The church was full, Sarah could feel it before she saw them all. Their expectations spilled out through the open doors to summon her in from the blustery day.
‘Ready then?’ asked her father.
Her arm was linked through his. She was weak, fizzy, unsure of herself. Ready though? Yes. Ready for this man. Coming, ready or not. She and Jack, the poor, imperfect dreamer, the wanderer, lover-boy, generous, considerate. Wilful. Stubborn. Gentle. Scatty. Strong. She was ready for anything with him. Side by side. But there were hundreds of people in that church – her father had insisted on inviting the whole congregation – and they had come to see this. To say how lovely, what a lovely dress and how much she looked like her mother.
She was trying to deal with that thought when her father urged her forward. Sarah took her stride from him. Under the arch they passed, walking slowly, and she began to see them in full, the faces turned towards her, the startled looks. One of the women in the choir put a hand up to her heart as if shot, or as if Sarah had turned up eight months pregnant with a space-hopper stomach. Halfway there now, her father was still keeping the pace, nodding to people. Smile, girl, smile. James was there with Parv; she saw them both laugh and give her the thumbs up. She saw Jack turn; he hadn’t guessed her secret but he could see her coming to him. He could see it now. His eyes widened and he laughed too, his shoulders shaking, his whole face alight. Through the bells and the music she could hear the happy, fantastic sound of him and she knew it was all right. His laughter was the cue for applause that began at the front and rushed to the back. They were applauding her, the bride, the beauty, the woman of the day, beaming and daring in her gown of gorgeous, glorious red.
*
Her father held the Bible open with the rings in the crook of its pages and asked his daughter to repeat after him a name he had not used for her since she was born. The name his tearful, grateful, stroppy wife had ordered him to write on the birth certificate to mark the arrival of a child she had been told she could never have. Sarah saw him glance down over her shoulder to the front pew, where the mother of the bride should be. She sensed his balance shift, but not the ripple of longing that ran through him. She could not read his thought that he must smile whatever now, because his wife Jasmine – the great fortune of his life, the mother of this astonishing bride – would have wanted him to do that. Sarah saw him look at her with a love that could have stopped the devil. He winked. She winked back and repeated after him, in full, the name she never, ever used:
‘Sarah . . . Hallelujah . . . Jones . . .’
The mother of the groom was there, immaculate in a vintage cream Chanel skirt suit that certainly made the most of her legs, as was remarked upon more than once or twice in the pews around her. She caused the men to prickle with sweat at the collars of their badly fitting wedding shirts. The women wondered at her poise, her elegance, her confidence and apparent youthfulness. Calculations were quietly made as to how old she must be now and how old she must have been back then, in the days when it all happened, you know? Surely you’ve heard? She was friendly enough when spoken to, but mostly kept her silence and an enigmatic smile, under a broad-brimmed black hat that a few people recognized as having been made by Philip Treacy. She was classy, but they were also looking around for the father of the groom. This was a big congregation. Robert thought it was because the church had turned out to support him, but actually the Girl Guiders and the plumber who fixed the vicarage pipes and many of the rest were there because they wanted to see a man in the flesh who was known to them all by a single name. An elder statesman of rock. Snake-hipped, rake-thin, with a wolfish smile and a sexuality that swept ahead of him like a tsunami. And a heart. A conscience. Presidents and prime ministers fell for his charms; Bono was an ally of his. He was said to be a recluse now, prowling through Manhattan in his pension years with his hood up. His voice was gone, his mind too, some said, but those were just rumours. Surely he would come to his son’s wedding?
Jack had the same vulpine look and restlessness, his eyes always seeking the next thing, his fingers always drumming (even at the altar), although his company made people edgy, rather than beside themselves with excitement. Sometimes he tried just a little too hard to be like the old man. He was very fond of quoting things his father had said, as if they were rules for life: ‘I have two instincts, as a rock star. I want to have fun, and I want to change the world.’ The difference being, of course, that Jack was not a rock star.
The apology for his father’s absence came by motorcycle courier just before the service, with a gift in a little red box. Two Cartier rings, side by side in velvet. Eighteen carat white gold, with diamonds of course. Far too expensive. Sarah looked at them and tried not to think of all the things she could have bought with the money. A washing machine, for example. And a car. It was going to take her a long time to feel able to wear that ring on the street without fearing muggers, but she would wear it in church today, that would be okay. There was no way to refuse. Jack was happy. His father had blessed them from afar; his mother was pleased to be there, drawing the eye but certainly not competing with the bride. Chana was her name, meaning ‘grace’ in Hebrew, and she embodied that virtue in the way she walked, the way she sat. She was flirting again with the faith she had rejected as a child, which appalled her son. She had a sense of humour about it, though: when the father of the bride asked if she would like to choose any readings as part of the ceremony, she offered him Woody Allen: ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.’ But that was just an opening shot. They were able to agree on another text from the same source, which she read beautifully. First she waited at the lectern for the congregation to settle and become quiet, so that there was a great sense of expectation. They were all wondering about her anyway, more so in the absence of her former lover. Then she spoke the one line slowly and with great care, as if it were Scripture.
‘Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.’
And that was it. That was all. There was silence as she took off her glasses, picked up the slip of paper and stepped down – then a quick bubbling up of ahs and murmurs of approval. They liked her style. She was flying home to America after this, back to her interior design company. Back to a tiny apartment in Forest Hills that none of her clients would ever see. She had chosen Chana as a new name for herself and then later for her company, after hearing a song that said ‘grace finds beauty in everything’. It was not one of those written by Jack’s father. She had not listened to his music willingly for a very long time. Not since the day Jack was made.