A Happy Marriage Message

The ward smells exactly like I imagined it would, close and antiseptic. Poor Shirley. She hates hospitals and they’ve got her trussed up like a Christmas turkey waiting to be stuffed. ‘Flowers,’ I say brightly, brandishing a bunch of last-minute gift-shop carnations flecked with yellowing baby’s breath.

She manages a half smile.

I put the bouquet on the side table and take a seat beside the bed. ‘At least you’ve got your own room.’ It’s relatively cheerful too, with large windows overlooking the garden. If you’re bored you can watch the nursing assistants on their breaks.

‘Yeah, that’s something,’ she says.

She looks so miserable, I almost blame myself. ‘Is there anything you need?’ I offer, as though another fruit basket or celebrity gossip magazine could compensate for her shattered leg.

‘No, thanks, there’s nothing,’ she replies, then her eyes well up with tears.

I’m sure I’d feel more sympathetic if I thought she was crying because of the pain, but the sight of the small hand-weights tucked in beside her favourite white chenille dressing-gown rectifies that misconception. She just hates the idea of getting fat.

Toby, my boyfriend, thinks I’m being mean. ‘You want her to gain weight,’ he says, chuffed at the way he’s put two and two together.

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but how does that make me mean? She could use a few kilos. She’s a skinny little thing.’

We both laugh, but him warily, because it’s plain I hate her, yet she’s my best friend. Not that I broke her leg, let’s be clear about that, but I’ll admit to feeling a strong stab of pleasure in addition to the shock at the sight of the bone protruding through her meticulously epilated skin. Then I fainted (which is proof I’m not completely insane). By the time they’d revived me with a cup of tea in the staff lounge, Shirley was already swaddled in the rear of an ambulance en route to emergency.

‘It’s not like I pushed her,’ I insist. ‘She tripped on the escalator.’

Toby holds up his hands like he’s not going to play, exactly the sort of thing he does when he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Let’s leave it at that.’ And he laughs again, but this time not with me.

Because I feel guilty I am exceptionally polite when Shirley’s mother, Mrs de Young, telephones to invite me to lunch at the Lobby the following day.

‘Just because the wedding has been postponed doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to do,’ she says between bites. It’s only green salad but she makes it look eminently more interesting. ‘We’ve got to reschedule the caterers, print new orders of service, freshen the overall theme.’

If it were up to me I’d leave things the way they are. I don’t see the problem with Shirley hobbling down the aisle, her leg still in its cast, backed by the mounting swell of recorded violins, but Mrs de Young says plaster isn’t romantic. It doesn’t advance a happy marriage message. Plus, she wants something season-specific.

‘It’s for a winter nuptials,’ I tell Eunice at the Big Day. She’s wearing a huge white floral name tag like a place marker at a wedding reception.

‘Winter, winter,’ she mutters under her breath as she flicks through a folder on the counter, licking her index finger before turning each page. ‘Does the bride like snow?’ she inquires, slightly cocking her head, as if I’m the bride and we’re just using the euphemism here because I get some kick out of speaking of myself in the third person.

‘It isn’t me,’ I explain, though it’s completely beside the point.

Eunice smiles and says, ‘I see,’ and I realise I’ve just made the task so much more difficult than it needed to be.

Still, I come away with the latest thing, icefloes on the Baltic Sea; furtive waiters serve gravalax and peppered vodka while everyone dances to the Human League.

‘You’re jealous,’ says my mother. But I’m really not. I just don’t understand what’s motivated Shirley’s sudden urge to settle down. ‘You’re jealous,’ she says again, and I say I’ve got to leave.

When I get home, Toby has bought a plant. It’s some kind of indoor fern.

‘What’s it for?’ I ask.

He suggests maybe the living room. We decide to name it Ron. I’m sure I’ll kill it, but in less than a week it’s issuing fronds. ‘Look, Toby, Ron’s growing up,’ I say, fingering a furry bud.

‘Careful, don’t break him,’ he says. ‘I know what you’re capable of.’

Mrs de Young is quite taken with the early-80s Cold War revival concept. She particularly likes the menu plan, which includes caviar and capers on little pumpernickel toasts, but is worried the guests will come away with wheaty specks between their teeth.

‘We could serve the vodka with olives on toothpicks,’ I suggest, imagining the guests as secret agents, eating the olives then squirrelling away the toothpicks for surreptitious dental inspections in the bathrooms later on.

‘Oh, good idea,’ she says. ‘And let’s have the waitstaff wear trench coats.’

Toby thinks I’m missing the point, but I say there’s no way Mrs de Young is trying to be funny. It’s just what she’s like.

As is Shirley, who declares she doesn’t want any more flowers or chocolates brought to her room, so for my next hospital visit I take books. She’s an avid reader, going through two to three volumes of self-help literature a week.

‘It keeps me motivated,’ she says.

It’s a popular genre. At Dymocks there are two full aisles. I stumble around Alternative Health and Motivation feeling completely lost. Eventually I go for something topical, choosing When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner, along with a copy of Dr Phil McGraw’s Life Strategies in case she fancies something light.

When I present them to Shirley she is over the moon. ‘A classic,’ she announces, holding up Dr Phil. They’ve lowered her leg so she can sit up now, propped by three down pillows brought in from home.

‘Jack’s inspiration,’ she says when she sees me looking at them. ‘He’s a godsend, you have no idea.’

He’s the fiancé, of course. They met on the dance floor almost twelve months ago, and even though he managed to spill the best part of his Kahlúa and milk down the front of her new evening-blue satin halter-neck dress, they’ve been as good as inseparable ever since. When I finally get up the guts to ring him nearly three weeks have passed. He’s at work and I’m at work so neither of us can really talk.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘thanks for the call. I’ve got to go. But don’t blame yourself.’

‘Right then,’ I say, and hang up the phone.

Afterwards, I keep staring at it, trying to sort out if that hollow empty feeling is a result of the conversation, brief as it was, or simply a sign that I’m ready for lunch.

Although the wedding plans are going well, I begin to have bad dreams. Toby finds me awake at five am, downstairs with Ron sipping valerian tea.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asks.

I try to describe the nightmare – how I’m being chased through this enormous house by Jack and Shirley but it isn’t really them, though it looks like them but with different hair – but it doesn’t sound the least bit disturbing now that he’s up and dawn is starting to break.

‘You need to relax,’ he says, rubbing my shoulders. ‘Why don’t we get away this weekend?’

He books a room at our favourite motel and we drive to Ulladulla on Friday night. It is cold and so dark we can’t see two metres in front of the car. We round the bends at a snail’s pace, barely slipping out of second gear. Toby is a perfectly respectable driver, but the situation reminds me of the driving scene in Annie Hall.

‘That’s what my dream was like,’ I say, delighted finally to be able to put my finger on it. ‘In the film, when they’re in the car on the way to the airport, and in the bedroom and really the whole part set in Wisconsin.’

Toby grips the wheel and launches into a Christopher Walken-inspired rendition of ‘What’s New’. I join in, but sound nothing like Diane Keaton.

It rains all weekend. I am thrilled because it keeps the other tourists at bay and allows me to justify passing almost the entire Saturday on the patio rugged up under a blanket on a deckchair with my book. Water pummels the corrugated iron. We are so close to the harbour I can see the waves as they smack against the boats.

‘Walk?’ Toby ventures from time to time, though neither of us intends to move.

Between chapters I gaze out at the horizon, or where I think the horizon might be. The sky is so grey I can’t distinguish the line, but it is there somewhere between the rain and the sea. I move my head from side to side but it makes no difference. It is like the world is tipped upside down, but without the fish.

For dinner we eat steak. We go to the local pub for a counter meal and get drunk on VB as the Ready Jets cover Sherbet and Hush. The bar is full of blow-ins who know all the words. Before long we’re singing too. It amazes me how many of the lyrics I remember. After the second set, the band takes requests. Someone calls out, ‘Glad All Over’, and the crowd forms a motley human train which lurches and sways unevenly for the duration of the song. We leave between ‘Howzat’ and ‘Summer Love’. It is still raining outside. We’re soaked by the time we get back to our room. As we strip off our clothes Toby declares I’m three times a lady, then falls into bed.

Unbelievably, this is the song Jack has chosen for the bridal waltz. I discover this unfortunate fact later that week when we’re congregated at his apartment for Shirley’s welcome home dinner. Get-well cards clutter the mantelpiece. We’re just finishing up our dessert of toffee-glazed oranges with chocolate sauce when the strains of Lionel Richie begin to sound about the room. ‘What the fuck is that?’ says Toby, perhaps more loudly than he should.

‘It’s our wedding song,’ says Jack, flashing him a look.

There is an awkward silence as the general conversation drops.

Jack attempts to smooth the moment by transitioning into a toast. He stands and clears his throat. ‘To my beautiful fiancée,’ he says holding up his glass. ‘I’d ask you to dance, but I want you to save your strength for the wedding. It’s been two lonely months without you. Welcome home, darling,’ and he blows Shirley a kiss. She blows one back and everyone coos at the happy couple.

‘Lovely,’ says Mrs de Young to no one in particular and takes another sip of wine. Her eyes have glazed slightly from the alcohol. Jack sashays over and tops up her glass.

‘More?’ he says, tipping the bottle in my direction. Not likely, I think, and shake my head no. Which is not to suggest I don’t appreciate his preparedness to immerse himself in the details of the wedding (an unusual step, apparently, for a wouldbe groom), but it doesn’t excuse his attitude towards Toby just now (who had every reason to think the Lionel Richie was just an extremely stupid joke), and it goes no way to explaining what he thinks Lionel Richie has to do with the overall behind-the-Iron-Curtain flavour of the affair (which has been clearly articulated for weeks now and naturally lends itself to songs like ‘Love Action’, I would have thought, or to something by Ultravox or maybe even Spandau Ballet). I mean no one likes Lionel Richie; they didn’t even like him when he was popular.

‘Do you think I should talk to Shirley about it?’ I say for the fiftieth time. ‘If Jack’s really keen on that song at least we should have the original version.’ I’ve been fixated on this topic for at least half an hour, or however long it took to drive home, throw off our clothes and put on our PJs. We’re in the bathroom, preparing for bed. Toby is flossing his teeth.

‘You know, the thing is,’ he says after a pause to double-check his top right lateral incisor, ‘Lionel Richie, the Commodores, I really don’t care. Jack’s a wanker, and Shirley’s going to marry him. And if that’s what she wants then she’s a wanker too.’

Typically I’d have something to say about this, but I’ve got a mouth full of toothpaste and can’t currently speak. ‘See you in the sack,’ says Toby as I fast-track my gargle and then he flicks off the light as I go to rinse.

‘What do you want me to do?’ I say when I eventually climb into bed. ‘I’m the maid of honour. The show’s up and running now. I’ve got to see it through.’

‘I know you do. I know you do. I just wish you’d never said yes.’

Thankfully, there’s only one major job still to be done, the dresses: the bride’s, the flower girls’ and mine. I take the morning off to accompany Shirley and Mrs de Young to visit Mrs Domanski, the seamstress, who awaits us at ten o’clock. It’s a clunky little shop with a bell above the door. It expels a festive twang as we go inside. Jack’s mother was supposed to be coming too, but she double-booked so had to stand aside. Shirley says it’s nothing to worry about, but Mrs de Young is not impressed.

‘It’s a question of priorities,’ she mutters as Mrs Domanski begins to fuff around with the measuring tape. I raise my arms as she reaches around my waist.

After some discussion, it turns out the dresses won’t be as big a headache as I’d feared. Mrs Domanski will add sleeves to the original wedding dress and modify some of the details to fit the updated theme, that way she’ll only have to whip up five new outfits instead of six. And that shouldn’t take too long, she assures us, because they’ll be based on the initial designs. She’s already pulled the patterns from her files. ‘Once you select the fabrics, the rest is simple mechanics,’ she says, indicating her workroom where three Vietnamese women labour at the machines.

‘I like this one,’ says Shirley, fondling a square of velvet aquamarine.

I take the swatch and rub it between my fingers. It’s so soft it feels like a powder puff. ‘A bit much though, don’t you think?’ I say, hoping to push her towards something less ostentatious. ‘We’ve seen some other lovely winter-weights.’

But Shirley won’t be moved. She purses her lips and begins to rub her damaged thigh and I know there’s no point pressing any harder.

When I tell Toby he says he’ll still love me no matter what Shirley makes me wear to the wedding and he kisses both my eyebrows to seal the point. Besides, he says, I will look suitably Baltic in my floor-length luminescent aqua velvet cloth. Then he promises to find a matching tie so that in the photographs we will seem coordinated, like a real couple.

‘You should marry him, as soon as you can,’ instructs my mother next time we talk. ‘Before he has second thoughts and moves out. He’s too good for you. Frankly, I don’t know why he sticks around.’

‘Do you hear yourself?’ I say. ‘I’m your daughter. You’re meant to be on my side.’

‘Ha,’ she says, and accuses me of being too sensitive. But not before reminding me that blood is thicker than water. ‘You know, if I didn’t tell you these things, who would? As your parent, it’s my responsibility.’

‘Bye,’ I tell her and hang up the phone.

Toby is sitting on the couch reading beside Ron. He smiles at me and puts down his book.

‘What do you want for dinner?’ I ask him.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing,’ I lie and steer the conversation back to food. ‘Really,’ I tell him, ‘I’ll cook anything you want.’ And I mean it too, within reason. I’ll set the table and do it properly for a change, with our silver cutlery and candles and the matching floral serviettes on the side. I’ll fold them like my grandmother showed me how, into swan-like shapes which stand up by themselves, and I’ll set a place for Ron as well, and we can make like a family and talk about our days.