CHAPTER 38
I have already said that no matter how careful one plans and prepares, there is always that collection of ‘little things’ that make themselves known right at the last minute, and in this case it was courtesy of Stewie. His old Roller, the wedding present that he and Sally were lending us for the day, along with a couple of other cars, had a visit from the Faery Folk en route to our house.

For those who are unaware of the particular faeries in question, they have sharp teeth and claws and like the taste of bicycle tyres. They can be attracted by the reckless use of the ‘P’ word, the one that rhymes with ‘juncture’, and placating them allegedly involves dancing naked, widdershins around a willow tree. Stewie had obviously used That Word injudiciously, and when he turned up I had to find some hand cleanser and a spare shirt from Eric’s wardrobe, and iron it, and…last minute things.

I had, in the end, six bridesmaids, in Merry, Steph, Sarah, Leah, Kelly and Vanny. They were all in ivory dresses on hire from the shop, with matching satin shoes, and as I mentally added the cost of actually purchasing the lot I had to shudder. Jan had done her bit on my face, Naomi had run a practised eye over my cap and veil before washing her face, and all was ready to go well before the tyre went down. I gave Simon a quick call to explain the delay, and he laughed.

“There is entertainment for the restless, Annie! Listen!”

There, in the background, tinny over the phone, was singing, and I knew who that was. My family there, to make me proud.

Eventually, on that Indian Summer September day, I arrived at St Nick’s, and Stewie handed me out of the car as Albert was helped by two of the girls before settling himself onto his walking stick. He looked at me, and smiled.

“I promised I would be here for you, Annie. Shall we go in?”

He dropped my veil as Kate gave my free hand a squeeze, and I settled my right arm into the crook of Albert’s left. Preceded by six teenagers and followed by six adults, with Kate on my left, we entered St Nick’s, but not to the obligatory Mendelssohn.

There they were, Tom, Twmi, Arthur, John, James, Arwel and Hywel, in front of them Sioned and Aunty Esther, and I entered to the sound of Cwm Rhondda rather than the Bridal March. The volume was impressive, as was the power, but it was the harmony that clutched at my heart. This was a day all about harmonies, about joining the different and complementary as one. My Aunt wiped tears away as we passed, but her singing never faltered. Concentrate, Annie.

The place was full, and as I proceeded down the aisle I slipped smiles to left and right, to a crowd from Dover and others from Fishguard and Oxford, coppers, Customs Officers, cyclists, doctors and shrinks, a swarm of Raj satellites, they were all there, and at the front, backs to me, Simon smiling beyond them, were two figures in morning suits, one with a shock of scarlet hair. Albert led me to the shorter of the two, lifted my veil and took his seat by Naomi, Kirsty and an encumbered Den as Kate joined my hand with Eric’s.

His palm was sweaty, but then so was mine. This was it. No rehearsal, no walk-through, but the seal to everything. My man. My saviour, despite what Simon and Merry might protest, and that smile, that was mine, that was for me.

Simon went through his ritual, but it was clear that to him the words were special, and for us, not just a job of work.

“The rings…”

Our best girls produced them on cue, and they went on, and we said words, and I meant them as I had rarely meant anything before, and I knew that Eric felt the same. This was reality, this wasn’t hiding in a cubicle in the ladies’ wondering what I was, who I was trying to fool. They were all here, and even bloody Costello wasn’t fooled, because they all knew what I was, and it was woman, bride…wife.

“You may kiss the bride”

Our portable choir started up with Myfanwy as he did, and then we were outside, and a certain pro photographer was doing his job with a grin and a lot of lewdness, which brought the smiles and laughs that made his pictures even more special than they would otherwise have been, Ali and Jim joined hand to hand as closely as Shan and Darren, and it was laughter and kisses, flower-throwing and posing, until Simon intervened and led the way to the Hall, where Jerry had organised some of his youth crowd as waiters and waitresses for our reception.

“This is going to be like an episode of the Two Ronnies, both of us up here together”

“Yeah! We can haz best wimmin’s speech! And that ain’t true, cause we ain’t the best women here, she’s sat over there with the skinny bloke with the grin, yeah?”

“Slow down, dearest, or I shall have to adjust the dosage again. Well, it is customary to do some character assassination on the happy couple, but we are a bit stuck with that one. Annie is a lesson to us all, someone so determined to be true to her self and to her soul, true to values we should all admire, that we nearly lost her before we had a chance to meet her in person”

“Yeah, and a bloke that could look past prejudice and the outside, and read the person within. I think he’s made her happy, fuck it–sorry, I know he’s made her happy, but then she has done so much to make other people happy, or safe, or sane. My girly here is a doc, yeah, but these two are healers, and apart from being carnivorous, we can’t do no assassination of their characters”

“Indeed, my love. So, all we will do is the other traditional bit. Please raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen: the bride and groom, Eric and Annie Johnson!”

And there was more music, singing of course, and dancing, and as the formalities turned into festivities, I took a breather from the floor to reflect on how the people around me had picked me up and set me on this route. Eric was behind me, his arms wrapped around just below my breasts, and the world was almost perfect. Sarah was doing her usual getting down, Kirsty and Arris with her, as the music pounded and the laughter roared, and later, as the slow ones were played, I shuffled round the floor in that uncoordinated ‘dance’ that is simply an excuse to wrap oneself with a partner as closely as decency permits in public.

Four months later, we stood on a cold and windswept plateau in France. Albert had done his research. He had called me in after the honeymoon, with a bundle of printouts and notes.

“We have a couple of relatives, Annie my dear. Turns out Darren had a twice great uncle, his great grandfather’s younger brother, who was in Number 4 Commando on Sword Beach”

“From your tone, I take it he stayed there?”

“Yes. It was on the way to relieve Sixth Airborne at Pegasus. When you landed at Ouistreham, Darren was following his uncle’s route. The poor chap is in Ranville now. As for Chantelle, I had rather a surprise there. Her great grandmother had a younger sister, Mavis, no issue as far as I can tell. She married a refugee Pole name of Mateusz Dabrowski. Unfortunately, I know where he is, too”

“So nothing of good news, aye?”

Albert dipped his head for an instant, then looked up. “Annie, this IS good news, and I know what it will mean to our boy, and to the young lady. They can now see that their ancestry, or at least their kin, were capable of great deeds. That they are not worthless by gene and history, yes?”

He was, of course, absolutely right, as Darren proved before the grave of William Eyres, Corporal, No 4 Commando, born third of June, 1920; killed by enemy action on the eighth of June, 1944. The lad cried as he laid the wreath of poppies we had carried from the UK for that purpose, and then huddled against me, against the wind and the weight of history.

Two days later we were at Falaise, where the 1st Polish Armoured Division’s Eagle stoops above the graves of the men who put the cork in the bottle that broke the German army in France, just as the Germans had broken Poland. Chantelle was crying in great sobs, but she laid her own wreath, and we signed the visitors’ book in the little shelter as she clung to her boy’s hand.

Eric led her back to the car to clean up, as the wind whistled past us and Darren leant against me once more. His voice was very, very quiet.

“Thank you. You showed us we ain’t shit, that we have real people in our families, yeah. Thank you”

He paused.

“I love you, Mum”