A Rural Affair

potatoes went into cold water, not hot. How many times did he have to tell me? The way he showed me how to clean the work surfaces in the kitchen, calling it Surface Training. The way, when he came home from work, he surreptitiously ran his finger along the windowsill, still in his overcoat, checking for dust. The way, in the early days, I’d bellowed and roared, fists tight with rage, and yes, even thrown a plate. And then later, when the children were around, just buttoned it. Kept the house impeccable and got on with it. Lived life in my head; a whole different scenario, where I was married to someone else, someone lovely. Knowing, in a tiny place in my heart, as Jennie had so succinctly pointed out when he’d died, that one day I’d leave him.

Why hadn’t I lived with him before I got married? OK, I had for a few months but it should have been a few years! No child of mine, I decided vehemently, eyes blazing, would ever go up that aisle, stand at that altar, under the eyes of God, without having lived in sin first.

Emma was slipping her own ring on Simon’s finger now. I looked at her in disbelief. I’d been tied to Phil. Had children by him. Without a great deal of unpleasantness to extract myself, I was lumbered with him. But this girl – I watched as she and Simon knelt together, bowing their heads to be blessed by the vicar – this girl had chosen to delay her life by four years on account of him. What had I missed?

The Gloria was next, whilst the bride and groom disappeared to the vestry to sign the register. Jennie and I belted it out furiously, one or two heads turning to marvel at our volume. Then the happy couple returned and there was another hymn: ‘ransomed, healed, restored, for … ’ No. I couldn’t sing the last bit. Then a word from our vicar, Mike: his address.

I can only assume Mike had been at the sherry again, or had had a row with his wife, Veronica, seated in her usual pew, because even by his standards it was inappropriate. Mike, bearded, Welsh and thoroughly right-on, thought he’d been put on this earth to deliver challenging sermons. He felt it his duty. We, on the other hand, felt it his duty to give comforting soporific ones that we could doze off to, mentally ticking our lists of Things to Do. But Mike believed he was edgy. His theme today was love and the different forms it took. Reasonably innocuous, one might think. And so indeed it started: platonic love, then brotherly love, then paternal, and then erotic – ‘about which I know absolutely nothing!’ he spat venomously, glaring at his wife. Naturally the entire congregation tried not to look at Veronica, who, if she had a spasm at being outmanoeuvred, mastered it admirably, sitting calmly, impassive, while ‘No, Mike, for the last time, I am not doing that!’ rang clearly in her neighbours’ heads.

Another hymn, then Luke got very busy with a Mozart canon, and then, finally, the service was over. As the bride and groom swept back down the aisle to triumphant chords, Jennie and I, pausing only to throw our cassocks over our heads and leave them in a heap in the vestry, marched straight out of the back door. We paused neither to congratulate nor to throw confetti, but most certainly to give vent to our feelings.

‘Bitch!’

‘Slut!’

‘I cannot believe it,’ I seethed as we hustled down the little side path together, avoiding the main entrance. Handbags were clutched fiercely to chests.

‘And how could she get married here!’ squealed Jennie. ‘In your church, where you got married, and where you’ve just buried your husband – her lover!’

‘Quite!’ I agreed, stopping still a moment as the impact of this hit me. I swung around. ‘She’s going to have to walk straight past him,’ I breathed. ‘He’s right next to the path.’

We watched as the bridal procession did indeed make its way out of the main door and past Phil’s very prominent, very fresh mound of earth. Emma didn’t give it a second look.

‘That is one very shrewd operator,’ observed Jennie, narrowing her eyes.

‘Cool as a cucumber,’ I agreed, marvelling at the magnitude of her gall.

‘And poor Simon has no idea what he’s taking on. What a piece of work he’s just married.’

‘Will you tell him?’ I asked, as we turned and hurried away. ‘I mean, that it was my husband whose death he was effectively waiting for?’

Jennie gave it some thought. ‘No.’ she said finally. ‘I won’t be speaking to Simon again. Not now, not after who he’s married. I had hoped we might stay friends but I doubt our paths will ever cross. I’m sure he won’t come to the book club now. Odd, though, isn’t it?’ She wrinkled her brow as she looked into the distance. ‘He clearly thinks he knows her inside out. She lived next door, you know; they grew up together. Her father was their gardener. They lived in the grounds, in the cottage.’

‘Oh … right.’ I remembered sitting in my car outside Meadow Bank Cottage, in the grounds of Meadow Bank