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, Dec 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 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 emotion 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 all around continued.
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, S.R, flour and her determination that no matter how turbulent her life had been it would still raise high in the end. As she stood later 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 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 over 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 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 sad house, which held so deep a sadness and with him that dominant creator of such pain grasping his pint mug of tea.
Later she closed their front door and then out into the long street that had been her home for so very many years. Then into their Ford, white and pink, and looked sadly back at the dandelions and weeds around the doorstep and the rinsed out glass milk bottle on the bottom step. 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 there and wondering how she ever might become free.
“Are you alright? You’ve not spoken since we got off the train at Romford station more than ten minutes ago!”
“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 they and a small group stepped onto the pavement into Peters Field Avenue and past Dr Feldman’s and together hand in hand along near to where her dad’s suitcase had burst open and his clothes spewed across the ground, so many years before he had left them so suddenly alone. Moments 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 and she thought her mum and dad would have touched with their white sticks reaching out as they both 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 both walked on the sunken pavement where weeds crept relentlessly through and 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 News of the World. If only I could find that photo and the man with us, 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 then and she remembered how her eyes had really 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 Breslau and Peggy Mount. It had been special because during the interval she had stood proudly with Arthur and the entire audience had applauded them as they were presented with a bottle of champagne by another actor.
It had not been an entirely trouble free weekend as a thug had ripped from beneath her arm her handbag as they walked along Oxford Street, but that had been an inconvenience rather than something that would ruin her honeymoon. He carried her, on their honeymoon return, 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 don’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.