The Wedding Banquet

The Wedding Banquet - Part 2

Another month, another gig, though the same old community centre setting. Not that Dave minded. The first time he'd been there it depressed him slightly, in the way old 70s buildings did sometimes with their linoleum floors and socialist brickwork. Although not on a conscious level, these buildings scared Dave. They stank of poverty and failure. Now the community centre was reborn in his perception, the home of the greatest gig on the planet.

This time around the happy couple were less minging too, and seemed to have lashed out on one of Ribster's dads more expensive packages. There was wine and a wider range of spirits. Even rolled in a barrel of Stella, Dave noted with some approval.

The evening was marred by two events. First was some tosser who wandered over to the bar and said he wanted a drink “fit for a lady.” It took Dave a moment to figure what he was going on about, then the penny dropped that Romeo here wanted him to whip up a cocktail. Small snag. Dave knew precisely zero about the fine art of cocktails. They weren't really a Crown favourite. Caught on the back-foot, Dave wracked his brains before depositing a shot of Baileys and a shot of Kahlua in a glass.

“There you go, mate. Tastes like chocolate. Ladies love it.”

Cocktail-tosser looked unconvinced, but handed over the readies for the impromptu boozy cream-fest and wandered off. He was back 45 minutes later with a pissed-off expression and an order for a glass of white. Oops. Dave had the feeling he just shot down Cocktail-tosser's chances of pulling tonight. Shot down with shots. He giggled. Cocktail-tosser looked even more annoyed and stalked off without a further word.

The second unfortunate event of the evening was a bit worse, and not least as it was the first time he met Ribster's dad. During the evening, Dave had been eyeing the buffet longingly, and with ever more lust as the night wore on and his belly began complaining. Standing up all night didn't help with the hunger. He'd assumed he would be offered some morsels same as the other party, and had been a bit light on his lunch, wanting to make the most of someone else's budget. But it seemed the culinary interests of the barkeep were not high on the agenda for the evening. In the end, when the groom had come down to buy a pint for his best man, Dave had (in his view) very politely enquired if a bit of food might not be out of order.

“Sure,” the groom had said, not looking particularly out of sorts about it, and a few minutes later one of the catering staff (who stuck around at this event) brought him over some salad (rather disappointingly in Dave's view, even if it was some fancy salad with peppers and olives), and, more pleasingly, some sandwiches and a couple of beef skewers. Lovely.

At the end of the night, when all the guests were gone and he was packing up the stuff, Ribster's dad came in, in person. He was as peculiar a sight as his son. Short, not much more than 5 and a half foot, he was wearing some weird rough cloth trousers that billowed out on his thighs and were then tucked into knee-high dark green socks, with a rough jacket and waistcoat made of the same material. He had what Dave could only register as a “country hat” on his head, slightly peeked with a pheasant feather sticking out of the band on the right. His skin was exceptionally pale, and he had an enormous conk sitting in the middle of his face, prodigious and hooked. Sheesh, if Ribster was destined for a schnozzle like that in his old age, best hope he had his rutting days behind him.

But Dave kept a studiously blank face; this was his patron, and he did not want to offend. A shame, then, it seemed, he already had.

“You asked the family for food?” he said in a surprisingly deep, but scratchy voice.

“What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah I did. I didn't think there was any - ”

“David, that was rude,” the old man said. He seemed genuinely aggrieved. Dave felt a knot of panic in his stomach. Oh, don't have screwed this up, please, not this, not over something so stupid.