Robert phoned the vicar and told him he had a problem.
Mr Parsnip said he’d be over right away, thinking it must be
another lovers’ tiff, though dealing with lovers’ tiffs was not one of his favourite
interventions, since he was invariably out of his depth in emotional situations.
By the time the vicar had peddled up to Cleo’s cottage, Dorothy
was waiting for him there and wondering why a desperate appeal had been issued
to the vicar by Robert and why it was so desperate that the vicar had begged
Dorothy to support him.
As far as Dorothy knew, things were going well in Cleo’s
household. But she was curious. As a precaution she had brought a bottle of bubbly
with her. It just might be something worth celebrating.
Robert answered the door and led them hastily into the
living-room.
Without any kind of preamble, Gloria announced that she was
leaving the following Friday.
Since neither the vicar nor Dorothy Price had the faintest
idea what Gloria had been up to, they rightly assumed that she was just going home
to Chicago. Cleo was not eager to explain the reason for Gloria’s departure,
but Dorothy, who never failed to notice if something was amiss, started asking
questions and Cleo found herself revealing the discovery of the body, its
identification and Gloria’s misadventure in Birmingham, all of which shocked Mr
Parsnip to the core and thrilled Dorothy almost as if it had been a Hollywood
movie.
“My dear ladies, you have been going through a very
distressing time,” the vicar began, and Robert thought he should be sympathetic
when all he himself wanted was to stop wasting time and get on to the real
reason for summoning him.
“It’s like this, Mr Parsnip.”
“Is it?”
The vicar was still bemoaning the fate of the dead women.
Robert had moved on.
“To cut a long story short, we want to get married next
Wednesday afternoon.”
“Oh, how romantic,” sighed Dorothy.
“My dear boy, I’m delighted, but why such short notice?”
“So that Gloria can be here, Mr Parsnip.”
“I think it’s a lovely idea,” Dorothy said, beaming at
everyone.
Cleo wished she could share everyone’s enthusiasm.
“Can you do it?” Robert wanted to know.
“Well, funerals always take place at short notice, so it
will be a nice change to have a wedding to do.”
“That’s settled then.”
“But why Wednesday afternoon?”
“I can’t deprive my customers of their dinners, Mr Parsnip.
It’s too late to get anyone to stand in for me.”
“And I have to train our new assistant at the library. It’ll
only be her third day and Clare really needs help.”
“I thought Clare was going to carry on for a while.”
“Definitely not. I can’t have her giving birth between the
shelves.”
Mr Parsnip nodded wisely, though he had not understood
everything.
“I’ll make a list of to do’s and let you know,” the vicar
proposed.
“Is that a yes?” Gloria inquired.
“Oh yes, yes, yes. Delighted,” Said the vicar.
Edith would have been surprised to witness the animation in
Mr Parsnip’s voice. For a moment, he was his old self.
That seemed to be all that could be dealt with that evening.
After more felicitations and a glass of the sparkling wine that Dorothy had
been hugging until that moment, she announced that she had a movie to watch and
Mr Parsnip remembered that he would need to collect his thoughts.
The vicar walked Dorothy and his mountain bike to her front
door, congratulated her on having the presence of mind to bring a bottle to the
meeting, and then pushed his bike home to the vicarage since he was a little
light-headed after the alcohol. He was already mapping out a really ripping
wedding sermon. He hadn’t felt so energized for months and even Edith, who had
spent her husband’s absence making jam and doing the ironing, was given an
elated account of the evening.
***
Despite her forthcoming nuptials, Cleo did manage to get to
Romano’s that lunchtime. She and Gary made love for a long time before Cleo was
forced to tell him that she had almost been framed into marrying Robert the
following Wednesday.
Gary was horrified.
“You didn’t say you would, did you, Cleo? What about us?”
“There will still be us, Gary. I could not disappoint Robert
and my mother.”
“What has your mother got to do with it?”
“She wants to see me married before she goes back to Chicago
on Friday week.”
“That really takes the biscuit,” said Gary, shocked at
Cleo’s reasoning.
“Look Gary, you are still married. What difference does it
make to us if I am also married? I can’t see a problem.”
“OK. I give up. You are marrying that guy although you don’t
love him.”
“I care about him, Gary.”
“You seem to care more about him that about me!”
“I don’t. When you are divorced, ask me to marry you and
I’ll say yes.”
“But we’ll have the same situation as now, Cleo.”
“No we won’t, Gary, but we will know if our love can stand
the wait. For me it’s an adventure right now.”
“But you will still meet me, won’t you, Cleo?”
“I’ll knock you sideways with our lovemaking, Gary.”
“You do that now, Cleo.”
Gary had to make do with the arrangement. He wanted to share
his life with Cleo, but he would have to wait, and trust that Cleo would not
change her mind when she had got used to being married to a boring man with
little education and no culture to speak of.
***
The days before the wedding flew past and some quite
intricate arrangements were made, though everyone agreed that things should be
kept simple. Gareth Morgan did not need to be persuaded to serenade the
proceedings with suitable classical compositions played with all the stops out,
and Mr Parsnip, remembering that Cleo was not a fervent believer, based his
sermon on a Japanese type poem rather than a biblical saying.
This is the first day
of the rest of our short lives.
Let the sun shine on.
of the rest of our short lives.
Let the sun shine on.
Actually, the poem had been on a party cracker Edith had scrapbooked
after attending a rather posh wedding a long time ago, but it served the
purpose and the vicar was moved to tears by his own interpretation while
battling with his conviction that the sun shines in rather than on. Prepositions
could make such a vital difference to what one was saying. He concocted the
mantra ‘sun on your head, sun in your heart’ to restore the prepositional
balance in his mind.
Cleo was tearful because she was almost happy despite her
longing for Gary, and Gloria was crying like she did at any movie that had a
happy ending. Robert was not tearful, but since the idea of Cleo preferring
someone else, that detective inspector for instance, would not go away, he was
anxious to get the ceremony over with.
Nothing, but nothing could have prepared anyone for what
happened that Wednesday afternoon.
The marriage ceremony was going to be a simple affair. A
week is not long enough for elaborate preparations. In the end, Robert could
not be persuaded to sing, but Gloria could. Cleo was dubious. Her mother’s
choice of ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen’ was unfortunate. Gloria argued
that they must never forget their forefathers, even on happy occasions. All spirituals
had a note of pessimism, sung as they were in captivity from which there was
little chance of escape. But Cleo would enjoy hearing a song she had loved as a
child, wouldn’t she?
“Well, get it over with at the beginning,” Cleo acquiesced,
not wanting to hurt her mother. Cleo had been a quiet little girl who listened
to the melancholy strains of the spirituals thoughtfully and never burst into
song herself. She had inherited none of her mother’s flamboyance, which is why
she fitted in so well with the quiet ticking away of time in Upper Grumpsfield.
It must be in her genes, Gloria had long since decided.
It had taken a lover of Gary’s stature to awaken the passion
in Cleo, but no one should get to know about that passion or the lover. The
only person with whom she had spoken about it was Clare, and Clare could be
trusted not to say anything. If anyone hazarded a guess, that was their
problem. Had she realized that Robert was in fear of Gary Hurley taking Cleo
away from him, she would not have felt the same sympathy for the man she had
decided to marry since he would then be on the level of an opportunist. But she
did not know and Robert was hardly likely to put that bee in her bonnet.
So Cleo went down the aisle to a tune that had its origins
in the desire for freedom from slavery, much to Karl von Klippen’s amusement as
he stood next to Robert, who was nervous and had already asked him three times
about the rings. Not that marriage meant slavery, but it did have its
obligations, such as Karl’s impending fatherhood, about which situation Karl
never ceased to be amazed. Robert thought differently about children. He and
Cleo never discussed the possibility. Robert decided that in view of her past
experience Cleo did not want any and that was a decision he wanted and would
have to live with.
Gareth Morgan was unhappy that his Mendelssohn had been
spurned in favour of ‘African’ music, but vowed to make up for it with a
spirited rendering of the well-known chunk of Lohengrin at the close of the
service. All feelings of frustration had been eclipsed by his relief that Robert,
his landlord, was going to be permanently involved with Cleo and would
therefore never need to reclaim the flat above the shop. Mr Morgan had the
meanwhile made it as homely as he thought it should be, with one or two pieces
of furniture left to him by his mother’s spinster sister and delivered from
Wales by some of his Gareth-bach friends, who had not forgotten to include a
quantity of home brewed ale to celebrate the house improvements. The visions of
being thrown out at the drop of a hat had vanished into thin air. Mr Morgan had
definitely arrived. His next mission would be to find a mate to share his nest.
Sitting at the back of the church clutching the obligatory
box of tissues in case her emotions overcame her, Edith was relieved that everything
was going to plan. Mr Parsnip was in great form for the first time in weeks,
not least because he was happy to see Cleo and Robert coming together after all
their trials and tribulations. He embroidered his introduction with flowery
epithets, included several renderings of the cracker poem, and smiled
magnanimously throughout. Cleo and Robert exchanged meaningful glances. Mr
Parsnip had not told them about his lengthy and undue lyrical preamble.
The order of service was traditional, so it also included
asking those present if the marriage could go ahead.
And that’s where it all came unstuck.
“I object”, called a voice from the back of the church.
Edith had noticed a woman sitting in the shadows on the opposite side from
where she was sitting, but had given her no further attention. Strangers did
sometimes turn up at weddings. They usually sat well away from the congregation
and kept quiet throughout the proceedings.
There was a stunned silence. In all the years Mr Parsnip had
presided at weddings, this had never happened before. How to deal with such an
incident was not part of his preacher training, but he had heard of such intrusions
happening elsewhere; sometimes it was a prank, sometimes a jilted lover or ex,
but seldom a genuine complaint. However, the vicar could not proceed without
finding out to which category this intrusion belonged.
Edith watched in
horror as the woman, who had stood up to speak, walked down the aisle, removed
her headscarf and added in a cool voice “He is not free to marry.”
Robert had already swung round and was as pale as the ghost
he thought he was seeing. The woman was dressed entirely in black and had
startling auburn hair. She was about his age.
“Rita?” Robert gasped. “It can’t be you. You’re dead.”
“Who’s dead, Robert?” said Cleo.
Cleo was more than just perplexed. How could you look at
someone standing not 3 yards away and very much alive and pronounce them dead?
“Who is she?” Gloria hissed.
Mr Parsnip stepped down and walked towards the strange
woman.
“Who are you, my dear? Have you got proof of your claim?’
To be truthful, the vicar was out of his depth.
“Of course I’ve got proof. Here it is: our marriage
certificate.”
Cleo felt faint. Delilah took her arm and led her to the
front pew. Robert looked around hoping it was all just a fata morgana.
Mr Parsnip examined the document minutely before announcing in
a shaky voice that it seemed genuine. At that Cleo jumped up and snatched it.
It didn’t take her long to sum up the situation.
“Robert, you’re still married to that woman.”
“They told me she was dead.”
“Who told you?”
“Her father told everyone. You must believe me, Cleo. I had
no idea.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Let me tell you all about it before you judge me.”
“It’s a bit late in the day for confessions, Robert.”
Gloria intervened, desperate to do something to alleviate
the situation.
“Come on Cleo. You don’t think Robert would deliberately
mislead you, or risk getting himself into trouble, do you?”
“I don’t think anything, Mother. I’m too shocked to think. All
I know is that this wedding ceremony is a farce.”
Now it was Mr Parsnip’s turn to make a suggestion.
“Let’s talk it over in the vestry.”
“Yes, let’s do that.” said Gloria whose curiosity was
getting the better of her. “I’d like to hear the truth before I leave.”
“You’re not the only one, Mother.”
Mr Parsnip announced to the rest of the congregation that
the marriage ceremony had had to be postponed. Then he led the woman named
Rita, Cleo and Robert, Delilah and Dorothy, who were the witnesses, Gloria and
Edith, Karl and Clare into the vestry. What had been planned as a Champagne
toast to bride and groom before all they made their way to Delilah’s pub, where
a wedding feast awaited them, turned out to be a moratorium on what had happened
a long time ago.
Realizing that it was up to her to straighten things out,
Rita wasted no more time.
“We eloped, you see,” she began. “We were very young and my
father was against Robert because he was only the son of a tradesman and my
father was a school director.”
Robert intervened.
“My father was an honest Welshman who earned an honest
living supplying people like your father with prime cuts of meat, Rita.”
“I know that, Robert. I married you, remember?”
“You were only eighteen.”
“And you weren’t much older.”
“We decided to go to Scotland. Gretna Green. That’s where
people eloped to in those days. By the time my father found out it
would be too late to stop us.”
“He must have smelt a rat, however. He was waiting for us
when we got back,” Robert continued. ”He wouldn’t let me into the house. He imprisoned
Rita and he threatened to ruin my family if I tried to make contact with her. He
would have the family business burnt down, he said. I’ll never forget that.
There were enough people who owed him a favour. He talked more like a Mafia
boss than a school director. I was really afraid. I had to protect my family at
all costs. So I packed and left Shrewsbury, where it all happened, without
explaining why or saying where I was going. I thought that was to only way I
could be sure nothing terrible would happen.”
Rita took up the story.
“My mother tried her best to negotiate, but she was as
frightened of my father as I was. I didn’t hear anything about Robert again
until I came back to this country a few days ago. I visited his family and they
told me where I could find him. I wanted to ask him why he had deserted me.”
“What do you mean, you came back?” Gloria wanted to know.
“My father packed me off to New Zealand to stay with a
distant cousin of his. I’d never heard of her. I was in disgrace, but I didn’t
tell anyone I was married until.... Well anyway, my mother deserted my father
soon after and joined me in Christchurch. To our relief, he never tried to
patch things up. For all we know, he was glad to be rid of both of us. We neither
knew nor cared. A few months later he wrote to say that he had let it be known
that his wife and daughter had been killed in a car accident, so would we
please refrain from making any contact with him in future. I expect he came to
believe the story himself in time.
Of course, we had no intention of having anything more to do
with my father. His cousin told us he’d always had a violent temper and been
difficult as a child. Her family had built a new life in New Zealand and she
had no desire to ever see him again. She supported us until my mother was
working and earning a decent salary and she promised to shield us if he were ever
to turn up. But he didn’t.”
“That’s a terrible story,” said Gloria. “What an awful man.”
“At least he didn’t try to get my mother to go back to him
on some kind of pretext. She’d been through enough hell. My father was a Jekyll
and Hyde.”
“I heard the news of your ‘deaths’ from my family the
following Christmas. I thought I had been estranged from them long enough, so I
patched things up and they took me in like the Prodigal Son. Imagine how I felt,
having to keep my grief to myself,” said Robert.
“I never told anyone that we were married, and I learnt to
cope with your death, too, Robert.”
“My death?”
“My father was Satan in person.”
“God forgive him,” said Mr Parsnip.
“If there is a God, which I doubt, I would hope that he does
not forgive the villains of this world,” said Cleo.
“So you believed all that time that I was dead, Rita?’
“Yes, and for 28 years my father lived on in the knowledge
that he had to all intents and purposes killed off his wife and daughter. No
one in Wales ever guessed the truth. He died last month and all members of the
family still alive were notified, including his distant cousin in New Zealand.”
“Maybe he did have some vestige of conscience, after all,” said
Robert.
“I think he just wanted to have the last laugh. But it
misfired. My mother is living quite contentedly in Christchurch. She very soon found
a job as an infant teacher and was later head of her nursery school until she
retired. She has no desire to come back and be reminded of the hell she went
through with my father. So I came instead to wind up the estate.”
“You’ve certainly wound up my estate,” remarked Cleo.
“I’m not here to spoil things for you, Cleo.”
“You’ve done that already.”
Cleo was not sure that she was telling the truth. She was
simply going with the flow. Gary would have told her to get out now, but Robert
was so stricken with the emotional turmoil he was going through that she could
not simply get up and leave.
“No, I haven’t. This is just a little upset, but I have stopped
Robert committing bigamy.”
“I thought I was a widower. For 28 years I’ve thought I was
a widower. I grieved for you until Cleo came into my life and I thought I could
forget all that unhappiness at long last.”
“You could get that teenage marriage annulled,” suggested Dorothy,
who had listened with baited breath to the story.
“No, that’s not possible, although Jim, my partner in New
Zealand, would be delighted.”
“Presumably he knows you’re married, then,” said Robert.
“Oh yes. And so does ...”
Rita hesitated.
Her reticence did not escape Gloria’s notice.
“If there’s something else you need to tell us, do it now,
Rita. You’ll feel better and we can all get on with our lives.”
Gloria is right,” said Dorothy. “Whatever it is, just spit
it out.”
Rita took quite some time to reach a decision. She had never
tried to contact Robert because at first she had thought he wanted nothing more
to do with her, and then the news of his death had reached her. Now she knew
the truth it was time to get everything cleared up.
“Well, to cut a long story short, an annulment of the marriage
would be impossible for one very good reason. Her name’s Julie and she’s 28
years old.”
That provoked a long gasp from everyone present.
“I have a daughter?”
“There was no one else in my life at that time, Robert.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I believe you.”
“She’s very like you, Robert. You would be hard put to
disown her.”
“I’m not going to. Where is she?”
“In London. She doesn’t know I’m here.”
“How did you know we were here?” said Cleo.
“I phoned the registry office for Robert’s address and they
told me he was getting married today.”
“Can I meet my daughter?” Robert asked.
“I’ll phone her. I can’t make that decision for her.”
“I understand.”
“So what happens now?” Delilah asked. She had watched and
listened without commenting, but there was a wedding reception waiting for the
guests. Surely they could agree to carry on regardless. The minor detail of
actually getting married could be tagged on later, much later if necessary.
Robert looked at Cleo. It was for her to decide. He felt no
emotion at all towards Rita, except relief to know she was alive. Cleo had been
watching carefully for any show of affection between them, but there had been none.
She sighed deeply. She wished Robert and Rita would by some miracle find love
again and free her for Gary. Then she went to Rita and offered her hand.
“It’s such a strange situation, Rita. Will you change your
mind about the divorce?”
“I’m sure that you and Robert belong together now and I
belong in New Zealand and will be glad to get back there.”
“And so say all of us,” was all Mr Parsnip could add. He
supposed it was as happy an ending as they could expect to a painful afternoon.
***
Despite the marriage ceremony not having gone ahead, Delilah’s
suggestion that they go through with the wedding reception, which would be an
enormous spread at her pub and give her the chance of trying out all the karaoke
equipment on real customers before its launch the following Saturday, was
followed eagerly, not least to let the day end on a positive note after all the
drama.
Rita had taken her leave, in a hurry to get back to sorting out
the family estate in Shrewsbury. She assured Robert that her lawyer would file
for divorce immediately. Robert would receive the papers and need only sign
them, since they were not going to fight over anything. Julie would phone him
if she wanted to meet him, and they could arrange something.
It was all quite simple really. Rita had forgotten her
disappointment that he hadn’t looked for her all those years ago. Cleo decided
that in the light of Rita’s gracious conduct and eagerness to end the ill-fated
marriage as fast and agreeably as possible, she would think of her as a friend
rather than a rival and go through with her marriage to Robert for his sake. Robert
was still trying to cope with his emotions.
