by Stan Barstow
‘It’s bad,’ the driver says.
‘I’ve noticed that,’ I tell him. ‘It’s ten to eleven. What do we do?’
‘Change t’wheel,’ he says. ‘There’s nowt else for it.’
He takes his white coat off and then starts to peel off about fifteen layers of pullovers and waistcoats that he has on underneath; all nice and steady like, as though it’s Sunday and he’s at home in his backyard and out to make a morning of it. I hop round to the boot and rummage about for a jack. I slam it into position and begin to crank, praying we shan’t be bothered by some copper with time on his hands and a lot of silly questions to ask. I can’t imagine this driver ever changed a wheel before; somebody must always have done it for him while he was stripping for action. As it is, he’s hardly reached the working minimum when I’ve got the spare wheel in position and I’m tightening nuts like mad. It’s just after eleven when we get the car moving again, and nearly ten past by the time we pull up at our gate.
The Old Man’s on the front step with his hand over his eyes like a sailor up in a crow’s nest looking for land. ‘Where the hummer have you been?’ he says with panic in his voice. ‘We’re late.’
I’m tempted for a second to give him a cheeky answer, like we’ve called for a drink or something, but I see he’s worried out of his wits so I just show him my dirty hands and tell him we’ve had a puncture. Chris comes out meantime and though she’s got a coat on over her frock it doesn’t hide that she looks a real picture, just like somebody in one of them glossy women’s mags.
‘You’ll knock ’em sideways,’ I tell her. ‘You’ll knock ’em for six.’
Well, once they begin it doesn’t seem to matter that Chris was late. After all it’ll give her and David something to laugh about later on. I slip her coat off for her and stay at the back where I can get out first when it’s all over. The organ switches from this soft background music it’s been playing and starts on the wedding march, booming out and filling the church. There’s a shuffle as all the guests stand up and Chris and the Old Man, with Dotty and Mangy behind, start down the aisle to where the vicar and David and his best man are waiting for them. A real picture Chris looks, all in white, and her hair shining under this little cap of net and flowers. Chris’s hair is a sort of reddy brown like the Old Lady’s was when she was young, but Jim and I are both dark like the Old Man. I look down at the Old Feller’s feet and see he’s remembered what I told him. There’s a bit of a lopsided look about the congregation because our family’s out in force and course David has no family, just the few friends he’s made since he came to Cressley.
The organ stops and there’s dead quiet for a minute. Then the vicar chimes up. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.’
I’m real happy for them; I really am; because David’s a good bloke and he’s getting a real gem in Chris. I’ve always thought there was something special about Chris and I suppose that’s a bit funny because a lot of lads I know can’t abide their sisters. But I know I’ll be lucky if I find a girl as nice as Chris to marry. I’m always kind of half-looking for this girl I’m going to find one day. She’ll be everything you could want in a girl: talking, laughing, sharing, making love, and everything. I never say anything about this to anybody and as far as my mates are concerned I’m interested in bints for just one thing. This is the way you have to be because if you told them all you think they’d laugh and say you were sloppy and soft in the head.
And now I begin to think about Ingrid. I’m always thinking about her these days and wondering what she thinks of me – if anything. I wonder if I’ll be lucky enough to see her tonight and what I’ll say to her if I do. Because I’m going to say something if it kills me. I’ve hung about and gawped for long enough.
Outside the church, when it’s over, the photographers get busy, both the amateurs and the bod paid for the job. We get them to make it snappy because it’s too cold to hang about. Then I slip the coat round Chris’s shoulders and let my cousin Geoff take her and David to the reception and I follow on behind with the Old Lady and the Old Feller. We drive away leaving confetti in the snow and the deep puddles in the gutters.
The Old Man seems restless in the back seat, as though he’s lost something, and the Old Lady says to him, ‘What you seekin’?’
I’m lookin’ for me speech,’ the Old Feller says, rummaging through his pockets. ‘I had it when I –’
‘Your speech?’ the Old Lady says, and this is the first I’ve heard of it as well.
‘Aye. I’ve jotted a few points down on a bit o’ paper but I can’t find it… Ho’d on, here it is.’
‘I hope you’re not goin’ to show us all up,’ the Old Lady says. ‘All you need do is tell them we’re pleased to see ’em and thank ’em for comin’. That’s all. No need to get on ramblin’ all round the houses.’
‘It wa’ your idea to have t’reception in t’best hotel in Cressley,’ the Old Man says, ‘so wes’ll have to come up to scratch. Who ever heard of a posh weddin’ wi’out speeches? If you’d had t’bandroom like I wanted you to I might not ha’ got on me feet at all.’
‘T’bandroom,’ the Old Lady snorts. ‘Allus on t’cheap. D’you mean to tell me you begrudge your own daughter – your only daughter – a decent send-off to her married life?’
‘There’s a difference between a decent send-off an’ a Society do,’ the Old Feller says. ‘I’m nobbut a collier, y’know, not a mill-owner.’
‘An’ you don’t let anybody forget it… Anyway, we’ve had all this out before.’ I think the Old Lady’s just cottoned on that the glass partition’s open and the driver’s taking all in and having a quiet smile about it.
‘Aye, we have,’ the Old Man says.
‘An’ we decided that the Craven Arms was the best place.’
‘Aye, we did, ‘the Old Man says.
I know the driver’s not the only one laughing but the Old Lady can’t see this, not being one of the quickest to see a joke.
‘An’ if it bothers you just remember ’at you’ve no more daughters an’ t’next wedding in the family somebody else’ll pay for.’
‘Ah!’ the Old Man says.
III
When Chris and David go off to catch their train a lot of the guests go home, because the wedding’s officially over like. But some of them, the closest family and friends, come back to our house. We live in Meadow Lane, in a big old stone-fronted house that my mother talked the Old Man into buying before the war when houses were dirt cheap compared with what they’re asking for them now. You get a nice view from the bedroom windows with the town on one side and the park on the other with the infirmary sitting on top of the hill where it looks at night a bit eerie, all old and lit up, like Castle Dracula on a party night. There’s a lot of these people come back with us and we have to borrow some chairs from the neighbours for them to sit on; but this doesn’t help much because then out of common politeness we have to invite the neighbours in as well, them that haven’t already been to the wedding, that is. The Old Lady says she’s never seen the house as full since her father’s funeral. But this is no funeral. They haven’t had a get-together like this in years and they’re out to make the best of it and bury all the family differences.
The Old Man’s speech has done as much as anything towards this. Nobody expected much when he stood up with his bit of paper on the table behind the mince pies, and they expected even less when he started humming and hawing and feeling in his pockets like he’d done in the taxi. I knew straight away he’d lost his glasses and he can’t read anything much smaller than a newspaper headline without them. Anyway, he coughed and mumbled a bit and then all at once he opened up. It was just as if something had got into him, kind of inspired him, seeing all the family sitting there like that, all them familiar faces looking at him, wondering what old Arthur was up to like. Well he starts with Chris and David and then goes on to the family in general, telling them all how silly they
are to fall out about silly things and nurse grudges and spites, and wasn’t this a good time to start thinking about the family again and forgetting all these little things that poison family life. He got ’em. He cut some of them right to the quick and one or two of the women were in tears. The Old Lady was flabbergasted and I could see her timing the Old Feller as he went on like he did this every day of his life. Chris was all full up as well and when it came to her turn all she could say was thank you everybody and then she turns to the Old Man and hugs him till he goes red in the face he’s so embarrassed.
Uncle William, the Old Man’s eldest brother, comes up to him after and says, ‘By gow, Arthur, I didn’t know you had it in you, lad.’
‘Neither did I, William,’ the Old Feller says, and he lowers his voice. ‘You don’t think I made a fool o’ meself, do you? Is’ll catch it from Lucy if I have.’
‘A fool of yerself! It’s finest thing ’at’s happened in t’family for years.’
And so everybody else seems to think. Except Auntie Agnes, who’s taken everything the Old Man said as being directed personally at her and gone home in a huff. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.
So we have a party on the strength of it and when we’ve eaten what’s left over from the reception and practically everything else in the house besides we decide to play some games. Uncle George takes charge now. Guaranteed to keep any party going, Uncle George is. He specializes in the kind of game where you’re blindfolded and made to make a fool of yourself in front of everybody else. A laugh every ten seconds with Uncle George and no hard feelings at a pin stuck in your behind or a lemon-cheese tart smeared across your face, because it’s all good clean family fun. When everybody gets tired of this and they’re all worn out from laughing till they cry, Uncle George shows what a versatile lad he is by getting on the piano and playing for carol singing. They have the Old Man getting his trombone out now and he plays ‘Just a Song at Twilight’ and his favourite, ‘Bless this House’. Just as he hits the high note near the end of this the light bulb bursts all over the place. I’ve heard of a singer smashing a wine glass but never a trombone player breaking a light bulb. There’s a good bit of larking about and squawking in the dark while I strike a match and get a spare out of the cupboard.
Round about half past eight, though, the party begins to break up because some of them have a way to travel and there’s a lot of looking for coats and hats and handshaking and kissing and wishing compliments of the season; and then by nine there’s only us and Uncle William and Auntie Edna, who’re staying the night, left among the wreckage. In a minute or two young Jim beetles off to bed.
‘Looks as though we’ve had a football match,’ the Old Lady says, looking round. The chairs are all out of place and there’s still a few about that don’t belong to us. There’s cushions on the floor and empty glasses and full ashtrays on everything. The fire’s nearly out because we’ve kept ourselves warm the last couple of hours, and the air’s thick with tobacco smoke. I bend down to pick a glass up before somebody kicks it over and find a cigarette burn in the corner of the carpet. I keep quiet about it, though, thinking tomorrow’s early enough for the Old Lady to know about it.
‘Somebody’s gone without her gloves,’ the Old Lady says. ‘I wonder whose they are.
‘I think they’re Millie’s,’ Aunt Edna says. ‘Let me look … Yes, they are. I remember admiring them outside the church.’
‘I’ll drop her a line about ’em after the holidays.’ The Old Lady wanders about the room picking cushions up and punching them into shape. ‘Just look at these cushion covers: clean on today and there’s lemon-cheese an’ all sorts on ’em.’ She laughs. ‘Eeh, but he’s a card, isn’t he, George? A real tyke. One of the best of husbands, though. Elsie’s never had a minute’s bother with him all the twenty year they’ve been married. He never had a steady job before he knew her, y’know. He took bets for a bookie in town at one time. Allus his name in the paper, being fined. Me father nearly kicked him off the step the first time he came to call for her. ‘Get yoursen a decent job afore you come courtin’ a daughter o’mine,’ he said. An’ George did. He went to Fletcher’s mill an’ got set on. He’s never been out o’ work since. A foreman he is now, at some engineering shop Keighley way…
‘Could you do with a cup o’ tea?’ she says.
‘Not just now,’ Auntie Edna says. ‘You sit yourself down and have a minute. You’ve been at it all day.’
The Old Lady sits down and folds her hands in her lap. ‘It’s been like a real tonic to have ’em all here together, laughin’ an havin’ fun, just like old times. When you have a party like that you wonder how anybody can fall out with anybody.’
‘It’s the way of the world,’ Uncle William says. ‘It’s allus been like that an’ it allus will be. As long as you can get together now an’ again an’ forget it all.’
‘Only Agnes had to spoil it by going off like that…’
‘I think I offended her,’ the Old Man says. ‘She thought I wa’ gettin’ at her.’
‘An’ so you were, Arther,’ Uncle William says. ‘Who else but daft silly women like her?’
‘I’ve given over bothering about Agnes,’ the Old Lady says. ‘You can’t do right for doing wrong with her. I’ve sucked up to her for years, telling meself it wa’ just her way an’ she was all right underneath. Well now I’ve done. She allus has to spoil everything.’
‘How does it feel then to have one less?’ Auntie Edna asks in a minute.
‘Oh, you have mixed feelings when it comes to the time, y’know. I shall miss her, no doubt about that. She’s a good lass, our Christine. Allus was… But it’s high time she settled down an’ started a family? Many a lass at twenty-seven’s got ’em growin’ up an’ at school.’
‘Seems a nice young feller she’s married,’ Uncle William says.
‘Oh, David’s one of the best. A right grand lad. She’ll be all right with him; I haven’t a minute’s worry on that score.’
‘Such a nicely spoken young man,’ Auntie Edna says.
‘Lovely manners, too.’
‘He’s educated, David is,’ the Old Man says, as though this accounts for everything. ‘Educated.’
‘And not a bit o’ side with it, neither,’ the Old Lady says. ‘Oh, we couldn’t have wished for a better match for her.’
Auntie Edna cocks a look at me where I’m slumped down in the easy-chair taking all in and saying nothing.
‘I suppose it’ll be Victor next,’ she says. I like Auntie Edna but I do think she’s a bit of a busybody at times.
‘No, we shan’t be going to Victor’s wedding yet awhile,’ the Old Lady says, talking about me as if I’m not there. ‘Give him time; he’s not twenty-one yet. And I don’t even think he’s courtin’. Course, I suppose I’ll be the last to get to know when he is. I’m not bothered about him, though. If they were all as steady an’ content as him we’d do well enough. It’s young Jim ’at worries me sometimes. Allus studyin’, y’know. Never seems to give his mind a rest. He fancies bein’ a doctor an’ I suppose he’ll have to work hard if he’s going to pass for college; but I sometimes think he overdoes it a bit. I found him one night, Edna – and this is without a word of a lie – I found him sitting up in bed in the middle of the night, fast asleep, with his books open all round him. Fast asleep, he was. Y’see he can’t even leave it alone when he’s supposed to be resting. His mind never rests; it’s allus on the work. I don’t like it. He’s growin’ fast and he never did have Victor’s constitution. Like a young horse from the day he was born, Victor was. Never a minute’s worry over illness with him – except the usual kid’s ailments, o’ course, an’ that time he fell on the railings an’ cut his head open.’
Auntie Edna looks round at me and gives me a sort of fond smile. I wink at her and she twinkles at me.
‘Jim’s certainly shot up since we saw him last,’ she says.
‘Aye, too fast for his strength. He’s taking all his strength into h
is brain instead of his body. I’ve been thinking I’ll have a walk over to the doctor’s with him after the holidays and get his advice.’
‘If he’s happy it’ll help a lot,’ Uncle William says. ‘He’s a very intelligent lad, you can see that; and lads like that have to have plenty to occupy their minds or they get restless and run down. I shouldn’t worry too much about him, Lucy. See what the doctor says, by all means, but don’t fret.’
‘Aye, that’s all very well, William, but when you have ’em you fret about ’em. It’s nature.’
I don’t really think the Old Lady should have said this because Uncle William and Auntie Edna haven’t any kids and I think they miss not having them sometimes.
‘Well we want him to make the most of his chance,’ the Old Man says. ‘I only hope we’ll be able to keep him till he can earn for hisself. It wasn’t so bad with our Christine – she had scholarships; but they tell me scholarships are nobbut a drop in the ocean when a lad’s studyin’ medicine.’ He fishes for his pipe and bacca, then remembers the big box of cigars he has in the cupboard. ‘Here, William,’ he says, ‘try one o’ these. David bought me ’em. Very good of him, wasn’t it?’
‘Very good indeed, Arthur.’ Uncle William takes a cigar and sniffs at it. ‘I thought you’d been treating yourself.’
‘You thought wrong,’ the Old Man says. ‘I’m not in t’cigar class.’
‘Not far off, surely, Arthur?’ Uncle William says, and I see a gleam in his eyes as he lights up. ‘The new aristocracy, living off the fat o’ the land, sending your lad to college to study medicine. And you should have some brass if anybody has. You’re not the one to go out swilling it every night.’
‘Ey up! Ey up!’ the Old Feller says, rising to it. ‘Just because we’re gettin’ a decent livin’ wage after all this time everybody’s on to us.’
‘I wish I war earning twenty pound a week,’ Uncle William says, ‘and they could all be on to me as liked.’
