3-42（在线收听）

42.

I showed up to my stag ready to party. To laugh, to have a good time, to get clear of all this stress.

And yet I also feared that if I got too clear, got too drunk and passed out, Willy and his mates

would hold me down and shave me.

In fact Willy told me, explicitly, in all seriousness, that this was his plan.

So, while having fun, I was also at all times keeping my older brother in my sight.

The stag was at a friend’s house in the Hampshire countryside. Not on the south coast, or in

Canada, or in Africa, all of which were reported as its location.

Aside from my older brother, fifteen mates were in attendance.

The host kitted out his indoor tennis court with various boy toys:

Giant boxing gloves.

Bows and arrows, à la Lord of the Rings.

A mechanical bull.

We painted our faces and rough-housed like idiots. Great fun.

After an hour or two I was tired, and relieved when someone shouted that lunch was ready.

We had a big picnic in a large, airy barn, then trooped off to a makeshift shooting range.

Arming that drunken lot to the teeth—dangerous idea. But somehow no one was hurt.

When everyone was bored of firing rifles, they dressed me as a giant yellow feathered chicken

and sent me downrange to shoot fireworks at me. All right, I offered to do it. Whoever comes

closest wins! I flashed back to those long-ago weekends in Norfolk, dodging fireworks with Hugh

and Emilie’s boys.

I wondered if Willy did too.

How had we drifted so far from the closeness of those days?

Or had we?

Maybe, I thought, we can still recapture it.

Now that I’m to be married.