No More Meadows

by Monica Dickens

  ‘I shan’t mind. I like the heat.’

  ‘Not this sort you won’t. It’s frantic.’

  ‘Well, don’t put me off,’ Christine said. ‘I’m looking forward to being married and living here.’

  ‘Sure you are, and I’m very glad you’re marrying my brother.’ Edna took off her hat and prodded at the heavy coffee-coloured knot of hair that was lodged precariously in the nape of her neck. Although she wore a mad hat and an expensive-looking dress, Christine was relieved to find that she was not a smart kind of person at all. She wore the wrong shade of yellowish powder on her crinkled monkey face. Her hair was untidy and full of unconcealed pins. Her nails were square and unvarnished and looked as if she did all her own laundry, and she walked with an odd little sideways stoop, which made her clothes sag.

  ‘I’ve been glad about you and Vinson ever since he wrote us the news,’ she said, sitting on the bed and kicking off her shoes. ‘You’ll excuse me, won’t you, but I bought new shoes for your wedding and they kill me. Vinson needs a wife. He should have gotten married long ago, though I want to tell you I’m glad he didn’t do it, because that girl was a tramp.’

  Christine did not ask: ‘What girl?’ She was not going to admit that Vinson had never told her.

  ‘Why does he need a wife?’ she asked, exploring the room, which had spindly modern furniture and a bed made up to look like an upholstered couch. ‘Oh, look what a lovely bathroom I’ve got.’

  ‘Kinda small,’ said Edna, squinting towards the bathroom door. She screwed up her face a lot, working it about as she talked as if it were rubber. ‘Why does he need a wife? Well, honey, what man doesn’t? But particularly in the Navy. There’s so much entertaining’ – Christine’s heart sank – ‘and then, you know, Vinson has been so much among other Navy men that he’s gotten to be – you’ll forgive me if I say it – just a little narrow.’ She screwed up her face very tightly and looked at Christine from under the loose puckered skin of her eyelids. Sometimes she looked about thirty-five; sometimes she looked fifty. She might have been any age.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Christine went to the window and rubbed on the glass, but the dirt was on the outside. Seven storeys below, a sprinkler had just gone by, and the endless cars were going swish, swish, swish along the wet black street.

  ‘I mean that he’s a little given to thinking that life begins and ends with the United States Navy,’ Edna said.’ He’s lived nearly forty years, and he knows a lot about his job, but not too much about what goes on outside it. He needs someone like you from a completely different world to freshen up his ideas a bit. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you like this when we’ve only just met, but we are practically sisters-in-law, and, anyway, I’ve never believed in two people wasting time walking around each other like a couple of dogs before they can get to know each other.’

  ‘I’m glad. I like you, Edna,’ Christine said, not feeling as shy as she would have if she had said this to a comparative stranger in England. ‘It’s a bit difficult, you know, getting married without any girl friends or anyone to back you up.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Edna said. ‘I ran away from home to marry Milt. He was in Kansas City, Missouri, and I don’t know a soul there. I tell you, I never was so unhappy. I cried like a fool on my wedding day.’ She laughed. Her teeth were white, but prominent and badly spaced. It seemed odd in this land of expert dentistry that they had not been properly fixed when she was younger.

  ‘I shall be terrified on my wedding day,’ Christine said. ‘I shan’t know anyone at my own wedding.’

  ‘You’ll know Vinson,’ Edna said. ‘I guess that’s about all that matters. You’ll be all right, hon. He’s a pretty nice guy. You love him, huh?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m marrying him.’

  ‘Swell. He and I have never known each other as well as we should. I guess he told you we were separated a lot after my parents were divorced, but I know enough about him to like him a whole lot, and I like him even better now that I see he was smart enough to pick someone like you.’

  There was a knock at the door and Vinson came in. ‘Hi, girls,’ he said. ‘What are you yattering about?’

  ‘We’re talking about you,’ Edna said, ‘and saying how smart you were to pick Christine.’

  Vinson’s face, which was more quick and tense in America than Christine remembered it in England, relaxed into one of its most loving smiles.

  ‘I think I was too,’ he said. He came over to Christine and put his arm round her shoulder and kissed her. ‘How do you like her, Edie? Don’t you think she’s marvellous?’ He rocked her back and forth, and Christine hung her head and smiled foolishly, feeling like a child being shown off to visitors.

  ‘She’s a honey,’ Edna said. ‘I’ve been telling her she’s much too good for you.’

  ‘I know it.’ Vinson kissed Christine again, and Edna said: ‘Well, I’ll be going, kids.’ She struggled into her shoes and picked up her hat. ‘What do you say we eat in about half an hour, Vinson? Milt’s on a new diet, and he has to space his calorie intake exactly, so don’t be later than you can help.’

  When she had gone, Vinson turned Christine round and kissed her long and properly for the first time since she had come to America. When he kissed her like this she knew why she had come three thousand miles.

  After a while he said: ‘If you’re going to change your dress, Christine, you’d better get around to it, or we’ll be late.’

  ‘I will in a minute. Edna won’t mind. She’s awfully nice, Vin.’

  ‘You’d better get changed now.’ He went to the mirror and straightened his tie and smoothed his hair. ‘It will be impolite to them if we’re late.’

  Christine, brought up with Roger, did not see how you could be impolite to a sister. The word in its social sense had no place in her family vocabulary.

  ‘You’ve had your hair cut again, darling,’ she said. ‘Why do you wear it so short?’

  ‘Of course, I’ve had it cut for my wedding. A naval officer doesn’t go around looking like a bear.’

  ‘It could be a bit longer without looking like a bear. It’s awfully short. You’ve got a nice shaped head, and you ought to make the most of it.’

  He glanced sideways at the mirror to see the shape of his head. ‘This is regulation length,’ he said.’ My goodness, I’d like to see the Admiral’s face if I turned up at my wedding with it any longer than this.’

  ‘Oh,’ Christine said. ‘Is the Admiral coming?’

  ‘I believe he might,’ said Vinson, with reverent hope.

  At dinner he talked to Edna about the wedding plans. Milt talked to Christine, asking her how she liked America and applauding her unremarkable answers.

  When the food came he poured tomato sauce all over his steak and said: ‘This is a bit different to English austerity, isn’t it? You ever see anything like this before?’

  ‘If we did, it would be the week’s ration for two people,’ Christine said. She had discovered on the boat that this was always a sure-fire statement to interest Americans.

  ‘If they’d only pull their socks up over there they could eat like this any day of the week,’ Milt said.’ Look at the Germans. The British could take a lesson from them in recovery.’

  Vinson had been half listening to their conversation while he talked to Edna. He was conscious of Christine all the time when they were with other people. ‘Watch your step, Milt,’ he said. ‘Be careful what you say about England.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Milt. ‘Christine and I are friends. I think she’s just the most wonderful person I’ve met in ages. You don’t mind anything I say, do you, Christine? There – aren’t you cute? Of course you don’t. Let me tell you, I think Britain’s just the finest country.’

  He seemed only to have superlative adjectives in his vocabulary. Everything was the finest he had ever seen – the food, the wine Vinson had chosen, Christine’s dress. She wondered if he was like this at home. Did he tell Edna all the time how
wonderful she was? And, if so, did it sound more sincere than all the praise he was throwing around now?

  She also was conscious of Vinson all the time. Accepting the encomiums with which Milt sought to make up for his criticism of Britain’s post-war effort, she was half listening to the conversation between Vinson and his sister.

  ‘Oh, not Aunt Felice,’ she heard him say. ‘She can’t come to the wedding.’

  ‘She must, Vinson. She wants to come, and she’d come, anyway, whatever anyone said.’

  ‘Oh no, I can’t have Aunt Felice there.’ Vinson frowned.

  ‘Why not?’ Christine asked.

  ‘Well-’ He spread his hands and laughed self-consciously. ‘Well, she – she’s not quite the type of person one should ask one’s guests to meet.’

  ‘He means she’s nuts,’ said Edna, biting crisply into cole slaw.

  Christine did not see that it mattered. Nearly every family had at least one odd relation. If she had been married in England there would have been Great Aunt Isobel, who would have had to be kept from the champagne, and probably that weird, hymn-singing housekeeper of Uncle Leonard’s, who everyone thought was his wife, and should be, if she wasn’t.

  Vinson was quite put out about Aunt Felice. He brooded until the dessert, which was pie with ice-cream. Milt wanted to eat it, but Edna would not let him. He did not tell her that she was the most wonderful woman he had ever met. He told her that she was a goddamn interfering woman, and Edna laughed and told him that he was no better than a greedy hog. Christine liked that. She was used to that kind of amiable family abuse. It was the way her father and Aunt Josephine used to talk to each other.

  Vinson did not like it. Christine took his hand and said: ‘Don’t worry, darling, I won’t ever talk to you like that. You shall eat all the pie you want.’

  ‘Vinson doesn’t have to worry about his front. He has just the loveliest figure I’ve ever seen on a man,’ Milt said, and Vinson cheered up and squeezed Christine’s hand.

  After dinner they went for a nightcap to the cocktail bar, where a woman was aggravating the drinkers by playing on a Hammond organ. Sometimes she played on the organ with one hand and on a near-by piano with the other, and that was worse. You could not talk against the organ, and Vinson soon suggested that, in view of the wedding tomorrow, it was time to retire.

  He went up with Christine to her room. ‘I mustn’t stay long,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a big day ahead of you.’

  ‘I wish you could stay all night,’ Christine said. She liked to shock him, because now that she was his bride, and English to boot, he thought that she should be so proper.

  The upholstered couch had been miraculously made into a bed, and they sat on it and began to talk seriously, suddenly realizing what they were approaching tomorrow.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not making a mistake?’ Vinson kept saying. ‘Are you sure you love me? Do you love me more than any other man you’ve ever known? Have you ever loved another man, Christine? We’ve had so little time together, you haven’t told me these things.’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘It does matter. Tell me.’ But when she began to tell him about Jerry he did not really want to hear. He dismissed it as: ‘Romantic sentiment. You were just a kid. Don’t try and make me jealous of a dead man.’

  ‘I’m not. You asked me.’ Christine stood up. Her tears for Jerry were finished long ago. This was no time to have them brought out again from the grave where they were buried with him. She took a deep breath and turned round, making herself smile.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ she said, ‘what about that girl you nearly married, who Edna said was a tramp? You’ve never told me about her.’

  ‘I’d have gotten round to it,’ he said. He told her about the girl to whom he had once been engaged. He told her at some length, although she did not want to hear. It was long dead and buried, and it did not sound as if it had ever amounted to very much, but he took it seriously. Apparently he could have a romance in his past. Christine could not.

  She grew tired of hearing about the girl, whose improbable name had been Amarella. She came back to the bed and took Vinson’s tight-skinned face in her hands and kissed him. ‘Never mind about Umbrella,’ she said lightly. ‘I don’t expect you to have reached the age of thirty-eight without being in love with other women besides me. You can tell me about the others another time.’

  ‘Make a nice topic for evenings at home,’ he said, looking up brightly, and they both laughed, and kissed again and liked each other. When he left her she went to bed and slept untroubled by the misgivings that are supposed to assail every girl on her last night alone as a single woman.

  She did not see Vinson the next morning. She wanted to see him, but he was very strict about the bridegroom not seeing the bride before the wedding.

  ‘No one will know,’ Christine had said. ‘You could just come along to the hotel and say hullo.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be right. I’ll see you at the church, darling.’

  On the morning of her wedding Christine wanted Aunt Josephine very badly. How Aunt Jo would have enjoyed bringing her a special breakfast in bed, passing a warm iron once more over the little veil of her hat, helping her to dress, dashing at her with a needle and cotton for last-minute adjustments.

  The chambermaid was in and out of the room, because she was old and forgotten and a bride excited her, and Edna came in to help Christine to dress, but it was not the same. At this last moment of leaving her old life she wanted someone from the old life to cling to.

  Edna was very kind. She was wearing a brown printed silk dress which matched her complexion, and her face looked more creased than ever. It was one of those faces which take a long time to recover from sleep. She helped Christine to pack, she fluffed out her hair at the back under the little white hat, and said that her blue-and-white dress was just darling.

  Christine had learned from Vinson not to say: ‘Oh, it’s nothing much’, but: ‘Thank you. I’m glad you like it.’ She still felt conceited saying it, however.

  Vinson had sent her gardenias to wear and a posy of gardenias to carry. She pinned on the flowers and held the posy in front of her, and stood in front of the long mirror behind the cupboard door and thought: A bride. Well, I suppose I look it.

  All her life, ever since she was old enough to read fairy tales, she had imagined herself as a bride and dreamed the dream of being dressed up and acting the part of the central figure on the greatest day of her life. Now that the day was here at last the reality was not as real to her as the dream had been. She was too nervous to take in everything that was going on. After the short ceremony, when Vinson kissed her on the church steps for the photographers, she found that she had hardly noticed what had happened in the flower-filled room of the rectory. She would like to have it all over again so that she could pay proper attention to the responses she made, and to the injunctions the bald, spectacled priest laid on them. She could not remember what he had said. All she remembered was Vinson’s cool hand holding her hot one, and being suddenly afire with shame when she thought he was going to stumble over a response.

  They posed for a group photograph, with Milt wearing his huge buttonhole and sweating at the forehead and Edna in a surrealistic hat, and Art Lee, the best man, with a crew cut, a rigid stance, and hands clenched by the trouser seams.

  Christine smiled for the photographers and hoped that Vinson was smiling. She hardly dared to look at him now that he was her husband. He had suddenly become someone else. He had taken over the place of her own independent self on whom

  she had always had to rely. The Catholic Church had made him a part of herself, and she was as shy of looking at him as one is of seeing oneself in the mirror when one is not quite sure how a new dress will look.

  They stood by the door of the hotel reception-room and shook hands with some hundred people who all looked the same to Christine. The women looked at her curiously, and the men, who were mostly in naval uniform, clap
ped Vinson on the upper part of his arm and said something hearty. It was like a wedding in England, except that none of the guests were shy. They all knew what to say to the bride. They said: ‘I’m so happy to meet you’, or: ‘I’m certainly glad to know you’, as if they meant it.

  The Admiral did not say that. Admiral Hamer was a small, pouchy man with a domed bald head and irritable eyes, who spoke only in grunts. Vinson saw him coming three couples away in the receiving line, and became distrait and could not concentrate on the guest he was speaking to. When the Admiral arrived before them grunting, Vinson almost fell over himself with deference. Christine was afraid for a moment that he was going to bow from the waist.

  The Admiral appeared to be cross at having been dragged to a wedding on a Saturday morning. He did not look at Christine. His wife did, however. She looked her up and down, her eyes calculating behind her long-toothed social smile. She was a spare, unyielding woman, with a hard black straw hat like a Gilbert and Sullivan sailor, and a complexion that looked as if she had spent more hours on the bridge than the Admiral.

  Vinson was delighted that they had come; although for all they contributed to the gaiety of nations, Christine thought they might as well have stayed at home. When she was beginning to enjoy herself, drinking champagne and talking to Vinson’s friends, who were all very nice to her and very easy to talk to, Vinson kept telling her to go and talk to the Admiral’s wife, who was standing in a corner with an untasted glass of champagne, holding court among a few sycophantic women whose husbands were worried about their promotion.

  ‘Must I?’ Christine said. ‘I don’t want to. I shan’t know what to say to her.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just be charming. I want her to like you. She can matter a lot to our future, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t know wives ran the Navy. Though I suppose if the Admiral can only grunt, someone has to do the talking.’

  Vinson shushed her, and Art Lee, who was standing near, said: ‘Wait till you’ve been in the Navy a while. You’ll see what Vin means.’