Roy said, ‘I bet that was a bad moment for the matron of honor’s husband.’
‘And the mother,’ Sandra said. ‘All that food, waiting for the guests. I hope she stood up and said, “Never mind, everybody. The party’s still on.”’
‘Ah,’ the Reverend said. ‘That’s what I really like about that story. Everyone has a different point of view about it. Some wonder what happened to the bride afterwards, others want to know if the groom tried to go after her.’
‘And you?’ Sandra asked.
‘When I heard the story last summer, my first thought was for the clergyman, of course. Such a dreadful thing to happen in your own church. In God’s house.’
‘If He made us,’ Sandra said, ‘He must know how badly we can behave.’
‘You can know a thing and yet not want to have it aired in public.’
‘That’s right. We’re the ones who mind, not God.’
‘We mind because of Him.’
Roy said, ‘My fiancée forgot to tell me she was an expert on theology.’
The Reverend Eustace smiled smugly. He was the expert.
Sandra laughed. She put up her hands in a gesture of capitulation. She still thought that she was right.
Mr Bates was summoned. Eric walked into the room after him. Everyone was supposed to memorize the moves and the timing, and to remember where each person was to stand. Reverend Eustace gave Sandra a piece of paper on which her cues were written.
They went through the questions and answers. Eric said, ‘I didn’t bring the ring. I didn’t think we’d need it today.’
‘That’s all right,’ Reverend Eustace told him. ‘Just make sure that you know when we’re going to ask for it.’
‘I know that already.’
Sandra gave Eric a wink. He didn’t like being told things in the tone the Reverend had used to him. He’d decided that the man was a dimwit.
‘And now,’ Reverend Eustace continued, ‘George isn’t here today, but I think that Mr Bates can let us have a few notes on the organ. If the bride would wait outside?’
Sandra walked to the door. Eric fell in beside her but the Reverend called after him, ‘You’re needed back here, young man.’
Eric slouched back towards the others. Roy put out an arm and pulled him close.
Sandra sat down in a pew at the back of the church, where they’d left their coats. The others followed later, gathering together up near the altar. She was glad of the chance to observe without taking part. She especially liked watching Roy and Eric together. They looked happy, she thought.
She was blasted out of her reverie by a roar from the organ. As more musical notes followed, Eric walked away from the others. He came down the aisle to where she sat. She couldn’t hear him above the noise. She cupped her hand behind her ear. He gestured towards the door. They picked up their coats from over the back of the pew, opened the door and went out.
They walked down the path and to the sidewalk.
‘I don’t think that guy is very well organized,’ Eric said. ‘Do you? He spends a lot of time telling you things you don’t need to know.’
‘He told us a terrific story while you were looking around the place with Mr Bates.’
‘Typical. He waited till I was out of the room.’
‘First of all, he wanted to talk to us about how serious it was to get married and what it meant. Um, the spiritual side of it.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
‘The story came up because it was about a wedding that went wrong.’
‘That’s great. He thought it was going to make you feel good to hear that?’
‘I think so. Because it happened to somebody else.’
‘What was the story?’
She told him, changing the wording at the end, so that the bride accused the matron-of-honor of ‘fooling around’ with her bridegroom. Eric was impressed. He said, ‘Do you think it’s true? That really happened?’
‘I think so. Something pretty close to that.’
‘There’s something I want to tell you. You know, when I rang your doorbell?’
‘Yes.’
‘It happened like I said, that day. But I started doing it the year before, when he was going out all the time with all those women. See, I knew that he’d get married again and I thought it would be the same as last time: he’d get a divorce and I’d be stuck with the ex-wife and her husband. I saw you out walking that day. You didn’t notice me. You were looking down. You were thinking about something else.’
Bert.
‘You took your hand out of your pocket to push your hair back, like this. So I saw you didn’t have a ring on. I thought you looked nice. My father … He never went out with anybody nice. I thought if I got to know you – well, then maybe I could ask you over. And we could all have lunch together on Sunday. Or something like that. That’s all. I thought I’d better tell you, in case people said I was always going around to strange houses and acting weird. I mean, there’s no point in doing it any more. I’m not a crackpot.’
‘I know that,’ she said.
‘And it’s okay, isn’t it?’
‘It’s perfect,’ she said. ‘It’s almost what you could call provi dential.’
‘I knew it would be okay.’
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling. ‘And if it isn’t, it’s a big house, so we can all go sulk in our own rooms.’
He thought that was so funny that he had to do a little dance as he laughed.
The Reverend came up behind them, his forward movement seeming to be powered by the swell of his important belly under the clerical garb. ‘A time for rejoicing, eh?’ he said.
‘We were wondering,’ Eric told him, ‘what would happen if you forgot your lines.’
‘My goodness, I hope there won’t be any need to worry about that. We might have to do it all over again.’
*
There was no time left. She’d spend an hour thinking, I’m getting through everything so well, with such businesslike capability, that I’m going to have plenty of time left over. At the end of that hour she’d wonder if she was ever going to make it.
Her family arrived. The first thing her mother said to her sister was, ‘Couldn’t you find another hat?’ Her sister turned right around and left the hotel room, slamming the door as she went. Her father said, ‘Oh, dear.’ He said it frequently in the following days. As the wedding ceremony approached, his nervousness took the form of a furious and abnormal need to shake hands: everyone he met was pumped by the arm not simply at the moment of introduction but whenever he felt friendly, which was often, as he was also, unusually, drinking a lot. He remained charming while he became slow, sleepy and slightly hard to understand. ‘He looks like a mounted fish,’ her mother said.
Her sister helped to dress her on the wedding day. ‘You look fantastic,’ she said.
‘I feel really out of it.’
‘Did you drink too much last night?’
‘I didn’t drink anything. I didn’t dare. I keep worrying that I’m going to fall over. God, I wish we’d held out for the registry office.’
‘You’re actually going to renounce the devil and all his pomps?’
‘I think that one’s in the baptism.’
‘I’d go for the pomps every time, sweetie.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘That’s only because it wasn’t among the choices being offered.’
No, Sandra thought, you wouldn’t anyway. As she watched her sister holding up the veil, carefully brushing the edges straight, she felt very proud of her stubborn, independent spirit, her stoicism and the way she chose to live her life by principles that she wouldn’t even bother to discuss; she had married a man her parents disapproved of, lived in obvious bohemian squalor and seemed happy with him and their children.
Sandra asked, ‘Did you have any doubts before your wedding?’
‘None. But I had all that massive family outrage to keep me steady. It’s harder for you. They think he’s wonder
ful.’
That was the way it looked, certainly; everyone except Aunt Marion. Aunt Marion’s knee hadn’t healed quite so quickly as the doctors had hoped. She wouldn’t be at the church after all. Sandra had known that somehow, at the last minute, her aunt wouldn’t be able to attend: she didn’t want to. After a certain age you had the right to keep away from what you didn’t want to do and to save your strength for things that were fun.
‘How about the kid?’ her sister said.
‘What about him?’
‘You think that’s going to be okay?’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘In fact, it’s all great, If only I can get through today.’
‘I’m glad you’re doing it all the right way. It makes up for how disappointed they are in me.’
‘It’s only Mother who feels that way. And the reason she does is that she expected so much more of you. She never thought I was worth bothering about. It’s true. And the reason she gets so mad is that she envies you. She’d have liked to live like you, but she never dared. She’s always been frustrated. You showed her that it would have been possible, if only she’d had the guts.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘That’s the way it always seemed to me. You’re the one she admires. Anyway, she’s getting a little better.’
‘I hadn’t noticed. Did you hear what she said about the hat?’
‘I hope you’re going to wear it.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with it except that it’s ahead of its time.’
‘That’s enough.’
‘I like it,’ she said.
The preparations, the nerves, the waiting and worrying were beginning to remind Sandra of the time leading up to a long plane flight. She kept running to the bathroom and at the same time feeling thirsty. She was drinking one glass of water after another.
When at last she stood outside the church, with her veil down and her hand on her father’s arm, she was so dizzy with anticipation that she was close to fainting. Her knees felt as if they weren’t going to work. Her happiness became almost indistinguishable from terror. As she thought of Roy, who would be standing by the altar with Eric, she couldn’t remember what he looked like. A wave of sickness passed over her. She was marrying a man she didn’t know; this was like the weddings in other parts of the world, where the couple were committed and married to each other before they were fully acquainted.
She was even a stranger to the ground she stood on. She’d been inside the building – a place for ceremony and public spectacle – only twice before. She was wearing a dress that seemed less like clothing than like a theatrical costume or a kind of location in which she was hiding, disguised from anyone who might be looking for her.
A silence fell. Then the organ started up again. Heads turned around to look. Her father patted her hand. ‘Easy does it,’ he said. She squeezed his arm. They began the long, slow walk down the aisle.
On both sides people leaned forward to look. She was grateful for the veil; although it might not hide her face completely, at least it formed a space between her and the rest of the world. Her cheeks felt tight and burning; they might almost be on fire. Her father sauntered along as if he were out for a ramble in the country. She was filled with affection for him. She regretted the fact that she hadn’t gone home more often after moving away to join the office. And now she’d be married and her time wouldn’t be her own.
As she passed by, she saw everyone without being able to understand what she was looking at. The only people she seemed to recognize were her mother and sister, who were sitting with their arms around each other. Both of them were crying and her sister was wearing the hat.
They reached the others. She was looking at Roy. Her father handed her over to him. All at once she was glad of everything: the strangeness of the dress, the presence of the crowd behind her, the fact that her friends and family were there to see the moment when her life joined with other lives to begin a new family. And, above all, she was happy that she was being married in a church. Religion was forever: everything else was only temporary.
Reverend Eustace began to speak. All the stages of the ceremony went as they had rehearsed it. When she was supposed to respond, she was pleased at how firm and audible her voice sounded.
The time came for the business with the ring. Her head turned. Was Eric going to drop it? Had he lost it? No. He stepped forward smartly, like a little soldier on parade, presented the ring and retreated. The blessing came next. And another handover. Roy had the ring: he took her hand. She knew that her hands would be slightly hot and swollen, but she had already mentioned that that might happen. If she just relaxed, there was no reason why the ring shouldn’t fit. She looked down until it had slid over the first joint of her finger, then her eye was caught by Eric. He had moved from where he was supposed to be. He was craning his neck to see everything. On his face was an emotion she found – from behind the veil – hard to decipher, although it seemed familiar. His eyes were lowered, his posture was one of someone who waits, not patiently nor with excited expectancy, but with mesmerized satisfaction. A little smile had begun to move across his lips, changing his expression by imperceptibly accelerating degrees from the ordinary to the extraordinary, so that as she felt the ring pushed fully on, she was aware of him standing now nearly in front of her, his concentration directed wholly at her and an almost sightless look on his face: rapt, transcendant, sublime.
About the Author
Rachel Ingalls grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has had various jobs, from theatre dresser and librarian to publisher’s reader. She is a confirmed radio and film addict and has lived in London since 1965. She is the author of several novels and collections of short stories.
Copyright
First published in 1992
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved
© Rachel Ingalls, 1992
‘Last Act: The Madhouse’ was first published in the summer 1990 issue of Esquire Magazine, slightly edited and under the title ‘Faces of Madness’
The right of Rachel Ingalls to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–29846–4
Black Diamond Page 31