‘You promise?’ I repeated. ‘We’ll be a normal couple?’
‘I promise,’ he said. ‘We’ll be a family. I want babies. I want a daughter. Daughters have respect for their fathers. I want a son. A son would carry my name.’
I should have been carried along by his enthusiasm and, to a certain degree, I was. Perhaps marriage would change everything. A wedding would solve all our problems, wouldn’t it? But still the nagging doubt persisted. I ignored it and gave myself up to his excitement.
‘I’ll buy a new outfit,’ I said.
‘No! A proper wedding dress,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve already told you – I’ve picked one!’
‘But Ash, why go to the expense of a fancy wedding dress when there’s just two of us? Who’s going to see it?’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘Our babies will. When they grow up, they’ll look at photographs of Mummy and Daddy on their wedding day. I want everything to be done properly.’
‘Photographs?’ I said, laughing.
‘Yes, official photographs,’ he said pompously. ‘You in your wedding dress, and me in my morning suit.’
‘Tails!’ I said.
‘Yes, tails,’ he replied.
It was difficult not be swept away by Ash’s childlike exuberance. I had taken a decision that would change everything, and for the first time in my life my family were not a party to it. I had felt unable to tell my parents that Ash ran home to his mother every night. I could not reveal to them that it was she and not me who washed his clothes and cooked his dinners. It would have been incomprehensible to them. My dad was pure Glasgow East End working class, with all its traditions and boundaries. Wives made your ‘tea’; wives washed your clothes. Mothers were there to be loved and visited on Sundays.
If Da had known how we lived, he would have lost respect for Ash for not putting me first. If Ma had known the truth, she too would have been mystified by my devotion to a man she would have perceived to be ‘a mummy’s boy’. I had solved the problem once and for all by saying ‘Yes’.
Married men do not run home to mother.
June: Weren’t we such fools?
I looked in the mirror, fingering the lace daisies embroidered under the tight bust-line of the white satin dress. The gown skimmed the carpet and the only visible signs of flesh were my hands, neck and face.
‘Lovely, June,’ said Ellen, who was standing behind me. ‘You’d think it had been made for you instead of me.’
I patted my hips, smoothing down the heavy material. A veil fell on either side of my face, reaching to the hemline of the dress.
‘Do you think so?’ I said to Ellen’s reflection.
Ellen was one of Rab’s two sisters and she had offered to lend me the dress she had worn at her own wedding. Ellen had also agreed to be my bridesmaid; second choice for a bride in a second-hand dress.
It was May, and the weather was already promising summer. We were only weeks away from the wedding and yet Rab had become a stranger to me. He was working 12-hour shifts to pay for it. Since the day we, or more accurately I, decided that we were going to be married, we had been spending money like water. We soon realised that weddings were an expensive business. We were paying for everything ourselves and I was trying to keep costs down, hence my second-hand dress. I had discovered that the cost of a new one would have been astronomical. Most couples save for years to pay for a wedding. We effectively had a few weeks. Rab played no part in the preparations, but I was in my element.
When Wilma had bluntly refused to be my bridesmaid, it had not only dampened my enthusiasm – it had made me wonder whether I was doing the right thing. In spite of all the excitement, I couldn’t get it out of my mind that Rab had hit me. My dad would have been horrified and enraged if he had known that Rab had lifted his hand to me. As far as he was concerned Rab was just a hard-working lad; a bit rough and ready, perhaps, but someone he believed would look after his daughter.
Somehow I convinced myself that the episode had been an aberration on Rab’s part, and any lingering doubts were quickly suppressed by the planning: booking the church, renting the local community hall for the reception, hiring the band and sending out invitations. I strutted through my days in a happy haze, and now, as I looked at my reflection in the mirror, my reservations were dispelled.
I was already halfway down the aisle.
Giselle: Everything was for show.
The woman was smiling when she chided Ash.
‘You know it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress before the wedding, don’t you?’
Ash ignored the shop assistant, who tried to shield me by drawing the satin curtain across the changing area.
He was determined.
‘I want to see her in that dress,’ he told her, attempting to take the curtain from her hand.
The shop assistant’s smile faded but she held firm. A faint hint of annoyance crept into her voice.
‘Not until the wedding day, Sir,’ she said, still trying to keep the mood light.
He was insistent.
‘I want to see her,’ he said.
The immaculately dressed and coiffed assistant in the salubrious wedding shop relinquished the curtain reluctantly. I could see she was embarrassed. So was I.
‘Ash,’ I said. ‘It’s bad luck.’
‘Let me see you,’ he said.
I stepped out from behind the curtain, my face flushing red.
‘Beautiful!’ he whispered, stepping back to admire the ornate, billowing gown.
The snowy-white dress was as traditional as it got. My hair was gathered beneath a pearl headdress attached to a veil that flowed down my back.
Ash began crying.
The shop assistant’s eyes widened in disbelief and she retreated hastily to another part of the shop. I wilted under his intense gaze and I too had to look away.
‘Beautiful,’ he repeated.
‘I’ll take that one,’ he said, in the direction of the assistant.
Her eyes flicked towards me for a microsecond.
‘You do look lovely,’ she said, before heading for the till.
I retreated behind the curtain and disrobed as quickly as I could. As naïve as I was, even I knew that Ash’s behaviour was odd. By the time I came out the mood had changed and the assistant was all business. She was taking a sheaf of banknotes from Ash.
A new and pristine version of the gown I had just tried on was lying across the counter, sheathed in a white muslin cover.
‘Thank you, Sir,’ the assistant said, depositing the cash in the till.
She swung the gown high above her head, came round from behind the counter and draped it over Ash’s outstretched arm.
‘I hope your day goes well,’ she said … to me.
‘Thank you,’ I replied.
‘Right,’ said Ash as we headed for the door. ‘Now for my top hat and tails!’
Chapter 6
I Take This Man
‘All June and Giselle wanted was someone to love them.’
Ian Stephen
June: Fools we might have been, but you start out with such hopes.
‘June …’ Dad said. ‘You look beautiful.’
My