Dirty Old Man (A True Story) (23 page)

     “Whatever you think Celine, I’m really not fussy which colour you choose. Just pick something you like and we’ll go with that.”

     Don’t you want to get married?” she asked as she slumped in the chair next to me. “Your heart doesn’t seem to be in it. If you’re not sure about it then you should call the whole thing off.”

I imagined for a moment, me calling the whole thing off, Bernie’s face as I jilted him at the registry office. I could even turn up pissed and shout profanities at him, the people at the registry office would call the police of course and they’d ask me about Bernie, and I’d tell them everything of course. Then I’d be free from him and he’d be taken in for questioning.

I decided to make the day about Celine instead.

     “Don’t be daft,” I said, “if you like this dress, then let’s go in into town and find it so you can try it on.”

     The morning of the wedding quickly arrived and Bernie went off to meet the students who had travelled up from Leicester for the event. They were staying in a hotel around the corner. Jeff was bringing the wedding dress over with him and I couldn’t have it until just before the wedding when he’d come to pick me up from Celine’s house.

I slipped on my blue suede trousers and red velvet blazer and made my way into town to meet Celine; she said she had a surprise for me.

I arrived at the clock and noticed she was holding a wedding veil in her hand.

     “It’s my mum’s old veil, I know you didn’t have one so I’ve borrowed it for you. Please look after it though because she’ll kill me if she finds out I’ve taken it.” She giggled.

     “We’re having our hair and makeup done this morning, seeing as nobody else arranged it for you.”

     “You didn’t have to do this Celine,” I said, “Please don’t spend your money on this wedding.” I felt bad because my heart wasn’t in it at all.

     “I haven’t spent that much,” she laughed, “come and see for yourself.”

She grabbed my arms and marched me round to Boots. I took the opportunity to spray her with men’s aftershave when she wasn’t looking.

She paid a lady at the make-up counter £10 and we both had our make-up done. Celine made me smile; she had a way of taking a scary situation and making it feel safe. I loved her mockery of the traditional wedding morning.

Next, we moved onto the hairdressers, it was a friend of hers and she’d offered Celine a good discount. We got tipsy on two bottles of champagne and we skipped through Queensgate, me with a face full of makeup, wedding hair and a stolen veil on my head. People laughed at us and gave us funny looks but we didn’t care.

     Jeff turned up for us half an hour before we had to be at the registry office. I rushed to put the wedding dress on, despite trying my best to act as sober as possible. I heard something tear as I wriggled about trying to get it to fit properly. Jeff’s wife had been incredibly slim in her much earlier years and the dress only just accommodated me. I didn’t worry about the tearing sound, if something had ripped, it wasn’t as though she’d ever be wearing it again and she had no children to pass it down to.

     We got into Jeff’s little car and headed for the registry office. When it was in sight, I suddenly felt my nerves kick in and I was concerned I’d be sick. I looked at Celine and she pulled a silly face at me which made me laugh. I think it was her way of reminding me she was there for me.

     “Watch the dress when you get out won’t you?” Said Jeff, I could barely move. My chest felt tight and it wasn’t just because the dress was tight, I was panicking inside.

I remember the way my face burned with shame
as I walked into the registry office. The ceremony room was tiny and I nearly vomited as I walked in. Jeff was holding my arm and I think I may have fallen over had he not been holding me up.

I recognized about ten people in there. Bernie was smiling his stupid smile as usual, I hated him, I was drunk and I wanted to punch him in the face and revel in the moment as people laughed because he’d fall over.

     “Who gives this lady away?” asked the registrar.

     “I do.” Said Jeff, and then he sat down.

The registrar kept looking at me as she read through the service. I wish she’d just stop looking at me.

I allowed my mind to drift off; I’m bloody stuck with him now aren’t I? I told myself. I’m never going to get away from him now, what would my parents say if they knew I was getting married today?

     “Moll, are you still with us dear?” asked the registrar.

I nodded and everybody laughed.

     “Do you take this man?”

Do I? Do I take this dirty old man to be my awful wedded husband? Do I have a fucking choice anymore? I thought. Everybody had let me down and contributed to it getting to this point. I looked over to Celine. She gave me a little reassuring smile.

     “I do.” I said quietly, and only because I knew I could get a divorce anytime I wished. It was easier to just go along with it.

The ring was a cheap piece of rubbish from
Argos; it was silver with an obnoxious pink cubic Zirconia. I didn’t want a wedding band, I wanted to make the whole thing less ‘weddingy’ as possible which is why I’d chosen that ring that cost less than £10. It didn’t mean a thing to me. I still thought it would have been cheaper for Bernie to mark me as his territory by pissing up my leg instead of having to pay out for all this crap I had no interest in.

Everybody clapped and it was almost over, I just had to sit on a chair with a smile whilst I signed the register and people took pictures. I didn’t smile, I pulled stupid faces instead.

I wished I hadn’t found out my place of birth, I wouldn’t have gotten my birth certificate and I wouldn’t have been married. It was only a bit of paper, I told myself. I can always get divorced.

     “Wait until you see the all.” Said Bernie excitedly, “you won’t recognise it.”

I hoped I wouldn’t, the place was a shit hole at the best of times. You could dress it up however you liked, it would still smell of training classes. The wedding car that we would use to arrive at the reception was Bernie’s Rover 214 with a piece of ribbon thrown across it. It looked like a first prize turd.

     The hall smelled sweaty when we arrived. I was made to close my eyes as I was led into the wedding reception; this only heightened my senses making the smell worse unfortunately.

When I was allowed to open them, I was positively underwhelmed. At the end of the hall was a row of tables where four CRT monitors sat, they were linked to one computer and Bernie’s stereo. The music was on low and he was using Windows Media Player’s ‘visualization effects’ to create some kind of disco. The whole thing looked appalling, only I couldn’t have cared less. Bernie thought he’d done a great job.

There was another section of the hall with tables and chairs
, where a couple of people I recognized from the club were sitting. I barely knew anybody else; the majority of them were Bernie’s ex girlfriends that he’d kept in touch with.

There were crates of warm, shop bought alcohol and bottles of French beer. Pieces of ripped card lay on the floor where the boxes had been opened. It was a complete shambles.

     Celine said she’d give me some space so that I could work my way around everybody to
thank them for coming, I didn’t want her to leave my side, but watched as she sat at the table with the others from the club. I wanted to be a part of the group at that table. To be a guest any somebody’s wedding, anybody’s but my own.

I didn’t know what to do with myself so I decided I’d make a start by taking off my hideous wedding dress. I walked barefooted to the car and took out the bag that contained my clothes. Then I went to the toilets and got changed into some trousers
and pink vest top.

     “Where’s the dress?” asked Jeff as I entered the hall again.

     “Don’t worry Jeff, it’s been put back safely in its box.”

I’d actually left it in a messy pile on the floor of the toilets but he wouldn’t find out. I’d sort it later, I decided.

I avoided Bernie like the plague, though he was mainly chatting up his ex girlfriends anyway so it wasn’t difficult. I took a bottle of the terrible French beer and sneaked to the darkened hall next door where I knew they’d stashed a piano away. It was pushed into a corner behind a trampoline but I managed to squeeze through the gap.

I wanted to hide in there until it was all over, until they’d all gone home and I’d have all the next day to ponder my mistake.

I silenced as the door creaked open, bringing the noise from the reception into the room and I saw Jeff as he peered inside.

     “Are you in here Moll?”

     “Go away.” I whispered.

     “What are you doing in here? After the effort Bernie has made tonight for you, and I find you sitting in here. I suggest you get back into the hall and stop being so selfish.”

     Jeff was one of Bernie’s oldest friends from the original club in Leicester. He had served for years in the army and was an electronics engineer. He was well respected in the community, though he was another who believed the situation with Bernie was entirely normal. I hated the way he looked at me though. It churned my stomach and I always thought there was something sinister lurking behind his eyes. Whenever we’d do sparring at the club, even when I was in my early teens, Jeff would hit me incredibly hard in the face, even making my nose bleed once, then he’d smirk about it and not say a single word.

     In the smelly hall, people were sat awkwardly at the table. The music was quiet and all that could be heard was Bernie’s drunken ramblings about how intelligent and spiritually enlightened he was. I’d heard enough.

I grabbed a half bottle of whiskey from the side and took it into the community centre reception area. There was a large desk there so I sat against it on the floor, drinking copious amounts of whiskey, insensitive to the way it burned my throat on the way down. If people wouldn’t leave, then I’d blot them out one by one with every sip.

     I don’t remember much after that, besides being violently sick and slightly worrying that Jeff may have found out about the dress on the toilet floor. I remember a brief moment of sitting in the car outside the caravan and watching Bernie disappear inside. A voice behind me reassured me that I’d be okay. It scared me because I thought I was alone in the car. At the time, I thought perhaps it was an angel; I didn’t have the strength to turn around and look. In hindsight, it was probably Celine or one of Bernie’s ex girlfriends.

     Married life was no different than before. I continued to hand wash clothes on a daily basis; I had the hands of a much older person. Bernie would continue to assault me behind closed doors, and even occasionally in public if he was sure he was unlikely to see those people again. He started to come to Asda every time as he didn’t let me leave the house on my own. He’d stand in the aisles and hurl abuse at me; sometimes he’d throw things from off the shelf at me too. It was incredibly humiliating to have all those people staring at me with pity in their eyes. I didn’t want their pity; I just wanted them to mind their own business.

     Celine saved up the money to buy that return ticket, and not long before Christmas; we said a tearful farewell. I desperately wanted to tell her what was happening with Bernie, but she looked so happy and excited; I couldn’t bring myself to step in the way and put a downer on it. The day she left, I felt as though I was walking about with a hole in my heart. It was an unbearable pain from the undiscovered depths of my stomach. I knew I’d always be able to contact her as we had each other’s email addresses and regularly exchanged emails. I didn’t know what I’d have to talk to her about though. She was the only good thing in my life, and now she was gone.

With Celine gone, Bernie sensed my weakness.

     It was almost Christmas and Bernie decided that the Leicester and Peterborough
clubs should come together for a Christmas meal in Leicester. A table was booked for twenty of us at an Indian Restaurant, and one of the girls called Rose, said some of us that had travelled, could stay over at her house that evening. Bernie had invited George to come along too. He was the only one not drinking as he was underage, though no one was drunk. 

Afterwards, six of us went back to Rose’s house and she brought through a couple of bottles of wine. She had to be up early in the morning so she went to bed pretty much as soon as she got in. She was followed closely by Bernie who insisted it was my bed time too. 

I told him I would be up soon after as I wanted to finish my wine downstairs with the others first.

I sat laughing quietly downstairs with George, Charlie and Rick.

Rick was only training with us for a short time; he was working towards a sports degree at the university.

I heard the landing creak gently as somebody walked about, then they moved quickly down that stairs. I thought it was Rose. It was her house and I didn’t think anyone else would use it in such a manner.