Mum and Dad have had a wonderful life together, so it’s no wonder they want to mark the occasion of their marriage with this ceremony today.
It’s not going to be overblown. Mum and Dad don’t do overblown. If you’re looking for people who enjoy a lavish and gaudy lifestyle, you’ve come to the wrong place.
You can see that’s the case when I pull my Fiesta up next to Dad’s thirty-year-old BMW – which he has lovingly cared for all these years. It looks brand new compared to my bloody car.
And when we get inside, you’ll see that the house’s interior hasn’t been changed in years either, but still looks like it was put together yesterday.
When Mum answers the door, she looks equally like she was put together yesterday. I’ve obviously caught her in a very happy and upbeat mood. Which is no surprise, given what I’m here for today.
‘Hello, sweetheart!’ she says, giving me a huge hug.
‘Careful, Mum! You’ll wrinkle your dress,’ I reply, as she squeezes the life out of me. I haven’t seen her for a few weeks, but you’d think it was a few years, given the strength of the hug.
‘Oh nonsense. It’ll be perfectly fine. It has been every other time I’ve worn it.’ She pats the front of the cream dress almost affectionately. It doesn’t appear to have suffered any creasing. My suit might be a different matter, though.
‘Leonard! Your son and heir has arrived!’ Mum calls back through the house’s expansive hallway.
With a cheesy grin on his face, my father appears from the kitchen, also bedecked in a suit. This is the same suit he’s had for twenty years – and it looks as pristine as the car does.
‘Oliver! About time you got here, my boy. Everything’s just about ready, and I really want to get going before the vicar keels over.’
‘Leonard! Don’t say such a thing!’ Mum says in mock horror.
‘Daphne, the man is three hundred and seventeen years old. I have no doubt he feels as close to Jesus as he says he does, because he knew him personally.’
‘Leonard!’ Mum shrieks. ‘That’s awful!’
Dad wraps his arms around her. ‘I know. But you love me anyway, don’t you?’ He leans in and starts to kiss her theatrically on the neck.
This is my father ninety-seven per cent of the time. A man unafraid to tell a bad joke – and openly show his love for his wife.
Mum giggles and pushes him away. ‘Stop it! We have to get on!’
Dad rolls his eyes. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Vicar Simpkins has one foot in the grave. I’d like to get these vows renewed before he plants the other one in there too.’ Dad grabs me by one arm. ‘Come on, son! We have to hurry before this vow renewal turns into a funeral!’
I allow my father to drag me along the hallway, through the kitchen and out into the largest garden I’ve ever been in.
It’s the reason my parents bought this house in the first place. They fell in love with it almost as quickly as they fell in love with each other. Encircling the house, the garden is getting on for an acre in size, and is landscaped to within an inch of its life. A large circular grass lawn is ringed by exquisitely maintained flowerbeds, containing rose bushes, lavender, chrysanthemums, the legendary geraniums – and a whole heap of other plants I don’t know the name of. They’re very colourful and pretty in the sun, though, that’s one thing I’m sure about.
At the rear of the garden, they’ve allowed Mother Nature to have free rein, and there are some gorgeous wildflowers back there, nestling among the trees, through which you can see the sea beyond. I built many a fort and treehouse down there. There’s still some evidence of their existence if you look hard enough, and don’t mind poking around the undergrowth for old planks of wood and a few rusty nails.
Today, a gazebo has been set up at the back of the lawn. In front of this are several rows of chairs, each one of them occupied by Mum and Dad’s friends. I also see my Aunt Jean and Uncle Harry – who I will probably have to speak to at some point, whether I like it or not. Jean is Mum’s sister, and has been jealous of her for sixty years. Any conversation I have with them usually consists of her telling me how much they enjoy spending all the money they have. I could tell them that this wouldn’t make Mum or Dad jealous in the slightest, given that they’ve never cared one jot about being rich. Jean’s never realised that she’s jealous of Mum just because Mum is happy. I fear if she did, it might kill her.
My own anxieties are confirmed when I see that I am indeed the only person here without a partner. I will have to sit next to an empty seat throughout the ceremony.
Speaking of which, I’d better get my arse parked on that seat, because that vicar really does look like he’s about to die and fall over into the begonias.
I sit down in the chair in the back row as Mum and Dad step under the gazebo together. I try very hard to concentrate on them, and not the empty chair beside me.
The vicar, who has a very strong and clear voice for such a frail man, opens proceedings with a little speech. It’s the usual ‘we are gathered here today’ gumph that we’ve all seen and heard a thousand times. Even Mum and Dad look a little impatient. Neither of them are religious, but they are of a generation who value the customs of the land – even if those customs go on a little too long and sound quite dry.
Eventually, the vicar reaches the end of his spiel, and we get to the important bit.
Mum and Dad told me they were creating their own vows for today, and you’re about to get a good insight into how I have the skills to be a writer.
It’s Mum who starts. And I want you to bear in mind that none of this is written down anywhere.
‘Leonard . . . I cannot imagine a life without you. These forty years have been everything I hoped they’d be when I first said my vows at our wedding. You are kind. You are gracious. You are constant.’ A few of the ladies in front of me are already reaching for their tissues. ‘You are my rock. My guiding star. My life is only filled with light because you shine next to me.’ Jesus. I’m starting to fill up now. ‘I have been by your side for forty years, and I will be there for all the years to come, and beyond. I love you, my Leonard. I love you with all of my heart.’
I wipe the tears away with my hand and begin to wish I’d brought a handkerchief with me.
Now it’s Dad’s turn – and, if anything, he’s even more eloquent than Mum.
‘Dear Daphne. I tried to come up with the right words to tell you how much I love you. But they would not come. Because there are no words to express how I feel about you. Not even God himself could utter them, because my love for you goes beyond even Him.’ Where Mum goes for the simple sentiment, Dad goes more for the theatrical. ‘Without you I would be an ocean without land, a voice without a soul, a plant without soil.’ Oh. That’s very nice. Getting a mention of gardening in. That’ll please Mum.
Sure enough, I can see her starting to cry now too.
‘I would renew my vow of love to you every day like this, if I could,’ Dad continues. ‘But I would struggle to find the words every day. So instead, I will show you how much I love you by my actions, by doing everything I can to make you feel safe, loved and happy in the rest of our lives together.’
Oh Christ.
He said all that from his heart. Not a cue card in sight.
For a moment, I feel my breath being taken away. The scale of it all makes me light-headed. How much love can there be between these two people, that they can speak like that so easily, so openly, so from the heart?
What must it be like to be that in love? To be that perfect for one other? To have found the right person to share your entire life with?
It’s something I want so, so much for myself . . . but the harder I try to find it, the more elusive it becomes.
Through tears that are just as much about my own misery as they are about my parents’ happiness, I glance over at the geranium I bought that day in the garden centre, after my confrontation with Sam. It really is very bushy.
And wh
ile I’m staring at it, something clicks in my head.
Something fundamental.
Something unbearably true.
This is what I want. This is what I’m chasing. This is what I’ve been desperate for all of my life. The kind of effortless and towering love that my parents have for each other.
I pushed so hard at my relationship with Sam because I was trying to recreate what I see in front of me right now. The perfect romance.
My parents have given me nothing but love, care and affection my entire life – but they’ve also provided me with an example of what love can be, that I can never hope to match. No matter how hard I try.
I am pathologically addicted to finding the love of my life, because that’s what my mother and father did all those years ago.
And it’s ruining me.
My hands start to shake, and I can feel my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The rest of the ceremony is blocked out as I sit there, looking at my parents, but seeing absolutely nothing.
This is the revelation that Troy the imaginary elephant was trying to force upon me. This is what the bloody geraniums were all about.
And I didn’t need to even speak to my mother and father to realise it. I just had to hear them speak to each other – in words of love that were as wonderful as they were awful. Wonderful because that’s the way they feel about each other, and awful because they are words I may never get to say or hear.
I just about manage to compose myself through the rest of proceedings. It’s not like I’m the only one blubbing, anyway. Just about everyone has been reduced to tears by the vows my parents have just exchanged. I’m probably the only one whose tears are as much about their own pain as they are about happiness for Mum and Dad’s love for one another, though.
I give Mum and Dad the biggest hug imaginable when the ceremony is over, and the vicar has gratefully gone to sit down in the shade. Of course, I don’t tell them about the disturbing revelation I’ve just had about myself, and them. That’d just ruin their special day completely.
I don’t need to force them into a potentially uncomfortable conversation any more. It appears the conversation I had with myself in that bloody tank was all I really needed. Sitting next to the geraniums, watching my parents, was the final extra push required to get me to face up to the truth.
When they suggest I spend the night in my old room, I immediately agree.
I feel comprehensively drained of all energy by the time Mum and Dad are saying goodbye to the rest of the guests, and can think of nothing more pleasant than spending the night in the room I spent my childhood in. It was always a comfy bed back then, and I’m sure it’s just as comfy now.
‘Are you okay, sweetheart?’ Mum says to me as the three of us sit in front of the TV later that evening. I’m supposed to be watching Escape to the Country with them both, but am in fact just staring ahead into space, still mulling over the epiphany I had earlier.
‘What?’ I reply, startled out of my reverie. ‘Oh. Yes. I’m fine, Mum. Just a little tired.’
‘Are you sure? You look like you have something on your mind.’
I open my mouth. Then close it again.
For the briefest of moments, I feel like telling them both everything. But I stop myself, because I don’t want to ruin what has been a very pleasant day for them.
Besides what exactly would I say?
I feel miserable as sin, because you have the perfect marriage, and I’ve ruined my own relationships trying to emulate it?
I think that there must be something wrong with me, because I can’t achieve what you two have had all of your lives, with no effort?
Oh yes. That’d go down really well, wouldn’t it?
‘I’m just tired, Mum,’ I eventually say. ‘I think I might go up to bed.’
‘Okay, sweetheart,’ she replies, her brow creased with concern.
I stand up and walk over to the door. ‘It really was a wonderful ceremony,’ I tell them.
‘And the vicar didn’t die even once!’ Dad says with a snort.
‘Leonard!’ Mum exclaims in mild shock.
I smile at them both and take my leave, trudging up the stairs with a heavy heart.
Lying in my childhood bed (which is indeed still comfortable, if a little small for me, now I’m in my thirties), I stare up at the ceiling for what feels like hours, turning everything over in my head.
And the central questions I keep coming back to are . . . Why can’t I have what my parents have? Why do I keep getting dumped? What’s wrong with me?
Eventually, I fall into a fitful sleep. In it, I dream of golf balls and geraniums. Of Wendy houses and baby deer. Of rollercoasters and car parks.
But most of all, I dream of Sam, riding an elephant off into the distance . . . without me.
I am woken the next morning by the sounds of banging.
And raised voices.
I’ve woken up in this house to the first sound many times. Dad likes to attempt DIY every now and again, when enough time has passed for him to forget that he’s not very good at it. He may have green fingers, but he definitely doesn’t have an eye for a spirit level or hammer.
I have never woken up to the second noise, though.
Raised voices downstairs can mean only one thing – something dreadful has happened. Mum and Dad are two of the most placid and laid-back people on earth, so there must be some kind of emergency!
I leap out of bed and throw my clothes on in what feels like a split second. I then hurry out of my bedroom, across the landing and down the broad flight of stairs.
‘Mum! Dad!’ I holler, fear and panic in my voice. Something awful must be happening!
I storm towards the kitchen, fearing that I’m about to see some sort of hideous accident. Maybe Mum has put her hand in the blender, or maybe Dad has somehow managed to impale himself on a bread knife.
A whole series of dreadful images shuttle across my brain as I rush down the hallway. I can still hear Mum and Dad’s raised voices, but I’m not paying much attention to what they’re actually saying, such is the sense of impending dread that has overcome me.
‘Mum! Dad! Are you okay?’ I wail as I speed through the kitchen door, expecting to see blood everywhere.
However, instead of finding my parents locked in a death struggle with a pair of maniacal burglars, I find them stood in front of the hob, with a boiled egg between them. I can tell the egg is boiled, because there’s a pot of bubbling water on the front hob, and steam rising from the egg itself.
It isn’t even a gigantic boiled egg, imbued with murderous sentience, and about to kill the two most important people in my life. It’s just a regular old boiled egg, sat on the spoon that Dad is holding in front of him.
Mum has her hands placed firmly on her hips and a look of fury on her face. Dad also looks like he’s about to bust a blood vessel.
What the hell is going on here?
What could that boiled egg have possibly done to incur such wrath from my parents?
I mean, boiled eggs are possibly the most harmless thing on the planet. They’re even more harmless than an unboiled egg, which at least has the potential to give you food poisoning if not cooked properly. A boiled egg, on the other hand, has had any danger comprehensively removed by the boiling process. Its only capacity to cause any real harm has been taken away from it. About the only way you could now make the boiled egg dangerous is to throw it, but unless it’s a hard-boiled egg, then it couldn’t do much damage anyway, could it? And my father likes a soft-boiled egg, so we can safely rule out its effectiveness as a ballistic weapon.
No.
I have no idea why I’ve developed this sudden obsession with the lethality or otherwise of your average boiled egg, either.
Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that both of my parents look extremely angry – and I’m having trouble processing it, as I’ve never seen it before.
‘Good morning, Oliver,’ Mum says, still looking angry as all hel
l and back.
‘Hello, son,’ Dad intones, the boiled egg quivering on the spoon a little.
Why do they both look so mad?
‘What’s the matter?’ I ask them. ‘Has the boiled egg done something?’
‘What?’ Mum and Dad say in perfect unison.
I point at the boiled egg. ‘The boiled egg. Has it done something to make you both angry?’
This is how alien it is to see my parents looking angry around one another. I am perfectly willing to accept that a non-sentient, softly boiled egg is the cause of their anger, rather than anything else. The concept of them being angry at each other is completely impossible. It just doesn’t happen.
No. It must be the boiled egg.
Mum and Dad seem to forget their towering rage for a moment and both stare down at the boiled egg as if it’s about to leap at one of their throats. They then both turn back and look at me, mirroring the same expression of confusion as they do so.
‘It’s a boiled egg, son,’ Dad says. ‘It can’t make anybody angry.’
‘It could if you threw it at them,’ I reply, knowing full well that I’ve now dragged my father into my boiled egg obsession.
‘Are you feeling alright, Oliver?’ Mum asks.
‘Um. . . no. I heard you both shouting. I thought something was really wrong.’
Mum then glares at Dad. ‘Something is really wrong, son! And I’m sorry we woke you up because of it!’
‘Is it the boiled egg?’ I ask.
What the hell is wrong with me? I need to get off the boiled egg talk and fast, before my nearest and dearest have me committed.
‘It’s got nothing to do with my ruddy boiled egg, son!’ Dad snaps, and drops the offending article on to the counter top, where it breaks, allowing the soft yolk to run out.
You see? No ballistic integrity at all. The egg would just break open, and all you’d do is cover your assailant in runny egg yo—
‘Your father is being intolerable again, Oliver!’
Dad gasps. ‘I’m being intolerable??’
Dumped, Actually Page 23
