Man and Wife. Tony Parsons

      Tony Parsons

       Man and Wife

      HarperCollinsPublishers

       For my father

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Part One: The Man of Her Dreams

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Part Two: Your Heart is a Small Miracle

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Part Three: The Greatest Girl in the History of the World

       Chapter Twenty-Three

       Chapter Twenty-Four

       Chapter Twenty-Five

       Chapter Twenty-Six

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       By the Same Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       part one: the man of her dreams

      The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

      My son comes to my wedding.

      He’s my best man. That’s what I tell him. ‘You’re my best man, Pat.’ He looks pleased. He has never been a best man before. Not that he makes a smirking speech about what I got up to with sheep during my wild youth, or tries to get off with the bridesmaid, or even gets to look after the rings. He’s only six years old.

      So Pat’s best man duties are largely ceremonial. But I mean it when I tell him that he is my best man.

      He’s the best of me, my son, and this special day would feel hollow if he wasn’t here.

       In a few days’ time, when the wedding cake has gone and the new married life has begun, and the world starts getting back to normal, some teacher will ask Pat what he did at the weekend.

      ‘I went to my dad’s wedding,’ he will say.

       And although he doesn’t tell me any more than that, I can guess at the knowing laughter that unguarded, innocent remark, endlessly replayed, will cause in the staff room. How they will chuckle. How they will sigh. A sign of the times, my son’s teachers will think. Children spending the weekend watching one of their parents get spliced. What a world, eh?

      I know that my father would have felt the same way, although the old man wouldn’t have found it remotely funny.

      Even in his last years, when he was finally becoming resigned to what modern men and women do to their lives, and to the lives of their children, I know that my dad really wouldn’t have wanted his grandson to spend his Saturday afternoon watching me get married. A nice kickabout in the park would have been all the excitement he needed.

      But I think they are all wrong – my son’s teachers, my father, anyone who thinks that the first time should be considered more special than the last time.

      Placing no other above thee…

      What can be bad about placing no other above thee? How can another try at getting it right ever be wrong? Unless you’re Elizabeth Taylor.

      As the years pass, and