36. A WEDDING RECEPTION

With her daughter getting married Ursula seems to be heading towards a lonely middle age

The day Greendale Blocksley walked his daughter down the isle was the proudest day in his life.

It had been a long journey, with him doubting his own ability to father anyone, even before his bail-out from a Spitfire during the second world war, which had come to its grinding, bloody halt more than twenty years earlier.

And now Primrose was getting married. Pretty as a picture in her white wedding gown but with a tiny suggestion that her stomach might be swelling, she stood at the door to the old church in Swanspottle, and smiled at her father.

“Well, this is it, dad,” she said, and he could see from the light in her eyes just how happy she was. But he asked to ask.

“You’re quite sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything, not ever in all my life,” she told him.

“Well, Mr Graham Glosthorpe is a very lucky man,” Greendale whispered, and inside the church the organ blasted the opening chords to Mendelssohn's Wedding March down the aisle and out past the waiting groom and his bride-daughter to fill the village green of Swanspottle with its romantic majesty. A small boy in school shorts on a bicycle stopped and stared to see what was going on, and an old lady smiled knowingly at the scene.

“Come on, then,” whispered Greendale, and the two of them walked slowly to the front of the church followed by Susan as chief bridesmaid and two little girls he barely knew but pretty as any two little girls can be in their pink dresses, and to where Graham in his hired suit stood waiting.

Ursula had tears in both eyes as she watched her daughter be taken, as a wife, by Graham. From now on she would no longer be Miss Blocksley but Mrs Glosthorpe, and in just a few months and with a fair wind she’d be a mother too.

When you get down to thinking about things, it’s a strange old thing is this life of ours, she thought as Primrose whispered I do and Graham smiled his encouragement at her.

When you think about it there’s only one reason why we humans commit ourselves to wedlock, and that’s a good word, is wedlock. We get locked into the life of another human being and if we’re lucky it turns out all right. But if we’re not, then it’s a painful old thing. Like Greendale and me, full of each other not so many years ago and then one little bomb gets to be dropped on us and we fly apart… And once two people fly apart there’s no drawing them back together again unless they’re luckier than us two…

Her mind, so briefly that she didn’t miss one moment of her daughter’s wedding, went back to that wake for the dear departed Sergeant Plodnose.

He had been there, sitting behind her but with his back to her, and he had deliberately listened in to her conversation with Jane, and what’s more he had taken a friend with him.

And it was that sneaking behind her back that had added to the obvious fact that he must have thought she’d been sleeping around when Primrose had been conceived that decided the future for her.

Divorce.

Sometimes there could be no road back. Sometimes the tendril called trust, once broken, cannot be made to grow back together.

And there he was, father of the bride and as proud as any father anywhere. Why couldn’t he have seen, when he’d got that fertility result from the clinic, that things can change in life and very few things are fixed immutably, and that things had changed for him, that something had happened in the complex world of scrotums and testicles when he’d had that injury at the tail end of the war? That his infertility sprung from that? Or was it the herbal stuff given him by Miss Entwhistle? Whatever the cause, it was something that most certainly hadn’t affected him when Primrose was conceived. So why couldn’t he have seen that?

Then the service was over and the happy couple went into a vestibule to sign the register.

“That was beautiful...”

That was Greendale to her, and she stood up whilst closely examining her own feet.

“I hope it works out for them,” she said briefly.

“I don’t see why not,” was his casual reply.

“It depends on trust,” she added with a soupçon of acid in her voice. She couldn’t help it … it was how she felt.

It was at the reception afterwards with a second-rate group of loud musicians playing a range of hit tunes from the decade that she finally released Greendale from being inside her head.

It was in the same large bar at the same pub that they had bid Sergeant Plodnose goodbye at his wake, but this time the atmosphere was totally different.

She watched Primrose and Graham dancing together and she could see that every inch of her daughter’s rosy cheeks spelled out just how blissfully happy she was. There were no doubts there, and when Graham gently rubbed her stomach where it was so obviously swelling she knew that for the moment at least all was well.

“What a treat,” murmured a voice in her ear.

She looked to see who was speaking, but didn’t recognise the speaker, which surprised her because, being the local shopkeeper, she recognised just about everyone in Swanspottle and quite a few from further afield.

But he was forty to fifty years old, going grey at the temples and with the bluest eyes she thought she’d ever seen.

“Cardew Pinkerton,” he introduced himself with a smile that showed that he looked after his teeth, “and if I’m not mistaken you must be Ursula Blocksley?”

“Soon to revert to Ursula Spandex,” she told him.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked, “this modern music has an enticing rhythm, don’t you think?

Ursula didn’t, but agreed to dance anyway. Of course she did: this was the first time in her life any man had asked her to dance, and she wasn’t going to let the unfamiliar beat of what she looked on as hippie music get in the way of a new experience.

As they moved together, he pulling her an inch closer to him than she felt was totally appropriate, he introduced himself.

“I’m the Principal of the Academy,” he said, “and Graham there is one of my bright young teachers. I was so happy to see him courting our secretary, better known, I’m sure, as your daughter…?”

“I wondered why I didn’t recognise you,” murmured Ursula, “I thought I knew most of Primrose’s friends, and Graham’s too.”

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked, out of the blue.

“Me? I’m here, wishing the happy couple a good life together,” she mumbled, confused by the question.

“It’s just that … this might sound silly and I don’t want you to think I’m any kind of nutcase, but the skies are clear and I’ve got a telescope trained on the moon back at the Academy,” he said, “and I was wondering if you’d like to see the Sea of Tranquillity when this party’s over?”

“Tranquillity?” she asked.

“It’s a feature on the moon, and best viewed on a clear night with a glass of good red wine in your hand and a light in your heart,” he said.

Before she could reply there was an unwelcome interruption.

“I’m off, Ursula,” said Greenday, “and I’m still sorry...”

“I’m not,” she replied, “because tonight’s a night for tranquillity… but you saw our daughter off and did it well. I was proud of her.”

“Would you like… we could talk ...” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry, but I’m off to see the moon,” she said. Then she turned to Cardew Pinkerton who was waiting patiently and still in hold as the music played.

“It’ll make a change from etchings,” she said, and smiled.

© Peter Rogerson 15.08.18