A Catered Affair (10 page)

Erika explained that I would need two, maybe three fittings.

“I know,” Grace said. “Why don’t I come along and photograph you at each one? Pictures of your dress fittings would make a great souvenir. It’ll be my wedding present.”

“But you and Scarlett are already getting us that armchair from Habitat.”

“Tally, it’s no effort. I enjoy taking photographs. And the best ones will go in my portfolio, so this will be as much for me as it is for you.”

Grace took grainy black-and-white shots of me posing in a veil and tiara while wearing nothing but my bra and knickers and high heels. There was a glorious picture of me crying out in agony as Erika accidentally pinned the dress to my rear. I especially loved the photographs of Scarlett and me horsing around wrapped in remnants of chiffon and satin.

Eventually, Erika had called to say that the dress was ready. It was perfect. As I turned and twirled in front of Erika’s full-length antique mirror, Grace got busy with the Nikon. Afterwards, we looked at the pictures on-screen. My face said it all. I couldn’t wait to get married.

 

 

“You know,” Mum said now, taking another sip of Diet Coke, “it’s such a shame you didn’t consider having the ceremony and reception at the Tate Modern. Somebody at work said they’ve got this amazing new installation. Rows and rows of concrete pillars. Sounds very dramatic.” She paused. “You know, Yorick and Easter de Villeneuve, who used to run Fein Management in New York, had their wedding reception in a giant yurt. Of course, they’re divorced now.”

“Alas, poor Yorick,” Scarlett said, her face deadpan.

Everybody was laughing except Nana Ida, who was sitting lost in thought, a kosher pickle in her hand.

“I can’t stop thinking,” she said, prodding the air with the pickle, “that it’s a bad omen—my Jewish granddaughter having a Nazi wedding.”

We were used to Nana Ida’s occasional conversational non sequiturs—which had less to do with approaching senility and more to do with a tendency to get lost in her own thoughts—but this one was more surreal than most.

The Nazi remark hung in the air. Scarlett and I exchanged OK-Nana’s-finally-lost-it looks across the table. Then Scarlett started giggling.

“Bloody hell, Tally,” she whispered, “and there’s you promising me faithfully that the Görings and the Himmlers weren’t on the guest list. Still, I suppose you can always stick them next to smelly Uncle Alec.”

Our mother ignored us and continued to dose a bagel with cream cheese. “Mum,” she said to Nana Ida, “enough with the Nazi thing. Why can’t you just let it go?” There was more than a touch of weariness in her voice. “There is no sense in which this is going to be a Nazi wedding.” She forked up a slice of smoked salmon and laid it on top of the cheese.

Nana Ida was indignant. “That’s your opinion. It doesn’t happen to be mine.”

“What’s all this about?” I whispered to Scarlett.

“How should I know? So, is the Führer making the best-man speech?”

“Funnee.” I looked at Mum and Nana Ida. “OK, this conversation is getting just a tad weird. Would one of you please explain?”

“It’s just your grandmother being ridiculous,” Mum said. “Don’t take any notice. She’s got some mad notion into her head . . .”

“It’s not
some mad
notion,” Nana came back. “Stop making it sound like I’m losing my marbles.”

“Come on, Nana,” I said gently, “why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

Nana Ida took a deep breath. “OK. You know I’m paying for your wedding.”

“What does that have to do with Nazis?” Scarlett said.

I wasn’t listening. Instead, guilt surged through me. So that was it. The final wedding payments were due and Nana had realized she was going to be left penniless. “Nana,” I said, “it was such a generous offer, but it’s so much money. If you can’t afford to pay for the wedding, Josh and I will take a loan and repay you what you’ve already spent. I don’t want you to worry.”

“I don’t get it,” Scarlett butted in, looking really confused. “What does Nana not being able to afford to pay for your wedding have to do with Nazis?”

Nana ignored Scarlett and looked straight at me. “What? Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, clearly stung by my suggestion that she was low on funds. “How many times do I have to tell you? Of course I can afford it. That’s not the issue. What I can’t get over is that I’m paying for your wedding with Nazi money.”

“O-K,” Scarlett said, “and precisely how did you come by this Nazi money? I mean, what did you do, hook up with Indiana Jones and pocket the loot?”

“Who?” Nana looked perplexed, prompting an eye roll from Mum.

“Scarlett, your grandmother is already confused. Please don’t make matters worse.” Mum wiped her hands on a napkin. “Nana is referring to her war-reparations money. She’s got it into her head that it’s somehow tainted.”

“Excuse me. I am here, you know. You don’t have to refer to me in the third person.”

Mum took a deep breath. “How many more times do I have to explain this to you? That money did not come from the Nazis.” She went on to remind Nana that her war reparations—a lump sum and a small pension finally agreed on in 1974 for the loss of her family and their property—had come not from the Third Reich, but from the then West German government.

Nana Ida jabbed the table with her index finger. “And where did they get it? Eh? I’ll tell you where—from the Nazis, that’s where.” She picked up the bread knife and began slicing more bagels. “The thing is, by paying for the wedding with Nazi money, suppose I put a curse on the marriage? What about the evil eye?” My grandmother let out the traditional
peh, peh, peh
to ward off any demons, devils or dibbuks that might be hovering over her seniors’ sheltered-housing complex.

“You have got to stop thinking like this,” Mum said. “This evil-eye thing is nothing but ridiculous superstition. Nothing bad happened when you gave some of the money to me and Mike to use as a deposit on Cedars Close.”

“What do you mean, nothing happened?” Nana Ida shot back. “Mike died.”

“That was twenty years later!”

Nana Ida waved a hand in front of her as if she didn’t know what to think.

Then I had a brain wave. “OK, Nana, I’ve got it. Why don’t you get the money blessed by a rabbi? You know . . . get it koshered.”

Nana’s eyes lit up. She clapped her hands. Mum put her head in hers.

“My granddaughter the genius,” Nana exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that? Of course, that’s it. I need to make the money kosher.”

So on Monday morning she phoned Rabbi Nader at the synagogue. He considered her predicament and said he totally understood her need to kosher the money. He asked if she could give him a day or so to think up an appropriate blessing. By Wednesday he was back on the phone, problem solved.

That night, Nana Ida got down on her knees and recited the following prayer over her latest savings account bank statement: “Blessed art thou, oh Lord, our God, king of the universe, who in his infinite wisdom doth realize that there is a majestic irony in using money forced out of the Nazis—may their name remain cursed and reviled for all eternity—to pay for the mother of all Jewish weddings.”

A few days later, I popped round to Nana Ida with some groceries she’d asked me to pick up. She greeted me with a kiss and a pinch of my cheek. Her knobbly fingers smelled of lily of the valley hand cream and onions. “I said the prayer,” she whispered. “Now nothing can possibly go wrong.”

T
he water cooler was just outside my office. My door was closed, but I was aware of people standing around chatting. Then Jill’s voice entered the mix. “OK, folks, drinks for Tally in the conference room in ten. Can you pass it on?” It was late on Friday afternoon, two days before the wedding.

I knew it was meant to be a surprise, but the boxes of sparkling wine and packets of nibbles that had appeared in the office kitchen the day before sort of gave the game away.

I checked my hair and put on a fresh coat of lippy. Eventually Jill knocked on my door and informed me that I was
needed
in the conference room. Everybody loved Jill. She was one of a pool of six office PAs that all the lawyers shared.

Jill was in her mid-fifties, plump and maternal, and like a lot of women who return to work after running a home and raising a family, she was extremely efficient. She was also the person you turned to if you needed Elastoplast, aspirin or a needle and thread. Some of the younger people in the office had actually taken to calling her Mum, which I think she rather enjoyed on the quiet. If somebody was leaving, Jill organized the collection and bought the present. When people were off sick or in hospital, she got the goofy get-well card and made sure that everybody signed it.

“You know, you really shouldn’t have,” I said, regarding the surprise party.

“Shouldn’t have what?” she said, grinning.

“Gone to all this trouble.”

“I have no idea of what you speak,” Jill said.

“Well, thanks anyway. I really appreciate it.”

Jill and I made our way along the corridor. The room we referred to as the conference room was in fact a large, windowless storage facility. Granted, it did contain a long Ikea table and eight chairs, but the walls were piled high with boxes of stationery, printer ink cartridges and tatty old files. As I walked in, a couple of people cheered and started singing “Here Comes the Bride.” “Aw, stop it,” I said. I was laughing, but my cheeks were burning bright red. I wasn’t entirely at ease being the center of attention.

Carole, another of the PAs, handed me a glass of wine. “Sorry it’s only cheap sparkling and Pringles, but petty cash wouldn’t stretch to Moët.” Law firms committed to defending outcasts, whistle-blowers and pariahs—even highly distinguished ones like Dacre’s—tend not to be too flush with cash.

By now I was being met with hugs and kisses from the women and wisecracks from the middle-aged blokes: “Marriage isn’t a word; it’s a sentence.” “Marriage means commitment, but so does insanity.” Everybody asked where we were going on honeymoon. “India,” I said. “But not until December, when the weather’s a bit cooler. I can’t wait.”

Of course Josh and I were taking a few days off after the wedding, but it was going to be spent getting my flat ready for the builders, who were starting the following Thursday. We had decided that until we’d saved enough for a deposit on a house, I should move into Josh’s flat. It made sense because his place was twice the size of mine. Meanwhile we would rent out my flat. I’d bought it as a fixer-upper, but after three years, I hadn’t gotten around to doing much fixing. The place was in dire need of a new kitchen, bathroom and complete redecoration—hence the builders.

Finally, George Dacre, the firm’s senior partner, began tapping his wineglass with a Biro. “OK, ladies and gents, a bit o’ hush, if you wouldn’t mind.” You’d think from the broad Yorkshire accent, the comb-over and beer gut bursting out of his shirt that George was the aging MC at a workingmen’s club in Bingley. In fact, George was Sir George Dacre, National Union of Miners’ official turned eminent human rights lawyer. When he received his knighthood in 2004, in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List, the
Guardian
described him as “a great liberal, radical and man of the left who devotes his life to taking on unpopular, often unwinnable cases.” At the moment he was fighting for the release of three Iraqis who had been imprisoned without charge under the antiterrorism laws. They were all being sponsored by British companies and had no ties to any terrorist organization. Their only crime was that they were in possession of Iraqi passports.

I remember George interviewing me when I applied to Dacre’s. “Right, lass,” he said, peering at me over his reading glasses. “So why do you want to become a human rights lawyer? If it’s big money you’re after, then you should be looking at one of the big commercial firms.”

I said that I wasn’t looking for money. I launched into my overrehearsed, overearnest—but nonetheless truthful—spiel. I said that during my time studying law I realized that there was nothing more important than defending people’s fundamental freedoms. I was passionate about freedom of thought, conscience, speech and expression and protecting people from discrimination on grounds of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and age.

He asked me if any one case or incident had influenced me.

“My grandmother was a refugee from Nazi Germany,” I said. “Hearing her story had a huge impact on me when I was growing up.”

George nodded.

“Racism turns my stomach. When I’m driving or out walking, I might see a driver being pulled over by the police. Nine times out of ten, the driver is black. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to get into your car each day, wondering if you might get stopped by the police just because of the color of your skin.”

“Neither can I,” he said.

It occurred to me afterwards that I must have sounded more like some idealistic, banner-waving activist than a would-be lawyer, but he hired me. A week or so after I started work, George (he hated the
sir
and forbade us to use it) took me to one side and said, “Never, ever let that fire inside you go out, lass. You have to give a toss. The day you stop is the day you might as well give up.”

Back in the conference room, George was coming to the end of his speech: “So, on behalf of me’self and everyone at Dacre’s, it only remains for me to wish Tally and Josh all the very best for the future. And may all their blessings be little ones.”

There were cheers and whistles and
hear! hears!
Somebody popped another cork. Jill presented me with a two-foot-high silver horseshoe card, a blue garter and a Habitat gift voucher for five hundred quid. “We had a bit of a collection,” she whispered.

“Yeah, but five hundred quid.”

“Speech! Speech!”

I could feel my eyes filling up. In the end, all I could do was blub my thanks.