Black Diamond (38 page)

‘This never used to happen to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve always thought of increasing age as a time of aches and pains, but in my case it seems to be this ridiculous forgetfulness. It started with the glasses and it’s spreading to other things. I keep finding myself over in a part of the room and I can’t remember why I got up to go there, or what I was looking for. The glasses used to be a real problem until I discovered those ordinary magnifying glasses they sell in drugstores: they’re almost as good. So now I have four pairs. But there are days when I can’t put my hand on any of them.’

Eric was sent off to check the places where the flower
arrangements were to be set up. He also wanted to ask some questions about baptism and funeral services. A dark-suited man named Bates took him in tow.

Reverend Eustace ushered Sandra and Roy into his study. He sat them down and gave them a short speech that left enough margin for them to express approval about the goodness of man without having to lay claim to any specific brand of religion.

It came as a relief to Sandra that she wasn’t going to have to lie. Despite the Reverend’s appearance, he was on home ground now and, once the door had been closed, it was – she felt – a little like being called to the principal’s office. She didn’t have either the effrontery of Roy, who was prepared to say anything in order to get what he wanted, or the honesty of someone like her sister, who had once told an interviewer that she wanted the job because she needed the money.

If asked, she was going to express regrets about her lapse from churchgoing. And if she tried, she could convince herself that that was true. She would have liked to believe.

The chair she sat in faced a windowframe that had been given a shape she recognized as religious. The books in the bookshelves, the cross on the wall, even the Reverend Eustace, put her in mind of the way she’d felt about religion as a child. It had seemed to her, a long time ago, that there was a special sweetness – a rightness – in adherence to a certain way of life and a lovely perfection in its precepts, which you could aspire to but never fully live up to.

Reverend Eustace offered them each a sherry and poured one for himself. ‘I’m sure everything will go exactly as planned,’ he said, ‘although if it doesn’t, there’s nothing to worry about. If there’s a hitch, just remain calm and wait. I’ve seen people catch their clothes on the door, get their heels stuck or slip on the carpet and fall over. The children can wander off. If there’s a baby in the audience, you can bet it’s going to cry. Someone drops the ring. And so forth. All perfectly normal. The important thing is that the bond should be made, the words should be spoken and understood and that the union should be consecrated by a man of the cloth in God’s presence.’

‘Of course,’ Roy said. He knocked back his sherry without changing expression. Sandra knew that it wouldn’t be dry enough for him. She and the Reverend had a taste for sweet things.

‘But some quite extraordinary things can happen,’ Reverend Eustace murmured.

‘Like people getting up to complain,’ Sandra said, ‘when you ask them if anyone objects: “Speak now or forever hold your peace?”’ Suddenly she thought about Bert. She imagined him shouting out for everyone to hear:
This
woman
once
spent
three
days
in
bed
with
me
and
we
weren’t
reading
the
Bible
to
each
other,
either.
Memory, combined with the alcohol, rushed the blood up into her face.

‘It’s interesting that you should mention just that place in the ceremony,’ Reverend Eustace said.

‘Well, it’s the one everyone waits for. You think it’s going to be like the end of
Perry
Mason,
where somebody stands up in the courtroom and says, “I did it.”’

‘As a matter of fact, there was a story going around last year about a case where the proceedings were interrupted at that very point. It happened in a church down south. Everything was going according to the schedule until the minister said those words. There was a silence – you know, you have to leave a little pause – and then he was about to go on, when the bride herself spoke up. She said, “I have something to say.” She turned around to face the congregation and she said, “I’d like to thank all the people who’ve worked so hard to make this moment possible: my mother, who organized the food; my aunt, who arranged the flowers; my sisters, who helped with the catering; and my bridesmaids.” She stopped and the preacher was about to continue, when she took a breath and kept going. She said, “I’d like to thank all my friends and relatives who’ve come here today, some of them from far away, to wish me luck.” She stopped again. And once again the minister was about to resume, but she turned around a third time, and said, “But what shall I say of my matron of honor, who went through school with me, and who spent the summers with us all through college,
who’s been just like one of the family all these years: and who slept with my bridegroom last night?” And then she picked up her skirts and marched right out of the church.’

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 wonderful.’

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.’