The World is a Wedding

by Wendy Jones

  Grace nodded, unable to speak, unable to trust her voice not to break if she opened her mouth. Her tears might leak from her the way her milk was leaking from her. She felt heat in her face, the heat of early motherhood, bloom across her cheeks and redden them. Her leg jigged involuntarily and she felt a slight shiver over her body with the strain of the night before, and the days before, the days that lay ahead. Her nerves had been stretched to breaking point. The woman sat looking at her and Grace was aware of how charged the air was.

  ‘We, um, gave it—him—milk,’ Wilfred said clumsily. ‘Well, my wife gave him warm milk,’ he added, ‘from a teaspoon.’ His wife nodded and smiled. ‘I thought he might get hungry.’

  ‘He took the milk,’ she agreed.

  They sat in the kitchen, all three of them silent, and all unsure, all waiting for something to happen.

  ‘I know—come upstairs,’ Wilfred suggested, and began stacking the three kitchen chairs to take with them. Flora and Grace followed him up to the little landing.

  ‘If I open the door to the linen closet we should have more space,’ Wilfred said, pulling the door open and removing a pile of neatly folded pillowslips, quilts and blankets. He pushed a chair slightly into the closet.

  ‘There! That should do it,’ he announced, sitting down. There was just enough space on the landing for the three of them: Flora and Grace perched on chairs, Grace holding the swaddled baby in her arms—its mouth open, lost in sleep––while Wilfred was almost in the airing cupboard.

  ‘At least no one can see us here,’ Wilfred said. He noticed Flora glance at him and then at Grace, almost frightened.

  ‘Got to see the positive in things!’ he continued, holding himself together. The kitchen had been too exposed with its small low window and the path leading to Water Street; anyone could have looked in and seen Grace.

  There was a long pause of unspoken words. Wilfred looked at Grace and rubbed his jaw, trying to take in her presence. He had hidden Grace in the hearse on the drive from the station. She would not want to be seen in Narberth with her child. Wilfred understood that. She would be the talk of the town and the shame would be overwhelming for her. If he could, he would try to allow Grace her secrecy because it protected her dignity and kept her from whispers and stares. Sometimes secrecy was necessary. It was the only way a person could pretend to hold their head up high. That’s why they were crammed into the landing. At some point she would be strong enough to face her family and her town. But not yet. She looked pale and vulnerable. And he understood that Grace wanted protection from her brother learning where she was. There was no knowing what Madoc might do.

  ‘How can we help you, Grace?’ he asked. He didn’t know what to suggest: maybe Grace knew what she wanted. Grace opened her mouth and closed it again.

  ‘Your mother and father are only round the corner. You can go to your mother and father and brother,’ Flora said gently, wanting to help. ‘And I think your brother might be back on leave. They will be so pleased to see you, and the baby. He looks so much like your father.’

  Wilfred looked at Flora. Grace said nothing.

  ‘What do you need?’ Wilfred asked.

  ‘I think that I might be ill.’

  ‘Your father is a doctor, he will be able to help you,’ Flora suggested encouragingly.

  Wilfred had buried several women who had recently given birth, one of whom had said she had the influenza but then entered an irrevocable slope towards death. Giving birth was a treacherous and life-threatening journey and it often wasn’t over once the baby was born. Wilfred knew that Dr. Reece wouldn’t want his daughter sick, he wouldn’t want his daughter to die; he knew now that no man would want that.

  ‘Your father, can you not go and see your father?’ said Flora, trying again to bring Grace back into her family and not understanding Wilfred and Grace’s reticence.

  ‘Grace, do you think that you are unwell enough that you need to see a doctor?’ Wilfred asked.

  ‘I think that I may be,’ she answered.

  13.

  THE LAST DAYS OF SOCRATES

  Wilfred? It’s Angharad Owen.’ Wilfred had been expecting this telephone call, and it had come in the middle of his conversation on the landing with Grace and Flora. He had bounded down the stairs, three at a time, to pick up the receiver before the bell stopped trilling.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs. Owen,’ Wilfred replied. Two weeks ago, Mr. Owen, a strong seventy-two-year-old who still farmed vigorously, had woken up a lurid yellow colour. Well, that was it for him: no one could live if they were bright yellow. Wilfred knew that death heralded itself in colours, vividly shading its victims’ faces before claiming them: a face that was too red or white, grey, blue or yellow usually meant only one thing.

  ‘How are you, Mrs. Owen?’ Wilfred said into the telephone receiver. ‘And the family?’ Wilfred would have liked to visit Mr. Owen—he knew him from the Bethesda Chapel choir and he was fond of him—but no one wanted to see the undertaker when they were very poorly. It was all too obvious a reminder of where they were headed, so Wilfred had to make do with reports from Willie the Post and Mrs. Annie Evans, both of whom knew everything that happened in Narberth.

  ‘Mr. Owen has passed away. Dr. Reece has been. I have my husband lying here on the couch and we are in need of a coffin,’ Mrs. Owen explained. ‘I’ve wrapped a bedsheet around him but I want to put him in a coffin and lay him on the parlour table so the neighbours and family can come to visit him. Could you come by when you have a moment, Mr. Price?’

  Mrs. Owen was pragmatic about death—some women were. Death was like another housekeeping chore, a task to be done that involved tidying away, the final tidying away. Mrs. Owen’s practicality encouraged Wilfred to be practical and businesslike too, and to ask what he would never ask the clearly distressed: ‘I have a simple pine coffin for £1. Would that be acceptable?’

  ‘Yes; Mr. Owen had saved for his burial.’

  ‘And my sincerest condolences.’

  ‘Thank you, Wilfred, but we were expecting it.’

  Wilfred placed the telephone receiver back in its holder on the hall wall and stood for a moment, thinking. It was easy when customers were unemotional: then undertaking was a simple business of box, hearse and hole. But when the bereaved were distressed, as most of them were, it was not as straightforward as providing a service and being paid. Then Wilfred’s job was to uphold the wounded souls who cried as if they were burying themselves along with their beloved one, and were as raw as if someone had taken a potato-peeler to their skin and peeled away their covering, leaving them skinless and seeping, just tissue that smarted with the touch.

  Wilfred looked at the telephone. It was made of one piece of moulded Bakelite and a wonder to him; although it was silent now, waiting for the next call to come, telling Wilfred of another death. He leaned back against the wall. Undertaking was not an easy trade because it was the practical end of dealing with the ultimate mystery. When it was with unemotional people, those who saw death as a part of a whole where everything was one and there was no great divide—usually farmers—then Wilfred’s trade was not much more than a shop for selling boxes to be put in the ground, altogether a very simple business. But when his customers were grieving mercilessly, then Wilfred sometimes felt like Hercules in an endurance test, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. On those days he could rename his business: Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals. And Dealer in the Weight of the World.

  Flora dusted the rolling pin with white flour and then looked for the pastry cutter in the cutlery drawer. Grace, she thought to herself, who used to be married to Wilfred, was upstairs. Flora floured the raisin-speckled dough. She didn’t know what Grace was hiding. Whatever it was, Wilfred knew. Why had she left her child with him? Flora sensed Wilfred’s guilt towards Grace.

  Flora flattened the warm dough, moving the glass rolling pin back an
d forth. Grace said she felt unwell but wouldn’t see her father, a doctor. Flora flipped the dough over, and rolled it again. When Flora had seen Grace’s mother around Narberth, she looked sharp and unforgiving. Her family must have disowned her.

  Flora dusted her hands with the smooth white flour and felt doubt worm into her. Grace had had a baby. There were explanations, ways of weaving this. Flora cut a baker’s dozen of Welsh cakes, bevelling the cutter into the soft yellow mixture. She would have liked to talk to a friend about this, but she didn’t yet have a close friend in Narberth, someone her own age she could trust. She had invited Mrs. Probert to come round for a cup of tea, but Mrs. Probert hadn’t called.

  She took the spatula and shifted each Welsh cake onto the slate bakestone. A foreign anxiety came and rested over her like a cloud of dust, almost imperceptible in its fineness, as if she was floured with a dust of doubt. Wilfred’s ex-wife was upstairs with her child, and the dates of their marriage and the child’s birth matched.

  But no. She would see Wilfred’s innocence. In her mind’s eye she remembered Wilfred sitting and stretching out on the kitchen chair, his long large legs crossed at the ankle, his hands behind his head. She recalled the soft chalky-white folds of his linen shirt and the slight paunch of his stomach. The curtains behind him were gently billowing in the breeze. It had been a Sunday dinnertime and she was laying the table and talking. He was watching the way she opened the cupboard door, reached for the plates and wiped the teacup. He had been watching her in that deep, mature way he had: when he looked at her like that, she was conscious of the depth of thought within him. She had been chatting lightly, aware he was listening to her voice, the flow of her words. He had been attentive: he had been thinking about her, wondering about her at the same time.

  Yes, that was Wilfred, that was her husband, and that was how she would hold him. She would see his kindness, his strength and his love for her. And that, she decided, was how she would always see him, always, as good.

  Flora lifted a Welsh cake from the bakestone. It crumbled, as did the next: the texture was too dry. She had not been concentrating. Only when she lifted the last Welsh cake from the bakestone did it stay intact, its lightly tanned surface slipping smoothly off the spatula and onto the cooling rack.

  Wilfred walked through the kitchen on the way to the library, a book under his arm, and reached for the one whole Welsh cake.

  ‘Hello, my dear. Smells lovely in here.’ He examined the warm cake in his hand, saying, ‘A well-cooked Welsh cake is the same colours as a giraffe.’

  ‘This book, The Last Days of Socrates, is being returned a day late. Have you been busy with a funeral, Wilfred?’ asked the librarian disapprovingly, putting on her glasses and folding her arms.

  Wilfred nodded. He stifled a yawn.

  ‘Even if there is Armageddon in Narberth, I expect my books back on time. If you wish to take another one of my books out of the Mechanics Institute . . .’ the librarian lifted her head up and looked down her nose at Wilfred, ‘then you must return them before this day here.’ She pointed a sharp fingernail at the date stamped in the front of the book. ‘Place it back on that shelf, please, Wilfred, by Merlin and the Afterlife.’

  Wilfred followed the librarian’s instructions. He had not expected Grace to come back. She seemed changed, more worldly and faceted than when he had last seen her. She had a sophistication and a wariness, which was uncommon among the people of Narberth. Yes, Grace was different: she had had a child and there was nothing of the princess left in her.

  ‘Not there! That’s by The History of Witchcraft in Carmarthenshire.’

  Wilfred felt unable to shake his worry about Grace. Perhaps it was only the strain of giving birth and the train journey, and just a few days of rest would surely put her right again. She had asked if she could stay. He had said yes.

  ‘Not there! That’s by The Singing Trees of Wales.’

  ‘The Singing Trees of Wales?’

  ‘You’re going absolutely in the wrong direction: the philosophy section with the philosophy book in it is on the weight reduction and fat-loss shelf.’

  He was frightened that Grace was very sick.

  ‘Wilfred, The Last Days of Socrates sits next to Dr. Lulu Peters’s Diet and Health, With Key to the Calories.’

  Wilfred went along the bookshelf, looking for the right place. And it must be a shock for Flora, too. He had told her about Grace, the barest outline, how the marriage was unconsummated. Flora knew that Grace had been expecting when she left Narberth. She must have thought about Grace over the months, but not mentioned it to him. It had been Flora who had realised that the baby on their doorstep was Grace’s.

  ‘You need to be looking at the shelf below,’ the librarian ordered.

  This was like when Mr. Jacobs had been rotting in the workshop and covered in tarpaulin; there had been a moment of shock and revelation when Wilfred had removed the tarpaulin and seen the rot, seen how far it had gone, and didn’t know what to do. What had been going on—brewing, building, hidden—had been revealed and left him floundering. Everything was exposed and nothing was neat. And Wilfred didn’t know what to do. He had no idea what Mr. Auden would say in this situation. And Socrates? As far as Wilfred could see, Socrates didn’t have any problems to speak of, apart from owing a chicken to Asclepius.

  ‘Put the book there, please, Wilfred—carefully!’ the librarian ordered. Wilfred slotted the book on the shelf, then absentmindedly took it back off the shelf and flicked through the pages. Wilfred had tried to read The Last Days of Socrates—he really had. Socrates had done a lot of thinking about what a good man was. Perhaps it would have been more helpful if Socrates had been married—or once accidentally proposed to a young Greek lady at an orgy in Athens—then he might have had some of the same things on his mind as Wilfred. But Wilfred supposed philosophers, unlike undertakers, didn’t make mistakes in matters of romance. They were too busy thinking.

  ‘Library’s closing in twenty-three minutes,’ the librarian announced to the empty library. Putting her date stamp in a cardboard box on her desk, she got up briskly. The librarian was English and had a different manner about her. ‘Handle my books carefully, please. One crack of the spine and the whole book is broken in half. Ruined, Mr. Price.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Wilfred.

  ‘As you can imagine, I don’t want my books in two halves. Not in the Narberth Mechanics Institute, thank you very much, Wilfred Price. So if you are considering borrowing that volume yet again from my library, then I would like to instruct you in the correct manner of handling a book: wash your hands first, seat yourself, do not read the book in direct sunlight—it bleaches the page—do not use a bookmark, store the book closed in an upright position on a bookshelf and dust only with a feather duster. The correct manner of opening a book is not fully, but like this.’ The librarian demonstrated, opening the book very slightly, using both hands, taking the utmost care not to bend the spine. ‘The spine is the backbone of the book.’

  ‘Do you think it will be possible to read the whole page if I only open it that much?’ Wilfred asked.

  ‘Of course. Library’s closing in twenty-one minutes.’

  ‘Let’s sing “Bread of Heaven”,’ Jeffrey said chummily to Wilfred and Flora, who were waiting expectantly on Narberth Moor for the annual Narberth versus Carmarthen tug-of-war to begin. They looked at him quizzically.

  ‘It frightened the New Zealand All Blacks in 1905.’

  ‘True enough.’ Wilfred replied, trying to put thoughts of Grace and the baby from his mind. Grace had been in bed since she arrived yesterday morning, and the rest would surely do her good. He attempted to focus on the obligations of the day.

  ‘Have you come straight from work?’ he asked his friend.

  ‘No, no, I took it into my head to have a swift half down the Dragon Inn before lunch,’ Jeffrey said, tucking his shirt in his tr
ousers. ‘You should have seen that Probert—so drunk he could barely walk. There’s a state he’s in these days. He’s no more dependence than a baby’s arse.’

  Wilfred had not the heart to readily say words against Probert—he remembered how, when Probert was a boy, he’d played the violin in chapel—but he put his arm around Flora, to reassure her at the mention of Probert’s name.

  ‘Mr. Owen passed away,’ he said sadly, changing the subject.

  ‘I hear he was the colour of a banana. Is that right, Wilf?’

  ‘Aye, aye, he was yellow,’ Wilfred replied, yellow seeming too weak a word for such a lurid colour.

  ‘There’s sudden his death was. But Mr. Owen was always a busy man and not one to waste time dying.’ Jeffrey stroked his thick red moustache. ‘But it comes to us all,’ he stated.

  ‘So it does.’

  ‘Aye, comes to us all. At least you benefit—at least one bugger benefits from it, eh, Wilfred?’

  ‘Wilfred Price, over here!’ Tiny Evans shouted.

  ‘He’s come to bury us!’ someone called from the crowd.

  Wilfred took off his tweed jacket, handed it to Flora and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The crowd clapped.

  ‘Come on, Wilf. Let’s beat those salty buggers from Carmarthen this year.’

  Wilfred strode into the middle of the muddy town moor, where a line of twenty beefy men were standing each side of the fat coiled rope, with more joining them.

  ‘Move away from that puddle,’ ordered Tiny Evans, the referee, ‘and Eynon Cadwallader, come here.’ He beckoned to a man in the crowd, who rubbed his hands together, took off his glasses using both hands and gave them to the child standing next to him.

  ‘Now, gentlemen!’ announced the referee, trying to call order among the rabble of men jostling along the rope. ‘Welcome to the one hundred and nineteenth Annual Gw^ yl Mabsant Narberth’—he waited for the applause to die down—‘versus Carmarthen’—there was weak applause—‘tug-of-war. On the left we have the blue team all the way from Carmarthen Town,’ a handful of arms went up in the air and some children cheered, ‘and on the right, the red team led by Mister Jeffrey Evans.’