by Sandy Taylor
Poor Nigel. He was probably already fed up of our family and he wasn’t even part of it yet. I knew how he felt. I’d been fed up of our family for years, but since Rita and Mum started planning ‘The Wedding’, things had become a lot worse. It was all they ever talked about, and everything reminded them of it. It was like ‘The Wedding’ was the most important event in the world, ever. Rita said it was. She said a wedding was the pinnacle of a girl’s life. She said it was all she’d ever dreamed of since she was a little child and she was not going to let anything spoil her perfect day. It had to be absolutely, completely perfect.
I could have pointed out that she was marrying an insurance salesman and not the heir to the throne, but I didn’t, because it was kind of sweet how happy she was.
The worst of it was, back then, the wedding was still months away. It was to be a winter wedding and we were still in the summer. It didn’t stop it completely taking over our lives though. Time and time again when I wanted to be out doing something more interesting with Mary on a beautiful evening, I ended up crammed in our front room having to listen to plans for ‘The Wedding’. I found the whole subject so boring. I decided that when I married, I’d do it in secret. Me and my beloved would elope. We’d get the bus to Gretna Green and after the wedding we’d have a proper wedding breakfast, bacon and egg and beans. It would be very romantic and it would be just the two of us, me and… whoever, because that’s what I knew it was supposed to be about – two people, in love.
Rita’s wedding was taking place on the 23rd of November. She’d wanted a Christmas wedding but the vicar was already booked for December. He said it was usually his busiest month for dispatches, as well as the Christmas rush of people coming over all religious because they liked the carols and the candles. Rita said winter weddings were more sophisticated than summer ones. She had chosen a gown from the catalogue. It was long and white, with a hood and a fake-fur trim and it was called a ‘Monroe’. The bridesmaids were me and my younger cousin Carol. Carol was my Aunty Brenda’s daughter. Aunty Brenda was married to my uncle Ernie who seemed to cause her a load of grief. I once heard my mum tell my dad that Uncle Ernie was no better than he should be, whatever that meant. Every so often Mum and Aunty Brenda would open the Christmas gin and sit in the kitchen having what they called a ‘good old heart-to-heart’. The day after the heart-to-heart, Mum always had a headache. I used to think it was because she and Aunty Brenda got so emotional.
Dad was a self-employed painter and decorator and sometimes months would go by when he was out of work. Mum was a dinner lady at the primary school, which didn’t bring in much. Rita worked at the town hall and I was at Woollies so our wages helped, but even so, money was always a bit tight. My younger brother Clark was still at school, so he didn’t bring in anything. This meant there wasn’t much to spend on the bridesmaids’ dresses, especially when Mum realised how much else there was that needed buying and organising to make sure Rita had the wedding she’d always wanted. As a result, Aunty Brenda was going to make the dresses for me and Carol. She was coming over to talk about what colour Rita wanted. I was going to be the one wearing the dress, but I wasn’t allowed an opinion. What happened was that Mum and Aunty Brenda spent hours in the front room holding bits of material up to my face with Rita commentating and Mary sitting behind her sketch pad drawing the scene and secretly pulling faces at me.
‘What do you reckon, Bren?’ asked Mum, holding something across my mouth and nose like a veil.
‘You can’t put her in lemon, Maureen,’ said Aunty Brenda, shaking her head. ‘It’ll make her look pasty.’
Behind the sketch pad Mary sucked in her cheeks.
‘Of course, I’m lucky with my Carol,’ Aunty Brenda continued. ‘She can wear anything, she has wonderful skin.’
Mary pretended to stick two fingers down her throat. I tried not to laugh.
‘What do you think of this?’ Mum asked Aunty Brenda, holding up a swatch of lime-green, floaty fabric. This time Rita pulled a face.
‘I always think it’s wise to steer clear of citrus at a wedding,’ said Aunty Brenda.
Mary nodded wisely. ‘Me too,’ she said solemnly. Aunty Brenda smiled at her.
After what felt like hours of this, Rita settled it all by saying she wanted both bridesmaids in baby pink, which was about the only colour we hadn’t tried yet.
Dad said I’d look like a giant candyfloss and started laughing, fit to bust. Rita wiped the smile off his face by telling him that he would be wearing top hat and tails, as befitted the father-of-a-bride whose groom-to-be was in insurance. Dad said he’d rather be dead than step outside his house in top hat and tails and Mum said just give her the word and she’d be delighted to arrange it.
Rita sat on the settee looking me up and down like I was a prize vegetable or something. She swung her top leg and her slipper dangled off her foot. Mary, in the opposite chair, was quietly copying her every move. I was having to hold onto my stomach to stop myself laughing.
‘Stop slouching, Dottie,’ Rita said.
‘I’m not slouching.’
‘Yes, you are. She is, isn’t she, Mum, she’s slouching.’
I made a sort of snorty noise as I straightened up and the laughter came out of me. This made Mary start laughing too. She clapped one hand over her mouth. I couldn’t look at her.
‘She’ll have to lose some weight before the wedding,’ said Rita. ‘She’ll ruin the photos otherwise.’
She was referring to me, obviously.
‘Dottie’s not fat,’ Mary said, through her laughter. ‘She’s perfect!’
‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ said Rita. ‘That’s like her telling you, you’re not small.’
‘You’re not small,’ I said at once and we both went all hysterical again.
‘I think Dottie has lost weight,’ Mum said thoughtfully. She squeezed the top of my arm. ‘She’s more podgy now than fat.’
Just then Clark came banging through the back door and into the front room.
‘Have you heard the news?’ he said.
‘What news would that be, then?’ said Rita all sarcastically.
‘There’s been a big robbery,’ said Clark. His face was all red and sweaty with excitement. Clark was going to be a journalist when he grew up so he listened to the news a lot.
‘What, round here?’ said Mary.
‘No,’ said Clark, ‘somewhere near Buckinghamshire. Someone’s robbed the Royal Mail train and got away with nearly three million pounds, they think it’s a gang from London.’
‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it,’ said Aunty Brenda ‘that’s where they all live.’
‘My dad used to live in London,’ said Mary.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ asked Rita.
‘Nothing, I was just saying.’
I looked across at Mary and she had crossed her eyes. I had to look away before I burst out laughing again.
‘They hit the train driver over the head and he’s in the hospital,’ said Clark.
‘Now I draw the line at that,’ said Mum, ‘I mean taking money is one thing, not that I approve of it, mind, but attacking a poor innocent man who was just doing his job is just plain wrong.’
Rita cleared her throat loudly. ‘Excuse me, that’s all very interesting, but aren’t we supposed to be planning my wedding?’
‘But that poor man, Rita, his family must be worried sick,’ said Mum.
‘Exactly, his family, not ours, now can we please get back to what is important to our family.’
‘You, you mean,’ said Clark.
‘And why not?’ said Rita. ‘This is going to be my special day.’
‘And don’t we all know it,’ I said.
‘And you can shut up,’ said Rita, glaring at me.
‘Now now,’ said Aunty Brenda. ‘Let’s get back to the dresses, shall we? Where were we up to?’
‘Mum was just telling Dottie that she was podgy,’ said Rita.
&nbs
p; ‘I don’t think she said it quite like that, Rita,’ said Aunty Brenda.
‘All I meant,’ said Mum, ‘is that Dottie isn’t as round as she used to be. I’m sure that when she’s older she’ll have a beautiful figure.’
‘Fat chance,’ said Dad. He wasn’t trying to be ironic. He doesn’t know how.
‘And you can shut up an’ all, Nelson Perks,’ said Mum. ‘We all know where Dottie gets her weight from. We’ll be lucky to find tails off the peg for you, with your fat belly and short legs.’
‘What short legs?’
‘Yours!’ said Mum. ‘They’ll have to get a suit made specially to fit you.’
‘I haven’t got short legs!’ said Dad. ‘I’ve got a long body. Bloody cheek, I’ve got a good mind to boycott this wedding and stay at home.’
He folded his paper and picked it up and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
‘Don’t raise our hopes!’ shouted Mum.
Mary and I ran upstairs and into my bedroom and we lay on my bed side by side and laughed into the bedspread until we couldn’t laugh any more.
After Mary had gone home, I went downstairs. Mum was in the living room with Rita and Aunty Brenda. I sat down beside Mum on the settee.
‘Me and Mary were thinking of going to a club on Saturday night,’ I said ever so casually, ‘to watch a band.’
Mum pulled a face.
‘I don’t like the thought of you going to nightclubs, Dottie,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of funny people in nightclubs.’
‘There’ll be one more then if Dottie goes,’ said Rita.
‘Excuse me while I laugh,’ I said.
‘I’d really rather you just went to that cafe of yours,’ said Mum. ‘It’s a lot safer.’
‘I won’t be on my own,’ I said. ‘I’ll be with Mary and… a couple of boys.’ Behind Mum’s back Rita raised her eyebrows and made an ‘I knew it!’ face at me.
‘Oh?’ said Mum. ‘What couple of boys?’
‘Elton Briggs. He asked Mary to go. And I’ll be with Ralph Bennett.’
‘Who’s Ralph Bennett?’ asked Aunty Brenda.
‘A friend I used to know from school.’
‘She’s got a boyfriend, Maureen!’ said Aunty Brenda.
‘No I haven’t!’ I said. ‘We’re just friends.’
‘Oh yes? That’s what Elizabeth Taylor said about Eddie Fisher, just before she pinched him off that lovely Debbie Reynolds!’ said Mum.
‘Hussy!’ said Aunty Brenda. Rita nodded. I tried not to look at her.
‘You don’t mind if I go then, do you? To the club? We’ll all stick together and I’ll make sure we get the last bus back.’
There was a silence while Mum bit her lip and looked at me, and I knew she was thinking about what was the worst that could happen and imagining all sorts of catastrophes. ‘What about all the smoke? You know you’re not good with smoke.’
I thought that was a bit rich considering we practically lived in a semi-detached ash tray.
‘Oh, let her go,’ said Rita. ‘She’s got to grow up sometime.’
Flippin’ heck. Was my darling sister on my side?
‘See what your dad thinks,’ said Mum.
I rolled my eyes and went into the kitchen and peered through the smoke until I located him. He was sitting at the table reading the sports pages, half an inch of roll-up between the yellow ends of two fingers.
I sidled up to him.
‘Dad, you don’t mind if I go into Brighton on Saturday night to listen to a band do you?’
‘What does your mum say?’
‘She said I was to ask you.’
Dad looked up at me.
‘You’re not going on your own are you?’
‘No. I’m going with Mary Pickles and Ralph Bennett.’
‘A boy?’ said Dad. He’s quick; you have to give him that.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘As long as you don’t bring any trouble home,’ he said.
I wanted to ask him what sort of trouble but thought I’d better quit while I was ahead.
I leaned down and kissed his forehead. He squeezed my hand.
‘Thanks Dad.’
‘You daft bugger,’ he said.
I went back into the living room. Mum and Aunty Brenda were sitting on either side of Rita, looking over her elbows at the pictures in her magazine. Sing Something Simple was playing on the radio and Mum was absent-mindedly humming along with the music and swaying slightly.
‘Dad says he doesn’t have any objections to me going,’ I said, ‘as long as I don’t bring any trouble home.’
‘That’s good advice,’ said Aunty Brenda. ‘Your poor mother doesn’t want you bringing trouble to her door, especially with Rita’s wedding coming up.’
‘What trouble are you talking about?’ I asked innocently.
Aunty Brenda shook her head and gazed up at me.
‘Ahh, she’s very immature, isn’t she, Maureen?’
‘Always was,’ said Mum.
"Hello, I'm here," I thought.
‘Haven’t you told her about, you know what…?’ Aunty Brenda asked in a knowing voice.
Actually I knew all about ‘you know what’, I mean I was seventeen for heaven’s sake, but I didn’t think that now was the time to tell them that I knew.
‘I never got round to it,’ said Mum.
‘You should have done by now, Maureen. It’s your duty as a mother. I bought our Carol a book with illustrations. That did the trick.’
While I was trying to keep a straight face, Aunty Brenda went all peculiar and started talking in a weird voice and slowly mouthing words at me as if I was deaf.
‘You mustn’t bring any unwanted babies to your mother’s doorstep,’ she said.
I decided to play along with it.
‘I’m going to listen to a band,’ I said. ‘Where would I come across any unwanted babies? And even if I did, why would I want to bring them home?’
Aunty Brenda leaned round behind Rita’s back and said to Mum: ‘I’ll give her a loan of the book.’
Later, Mary and me walked to the recreation ground and sat on the swings. All the little children had gone home and we had the place to ourselves. It was still warm; a gorgeous summer evening, all soft with little moths and the scents of the flowers in the gardens of the houses on the estate and the sounds of the families inside the houses coming out through the open windows.
That evening, on the swings, I told Mary all about the unwanted babies. After she’d stopped making the swing sway madly all over the place with laughing so much, she went into the ‘How Babies Are Made’ scenario again, which we both found slightly disgusting but which still had a sort of fascination that we couldn’t resist. It was hard to keep off the subject when we were on our own.
‘I can’t see why anyone would want to do that,’ I said, twisting the swing chains round and round. They were rusty and made my fingers red. ‘Unless they wanted a baby.’
‘Or they wanted to make someone jealous…’ said Mary giving me one of her knowing little smiles.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, take Christine from the sack factory.’
‘Take her where?’
‘Very funny! Remember when she used to fancy Bruce Denny? The lad who worked in the arcade on the pier?’
‘Yep.’
‘Well he never even noticed her till she slept with that goofy-looking boy from the butchers, and then he asked her out.’
‘But why would you go out with someone who only wanted you for one thing, I mean, that’s not real love is it?’
‘Oh Dottie, you are so square!’
‘Round, Mary,’ I said, ‘round!’ And we both fell about laughing again. We laughed all the time about sex, but really I found even the thought of it too embarrassing to be true.
When we were younger I asked Mum why Mary Pickles knew all about having babies and I didn’t and she said it was something to do with keeping hamsters and having
the News of the World on a Sunday. Sometimes I wondered if there was a big conspiracy to make us all believe that you had to do that to make a baby when really there was a much more sensible way of doing it. I thought I’d be hard pushed to do that with Paul McCartney and I really, really loved Paul McCartney.
For the briefest moment I wondered if I would ever do it with Ralph Bennett, and that thought made me feel a bit weird inside. I lifted my feet off the ground and let the swing spin back. It made me giddy.
‘We’ll have to buy some new clothes for Saturday,’ said Mary dreamily.
‘I haven’t got any money.’
‘You’ll have to do something with the clothes you’ve got then,’ said Mary.
‘Like what?’
‘I dunno. Hitch your skirt up or something. Make yourself look older, sophisticated. Like you go to clubs a lot.’
I smiled and slipped off the swing. It was still light and beyond the rooftops of the houses on the estate the sunlight was colouring the sea a bright red gold behind the tall grey chimneys of the power station.
‘I can’t wait for Saturday,’ Mary said, jumping off her swing and falling into step beside me. ‘It’s time we spread our wings. We’ve already spent too much of our lives hanging around the estate. This could be the start of something fabulous.’ She took hold of my arm. ‘And I promise you that if we come across any unwanted babies lying around the place we’ll just ignore them.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said linking arms with Mary and walking back towards the estate.
Mary’s Diary
Dear Diary,
Me and Dottie are going to the Whisky A Go Go tonight to see Elton’s band. This is going to be the start of my new life. I just know it is.