To the Heart of Marriage

May 2013, The British Government is debating the Equal Marriage Bill.

"I just can't stand it anymore," Sarah announced.

"Can't stand what?" he asked her.

"You know perfectly well what."

“Err… I don’t, no,” Nick replied. He looked over at her and saw Sarah had a newspaper in her hand. God, what was she going off about now?

He’d come back to the staff room for the last thirty minutes of his lunch hour. The sandwich bar was packed and he wanted somewhere quiet to eat his lunch. There had only been Sarah and Jess in the room when he entered it. Both women had seemed absorbed in their own reading.

Frumpy and plain, Sarah was one of the Senior Administrators in the office, and stomped around it in her cardigans and pleated skirts as if she ran the whole place. On his first day there she’d given him a bundle of Christian leaflets, all about his need to repent. He’d quickly realised she was the office Christian and would preach her beliefs without any encouragement.

Tall and elegant, Jess was one of the solicitors there. He knew so little about her. She wasn’t snobbish, but he just had so little to do with her, in his role, and Sarah kept him away from the solicitors. Sarah saw them as her “department”. Jess was elegant in her dark suits, short dark hair and small oblong glasses.

“Haven’t you read any of the emails I’ve been sending out all week, this is our last chance to save the sanctity of marriage,” Sarah replied, her voice rising with her own excitement.

He now saw the headline of the newspaper she held up, it was about that day’s debate in parliament on the upcoming Marriage Equality bill. Nick felt his stomach sink.

“Oh,” was all he managed to say.

“Is that all you can say? Marriage is about to be destroyed by these Godless politicians. I’m at my wits end. I prayed all last night about this,” Sarah angrily snapped.

He’d only been doing this job for three weeks and was trying to keep his head down. He needed this job and didn’t want to jeopardise it. It wasn’t the job he wanted but it was all the Recruitment Agency would find him. He’d wanted a permanent job, with the security that brought, but instead all he could find was an agency job, employed and paid by the week. It was the economy, he knew that, but that didn’t help him.

Five months ago he’d moved in with his boyfriend. He was nineteen and Charlie was twenty-two, they hardly had any cash between them and he needed this job, he had to keep it. Now he was faced with Sarah, the woman who signed his timesheet at the end of each week, and he’d didn’t know what to say to her. Could he say how he really felt? The excitement simmering away inside of him that this could mean he and Charlie might be able to get married, one day. But if he said that, would Sarah want him back next week? He couldn’t afford to lose this job.

“This is destroying the very fabric of marriage and we Christians are sick and tired of being ignored,” Sarah carried on.

“Bollocks!” Jess’s rich and toned voice cut through the room.

“Don’t speak to me like that,” Sarah snapped back to Jess. “This is a very serious matter. They are trying to destroy marriage and no one will listen.”

“Bollocks!” Jess repeated herself, staring back at Sarah, over her oblong glasses. “No one is destroying marriage.”

“Don’t be naive. This gay marriage will destroy the very heart of marriage. Marriage is between one man and one woman, for life. They’re trying to redefine marriage and no one is stopping them,” Sarah complained, her voice rising in protest.

“God, you’re talking bollocks!” Jess replied. “Get your facts straight or shut up!”

“This is redefining marriage and no one is speaking out.” Sarah snapped back.

“We’ve been ‘redefining’ marriage since marriage began. I remember when the law changed and rape within marriage became illegal. We had Christians shouting against that,” Jess said. The book she’d been reading now put to one side.

“That’s different,” Sarah protested. “Here we’re talking about changing marriage to make it unrecognisable.”

“Bollocks! Marriage now is completely different to as it was a millennia ago. We don’t sell women into marriage for a dowry, women can now consent to marriage, women can divorce their husbands. Marriage isn’t even the same now as it was in the Victorian age,” Jess said.

“Gay marriage will destroy marriage altogether. Christians will be sacked and put in jail if they say they don’t support it. This is an attack on Christianity,” Sarah replied.

“For God’s sake stop lying,” Jess said. “This is marriage equality and well overdue. I’m sick of your constant lies about it. The world won’t end because two men get married and Christians won’t get locked up. There are no laws in this country that would.”

“That’s not true, there’s that Equality Law. My church campaigned against it too but we were ignored,” Sarah said.

“Because of all the homophobic lies that pour out of you. I spoke to HR about all those damn emails you keep sending out. If they’re not in breach of our equality policy I want to know why,” Jess replied, her voice nowhere near as loud as Sarah’s but commanding the room the way Sarah’s didn’t.

“I expected this prejudice from the likes of you,” Sarah said to Jess, as she stood up, and then turned her attention on Nick. “I expected you to stand up for me, after all I have done for you since you started here. Well, don’t expect to be booked for next week,” she shot at him and then stormed out of the room.

Nick’s stomach sink within him. He’d kept his head down, hardly said anything, certainly not anything to upset Sarah and still lost he’d this job. He’d have to go back to the Recruitment Agency and beg them for another job, if there were any. Great, he could never win.

“Don’t worry about what she said,” Jess’s voice cut through his thoughts.

He looked over at her in surprise and in reply she said:

“Sarah marches around here like she runs the place but she doesn’t. She doesn’t have the authority to book or dismiss agency staff. All she does is organise the signing of your timesheets. You’re a good worker and there’s a job here for you as long as you want it. Screw what Sarah says, I’m fed-up with her anyway.”

“Thanks,” he said to her.

“It’s nice to have some gay-boys around this office.”

“Oh,” he replied and felt his face blushing red. Was he that obvious?

Jess laughed, a deep and throaty laugh, before saying:

“I’m an old bisexual, I know a gay man when I see one. Now, when you’ve finished your lunch I’ve got some work for you. It’s about time you stopped doing Sarah’s job for her,” Jess said as she elegantly stood up, her book clutched in her hand.

Nick smiled back at her, relief cooling his blushes.