Behind the Scenes at the Museum

by Kate Atkinson

My little flock scatters to the four winds and are hugged and congratulated by their respective parents for being so pretty, charming, cute, delightful and so on. I can’t see George and Bunty anywhere but eventually I sight George across the room, talking to a plump woman dressed strikingly in a vivid royal blue two-piece underneath a vast red-and-white straw sombrero. On closer inspection, this turns out to be Auntie Eliza, a lipstick-smeared glass in one hand and an undelivered wedding present in the other. She pulls me to her bosom and deposits slurpy kisses all over both my cheeks and tells me how lovely I look. I’m about to congratulate her on wearing such patriotic colours on this day of national importance but she pushes the present into my hand and orders me to go and ‘Put it on the pile – it’s only tablemats,’ and get her a plate of something from the buffet ‘while I’m at it’.

  The buffet, which occupies two long, cloth-covered trestles against the walls of an adjacent room, is, apparently, a departure from the usual sit-down tradition in Sandra’s family. I know this because the female guests on the distaff side – mainly coutured in pastel crimplene – are in there, walking up and down the tables and discussing the buffet and its innovatory significance. They make funny noises like a cornfield in a high wind, tsk-tsk, shu-shu, foo-foo and hold their handbags high under their bosom like pantomime dames. ‘It can’t hold a candle to a real sit-down do,’ someone says to a susurrating chorus of agreement. ‘Remember our Linda’s do – roast topside and all the trimmings?’ ‘And oxtail soup,’ someone reminds her and they promenade another length of table, pointing to the flabby character of the ham slices (‘They might at least have had a proper York ham’), and the anaemic egg sandwiches (‘More salad-cream than egg’) and regarding with suspicion the two waitresses employed to dole out such fare. They spy me with the present still in my hand and smile encouragingly. ‘Present pile’s over there, love,’ one of them says, indicating another table laden with toasters in duplicate and Pyrex in triplicate, but luckily, no sign of any other tablemats.

  I load a plate from the buffet for Auntie Eliza; she’s the least fussy person I know, especially about food, so I pile it indiscriminately with everything on offer, except for the trifle which is as virgin and untouched as the bride herself under its veil of hundreds and thousands which have already melted into a rainbow smear.

  When I get back to Auntie Eliza and my father they are at least three double gins the worse for wear and there is still no sign of their respective spouses – Uncle Bill and Bunty. How Auntie Eliza is going to manage a plate, a glass, a cigarette and my father is difficult to say so I act as her dumb butler, holding the plate for her which she attacks with admirable relish. ‘They’re a rum bunch, that Sandra’s lot,’ she says, nodding in the direction of the nearest crimplene-clad guest and taking a bite out of a mushroom vol-au-vent which immediately starts deconstructing itself everywhere. ‘They all look like they’ve got pokers stuck up their arses,’ she adds cheerfully, unaware that the bride’s mother, a formidable woman called Beatrice – part-Soroptimist, part-Sumo wrestler – is well within earshot. George spots her advancing bulk and makes a visible effort to pull himself together. ‘Hey-up,’ he says, striving for diplomacy and failing miserably. ‘Here’s the mother-in-law.’

  George is extricated from this situation by Ted, who is gesturing urgently to him from the door. I pick up scattered bits of vol-au-vent from the floor and then make my excuses and leave. My stomach is making alarming noises, so I head back to the buffet. I’m just wondering where all the male members of the party have disappeared to – there’s hardly a man in sight and there surely hasn’t been another world war while I wasn’t looking – when I come across a tearful Lucy-Vida, a considerable proportion of her heavy black eye make-up streaked down her cheeks. She sniffs noisily and wipes her face with the purple feather boa that’s draped around her neck. ‘Biba,’ she sighs tragically. ‘I think you’d be better off with a Kleenex,’ I offer, steering her away from the busy centre of the room and towards a row of spindly chairs behind the table that holds the wedding cake. The table is further adorned by the bridal bouquet and the bridesmaids’ posies, as well as an assortment of good luck in the shape of black cats, silver horseshoes and bunches of white heather. Sandra’s wedding cake is a mere two-tier hummock, whereas I shall have a towering five-tier Mont Blanc of carved and moulded snow and roses from Terry’s.

  We sit like wallflowers at an Assembly Rooms’ ball, watching the other guests parade and parry while we whisper our secrets. Lucy-Vida’s secret is a distressing one, to say the least. ‘I’m only bloody knocked up, kid,’ she blurts out, gazing blindly at the wedding cake, which is growing in my eyes, not in stature but in symbolic significance, for as she continues with her story it becomes clear that there is to be no cover-up of almond paste and royal icing for Lucy-Vida. ‘’E was only bloody married, wasn’t ’e?’ she says, the passion and betrayal still visible in her smudged eyes. She sighs heavily and sags farther into the uncomfortable chair. She’s very pale, her lips as bloodless as a hungry vampire’s. Perhaps she has been named for Lucy Harker, after all, although her pale visage might just be due to her make-up. Or her condition. She looks at her stomach and shakes her head in disbelief. ‘And now I’ve got a bloody bun in t’oven!’ After a few seconds of silent contemplation, she adds, ‘Me dad’ll kill me.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I try and comfort her. ‘It could be worse,’ but even though we furrow our brows and rack our brains, we can’t come up with anything much worse than this. ‘You’re not going to Clacton, are you?’ I ask, remembering what happened to Patricia only too well. Lucy-Vida looks at me doubtfully, ‘Clacton?’

  ‘To a mother-and-baby home, to have it adopted, like Patricia.’

  She clutches her stomach protectively, and says fiercely, ‘Not bloody likely!’ and I experience a little pang of jealousy towards Lucy-Vida’s unborn offspring. Although it could be hunger, in fact I feel quite dizzy from hunger, especially when I get up too quickly and offer to get Lucy-Vida something from the buffet. She blanches at the very idea and I stagger off, eager for a bridge roll, but have hardly negotiated my way round the wedding cake before I’m waylaid by a baleful pair of flower twins. ‘So, Ruby?’ one of them says coldly. This rather enigmatic question hangs in the air between us, gathering weight, while I try to think of a suitable reply. ‘So,’ I say lamely after a while. A slight toss of the head on the part of one of them reveals the under-chin freckle and identification gives me confidence so I borrow Bunty’s smile (where is my mother?) and say brightly, ‘Hello, Rose, how are you?’ She smiles, a chilly gleam of triumph in her eye. ‘I’m Daisy, actually, Ruby.’

  ‘You’ve got the freckle,’ I reply stoutly. ‘I can see it.’ The other twin takes a step nearer to me and tilts her chin to reveal an identical freckle. Horror! I want to lift up a fingernail and scratch at it to see if it’s real, but I’m too much of a coward. I stare from one to the other in a state of serious confusion; I feel as if I’ve just stepped through the looking-glass and can’t find a mantelpiece to hang onto.

  ‘Are you enjoying being a bridesmaid, Ruby?’ one of them – the one on the left – asks. It feels like a trick question, but I’m not sure what the trick is. ‘Of course,’ the other one says, as smoothly as a snake, ‘people feel sorry for you. I expect that’s why they chose you.’

  ‘Sorry for me?’ I repeat blankly, blinking at the novelty of this concept.

  ‘Losing so many sisters,’ the one on the right says with a dramatic sweep of her arm. ‘To lose one,’ the other twin says, ‘might be considered careless . . .’ ‘. . . but to lose three,’ the other twin continues seamlessly, ‘well . . . that’s a bit suspicious, don’t you think, Ruby?’

  ‘Goodness, Ruby,’ the other one says, tossing her melted-lemon-drop coiffure, ‘what on earth did you do with them all?’

  ‘Two sisters,’ I reply faintly. ‘I only have two sisters, and Patricia isn’t lost, she’s coming back.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure,�
�� they say in perfect harmony, but by now I’ve already backed off to the other side of the room and go off in search of refuge. Out in the hallway I can hear a television blaring, And it’s Ball with the corner . . . Hurst . . . and a chance at goal – and then a great uproar, both from the TV and the TV Lounge, and It’s all smiles in the Royal Box. I open the door and peep in and amongst a smog of tobacco smoke and alcohol find most of the male members of the wedding party executing a tribal war dance, hallooing the name of Martin Peters. I would like to stay and watch but out of the corner of my eye I spy a twin and make a run for the Ladies.

  Where, to my great surprise, I discover my mother, somewhat the worse for wear – her drum-hat dented, her feet shoeless, and quite astonishingly drunk. ‘You’re drunk!’ I gasp at her. She gives me a bleary-eyed look and starts to say something but is overcome by an attack of hiccups.

  ‘Breathe!’ a voice says commandingly from one of the cubicles, followed by the sound of flushing water, and I wait with interest to see who is going to emerge. It’s Auntie Gladys. ‘Breathe!’ she reminds Bunty again and Bunty obediently takes in a huge gulp of air and proceeds to choke on it. ‘That should do it,’ Auntie Gladys says, giving her a comforting slap on the back. But it doesn’t and Bunty’s hiccups recommence with a new vehemence. I offer to give her a fright but she declines with a weary gesture of her hand as if she’d already had quite enough frights. The decor of the hotel Ladies is pink and fluorescent, and three of its walls are unflatteringly mirrored. Bunty, sitting askew on a little boudoir-stool like a toadstool, is reflected to infinity in the mirrors – a disturbing vision of a mother who seems to go on for ever.

  ‘Where are your shoes?’ I ask, deciding to be practical in the face of all this tipsy emotion, but receive only a loud hiccup in reply. Auntie Gladys rakes in her capacious handbag and produces a little bottle of Mackintosh’s smelling-salts which she wafts in front of Bunty’s nose, causing her to gag and tilt alarmingly on the stool. ‘She’s all right,’ Auntie Gladys says reassuringly to one of my reflected images in the mirror. ‘She’s just had a bit too much to drink; she was never a drinker your mother.’ I volunteer to go and fetch a glass of water and as I leave the Ladies I can hear my mother muttering something that sounds very much like, ‘I’ve had enough.’

  The barman, who is very nice and rather handsome, puts a slice of lemon, two ice-cubes and a little parasol in the glass of water when I tell him that my mother isn’t very well and gives me a Coke for free. My progress back to the Ladies is erratic. First of all I encounter Adrian who tells me he’s got a new dog, a Yorkie, appropriately enough. ‘It would be funny, wouldn’t it?’ I say, ‘if only people in Alsace kept Alsatians, and only people in Labrador had Labs and the Welsh had Welsh terriers and the Scots had Scottie dogs – but then who would have poodles? And what kind of dogs would people in Fiji keep—’ until Adrian says, ‘Shut up, our Ruby, there’s a good kid,’ and lifts a strand of my lank and greasy teenage hair and makes a face. ‘Who cut this, Ruby?’ He shakes his head in distress. ‘Still,’ he comforts, ‘at least, it’s not as bad as their Sandra’s.’ Their Sandra’s hair is appalling, a great towering bouffant confection that wouldn’t look out of place at the court of the Sun King. There are probably birds nesting in it.

  I’ve no sooner left Adrian than I’m suddenly ambushed by a posse of Sandra’s aunties who question me closely about Ted’s family background. The crimplene Inquisition is very unhappy about the state of affairs at the reception which is now in its third hour without any sign of a toast or a cutting of the cake. It is only with the greatest difficulty that I extricate myself from this grilling and almost immediately trip over one of the small bridesmaids and utter an oath which turns the air as royal a blue as Auntie Eliza’s outfit. There are several sharp intakes of breath from the Methodists as I resume my journey to the Ladies. And it’s a free kick to West Germany. One minute to go, just sixty seconds – every Englishman coming back, every German going forward. The tension coming out of the TV Lounge is visible, like the smoke of gunfire. A terrible groan rises up from somewhere deep within the collective national unconscious, Jack Charlton has collapsed, head in hands. Every Englishman in the TV Lounge is also in a state of collapse and I hurry on my way, only to be confronted by a seething bride. ‘Have you seen Ted?’ she demands in a very vexed way.

  ‘Ted?’

  ‘Yes, Ted – my bloody, so-called husband!’ Sandra twirls round, surveying the corridors of the hotel like a snapping crocodile.

  ‘Where are they all?’ she asks, a puzzled look on her face.

  ‘All who?’

  ‘The men.’

  I watch with interest as enlightenment dawns slowly on Sandra’s face. She gives a little scream of frustration and stamps her satin foot. ‘Bloody World Cup! I’ll kill him, I will, I’ll kill him,’ and with that, she’s off, lifting up her long white dress and steaming off, picking up her mother in her wake. I look around for Lucy-Vida because I’ve just thought of something worse than being pregnant and unmarried (being Ted) but there’s no sign of her so I continue my progression to the Ladies, finally unhindered.

  Two of the three cubicles in the Ladies are occupied and I bob down to check for Bunty’s feet, shod or otherwise, and experience a frisson of alarm when I see that both cubicles are occupied by identical pairs of feet. A pair of voices speak, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Just Ruby!’ I shout, beating a hasty retreat.

  I return the glass of water to the bar, or more specifically to the nice barman, but when I get there I find Adrian and the barman deep in conversation and although I perch as chirpily as a budgie on the bar stool next to Adrian I soon discover that they don’t have eyes for anyone else. Feeling like a gooseberry, I wander off, gloomily twirling the little paper parasol.

  There is a sudden commotion as all the men who had previously disappeared are suddenly herded back into the reception by Sandra and her mother. Beatrice remains by the door, standing guard, ‘In the TV Lounge,’ she says loudly by way of explanation to the rest of the wedding party. ‘That’s where they were – watching the football!’ The commentary drifts in after them through the open door. There’s Ball running himself daft, there’s Hurst – can he do it? The men stand rooted to the spot, craning to hear, He has done! – yes – no, their faces twist in agony, No, the linesman says no! ‘Fucking linesman!’ Uncle Bill shouts and the crimplene relatives make dreadful noises as if they are suffocating. It’s a goal! It’s a goal! Oh, the Germans have gone mad at the referee! The men go mad at Sandra.

  She’s unaffected. ‘Bloody World Cup,’ Sandra says, her eyes like arrow slits as she turns to Ted in disgust. ‘Aren’t you ashamed, isn’t your wedding day more important than the World Cup?’

  Ted can’t help himself somehow. Until this moment of his life lies have fallen from his lips like rain, but on this occasion, this very public, important occasion, we watch in horror as he drops, like a parachutist without a parachute, onto the hard rock of truth.

  ‘Of course not,’ he says. ‘It’s the bloody Final!’

  Whack! goes Sandra’s hand against his cheek. ‘Steady on!’ Ted says as she reaches for the nearest handy missile, which happens to be the bridal bouquet on the wedding-cake table. ‘Sandra,’ he whines in a feeble attempt at mollification but Sandra is white-hot now and all the silver horseshoes in the world aren’t going to help Ted. ‘We haven’t had any speeches,’ she screams at him. ‘We haven’t had any toasts, we haven’t cut the bloody cake! What kind of a wedding do you call this?’ It’s all over, I think – no, it’s . . . And here comes Hunt . . .

  ‘You’re just riff-raff!’ Beatrice’s voice booms out as she elbows her way towards her new son-in-law, handbag at the ready. Alarmed, Ted tries to back away but he almost trips over a small bridesmaid underfoot (they’re like vermin) and in an attempt to avoid crushing her he loses his balance and lurches towards the table bearing the wedding cake. Everything seems to go into slow motion as Ted pitches and reels,
his arms flailing like windmills, in a desperate attempt to regain his balance and avoid the irresistible, inevitable accident which we can see hanging before our eyes. The tiny bridal couple on top of the cake sway and totter as if they were sitting on top of a volcano. Some people are on the pitch – they think it’s all over—Ted moans as his feet go under him and in one dreadful slapstick movement he falls, face first, into the wedding cake. It is now! A kind of strange sigh moves round the watching audience of guests as if now they can relax because at least they know that the worst possible disaster has happened and anything else cannot be as bad. (I’m not so optimistic.)

  The strange silence in which we have been wrapped, broken only by the TV commentary, dissolves instantly and a great babble and squeak rises up from the wedding party. Beatrice’s ‘riff-raff’ insult is just finding its target and, as it hits home, battle lines can be seen to form. ‘Riff-raff?’ Uncle Clifford says. ‘Riff-raff? Who are you calling riff-raff?’ This is said to Beatrice, who barks back, ‘You, you and all your family – that’s who I’m calling riff-raff! Any objections?’

  ‘I most certainly bloody have!’ Clifford says, and looks around for support. His eyes rest naturally on his only son, who, unaffected by the combat-stations being taken up all over the room, is still deep in his engrossing conversation with the barman. Uncle Clifford’s brow pleats. ‘That’s queer,’ he says suspiciously, but is unable to elaborate on this judgement because Beatrice clouts him so hard with her handbag that his glasses fall off. Within seconds the place is in turmoil with people bashing and thwacking each other at random. I notice that George and Bunty – the two people who could teach them everything about finesse and technique – are absent from the fray. I feel I have no particular allegiance to either warring party, blood-ties or not, and I try and slip away unnoticed. For preference I would have exited on the buffet-room side as I have reached a state of near starvation, but it has been completely cut off by the skirmish between the immediate wedding party – Ted and his Best Man defending their corner against Sandra and all the little bridesmaids. ‘Ruby!’ Sandra shouts when she sees me. ‘Come on, your place is over here with me!’