THE WEDDING

But not the sort of wedding you might expect!!!

THE WEDDING

The Register Office was quiet. You could have heard a pin drop if someone had dropped one. A squeak from an intruding mouse would have sounded like a bellow from a charging elephant. The gathering (it wasn’t a church so they didn’t want to be called the congregation) sat in serried rows, mute and motionless. Not even did a paper flower in Armand’s buttonhole dared squeal when a silent fly landed for a moment on one of its artificial stamens before seeking life and laughter elsewhere.

The Registrar was equally mute. She sat behind an ornate desk daring a speck of dust to land in front of her with an ear-shattering crash. She looked at her watch and sighed silently. The bride, she thought, had better hurry up or this wedding would collide with the next, and that sort of thing only led to confusion. But the groom was there, not daring to fidget lest the rattle from his finger nails woke the chief witness, who was either enjoying or despising a brief nap.

But that groom had good cause to be nervous. It was ten days since he’d last seen his bride, and he was suffering from very natural withdrawal symptoms, especially in his trousers. But ten days ago she had been as radiant as any woman could be, sparkling, excited, filled with the kind of joy that can be generated by a long anticipation finally being fulfilled. She was going to be married soon. She was going to be Mrs Groom, and that was something she’d dreamed of being this past seventy years when she’d first cast her eyes on the big man who had begged, on one knee, the other being inflexibly artificial, for her hand.

The groom secretively looked around the office.

A pink and cream bridesmaid peeped out of the corner of a veil as it slipped to one side, giving her a clear view of the boy. He was, of course, picking his nose as silently as he could before flicking the detritus from one nostril in the direction of Old Jimmy’s mobility scooter, with Old Jimmy perched awkwardly on it. The pink and cream bridesmaid wanted to laugh as it landed on the old man’s sleeve, but the occasion was too solemn for that so she stored the promise of a sound slapping in her memory, for future use. The boy had better beware. The boy in short trousers that were quite the wrong shade of puce to look anything but out of place, but she’d had to bring him.

Someone’s aunt Matilda scowled loud enough to dim the sun that tried to peep through a high window, and she frowned at her beau, a handsome old man in cream slacks and winkle pickers. He frowned back, knowing what she meant. She meant she really, really wished she hadn’t accepted the invitation. Aunt Matilda was due to fill her post behind the lounge bar of The Viper’s Nest, a hostelry that nestled awkwardly between the borough crematorium and a small pornographic theatre displaying signs that were pretentiously unimaginative. Aunt Matilda needed that job in order to be able to pay her rent because times were hard and the last thing she wanted was to have to sleep in the gutter like the other tramps.

Jasper Gringlebot sat bolt upright on the second row. His niece was with him, hoping that he’d keep his hands to himself until the wedding was over when she could make her rapid excuses and go anywhere but in a seat next to her uncle. He looked at her, and winked. It was like two shutters being drawn over eyes that would never see again as his head lolled to one side and his wig fell off. She wanted to scream, but the silence was too penetrating, and she didn’t even gasp though Japer Gringlebot was unexpectedly dead without groping her even once.

Garlanded in a bouquet of paper flowers stored in her attic this past twenty years or so, Marion Jonkers spread across two seats and badly wanted to sigh, but sighing was, it seemed, not the thing for an expansive woman to do at a time like this. Flakes of make-up drifted from her rosy cheeks onto the paper order of service she was holding and landed like a settling of snow seen by a rosy sunset. She parted her lips, to reveal lipstick-stained teeth, and tried to smile, but, awkwardly, couldn’t.

And there were others. All old (except the boy, who was young and had untidy nasal problems), and all, in their own ways, impatient. They wanted to see the groom and then see who could be first at the reception and the promise of a free glass of fizz.

There was a sudden crackle of sound as the door at the back shifted and creaked open and the Registrar breathed a sigh of relief. Her watch suggested there might be time to get this service over and done with before the next lot piled in if this was the groom.

A hunchback with a gnarled walking stick half walked, half crawled in. His face illuminated the room in much the way as a thunder cloud illuminates a sunny day. In the hand that was free from walking stick he clutched an urn.

“We are come,” announced the hunchback, carefully balancing his precious urn in the crook of a withered elbow.

One foot in front of the other in a parade of jerking progress he proceeded to make his ugly way to the desk where the Registrar, standing now, frowned.

“Where’s the bride?” she hissed.

The hunchback looked at her. “In here,” he whimpered, indicating the urn. “She so wanted this wedding,” he added, apologetically.

And he dropped the urn.

The ashes of a deceased bride fresh from the crematorium filled the room. Jasper Gringlebot might have coughed as a wave of it swept over him, but dead men can’t cough. Someone’s aunt Matilda held a hankie to her nose. The florally pink hankie turned grey, which made that aunt burts into tears.

The boy saw the funny side, and laughed until the pink and cream bridesmaid slapped his legs, first one and then the other so that they both turned the same shade of pink and looked absurd, sticking out of his puce shorts.

The Registrar shrugged her shoulders, and when the dust was all swept into a neat pile she did the only thing she could think of doing, and married as much of it as remained it to the groom, who suddenly dared to fidget but who also took everything in his stride. A long life had taught him that was always the best way.

There were few laughs at the reception, and the honeymoon was no joke either.

© Peter Rogerson 28.03.22

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