Other People's Children [antikvár]

Chapter One Behind him, someone said, 'They shouldn't be called weddings.' Rufus feit his ears glow. He leaned forward and stared at the tips of the new shoes his mother had per-suaded him to wear instead of trainers. The person who had spoken behind him had been a woman. She sounded vaguely familiar. 'Not second time round,' she said. Her voice was calm, as if she had no personal axe to grind, but was simply stating a fact. "ihere should be another word for second time round.' Rufus raised his head very slowly and transferred his stare from his shoes to the wall twenty feet ahead of him. The wall was covered with white satiny paper, flowered and ribboned in more white, and on it hung a picture of the Queen in a white dress and a tiara and a broad blue ribbon running across her bosom with a brooch thing on it. Just below the Queen was the neat brown head of the lady in the grey suit and gold stud earrings who was, Rufus's mother said, the registrar. Being a registrar meant you could marry people to each other. This registrar - who had smiled at Rufus and said, 'Hello, dear,' — was going to marry Rufus's mother in a minute. To Matthew. Rufus did not let his stare slide sideways from the registrar to include his mother and Matthew. Matthew had a grey suit on, too, and a yellow flower in his buttonhole and he was half a head taller than Rufus's mother. He was, also and above all things, not Rufus's father.