I think he may be crying, but his body is too cold to actually produce the tears.
‘I thought you were going axe-throwing and for teppanyaki?’ I tell him.
‘Oh, we got too drunk to chuck axes, so we went to adventure golf. Then we got thrown out of that because someone tried to stick their willy in a golf hole.’
I really hope that someone wasn’t our father.
‘A drunken odyssey through London then…’ I root around in my giant tote and find a beanie. It’s not even mine; someone I once knew left it in there after a cinema date. I sigh and put it over my brother’s head. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Angelo and his mates were on their way back from KFC. We may have shared some hot wings.’
I laugh, my breath clouding the air. Only Sonny would get chained to a lamp post naked and be able to blag food off some kids.
‘You look so nice. I’m sorry I spoiled your evening…’ he cries, pouting.
‘Well, I couldn’t leave you here, could I? Why me, though? Why call me?’ I enquire, wondering why none of his ushers, mates or his own father could have assisted.
‘You’re my sister. Yours is the only number I know by heart. It’s the same one you’ve had since you were at school.’
I shake my head as I lead him into the waiting taxi, dragging Keeley the blow-up doll by her feet, remembering a time I had to collect Sonny from Reading because he fell asleep on a train, another time where I picked him up from a phone box when a melodramatic girlfriend threw him out without any shoes. The fact is I know his number too, it’s one of those things imprinted into my brain.
‘Well, I’m glad you called. It was starting to get messy at Ruby’s.’ Messy because the magic stripper men had just got out the squirty cream, but he doesn’t need to know the details.
‘I’m glad. Is she having fun?’ he asks.
‘I think so. I like her.’
‘Good. I don’t think I could marry someone you didn’t like.’
As he sits back in the taxi, I take off my coat and wrap it around his feet. What is the stage where someone can get frostbite and lose digits? That wouldn’t be a good look a few weeks before a wedding. That might lose him his magazine deal.
‘Heat’s on max, love,’ the taxi driver shouts from the front. ‘Let’s get him warmed up. Is he all right? Do I need to make a hospital stop?’
I shake my head. The cabbie arches his eyebrows as he sees Sonny’s face in the rear-view mirror.
‘Aren’t you that fella from—’
‘Yep,’ I say, watching him, hoping he doesn’t get a phone out.
‘Well, it’s not a good stag if something ridiculous like this doesn’t happen,’ the cabbie jokes.
‘True,’ I say, turning to Sonny. ‘But what if those lads hadn’t found you? What if it had been a gang of hooligans with knives? What if no one found you? It’s supposed to be -1 tonight. You could have died! Alone!’
The blow-up doll looks at me, offended.The cabbie studies the panic in my tone and face as I half shout at my younger brother, even though his face is a light shade of sky blue.
‘It’s good his sister found him then, eh?’ the cabbie tells me.
Sonny nods, still on defrost.
‘Let’s get him somewhere safe… Where to, kids?’
‘You all right headed down Wandsworth way?’
‘Sure thing, love.’
TWENTY-ONE
‘Get in, you bloody donkeys,’ Nan says, as soon as she sees Sonny wrapped up in a tartan travel rug, nothing on his feet and still slightly blue around the gills. ‘Whose crapping idea was that?’
