Read The Stag and Hen Weekend for Free Online Page B

glass.
    There was only Simon left to speak now. Phil thought briefly about Simon and Yaz’s wedding day and the inside view that he had got of their relationship through his role as best man. If anyone had anything positive to say about marriage it would be Simon.
    ‘So come on then, Si,’ said Phil, ‘Only you left to reveal all. Why did you and Yaz decide to get hitched?’
    ‘Love,’ said Simon after a long, ponderous silence.
    Phil had had enough individual heart-to-heart conversations with the boys over the years to know that despite their bluster the boys were far from being emotional cripples but even he was a little shocked by his friend’s frankness and unsure what to do to relieve the resulting tension. Phil could see his friends mulling over the various options available from a well timed fart gag through to the suggestion that they should all check out the arse on the waitress who was currently bending over to pick up a teaspoon that had fallen on the floor. In the end Phil himself provided the six friends with the best way out of the conversational cul-de-sac in which they found themselves.
    ‘I’m starving,’ said Phil. ‘Who’s hungry?’
    ‘I am,’ said Simon getting to his feet. Then he added, almost as if the news had only just occurred to him, ‘Oh, and by the way I’ve left Yaz.’

5.
    Phil knew Simon wanted everyone around the table to carry on as if nothing had happened because that was the way the friends had always chosen to deal with big news. Like the time Degsy told everyone that his girlfriend wouldn’t let him see his kids any more. The time Reuben revealed that he and his wife were struggling to get pregnant. The time Deano confessed that his dad was dying of liver cancer. Each of these moments had been met with silence. A silence that acknowledged the scale and magnitude of the problem in question while recognising the pointlessness of any words the English language might offer in such a situation. The silence said without actually vocalising: ‘I feel your pain, mate, feel free to fill in the blanks.’
    Perhaps if this had been any other friend, Phil might have let him get away with dropping such a bombshell without cause for a soap opera style reaction and immediate dissection. But this wasn’t any other friend, this was one of his oldest and closest friends. His best man. And they weren’t in a dark corner of some shabby Beeston pub on a Tuesday night. They were sitting outside a bar in central Amsterdam, with the specific intention of celebrating Phil’s last weekend as an unmarried man. Regardless of any accusations that might come his way following his failure to observe the rules of The Great Book of Bloke, Phil was going to ask questions. And lots of them. He just couldn’t see any way around it.
    ‘You’ve done what?’
    Simon closed his eyes, making clear the extreme nature of his disappointment. A number of moments passed by then he opened them again and said: ‘Look, I know it’s a shock mate, but there’s a time and place and this isn’t it. I just thought you all ought to know.’
    Still refusing to obey the rules of the game, Phil continued with his line of enquiry: ‘How long?’
    ‘A while,’ replied Simon. ‘Now let it go.’
    Phil attempted to process this information but needed some kind of explanation.
    ‘Why?’
    Simon’s half-embarrassed shrug appeared to acknowledge its own woeful inadequacy.
    Phil felt like shaking some sense into his friend. He thought about Yaz and what might be going through her mind, because after all the years he had known her she was as much his friend as Helen’s.
    ‘How’s Yaz taken it?’
    ‘She’s fine.’ He looked down at the table and added: ‘She’ll probably tell Helen this weekend.’
    Phil swallowed hard. He didn’t like the idea of Helen getting this news so close to the wedding. He’d lost count of the number of times in the past that problems in the relationships of people he didn’t even