Chapter 7

The wedding was everything weddings were meant to be.

There had been a panic, Sam was barely fit, his groomsmen put him in the shower and turned it on cold. He hadn’t got in before 5am, he was not going to be up for a lot by the evening. Sinead was more relaxed that she should be, she wasn’t horny as hell; she’d had the edge taken off that by the previous night. Her mother was not sure whether to look daggers at the three girls, or thank them profusely for tracking down her eldest daughter. Her third daughter was thinking of the boy she’d met the previous night, he’d seemed really nice (even though he was really only after her knickers). She was told to focus; her hair was still a mess. The car was early, he hassled them. He had another wedding. Padraig O’Doherty had a quiet word and that problem, at least, went away.

At the service itself in Holy Mary Star of the Forest Immaculata Church, the two sides showed a clear divide. If someone had wanted to study the differences between the two cultures of The North, this would have been a good example. The style of dress, hairstyle, makeup, and of course tattoos were all very clearly delineated between Bride’s left hand side and the Groom’s right. Three men opted to wait outside. They were staunch Orangemen and their rules did not allow them to enter a Catholic Church. “Why not?” Amelie asked “Do they think the Holy Water will burn them?”

“I think you’ll find that is vampires, not Orangemen.” Rupert suggested. “Although maybe...”

As usual, the announcement of their full names caused a ripple of amusement. Sam had been named after two famous people ‘Samuel Carson Churchill’ - he kept that quiet. Even the priest smiled at the name Carson in a Catholic church. Sinead was called ‘Sinead Conceptua Aoife’. “Conceptua? As in ‘conception’? They name a girl with the hope that she’ll be a mother? Abigail and Rupert looked at each other, this was a different world.

The priest was good, he welcomed everybody; explained that he had performed one or two ‘mixed’ marriages before and found that doing it all in Latin helped everybody – he laughed, and the whole congregation laughed in relief. “So we’ll do it in Irish instead.” More laughter. None of the Catholics knew more than a smattering of Irish. He suggested that everybody join in with the parts that they were comfortable with, and maintained a respectful silence where they weren’t.

After, the priest even made a special effort to shake the three Orangemen’s hands – apparently that was not forbidden. He told them that he didn’t agree, of course, but was impressed by anyone with such strong principles these days. “So many bend and twist the rules to suit themselves.” He should have been a politician, the three went away respecting their ‘opposition’ just a little more.

The reception was fraught, organised and chaotic, delightful; irritating when the speeches carried on too long; funny when Uncle Jimmy tried to dance; challenging when two of the cousins both got the hots for the same girl; it nearly resulted in a fight until they discovered that if she might be willing, she was definitely underage by a wide margin; they were later seen drinking with two of the less selective bridesmaids. Uncle Billy (12 years for possession of a firearm, let out on licence under the Good Friday Agreement) and Padraig O’Doherty (5 years for aiding and abetting in an IRA punishment kneecapping) found common cause in condemning the English as a bunch of bastards.

There was line dancing, there was some old time dancing for the ‘oldies’, there was disco for the kids. The four danced together. Rupert found himself dancing with the girl who the two Michaels had got the hots for. She was twelve, one of them told him “She’s jail-bait, matey. Pretty though.” He agreed, she was. But he wasn’t dancing with her for that, he was dancing with her for her to enjoy dancing. Abba’s Dancing Queen came on, and Rupert and she danced with him singing it to her. She would remember her first wedding reception; and the handsome man who danced with her.

The three girls were hit on by plenty of men, semi-drunk, drunk, and incomprehensibly legless; young and old. Abigail found herself dancing with a boy of five who appeared to have two left feet. But he enjoyed dancing. Mary danced with three girls in a group. They were less attractive and the wrong age (to young to be easy, to old to be just children). Amelie danced with David Clintock – son of Finton Clintock, who was rumoured to be something big in the UVF (only rumoured, no proof was ever found, he was very careful). David was slim, well dressed and smelled good. His family were delighted to see him dancing with a girl, even if she was a ‘left-footer’; maybe he wasn’t gay after all. Actually he was, and Amelie could tell that too, that’s why she felt safe dancing with him.