by Anne Berry
‘Catherine?’ she said. ‘Catherine?’
Catherine sniffed and there was something pathetic in the sorry little inhalation. Her lips quivered and she pursed them tightly. Not now, don’t cry now, she told herself. The voice of reason whipped back, ‘If not now, then when, Catherine, when?’ She dismissed it and spoke up instead.
‘My mother says this was the happiest day of her life.’ She delivered the line with the aplomb of an actress off an old black-and-white film, terribly correct and English. ‘She says that she felt like a princess, that everyone treated her like a princess. She says the day passed in a swirl of dancing and champagne and presents.’ She picked disconsolately at a seed pearl sewn into her dress. Rosalyn contributed nothing, knowing when to keep silent. Catherine took a huge breath, as if her next words would be a physical feat, as if, like a runner primed for the starter gun, she needed extra oxygen to get clean away from the blocks. ‘The last time I saw you was at granny’s funeral.’ A barely perceptible nod from Rosalyn. She kept mum, her little finger stroking the barrel of the lens. A pause that thinned gradually with the beginning of a sentence. ‘Ah . . . ah . . . mm . . . I was happier on that day than I am now.’ Their eyes met again and held.
‘She was a tartar, Granny Hoyle. Do you remember how she used to charge out of the house, a tea towel flapping in both hands, to scare the starlings off the bird feeder? Black vermin, that’s what she called them.’ Rosalyn sprang up and moved effortlessly into mimicry. ‘Shoo, shoo, you nasty things. Vermin! Flying vermin! No better than rats. If I had a rifle I’d shoot the lot of you, pick you off one by one. Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!’ Catherine laughed in spite of herself. Rosalyn took a bow and sank back into her seat.
‘She was like a gunfighter with those tea towels. Deadly aim. Remember how she used to hit Grandpa with them? “Out of my kitchen, now. You’re getting under my feet. How can I be expected to cook with you shambling about?”’ Her imitation was a poor cousin of Rosalyn’s, but then, she felt like she was a poor cousin. ‘I bet . . . I bet . . . oh never mind—’
‘No, go on,’ urged Rosalyn, sitting forward.
‘It’s stupid.’ For a moment she had forgotten and it was good, but she remembered now.
‘Go on,’ persuaded Rosalyn.
‘No, it’s . . . it’s just that I imagine she’s still doing it in heaven.’
‘What?’
‘Shooing starlings off the pearly gates.’ A giggle from Rosalyn. ‘I told you it was daft.’
‘Only,’ said Rosalyn, ignoring this rider, ‘only she’s more than likely using her own wings to do it these days.’ They lapsed into another silence. They could hear a car revving its engine. ‘He’ll be here in a minute, your father.’ The gold clock on the stone-effect mantelpiece was electric. It did not tick, but there was a metal pendulum wheel that spun at its base, on view through the glass-dome case. Forward and back it went, forward and back.
‘I don’t love him,’ Catherine mumbled, eyes cast down. The tiny pearl hung by a thread. She raised her eyes to her cousin. ‘I don’t love Sean.’
‘Oh Catherine!’ said Rosalyn. Then, ‘Why?’
‘Because—’ Her lips were numb and she broke off to collect herself, started again. ‘Because I hated secretarial college. Because I hated living at home. Because it was like a prison. I had no free will. I thought this was a way out.’
Rosalyn slipped the camera strap around her neck and got up. Catherine stared at her. She was tall and elegant, beautiful, a woman full of passion for her art. She had matured while Catherine felt her growth was stunted. ‘We’ll call it off,’ said Rosalyn courageously, her high cheeks flushing in empathy.
‘I can’t,’ Catherine uttered wanly.
‘I’ll do it for you. I’ll explain everything. It will be absolutely fine.’
‘I can’t.’
Then she was sitting beside Catherine, a big sister taking control. ‘You absolutely mustn’t go through with it. You made a mistake, that’s all. Lots of women do it. The important thing is that we stop this whole rigmarole before it goes any further.’ They heard a noise on the porch. Catherine’s heart lurched. ‘It’s okay. You stay here. I’ll go out. I’ll explain.’
As she rose, Catherine caught hold of her hand. ‘Do you think about it?’ she asked in an urgent whisper.
A suspenseful pause, then quickly, ‘Yes.’ As if the line of telepathy established that long-ago day was still intact, she had no need to query what her cousin meant.
The front door shuddered open. ‘Catherine,’ boomed her brother from the hall. ‘Are we allowed into the bride’s presence yet?’
‘Just a minute,’ called back Rosalyn, then she immediately dropped her voice. ‘I think about the ice every day.’ Their handhold tightened.
‘We almost died,’ whispered Catherine.
‘I almost died,’ corrected Rosalyn. With her other hand she pushed back her cousin’s corkscrew impromptu fringe.
‘Catherine!’ The father of the bride was importuning her now. ‘Any longer and we’ll be unfashionably late, sweetheart.’
‘Please, let me speak to them?’ begged Rosalyn.
Catherine’s ‘No’ was simply a flick of her eyes. She rose to her feet. ‘In this damn dress I feel as cumbersome as a pregnant cow,’ she murmured. They were both on the verge of tears; the pain of holding them back was not shared but doubled. ‘My veil, if you please,’ Catherine forced, sounding a rickety note. It was displayed on the coffee table, draped over its edges and corners so that it resembled an iced cake. Rosalyn obliged, and with dexterity fitted it on Catherine’s head. She looked steadfastly into her drained green eyes.
‘It’s not too late,’ she mouthed.
‘There was a second when it all changed, a second when we realized it wasn’t a game. Buried by bricks of ice in the freezing water.’
Rosalyn nodded. ‘Catherine?’
‘No. How do I look?’
‘Lovely. You look lovely.’
Catherine gave a soulless smile and instinctively, Rosalyn looked down into the viewfinder through the impartial lens. Snap. Photograph two. Resignation under a veil. Then a slight rise of her chin. She was ready. Rosalyn went to open the hall door, to let the men in. There was the proud paternal gasp as Keith Hoyle surveyed his daughter.
For Catherine there was but one way to survive this. She became the child who, having raided the dressing-up box, now made up the play. As she went through the motions her thoughts ran on:
‘In this part I am a woman desperately trying to grasp every second of this, her most jubilant day. I am riding in an Austin Seven, ribbons and roses on its gleaming bonnet, with my father and my brother and my best friend, Rosalyn. People passing in the streets peep in to see the beautiful bride. I am arriving at St Andrew’s Church in Ham, stepping out of the car, treading under the covered gate, walking up the path. It is a summer’s day. The leaves on the trees glisten as if they have just been dipped in green paint. Sunlight and shade pattern the sky above and the land below. The gravestones and tombs stand erect and peaceful. I clutch my bouquet of white roses more tightly and wonder how long it will be before the blossoms wilt. My chauffeur winks at me. Rosalyn goes before me, taking her photographs. Snap, wind the hand crank, snap.
‘As I move into the church the music strikes up – “Mendelssohn’s Wedding March”. And I think, is it me? Am I really the bride? Is this how a bride feels? A sea of heads bob. My eyes rove and take in their costumes and disguises, posh frocks, smart suits, beards, moustaches, glasses, blonde, brunette, red and grey wigs too. The air is a playground of coloured shafts of light. There is a smell of dust and wood, a glint of silver, a flutter of candle flame. I can see my mother. She is scrutinizing her reflection in her compact mirror, still looking for those stubborn grey hairs. My heels click on stone. There are huge displays of flowers, their fragrance scenting the air, and more flowers and ribbons at the end of the pews.
‘The vicar is waiting for me, arms outstretched. And some
one is standing in front of him in a pearly grey suit. I see his fair hair lifting against his collar. I wonder, will he turn, this bridegroom, turn to see his bride? He doesn’t. When I am next to him he steals a peek, gives the hint of a smile, takes my hand. His is trembling but mine is quite steady. It strikes me that he is nervous, and suddenly I find this hilarious. But I mustn’t laugh. It is as essential not to laugh now, as it was not to cry before. I pinch my waist as a preventative measure and find it is not there any more, only satin slips between my thumb and forefinger.’
Then, ‘Do you, Catherine Hoyle . . .’ In the hush she understood suddenly that the vicar was addressing her, and that she wasn’t starring in a play, but in her own catastrophic life. ‘Snap’ went the camera. Photograph three. Catherine praying. ‘Should I marry Sean Madigan?’ His fingers felt frozen and hard in hers, like the ice closing in.
‘I do,’ she said. And they were man and wife.
Her wedding vows were a sham. Her wedding night was a sham. She is a sham. Of course she understood the mechanics of it, of what was expected of him and of her. But the truth was that she entered her marriage bed a virgin. Sean was very attentive and patient, but it made no difference. When the rip came she cried out with pain and outrage and humiliation – but not with any pleasure, never that. She does not love him. She does not love this Irish man. She does not even fancy him. He is not repulsive to her, but by the same token he does not remotely attract her either. She feels about him the way you might do about someone you happened to be stuck in a lift with. There is no getting away from them, and to pass the time it is sensible to be pleasant. But that is all. She has married him but she does not love him.
She revisits the night of her deflowering, spies on the newly married couple. There she was, the bride, Catherine, or at least there were her legs splayed, her arms outstretched, her hands gripping the sheets. If she kept her neck at that angle for long she would have a terrible crick in it by morning. There was the groom, Sean, heaving into her, panting and gasping, his face grim with effort. Her light-green eyes were just visible. As if in some sort of meditative state her gaze was trained on the bumps on the ceiling, on the futile progress of a feathery moth colliding repeatedly with the sage-green lightshade, on its distorted shadows wavering on the woodchip. Finally he rolled off her, spent, replete, sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
‘Are you okay, Catherine?’ he asked his bride. The chord struck was that of a politely solicitous inquiry – the good morning, how are you? delivered habitually to virtual strangers. Feeling, she imagined, rather like a rape victim, it struck her as pure bathos.
‘I’m fine,’ came her retort, much in the same vein. If this was a farce, she considered, it would be rather funny.
‘It wasn’t very good for you.’ This last was the understatement that brought the house down. ‘I’m sorry. But it’ll get better, you know. You’ll start to enjoy it. Oh God!’
A sudden rise in pitch indicating alarm. ‘What?’
‘I think the damn thing’s split.’ Was he talking about her? She certainly felt as if she had been cleaved in two with an axe, as if the bloody core of her had been exposed, as if only stitches and plenty of them could sew her together again. But then came clarification: ‘The condom. Damn! Oh damn!’ He rose and she watched his pale body retreating into the bathroom. ‘I shouldn’t worry, Catherine. Your first time. You won’t fall, darlin’,’ he called out in the deliberately careless tone that in a comedy was inevitably the forerunner of impending doom. ‘I’m sure you won’t fall, so. We’ll be more careful from now on, eh?’
Her heart imploded. She would be doing this again, enduring this again. That was what she siphoned out of his words. Then an echo in her head. Fall. Whatever did he mean, pondered Catherine, grown addled with weariness, pulling the blankets up to cover her nakedness. Comprehension arrived like a light bulb being switched on in her head. He meant fall pregnant. As if what she had been through wasn’t bad enough, she ran the risk of becoming pregnant because the condom had split. It seemed she was in a nightmare of bottomless horrors, all trying to outdo each other. He was back, sitting on his side of the bed, facing away from her. He reached for the hip flask on the bedside table. This was a prop she was unfamiliar with, but it was destined to become so ubiquitous in the scenes of her married life that soon she would effectively be blind to it. He leant back and, ever courteous, offered her the first sip.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
His took several swigs himself and showed his teeth to the drab decor. ‘Just this once you won’t be caught. Trust me, my darlin’,’ he reassured, as if he was God and to conceive or not was in his gift. But she was caught already. She didn’t need a test tube to confirm it. There was no escape from her predicament. He drained the flask, clambered back into bed, kissed her on the forehead and switched off the light. She wound herself up in a tight ball and wept soundlessly.
I am still trapped in the ice, she reflects now, as the plastic sheet grumbles beneath her. Hot tears trickle down her cheeks. They wet her lips and she licks them off, tasting warm salt. She has held all these years to the conviction that it is Rosalyn who was irreparably damaged by their encounter in the iced pond, that it is Rosalyn who will never fully recover from the ordeal, Rosalyn who will pay the price for their tussle with death as surely as if she was horribly scarred that winter’s day. But no, it is her, she is the damaged cousin. Rosalyn has thrived. She is now a successful photographer, she is at the helm of her life, master of her ship, navigating safe passage. Whereas Catherine is shipwrecked, slowly but steadily being devoured by the icy teeth that still grip her. The baby is an anchor pulling her down and she must cut herself free or drown.
Now she hears approaching footsteps in the corridor and wonders if Miss Janney is coming to fetch her. Suddenly she badly wants to spend a penny, the way she did as a child every time nerves got the better of her. A door leads off her room into a cubicle where there is a toilet and a basin. She dashes in to relieve herself as the footsteps recede. She is rinsing her hands under the ice-cold water that gushes from both taps, when her mind drifts back to the occasion of her ninth birthday.
To begin with it had gone very well. The sun stayed out so they had games in the garden. And she blew out all nine candles on the cake in one go. Can she recall what she’d wished for? That’s easy, she’d wished to stop feeling so nothingish. More than ever that day she felt like one of those magic painting books they sold in the newsagents. And today she is still waiting for someone to bring her to life, to colour her in, someone like Rosalyn. When her birthday tea was over they had all taken turns to see how long they could bounce on her pogo stick. Afterwards they all had a go with the Magic 8-Ball someone had brought along. They piled indoors and sat in a circle on the lounge floor, taking turns to ask it questions. Her mother had closed the curtains so there were great blocks of shadow and streaky wands of light on the floor.
But when her go arrived everything changed and went sour. Her jaw locked and her ribs hurt so that it was a struggle to breathe. Everyone stared at her, and suddenly a horrible sensation of being hot and cold all at the same time travelled over her skin. And then she felt the blood rushing to her face and her cheeks burned. She knew it was stupid but she disliked everyone looking at her. She felt self-conscious and embarrassed, the way she did when a teacher asked her to stand up in class. She had a horrid taste in her mouth as well. If she didn’t concentrate she was certain that she would be sick. At last she managed to clear her throat and speak in a little voice. ‘Is it possible that my aunt and uncle and my cousins will come for Christmas, and that we will spend it together in a big house in Sussex?’
She had been careful not to mention Rosalyn by name, acutely aware of her mother’s crafty green eyes blinking at her. She was leaning back on the wall by the door, arms folded critically. She was sure if her mother found out how badly she wanted to see her cousin, out
of spite she would cancel it. She inhaled slowly, straightened out her shoulders, and repeated the question more loudly this time.
‘Is it possible that the American Hoyles will come to England for Christmas?’ She shook the ball, imagining it was a huge dice, held it upside down and rubbed the bottom of it vigorously with her thumb pad. Her eyes were riveted on the dark space, waiting for the message to appear. And they carried on holding for long seconds, hoping that there had been an error, that the spidery grey words would fade and reform. But they didn’t.
‘My . . . my reply is . . . is no,’ she faltered at her friends’ prompting, her voice squashed flat with disappointment.
There were a few consoling murmurs. But they didn’t seem to help. It was so awful because Catherine knew that she was going to cry, really cry. Her throat contracted until it was narrow as a pencil, her nose itched, and her lips grew swollen. After that the day had sagged, like one of her mother’s sponge cakes that hadn’t risen properly in the middle. Catherine longed for them all to leave, then she could go upstairs and crawl into bed. Wanting to cry and not being able to was the most hateful thing she had ever experienced, her nine-year-old self decided as she fought back tears. She had been so afraid that someone would look into her and unlock the pain inside. Only, when it happened, she knew that it wouldn’t be like emptying a cupboard until it was bare, it would just keep flowing out, forever.