“Norah, you must be at the wedding. It’s vital. You’ll be our witness, you see, which makes you part of the whole thing, writes you into it.”
She pulls away, starts tugging at her hair, mumbles something about not liking crowds of people.
“What d’ you mean, crowds? We’re not inviting anyone. Reuben said not. Just him and me and you. You only need one witness in Las Vegas.” I feel a sudden pang. I’d always imagined a large romantic wedding with a pink and white marquee, and big shots in morning dress swanning around a rose garden, and a six-tier cake and page-boys in white socks and …
“And I haven’t got a dress.”
“Yes, you have – that Gold Rush one. It’s perfect. You’ll steal the show, in fact. It’s me that hasn’t got a dress, not anything remotely suitable.” I glance down at my naked legs, my bare and grubby feet. Reuben said it didn’t matter. He told me it’s the vows which count, the ceremony, and not to get hung up on the trimmings. All the same …
I sluice myself with water, put on clean pants and tights, start sorting through my rail of clothes. Nothing long, nothing white at all, and absolutely nothing like that wonder-gown I saw in the wedding chapel shop just half an hour ago. I know it’s stupid to be dreaming of a dress like that – the flowing train, the layers of lacy petticoats, the scalloped neck, the sprigs of orange blossom embroidered on the skirt, but it really was sensational. Toomey’s got to see it.
“Hey, Norah, would you like to see the wedding chapel? I’ve just come on from there. It’s rather sweet, made of wood and painted like a gingerbread house. I’ve got to go back, actually. They were fully booked, you see, for all the hours round midnight, but the guy in charge said if I kept on trying, they were bound to have a cancellation. He said I could just phone, but why don’t we go together and I’ll show you this really gorgeous dress?”
“Dress?” She’s started parroting again. God! It’s so awful being happy when she’s so obviously upset. I’ll have to try and distract her, make her change her mind, involve her in my plans. It’s a long hike to the chapel, but I can show her things en route, or we can walk halfway, then catch a bus. Even a few stops on a bumpy Route 6 boneshaker is quite a treat for Norah.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “They’ve got their own shop at the chapel which sells absolutely everything you need for a wedding – dresses, veils, rings, bouquets, photo albums, even suitcases. It saves time, you see. Most people in Las Vegas are getting married in a hurry. It’s the only place where you can marry with no banns or anything. I mean, you can meet someone at ten and marry at ten past, so long as there’s no queue at the Courthouse – that’s the place you get the licence. Anyway, I saw this dress. It was really beautiful, like something in a film.”
“Is Milton going to buy it for you?”
“Reuben. Norah, honestly. You haven’t heard a word I said. What’s wrong with you? Milt’s nothing to me, no one. And Jones is not a Jewish name, it’s Welsh. Can’t you even listen?”
“I … I am. I did. I heard it all. You’re getting married. You’re going to fight. In Israel. Reuben’s going to buy your dress.”
“He’s not. It’s too expensive.” I stop, bite my lip. I could have bought it myself, twice over, if only Reuben had relented. It was my money, after all. Forget the veil, the rings, the flowers, the photo albums, but just to have the dress … You can hire them actually, but the ones for hire were nothing like as special as that one with orange blossom. No. I’ve got to see it his way. Dresses are just frippery and swank. He wasn’t keen on any of the frills; said what mattered was our tie with one another, our commitment to one cause, not empty finery.
He wouldn’t even come and see the chapels, left all that to me. I tried to take his line, just pick one with a pin, or phone around for the cheapest and the quietest, but it simply didn’t work. I just had to see a dozen, spent a whole two hours this morning (the minute that I’d left him) swanning round Cupid-bowers and rose-gardens, comparing costs and decor. It was really quite a giggle. Some of them were ghastly with polystyrene cherubs and these awful lurid signs. “Fast and cheap!” screamed one. “Five-minute weddings. No hidden costs, no extras. Lowest price in Vegas. No waiting – walk straight in.” I walked straight out, in fact. The place was like a garden shed, and stood right next to a gas station, so that the Shell signs and the petrol smell overpowered the cupids. Okay, we want to keep it simple, but there’s such a thing as dignity.
Another place was offering three free rolls of nickels to play in the casinos to every happy couple, and six free raffle-tickets for what they called a “Love-Boat Cruise”. I ask you! I was much more taken with a rather swanky joint which had six chapels in one, all done up in different period-styles, so you could play Scarlett O’Hara in flounces and a crinoline, or Calamity Jane carrying your six-shooter instead of a bouquet. The last of the six chapels (the twentieth century one) had ten instant colour-changes, done with lights and lasers, so any bride could colour-match the decor to her dress. They even had a honeymoon motel attached, with rows and rows of bridal suites and a special high-speed travelator which whisked you straight from pew to satin sheets.
I couldn’t see Reuben dressed as Deadwood Dick in buckskins and a hat, or making vows to Scarlett, so I dragged myself away, settled for something smaller and more ordinary. Which is what I’d better do about the dress. I slam a mental door on lace and tulle, content myself with British Home Stores viscose – a floral skirt and toning blouse, which I put on for the moment. I’ll pick out something later for the wedding, something plain and simple.
Norah is still tagging after me, shadowing every move I make. I try and change the subject, cheer her up a bit with a (highly censored) resumé of last night’s rave-up at the club, but I can see she’s hardly listening. She’s in some other world, a dark and frightening world where every exit from the maze is a dead-end.
“At least it’s nice and sunny,” I say brightly. Wrong again. Norah is screwing up her eyes against the glare, doesn’t like the sun. I think she sees it like a searchlight in a prison.
I take her arm, lead her down the passage to the lift. While we wait for it, I read the list of rooms and services, floor-by-floor attractions: roof garden, play deck, health spa, Imperial Suites, Bridal Suite. Bridal Suite … I trace the letters, marvelling. That computer was right – a little premature, but right in essence. It was like a sign, a portent. Reuben believes in signs, believes everything is meant: our meeting, my Jewish name and blood, even his futile childhood in LA, which forged his revolutionary ideals, his need to fight, to break away from his parents’ trashy fashion business, and their attempts to be accepted as all-American secular materialists. He calls America New Babylon – and Israel home.
God! He’s going to hate the show. That’s materialism gone mad, Babylon on stage. It cost eleven million dollars just to put it on. Eleven million dollars squandered on tit-and-arse and light effects, with a few big cats thrown in. Reuben could redeem the world with eleven million bucks. Perhaps he’ll come just as a favour, our last big splash before the solemn rites. I smile again, at nothing. It’s not easy to be solemn when I’m all candy-floss inside.
It’s pretty gorgeous outside. Once we reach the street, I see that spring is in full stride – a truly golden day, sun burnishing the pavements, flowers in bloom in all the hotel flowerbeds, frothy white tulle clouds. I pick a flower, twine it in my hair. However much I try to keep my mind on serious things like saving worlds, or marriage vows, it keeps doubling back to orange blossom.
“You know that woman in the shop?”
“No,” says Norah.
“The wedding chapel shop. She was really quite a character. And she told me such a lot. I mean, she knew the reasons for all our wedding customs – why we throw confetti or old shoes, or put marzipan on wedding cakes. Well, actually she got it from a book; a really pricey one with all these glossy pictures. She kept trying to flog it to me, said it would give my wedding a whole new depth and meaning, but I ju
st didn’t have the money. I asked her about orange blossom and she looked it up for me, said it stood for happiness and fruitfulness, and also for innocence because the flowers are white. And she said if the bride wears it as a wreath, that’s a sort of funeral thing as well – dying to your old life and entering a new one. I was all ears, of course, since it fitted in with all the stuff we’d talked about – you know, the death of the old year, and a new start and everything. When she’d gone, I had a dekko at the book myself and it kept on mentioning death, which seemed a bit peculiar. But it said that in Greece and China, white was the colour of the spirit world and always worn at funerals. And I mean, when you come to think of it, all corpses wear white shrouds.”
I shiver a moment, despite the sun. Marriage is a sort of death, particularly this marriage. I have to die to my own country and background, even to my language, die to Jan and possibly to Norah; to all I know, all that’s safe and easy. And the word death is still my father’s shroud. Oh, Daddy … He should be there tonight, walking down the aisle with me, my orange-blossom dress symbolising his happiness, my fruitfulness, the dark Jewish grandchildren he’ll never even see. I squeeze Norah’s hand. My father would have liked her.
“Norah, you must come to Israel. If I have kids, I want you to be their grandma, or their godmother or aunt or something. We’ve got to stay together. This whole trip was meant, I know it was. I’m meeting Reuben later and the first thing I’ll mention will be you.”
Well, not quite the first. We’ll kiss first, I expect, and then he’ll tell me how incredible I was last night and how I’m naturally and wildly passionate and how he intends to use that passion, harness it, develop it and …
I try and shift the smug smile from my face, concentrate on Norah. “Listen, Norah, you can become a Jew, you know, even if you’re born a goy.” I use the word self-consciously. Reuben taught me my first words of Yiddish in the bath this morning, including some highly private lovers’ words which he said not to repeat. “I mean, it takes a while, of course, and you have to be accepted and go through various rituals and so on, but I’d be there, as well, going through them too. And Reuben’s made me see how vital a religion is, something to work for and believe in, and a community and heritage and …” I break off. Reuben made it vibrant and exciting. I need him here to inspire and rally me again, to provide me with the rousing words, to change Norah’s whey-faced stumbling to a victory march.
“Oh, look!” I shout. “Another wedding chapel.”
There are dozens of these chapels in Las Vegas, so I suppose it’s not surprising if we pass another one: one I hadn’t noticed on my morning’s recce. No great loss, in fact. It’s horrid – despite the flashing sign which boasts “Featured Internationally on Network Television!” The chapel doors swing open as we watch. A bride and groom are just emerging, though they’re not even arm in arm, but looking in opposite directions – he staring at the ground, she dodging the confetti being hurled by a fat and sullen adolescent girl. His child? Hers? They’re both old enough to have a teenage daughter. He’s bald, she’s greying, and neither of them have bothered to dress up. They’re both wearing jeans and she’s carrying a heavy leather handbag which looks quite wrong with her corsage of white flowers. I wish they’d smile. I wish somebody would smile. The child looks close to tears. No wonder. Kids are outcasts in Las Vegas.
I sidle up behind them, peer into the chapel. It’s tiled – yes, honestly, just like a public toilet, except the tiles are mauve and flowered. Actually, there’s a toilet bang next door, exactly matching, even down to its pale mauve loo-paper – handy, I suppose, for Big Day nerves, but really a bit off. Everything is heart-shaped, even the wastebin in the chapel, the guest-soap by the basin, and the lilac-coloured stepping stones which make a cutesy little path up to the door.
I sneak back across the stones before Norah sees the toilet and starts begging for a pee. She’s picking up confetti, grovelling on her knees for paper hearts and petals. They used to throw rice in the old days, so that lady in the shop said, as a symbol of fertility again. I’d be getting a bit worried about fertility myself, if Reuben hadn’t used a … a thing. That proves how much he cares. I mean, most men never bother, or say it’s like making love in waders. He made it quite exciting, got me to put it on – not just one, a packetful, by the time we’d finally (reluctantly) got into our clothes again.
Half of me is still back on his floor. Undressed. I just can’t help myself. It really was so special – our wedding night, our honeymoon. Yeah, we’re married already, in the most important sense. Reuben was right: we didn’t need rings or even chapels, just our naked passion, naked skins. I close my eyes. I want to keep those memories for ever, my own free wedding album – not coloured photos, smiling-stiff and posed, but black and white in the moonlight on the rug, humping, thrusting, all ways up, always in slow motion. I can feel his hands again. I’m sure he had more than just two hands, more than one hot mouth. Hands and tongue, hands and teeth, hands and …
“Where’s the dress?” Norah’s asking.
“Oh, not here. They haven’t got a shop here.” I open my eyes to a gigantic 3-D frankfurter (which looks like a stiff prick complete with yellow mustard sperm) circling round and round outside a take-away. What a sight to greet you as you step out of the chapel – an ejaculating sausage! And the reek of grease and onions blasting out your orange blossom. I turn my back on it, help Norah to her feet. (She’s brushing off the dirt from paper horseshoes.)
“No, ours is prettier than this, much prettier. It’s called the Veil of Peace – you know, a sort of pun: veil as in wedding veil.”
Norah looks confused again, so I take her arm and march her on. Actually, the names are quite a hoot. There’s the Hitching Post and the Happy Ever After, and the Chapel of the Hearts and Flowers (which has a huge red heart outside proclaiming “Cupid Lives Here”, then, smaller: “10 per cent handling charge on photographs. All cheques OK. NO PARKING”), and the Wee Kirk O’ the Heather, which has tartan decor, and even one called We’ve Only Just Begun. There were nearly sixty thousand weddings this last year in Vegas. If we’re lucky, ours will be the very first for this year – if we get that cancellation. The guy seemed fairly hopeful. He said the couple who booked the midnight slot have cancelled and re-booked three times already and he’s pretty sure the girl will call it off again. Gosh! She must be in a state – worse than me. I’m not really in a state, just excited. And scared a bit. Scared and thrilled. Scared and worried. Scared and gloating.
You don’t have to have a chapel. There’s this special service called Weddings on Wheels – “Have minister, will travel”. The Reverend travels anywhere. He went to Circus Circus to marry a couple sitting tandem on a roundabout-horse, and another on a real horse, halfway up a mountain. (They were married naked, which should appeal to Reuben. You can’t get much more basic than your birthday suit, and think how much you’d save.) He’s even tied the knot in county jails, when a bride or groom was doing time; or at airports when they’re changing planes and have only got five minutes, and one homely couple he married on a bus.
We’d better catch a bus ourselves. Norah’s flagging. I take her arm, jog her to the bus stop, and fifteen minutes later, we’re alighting at the Veil of Peace. I’m somehow disappointed. It looks smaller now, as if Norah’s fears have shrunk it, even spoilt it. Was the paint so faded, the sign so garish? It’s also far more crowded, people queuing to be married, mostly foreigners – Mexicans, Koreans, Japanese. I suppose their own native countries’ marriage laws are stricter. The only white-skinned bride-to-be is dressed in a full-length Lurex evening gown. The effect is rather spoilt by dirty white gym shoes showing underneath and the fag-end stuck between her lips.
I vowed to give up smoking, but perhaps I’ll wait now till we’ve settled down. After all, marriage is quite stressful. So is emigration. Though I’ve got to see the good side, remember Reuben’s point about a second chance. LA is called the City of the Second Chance, and it was fo
r Reuben’s parents, compared with their ghetto in New York. They made it in LA – though Reuben despises what they do there: the phony shallow fashion trade and his mother’s sideline, haute couture for dogs. He also hates Los Angeles itself – it’s lack of history, lack of culture, the importance of possessions and facades, the fear of growing old, the frenetic keeping up. He’s not that keen on Vegas, damns all Nevada as a barren poisoned state, good for nothing except testing missiles and dumping nuclear waste. His second chance will be in Tel Aviv. And mine.
I can start again in Israel – wipe out that shoplifting offence, pretend Beechgrove never happened, work for an ideal. Israel! Land of Milk and Honey. How beautiful that sounds. (Reuben called me milk and honey on the rug last night.) And home to both of us. He said when you enter Israel as a Jew, the immigration people hand you out a badge which says, simply, “I’ve come home.” I haven’t got a home now of my own, with my mother still in hospital and preferring gin to either milk or honey. I’ll be free at last, free of her and the fear of growing up like her, free from social workers and Jan’s bad-tempered landlord, free from scrounging or the dole. Reuben says they give you food and lodgings for absolutely nothing if you work in a kibbutz.
Norah needs a home as well, the first she’s ever had, a second chance after all those years of hospitals. She’s got to be included. I know she’s not that young or fit, but there are lots of things she’d do quite well, have the patience for – looking after children, for example. They could use her in a kibbutz where all the children live in common while their mothers work. She could be mother to my own kids while I’m out working with my husband.
Sin City Page 29
