William Walker’s First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story. Matt Rudd

Чтение книги онлайн.

       MAY

       ‘Marriage is like life in this—that it is a field of battle,and not a bed of roses.’

      ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,

      Virginibus Puerisque (1881)

      Sunday 1 May

      I never had a threesome.

      I never had an orgy.

      I never slept with anyone from Sweden. Or Norway.

      I never slept with a Scandinavian full stop.

      I never slept with anyone with tattoos or pink hair or non-facial piercings or a career in pornography.

      I never slept with Mrs Robinson.

      I never slept with any married woman, and no, last night doesn’t count because she was married to me.

      Yesterday, I married Isabel, the girl of my dreams. Fantastic. I am married. Superb. I am a husband. Brilliant. I’ll never sleep with another woman again so long as we both shall live.

      ‘Hello, husband. I think I’m going to be sick.’ These were the first words she said when she woke. Isabel. My beautiful wife.

      ‘Morning, Mrs Walker.’

      Despite the hangover, she starts trampolining around the four-poster, singing ‘I’ve go-ot married yes-t’day morning’ to the tune of ‘I’m getting married in the morning’, which doesn’t fit. She sings like someone being stabbed in a shower: all commitment, no tonal control. This is not because she’s singing and fighting back the urge to vomit. This is how she normally sings. It is one of her many endearing qualities.

      ‘Mrs Walker. I like that. So much better than Miss Brackett.’

      ‘This is why you married me? For my surname?’

      ‘Yes, that’s it. Couldn’t go another year as a Brackett.’

      ‘Well, now you’re a Walker. Any second thoughts?’

      ‘Yes. I wish I hadn’t drunk so much.’

      ‘No, about being, well, married.’

      Until this morning, I’ve never had any second thoughts—well, not officially. Not so as to cause alarm. But from the moment I asked the woman I love to marry me, I’ve been expecting her to look dazed for a minute or two, blink a few times as if risen suddenly from a twelve-month coma, then look at me, look at the engagement ring and start screaming, ‘Marry you?! Are you mad?’ She could, I’m sure, even if I’m being objective, have had the pick of the field. A girl who looks even more beautiful in jeans and T-shirt than make-up and cocktail dress, an effortlessly glamorous head-turner, the sort of girl, honestly, you’d be quite chuffed to go on a date with. And I’ve got her to agree to spend the rest of her life with me. It’s ridiculous.

      ‘No, darling. No second thoughts. Even if you did knock the vicar out on my wedding day.’

      If you ask Johnson, the world’s most pessimistic usher, he’ll tell you the wedding was a disaster. This is because he sees a friend getting married in the same way everyone else might see a friend being sent to prison. For life. He hasn’t enjoyed his decade of matrimonial bliss.

      If you ask me, the wedding had gone pretty well. Compared to what I’d imagined. It had taken several Bishop’s Nipples the night before to convince the vicar I was not the infidel even though I only went to church once a year. After that, he’d been an absolute angel, until he’d fallen down the steps of his own church and come a cropper on the pew. I and a large part of the congregation had thought for several seconds that he had actually killed himself, but a glass of holy water brought him back from the brink. When he regained consciousness, he claimed I pushed him. I don’t think I did…I may have brushed past him as I helped Isabel and her dress turn, ready for the you-may-kiss-the-bride-and-get-out-of-here bit. Nothing he could do by then: we were already married.

      And, СКАЧАТЬ