The Wedding Speech (2 page)

There was a chorus of shuffling feet and the sound of wood scraping floor. Ed looked down at the rows and rows of people and braved a smile. The smell from the lilies was almost overpowering
now. Reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, Ed pulled out his silver hip flask – the one Billy had given him for his 18th birthday – and raised it above his head.

‘To Billy and Amelia – together forever, side by side. I love you guys.’

It was a few seconds before Ed realised that his knees had given way. Amber rushed up to help him as he pressed his forehead against the hard, unyielding wood of Billy’s coffin. An
overwhelming horror seemed to punch him in the gut as he pictured his best friend in that box, mangled from the car wreck that had killed him and his beloved fiancée.

Her body was here, too, in the box next to Billy’s. Gently extracting himself from Amber’s arms, Ed stood up once again and forced himself to smile at all the friends and family.
Many of them had stepped towards the front of the church and were now arranged in a fan shape around him.

‘A couple of days before the accident, I joked to Billy that he could still get out of the wedding if he wanted to. I said, “Mate, there’s still time, we can run away to
Thailand if you’re having doubts.” Do you know what he said? He just looked at me, shook his head so hard that those stupid big ears of his shook, and said, “It’s okay.
It’s all going to be okay.”’

Ed reached down and touched first Billy’s coffin, then Amelia’s. ‘What I want to say is that none of us should be sad. None of us should worry. Wherever Billy and Ames are now,
they’re together. And that means they will be happy. They have to be.’

Standing outside the church twenty minutes later, Ed brought his cigarette up to his lips and inhaled deeply. He looked down at his polished black shoes. They had flecks of mud across the top
from the walk to the burial site.

‘I did it, Billy. I did your Best Man’s speech,’ he murmured. The pain was sawing through his stomach, his chest, his head. Looking up, he watched as a robin landed lightly on
the mossy wall in front of him.

It was July, a funny time of year to see a robin. As Ed watched, another robin appeared at the far end of the wall, and the two froze for a second as they spotted each other. Then, very slowly,
they took turns to hop towards one another, their little brown heads twitching as they did so.

When they reached the centre, the robin that Ed had spotted first let out a contented chirp. The two birds stood side by side for a few seconds, enjoying the feel of the sunshine on their
feathers. Then all of a sudden, they were gone in a blur, circling a few times before vanishing altogether. Ed felt the pain ease from his head, then his chest, then his stomach.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ he whispered. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’