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you.”
    â€œYou are privileged, you’ll see a whole different side to mankind this weekend. How delicate and supportive we can be to a man who is about to go through the trauma of marriage.” We wait for the punch line and Robert duly delivers.
    â€œHow delicately we can shave his balls and how supportive we can be as we encourage his performance in a brothel. What are you going to do in the brothel anyway, give him a threesome?” Robert is so out on a limb, the air is thick with threat and effrontery; the worry for me is that I don’t know how much he thinks is a true reflection of the coming four days.
    I re-introduce Juliet to a suspicious Chris and a welcoming Johnny.
    â€œI’ve just offered my congratulations to Sophia and apologised again for not being able to come to your wedding,” Juliet informs me. Sophia stands with Bepe on one hip, she looks nervous, her thoughts compromised by the gift of Juliet’s expensive tropical spray.
    â€œThanks for the flowers.” Sophia flashes a grimace that undermines her statement.
    â€œIt’s so good to see you both after so long. How beautiful is Giuseppe?” All said from the heart, but every word tested for secondary meaning by my fiancée.
    â€œWe just call him Bepe,” Sophia snaps at her and pulls him away back to her seat.
    Send in the clowns so my circus can be complete.
    â€œStaggie!” shouts Max from outside the coffee shop. My shoulders droop from the prospect of the further trouble I have invited. The entry of my boss Max and creative team partner Steve divides all the coffee clientele into either gasps or guffaws. They struggle through the tightly packed wooden furniture accompanied by a life-size ginger-haired blowup doll. The width of both their grins matches the sex toy’s gaping mouth.
    â€œLook who we found. It’s that old girlfriend you spent years pining over when she dumped you. She is our plastic prozzy on the spot just in case anyone gets desperate.” They present me with the rubber doll and slap my back, insisting on a photograph. I am wracked with guttural pain. Like Robert they jovially stab me in the back, walking the fine line between humour and attack.
    â€œYou said women weren’t allowed Dan. I would have brought a real prostitute for us all to share.” Robert starts the one upmanship. He has made no attempt at re-connection with my older brother and Johnny despite us all being at the same primary school, but zeros in on anyone likely to inflict pain on me.
    â€œMax, Steve meet Juliet my ex-girlfriend.” They don’t skip a beat over their faux pas with the sex doll.
    â€œHere is your stag T-shirt everyone.” Steve dishes out his personally designed lime-green T-shirt to everyone, without bothering for introductions. The front reads: S TAGS ON TOUR . R EVENGE ON G REENHENGE . W EDNESDAY 15 TH A PRIL 2009 TO S UNDAY 19 TH A PRIL 2009. The back is adorned with a photograph of me thrown over a toilet bowl at our 2005 Centurion office Christmas party. The mottled green vomit from an absinthe binge is evident on both my blue shirt and forearm. Steve sniggers self-congratulatory.
    â€œOh and here are some horny horns for the rutting stag. I got small so that they didn’t slip off your greasy hair. I’ll put them on.” Max adds to the embarrassment. I abide sixty seconds of pain over my ears before I can pass them on to Bepe without seeming too ungrateful. Robert rises to these two new additions with a personal introduction.
    That’s us now, we unhappy few. I am in the full glare of my supposed true men and good, the people who will form the core of my wedding invitees, future big birthday parties and my eventual funeral. Stag status report: Chris dumbstruck; Johnny perturbed; Robert enthused; Juliet abnormally sheepish: Max smug; Steve fulfilled. My fiancée is at boiling point with her pan lid clacking.
    The stag has had his antlers