Part Five - "The Best Man"

Two days later I met Danny's fiancée for the first time.

I was sitting by Danny's bed as was recovering from the after effects of the anaesthetic. I had survived our little argument with the roadside bollard without so much as a scratch, and to tell you the truth so had Danny. Unfortunately he hadn't noticed that at the side of the road, where we pulled over to wait for the man from the AA, was a ditch. And Danny being Danny he managed to fall into it. This was why I was sat next to his bed waiting for him to come round from an operation to attach a metal rod to his broken right leg.

The rest of the ward was quite quiet; the other men in there had visitors, but they pretty much kept levels conversation to a minimum. The library like levels of noise meant that I could easily pick out the rather loud voice asking the nurse on the front desk where Danny was.

"I'm looking for my fiancé Danny."

I looked up; the speaker was quite an attractive brunette, if somewhat on the short side. She looked as if she should be quite timid, but she seemed anything but. Boy, her voice was loud.

"No problem, what's his surname?" Asked the nurse, who seemed somewhat taken aback by the volume generated by this incredibly petite girl.

"Oh, I actually don't know it."

I stood up and started walking towards the desk. I knew that this had to be my brother's Betrothed. It was the type of thing he would do; agree to marry someone without even exchanging some basic piece of information such as each other's last names.

"You are getting married and you don't even know his full name?" the nurse asked somewhat quizzically, but with no small hint of accusation in her voice.

Before Danny's fiancée could respond I interrupted.

"Hi."

"Hello." She said, quite clearly not realising I was about to help her out of a bit of a sticky spot.

"I'm Jack, Danny's brother."

"Oh hello!" She took my hand and started shaking it vigorously and then turned to the nurse, "This man is going to be my brother-in-law."

"Apparently so." Replied the nurse with hint of mocking in her voice and then pretended to get on with some paper work.

"Sorry," I said to Danny's fiancée as I guided her towards Danny, "But I don't actually know your name."

"It's Danielle."

I laughed.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"You really don't know our surname, do you?"

"No, why?"

"It's Daniels."

"Oh…"

"Yes. So you two are going to become Mr and Mrs Daniel & Danielle Daniels."

"Oh." She looked slightly startled. "Is his name really Daniel Daniels?"

"Our parents had a rather odd sense of humour. If they were still around they would love it that he was marrying someone call Danielle."

She shrugged and very quickly seemed to accept that slightly odd name they would have as a married couple. But then you could see something in her eyes that had just occured to her. "But you've got a normal name."

"No, think about it. I'm Jack Daniels. Or as my friends like to call me, And Coke."

She had a blank look on her face. I had come up with that little "And Coke" joke about 10 years ago and had told it at least 30 times. Not once had a single person ever come remotely close to laughing at it and it didn't look as if Danielle was about top break that trend.

Danielle quickly broke the silence that followed. "So how's Danny?"

"He'll be ok. It will take a while for his leg to set in place and then he'll need some physio work but the Doctor says after a two or three months he should make a full recovery."

"That's good because I was going to tell him that I've found the perfect place for the Wedding, but they only had one slot left. So I booked it."

"You only got engaged on Saturday and now you've got the date set ?"

"Yep."

"So when is it then?"

"Exactly four months from today."

One word went through my mind, shit. And it went through my mind repeatedly; shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Just four months till speech day, shit.

"So soon, I'm not sure Danny will be well enough by then."

"Don't you bloody worry Babe; I'll be back on my feet by then." Danny had woken up.

Danielle suddenly dived on to the bed next to him; somehow carefully snaking herself around the traction that his leg was in and they started kissing. They kept on kissing and it soon became a sight I didn't really want to witness, it was probably time for me to leave. On my way out I decided, for the protection of the innocence of the little girl visiting her father in the bed opposite, to draw the curtain around the couple as they got rather too carried away.

"The Best Man" is copyright Angus Burns 2007