by Anita Heiss
At midnight the fireworks went off over the bridge. They were beautiful, but I couldn't help thinking that they had cost $2 million, and yet there were people living in the streets of Sydney, Aboriginal communities without decent facilities, and soup kitchens that could use that kind of funding. I hesitated, but then voiced my concern to Paul. He agreed, adding, 'And what about what it does to the environment?' I hadn't spoiled the moment – he felt the same way! We kissed away the fireworks and toasted each other and the New Year. The year I would probably get engaged, and move another step closer to becoming Mrs Right. Mrs Alice Aigner- Right.
twenty-two
Someone else's wedding
'Rise and shine, princess, big day today.' Paul was more excited than Bianca probably was. He tickled my face with kisses to wake me.
'Can you kiss my knees instead?'
'It's seven-thirty, you better get up if we're going to be on the road by nine.' He kissed my breast lightly and pulled me out of bed.
One thing that both impressed and irritated me about Paul was his ability to organise. I soon understood how my own scheduling of everything pissed other people off. Paul was always on time and always thinking ahead.
'I've already got petrol, packed a little something to nibble on in the car, and left enough space in my bag for you to put most of your gear into. No point in taking two bags, is there? Oh, I've also got a spare suit bag for your dress.' I wasn't sure if I was annoyed or appreciative.
The phone rang and he answered it in five seconds flat.
'It's Liza – she wants to know what time we're picking her and Luke up. I said ten past nine. What do you think?' He'd already told her what time, so I didn't know why he was asking me. I really wished Liza would get a car, I was always chauffering her around. But because Paul was perfect, he'd never complain about something so insignificant as giving someone a lift somewhere. I had to stop being so negative.
'Nine-ten is fine, sweetheart.'
Dannie and George had left the eastern suburbs before us, having to drop the kids off at his parents' on the way. It was the kind of extra organisation that Paul would be great at. No doubt about it, he'd be an excellent father. Liza, Luke, Paul and I made our own fun driving out west, laughing like adolescents at the name 'Rooty Hill' and singing along to some old hits by Racey, Amii Stewart and Blondie along the way. 'The Tide is High' brought back memories of a trip to Fiji for Liza and me, and we threw each other a glance, thinking of fun times in our younger days, back when we really were happy to be single. I liked Liza's man Luke, though: he was really laid-back. A little rough around the edges, but a downto- earth kinda guy – a good match for Liza, who didn't handle bourgeouis bullshit well. I could fake handling it when I had to. It was a requirement of working in a private school.
'We should all take a trip somewhere together!' Liza shouted. I saw an immediate flash of doubt cross her face, as she realised that we'd only been seeing these fellas for a short while. Luke and I were both quick to agree with her, even if we didn't quite mean it, and I gave him brownie points for being smart enough to take what Liza said seriously and act interested. Paul, on the other hand, remained silent. Was he thinking it was too early to make plans together?
'What about you, babe? Not interested in a trip to the tropics?' I needed to know. After all, I was in this relationship for the long haul.
'Oh, yes, of course – it's just that I'm not that big on flying.' He wasn't at all convincing.
'Have a few drinks!' Liza and I chorused, sounding like the complete lushes that we were. Paul laughed, but didn't say anything else. I was still curious, but didn't push it.
We had a pit stop so Liza and I could talk about the boys.
'So, Luke's nice, Liza,' I called to her from my cubicle as we both peed.
'So's Paul. He's really generous and friendly. Dannie thinks so too.' So the girls had been gossiping, fair enough. Would've been more worried if they'd had nothing to say about him.
'Did you notice he hesitated about your idea of a trip? He didn't seem keen to me.' I was worried, and it would play on my mind until we'd cleared it up.
'Al, don't go over-analysing again. He was probably just concentrating on the traffic.' I thought that a strange response from a non-driver, but she was probably right.
We arrived at Rooty Hill around ten-thirty and went straight to our hotel, not far from where the ceremony would be held.
Paul and I spent the afternoon getting ready: him resting and me doing my nails, hair and make-up. I wore a slinky red dress with the highest heels I'd ever owned. Peta had loaned me a diamond necklet and earrings and I felt like a million dollars.
As I held my hair up, Paul did up the clasp on the necklet.
'Do you really not like flying?' I was going to get to the bottom of this. I had to know whether we'd ever be able to take a trip together or not.
'You look beautiful.' He smiled as he took me in with his eyes.
'Flying?'
'Short flights are okay, like in Australia, but I wouldn't be keen to go much further.'
'What about Broome?' I asked. I'd always wanted to stay at Cable Beach Club and ride a camel along the sand at sunset.
'Yeah, Broome, I'd love to go there and ride a camel.' Everything automatically seemed all right again.
'You know it's quicker to fly to Noumea than to Broome,' I said, 'so we could still do the Pacific with Liza and Luke.' Actually, I thought, we could do both over the next couple of years.
Paul looked doubtful again. 'It's the flying over masses of water that frightens me. What if we crash?'
'We've got more chance of survival crashing into the water than into the desert between here and Broome.' He and I both knew I was right, but we didn't have time to argue – we had to leave for the wedding.
***
The ceremony took place at Watt's Cottage. Paul told us that it had been built at the turn of the century by Frank Watt, a descendant of the original white settlers in the Rooty Hill area. I smiled back at Liza and Dannie, proud that my man was a walking fount of trivia. I think Liza felt a little put out, as I usually relied on her for such details. She couldn't keep her hands off Luke, though, so she was over it pretty quickly. Dannie and George seemed to be soaking up their time away from the kids, enjoying just being a couple for a while. Dannie actually looked our age again, and not really grown-up, as married women with kids often do. Bianca had started looking that way from the moment she got engaged.
As we stood around waiting for the bride, Liza and I tried to dodge the hateful stares of the women from the hens' night who'd been off ended by Liza's outbursts and our drunken antics. The cake-cooker sure as hell hated Liza, and only managed to throw me a barely-there smile. I was hoping that no-one would say anything to Paul about my community-service-to-youth at the Retro Club that night.
The bride arrived in a black Cadillac that oozed class and style and I wondered what had happened to the daggy hen I'd seen walking through the city with a veil and sixteen henners a few weeks before. Her father helped her out of the car and the entire group took a deep breath in awe.
Bianca wore a long, sleeveless silk dress with a sweetheart neckline and a fitted bodice with little pearls that matched the ones in her ears. Her long white satin gloves and long chiffon shawl draped across her décolletage and flowing down the length of her dress were impressively elegant. Bianca looked angelic as she carried her bouquet of white lilies and beamed at Ben, her groom, waiting anxiously for his wife-to-be. Just before she reached him, though, he pulled up both trouser legs to reveal one blue and one gold sock. Most of the men cheered. Dannie laughed, but I didn't get the joke.
'What's it mean? I don't get it,' I whispered in Liza's ear. She just shrugged – she didn't get it either.
The ceremony was romantic and sincere; tissues dabbed eyes all round me. Paul had his arm around my waist and leaned over to whisper in my ear, 'You'll make a beautiful bride.' I tilted my head to meet his peck on my cheek, happy, but t
hought to myself, 'Will it be by the time I'm thirty?'
As the bride and groom left to have their photos taken, the six of us went straight to the reception centre. The venue was the local club, and pre-dinner drinks consisted of schooners and Barcardi Breezers in one of the many bars – we could take our pick. The guys went hunting for the best bar for us easternsuburbs types in full wedding regalia. We settled for the unbelievably named 'Rooters Bar' – the only one that didn't have footy TAB and card machines ringing in the background.
Before long, most of the other wedding guests had made their way to Rooters Bar, too, but we kept to ourselves, making small talk, reliving the ceremony and discussing the bride's outfit. I was conscious, though, of the single women guests looking awkward and out of place. I'd never understood why wedding invites weren't automatically extended to partners – at least for those who wouldn't know anyone else attending. One or two women were obviously by themselves; I smiled at one, who stopped to talk.
'Hi, I'm Tara. I'm actually here by myself, do you mind if I hang with you guys? I'm feeling a bit awkward.' God, I felt for her. I'd been there before.
'Sure, no worries. I think there's a couple of other women in the same boat. We're on table seven if you want to change your place card around too.'
She appeared to be glad about that, and brought one or two other girls into our circle. I patted myself on the back for not becoming one of those 'I've got a man now, so the rest of the single world can drop off ' kind of women. I'd lost count of the times I'd been at weddings by myself and had to make small talk until the bridal waltz was done and I could leave.
After a few drinks, Liza and I were soon giggling like schoolgirls. Dannie was getting a bit of a glow up as well, but it had taken her several days to recover from the hens' night and she'd vowed to take it slower at the wedding. Luke seemed like a bit of a boozer and downed at least five schooners while we waited (I was counting). My Paul just smiled and organised everyone, and George sipped a couple of bourbons.
When we were finally ushered into the reception room, Liza and I burst into laughter, turned to each other, and said, 'You've got to be kidding.' Ben, Bianca's now-husband, was a minor league player for the Parramatta Eels, and the colours of the decorations were blue and gold. Blue and gold serviettes on every table, blue and gold candle centrepieces, blue and gold balloons forming an arch along the wall behind the bridal table. It looked like Grand Final night. We both looked at each other and said, 'The socks.'
'Don't be bitches. It's Bianca's day, she can have it any way she likes,' Dannie said.
She was right, of course, but Liza and I were both gobsmacked that the classy bride had not only endorsed the decorations, but helped to put them up. It got worse: as we headed to our table, right up the back, we passed a champagne-glass pyramid.
Before sitting down, Liza moved a few name tags around and made sure the few people there who liked us were on our table. We didn't want too many single pretty ones, though: we were both new to our relationships and didn't need any outside competition this early on.
Seated, we waited for something decent to drink, as music started to play in the background. Regurgitator followed Powderfinger followed Silverchair and Something for Kate. Even Paul commented on the unusual repertoire for a wedding dinner.
Liza, Dannie and I got stuck into the carafes of wine on the table, until Paul offered to save us from the dreadful hangover the cheap wine would bring on. We put down our glasses of moselle in shame as he walked off into the fluorescent light towards the bar. 'He is gorgeous', I said, as much to myself as to the girls, who agreed with me.
I couldn't take my eyes off him, admiring his rounded butt in his tuxedo. Thankfully George and Luke had worn tuxes, too, or we'd all have had to leave. They were the only men attired so formally, and the girls and I were all dressed to the hilt. Collectively we stuck out like sore thumbs.
Liza and I carried on bitching about the appalling decorations, the cheapness of things and the lack of class we saw as inherent in the western suburbs. Dannie was disgusted. She was always telling us about the snobbery in her Paddington street, and now she became a vocal advocate for the 'down-to-earth suburbanites', Bianca and Ben.
'For someone who works in community law, Liza, you can be incredibly bourgeois and pretentious when you want to be.'
'Yeah, Liza,' I added in support.
'You too, Alice!' Dannie said. Thank god, Paul came back at that exact moment with a bottle of Yellowglen – 'the best they had,' he said.
'Oh, this is going to be a looonngggg night,' Liza said to no-one in particular.
Half an hour later, Bianca and Ben finally arrived to a rowdy fanfare. We all stood clapping as they walked through the archway of chicken wire covered in blue and yellow paper flowers to ABBA's 'I do, I do, I do, I do, I do'. It was the best music played so far.
***
After dinner, the best man took his place at the microphone. He was a bald-headed, goateed, stocky bloke with a tooth missing in the front and a shirt too tight around the collar. 'Mr and Mrs Willis, ladies and gentlemen, Eels-supporters,' he started, and the room went up in a chorus of 'Oi, oi, oi!'
'I am Christopher, otherwise known as the Crusher, and I'll be your MC for tonight. I 'ope you've enjoyed your meal, dessert is in the form of wedding cake, and we'll be carvin' that up straight after the speeches.' Liza slumped back in her chair, both hands wrapped around her glass, and rolled her eyes. Crusher rattled on for half an hour about how Ben loved Bianca almost as much as football, and their plans for her to give birth to an entire Parramatta side in the next few years. I couldn't understand how Bianca could find any of the speech funny, but she appeared to be laughing constantly. Maybe I had been at St Christina's too long, maybe Dannie was right. I was a bourgeois Black, and so was Peta. (It wasn't hard to be in the Aboriginal community – you just had to have a job and own your own car and you were regarded as middle class.)
We toasted the bride and groom as newlyweds and Crusher wished them the best for their honeymoon to Noumea. The thought of the honeymoon set me off again. I nudged Paul.
'I've always wanted to go to Noumea. What about it? You and me? We don't have to go with the others, if that's what you're worried about.' He didn't answer. Why he was reluctant to travel with me? Perhaps with his mortgage and new deck, money might be tight – that was understandable. The man wasn't a bottomless pit of cash. I should've thought of that earlier.
'There's often good specials on, you know, second person goes half-price. We could wait for the best deal, doesn't have to be straight away or anything.' All I wanted was a glimmer of interest at this point and I'd be happy. But Paul just grabbed my hand, pecked my cheek and told me I shouldn't talk through the speeches.
'I might have bad table manners, but at least I'm not afraid to fly,' I sulked.
Up on stage, Ben said that Bianca looked so beautiful he was glad he'd married her, and we all ooohed and aaaahed. When he commented that the bridesmaids looked stunning, though, I couldn't help myself.
'Oh puuulleease. They look like sticks of fairy floss in those dresses.' Liza agreed, but I looked at Paul to make sure that he did too. To my sheer horror, I saw that he had started in on the carafe wine. I'd clearly upset him.
Every speech was more appalling than the one before, and the telegrams didn't bring a change of pace. One after another made reference to Ben's own 'performing eel', with puns on scoring, tries and the sin-bin. Crusher seemed to have found his calling in life. We were all grateful when the wedding waltz was finally called and Bianca and Ben took to the floor to Shania Twain's 'From This Moment'.
The DJ took the microphone from Crusher: 'Okay girls, if your man doesn't ask you to dance now, he doesn't really love you.' Very subtle. Liza and I stared straight ahead, not knowing where to look. Paul took a firm grip of my hand, not saying a word, but led me onto the dance floor, and Luke followed suit with Liza. George and Dannie had beaten us there.
Paul was a brillia
nt dancer, but he was uncharacteristically quiet. I tried to make eye contact, but his eyes evaded mine. He just pulled me closer and said we'd talk about it later.
