CHAPTER 53
It is odd when you have a large task to complete. You look at it at the start, and there is no way it can be done, it’s just too big, but you get on with it because you have no choice. For what seems like an aeon, nothing happens. No matter how much you beaver away, there is no progress, until one day you see a hint of movement. Gradually, you spot the changes, and finally you can actually see the end off in the distance.

That’s the worst bit, for you can then see how much slog is left to beat you down.

The wedding was like that. I hate the things, I really do, honest, Guv. I didn’t have any interest at all in dressing gorgeously, posing in front of my friends and family, eating a meal the size of Liechtenstein and then shaking my tits to decent music before dragging my hubby off for some now fully legal filthiness. I also lie badly.

It was just the preparation that was dragging me down. If it wasn’t for Jim and Enid, and all our friends and colleagues over here, I might have been tempted to let Dad organise everything in some Abergwaun chapel. Never mind, ay?

Anne was looking better and better as she settled into Pat’s little job. I did some reading on the Opus Dei lot, and their basic premise not only fitted with what I knew of her, but also made a sort of sense. The sanctity of daily work, being the best you could while being ‘ordinary’. What a pity it came wrapped up in so much shit, all that whipping and crap. Perhaps, just perhaps, the aid work might let her ease up on herself a little. The chemical warfare seemed to have stopped, at least for now, so the rest of us could breathe again.

I had to get out every so often, just to breathe myself, and forget about catering, cakes and seating plans. That was where Pie was a delight, and I would take Jim up to Langdon Cliffs and let them both off the lead, with sticks to throw and chase, things to poke and sniff, and unfortunately a lot of mud to spread everywhere. A couple of times, I rode the Trek to work and Alice put Jim onto the train to Canterbury with his bike, after school, so we could ride the quiet back roads of the Downs through Adisham and Aylesham to Whitfield and home. He was building real stamina now, as his body hit the edges of puberty, and despite my love of rugby I was really hoping he would take up a less brutal pastime. He was all boy, though, climbing and running whenever he could. One problem I did have was getting him to brake on downhills. Definitely a boy; it seemed I wasn’t THAT infectious.

We were finally getting some warmth and less liquid in the air, as the days drew out and the trees came into leaf. The invasion of waxwings had retreated back to Scandinavia, the first swallows were passing through, and my mood was lifting with the temperature. Look, I live on two wheels, seasons are noticeable.

We had one really, really girly weekend, when my bridesmaids came over for a final dress fitting, and five of us trotted off out for poking and pinching, pinning and tacking. Alice made me smile, in her insistence to Arris that she should get a discount on the dress as she was able to adjust her chest rather than the bodice if the fit was off. We then set about ruining said potential fit by pigging out on a cream tea and cakes, three of us man watching while the other couple evened things out by eying up passing women.

That was, if not a surprise, at least a confirmation of what I had suspected about Alice, her sexuality. She had spent so long in hiding that any liaison would have been risky if not downright dangerous. I collared her while the married pair were off in the ladies’.

“My little girl is starting to relax…”

“I don’t know what you mean, Sarah”

Innocence protested. “I saw you looking at that jogger’s arse, Alice”

“Well, it was a rather nice one, so what was I supposed to do?”

Arris chipped in. “I know another girl who was a little new to men, many years ago, She dove in too quickly, and got burnt quite badly. Isn’t that right, Sar?”

Joe. Yes, indeed, once bitten I had run away, but I knew too well the temptation of being out, of being myself. What exactly was someone like Alice to do? The number of men as sweetly accepting as Tony, or that Steph’s bloke, wasn’t huge, and I couldn’t exactly suggest she trotted off to a badminton club or an Anne-style church social group. To my great sadness, I could see nothing ahead of her but the life of the archetypical maiden aunt. At least Janet had found companionship of a sort, although I could imagine her frustration at being unable to share it with others. I sighed.

“Yes, I did get hurt, but I had friends who saw more clearly than me, or it would have been worse. Not ‘could’, would. Alice, promise us that you will talk to us before doing anything, seeing anyone, oh, you know what we mean”

She smiled. “Look at me, girls. I am a dumpy old frump in a grey wig. What’s to fancy? Anyone that gets into my knickers would get a shock, and if they were after that in the first place, I certainly wouldn’t be after them. Anyway, I have more now than I ever hoped for. I keep telling you that, but you never listen. Of course, as you didn’t let me be a bridesmaid, I don’t get to pick over the spare men like the other girls”

Elaine came back at that point. “Indeed, and all the more to pick over as two of them aren’t on that bus!”

Arris held up a hand. “Scuse me, Miss, can I be excused spare man duties, cause I’ve got enough already?”

Alice laughed out loud at that. “Looks like the MOH will have her work cut out, then!”

That evening, with Tony on nights, we took Enid and a best-behaviour Jim out to Blake’s for a decent meal, Pie asleep in his basket to guard the house. There is a delight in talking naughtiness in front of a child of that age, old enough to join in the innocent parts of the conversation but still too young to catch a slyly-worded reference. He was proud as punch to be in an adult place, being treated almost as a grown-up by the waiters, and as a by-product his presence helped us curb our alcohol abuse. A sort of win-win, then, speaking from the viewpoint of our livers. We tottered back home on our heels, one little man almost asleep as we hit the front door.

Almost. As soon as Pie tackled him, the little sod was awake again.

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Eventually, we had to start rehearsals. I will never understand that bit. As an ordinary wedding-goer as a kid, I just turned up, was directed to a seat, stood when told to and sang what was in the hymnal. Why should it be different as a bride? I mean, I turn up on time, I get walked down to the front with Dad, left with Tony, then repeat what Pat says to me, hold my hand out for the jewellery, and snog him. A few pics, once again following instructions from the professional, and then off to a party. As a fully paid-up biker chick, I have absolutely no need for lessons in partying!

So, there we were, like some bad TV production. Stand here, move there, say this, for fuck’s sake don’t scratch your arse like that on the day, as Pat so succinctly put it. And suddenly, all too quickly, there was nothing to be done. The cake was being constructed. Ellie had the flowers in hand. My dress was ready for me to slip into, as were the bridesmaids’. Hotel space was booked for the overflow we could not accommodate even with two big houses. Catering was to schedule and menus chosen, a taxi firm had cars for us and we had tickets for our flight to Nice, where we would spend a week as a token honeymoon. I had already had my honeymoon, with Jim and Tony on the other side of the world, and I needed nothing more. Tony had found an old-style hotel a short walk from the station that would do us a deal on half-board, and we would have a week doing nothing but the three S’s of a holiday: sun, sea and shingle. Nice’s beaches are not the sandy type.

Oh, silly me, there would hopefully be a lot of a fourth S, of course. Well, traditions must be upheld. I know I am sounding like some crazed nympho, but it is simply that after all those decades of celibacy I was now not only free to do what I had dreamt of, but provided with the best man in the world to do it with. I am not having a vote on that one, the job of TBMITWTDIW is filled.

May was with us, counting down rapidly towards D-Day. We treated Jim to some camping on the bank holiday weekends, as he would miss out on France, and as he was bigger he now rode pillion rather than in a chair, which pleased him. The bikes let us slip through the traffic jams that plague the UK on holiday weekends, and we spent one of them at Corfe, camped just outside the village not far from the steam railway station, walking out to odd sites like the Great Globe and, er, the bird reserve at Arne I hadn’t mentioned to Tony. The second we spent on Exmoor, where I happily wandered along the Doone Valley retracing Lorna’s footsteps. It’s a girl thing.

Jim was certainly well into the camping, with his own insulated mug and kid-sized gaiters for the damp grass. Tony was already teaching him basic map and compass work, and I was almost jealous for a while. They were so clearly made not just one from the other but each for the other, the father and the son clicking so well it was nearly painful to watch. Painful because it was so wonderful, painful because I had never had the chance to do anything similar with my mother.

Then June was on us, and time was short for my surname.