Light A Penny Candle (60 page)

There wasn’t nearly enough time, not nearly, but it did seem sensible that Elizabeth should go home and get some sleep.

‘Tell Tony I’m sorry we missed him, but we look forward to seeing him tomorrow,’ said Henry courteously.

‘Yes indeed.’ They waved goodbye from the foyer.

‘Let’s go to Soho, and I’ll point out dens of iniquity to you,’ Aisling suggested.

‘But aren’t you tired?’

‘I wouldn’t sleep anyway.’

‘Suppose Tony comes back.’

‘Let him come back.’

They wandered around in the bright lights and the cosmopolitan crowds and the young men standing at the top of stairways that led down to strip shows. There were book-shops open late and at the back they had sections which had filthy books.

‘How do you know all this?’ Donal’s eyes were out on sticks.

‘Years ago, years and years – I was much younger than you – I came down here with Elizabeth and her boyfriend that time, Johnny. Johnny told us all these things, we couldn’t believe him. But it’s all true.’

‘What happened to Johnny?’

‘He’s still a friend, you’ll meet him tomorrow.’

Tony came in at one a.m. and the porter helped him to his room.

‘I’m afraid there’s a pound owing on the taxi,’ he said apologetically.

‘Thank you so much.’ Aisling was icy calm. ‘Can you give him twenty-five shillings, and can I ask you to have ten shillings please for a couple of drinks yourself tomorrow? Thank you very much for helping my husband home.’

‘Thank you, lady.’ The porter was pleased there had been no embarrassing scene. ‘I’ll give you a hand getting him on the bed if you like.’

Aisling accepted this willingly, and she took off one of
Tony
’s shoes while the porter removed the other.

‘Should we try to get him undressed?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘No, I have his good suit hanging up. You are kind.’

‘You’re a great little trooper lady,’ said the porter.

Aisling got up early on the morning of Elizabeth’s wedding. She went to the chemist and bought mouthwash, a bottle of eye lotion, some witch hazel and cotton wool. She ordered a pot of black coffee to be sent up to their room and then from the foyer she rang Elizabeth to wish her luck. She went up to the room and arrived at the same time as the coffee. She took it from the waiter before he could see the spectacle of a man in bed with a suit jacket, shirt and tie still on him. She ran the bath with lukewarm water and wearily pulled back the clothes on the bed.

‘Up,’ she said crisply.

‘What? What?’

‘Up. You can get as pissed as you like after the wedding, I don’t give a damn, but for the wedding you will look right. Up.’

Tony tried to move. His head hurt him and he swallowed hard. ‘How did … what happened?’

‘You went out at five o’clock to do some business, the business took somewhat longer than you thought. It also seemed to cost you twenty pounds plus a pound for a taxi from Kilburn, which is where the business seemed to end up.’ She was moving his feet, still in their socks, towards the floor.

‘Ash, will you stop, let me rest.’

‘No, I will not. Get up now and walk towards the bathroom, then start peeling off your clothes one by one and throwing them to me.’

He did it, like a slowly moving clockwork toy. When he was naked she handed him the first cup of coffee and kept them coming even though he gagged and said he could drink no more. She sat on the bathroom chair while he made feeble attempts to wash himself then she put a towel behind his head and told him to lean back.

‘What’re you going to do?’ he asked fearfully.

‘I’m going to mend your eyes,’ she said. As he lay almost drifting off to sleep, she dabbed and soothed and patted his eyes, she soaked the cotton wool in cold water and, after half an hour, the swelling and blotchiness had improved greatly.

‘Ash, I feel dreadful,’ he said pathetically. ‘It’s just going to be this weekend, when we get back home again I swear I. … Just let me have a couple to get me on target again?’

‘As many as you like. After the wedding. …’ She handed him his clothes, garment by garment, and with a hotel clothes brush she dusted his shoulders.

‘You’re a fine-looking man, that’s the pity of it.’

‘Ash, stop horsing about, get dressed yourself. …’

‘I’m not horsing about, I’m saying the truth, you are handsome and now that you’ve lost all that weight you look very well. Very well indeed. Can’t you take a compliment?’

‘I feel dreadful, I’m not in the mood for play-acting.’

‘Isn’t that funny, neither am I? Now you still stink of
drink
– I don’t know why, God knows you should have washed it out of you. Drink this.’

‘For God’s sake.

‘Now.’ She went into the bathroom to wash and she heard him frantically trying to open the bedroom door.

‘Shit, the door’s stuck,’ she heard him say.

‘No, Tony dearest, it’s not stuck, I locked it,’ she said from the bathroom as she shook on some expensive talcum powder. She had bought it at the chemist at the same time as all the medicaments; it had made the trip less depressing.

In the taxi on the way to the wedding Donal found them curiously relaxed. If he had been Aisling he would have been very cross indeed that Tony had disappeared last night. Aisling was very peculiar in some ways, here she was laughing in a very friendly way.

‘So that’s the bargain. Three drinks of your choice at the reception, and when we’ve waved them goodbye then you’re on your own … you get miles away from the wedding party and do as you like, for as long as you like.’

‘Why am I being sent away from the wedding party? That’s a bit high-handed.’

‘No, it’s the bargain, you can drink yourself into a pig’s mess like you did last night, you can slobber and pee in your trousers, as you also did last night, I noticed, but not with Elizabeth’s friends, you don’t.’

‘Jesus Christ, what a boss.’

‘Good, now that’s settled. Donal, we’re nearly there, that’s Westminster … we’ll come back here and see it when we’ve time tomorrow maybe, or Monday. Do you
see
Big Ben, now we know we must get the right time. It’s a quarter to eleven, perfect timing.’

They got out at Caxton Hall, where the sightseers who came to look at weddings brightened up when they saw Aisling’s fiery hair, her lilac outfit and her lilac and white hat. It looked like something glamorous.

‘Is it a film star’s wedding?’ a woman said, pulling at Aisling’s sleeve.

‘No, I’m afraid not, it’s a solicitor and an art teacher.’ The woman was disappointed. ‘But it will be full of glamour, stay around,’ she said.

‘I will,’ said the woman, pleased.

Father looked very smart, he was wearing the buttonhole that Henry had brought the night before.

‘Are you sure there won’t be any call for me to make a speech?’ he asked.

‘None, Father, I told you over and over. Simon will make a speech, and that’s it. Henry may say a few words, thank you for giving me to him, and for the reception.’

‘Well, that’s not right, I mean you paid for the reception. …’

‘Yes, Father, but that’s not the point. Anyway, you gave me board and lodging here, and educated me and everything, so in a way any money I saved came because of you and that’s you paying for it indirectly, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose that’s right.’ Father was doubtful.

‘Of course it’s right.’ She straightened his tie. ‘How do I look Father, do you think I’ll do?’

He stood away from her and looked her up and down approvingly. ‘Oh yes, my dear, you look …’ He paused. Would he say she looked lovely, or beautiful, or neat? What kind of things had he said to Mother when she was all dressed up? ‘You look very …
presentable
,’ and he gave a little laugh to show that the word was a little joke.

She looked around the hall of Clarence Gardens and in the small mirror caught sight of herself in the cream wool dress and jacket, with the big orchid pinned to the lapel. She pulled the brim of her hat forward and fixed four hairpins in the ends of her hair so that they were guarded against the wind; the hair was meant to flick out not run wild, so she sprayed on a little lacquer. She would take them out when the car stopped at Caxton Hall. Henry was meeting her there with Simon. They had decided to go separately, to make it more formal in a way. And she wanted to have this last journey with Father so that he would realise that he was still special. He had been very silent about Harry coming to the wedding, so travelling to the ceremony with him alone might be some kind of gesture. Elizabeth gave herself a final check and had a last look at the house. In twenty years she had put very little of her own personality into it. It had always been Father’s house. She hoped that the flat in Battersea would be different. Already she and Henry had found furniture and rugs and knick-knacks. All her clothes were there in the old-fashioned wardrobe they had bought, and Henry had moved his things in too. He left his own flat officially today.

Superstitiously they decided not to spend a night there until they were married. It would make it more significant they agreed, and laughed at themselves and each other for their silliness.

In under an hour she would be Mrs Henry Mason. Did every woman who got married go through this sort of unreality bit just at the last moment? She thought of Henry’s face eager and expectant, and she smiled happily. After all the lonely times in this house, after all the upsets and uncertainties she was finally being rewarded. She was going to marry a man who was goodness itself. That was a phrase Aunt Eileen had used about people who were very kind. What a pity she hadn’t been able to come, and she had forgotten to ask what was actually wrong with her. They had had too many other things to talk about. Aisling was so strong about everything; most women would collapse if their husband had disappeared on the rampage in some strange city. But Aisling took everything in her stride.

‘My dear, I think we should … the taxi has been here for five minutes.’ Father hated waste even though Henry had paid for the taxi.

‘Right, come on, let’s go and get me married and off your hands.’

‘You were never any trouble to us. Your mother and I had no problems with you. Ever.’ He said it with his back to her as he was double locking the door. Possibly the only compliment he had ever given her. She couldn’t answer him because she was afraid she might start to cry,
and
anyway the people across the road, the rather prim and proper Kentons, were waving like anything. They had come out to see her go, and other neighbours had too. Elizabeth waved to them all, delighted, and Father smiled as they got into the taxi and went off to get her married.

It was much nicer and much more like a real wedding than Aisling had expected. The nuns had said that registry office weddings were mere formalities at the desk of a clerk or a lawyer – they had only been invented because British people had turned away from all religion, even their own. But this was very impressive, and the registrar was almost as good as a priest when he was asking them did they take each other for lawful wedded husband and wife. Aisling had thought that it was all a matter of mumbling and writings things down in a book.

Simon, the handsome best man, was utterly charming. In a different way to Johnny, he was flowery in his speech, he paid extravagant compliments and told her that her loveliness had not been conveyed in any adequate manner, although to be fair, attempts had been made. Aisling thought this was great fun.

‘You’re the smooth elegant colleague,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Have you met my husband, Tony Murray?’

‘I wish that you had met Tony Murray long after you had met me,’ he said over-gallantly, bowing and shaking hands with Tony who looked very pale and not at all able to cope with such flamboyance at this time of the morning.

The ceremony passed in a flash and as they came out,
and
Stefan and Harry and Johnny organised the confetti, there was another wedding party waiting to go in.

Henry was smiling so broadly that it looked as if his face would break. Donal was busy taking photographs. Elizabeth looked so lovely, Aisling was amazed. She had always thought that Elizabeth was gentle and pale and blonde and pretty in a pastel way, but today she looked different; even though her outfit was pale she looked colourful. Her face was strong, her lipstick was bright, her orchid was dark purple, her hair looked bouncy, not wispy, her eyes were sparkling. Thank God she’s having a nice day, thank God, after all the awful things that happened to her, Aisling felt. Who would ever have expected a day like this, with her stepfather cheering as well as her father, and Johnny Stone apparently delighted for her too? If anyone deserved a great wedding day it was Elizabeth.

Mrs Noble was waiting for them, a high-necked blouse, a cameo brooch; she almost made herself the unofficial hostess. In one minute she had decided that Harry and Johnny were her best allies and singled them out whenever anything needed to be done.

‘Mr Elton, might I ask you to move that little group near the door down here towards the main body of the room, they seem to be a little left out. …’

And Harry was off like a terrier dog. ‘Hallo. Might I introduce myself? I’m Harry Elton, on the bride’s side. …’

Jean and Derek were shy at gatherings and were
delighted
with Harry; he introduced them to Stefan and Anna and only when a conversation about old folding draught screens seemed under way did he leave them.

Mrs Noble was vigilant. ‘Mr Stone, can I suggest that you direct the waitress with the wine over there towards the rather sad-looking man?’

‘That’s the father of the bride, you couldn’t cheer him up,’ Johnny said.

‘Oh dear, I see.’ Mrs Noble felt she might have said the wrong thing.

‘He’s a widower, Mrs Noble. Now if you were unattached I’d say you might be able to cheer him up!’ Johnny winked at her. Mrs Noble was delighted.

‘You are dreadful, Mr Stone,’ she said, patting her hair.

Johnny got the message though. Elizabeth’s father did look like a wet week. Johnny went over to him and refilled his glass.

‘Elizabeth looks lovely,’ Johnny said.