The Wedding of the Year

29

The Wedding Of The Year

    Polly’s nephews as his fellow ushers made Rod feel old. Neither of them had ever been an usher before and at the other family weddings they’d attended they’d apparently spent the whole time trying to absorb as much bubbly as humanly possible before their father caught them at it; they didn’t have a clue! And Rog was no better: he’d been to his brother’s wedding, but he reckoned that had been High Church C. of E. and he’d only been a spectator, and he didn’t know anything about garden weddings. Not letting on he hadn’t got a clue what “High Church” meant, Rod had said grimly that a garden wedding was a wedding in a garden, and don’t ask him why Jake and Polly had accepted the von Trottes’ offer of their poncy garden in Parnell, though it was probably better than having it five feet from Jake’s bloody patio. Although he was about six years younger than Rog, Rod had already been an usher several times, and a best man once. Just as well someone knew what they were doing! he thought acidly, adjusting young Jerry Mitchell’s buttonhole for the third time, and repeating: “Bride’s guests on that side, groom’s guests on this—ya got it?”

    Jerry nodded convulsively, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly’

    “Right, go on, then: over there, by that rosebush!”

    Jerry shambled off.

    Rod looked at his watch anxiously: they were just about on the final count-down, now. Yeah—sure enough, here came the musicians. Well, at least they’d got a beautiful day for it! He watched with some envy as the string quartet, chattering and laughing in a carefree manner, sorted out itself and its music, and began to tune up. The blokes were in white cotton slacks and open-necked shirts, Jeez, they looked cool.

    He was glaring at young Jerry, who was picking at the rosebush, and didn’t hear Bruno von Trotte’s approach until a hand came down on his shoulder, and a soft voice said: “All is going well, Rod?”

    He jumped. “Aw—yeah. Well as can be expected—touch wood!”

    Bruno patted his shoulder—at least it wasn’t his bum, this time—and said in a horribly confidential sort of voice: “Good man! And you, Rod; we have hardly had time to speak, no? You don’t have your girlfriend here with you, today?”

    “Not today,” said Rod neutrally.

    Bruno attempted to give him a Look; Rod looked determinedly away. He spotted the gay chef from the Cheese Basil. “Look,” he said desperately: “there’s one of the caterers; think he wants to speak to you.”

    Bruno’s face lit up when he saw who it was and he dashed off at the speed of light. Rod heaved a sigh of relief, and went back to fretting about that stupid young Jerry.

    “Now, there’s no need to be nervous,” said Mike firmly. “You look fine.”

    Molly was very nervous, of course, but also very excited. It was the wedding of the year! And she had a lovely new frock for it: a figured silk, in shades of blue, she’d bought the material at Smith & Caughey’s in Newmarket, it was a really nice shop, and Kate O’Neil from Sir John Marshall Avenue, who was a marvellous dressmaker, had made it up for her from a Vogue pattern. Molly could sew, but those Vogue patterns were really hard! Added to which they never seemed to fit her proportions, but Kate had just used it as the basis and cut a new paper pattern from it, it was just like wearing a model frock! And new blue shoes to match, they were really smart. And a hat, it was years and years since she’d worn a hat! Since it was an afternoon wedding Kate had thought a cocktailish little hat would be okay, but the prices in the shops had been terrible, so Kate had made one for her! Wasn’t she clever? Just a little twist of the silk, and a big blue rose, and a wee bit of veiling! And Mike had insisted on buying her a new blue purse to match, and when she opened it she found he’d put a little scent spray in it! He was so thoughtful! And it was a lovely perfume. Real French.

    “Isn’t it a gorgeous garden?” she breathed.

    Too right. They must pay a fortune to keep this old lawn in that velvety condition, and those old trees were older than the house, which must, just by the by, be one of the oldest houses in the city still in use as a residence. Mike hugged her arm, smiling. “Yeah, pretty nice. Look, the seats are over there. See, we’re not late!”

    Polly sat on the edge of the von Trottes’ best spare bed in her petticoat and doubtfully watched the hairdresser’s attempts to reduce Barbara Michaels’s hair to something less than a bird’s nest. Barbara was following the procedure in the mirror with breathless interest.

    “I’ve never had my hair done properly before!”

    “It feels like it,” replied the hairdresser grimly.

    Poor woman! Polly hadn’t really needed a hairdresser at all; only Magda von Trotte had thought it would be nice to have one for the matron of honour. –Magda, indeed, surveying Joanie’s limp blonde wisps with well concealed dismay, had thought it imperative to have one for her! But Joanie’s hair had long since been reduced to a well-behaved, shining cap, with an intricately plaited bun at the back, above which the little old-rose pillbox with its one big floppy rose would just sit perfectly, and the unfortunate hairdresser, foiled in her attempts to do more than shampoo Polly’s long, glowing locks and brush them back severely behind her ears, had seized upon Barbara as the nearest available victim.

    Helen Michaels, whose turn was yet to come, was perched uneasily on the window-seat, pretending she was awfully interested in the goings-on in the garden. She’d told Mum and Dad it’d be ghastly—and it was! Now the hairdresser was spraying muck on Babs’s hair—ugh! You might have expected it from Mum, but she didn’t know what had come over Dad: he’d got practically hysterical when she’d said she didn’t given a damn about helping Polly Mitchell get dressed—wasn’t she old enough to get dressed by herself, anyway? And Mum had hauled off with a real lecture: “You’re old enough to know better, Helen, and to start behaving more like a lady and less like one of your father’s frightful undergrads—and to start setting an example to your sister, too!” Crikey! So here they were, dressed up to the bloody nines—the ruddy bra was killing her, for two pins she’d nip along to the bog and take it off, only she reckoned that Magda woman had her eye on her—and there was a whole afternoon of it ahead of them. The grub had better be bloody good, that was all!

    “Who’s that down there?” she asked idly.

    The Magda woman came over to the window and looked out. “The blondt young man?”

    “Yeah.” Crumbs, what a pong! She musta drenched herself in a whole bottle of bloody Parfoom de Paree, or something! –Not for a million dollars would Helen have admitted, even to herself, just how impressed she was by Magda’s faultless make-up and manners, superb yellow-bronze silk suit, and smooth Continental sophistication.

    “That’s young Rod Jablonski,” replied Magda, with a tiny smile. “Jake has known him for many years—since he was a baby.”

    “He’s doing a Ph.D. in French,” added Polly.

    “Aw—a language joker,” said Helen with heavy scorn, sublimely unaware that Magda and Polly were exchanging little smiles behind her back.

    “Time’s getting on!”

    Ken Armitage wasn’t deceived by his old mate’s would-be light tone; he turned from the window of the von Trotte’s second-best spare room and looked narrowly at him. “You feeling okay, Jake?”

    Jake shrugged and grimaced. “Feel bloody shaky, to tell you the truth.”

    Silently Ken produced his silver flask and handed it to him.

    “Think I better? I mean—spirits on me breath?”

    “Get it down ya!” –Well, at least it couldn’t be the after-effects of the stag night, because it hadn’t been last night but the night before. Not that Jake had drunk much, anyway, but young Rod and Rog had got absolutely kaylied, and both been green as grass yesterday at the rehearsal. Must be nerves, decided Ken, trying and failing to recall how he’d felt on his wedding day. “Better?”

    “Mm.”

    Ken cleared his throat. “Not having second thoughts?”

    “Christ, no!”

    Not looking at him, Ken said airily: “No need to worry about Polly, ya know!”

    “Know that,” he grunted. “It’s just... Stupid, really: s’pose I’m afraid something might happen at the last minute to stop it.”

    With a great effort Ken refrained from pointing out that with Jake’s ex well and truly out of the way no-one could have the slightest reason for trying to bring the proceedings to a halt.

    “Will you, Polly Maureen...”

    The service seemed to be a mixture of the traditional and the newfangled—it had started off with “Dearly beloved” but then had plunged into the modern vernacular. Roger had found this quite embarrassing, but no-one else, it appeared from a cautious survey of his neighbours’ placid faces, seemed to find Jeremy’s stylistic variations in the least unusual. Well, perhaps that was how it was done, these days. Doubtless the High Church approach was not, in any case, to be expected from the University Chaplain, who was not only firmly “ecumenical”, but so determinedly modernist as to be practically not Christian at all: he’d held a seminar last year on the fallacy of the virgin birth!

    Beside him Margaret Prior, who seemed to have come back early from the Malaysian trip for the sole purpose of weeping at Polly’s wedding, sniffed, and blew her nose for the third time. Beyond her, little Chrissy Green, who had earlier informed Roger and Margaret loudly that “My brothers had to stay with Grandma, they’re only little!” and that “I’ve got a new dress—see?”, attempted to stand on her seat to get a better view and was forcibly held down by her father.

    Jake seemed oddly subdued, and took his vows in a lowered voice that was only audible as a sort of bass continuo; Polly, on the other hand, sounded firm and definite. Jeremy didn’t spare them a sermon; he went on, rather, and the congregation’s faces grew glazed. One of the little flowergirls began to toddle back down the grassy aisle and was scooped up and replaced by one of Polly’s tall brothers. Jeremy paused, smiled, and said: “Suffer the little children,” and the bride, to Roger’s horror, turned round and said quite loudly: “Come on, Diana: come and hold Aunty Polly’s hand!”—which the little girl duly did. The congregation rustled, whispered, and smiled, and Jeremy calmly went back to his theme—which, embarrassingly but not altogether surprisingly, was the camel and the eye of the needle…

    Towards the front on the bride’s side Polly’s cousin Janet surreptitiously opened her new white purse for the fourth time. Resignedly her husband handed her his own handkerchief.

    “Ta,” she whispered shakily. On her other side her little elderly father gave her elbow a sympathetic squeeze; naturally reminded of her own wedding day at this, Janet cried even harder.

    On Harry Field’s other side Kay heaved a heavy sigh. She peered round him and tried to frown at her watering-pot of a daughter, but Janet remained buried in Dennis’s handkerchief. Swallowing another sigh, Kay endeavoured to concentrate on the sermon—quite unnecessary to put so much emphasis on that particular theme, in her opinion, but these modern ministers!—with a huge effort refraining from looking to see if Maureen was still bawling or had actually pulled herself together enough to smile at her daughter on her wedding day.

    Jill had chosen a seat way over at the side, well out of harm’s way. No way was she gonna sit by Browne throughout! Not after they’d endured a year of him mooning over Polly, ta. Though actually, he didn’t seem down at all. Sex in the head, was wot. Though you couldn’t tell them, of course… Why had she bought these bloody shoes, they were pinching her already! And at this very moment bloody Gretchen was off at German Camp, well up the boo-eye somewhere near Carter’s Bay, soaking up the sun and the German beer. Or very possibly just any available beer. The congregation was only required to sing once, at least one had to be thankful for that mercy—Jill didn’t even bother to open and shut her mouth silently, she was over that sort of hypocrisy—and since Polly’s old schoolfriend Joanie, who was a member of the University Choir, had rounded up a group of choristers—sweltering in their pale blue surplices under the sparse shade of a couple of flowered arches, poor sods—the choral efforts on the whole were actually quite acceptable. The string quartet, more coolly accommodated under a shady tree, acquitted itself nobly throughout, bursting at long last into the traditional blare of indecent triumph, and the bride and groom duly retreated down the grassy aisle between the two blocks of chairs with indecently triumphant grins on their faces. Right, well, the food and the grog had better be bloody good. Bloody good.

    Molly blew her nose, smiling mistily. “Wasn’t it gorgeous? Isn’t she lovely? The perfect bride!”

    “Eh? Yeah.” Mike craned his neck. There was Bob Mitchell, but would he have to sit at the top table? Or was that only parents? Anyway, there’d be a bit of a gap before the food, they’d have to have the photos, wouldn’t they? And with a bit of luck, something to drink! “Come on, there’s Bob.” He looked at her face. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna desert you for the flaming male peer group.”

    Molly gave a loud giggle. “No! Good! –They do, don’t they?” she hissed.

    Mike’s eyes twinkled. “They sure do!”

    Janet blew her nose hard. Then she said on a defiant note: “Well, I think it’s a lovely dress! She’s the perfect bride!”

    “It is a bit plain, I suppose,” conceded Mirry dubiously.

    Their older sister, Karen, who had just declared firmly that it was far too plain, not even a bit of lace, it didn’t look like a wedding dress at all, sniffed scornfully.

    “At least it isn’t overdone,” said Kay in a terrifyingly grim voice, glaring at the square-shouldered, draped apple green satin creation that was swamping Mirry’s neat little figure.

    Mirry pouted.

    “Mirry looks very smart,” said Janet loyally.

    Kay gave a terrific snort.

    “She looks like a tart, you mean,” said Karen sourly.

    “There’s no need for that language, thank you!” their mother retorted smartly. She took another look at Mirry. “Not that you’re wrong,” she added grimly.

    “Pooh, you don’t even know what’s In!” cried Mirry angrily.

    “Maybe not, but I know a birch-broom in a fit when I see one,” returned her mother, staring at the tortured mass of black snakes on Mirry’s formerly sleek head.

    “Is it an Afro look, Mirry?” asked Janet kindly.

    “NO!” shouted Mirry furiously. “You’re all like something out of the ark! And you’re as bad as the rest of them!” she added with a furious glare at the unfortunate Janet. She marched off.

    “What did I say?” asked Janet in bewilderment

    “Afros have been Out for the last twenty years,” Karen informed her.

    “Oh,” she said weakly. “Well, anyway, I think Polly looks lovely!”

    Karen breathed heavily through flared nostrils. Kay’s generous bosom heaved in a very deep breath.

    Silence. The three Field women stared unseeingly at the chattering, champagne-drinking throng.

    Finally Kay burst out: “What’s taking them so long? It’s been nearly forty minutes, surely a few dratted photos can’t take that long!”

    Janet and Karen, not normally allies, exchanged cautious glances. They knew Mum was ratty as anything because she hadn’t been included in the party for the wedding photos. Not that there was any reason why she should have been, but that was Mum all over.

    “Um, it hasn’t been all that long, really,” said Karen feebly.

    Kay snorted.

    “Okay, Jake?”

    “Eh? Aw—yeah.”

    Polly squeezed his hand under cover of the tablecloth. “You look a bit shell-shocked.”

    He squeezed hers back. “More numb. Can’t believe it’s really happened.”

    Polly had expected to feel the same, and was rather surprised to find she didn’t. Instead, she felt more alive and more sure of herself than she’d ever done in her life. “Never mind, it’ll be just the two of us, soon.”

    “Yeah.” He grinned wryly. “All over bar the shouting, eh?”

    “Mm. Have something to eat, Jake,” she replied gently.

    Jake looked without interest at the smoked salmon on the plate before him. “Not hungry, really.”

    “Helen,” said Angie Michaels in warning tones: “there’s no need to make a pig of yourself!”

    Helen looked up from her laden plate, scowled, and mumbled with her mouth full: “Only came for the grub—toleja that, didn’t I?”

    Barbara giggled; their father said: “That’ll do, the pair of you!”

    Angie sighed. Was Helen ever going to grow out of the tomboy thing? Was it her and Bill, had they done something wrong, or what? God knew they didn’t want their girls to be a pair of silly, simpering misses—she glanced involuntarily further down their table, where Chrissy Green, very much above herself, was doing a nauseating impression of a human Barbie doll—but surely, there was a happy medium!

    Helen finished her mouthful with a noisy swallow, and said aggressively: “Anyway, I can’t see what all the fuss is about: why can’t two people just go off and go to bed together quietly, without having to hold a damned hooley over it?”

    Barbara gave an explosive snort of laughter.

    Jill had been sticking closer than a brother to Bill and Angie: not precisely out of a wish for their company but rather more in the hope of not having to sit next to Browne throughout the meal. She leaned forward and said drily: “That’s the whole point: the tribe giving its blessing to those who are going to carry on its genes.”

    “I know that!” said Helen angrily, going very red.

    Angie sighed again. “You’ll understand when you’re a bit older, dear.”

    Helen cast her a glance of loathing and stuffed more of the chicken thing into her mouth.

    Margaret Prior picked at Gary’s exotic concoction of chicken, walnuts, quark and fresh coriander leaves rolled in filo pastry, and said to the rather odd woman she’d found herself sitting next to: “Isn’t it a lovely wedding? The prettiest I’ve been to, I think!”

    Noelene Watson grunted noncommittally, and shovelled food in.

    Gamely Margaret pursued: “Are you a friend of the bride, or the groom?”

    Noelene swallowed, and replied gruffly: “Dunno that I’m a friend of either of ’em, really.”

    “Oh,” said Margaret numbly.

    Noelene shovelled in another mouthful—she didn’t know what the Hell this pastry thing was, but it was damn good—masticated noisily, swallowed again and elaborated: “I’m Press—Woman’s Weekly.”

    “But I thought— Didn’t dear Polly say they weren’t inviting... I must have got it wrong, I suppose,” she ended, reddening.

    But the odd woman replied with her mouth full: “Nope! Thash right—no Press invites!”

    Now totally at a loss, Margaret merely gaped at her.

    Noelene swallowed, sighed, and explained that she’d done the interview for the Weekly and Paul had done the pics and Carrano had asked him to do the wedding photos and Polly had sent her a personal invite. “Dunno why the Hell, really!” she finished.

    “Oh!” cried the odd, skinny woman she’d found herself sitting next to. “Isn’t that just like dear Polly!”

    The hard-boiled Noelene’s innate sense of justice forced her to admit, grudgingly, that she supposed it was.

    The speeches were over at last—even Ken Armitage’s hadn’t, thank God, been as ripe as Rod had been afraid it was going to be—though that old great-uncle of Polly’s had got in a few pretty off-colour cracks. Grabbing a glass of champagne, and assuming an expression of frightful casualness, Rod strolled in the direction of Jake’s old mate Ces Witherspoon’s table and that stunning blonde youngest daughter of his…

    Janet opened her purse again.

    Dennis sighed. “Now what?” he said as she blew her nose for the ten millionth time.

    “Nothing,” she said in a weepy voice. “It’s just so lovely, that’s all!”

    “Nothing lovely about old Nev Mitchell when ’e gets going—mind you, I’ve heard him get considerably riper than that.”

    “Dennis!” she protested faintly.

    “Well, I have.” He eyed her uneasily, but she was putting the hanky away again, thank God. One good thing, her mother was at another table—someone with a bit of sense must have sorted out the place cards!

    “Aren’t those little organdie dresses of Diana’s and Deirdre’s the sweetest things you ever saw?” she sighed.

    “Mm.”

     A short silence. Dennis eyed her uneasily out of the corner of his eye.

    “I wonder whether Karen’s new twins’ll have red hair, like Mum’s was...”

    “Let’s hope not,” he muttered. Their own boys were a pair of carroty frights, poor little bastards.

    Janet sighed. “No, it wasn’t ginger like Jamie’s and Blake’s, it was more auburn.”

    Dennis grunted.

    “If we had a girl, she might not have red hair...”

    Dennis snorted.

    “Well, if she did it mightn’t be as bad as the boys’,” said Janet in a very weak voice.

    Dennis merely replied: “Where are they?”

    “Um, I think they went off to play with Vonnie’s boys,” said Janet on a guilty note.

    Their father replied with some vigour: “Well, let’s just hope these up-market big-business types that have been fool enough to lend their fancy garden to one of your relations for a family hooley know what they’ve let themselves in for!”

    Their eyes met. Dennis’s face was expressionless but he winked. Suddenly Janet gave an explosive giggle. Dennis smiled slowly. He refilled their champagne glasses.

    “Bottoms up!” he said encouragingly.

    Janet giggled and protested, but she drank it.

     Polly squeezed Jake’s arm. “There—that’s the shouting over!”

    He looked round and grinned. “Too right!”

    “It was nothing on some of the family weddings I’ve been to! You oughta hear Uncle Nev when he really gets going!”

    “Right,” he said feebly.

    “Pigeons,” breathed ginger-headed Blake.

    “Nah: doves!” hissed his better-informed but just as ginger brother.

    They lay flat on their stomachs behind a bush for a while, watching the von Trottes’ pretty white doves flutter in and out of their pretty white dovecote.

    Finally Jamie said: “I reckon I could get one of those.”

    “Go on: I dare ya!” replied his brother immediately.

    Dennis had confiscated Jamie’s catapult not only before they left for the wedding but before they left their home in New Plymouth. However, the resourceful Jamie had provided himself during the long wait for the bridal party to return from their photo session with several small but useful-looking round stones that his hosts had just happened to have set out at the base of their fountain. –Italian marble; and Bruno would shortly be considerably upset to find it somewhat depleted.

    Jamie’s eyes narrowed. He felt in his pocket for an appropriate stone. The tip of his tongue appeared at the corner of his mouth. Stealthily he knelt up behind the bush and raised his wiry right arm...

    Roger decided abruptly that, since the bridal party seemed to be breaking up now that the speeches were over, he could justifiably leave the table himself.

    “Excuse me,” he murmured to motherly Mrs Mitchell beside him.

    To his consternation she smiled, patted his hand, and said: “Yes—you run along, Roger, dear; find someone more interesting to talk to than us oldies, eh?”

    Blushing, he grabbed his champagne glass, and wandered off, his route taking him, coincidentally, past old Ces Witherspoon’s table and that stunning blonde…

    Discontentedly Phyllis Harding poked at the small piece of wedding cake on her plate with her cake fork. “Really—all this heavy food!”

    Debbie Cohen, who had just absorbed a huge helping of trifle, looked up from her own piece of cake, flushing; silently Natalie allowed her foot to connect with her daughter’s under the table. Debbie gave her a tiny smile, and subsided.

    “Yes!” Natalie agreed with a little laugh: “terribly tempting, isn’t it? Debbie and I have been starving ourselves for days so as to do it justice!” She forked in a generous mouthful of heavily iced fruit-cake.

    Phyllis Harding pouted. “Oh, well—of course with your figure, Natalie, you don’t need to worry. But some of us...!” She gave a martyred sigh and laid her cake fork down.

    Phyllis Harding, Natalie reflected with irritation, was possibly the stupidest woman she knew; just her luck to end up at the Hardings’ table! Poor Philip was making heavy weather of it with Sir John Harding: the silly man couldn’t seem to talk about anything except his silly boat, and Philip—bless him!—knew nothing and cared less about sailing.

    As for young Alan; it would have been pathetic, if it hadn’t been so funny. His eyes had stood out on stalks at the sight of Debbie in her new yellow dress, with her big bust and tiny waist—even her mother had to admit that Debbie’s figure since the diet might not be fashionable, but it was certainly what the men liked!—and he’d said: “Hul-lo! I don’t think we’ve met, have we?”—To which Debbie, in a puzzled way, had replied: “Yes, we have: at the Tennis Club; and the Graduation Ball, last year: we had a dance, don’t you remember?” The idiot had turned scarlet, and mumbled incoherently; once he’d recovered, he’d tried to flirt with her, but Debbie, who was still—thank goodness!—totally innocent in that way, hadn’t had the faintest idea of what he was up to, and had responded to his overtures with a simple politeness that couldn’t have been more off-putting if she’d done it on purpose!

    Now she looked at Phyllis Harding in surprise, and said: “But you’re so slim, Lady Harding!”

    Positively purring with gratification, Phyllis responded: “Oh, thank you, Debbie darling: but one has to work at it, of course!” She looked thoughtfully at Debbie’s bust.

    Stifling an irritated sigh, Natalie said with well-concealed malice: “How lovely Polly looks in that dress. Isn’t that simple style a relief, after some of the overdressed weddings we’ve had lately?”

    The Harding girl’s wedding dress last year had featured so many satin puffs and bows that she could hardly walk in it—possibly it had been intended as a bergère style, but no shepherdess had ever been that disastrously over-dressed!

    Bridling, Phyllis retorted sharply: “Oh, do you think so? Personally I think it’s rather sad—after all, a girl wants something special on her wedding day. But then, the money’s not on her side, is it?”

    Natalie raised her eyebrows slightly. “Oh, I don’t think Polly’s taste runs to the sort of ostentation we’ve seen this past year.” Ignoring Phyllis’s face of purple fury, she began to chat smoothly about a perfectly dreadful wedding they’d been invited to recently where not only did the bride and groom both dress in bright red (the bride in a strapless satin garment with a layered and puckered skirt that was presumably meant to resemble a rose, and a gigantic red satin train) but the guests had been ordered to turn up in white! “Of course we didn’t go,” she ended. “I mean!”

    “No, of course,” murmured Phyllis, hoping desperately that her daughter—who was not the soul of tact—would not point out that Mummy had sulked for weeks at not receiving an invitation to this most desirable highlight of the social year.

    “Who on earth is that bloke in the dress?” said Bill Michaels.

    Rod jumped. “Eh? Who?”

    “Over there,” replied Bill, staring at the tall, red-haired figure.

    “Oh: cousin of Polly’s. Come all the way from Edinburgh. Didn’t come out just for the wedding, of course; he’s been to a conference in Canberra. He’s some sort of political scientist, I think Polly said. He must be boiling in that bloody kilt, eh?”

    “Said to be well ventilated!” replied Bill with a snigger. “Oy, you’d know: anything stronger than gnat’s piss on offer?”

    Rod was under the impression he’d already found it. Resignedly he pointed him in the direction of the hard stuff and, since he’d just spotted Bruno von Trotte heading this way, shot off and attached himself to a group of Polly’s giggling girl cousins.

    “Polly, dear!” Margaret Prior gave her a kiss and informed her tremulously that it was a lovely wedding.

    No, it was a pretty frightful do, but at least all the relations seemed to be enjoying themselves. “Yes; it’s all gone quite well, hasn’t it? How are you, anyway, Margaret? Have you shaken off that tummy bug?” she asked anxiously. Margaret, who couldn’t afford to lose any weight, had come back from Malaysia about a stone lighter. That black, brown and tan silk was a beautiful dress, but it hung on her, oh, dear. And her complexion was dreadful: very yellow.

    Margaret told her how well she was, now, and how the nice young doctor that Polly had recommended had said there was nothing seriously wrong, at all.

    “Oh, good!” said Polly in considerable relief. “Bruce Smith is lovely, isn’t he?”

    “Yes, a dear person!” agreed Margaret enthusiastically. She began telling her how Bruce actually believed in vitamins—“a G.P., Polly!—I couldn’t believe my ears!”—and Polly, who’d recommended Bruce in the first place because of his refusal to be merely a human drug-dispensary, began to wonder uneasily whether she’d better say what a pity it was that Derek wasn’t here. But as it wasn’t a pity—in fact it was a damn good thing—she wasn’t at all sure she could bring it off. Fortunately at that moment Margaret interrupted herself to say: “But where’s dear Jake, Polly?”

    She could hardly say the groom had gone off to take a leak, as he himself had elegantly phrased it. “Uh—he’s somewhere about.” She looked around her vaguely, and added, pulling a little face:  “Well, s’pose I’d better circulate.”

    “Oh, yes, of course!” agreed Margaret hurriedly.

    Nervously Polly saw that her eyes had filled with tears. “Uh, well...”

    Margaret held out her hand in a meek sort of way. Suddenly Polly enveloped her in a hug.

    “Dear Polly!” said Margaret shakily into the cloud of hair—the gauzy hat had long since been discarded. “He’s such a wonderful man: I know you’ll both be so happy!”

    “Yes,” agreed Mrs Jake Carrano awkwardly. “Um, ta.”

    Rod shifted from foot to foot. “Uh...” Polly’s Mum had just asked him, beaming all over her plump face, when it was going to be his turn. “Gotta finish my Ph.D. first.”

    Then Polly’s ghastly Aunty Kay, who seemed to have appointed herself poor Mrs Mitchell’s minder, grabbed her arm and said: “For Heaven’s sake, Maureen! You’re embarrassing the poor boy!” This was miles more embarrassing than anything nice Mrs Mitchell could possibly come up with; Rod gave her a dirty look. She leered at him archly, and added: “I expect you’re playing the field, aren’t you? –A nice-looking young man like you!”

    Desperately Rod excused himself, went inside and, looking warily round for Bruno von Trotte, found an upstairs bog, where he locked himself in, plunged his curly head under the tap, and sat on the throne in blissful solitude for a good fifteen minutes—until some clown banged on the door.

    A middle-aged woman in a puce silk dress and an ’orrible ’at, not that they all weren’t, had come up and, greeting Angie Michaels like a long-lost sister—though Jill was ninety percent sure Angie didn’t have a clue who she was—had said wasn’t it the perfect wedding? Jill had bitten her tongue and not said if you didn’t mind that the bride was slightly preggers, yes. And had slid off while Angie was still smiling desperately and all too obviously wondering who the Hell the woman was. There was a seat over there, under that spreading chestnut tree— Blast!

    “How are you, Natalie?” she said feebly to one of the doyennes of the ruddy University Women’s Association The sort of woman that treated the university as part of her social round—quite. Whilst wearing a thing on her back that would have cost a year’s miserable academic salary, not to mention those things round her neck and in her ears. And please, Lord, I will believe in You and stop thinking Thorts about ’orrible ecumenical service and not-virgin brides and not-virgin births and is flaming Jeremy a Christian at all, if only You will prevent Natalie Cohen from mentioning R. Browne!

    Either because Jill was a heathen from way back or because Debbie Cohen’s Mum was Jewish and He was C. of E. like what Aunty Emmy had always maintained, He wasn’t merciful. Jill only managed to produce stutters in response to the woman’s super-tactful probing.

    When at long last it was all over, Jill staggered wildly over to the bar, elbowing the bloody male peer group aside regardless, and grabbed a Black Label. …Aah!

    “Well, you’ve done it now, eh?” A grinning Vic Mitchell wrung Jake’s hand painfully, followed by a grinning Bert Mitchell, equally painfully, with: “Burnt yer bridges now, eh?”

    Jake allowed himself to be absorbed into a huddle of Mitchell males. Naturally nobody said anything as embarrassing as “Take care of our little sis”, or anything of that sort. Vic began to tell a funny story about something that had happened to a mate of his at his (the mate’s) cousin’s wedding; pretty soon Bert brought up the subject of fishing; and they were all hard at it by the time Bob Mitchell—they must have an instinct for it—drifted up with his: “Well, yer head’s in the noose, now, eh?” and his fishing story.

    “Natalie, my dear!” cried Magda, in huge relief at finally finding a kindred spirit—not that she had, naturally, expected to enjoy the wedding: one didn’t, if one was the organizer of a social function.

    “Magda: how are you?” rejoined Natalie Cohen in equal relief. “It’s all going so well!”

    Over a babble of polite congratulations and enquiries the two ladies rapidly summed up each other’s outfits, deciding that that deep plum, while it looked wonderful on Natalie, of course, was just the least bit dowagerish, she wouldn’t wear it herself—but the pearls were perfect—and those baroque pearl earrings must be real, she’d never dare to wear anything that size if they weren’t; a pity that the shoes didn’t quite match... And that the yellow-bronze silk suit was just the teeniest bit too severe for the occasion—and you did get rather tired of topazes, didn’t you?—but that little feathered hat was perfection! And just Magda’s colours!

    Deirdre Mitchell gave her cousin Micky a push. “You’re mean!”

    Micky glared at her. His natural instincts had not yet got the better of his training: he didn’t give her a push back, but stuck out his tongue, and replied: “Frog-face!”

    Scarlet with fury, Deirdre, who knew she looked a picture in her little organdie flowergirl’s frock—Grandma had said so—gave him a much harder push, and stamped on his foot.

    “OW!” Micky forgot his training, and gave her a push back.

     Deirdre grabbed an abandoned pudding plate and furiously squashed a large helping of pavlova all over her cousin’s hair.

    Mike looked up with a start as Molly nudged him violently in the ribs. He shot to his feet.

    “Congratulations, Polly! Or don’t you say that to the bride?”

    Polly grinned. “I dunno! How are you, Mike?”

    Grinning broadly back, Mike informed her he was just great, and wanted to introduce...

    “Isn’t she beautiful?” said Molly wistfully when the soft white cloud of organdie had drifted off again.

    “Eh? Yeah, I suppose so,” replied Mike indifferently.

    Molly peeped at him doubtfully. “Is anything the matter, Mike?” she asked tremulously.

    “Eh? Nope; just wondering whether we could get the boat finished this weekend. S’pose I come up on Friday arvo: we could make a start...”

    Beaming and nodding, Molly squeezed his arm very hard indeed.

    Hamish Macdonald looked unenthusiastically at the gaggle of gossiping aunties. Well—better get it over with!

    Squaring its impressive shoulders, the magnificent kilted figure strode up to the group of ageing ladies. “Hullo, Aunty Vi—Aunty Jan...” it said sheepishly.

    To his surprise Ken Armitage was finding that Jake’s little secretary was quite an intelligent girl—and quite a looker, too, with her short dark hair and that sea-green dress. Being an old hand at weddings, he had providently provided himself with a full bottle of champagne. He refilled her glass and edged a little closer to her on the elegant marble bench in Magda’s rose arbour.

    “So how did you girls finally get the bridesmaid’s dress sorted out?”

    Kindly not correcting this to “matron of honour’s dress” Marianne laughed, and began to tell him.

    At the conclusion of the story Ken allowed his thigh to press against hers, as he grinned and said: “Well—s’pose you’ll be next, eh?”

    “Me? No!” replied Marianne, too startled to prevaricate. She must have imagined it—nice Mr Armitage wouldn’t...

    Ken laughed. “Go on! Pretty girl like you—bet you’ve got loads of boyfriends, eh?”

    Marianne decided he was only being avuncular—some older men didn’t have much of an idea, really, did they?—and kindly informed him that no, she didn’t, really; she had been engaged but she’d broken that off.

    “That so, eh? Not compatible, I s’pose?”

    “No,” agreed Marianne sadly.

    Ken sighed heavily. “I know all about that...” His arm rested along the back of the bench and his hand was now just touching her shoulder. The pressure of his grey silk thigh against her sea-green brocade increased.

    Marianne, who as Mr Carrano’s confidential secretary knew all about his old friend’s marriage, it was a very sad story—but also all about his relationship with Mrs von Trotte—was in a turmoil of embarrassment. Oh dear: she’d never have thought—nice Mr Armitage, of all people! He must have had too much champagne!

    “Hey, Polly! Do I get to kiss the bride?” A grinning Bill Michaels, temporarily back in the bosom of his family, enveloped her in a bear-hug, and gave her a smacking kiss.

    On the mouth! thought Barbara and Helen, equally horrified. Their eyes met in a momentary re-establishment of solidarity. Honestly, Dad was the Pits! Squirming, they cast wary glances at Mum: poor Mum—what she must be feeling?

    But Angie was smiling; then she too enveloped Polly in a hug. “I’m so glad, Polly!”

    “Thanks, Angie,” replied Polly gruffly.

    Their mother then began to thank Polly for asking the girls to help her dress; Helen fidgeted. “And Helen’s hair looks lovely!” Her voice was now distinctly trembly; Barbara and Helen cast anguished glances at each other: oh, Gawd, was Mum gonna bawl?

    “Well, that’s that!” said Gary, with a sigh of relief. All his specialties had been eagerly gobbled up, even the filo pastry and chicken thing that he’d been a wee bit doubtful about. And the trad desserts, that he and Baz had almost had a frightful row over, had gone like a bomb!

    Basil peeled off the apron that he’d been wearing like a badge of office all day and sighed too. It had all gone like clockwork—Mrs von Trotte was a treasure to work with, of course, an absolute treasure, he didn’t know how they could have managed without her—’specially when Gary had had one of his tantrums over the desserts!

    “Shall we circulate, lover?”

    “Let’s!” agreed Gary.

    Arm-in-arm, they strolled out into the garden, casually scooping up a bottle of Jake’s rather special fizz and a couple of glasses as they went.

    Bruno von Trotte saw them from afar, coming over his velvety lawn arm-in-arm under the flowery wedding arches: the lovely young blond chef and the older, fat one... With a tiny sigh he focussed his attention on what Polly’s old uncle was saying.

    Roger had just caught sight of Mrs Cohen, terrifyingly elegant in dark plum, when a panting Rod grasped him by the arm.

    “Rog! Come and give us a hand with that stupid young Jerry, wouldja?” Jerry Mitchell, having stuffed himself to bursting point on rich food and downed an incredible amount of champagne, had topped off his efforts by finding a bottle of brandy and retiring with it and his older brother to a secluded spot at the bottom of the garden—where he was now being very sick.

    Protesting weakly that this was really the boy’s father’s affair, Roger was dragged off to participate in the disgusting business of cleaning young Jerry up and depositing him for a lie-down in one of the von Trottes’ spare rooms.

    “Gave ya the brush-off, did she?” said Wal Briggs with a grin.

    Ken Armitage was very flushed. “No!”

    “Not ’alf. What it is, see,” drawled the lawyer, “our society teaches luscious little working-class morsels like that to see jokers of our age as granddads. Even with the example of Carrano and his lady lecturer right under their noses—yeah,” he added mockingly. “Not that I'm claiming that little piece of perfection’d be within half a dozen years of Polly’s age. Dainty thing, isn’t she?”

    “Shut up, Wal. You’re bloody indecent.”

    “It’s not me that’s been eyeing up innocent little secretaries on my mistress’s husband’s lawn, old mate.”

    “Shut up!” he hissed, turning maroon.

    “Wodger!” A flushed and excited Chrissy Green hurled himself at his legs. When he’d detached her she informed him that Polly was going to “fwow her bouquet” soon, and could Wodger take her to watch—“please, please?”

    Realising with a sinking feeling that even the most sensible-seeming little girls were not immune to the feminine flurries generated by weddings, Roger meekly took her sticky hand.

    In the house Chrissy discovered, with wails of disappointment, that she couldn’t SEE! Roger hoisted the hot, scrawny little body up and bore with determined fortitude the piercing screams of excitement that were produced two inches from his ear, as Polly “fwew” the bouquet.

    “I’m going to look for my friends now, Chrissy;” but Chrissy, pouting, clung round his neck like a infant monkey; so Roger with his unwanted burden staggered off across the von Trottes’ velvety lawn—now distinctly the worse for wear with crumpled paper napkins and discarded wedding programmes—feeling more than somewhat like the Ancient Mariner.

    In the von Trottes’ best spare-room Polly and Jake looked at each other, and grinned.

    “Well, that’s that, eh?” he offered.

    “Thank goodness!” she agreed, leaning gratefully into his embrace.

    “Whatcha got on under this, eh?” he was beginning, when there was a perfunctory knock at the door, and a gaggle of females led, of course, by Joanie, burst in, giggling and squealing, declaring their intention of helping Polly change into her going-away outfit…

    “For Heaven’s sake, Maureen!” hissed Violet.

    Maureen fished agitatedly in her purse. Vi, she could see out of the corner of her eye as she blew her nose, was getting ready to blast her. Only suddenly there was a swish of tartan and there was dear Hamish, smiling down at her—thank goodness he’d taken off that velvet jacket, he must have been sweltering in it!—and saying: “Come on, Aunty Maureen, I think the bridal couple are getting ready to go; let’s go and find Uncle Dave, shall we?”

    Beaming, Maureen leant on her cousin Ian’s son’s arm and trotted off without a backward glance.

    Violet, thin bosom swelling in outrage, found herself suddenly deserted. Well, really! That young man’s behaviour was The Limit! And to think she’d once thought—no, actually hoped—that he and dear Polly— They weren’t first cousins, of course: it was Hamish’s father who was a Macdonald cousin... Just as well it had come to nothing, if that was the sort of way he thought he could behave!

    Young Alan Harding, laughing fulsomely, was finishing some anecdote about a yachting party to which Debbie hadn’t listened. She fidgeted, wishing that Mummy and Daddy hadn’t deserted her; even Sir John and Lady Harding had gone off to talk to some friends; there was only their stupid daughter and her awful husband, now, at their end of the table—and they were whispering and giggling with their heads together: rude, that’s what it was!

    Alan looked up in annoyed surprise as the tall, elegant fellow carrying a skinny, gingery kid said: “Hullo, Debbie!” and his pretty companion, all of a sudden all lit up like bloody Christmas, cried: “Roger! Come and sit down!” What’s he got that I haven’t got? he thought gloomily.

    Who the Hell is he? Roger thought with jealous surprise, looking at the handsome blond boy who was taking far too close an interest in Debbie. Crossly he found that he was supposed to remember him from the Graduation Ball—months and months ago!

    Having two attractive young men very obviously competing over her shot to Debbie’s head in a far more intoxicating manner than the half-glass of champagne she’d sipped with concealed dislike. Quite without conscious decision she began to flirt with them both, playing one off against the other in a way that would have very much astonished—not to say dismayed—her mother. With considerable amusement she observed, as she indulged in this delicious new game, the jealous pouting of the little ginger-haired girl sitting on Roger’s knee.

    Finally, unable to bear herself a minute longer, Chrissy committed the heinous crime of “interrupting the grown-ups” and burst out: “I saw Polly throw her bouquet!” –Quite forgetting, in her jealous desperation, to lisp.

    The big girl that Roger seemed to like looked at her without much enthusiasm, and replied: “Did you?”

    The man looked at her too, and said gloomily to Roger: “She your daughter?”

    Chrissy squirmed deliciously on Roger’s knee and cried: “‘Course not, silly! Wodger’s my fwiend!”

    To her utter dismay this had quite the wrong effect: Roger put her off his knee and said, in a grown-up’s voice that he’d never used with her before: “Yes; why don’t you go and find your parents, Chrissy?”

    Red and sulky, Chrissy retreated—backwards, very, very slowly; until she realised that Roger wasn’t taking the slightest bit of notice of her; then she turned round and went off rather faster. Neither Debbie nor Alan had had enough to do with children to point out that Roger shouldn’t really let her wander off by herself in this crowd. Chrissy wandered around sulkily for quite some time—not in the least worried by the fact that her parents were nowhere to be seen—and eventually joined up with two of Polly’s youngest nephews in a delightful game of throwing things into the von Trottes’ lily pond.

    Back on the main lawn Debbie continued to flirt with both Roger and Alan at once.

    Polly’s going-away outfit was a very plain, tight, straight emerald linen dress: sleeveless, but it had its own little square-shouldered, short-sleeved bolero jacket. She’d refused to buy a hat to go with it, declaring she’d never get the use out of it; since Jake had presented her with a pair of magnificent emerald and diamond earrings the absence of a hat went unremarked.

    Joanie, Marianne and Barbara watched in awed silence as she put the earrings on.

    Out by the front steps everybody was pushing and shoving, laughing and talking their heads off; the boxes of confetti were out; the photographer cavorted wildly, taking ever more snaps from ever more unlikely angles...

    Surreptitiously Janet opened her purse. She blew her nose fiercely. “Doesn’t she look lovely? Don’t they look happy? I’m sure he is right for her!”

    “Uh—yeah,” croaked Dennis, glancing round quickly to make sure no-one had heard.

    “Here,” said Bill resignedly, shoving a flag-like handkerchief into Angie’s hand.

    “What’s this for?” she said in astonishment.

    “Well, aren’tcha gonna bawl all over the going-away scene?”

    “No! Of course not! What’s wrong with you, Bill?” She opened her purse.

    Bill goggled at her.

    “Here!” she hissed, shoving something into his hand.

    Oh, boy. “Angie, these poncy up-market von Trotte types won’t want this muck all over their poncy up-market front drive.”

    “What? Rubbish!” Angie tore her packet open eagerly. She tiptoed, ready to throw…

     At the front of the crowd Polly’s mother was weeping copiously, supported by a grim-looking Dave Mitchell. Polly’s three tall brothers, Ken Armitage and Wal Briggs were laughing loudly and calling out off-colour advice to Jake, who merely grinned amiably. Rod Jablonski and one of the Mitchell boys—not the one who’d been sick, his brother—suddenly bobbed up from behind the car, grinning and shoving each other like a pair of idiots.

    At last, waving and smiling, they were off: the big silver car purred slowly down the drive, trailing the predictable clattering line of old tin cans behind it; Rod and his pal clutched each other ecstatically.

    Well, thought Roger, with a sigh of relief, I suppose that’s it!

    But no: the crowd, instead of dispersing, turned cheerfully back to the garden. Alan had taken Debbie’s arm—and she was letting him! Roger followed them in grim silence.

    Helen Michaels had found a quiet spot beyond the rose garden, to which she had retired with a plate of cake and the bridal bouquet of tiny, delicate, frilly white orchids which, to her intense embarrassment, she had been the one to catch.

    “Here—you take it!” she’d growled, trying to thrust it into her sister’s hands; but Barbara, superstitious little twerp, had replied: “No, that’d be bad luck: you caught it: it’s yours.”

    “Mum—you carry it, eh?” But Angie had smiled, shaken her head, and said: “No, Helen; you caught it; you shouldn’t have stood there if you weren’t interested in catching it, dear.”

    Reddening, Helen had tried to explain that she’d only been at the foot of the von Trottes’ opulent staircase because she’d thought she’d caught a glimpse of a genuine old armillary sphere up there on the landing, and was trying to get a closer look at it. Angie had only given the sort of irritating laugh that mothers are good at, and turned away. Bill, who knew damn well that poor old Nellie Dean was telling the truth—he’d nipped up to have a squiz at it himself, earlier—had snorted with laughter, and ignored his daughter’s appeal to “Tell her, Dad!”

    Helen ate cake and looked miserably at the orchids. The boys were never going to let her live that one down—and as for Dad! The orchids were, however, quite devastatingly pretty, and she touched them with a cautious forefinger, and sighed—she couldn’t have said why.

    Margaret Prior had returned to her table—unwisely, for the odd woman, who had disappeared earlier, was back there again. And, thought Margaret in dismay, what Derek would call “a bit the worse for wear”. Oh dear! She stood there, hesitating.

    The odd woman waved a champagne bottle at her and said: “Don’t just stan’ there—siddown an’ ’ave drink!”

    “Er—no, thank you very much,” said Margaret faintly.

    Paul’s duties as official photographer had ceased with the departure of the honeymooners, so he’d come back to the lawn to look for old Noelene. He’d take a bet— Yeah, sure enough, pissed as a fart! He came up to the table and looked at her with a tolerant eye.

    “Had a bit too much bubbly, dear?”

    Smiling blearily, Noelene waved her champagne bottle. “Paul! ’Ave drink!”

    Could be worse, thought Paul in relief, at least she’s still sober enough to know who I am!

    The odd, skinny woman who’d been standing there looking helpless said: “Er—is she a friend of yours?”

    “Colleague,” agreed Paul, grinning. He bent over Noelene. “Come on, Noelene—let’s go home to beddy-byes, eh?”

    With huge relief Margaret helped to get Noelene to her feet, across the lawn, and over to where the photographer’s car was, fortunately, parked on the drive.

    “Will she be all right?”

    Paul buckled his seat-belt, and grinned. “Probably have the father-and-mother of all hangovers tomorrow!”

    Still rather shocked, Margaret waved uncertainly as the little sports car shot down the drive. One did meet such odd people at these big weddings... And hadn’t she said—? No, she must have misheard her; not the Weekly: it was such a nice magazine!

    Alan said to Debbie: “Look—thought we might have a few friends round, this evening—why don’t you come?”

    Debbie glanced at Roger.

    Quickly he said: “I thought we might have a quiet meal in town, Debbie.”

    Very pink, Debbie gasped: “After all this food? I don’t think I could possibly eat any dinner, Roger!”

    Alan was just urging both of them to come back to his place, then, when a skinny, yellow-haired woman in a frightful get-up in bright blue satin, incorporating giant square shoulders with huge puff sleeves as well, came up to them and said in a very annoyed voice: “You’ll have to drive, Alan, your father’s drunk again!”

    Alan got up, reddening. “Dad doesn’t drink that much, Mum,” he said in a strangled voice.

    “Only when it’s moist inconvenient for the party he’s supposed to be escorting!” snapped his mother. “Come on! I’ve had enough!”

    Muttering a hasty apology and farewell, Alan stumbled off in her wake.

    After quite some time Roger said numbly: “Golly.”

    Debbie swallowed. “Um, yes, Lady Harding is awful.”

    Roger finished the dregs of his champagne and, emboldened either by this or by his growing feeling of desperation, edged very close and said into her ear: “You look absolutely marvellous in that outfit!”

    “Do I really, Roger?” she said in a shy voice. She looked up at him with huge, dark eyes, and went very pink.

    “Yes,” said Roger huskily. “Look, um, I quite understand that you don’t feel like more food after this afternoon’s blow-out, but, well, what about dinner some time this week? Friday?”

    “That’d be lovely!” said Debbie breathlessly.

    “Gidday!” said a cheery male voice.

    Helen Michaels jumped, reddened crossly, and glared at the handsome blond young man who was standing there grinning at her with a couple of champagne glasses in his fists.

    “Fancy a glass of bubbly?” said Rod casually, coming closer.

    “All right,” replied Helen without enthusiasm.

    Rod had got quite peeved when old Ces’s gorgeous youngest daughter had given him the brush-off, and had only been marginally consoled to see old Rog get the same treatment, whereas that bloody youngest brother of Polly’s—Bob, was it?—had got the bloody red carpet! But then, idly watching the to-do when Polly was about to throw the bouquet, he’d been struck all of a heap by the real stunner standing at the bottom of the staircase. Talk about the Junoesque type! His gaze had lingered hungrily on the bust. –Driven to desperation at around the pudding stage, Helen had bolted inside to the bog and torn off the offending bra, returning with an assumption of unconcern, carefully avoiding her mother’s eye.

    And the hair! He’d never seen anything like it—bet she could sit on it! He’d looked at it and thought: Jesus, that bloody Ronsard thing we did for Honours hits the spot there, eh? “Quand au matin ma deesse s’habille, D’un riche or crespe ombrageant ses talons, Et que les retz de ses beaux cheveux blonds...” All thoughts of Ces’s daughter and of red-haired Mrs Wiseman, who persisted obstinately in referring to him as “Jenny’s friend”, were wiped from his mind as if they had never been. Wonder what she’d say, he thought suddenly, if I called her “Ma guerriere Cassandre”? Repressing a grimace at the thought of what she’d probably say, he handed her a glass of champagne and sat down beside her.

    “You caught the bride’s bouquet, eh?”

    “What’s it look like?” said Helen sourly.

    Suddenly Rod felt he couldn’t take another bloody thing! “Look—if you’re gonna give me the brush-off, just do it now, eh? I’ve had about as much as I can take for one day!”

    “No! I wasn’t… I didn’t mean…” It was her first insight into the possibility that maybe young men were human, too. She gulped. “To tell you the truth, all this wedding stuff’s not much in my line, really.”

    Rod looked at her doubtfully.

    In desperation she offered: “I mean—all these tribal ceremonies... fertility rites!”

    To her huge relief he laughed, and said: “Too right! Bit over the top, eh? Hey—didja get an earful of that old uncle of Polly’s?”

    Helen sipped her champagne. “Mm; wasn’t he awful?”

    “Bit ripe—yeah.” They looked at each other, and laughed suddenly.

    Rod took a gulp of champagne, leant back, and said: “What is in your line, anyway?”

    “Sailing and swimming, I suppose. And windsurfing!” she added loudly and defiantly.

    “Hey! Me, too!” he beamed. He began to tell her all about his windsurfer, and about the conditions up the Hibiscus Coast. After a while he revealed that he was at varsity, and waited for her to tell him what she did.

    Helen looked fixedly at her feet and said: “I’m doing a B.Sc.—third year, this year,”—and waited for him to run a mile, like they always did.

    But to her astonishment Rod then asked her what she was majoring in, and began to ask about her future plans, as if it was quite normal for a girl not only to be taking science, but to be bright enough at it to have her sights firmly fixed on a Ph.D. in biochemistry.

    After this he coughed a bit, and said: “Listen—you doing anything after this do?”

    Scowling, Helen replied: “I dunno. I s’pose I’ll go home and get out of this bloody dress.”

    Rod looked at it in surprise. “What’s wrong with it?”

    “Pale blue,” she muttered sourly.

    Very gently he picked up a strand of the net of gold that, thanks to Magda’s hairdresser, tumbled carelessly about her shoulders and down her back. “Looks good with your hair.”

    Helen went very red, and affecting not to notice his gesture, said loudly: “Don’t you think I’m too big for pale blue?”

    “How tall are you?”

    “Five foot ten!” said Helen loudly.

    “So’m I,” said Rod simply. “That’s not tall, these days. Why shouldn’t you wear pale blue, if it suits you?”

    “Aw—I dunno...” she replied weakly.

    He swallowed hard, and said: “Look—thought I might stay on in town and—uh, go to the flicks: wouldja like to come?”

    “It’s awfully hot, isn’t it? I was gonna go home and go for a swim.”

    “Oh,” said Rod in deflated tones. “You got a swimming-pool, then?”

    “No; we just go down the beach at Narrowneck.” She looked doubtfully at him and added, in an offhand way: “You could come, if you like.”

    “Hey! That’d be great!”

    So Rod found himself absorbed into the Michaels gang for a late swim, followed by beer and a bit of a sausage sizzle on the beach for a late supper. But at least he’d got to know her; and she seemed to like him; and she’d said she’d come up to Brown’s Bay to do a bit of windsurfing on Saturday!

    Before getting into her togs Helen put the orchids carefully into her mother’s best crystal vase and, ruthlessly shoving her sacred rock collection aside, set the vase carefully right in the centre of her chest of drawers.

    Tiny lights had come on all over the garden; Daphne and Tim Green, realizing guiltily how late it was getting, said reluctant farewells to Vonnie and Bert Mitchell, with whom they’d discovered they got on famously, after the initial embarrassment induced by the discovery of their very damp offspring pouring water out of an empty champagne bottle all over the Mitchells’ Stevie and Nevil down by the lily pond, gathered up a now lethargic Chrissy, and took their departure.

    “Enjoy yourself, hon’?”

    “Ooh, yes! It was fabulous!”

    “Good,” he grunted.

    She sniffled, and scrabbled agitatedly in her new purse. Uneasily Tim observed this out of the corner of his eye. She wasn’t gonna start that up again, was she? But to his relief she blew her nose hard, gave a shaky laugh, and said: “I’m awfully glad it isn’t me that has to clear up that garden!”

    “Me too!” agreed Tim fervently, grinning.

    As they crossed the Harbour Bridge Daphne yawned and said: “I only hope Chrissy isn’t sick tonight, after what she must have put away.”

    Chrissy was now snoring in the back seat. “Not her—got an iron stomach, that kid!” said her proud father.

    “She wasn’t too awful, was she?”

    “Nah, she was fine, love; no-one expects a kid of that age to behave like a ruddy angel, ya know!”

    “And she did look nice in that new dress.”

    “Yeah—almost human, for once!”

    Its parents sniggered meanly before the sticky, bloated, unconscious body of the living Barbie doll.

    Oof! That was better! Maureen sank back onto Vi’s sofa with a sigh and surreptitiously eased her feet out of her new shoes. The beastly things had been pinching her like mad all afternoon. From where she was sitting she could see Vi taking off her hat in front of the mirror in the passage. Should she take hers off, too? It seemed to have got tighter as the day wore on, somehow. But she was a guest, and Vi could be a real stickler over things like that... She sighed heavily, and decided she’d better leave it on until she was asked to take it off.

    Kay, who hadn’t even worn a hat at all—Vi had had a good go at her over that, of course, but it was water off a duck’s back to Kay; she’d only stared hard at her and said in that loud voice of hers: “Wear a hat up here in this muggy weather? You must be MAD, Vi!”—Kay was standing over by the window, peering out at the street. She’d just flung the windows up. Now she said, not even bothering to lower her voice: “There’s that neighbour of Vi’s, Whatsername. What on earth’s she doing with that hose at this hour?”

    Maureen replied faintly, because she knew Kay’d only repeat it, louder, if she didn’t say something: “I expect she’s going to water her garden.”

    Kay peered out into the dusk and said even louder: “Water her garden? I thought they had water restrictions round here!”

    Maureen didn’t say anything and Kay went on peering at Vi’s nice neighbour. Julie, her name was, but Vi always called her Mrs Thurston. Maureen thought that was awfully silly, in this day and age. Poor Julie, when she first came to live here, was always asking Vi to call her Julie. “Call-Me-Julie” was naughty Polly’s name for her. At the thought of naughty Polly her eyes filled again. Furtively she extracted her hanky from her brand-new purse that exactly matched the shoes.

    Kay heard the snap of the handbag and the sniffle that followed it. Not again! What a watering-pot Maureen was; you’d think she’d’ve bawled herself dry during the wedding, she must’ve wept gallons; but no, there she went again! And what Polly’s smart friends must have thought! Not that it mattered what they thought, of course: pack of jumped-up citified nobodies, ask her.

    “For Heaven’s sake, Maureen, can’t you stop that awful sniffling? Anybody’d think you’d been to your daughter’s funeral, not her wedding!”

    Maureen blew her nose, not looking at her.

    Her twin gave her an exasperated glare. “I suppose we are going to get a cup of tea some time!”

    “I think Vi’s just getting it.” She blew her nose again.

    Abruptly Kay decided that Vi’s company in the kitchen was preferable any day to Maureen being a watering-pot, and marched out to help.

    Soon Maureen heard the usual argument start: “Kay! That pot hasn’t been warmed!”—“Rubbish, Vi! Don’t be so fussy!” She did her best not to listen, shuffled her feet quite out of the shoes, and began to wonder how soon it would be before David got here and they could go back to their lovely hotel. Naturally Vi had offered to put them up; but David had said, No, they’d do the thing properly for once; after all, your only daughter didn’t get married every day of the week! Vi had been all ready to go into one of her huffs, but fortunately Vonnie had asked if she and Bert and the kids could come instead, and that had side-tracked her. Where were they all, anyway? Probably the kids were still playing in the spa pool at that nice Mrs Trotter’s place. She’d thought it was a bit funny, having the wedding in the garden like that; but the Minister had been so nice: he’d explained that lots of couples did that these days, and then he’d recited that nice bit of poetry about “closer to God in a garden”…

    She sighed, and gently closed her eyes. It had all gone off very well, really; Vonnie’s little Diana had been so good, little angel that she was; even Marilyn’s Deirdre had behaved herself during the actual ceremony, thank goodness! And they had looked a pair of pets in their little organdie frocks! She did hope dear Polly would be happy with that man... He did seem genuinely fond of her; and David and Vic thought he was all right...

    “Maureen!” said Kay sharply.

    Maureen came to with a jerk and meekly accepted the cup of over-strong tea. Neither Vi nor Kay ever had been able to make a decent cup of tea. Vi offered her a biscuit. Oh dear, it was one of those awful gritty, wholemeal things she was going in for these days. She didn’t dare to refuse it, but put it on the side of her saucer, hoping that Vi wouldn’t notice if she didn’t eat it.

    “Well!” said Violet with satisfaction, after gulping a great swallow of tea: “That went off quite well, didn’t it?”

    The two of them started to have a go at Polly’s friends and their flash frocks and Maureen was just beginning to relax, when Kay said in her bossiest voice: “Well, Vi? You can let the cat out of the bag, now, I suppose? Where have the happy couple gone?”

    Bridling, Violet replied: “What on earth makes you think I’d know?”

    Kay looked very hard at the biscuit she’d just taken a bite out of and made a great show about putting it down in her saucer. “For goodness’ sake, woman, what’re you being so coy over? It’s only for a few days, anyway!”

    “It may only be for a few days, but I haven’t the slightest idea where they’ve gone! You don’t suppose that man confides in me, do you?”

    Maureen, in whom Jake and Polly had confided, tried to look innocent and accidentally took a bite of her own biscuit. Fortunately her choking fit diverted Kay and Vi, who’d looked as if they’d been warming up for a real row—Vi obviously convinced Kay was deliberately getting at her and Kay convinced that Vi was teasing her by pretending not to know.

    They’d just started glaring at each other again when the doorbell rang. Kay, of course, shot over to the window and stuck her head out.

    “Kay!” said Miss Macdonald in scandalised tones.

    Kay naturally ignored this, and leaned right out. “It’s that woman from next-door!” she announced. “Whatsername: Call-Me-Julie.”

    Luckily Vi didn’t hear this—she’d gone out into the passage.

    They could hear Call-Me-Julie’s cheerful voice: “Hi, Miss Macdonald! I just had to pop over to see how it all went!”

     Maureen allowed her mind to wander as Vi brought her into the sitting-room and forced a stewed-looking cup of tea on her, and she and Kay began to tell her all about the wedding. She jumped when Call-Me-Julie leant forward and said something to her.

    “What, dear?”

    Julie Thurston gave her a bright smile. Poor Mrs Mitchell! She really looked all-in! “I said, what a lovely hat, Mrs Mitchell,” she repeated. “Where did you get it?”

    Maureen told her about the shopping trip to Napier with Vonnie and Marilyn; not that dear Marilyn knew a thing about fashionable clothes, of course, but it was cosier with the three of them, and Sheila Dawson had very kindly offered to look after all the kids.

    Call-Me-Julie beamed and said: “I wonder— Would you let me try it on, Mrs Mitchell?”

    Surprised but terribly grateful for the excuse, Maureen immediately removed her hat. Call-Me-Julie, ignoring the Look Vi was giving her, pranced over to the big mirror over the mantelpiece and tried it on. “Ooh, it’s gorgeous! Really takes me back: I always used to try on my mother’s hats when I was a kid!”

    She went on to explain that her mother hadn’t had many hats, really—fashions weren’t really hatty, then, were they?—though of course Mum had had one of those “Jackie” pillboxes—but Maureen wasn’t listening. She was remembering how Polly loved trying on hats when she was little, too. She got her hanky out again and blew her nose hard…

    Kay and Vi had an argument over who was going to do the washing-up, but by that time Maureen was too tired to care. She lay back against the sofa cushions and closed her eyes. It seemed like forever before David arrived with Bert and Vonnie and the kids.

    Dave took one look at her and refused Vi’s invitation to stay for a bite of something. “Come on, old girl, you look dead on your feet.”

    When they got to the hotel he made her go straight to bed. Then he rang Room Service and got a cuppa down her.

    “Want the lights out?”

    “All right, dear,” she agreed.

    In the dark he listened to her thrashing about for a bit. He cleared his throat. “Maur’?”

    “Yes?”

    “I reckon he loves her, all right.”

    “Really and truly?”

    Dave cleared his throat again. “Yeah.”

    Maureen burst into tears of relief.

    Having belted up her outside staircase in the gloaming to answer her phone, hampered as she was by wedding viands and champagne within, and by new linen-look suit and those bloody new shoes without, Jill wasn’t all that chuffed when it turned out to be an Aryan idiot ringing from the wilds of Waikikamoocow to ask how it had gone.

    “Thought—you—at German—Camp?” she gasped.

    “Ja. All this veek.”

    Jill panted.

    “Vell?”

    “How the fuck do you expect it went, Gretchen?”

    “On oiled vheels?”

    “Drop the metaphors!” she snarled, panting.

    “Okay. But it did all go off okay?”

    “Yes!”

    “So vhat’s up?” said Gretchen mildly.

    “Nothing. I just belted up my staircase like a maniac, thinking God knows what—”

    “So you haff only just got in?” she said in astonishment.

    “Yes,” said Jill limply, getting her breath at last. “The nosh was good. And the champagne was superb. Vintage.”

    “Oh, good. So you didn’t volunteer to drive Roger home all the vay to Pohutukawa Bay?”

    “No, in fact I successfully avoided him throughout. And I didn’t take the car: I am entitled to get drunk too, ya know.”

    “Off course. –Vas he?” she asked clinically.

    “Well, not very, which was just as well, wasn’t it? Because after that little Jewish student that was chasing him all last year finally caught up with him, I caught sight of a very smooth up-market Jewish Ma and Pa loading him and her into the extremely smooth family Jag.”

    “Crumbs,” said Gretchen numbly.

    Charitably Jill overlooked the fact that this had come out pretty much as “Crumps,” and agreed: “Yeah. Well, Polly reckons they’re not Orthodox, or anything like it, so it may come to something. Dare say Browne’s table manners may be the deciding factor.”

    “Didn’t Polly say they vere impeccable, and he must haff learned them at his college?”

    “Quite.”

    “Vell, ve shall watch the progress of that relationship with interest, this year!” she decided happily.

    “You and La Defarge, you mean,” said Jill vaguely, easing the bloody shoes off. Ooh! Aa-ah... “Christ, that’s better,” she groaned.

    “Vhat iss?”

    “Getting those bloody high-heeled female-subjugation symbols off my feet, that’s what,” she said, sagging against the wall.

    Gretchen sniggered.

    “If that’s It, I’ll ring off and get under a nice cool shower.”

    “Iss it still humid down there? It’s still qvite humid up here, too.”

    “That’s surprising, considering you’re all of thirty miles north of— Hang on, where are you ringing from? Since when did German Camp have phones?”

    “That depends on vhere we haff it.”

    “YES!” she shouted. “Literal-minded Aryan clot,” she muttered.

    “Ve are using those cabins near Carter’s Bay: they are owned by the Scouts, I think—”

    “YES!” she shouted.

    Gretchen admitted mildly: “I’m in Carter’s Bay itself. Ve ran out off—”

    “Beer.”

    “No, we haff plenty off that, still. Milk. And also Hans hears a rumour of free-range eggs, so I try for them.”

    “Ja, und?” said Jill nastily.

    “The dairy here certainly has non-Egg Board eggs. The owners keep chooks.”

    “I see,” she said feebly.

    “And the reason I decided to ring you,” said Gretchen blandly, “iss that just as I got into the township, a large silver Mercedes passed me, heading for the Inlet Road.”

    Jill took a deep breath.

    “Off course, the indications vere,” the Aryan clot continued smoothly: “that the ring must haff been safely on the—”

    “Then why phone me?” she screamed.

    “Oh—just to make certain,” the Aryan clot said airily. “So, Rog takes it okay, I presume! And Rod?”

    “Gretchen,” said Jill feebly: “I promise to tell you all about it, down to the very last flash of the Michelangelic one’s perfect teeth and the last tear on Mrs Mitchell’s cheek, but just at the moment, I’m very full and rather pissed, and my—feet—are—killing—me,” she ended lethally.

    The Aryan clot replied cheerfully: “I tell you not to spend all that money on those shtupid shoes. Ja, vell, okay. Tell me about it at work next week.”

    “Yes. And don’t fret your little self,” said Jill sweetly: “Mrs Mitchell made quite sure I got an extra wee white box of wedding cake for you.”

    “Veak, Jill: very veak.”

    “Gretchen,” replied Jill cordially: “this is Mrs Mitchell of whom we speak: Mrs Mitchell,” she said loudly and clearly.

    “Oh,” said Gretchen feebly.

    “Aryan clot,” noted Jill with satisfaction, hanging up.

    “It’s funny how things turn out,” said the bride dreamily.

     The groom poked at his barbecuing fish. “Eh?”

    “Put this log on, too, it’ll never cook at this rate.”

    Jake rejected with scorn the huge hunk of driftwood that Polly had already tried to urge on him. “What’s funny?” he added mildly.

    Polly sat down on the sand and hugged her denim knees. “How things turn out... For one thing, would we even be up here if poor Esmé hadn’t gone mad?”

    “Eh?”

    “Well, obviously she wouldn’t have wanted us to use the place. But not just that: would you even have decided to ask me to marry you if it hadn’t been for the trauma of Don Banks getting killed?”

    Jake had been squatting over his fire. Now he sat down rather suddenly. “What?”

    Polly replied tranquilly: “Well, I know Aunty Vi gave you a nudge, and so forth… But if it wasn’t for the intimations of mortality and all that—it’s not uncommon when there’s a death, I believe: people do all sorts of, um, life-affirming things in response to sudden death. Um, where was I? Oh, yes: would you have decided to get married, do you think, if Don Banks’s death hadn’t made you feel time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near?”

    Jake opened his mouth to squash her good and proper. Then he remembered the conversation on the golf course with Wal. He swallowed.

    “That’s oversimplifying it, of course,” she added.

    “Ooh, yeah: too right. Oversimplifying it: mm.”

    Polly merely replied calmly: “Well, would you?”

    Jake ran a hand through his curls. “How the fuck do I know? There’s apparently one amateur psychologist in this neck of the mangroves, but it sure as Hell’s not me!”

    Polly went on hugging her knees. She gazed dreamily across the darkening inlet. “I suppose it’s true that everybody’s motives for doing anything are always very complex... Did you notice the woman Mike was with this afternoon?”

    “Nope.”

    “Oh. Well, she’s as different from that awful Christine that he was married to as you could possibly imagine.”

    Jake took a deep breath but didn’t say anything.

    Polly continued to gaze dreamily across the Inlet. “Sometimes I do think people’s motives are incredibly complex and impossible to analyse... On the other hand, sometimes I think it’s all hormones, and what we tell ourselves are reasons for our actions are just rationalisations of biological imperatives.”

    “I geddit,” he said sardonically. “So which is it in my case?”

    “What?” she said, jumping.

    “Pardon me for bringing it down to such a crude level, but I was silly enough to think that ya might be referring to this husband you’ve suddenly acquired. Being as how we’re on a sort of honeymoon, or something.”

    “No, I wasn’t, really. I started off thinking about your motives and then I sort of generalised... Actually I don’t think it matters. And I don’t think you could tell me, anyway.”

    “Ta,” he said drily, poking the fire.

    “I don’t mean you understand less about your motives than the next man, I mean that you’re no more capable of understanding whether it was your hormones or your emotions or what, that drove you to a decision, than any of us are.”

    Jake smiled a little. He added a couple of sticks very carefully to his fire. “Was yours hormones, or can’t you work that out, either?”

    Polly replied tranquilly: “I think it was definitely hormones.”

    He sniffed very faintly, got up and turned the fish carefully. Sitting down again, he said: “You ever talk like this to that tit, Rog? Like we was all specimens under ya ruddy microscope?”

    “Sometimes. He doesn’t like it. Not when it’s him that’s the specimen in question.”

    “Just as well I’m not a tit, then, eh?” he returned calmly.

    “I’ve thought that for quite a long time!” agreed Polly with a giggle.

    Jake’s mouth twitched. He adjusted a stick very carefully under the fish and then noted: “Ya motives was still all hormonal, though.”

    “Definitely!” said Polly with another giggle.

    “This fish is just about done,” he noted.

    “Good, I’m starving.”

    “And when we’ve had it we might go to bed and try out these hormones of yours.”

    “Mm: with any luck they’ll mesh with yours!”

    “What I was thinking,” he agreed gravely.

     Polly giggled loudly.

    Jake smiled in the dark. He put his arm round her.

    “Mannie couldn’t stand it, either,” she said abruptly.

    “Eh? Aw, that Halliday tit? I’m glad to hear it.” –In more ways than one, he thought.

     Yes, I thought you might be, thought Polly. She leaned into his side. Jake gave her a reassuring squeeze.

    There was a little silence on the tiny beach miles from anywhere up Carter’s Inlet. The fire glowed and smoked a little. Stars began to twinkle in the darkened sky. From the direction of the mouth of the inlet came the faint drone of an outboard, then silence.

    “Roger and Mannie are both the sort of person who tend to... I’m no good at describing that sort of thing, but I know what I mean. When you make an observation they... I suppose I mean they take it personally. They can’t distinguish between theory and application,” she ended in a vague voice.

    Jake squeezed her again, and released her. “Dare say they can’t distinguish between done fish, either,” he said mildly, hauling it off the fire. “Oy—Woman! Where the fuck are the plates?”

    Giggling, Polly scrambled up to get the plates.