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The Wedding
I remember the day of my Cousin Lynda’s wedding, when we were children we had longed to be bridesmaids. We had not been invited to several family weddings because we were considered to be too young. But by the time Lynda set the date for her wedding I was seventeen years old and didn’t exactly embrace the prospect of being a bridesmaid. I was doing my best to be a hippie.
I didn’t like my bridesmaid’s dress; it was the only colour I never wear, green, jade green. Green was the only colour I ever thought was unlucky. I was the sole bridesmaid from our side of the family and by far the youngest. On the Saturday morning of the wedding I arrived at my aunt’s house early but I was nervous and self-conscious. I felt like running away. Susan the hairdresser was there and had already styled Lynda’s naturally curly fair hair. She put my dark waist length hair up on my head in the most unflattering style imaginable. I insisted on applying my own make up as I had no desire to look like a painted doll. I was applied mascara and wished I was at home in my bedroom listening to Free’s new album which I had not played yet. Lynda turned to me, tears rolled down her blushered cheeks.
“I can’t go through with this, will you go and tell Rob”
My aunt, Lynda’s mother was useless, she was upset but for all the wrong reasons. Although she was not keen on Rob I think she would have preferred Lynda to marry the wrong man rather than attract attention by not marrying him. Lynda and Rob had been going out together for over seven years and engaged for two. There had been no doubts raised in the past and it was totally out of character for Lynda. She must have found it almost impossible to say those words to me that morning.
You remember it differently. You remember that I showed up at your mother’s house about eleven o’clock. You knew there was something wrong as soon as you saw me. You were unsure as to exactly what. You asked me if Lynda was ill. I replied no. You knew then didn’t you? You were extremely tall with long dark hair and although I didn’t find you attractive I always found you interesting and fun to be with. It was your birthday and of course that of your twin sister and also mine. That may have been the reason we got along, we shared similar tastes in music and humour. We were both huge Beatles fans and the night before I joked with you that I had no desire to follow the traditional bridesmaid habit of going out with the best man. We agreed that if Ian was the best man you could find there must be a war on which nobody knew about.
You asked me to put ‘My Love’ by Paul McCartney on the stereo. I had only ever seen my father cry when his parents died when I was a child. You started to cry and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to offer you some sort of comfort but I had no idea how to do so. Ian didn’t know what to do either; although he was four years older than me he was also unprepared for the situation. Eventually I reached out my left hand to you, you squeezed it for so and so hard I had no feeling in it for a while.
You pulled yourself together a fraction and I started to make us all a cup of tea. I never made it yet because you opened a bottle of whisky from your mother’s cabinet. All three of us had half a glass, then another and another.
This is a story of how you searched, you found and then you lost love. Even now whenever I hear ‘My Love’ I never fail to think about that day. Your love was in the hands of Lynda with a ‘y’, not Linda with an ‘i’ McCartney. Unlike Macca’s, your love wasn’t understood, her love didn’t do it good.
No mention has been made of the wedding ring. You asked Ian for it and you walked into the back garden. You threw it as hard and as far as you were able into the field at the rear of the garden. The following day, Sunday, all the family and most of the guests searched the field but the ring was never found…
