Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall, page 18
Anyway when it was all over they announced the wedding, Mother printed the invitations, and we were all invited although that party was not, I can tell you, a simple pleasure.
Dear Boy, It is just another day of course though I cannot help but remember such a special day, the proudest of my life in fact, I remember it still standing there in church so smart and proud. I so hope that one day you will be able to come to me and tell me that you too have found someone with whom to share your life, it is the greatest thing life has to offer and it would mean so much to me to be able to think of you in that way even if I cannot be there to watch just to know. Father
Marriage
The day of the wedding is confused in my mind with another event and I am not now sure if the two things did in fact happen on the same day or were in fact in any way related. I remember the man crying but I cannot remember exactly what he was crying for is what I mean. What I remember is seeing a grown man lean against a wall and cry. As I remember it the wall was in the hallway of O and Boy’s new flat and the man was one of the guests at the wedding, a big handsome man of about sixty, and he went pale and put his hand up to his face as he started to cry and then quite unselfconsciously leant against the wall, because he had to hold himself up. And he said, over and over again, as he was crying, Oh I miss him, oh I wish he was here, oh I miss him, oh, I wish he was here.
Now as I say, this may not in fact have been at the wedding, it might have been at some other ceremony of ours and sometimes I think I have seen men crying so often now (Whoever was it said that men don’t cry? Who made that one up and why?) that I confuse the different reasons and occasions they might have for crying. It seems to me, you just cry, that’s all. This one was crying almost silently, but crying so deeply and so alone that it was impossible to approach or comfort him, his misery was too deep and solitary for that. Maybe he was crying because he had been hurt, throughout this story I have been trying to remind you of how often we got hurt those days, how often it was about people you knew being assaulted or badly insulted at least. But I think he was crying because someone else had been hurt, someone else, not him. Thinking of it now it’s like one of those scenes where there is a war and then the letter comes and the mother of the young soldier has to give her daughter-in-law the letter telling her that her husband of six weeks is dead and even though it is some stupid old black and white film that you are watching in the middle of the afternoon you just cry, well, I cry anyway, not for the woman in the film really and not for any particular reason, you just cry for all the lost men, and the ones who went away, the ones you lost, the ones we all lost. And I don’t try and stop myself, I just let the pain well up (I feel it quite precisely under and around where my heart is), and then I just let the tears drip down my face.
And that’s how I remember this man doing it, just leaning there and letting the tears drip down his face, as if he had some grief or anger that was impossible to contain or forgive, some pain that just spilled over he was so full of it. As if his lover had been hurt to death or had been left to die, as if a dear friend or a lover had been lost to him.
As I say, he’s the one I remember crying, if indeed it was at the wedding that he was crying, but there were lots of us who were close to tears I think.
Mother came in the dress, of course, and the ring, and some very special feathers, actual paradise. Mother was wonderful. She took the service, of course; Dearly beloved, she said, we are gathered together here, in the sight of God and in the face of considerable opposition… everyone else was in their very best clothes, with almost everyone having had their hair cut for the occasion, and a lot of us were looking uncomfortable in white shirts and ties just like at a real wedding, and of course O and Boy looking like they would bring the dead back to life, I just wanted to bite him in that outfit, though Boy was not in drag as Mother had told us there would be no priest and no frock, this being an actual ceremony and not some party or parody. Lord knows we would all have helped to make it, especially Stella. Our two black queens, Missy-Missy and Sapphire, made their own protest against this lack of outrage by arriving in perfect and matching outfits; cheap veiled and feathered hats, lace gloves, handbags to match their high-heeled, strappy shoes, eyeshadow to match their corsages of orange roses with maidenhair fern in silver foil, two beautiful brand new dresses which they had bought from Petticoat Lane the Sunday before for just seventeen pounds each, they looked wonderful, just wonderful. And those two refused to behave, they sighed and applauded when Boy said Yes I do and again when O said Yes, and then at the end opened up their bags and threw rice at them and kissed them on both cheeks.
It was complicated though. Some people were not comfortable with the ceremony and half left, ending up in the kitchen while they exchanged the rings and made the actual vows, which was all done in the living room.
The vows were read very slowly, as if there could be time enough in those long pauses for us all to think about what those famous and infamous words might really mean on this particular occasion, and how you could make them mean what you wanted them to mean with regard to this person who you wished to spend time with and honour in some way, to cherish, to care for in some real way for whatever time. I do understand why they said all that out loud, and I do love that bit where it says, For the mutual society, help and comfort, that the one ought to have the other. I believe we should in some sense have each other, for whatever length of time, have each other in that sense maybe, and with my body I thee worship, yes I can understand that bit certainly, but still it was so hard to hear those words spoken in that room:
to have and
to hold
honour
and obey
And though I thought I knew what O was trying to say by arranging things this way, all I could think of when they made the vows was, Oh, my mother said that. My grandmother said that, I don’t know what this means any more. It wasn’t that I was jealous, or wished it was me (although Missy-Missy and Sapphire were to be heard at this point singing ‘It Should Have Been Me’ in the kitchen, very drunk). It was just that a lot of us there at the wedding had slept with O or with Boy at some point, and so inevitably we were thinking a bit about what it would be like to be standing there in their place, and though some of the boys were shocked by what was said, there was no laughter, they were so serious about it, standing there together, O on the right hand and Boy on the left hand just like it says in the prayerbook, and their voices were so sweet and serious, and the flowers were so beautiful, it was almost too much.
And of course we all wanted to bless them and have a party and wish them luck, but as you watched that ceremony you couldn’t help thinking to yourself, I no longer know what love means; I cannot show any good reason why they should not lawfully be joined together, but if this is the answer then why did my Mother live like she did, and why did my Father talk like he did. You do think all of these things at a wedding. Perhaps that’s what weddings are for.
And so amidst everything, they had made their choice, they had made their vows and they were finally married now. Photographs to prove it. And everyone was there, everyone.
And then after the wedding there was the reception which was in their new flat too.
O and Boy lived on the fifth floor of a post-war block, not far from Boy’s estate. The fifth floor was the top floor; Mother had got this flat in particular because, as she put it, she did not want anyone walking over their heads.
It was six rooms, including the hall, kitchen and bathroom, but we all fitted in.
Some party; but they always were.
Then Mother announced that everyone had to go, just as if it was closing time at The Bar, and she even stood at the door with O and Boy shaking hands and saying goodbye to everyone, Mother of the Bride, said Gary. And we all went home like we were told, for now there was nothing more we could do to make them happy or bless their union except leave them alone together to get on with it; and as we left, we left slowly, and wondering, most of us, half wishing that it was us left behind and not doing the leaving, imagining the night to come and then the days to come.
And when we’d all gone, when she’d got us all out, Mother didn’t stay to help them clear up or talk to them, she kissed them once each, and said: ‘Goodnight, Boys’ (it was five in the afternoon) and they said: ‘Goodnight Mother, we won’t…’
‘… do anything you wouldn’t want your Mother to hear about, yes, I know,’ she said, and turned, and left quickly and quietly, and closed their front door behind her and got a taxi straight to work.
When the door, their front door, was finally shut, they were finally, finally – after all the plans and rehearsal and new outfits and best wishes – finally left alone at five o’clock on the last real summer’s day that year, left alone with the cigarette ends and the plastic cups everywhere and nowhere to sit, no chairs, not a stick of furniture in the whole flat except the bed and the stacks of books and records everywhere, for they were real newlyweds in that way. All they had on that first afternoon alone together as a properly married couple in their flat was a bed and plenty to drink; and everywhere the great big bunches of flowers, dying already, some of them wild flowers, seeding and smelling of fields; and the early evening sun coming in and turning the bare walls yellow.
When everyone was gone they didn’t want to talk much or even move much, they just wanted to be alone and taste this novel sensation of being left alone as a couple in their new flat, to be quiet; but they were both so happy that every now and then they had to say something to each other or touch each other, so O would come up to Boy for a kiss and Boy would pull away and smile and say, Do you really want to hurt me, do you really want to see me cry? and then O would play looking very serious and say, Babe, I’m going to show you that a woman can be tough, so come on, come on – and then he would pull Boy to his feet and into his arms and say – Take it, take another little piece of my heart now, baby, break it, and they’d slow dance in the middle of the empty room for a while with no one to watch them and no music playing except what they imagined they could hear. Then O left Boy leaning against a bare wall in the sun, watching him, and he lit a cigarette and opened another beer and he sat in the middle of the floor and he wired up the stereo which had been our collective wedding present to the happy couple. This was the first truly domestic act of their married life, prior to making a cup of tea or making the bed. And then O opened one of the big cardboard boxes and took out a set of records from the pile that was in there. Boy watched him all the time, smiling; watched him while he took the second record in the set out of its sleeve and carefully selected the right place on the second side for the needle to go down, but before he put the needle down O went over to the window and threw it full open, and Boy knew as he watched him that this was not just to let in the sun, which was now turning to real solid gold along the walls, making the flowers, even the dead ones, shine in strange high-summer colours, but also because he wanted all the neighbours to hear this song. Then O turned the volume up and he put the needle down and it started to play.
It was a man singing in Italian, a man now forty years dead, singing the aria called ‘Dalla Sua Pace’ from Mozart’s opera of Don Giovanni, although Boy did not know these details until much later, when they had been living together for some time, and O had explained to him where all his records had come from and why. All Boy knew for now was that the voice was high and strong and beautiful, and as he listened to it he knew that this song was for him and for all the neighbours, knew that it was O’s public and very special gift to him on the occasion of their wedding, more precious than the ring and more personal somehow. O looked up at Boy from where he was crouched by the record player in the middle of the floor, and then he came back to where Boy was standing and leaning against the wall in the sun, and he reached out and he ran his fingers through the lock of hair on Boy’s brow, and pushed him hard back against the wall, and pushed one knee between Boy’s legs and brought his face right up close to Boy’s. Boy thought he was going to get kissed. Instead what happened first was that O just filled his hands with his beloved’s hair like it was a breast, or a bird, then took hold of it harder, as if the bird was struggling, and then he began gently knocking Boy’s head back against the wall, staring all the time right into his eyes. Boy put his hands up on O’s shoulders and returned his gaze and let him do what he was doing, seeing that O wanted to speak, but couldn’t, and that he was biting his lip and that his eyes were beginning to fill with tears. Then Boy did get kissed; O drew his left hand out of the black hair and let his fingers go down over Boy’s temple and then his cheek, and then he brought his face even closer and kissed him, kissed him gently under the eye. Then he bit him over the cheekbone, and Boy was crying now too, silently, and his cheek was wet and his head swam from all the drink and the promises and the kisses there had been that afternoon, and from the hair-pulling which was beginning to hurt, and his face was sore from O’s stubble and from his teeth, and O’s knee was hurting him between his legs, and the music was playing, and his heart was so full that his ribs heaved and ached on the left side and he couldn’t speak at all but he was thinking, This is love, this is love, this is love, this is my lover, and O didn’t think that he could speak either what with the music and the sunlight and holding his Boy so loving and handsome in his hands, but after a time he did find a voice; the music on the record dipped to a sweet hush for a moment and looking Boy right in the eyes, still with his right hand full of hair and with his voice brought low and gentle and broken by his feelings he said: ‘Do you know what this means?’ meaning, the music, meaning the words that the man was singing, since he was singing in Italian, and Boy said, he wanted to say, yes, but instead he said: ‘No’ and at that point the voice on the record soared up again and all the neighbours could hear and even see through the open window, and O put his mouth close to Boy’s ear and sang the lyrics to Boy, or rather half sang them, for he did them in English so that Boy could understand every word of what he was saying. By way of introducing his translation he said, in a voice close to breaking, as the voice on the record rose again: ‘Let me tell you the meaning of this,’ and then he did the aria itself, and what he said was:
Upon your peace of mind, mine depends.
When you sigh, I feel my own chest heave.
Your joy is my joy; you know that when you come that makes me come too.
I can’t see you weep except through tears of my own,
And when I can’t see you, I worry about you; take good care of yourself.
If you’re not free, I’m not free;
If you can’t walk the streets in safety, then I can’t walk either.
Boy had never had a man sing to him before. He had always assumed that all the songs he had ever loved were sung to him, or at least sung for him, but it had always been the women’s voices that he’d heard that had really moved him. But this was very different; he had never heard a man’s voice this beautiful. He had never had a man sing like this to him before, and, for all his journeys and wanderings, he had never heard one man telling another man that he loved him before. It did not occur to him that this was at all a strange way of doing it.
There was another attack on their wedding night, another face cut open, another knife. But I don’t want to tell you about that now, though I know that I should. I want everything to be perfect just for a while, because that was how we all felt that night. That night, going home from The Bar (which is where we had all gone on to) I felt different. I kept on saying to myself, Go on look at me, I dare you to look at me, why don’t you, just try it and see where it gets you. I think I even forgot that people might look at me. It was a special night.
Honeymoon
It was of course a special night for them, that first night. It was, Boy said, different. The sex was different. It felt new; it meant something else. We certainly knew what he meant by that, even if we couldn’t quite believe him, couldn’t quite believe that it made that much of a difference.
