Memories are made of this

Wedding plans
She did something quite wonderful. Within three months of meeting Arthur, their wedding was planned for the day before her 24th birthday, December 28th. It was held at the 14th-century parish church, where her grandmother had been christened in 1901, her Uncle Frank (with the glove) buried in 1969 and Aunt Rose (with the beard) three years after that. All within the walls that stood patiently, whispering through every crevice, floor, beam and beautiful stained window that the impressive church was still there waiting for history to be recorded. Into her new future with her arm inside her stepfather’s small thinner arm, wearing a borrowed wedding dress that almost fitted and dragged in places upon the church flag-stone floor, carrying artificial wedding flowers paid for by Michael. Joe with his best jacket and grey trousers and the organ playing – all paid for by Arthur. Feeling a mixture of emotions, thinking of her dad and how he should be there and then glancing sadly and proudly down at her mum, still manacled to Joe, whilst judgments and inaction continued all around.
Esther still had her wedding dress when her mum did not and she had so much more – for that she was so grateful! Her emotions were as mixed in the gruel of life as her mum’s soggy fruit cake had been (8oz of fruit, 4oz of margarine, self raising flour) and her determination that, no matter how turbulent her life had been, it would still raise high in the end. Later, as she stood outside on the church steps, she saw tears in her mum’s eyes and understood – very certain in the knowledge Joe figured strongly.
Then, at the wedding reception as she cut the cake, with Arthur’s hand gently over hers- eyes were flitting across to Joe with a pint glass in his hand and a fag in the other that shook there and a plate of sandwiches balancing on his bony claw-like knees. Glimpsing briefly through the small party at her mum with her artificial fur hat and the suit that they had all clubbed together to buy from a catalogue and the handbag they had picked up from the local market. How she had hated him for the damage he had done, not just to her and her mum, but also her brother – what with his hand shaking whenever he tried to hold a teacup and then tried to pretend that everything was alright. God, how she feared the bullies that were out there, and she wondered why nobody noticed or seemed to care much then, as long as it didn’t affect them and their own safety or security. It was hard later, deserting her mum there in that house, which held so deep a sadness and with him, that dominant creator of such pain, grasping his pint mug of tea.
She should have felt free as she closed the front door where tyranny still reigned but she was unable to. Casting her eyes back as she climbed into the pink and white Ford, she noticed the dandelions and weeds around the doorstep and the rinsed-out glass milk bottle on the bottom step and she thought of the web that still spun tightly. They needed to hurry if they were to catch the train and she felt great joy and sadness in equal measure, leaving her mum behind in that invisible web.
“You know you haven’t spoken since you got off the train at Romford station”.
“I was just thinking”, she said in a haze, “that the last time I sat on one of these red London buses was so many years ago”. Moments later the conductor shouted “Harold Hill!” and a small group stepped onto the pavement into Peters field Avenue and past Dr Feldman’s. Together, hand-in-hand along near to the spot where her dad’s suitcase had burst open and his clothes spewed across the ground, so many years since he had left them suddenly alone.

Later into Redreuth Road and then past the pub where her dad had played and had fun with his accordion playing at weddings and parties. Walking past the railings with sunlight now flashing through that she thought her mum and dad must have touched with their white sticks, reaching out as they counted their steps from the house to the shops, or her dad to the railway station, over a mile away, where he travelled to Chelmsford each weekday for work.
Together they walked on the sunken pavement where weeds crept relentlessly through. So much had changed over time.
“That’s it. The second house from the end and near the woods but, God, it does look so small now. Look there on those steps!”
He looked puzzled and took out his handkerchief from his little too-large jacket to wipe his black-rimmed spectacles.
“There’s nothing there!” he answered as he stuffed his handkerchief back and seemed restless to move away; he never could stand still for very long.
“No, I meant to say…”
He turned to go and she took his arm to hold him back.
“I was standing there with Mum and Dad and my brothers and nearby a photographer stood; I think from the Daily Mirror. If only I could find that photo us all together with Dad running along the Close”.
Just one beautiful family photo she was still seeking. How could he understand her need to find balance from her past? Then they walked together on the common at the back of the house where they, as a family, had walked together all those years ago and where the annual firework display had been.
She noticed how smaller their back garden was where her father had worked and sawed and where he had planted his runner beans in almost a straight line and where, from the sitting room window, his classical music had played.

Later still they had sat close together in a café where her mum had got her food vouchers; and that sometime after the war had finished. She remembered how, from the shop next door, she had gone, as a child, to fetch a bottle of shampoo as requested by her mum but then ended up tipping it over her head; it was raining quite heavily and then how her eyes had stung.
She was so pleased Arthur had come with her and knew where she began and that there had been a happier past before the man called Joe. Their few days’ honeymoon had passed quickly. An evening at a show entitled aptly ‘When We Are Married’ with Bernard Breslaw and Peggy Mount. It had been special because, during the interval, the audience had clapped and she had stood proudly with Arthur as they were presented with a bottle of champagne by an actor.
It hadn’t been a trouble-free weekend as a thug had tried to whip her handbag whilst they were in Oxford Street, but that had been an inconvenience rather than something that would ruin her honeymoon.
He carried her, when their honeymoon was over, into the third floor flat in the next town.
“There we are, pet, this is our home now. You just sit there and rest whilst I pop on the kettle and read through this post, though there doesn’t seem to be a lot here!”
“We will need to visit mum…” and Esther stopped as she thought of the man whose control had now been loosened, with no need for her to spend one night again with him, and felt guilt and sadness in equal measure.