by Pip Granger
Freddy and Antony sat towards the front with Sugar and Bandy, so that they could enjoy the effect their clothes had on the assembled company, to the full. The gasps of admiration were clearly audible as the bride’s party entered the church and my employers smiled modestly at one and all.
At last the Vicar’s words rang out, ‘We are gathered here in the sight of God to join this couple in holy matrimony …’ and yet again, my mascara was seriously threatened. I looked at Bandy and to my utter astonishment, saw that she was weeping like a baby beneath her large red hat. Photos were duly taken, the confetti thrown and the guests were getting ready to attend the feast laid on by the Wongs, when someone shouted that the bride hadn’t yet thrown her bouquet. Peace looked bewildered, so I hastily explained the tradition that whoever caught it was going to be the next bride.
‘It’s a sort of good luck thing,’ I told her. ‘All you have to do is turn your back on the crowd and throw it over your head, so that you can’t aim deliberately, and the single women and girls try to catch it.’
Peace nodded and did just that. I stood well away. I was not, technically, a single woman, and thus in no position to be the next bride, and didn’t want to rob a proper qualifier of her chance. I needn’t have worried. The bouquet flew high up into the air, described a beautiful arc and then landed solidly in T.C.’s hands. He’d been standing to the side, talking to Sugar at the time, so it was a sheer fluke. Everyone roared with laughter and Sugar clapped him on the back. ‘Never mind, mate, I’ll lend you a frock,’ he reassured a totally nonplussed T.C.
I did have one very bad moment. It was as Peace and Lucky posed outside the church, with their bridesmaids, for photographs. Whether it was the sun slanting low over the church and lighting the scene with that mellow, misty light of autumn, or whether it was an overwrought imagination, brought on by all the excitement and not enough food, but I swear I saw Jenny. She was dressed in a bridesmaid’s dress, her posy clutched in her white-gloved hands. She was standing a little to one side, away from the main group, in the shade cast by a London plane tree, and although I couldn’t see her clearly, I knew it was her. I was sure of it. I was so certain that I took a step forward, my hand reached out and I called her name softly, ‘Jenny?’ I felt someone take my arm. I turned to shake them off. It was the worried face of T.C. that brought me back to the earth and business at hand. I turned back towards the plane tree, but the figure had gone. I shook myself. It must have been Rosie or Bubbles that I had seen. It was silly of me. It was also high time I had something to eat. I’d had nothing since breakfast.
At last, the banquet began. The Wongs had really gone to town to welcome Peace into their family. I lost count of the courses, but there were at least twenty-five. Thank goodness I had been warned by Brilliant that to leave food was very bad manners indeed, an insult to one’s host. The trick was to take tiny portions of each course, perhaps only a mouthful or two, so that one reached the finishing course in good order.
Men and women ate separately, even the newlyweds, and it was some hours before I found T.C. by my side once again. ‘It’s been a wonderful day,’ he said softly close by my ear, ‘but long. Let’s go home.’
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘let’s.’
THE END
Author’s Note
One of the great things about being the author of a book is that you get to play God in a small way. A Brilliant Chang really did exist in the Chinese community in London, but he was a man, a cocaine pedlar to the flapper generation, who flourished in the 1920s. However, I loved his name, so I pinched it, performed a magical sex-change on him (no nasty scalpels were needed, a few taps on the keyboard and it was done) and then moved her to the 1950s.
I’ve also taken a few liberties with just how big the Chinese community was in fifties Soho. Although I distinctly remember a Chinese presence in the streets of my childhood, I’ve exaggerated actual numbers. Historically speaking, the real influx began a little later, in the 1960s, when many people fled Communist China. Then, as now, Chinese workers were organized by gang masters who acted as middlemen between the workers and the employers. However, the tragedy at Morecambe Bay in 2004 has made the whole question of the exploitation of immigrant workers, legal or otherwise, much more obvious now than it was then.
Back when I was a girl, we could never have imagined the changes that have taken place in polite, and not so polite, society. I went to a delightful wedding recently where the happy couple’s children sat on their parents’ knees during the taking of the vows, and the rest of us all smiled indulgently at the delightful picture. This would rarely have happened in 1950s England, if at all. Illegitimacy was deeply shameful then and almost the worst thing that could happen to a young woman was to be pregnant without benefit of matrimony at least nine months before giving birth.
Living in sin was also deeply frowned upon. It happened, probably fairly often because divorces were so difficult to get, but few would have owned up to it outside of red light districts and my beloved Soho. In those days, a divorced person, however high born, would not have been allowed into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, or indeed anywhere near royal circles. Nowadays, they’d have to sling out half the royal family if those rules still applied.
Although mixed-race marriages were still rare, the Second World War made a big difference. People who would normally never have left their village, suburb or the few streets around their part of town, were moved all over the world and were introduced to a huge range of new people, places and experiences, so things changed radically. Up until then, the odd colonial might turn up with an exotic wife, but an English woman certainly couldn’t have married a Chinese, Indian or African husband and brought him home, and expected to get away with it. Life would have been very hard indeed for such couples. Thank goodness times have changed.
Finally, some thank-yous. Firstly, to the Chinese Cultural website I consulted about traditional Chinese weddings. It gave me loads and loads of information, most of which I had to leave out in the end, sadly, because when I crammed it in, the last chapter looked like a lecture on wedding customs, which wasn’t the point at all. So I had to content myself with tiny snippets from a rich and fascinating subject.
Thank you so much to the team at Transworld, namely Linda Evans, Judith Welsh and Beth Humphries, for their sterling efforts to get this one on to the shelves.
Lastly, I’d like to thank Selina Walker for being a truly wonderful editor and for bringing this one home during a very tough time. What a star!
Pip Granger