Read Online The Three by Sarah Lotz - Free Book Online

dozed off.
    I was awoken by a commotion outside in the corridor, a man’s voice shouting, ‘Wotcha mean we can’t see her?’, a woman screeching, ‘But we’re her family!’ My heart sank. I knew immediately who they were: Shelly’s mum–Marilyn Adams–and two sons, Jason (‘call me Jase’) and Keith. Stephen had dubbed them the ‘Addams Family’ long ago for obvious reasons. Shelly had done her best to cut ties with them when she left home, but she felt obliged to invite them to her and Stephen’s wedding, which was the last time I’d had the pleasure of their company. Stephen was as liberal as they come, but he used to joke that it wascompulsory for an Adams to spend at least three years in Wormwood Scrubs. I know I’m going to come across as simply the most awful snob, but really, they were a walking chav cliché, right down to the casual benefit fraud, the dodgy fags they sold on the side and the souped-up motor in the council house driveway. Jase and Keith–aka Fester and Gomez–had even named their kids (an army of them, spawned by a coterie of different mothers) after the latest celebrity or footballers’ kid trends. I believe there was even one called Brooklyn.
    Hearing them screeching in the corridor took me right back to Stephen and Shelly’s wedding day, which, thanks to the Addams Family, would be remembered by everyone for all the wrong reasons. Stephen had asked me to be his best man, and I’d brought along my then boyfriend, Prakesh, as my plus one. Shelly’s mum had shown up in a pink polyester nightmare of a dress that gave her an uncanny resemblance to Peppa Pig, and Fester and Gomez had eschewed their usual knock-off leather jackets and trainers for ill-fitting off-the-peg suits. Shelly had worked hard to organise that wedding; she and Stephen didn’t have a lot of cash to throw around back then, it was before they did well in their respective careers. But she’d saved and scrimped and they’d managed to book a minor country house for the reception. At first the two halves of the family kept to their own territory. Shelly’s family on one side, me, Prakesh and Stephen and Shelly’s friends on the other. Two different worlds.
    Stephen said afterwards he wished he’d put a cap on the bar. After the speeches (Marilyn’s was a moribund disaster) Prakesh and I stood up to dance. I can even remember the song:
Careless Whisper
.
    ‘Oy oy,’ one of the brothers yelled above the music. ‘Bum me a fag.’
    ‘Fucking poufs,’ the other one joined in.
    Prakesh wasn’t one to take an insult lying down. There wasn’t even a verbal altercation. One minute we were dancing, the next, he was nutting the closest Adams to hand. The police were called, but no one was arrested. It ruined the wedding, of course, and the relationship; Prakesh and I split up shortly afterwards.
    It was almost a blessing that Mum and Dad weren’t there to witness it. They died in a car crash when Stephen and I were in our early twenties. They left us enough to see us through the next few years; Dad was good like that.
    Still, when the Addamses were shown into the waiting room by an intimidated nurse, one of the brothers, Jase I think it was, had the grace to look shamefaced when he saw me, I’ll give him that. ‘No hard feelings, mate,’ he said. ‘We got to stick together at a time like this, innit.’
    ‘My Shelly,’ Marilyn was sobbing. She went on and on about only finding out when a tabloid leaked the passenger list. ‘I didn’t even know they was going on holiday! Who goes on holiday in January?’
    Jason and Keith passed the time flicking through their phones while Marilyn blubbered–I knew Shelly would have been horrified knowing they were part of this. But I was determined that for Jess’s sake, there wouldn’t be a scene.
    ‘Popping out for a fag, Mum,’ Jase said, and the other one sloped out after him, leaving me alone with the matriarch herself.
    ‘Well, what do you think about this,