiled at him encouragingly.

‘Of course, I was all like, “Mate, what about the sunshine and the beaches and the beer and the birds in bikinis?” But do you know what he said? He turned to me, and I remember
it clearly even now, he turned to me, and he said, “Ed, mate, Ames has already brought more sunshine into my life than ten years on a Thai beach ever could.”’

Billy’s mum, Patricia, and Amelia’s mum, Sandra, were both openly crying now. Ed thought he could even detect a little bit of moisture in Grandfather’s eyes, too.

‘That’s when I knew. He didn’t have to say anything else. I knew right at that moment, with absolute clarity, that my best mate, William Chambers, was in love with Amelia
Howard and that he would marry her one day. I suppose I even knew that I would be the one doing the wedding speech, although I probably didn’t dwell on that part, given my weak stomach and
all . . .’

Nobody laughed this time, so Ed continued. ‘Over the past three years, I’ve spent more and more time with Ames – I’ve had to, the two of them have been joined together
like a pair of bloody limpets most of the time. I watched the way one always looked at the other, in that sickeningly cute way, when they were telling a joke or a story. I saw how they finished
each other’s sentences. It all sounds really clichéd now that I’m saying it out loud to all of you, but that’s just the way it was. It was like neither of them could quite
believe their luck in finding the other.

‘When my dad died . . .’ Ed threw a quick glance over to where his own mum was sitting, her hands folded in her lap and unashamed tears on her cheeks. ‘Ames was really there
for me. I was a complete mess, I admit it. Turning up at their flat at three in the morning, pissed out of my face, crying all over the two of them. I was a total liability, but Ames never said a
word. She just lay my head in her lap and told me that everything would be okay, that I would get through this, that she and Billy loved me . . .’

Ed had to pause for a second before his voice betrayed him. He stole a look to his left, to where Billy and Amelia were side by side, and pulled himself together.

‘See – I’m a right killjoy, me. Now you can all see why I only got my end away just last week.’

The room hummed with relieved laughter. Chief Bridesmaid Amber was smiling at him, her red curls snaking around her shoulders.

‘She was right, Amelia was, as always. I did feel better eventually. And do you know what else I realised? I realised how stupid I’d been with all the jealousy and dickhead
behaviour. I thought I’d lost my best friend, but in reality, all I’d actually done was gain another one. Billy had fallen so in love with Amelia because she was the other half of him,
his soulmate, the missing part of his puzzle – whatever you want to call it. I’m so very glad that they found each other, I really mean that. I think we should all be glad.’

Ed looked down to find that his knuckles were white. He must have clenched his fists to stop them trembling. He had a sudden picture in his mind of Billy and him, back on the day they’d
decided to run away from home and live in the woods. They’d only stayed out until the sun went down; in the end, neither of them had thought to bring any food, or money, or camping equipment
of any kind. But then, they were only ten at the time. They sat together and dangled their legs over the bank of the stream, breaking up twigs to throw into the water and chatting about football
and school and nonsense that he could only guess at now. It was such a happy and innocent and easy time. He wished more than anything that the two of them could be back on that bank now, the
sunlight dappling the water and the gentle summer breeze shifting the leaves at the tops of the trees.

‘Marrying Amelia is all Billy’s talked about for months. I thought brides were supposed to be full-on, but apparently blokes can care about seat covers, flower arrangements and
colour themes, too. Knowing how much the big day meant to him – to both of them – is why I’m standing up here today, doing this speech, as the Best Man. I wanted Billy and Amelia
to have everything they always dreamed of . . .’

When Ed turned to face the room again, he was assaulted by tears. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Some Best Man he’d turned out to be. He moved from where he had been standing
and positioned himself between Amelia and Billy, allowing his fists to unclench as he addressed the guests for the final time.

‘I’d like you all to be upstanding now, please, for Amelia and Billy.’