Page 86 of Where Do We Go From Here?
‘Oh, OK. Don’t worry. We can always talk on the ph?—’
‘Todd’s getting married.’
Wendy frowns at her daughter. The words are so unexpected that they don’t really compute. ‘I’m sorry?’ she eventually replies.
‘Todd. Your son,’ Fiona says pedantically. ‘He’s getting married.’
‘Todd.’
‘Yes. In June.’
‘Wha… wh… why?’
‘Um, dunno. Because he wants to, I expect.’
‘But…’ Wendy says.
‘But?’
‘But that’s absurd.’
‘Yeah, ’tis a bit,’ Fiona says. ‘But you know Todd.’
‘But that’s crazy,’ Wendy says. ‘That’s utter madness.’
‘I wouldn’t necessarily go that far.’
‘I mean…’ Wendy can’t work out which aspect of this moment is the most ridiculous. Is it the fact that her twenty-one-year-old student son is getting married to a girl he met a few months ago – a girl she hasn’t even met – or the fact that she’s finding this out here, at the turnstile of an airport, from her daughter? ‘Why are you telling me this now?’ she asks, starting to feel angry that she’s being informed in circumstances which won’t even let her think clearly. It crosses her mind that perhaps this is Fiona’s intention.
‘Because Todd asked me to,’ Fiona says. ‘Sorry, I know it’s not ideal.’
‘Ideal? No, it isn’t. Why the hell didn’t he tell me himself?’
‘Probably because he’s a wimp. Dunno. Look, I really do need to?—’
‘And why now? Why so soon? They only met a few months ago. Is she pregnant or something? Because even then?—’
‘They met over a year ago, Mum. And no, her dad’s got Parkinson’s, actually. And she wants to do it while he can still walk her down the aisle.’
‘Oh. Right. Gosh!’
‘So maybe more sad than mad after all.’
‘It’s going to be in June, you say?’
‘Yes. It’s almost the longest day. The nineteenth or something.’
‘Well, I’ll be back mid April, so…’
‘There’s more, actually,’ Fiona says.
‘More?’
‘Yeah… Todd wants you at the wedding?—’
‘Well, of course I’ll be at the wedding!’ Wendy says, interrupting.
‘OK, but he doesn’t want a scene.’
