Day 3:
They had been up until 1 am and the next morning, Alistair woke up late.
"Fucking hell!" He exclaimed, and immediately called Greg. No answer.
He rushed to the bathroom, got ready with a hangover, and then called Greg again. Greg answered with a yawn. "Morning laddie," he replied. "You up?"
"What is going on mate? We should be going."
"Ahhh, I have a bad hangover from last night. I need to rest."
"We've got just a day to make preparations. How do you think the marriage is going to happen if we don't arrange things for it?" Alistair was rapidly losing his cool.
"Alright mate, we'll go. Come over to Shivaji Street and we'll purchase the rings there. Meet you there in half an hour."
Alistair got up and left for Shivaji Street. Greg arrived 35 minutes late.
"I'm not in the mood to purchase now," exclaimed Greg.
"Why?"
"Because I'm just not in the mood. We'll arrange for the cooks first. Hey, hold on, let's cook for the wedding. We can make some more money that way."
"Mate, they are looking to have a Punjabi style wedding. Do you have any idea about Punjabi dishes?" Alistair was getting all the more worked up.
"Khojsaagar mate. Don't you worry."
Greg had a confidence beyond words. Nobody really knew how good he was at keeping up his promises though.
"I'm not happy mate, you seem to be unnecessarily complicating things."
Greg smiled at Alistair's frustration. They decided to go around the shops and Greg was getting even more annoying, drinking throughout the course of the shopping trip. When Alistair threatened to cancel the deal, Greg annoyed him even more by saying he had the money now and there was nothing he could do about it.
XXX
It was evening when they finally reached Alistair's house. Alistair was pretty worried that they had accomplished practically nothing during the day, and that the marriage was now going to be an absolute flop show. As they arrived, his dad came out smiling.
"Tusī kivēṁ hō?" he asked.
"Was that Punjabi?"
Greg gave his friend a "what the hell" look, and Alistair passed on the same look to his dad.
"Oh it means "how are you?" in Punjabi," his father explained.
"So, Tusī kivēṁ ,the preparations lads?"
Greg gave a smile to Alistair; a smile that meant many things. To Alistair, it was a smile of despair. A smile that meant, "What do I say now," and "We are screwed." However, it didn't turn out to be that way.
Greg was, in fact, scoffing all the way. He had made all the preparations in the morning and had just been fooling Alistair throughout the day. He produced a set of neatly stapled bills, gold rings, photographs of sample decorations, Gurudhwar details and everything else needed for the marriage. Alistair was speechless. He gave him a blank look, then an angry look, then finally he found some words.
"You played me all along, you clever bastard."
"Mind your language son," exclaimed his dad, before continuing "Nice work Greg, how much did you guys spend on everything?"
"2 lakh and 86 thousand pounds," Greg handed over the balance.
"Keep it son, use it for you Kusthi expenses,"
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There were smiles across everywhere, and they knew one day later, they would be going to London.
It was at this moment that Greg's phone rang. It was the sports association number. Knowing this was a call he had to take, Greg excused himself and headed to the door.
"Hi, this is Tony from London. Am I speaking to Greg?"
"Hello mate, how are you? This is Greg here. I'm dying to meet you guys in a day's time. We were a little short of money, but now we've collected enough to cover our travel and accommodation and we're on our way. We're going to win the match mate."
"Accommodation? What do you mean? This is a county match mate. Accommodation and food are taken care of. Don't tell me you didn't know about that?"
Greg fell silent, before finally finding his tongue, "Oh Blimey, I didn't know that. That's good to hear though mate, as we'd taxed ourselves too much for the money."
"You have graduated to the county mate. Your level of importance is growing. If you win this, you are going to be paid well. So do I take it as a Yes? You are definitely coming?"
"Absolutely mate, can't wait, thanks for calling."
Greg hung up and in that instant realized that they had made more money than required. It meant that they had excess money for booze, for luxury, and more specifically, for betting. He did not personally participate in betting, but channeled his betting through Tim and Alistair. He came back to the drawing room, where Alistair and Tim were sitting. Alistair's dad had disappeared again, this time to his own room.
"Fuck me," said Tim, after Greg had told them the news, "that means, we've got over 20,000 pounds for betting."
"No mate, we've got a lot more than that." Greg took out a bundle of pounds. He had overcharged Alistair's dad and shown him bills that were for higher amounts. He had only actually spent about 2 lakh and 40 thousand.
"This means we have 65 thousand pounds for the trip? Holy fucking Christ," exclaimed Tim.
Day 4: Marriage day:
It was 6am and the trio had reached the Gurudwara early, in order to put up the decorations. Alistair's dad wanted the decorations to be really special, so they had spent some extra money buying material for them. They began by decorating boards, tying garlands and adding other things to give it a Hindustani flavor.
The Guru with the turban and the long beard was the first to arrive. He was about 6 feet tall and well built.
"Why are these guys built so well?" Alistair exclaimed.
"They are from a warrior class mate, even their women are well built," explained Greg.
"Yea, exactly the reason why I asked you," Alistair smirked. before continuing, "My stepmother is taller than my dad; about six-feet-tall and built like a man. It seems that she's trained in Yoga and some Punjabi martial arts too. She is the real deal, mate. I hope I don't annoy her!"
"Why the hell is that guy fanning a book, mate?" asked Tim, as he watched the sevadar start to fan the guru grant Sahib,
"If I'm right, In the Sikh tradition, one of the old gurus named the book as his successor- so the book is treated like a person. So Alistair, what's the story behind your stepmother anyway?" Asked Greg.
"Well, her name is Amar, Amarpreet Kaur. She was married to a police officer- a Britisher. She came to England at a young age to learn about our movies and the culture associated with them, eventually touring around England with small movie directors in order to promote their work. She somehow got extremely involved with the culture, and once found herself stranded in a hotel room, drugged and high as a kite. She got arrested but was released a few days later when Bob, the police officer handling the case, found her clean and dropped all the charges. A relationship developed between her and Bob and they eventually got married, settling down in Mayfield together. A couple of years ago, Bob died of a heart attack. My dad and Bob used to be on the same unit, so they've worked together in the police force a lot. All these years , I never knew that my dad had feelings for her. Finally, now, he's proposed to her...the conniving old man! Anyway, when my mum died, Amar attended the funeral, do you remember?"
One by one, the guests started coming in, until all 40 or so of them had arrived. Amarpreet Kaur was smiling, and seemed to be very impressed with the arrangements. Once everyone was settled, the couple sat in front of the Guru Gobind Sahib and Alistair's dad showed a thumbs up to Greg and his team.
The marriage ceremony was soon over with the Guru offering some prayers, and soon it was time to celebrate with dancing, drinking, singing and other fun activities. The guests were a mixed set of people. The Punjabi population of Mayfield was low, but people had come to the wedding from all around England. For the Britishers, these customs seemed a bit weird, with some orthodox Britishers even feeling it was too over the top. There were also many cops attending, including the two traffic cops who had kept Tim and Alistair in the station for a few hours.
"Did he make all these arrangements? He only seems to be interested in unwanted things," stated Greg's dad, disapprovingly.
In contrast, Greg's mum was very pleased as usual. She congratulated him for organizing such a wonderful ceremony and praised him for the beautiful festivities.
The marriage ended with drink.
XXX
The next day was match day and Greg was up early and ready to go. He had a few practice sessions in his local ground before Tim and Alistair were ready to travel, then they made their way to Sheffield to catch a bus. The match wasn't until the evening, so they had ample time to get there, but they wanted to go early to meet people and make arrangements for placing their bets. Greg had told them to place 50 percent of their money on himself, and 50 percent on other specific matches.
The bus arrived at 7:30 in the morning. Tim and Alistair sat together and Greg had to sit next to a fat bald guy.
"You all right mate?" the fat guy asked.
Greg smiled and sat next to him as the bus left for London.
