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August: The White Wedding

The doors at the back of the abbey church creaked open, and the radiant bride appeared on the arm of her noticeably less radiant father.

Jenny Rodenhurst looked stunning in her wedding dress, which had achieved that elegance of simplicity which only money can buy. It was entirely white, and successfully combined traditionalism with modernity. Her accessories were extremely spare, in view of all the suffering in the Third World. Her lengthy train was held by two bridesmaids. One of them was very young, and the other one was very fat.

Her father, Laurence Rodenhurst, was as perfectly dressed as it is possible for a man to be without ceasing to look like a dentist.

Leslie Horton, water bailiff and organist, who hated to be called Les, launched himself into a hefty rendition of ‘Here Comes The Bride’; and a brief burst of sunlight poured through the memorial stained-glass window dedicated to the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, on whose side God had been in two world wars, though this hadn’t prevented them suffering heavy casualties.

The sizeable congregation craned their necks with varying degrees of shameless curiosity to watch the bridal procession, as it moved slowly past the stall of devotional literature, past the red arrow that indicated the distressingly slow progress of the Tower Appeal Fund, past the empty back pews and massive columns of the austere Norman nave, towards the less fearsome, more decorated beauty of the Early English chancel. Now the bride and her father were level with the least important of the guests, the third cousins twice removed, the employees who just couldn’t not be invited, and the funny little man with the big ears who turned up unbidden at all the weddings.

Rita Simcock, mother of the groom and wife of the town’s premier maker of toasting forks, was painfully aware that there were more people on the bride’s side than on theirs, that the people on the bride’s side were better dressed and more stylish. She was painfully aware that her younger son, Paul, the groom, was unemployed, and hadn’t had the haircut that he had promised, and looked a mess. She was painfully aware that her elder son, the cynical Elvis, although he had a philosophy degree from the University of Keele, was also unemployed, there being no vacancies for philosophers at the Job Centre just then, and looked almost as great a mess as Paul.

Liz Rodenhurst, mother of the lovely bride, a year older than Rita but looking ten years younger, was aware of all these things too, but her main emotion as she watched the slow procession was one of irritation with her daughter for having had her beautiful hair cropped short before this day of all days. It emphasized the slight heaviness of her jaw. How perverse the young were. But then it was perverse of Jenny to marry Paul at all. ‘If only I’d had the sense not to advise against it,’ she thought.

The procession had reached the more important guests, first cousins twice removed, second cousins once removed, friends, uncles, aunts with unsuitable hats, Rita’s slightly glazed parents, brothers, mothers, one wishing her son’s hair was shorter, the other wishing her daughter’s hair was longer – was nobody happy on this happy day? Certainly not the Reverend J. D. Thorough-good. Hardly a genuine churchgoer among the whole caboosh.

As Laurence came level with Liz, he gave her a brief glance. ‘What kind of a dash am I cutting?’ it asked.

In reply Liz smiled, a brief demonstration of a smile, indicating to her husband that he was to remember to look happy.

Laurence nodded imperceptibly, then smiled bravely, though not entirely successfully. He was a tall, slim man with cool eyes, handsome in a rather theoretical way, like a drawing of a good-looking man. His hair was receding quietly, sensibly, with impeccable manners. Men considered him a fine figure of a man. Women didn’t.

Ted Simcock nudged Paul, who stepped forward, almost tripping. At the sight of Paul, Laurence’s smile flickered, then fluttered bravely, like an upside-down Union Jack in a stiff, biting, easterly wind. And the sunlight disappeared brutally, as if it had been switched off.

Paul Simcock, the badly groomed groom, was twenty-one, and very nervous. His face seemed to be trying to hide beneath all that hair. His tie was very loosely tied – a compromise which pleased nobody. His inexpensive suit had almost been fashionable teenage wear when he had bought it. Five years later it was a museum piece. He had filled out in those five years, and it barely met around his groin, buttocks, chest and shoulders. He felt as if it had put him on in a great hurry. Buttons would burst and the zip fly open if he so much as gazed at a hard-boiled egg and Danish caviare canapé, and a pint of Theakston’s Best would be out of the question. How he wished now that he hadn’t been so stubborn in refusing his father’s offer of a new suit.

How he wished he hadn’t chosen the uncouth Neil Hodgson as best man.

The organ music ceased. ‘Dearly beloved,’ said the Reverend J. D. Thoroughgood rather severely, as if hinting that they would be more dearly beloved if more regularly seen at church. ‘We are gathered here together in the sight of God …’

‘I don’t believe in Him,’ thought Jenny. ‘I wish we’d done it in a registry office.’

‘… woman in Holy Matrimony, which is an honourable estate,’ continued the vicar, whose own daughter had run off to London seventeen years ago and had never been seen again. Some said he retained the old words in all his services because for him time had stopped at that moment. ‘… instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency …’

Liz Rodenhurst looked round at exactly the same time as Ted Simcock. Her eyes glinted, and Ted, father of the groom, spurned offerer of new suits, turned away hastily and hung on the vicar’s words with exaggerated attention.

Liz smiled.

‘… and therefore is not by any to be enterprized, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites.’

‘No mention of women’s carnal lusts and appetites, I notice,’ thought Liz.

‘… but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly …’

‘Oh I hope so,’ thought Rodney Sillitoe, managing director of Cock-A-Doodle Chickens and close friend of the groom’s parents. ‘I’ll be watching her.’

‘I’ll be watching him,’ thought his wife Betty, who was overdressed as usual. ‘If he lets the side down today …’

‘… for which Matrimony was ordained,’ continued the vicar in his strong, steady, undramatic Yorkshire voice, so unlike those comedy vicars on television which his wife always switched off, though they amused him as evidence of the media’s tiny minds – not that either of them watched comedy or indeed television much, especially since time had stopped. ‘First it was ordained for the procreation of children …’

‘Yes, well,’ said Paul Simcock silently, but half expecting to be heard by God, because under the powerful influence of the devotional atmosphere it seemed possible that He might exist after all. ‘I’m afraid we jumped the gun a bit there.’

‘… the Lord, and to the praise of his Holy Name.’ The Reverend J. D. Thoroughgood’s voice brought a touch of the hard limestone country into this town of the softer plains. ‘Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication.’

‘Sorry,’ said Ted Simcock to his maker, and to his horror it almost came out aloud. His face, always slightly red, as if he overdid things, went even redder. He was a broad, bulky man, with slightly coarse features and fierce shaggy brows. His thick black hair was turning grey. Men didn’t consider him much of a figure of a man. Women did.

‘… that such persons as have not the gift of continency …’

‘All right?’ whispered Rita’s mother, the seventy-six-year-old Clarrie Spragg.

‘Oh aye.’ Percy Spragg’s answering whisper was much too loud, and Rita turned to give her father a frantic, warning glare.

‘… themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body. Thirdly …’

This time it was Ted’s eyes that were drawn to Liz’s fractionally before she gave him an unmistakeably meaningful glance. Laurence turned and saw Ted looking in his wife’s direction, and Ted developed a sudden interest in the magnificent hammer-beam roof. Another burst of sunlight was streaming into the huge old church. The day was improving.

‘Therefore, if any man can shew any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.’

The Reverend J. D. Thoroughgood paused dramatically, and swept a severe gaze over the congregation. The sunshine seemed very far away, in another world.

‘Make somebody say something, please, oh Lord,’ prayed Laurence with a fervour that surprised him. ‘Save my daughter from this unsuitable marriage.’

‘I require and charge you both,’ said the vicar, damping Laurence’s brief hope, and the church darkened again as the summer’s day played grim meteorological jests with their emotions, ‘as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement …’

‘I don’t dread it,’ thought Rita. ‘That’s the day I come into my own.’

‘… know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful.’

Paul and Jenny smiled at each other a little uneasily, long-haired cheap-suited groom beside close-cropped, beautifully gowned bride, but united in their youth, their vulnerability and their love. They joined hands, and gave each other a little squeeze, and held their peace. Afterwards, both admitted that they had felt shivers and goose pimples at that moment.

‘Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together …?’

‘He promised me he’d have a haircut,’ said Rita to herself. ‘He promised.’ She had achieved, with her bottle-green two-piece suit and pink hat, the difficult feat of looking puritanical and over-dressed at the same time. Her austere hair style and natural air of worry made her look older than her forty-seven years. She had a hunched appearance, as if she were trying not to take up too much space.

‘… and in health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?’

‘Oh Jane!’ called out the immaculate Neville Badger silently from the bride’s side of the church, and this dapper doyen of the town’s lawyers also had a moment of horror when he thought that everyone must have heard, so loud did his agonized private cry seem to him: ‘Oh, Jane! Do you remember our wedding in this church?’

‘I will,’ whispered Paul, after a moment when it seemed that he would never speak.

The Reverend J. D. Thoroughgood turned to Jenny. Was it possible that he didn’t think of his own daughter at this moment?

‘Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded …?’

‘Look happy, Laurence,’ Laurence told himself. ‘If you look happy long enough, you may even start to feel happy.’

‘… keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’

‘Oh Lord,’ prayed the immaculate Neville Badger. ‘Why did you take her from me?’

‘I will,’ said Jenny clearly, with an outward confidence that contrasted sharply with Paul’s delivery and made her parents feel that the money they had spent on her education had not been entirely wasted.

There was a slight commotion towards the back of the congregation. A second cousin twice removed had been overcome by emotion, and had to be removed. Rita was painfully conscious that it was on their side of the church.

Outside, in the bustling summer streets, people were peering at details of skiing holidays which they couldn’t afford, gawping at dresses which they would never wear, and slowly reading the meagre lists of unappetizing catering vacancies in the Job Centre. To the town’s seventy thousand inhabitants, the abbey church was so familiar as to be almost invisible.

The ancient market town had expanded rapidly with a mixture of light industry and heavy engineering, which were both now declining. A combination of ignorant councillors, apathetic citizens and ruthless property developers had removed almost all traces of its ancient heritage, except for the abbey church and the street names. Few tourists stopped off on their way to York, Durham and Edinburgh.

It wasn’t surprising, therefore, that at the moment when the great West Door creaked open, nobody was looking at the abbey, except for a visiting Greek-Cypriot builder who was staring openmouthed at the scaffolding which encased the massive tower.

Then suddenly the assertive strains of Leslie Horton, water bailiff and organist, who hated to be called Les, were mingling with the hum of the Saturday afternoon traffic. Now people stopped and stared, eager to see the lovely bride, the lucky groom, the proud parents, the hats and dresses of the aunts and cousins.

Six bachelor philatelists, on their way to an exhibition in the annexe of the Alderman Cartwright Memorial Museum (entrance by the side door, in West Riding Passage), watched from the top deck of a bright yellow corporation bus as the wedding guests filtered slowly under the four beautifully carved recessed arches of the Norman doorway. The philatelists were in a good mood, being as yet unaware that the exhibition of wildlife stamps had closed at one, due to local government cutbacks. One of them said, ‘They haven’t got too bad a day for it,’ and the other five were not disposed to argue. For the paths were almost dry now after the last brief shower, and there was almost as much blue in the sky as cloud.

The wedding guests stood around in uneasy knots, not quite knowing what to do with themselves, while the funny little man with big ears who turned up unbidden at all the weddings hurried off to the Baptist Chapel, where a promising event was scheduled for three o’clock.

‘Did you see Paul’s hair?’ said Rita Simcock in a low voice.

‘I could hardly miss it,’ said Ted rather less softly. ‘It was on the top of his head, as usual.’

‘S’ssh!’ she hissed. ‘He promised he’d have it cut, Ted. He promised. I mean … what will they think? They already think we’re not good enough for them.’

‘He’s a dentist, Rita, not First Lord of the Admiralty,’ said Ted.

‘S’ssh! Here they come,’ whispered Rita urgently. ‘Look happy!’ She turned to face the Rodenhurst parents, who were approaching with the immaculate Neville Badger. ‘Didn’t it go off well?’ she said, giving a radiant smile that had no radiance in it.

‘Very well,’ said Liz.

‘You must be very happy,’ said Neville Badger. He was in his early fifties, but his recent grief seemed to set him apart as a member of the previous generation. ‘Jenny looked a picture,’ he said, turning to Liz and Laurence. ‘A picture. I think she’s putting on a bit of weight. It suits her.’

‘Do you all know each other?’ said Laurence. ‘No? Ah! Neville Badger, a very old friend. Paul’s parents, Ted and Rita Simcock.’

Neville Badger shook hands with Ted and Rita. Ted said, ‘I own the Jupiter Foundry. I expect you’ve heard of us.’ Rita frowned at him. Neville Badger didn’t hear him, because of a passing motorcyclist with a faulty silencer and a hang-up about his virility; and when Ted repeated his statement, Neville Badger said, ‘Actually, no.’

‘Oh,’ said Ted. ‘Well, we … er … we make fire irons, companion sets, door knockers, toasting forks …’

‘Are you a dentist, Mr Badger?’ said Rita, breaking in hastily before Ted gave the whole of his firm’s sales list, and smiling excessively.

‘Oh no! No!’ said Neville Badger too vehemently. He gave Laurence an uneasy, apologetic glance. ‘No. I’m with Badger, Badger, Fox and Badger.’

‘Taxidermists?’ asked Ted.

‘Solicitors!’ said Rita frantically. She flashed him an angry glare, then switched on another nervously ingratiating smile for Neville. The sky was dotted with small white clouds, and in another remarkable meteorological coincidence … or celestial joke … the sun was popping in and out in ironical counterpoint to Rita’s expressions. The sun shone when she frowned. The skies darkened when she smiled.

‘I love a good wedding, don’t you, Mr Badger?’ she said.

‘Yes, I … I do … I … excuse me.’

Neville Badger moved off abruptly. Rita stared after him in horrified astonishment, and the sun came out.

‘His wife died six weeks ago,’ explained Liz.

Two bright pink spots appeared on Rita’s cheeks, and Ted gave her a look which said, ‘You’ve done it again.’

Rodney and Betty Sillitoe were approaching. Rodney was forty-eight, Betty fifty-one, but she looked the younger. Rodney Sillitoe was wearing a very good suit, but it looked as if he had fallen asleep in a chicken coop while wearing it. Betty Sillitoe was so enthusiastically overdressed that she almost carried it off. Her dyed blonde hair peeped cheerfully out at the world round the edges of a yellow hat which wouldn’t have been out of place in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. Betty was always the first to draw attention to her dark roots. She dyed her hair to sparkle, not deceive.

‘Well, that all went off splendidly;’ she said.

Ted made the introductions. Rita wished he’d tried to hide the pride in his voice when he added, ‘Rodney’s the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens,’ as if he were a prize salmon Ted had caught, and she knew that Liz had picked this up. Why else should she have exclaimed, as she shook hands with Rodney and gazed into his grizzled, lined face, ‘Ah! A man of power!’

‘Your girl looks a picture,’ the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens told her. ‘A picture.’

Rita tried to hide her irritation at all this praise of Jenny, and then found that she had a far greater irritation to hide. Her parents were hobbling painfully towards them.

Percy Spragg was a bow-legged, barrel-chested old man who appeared to be wearing a demob suit. Clarrie Spragg was a bowlegged, barrel-chested old woman whose face had set over the years into a fearsome and entirely misleading hardness in repose. She looked as if she had bought her clothes at a 1940s jumble sale at which she had arrived late. They looked to Rita as they bore down upon her like two pill boxes left over from our wartime coastal defences.

‘Well, that were grand,’ said Clarrie Spragg.

‘Grand,’ echoed Percy Spragg.

Ted effected the introductions reluctantly.

‘By ’eck, your daughter’s a belter,’ Percy Spragg told the Rodenhursts, who flinched and smiled at the same time. Rita glared at her father, and Clarrie Spragg wasn’t too pleased either.

Clarrie managed to force herself in between Percy and the group. She whispered grimly, ‘Just you mind your Ps and Qs, Percy Spragg.’ Her expression softened. ‘All right?’ she whispered.

‘Oh aye,’ said Percy Spragg much too loudly, and a playful gust sent his words streaming out over the gravestones which surrounded the abbey church. ‘I’ve only been once since breakfast.’

Rita glared, and Ted hurried over to remove a Co-op carrier bag which was being drummed against one of the gravestones by the wind. As he bent to pick it up, another gust lifted Liz’s dress and revealed an achingly tempting knee. He looked away hastily.

‘Right, everybody,’ said Nigel Thick, the carefully classless young photographer from Marwoods of Moor Street. ‘We’re all set. Let’s have the happy couple.’

There was a murmur of conversation and excitement, a communal release from tension like an echo of a distant mass orgasm, as the guests found that they had a definite role to play once more. They were watchers, admirers, murmurers of ‘aaaah!’ at appropriate moments. The uneasy knots broke up and reformed in a homogeneous mass. Except for Elvis Simcock, who prowled on the edges looking cynical, as befitted a young man who had studied the great philosophers and knew how weak-minded mass sentimentality is.

Paul and Jenny stood framed against the magnificent West Doorway of the old abbey church. A low-flying military aircraft struck a discordant note.

‘I feel awful,’ whispered Jenny, smiling rather desperately.

‘Why?’ whispered her husband of ten minutes.

‘Right! Big smiles! Radiance pouring from every pore!’ commanded the classless Nigel Thick. He thought that the taking of wedding photos was beneath him, but he was clever enough not to show this. He came out with all the right words, delivered with automated enthusiasm.

Radiance poured somewhat stickily from every pore, and froze on the cool breeze.

‘Great! Terrific!’ lied Nigel Thick.

‘Wearing white,’ whispered Jenny, free to answer Paul’s question at last. ‘Hypocrisy’s the national disease, and we’ve started to build our marriage on hypocritical foundations.’

‘Jenny!’ whispered Paul.

‘OK,’ said the young photographer classlessly. ‘Now a nice dreamy one. Two lovebirds gazing into each other’s eyes.’

Two extremely embarrassed and shy lovebirds gazed into each other’s eyes.

‘Aaaaah!’ went the uncles and aunts and cousins.

‘Great!’ said Nigel Thick, who intended to change his name to Barry Precious and become famous. ‘Tremendous. Fabulous.’

‘The cost of my dress could feed an African family for twenty years,’ whispered Jenny.

‘Jenny! Forget all that just for today,’ whispered Paul.

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Now a real sexy one.’

The happy couple made a brave stab at a real sexy one, and Jenny blushed prettily.

‘Nice!’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Very nice.’ Nice was the least complimentary of all his adjectives. He only used it when he meant ‘Really awful!’ but the massed ranks of the guests didn’t seem to feel that it was awful. Another satisfied communal ‘Aaaah!’ drifted away across the town’s jumbled-up skyline towards the foetid River Gadd.

‘If our child grows up selfish and deceitful, it’ll be our fault,’ said Jenny. She didn’t need to whisper, as a police siren was blaring.

‘Jenny!’ said Paul.

‘OK,’ shouted Nigel Thick, in competition with the siren. ‘Let’s go for something a bit more informal. Right? OK.’

‘Is that all the man I’ve committed myself to for life can say – “Jenny!”?’ said Jenny.

‘Jenny!’

Jenny laughed and gave Paul a quick, spontaneous kiss. She had almost forgotten the watching throng.

‘Good,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Great. Terrific. Fantabulous.’

‘“Committed for life!”’ whispered Paul, as the siren faded into the western suburbs. ‘It sounds like a prison sentence.’

‘Oh Paul, you don’t think that, do you?’

‘No! Love! ’Course I don’t.’

They kissed.

‘Aaaah!’ went the crowd.

‘Ugh!’ went the cynical Elvis Simcock.

‘Very good!’ went the classless Nigel Thick. ‘Terrific! Nice one! Tremendous!’

Jenny and Paul disengaged in some confusion, as self-consciousness returned.

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Happy couple out. Four proud parents in.’ One day these people would have coffee-table books of his photographs. His mother still called them his ‘snaps’. He was sure she did it deliberately.

The four proud parents took up their positions, Simcocks together, Rodenhursts together.

‘Anything you ever want in the ironmongery line, Laurence,’ said Ted. ‘Custom-built door knockers, personalized coal scuttles, you name it, I’ll give it at cost price.’

‘Well well!’ said Laurence. ‘It seems that this union can be of great benefit to our family, Liz!’

Liz and Ted both gave Laurence sharp looks. Rita gave Ted a furious look. Laurence’s smooth face remained innocent of expression.

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Big smiles. Happiest day of your life.’

They all smiled, with varying degrees of artificiality and success.

‘Terrific,’ lied Nigel Thick.

‘In fact, Ted,’ said Liz, ‘we already have one of your companion sets in our drawing room.’

‘Oh! In your “drawing room”! Well well!’ said Ted. He added, somewhat archly: ‘I trust it’s giving satisfactory service.’

‘Actually the tongs have buckled,’ said Laurence.

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Nice dignified one. Nice and solemn. Four pillars of local society, linked by wedlock.’

They found being dignified and solemn easier than smiling.

‘Great! Tremendous! Magnificent!’

‘I’ll bring you a replacement,’ said Ted. ‘Gratis. Have no fear.’

‘Ted!’ hissed Rita. ‘Don’t talk business at functions. Mr Rodenhurst doesn’t talk about dental appointments at functions.’

‘OK,’ said the future Barry Precious classlessly. ‘Now change partners. Symbolize that you’re all one big happy family.’

The two couples changed places.

‘Actually, I think you’re both due for a check-up,’ said Laurence smoothly, his face a mask. ‘I’ll get my girl to send you one of our cards.’

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Arms round each other. Nice and friendly. No inhibitions.’

Liz’s arm went round Ted, and he felt his bottom being stroked. Had he imagined it? No! There it was again, and a quick playful nip. He was terrified. Of course his bottom, by its very nature, was round the back, out of sight of people he was facing, but still …! Liz’s arm was round his waist now. One finger stroked him very gently. It was too small a gesture to be seen by the assembled guests. But still …! He could feel the sweat running down his back.

Laurence put his arm round Rita with fastidious distaste. He looked like the leader of a nation embracing the wife of a hated rival at the end of a conference at which only a meaningless, bland communiqué had been issued.

‘Relax!’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Let it all hang out.’

Laurence regarded this phrase with extreme distaste. He found it impossible to comply but, for the sake of Jenny and social decorum, he did manage to make a bit of it almost hang out. Rita smiled like the Queen being offered sheeps’ eyes at a Bedouin banquet. Ted and Liz were more successful.

‘Great! Terrific! Fantabulous! Marvellous! OK. Happy couple back in, with the two brothers.’

A robin watched beadily from its vantage point on a nearby gravestone as the four proud parents moved away. Ted gave Liz a warning look. Laurence noticed it, but Rita didn’t. She was too busy indicating to Elvis that he was to smile. He made a wry face at her.

Elvis Simcock was twenty-four. He was taller, more self-possessed and wilder than his brother, and he was the only man at the wedding not wearing a suit, though he could have looked quite smart in his red cord jacket and tight brown trousers if he’d wanted to.

Simon Rodenhurst, Jenny’s older brother, who was twenty-three, was well dressed in a rather anonymous way, a provincial professional young man who had never felt any urge to rebel. He worked for the estate agents, Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. His face had an immature, unformed look, as if it were waiting for his personality to be delivered.

‘Elvis?’ said Jenny. ‘Have you met my brother Simon?’

‘No. That’s one of the many pleasures I’ve missed out on so far,’ said Elvis Simcock, and his ‘hello’ to Simon Rodenhurst was barely more than a grunt.

‘OK. Big smiles. Bags of brotherly love,’ said Nigel Thick.

Paul’s and Jenny’s smiles were a bit strained. Simon’s was perfectly judged. The cynical Elvis’s was grotesque, way over the top, a grinning fiend.