7. The Wedding

THE SANDS OF TIME Part 7

Gavin’d had this dream before, and it was a bad one. He ended up writhing about in his bed and maybe even shouting out and it was a good job he lived on his own in a house that was decently soundproofed by virtue of being on its own and far enough away from neighbours for his agonies to go unremarked.

He hadn’t always been on his own and the dream reminded him with precise details of that dreadful day, in his twenties and not so long after starting to teach at Beandelbury High School, when he’d stood before the altar in the grim Victorian church where David preached his sermons. But he wasn’t there for any sermon. This was because he was getting married. He needed a son to love, to teach right from wrong to, with kindness and gentility, and the only way he knew of getting one was to be married.

To a woman. If times had been different, like they are today perhaps, then he’d have married that vicar and not the woman at the drop of a hat, and been content to go without the son. But times weren’t different and back then he’d have been locked up for even thinking it, in a madhouse for suggesting it or a prison for doing it.

The woman, Glenda, was walking towards him behind his back, guided by her father, a crusty black man who hated him but who was decent enough to allow his daughter to marry a young teacher even though he didn’t like the breed of teachers. To him, they were know-alls, what they said had to go or else they knew how to inflict invisible pain, and they judged.

He’d been judged back in Jamaica and had been only too pleased when he escaped (the first big war had helped) and managed to settle down in another country where he was also universally, it seemed, being judged, but for his colour rather than his brain.

When his daughter came along she had more of his wife’s colour than his own, and his wife was white. Mixed marriages were rare back then, but he had courted and married a white girl, a pretty one with generous breasts which reminded him of laughing wives in the market back home.

Now he was walking the fruits of that marriage down the aisle towards her future husband, and he wasn’t happy. He’d made subtle enquiries and didn‘t like what he’d found out about Gavin Pottle. Besides being a young teacher which to him was bad enough there was a shadow in the air when his name was mentioned. People didn’t want to say anything good about him and what they did say was so neutral it sounded bad.

“Are you absolutely sure, Glenda?” he whispered while they were still half way down the aisle, and walking slowly because it was a shortish aisle and they wanted to take their time. “It’s not too late even now if you’ve got doubts.”

And she did have some. In his dream almost seventy years after he could see that. Despite the veil that covered her eyes he could recognise doubt when he almost saw it.

“Shut up, dad,” Glenda had replied, then smiled at him, “if I’m making a mistake it’s my mistake and not yours. I’ll be all right.”

He heard that in his dream, all right. And she heard the reply from the girl’s father, “so be it then, my little love…”

Then they had been standing next to each other and David was there conducting the service, nodding slightly in that way he sometimes did as if he was forcing himself to agree with something that went against his personal grain.

All this was before he’d met the absurdly named Daisy Delight and started, as he’d said, walking out with her. A vicar and a beauty contestant winner, and here he was putting a chain round Gavin’s neck. Demanding that he and the girl exchange rings then live together happily ever after, in sickness and in health till death did them part…

Then there was the reception. The dream went on to that. It had to, of course, and it was at that reception he and Glenda had their first row.

And all because the wedding cake was wrong.

There she was, in the dream, beaming at him, and taking his hand in hers as she demanded they cut the cake together.

It wasn’t a very big cake and it only had the one tier. When he first saw it the truth hadn’t leapt at him like it ought to have done. But this cake was big enough for the party after the wedding in church, and that was all.

“I thought wedding cakes had at least two layers?” he murmured to her, “you know, one to put aside.”

“Tiers? Yes, they do,” she said, “but not ours.”

“But don’t we save the top tier for the christening of our son?” he asked.

That was all he really wanted, a son. It’s why they were there. Why he had married Glenda.

“Or daughter?” she prompted him, smiling. He could see in her eyes that she had a secret, one that he’d never been privy to or if he had, had chosen to ignore.

“I suppose so.”

She might have thought he remembered the talk they’d had, weeks ago, when they’d started being together, but didn’t. Instead she’d smiled at him, a smile in which was hiding a huge secret, and merely said “I don’t think I’ll have any children.”

“What?” That was him almost exploding.

“It’s why we haven’t got a second tier for the cake,” she said, smiling, “I’m pretty sure I can’t have kids, not that it matters. I don’t really want any. It’s really quite unpleasant, all that screaming and pain, when you think of it.”

David was there, drifting about in his white surplice, smiling at people, being beautiful.

“Nice cake, Gav,” he had said. Like that, with a smile as if he knew something that nobody else knew.

“I suppose so,” he’d grunted.

“Honest. It’s an honest cake,” his lover-friend had said. In that dream he was saying it, his mouth, his lovely lips, swollen with desire, his teeth so white, his eyes bright. They had been bright, hasn’t they? Blue and bright. Or were they brown? He couldn’t remember, but in the dream they were blue, so that must have been what they were.

“What do you mean? Honest?” he asked, snarling. At least, in the dream he was snarling. He’d forgotten that David had never been at the real reception. He’d had a funeral or something to officiate at. But in this dream he was there, and that’s all that mattered.

“The top tier is saved for the baby’s christening,” David in the dream had said. Or was it Glenda? Had it been her mouth saying the words, prompted in his head by the shadow of David’s image.

“Our son’s,” he had said.

“No, I did tell you, didn’t I?” murmured Glenda.

“Tell me? Tell me what?” he asked.

“You know. I remember telling you. I was scared you wouldn’t still want me, so I told you because honesty ties two people together better that deceit…”

“What did you tell me?” He was frustrated, his voice was rising and if she’d been a boy at school he’d have been beating her. But she wasn’t. His only other weapon was his voice.

“About when I was fourteen…” she said quietly, “you know, I told you.”

He knew that she’d said something had happened when she was fourteen, but he had no idea what it had been. She had sprayed him with words but a combination of him not listening and her words being nervous had left him no wiser than if she’d stayed silent.

“An American airman. You know. I told you. They were still here after the war, tidying up.”

Yes, she’d told him about that airman. He rather thought he wouldn’t like him if they bumped into each other. There had been something dark about him, something unkind.

“I had an abortion. You know!” she said.

Did he know? Is that what she’d told him? And anyway, what is an abortion? A word, yes, a serious of letters that combine to create a word, but what does it mean? Then the dream exploded with truth and of course he knew. Of course she’d told him, and he’d been the Englishman whilst she’d been talking double Dutch.

“It left me quite sick for ages,” she said “I told you. It was the filthy old woman who did it, what they called a back street abortion. In the end I needed an operation. So I can’t have children, not any, not a son or a daughter, nothing.”

Then it dawned on him.

Yes he’d known and he’d not known.

“You bloody witch!” he exploded at her, “of all the things to tell me now!”

“But you knew…” she whispered, “I told you, gave you chapter and verse, and you knew.”

He went out, on his own, into the street, and David was coming. Or was he? Was it another vision of his own personal saviour? But somebody was.

“She’s sterile,” he wept, “bloody sterile! She can’t have kids! Not even a son!”

“We know that,” said David, “the poor child. I’m glad you love her…”

But it wasn’t David, it was Glenda’s father, and he was smiling.

© Peter Rogerson, 13.03.22

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