The apology

I had some friends who got married. I'll call them John and Jane because those aren't their names. Their wedding was the whole deal with a big white dress, a reception with flowers in the middle of round tables, a ton of relatives, the whole nine yards. I can't be doing with that sort of thing myself, but I'm OK if other people want it. I was driven out to somewhere in the country by some friends, and on the way one of them made a somewhat off-colour joke. "Let all those who have not had the bride, speak now or forever hold your piece." Hmm. I don't think Jane was big on promiscuity; and any way it's no business of ours to comment if she were. But on the other hand, "If you haven't had sex with Jane by now, you'll be holding your penis forever" is quite amusing.

Anyway, they get married, there are many photos, we go to the reception, we toast the happy couple, there are speeches and more toasts, then there's a meal with bottomless wine. Then there's dancing, and I'm not a fan of that. Then Jane has a "going away" dress, and they go away. And I've probably missed out a bunch stuff because I'm bored so I drink too much and some of what happened is a bit hazy. I do remember going to speak to Jane's mother, because what woman doesn't want to chat with a drunk idiot at her daughter's wedding? Eventually, we get in the car, and the designated driver takes his drunk friends back to town.

John and Jane have a flat. They asked me to look in on it while they're away on honeymoon: turn up a few times and make sure eveything's OK. So I do this. It's a bit weird being there while they're away. I can't help thinking about what I said to Jane's mother at the wedding, and it occurs to me that I might have thought that she'd like to hear an off-colour joke. One that was fresh in my mind at the time. No, I can't have said that. Can I? I hope not. But I don't know what we *did* talk about.

John and Jane get back from their honeymoon, and I go round to see them and give back the keys. I ring the bell. John opens the door and says "You'd better apologise to Jane". Oh shit. He didn't say what I had to apologise for, but it seems obvious what I've done. We go inside. I apologise to Jane. She accepts my apology, with the kind of tone that suggests "We will never speak of it again." I feel pretty stupid, but the frosty atmosphere soon lifts and life goes on.

Years pass, they split up, and John gets a job abroad. There's a leaving party, and I go along. It's a pleasant evening in a wine bar where we reminisce about the past things we've done with John. He has other friends that I don't know, and I end up talking to one of them. He says he was at John and Jane's wedding. I tell him about my apology, and how all these years later I still don't know what I apologised for, but I think it's what I said to her mother. He's laughing. He says "I know what you apologised for."

This bloke I've never met before knows more than I do about what happened to me years ago? Pray tell. Enough time has passed that I can cope if it's the off-colour joke.

He tells me there was another guy from his group of friends (the ones I don't know) who also had a key to their flat, and, like me, he was supposed check on it while they were away. He'd been there the day before they came back and removed the fuses from all the plugs in the flat. They came back to find that nothing in their flat was working. And they thought it was me. And I apologised for it.

I told John what I'd found out and he laughed, but I've not seen Jane since, so she still thinks that I did the plug thing. I'll take that in place of the off-colour joke.

#wedding

#apology

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