Gracie saw Theo Hooley standing at the end of the aisle. He was in his uniform. Each time he came to visit Beth, he would ask for her so she began to go to the front door with Beth to welcome him. He would wink at her and then ask her to smile for him and when she did he would put his hand over his heart and say, ‘Gracie, you have made me a very happy man.’
She smiled at him now and he winked at her and put his hand over his heart. All the women in the church sighed, they thought he was holding his heart for Beth. They didn’t know his hand was on his heart for Gracie. But Gracie knew because he did it all the time. Gracie couldn’t see what the fuss over her smile was about. She’d spent hours smiling at herself in the mirror trying to see what everyone else saw but as far as she could tell, her smile was no different to anyone else’s; in fact it was worse because it was a little lopsided.
Theo winked at Gracie, such a lovely child, and then he looked behind her to Beth, his bride, who was walking next to Paul. She had her veil over her head. Then he saw Edie, sitting in the front pew next to his mother.
His mother cocked her eyebrow at him, Come on, son, you can do it, and she wished he had eaten the fried eggs with the thick slices of bacon she had served him for breakfast. She had saved for weeks for that bacon. He had taken one mouthful, said he wasn’t hungry and left her to finish it off for him. She knew where his heart was and why he appeared to be so devoted to Beth and visited her so often. She saw him gazing at Edie sitting beside her and not at his bride who was walking down the aisle.
‘You’re doing the right thing son,’ she whispered, ‘a life must go on and it was never going to go anywhere for you with Edie.’
Theo saw his mother’s reprimand but instead of making him pay attention to his bride his blood filled with shame and rushed through his body to his heart and he determined never to be unfaithful to Edie again.
Gracie moved to the left-hand side of the church, like she’d practised, and felt Beth standing next to her. She looked behind her and saw Edie sitting next to Missus Hooley, both of them in tears. Missus Hooley nibbled on a biscuit she had hidden in her white lace handkerchief. She looked around at the rest of the congregation. The women were dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs and whispering, ‘A good wedding is just what we need in these sad times.’ She saw the men digging each other in the ribs with secret knowing winks.
Reverend Whitlock coughed and Gracie looked up and saw every hair up inside his large nostrils. He started his sermon.
‘Well, now that we are all ready, I’ll begin. This war is God’s way of bringing morality and order to the world,’ he said loudly, ‘and just as God has sacrificed his son for us, so Beth you must willingly sacrifice your claim to Theo so he can go to the front and fight for you and your children’s freedom and for Christianity and honour. It is God’s divine way.’
Gracie thought of God sitting like a general with a baton and a monocle, creating wars to bring moral fibre to the world. She knew Germany had no morals because only the other day she was reading in the paper that they sent schoolboys to the front, fourteen year olds not much older than her, right into the firing line to have their hearts shot from their chests. Theo was definitely not a schoolboy. In fact he was getting a bit bald at the back where he couldn’t see.
Reverend Whitlock coughed again and asked, ‘Who gives this woman to this man?’ and her father said ‘I do,’ and he sat down next to Theo’s mother in the space that had been left for him.
Reverend Whitlock said, ‘If anyone can see why Theo and Beth should not be wed,’ and she saw her father lean forward and look at Edie as though he thought Edie might have something to say but Edie just stared straight ahead and then her father turned and looked at Laidlaw sitting on the other side with Beth’s sisters and another man and she was sure she heard Laidlaw say, ‘Bet Young Colin’d have something to say, eh Davo?’
The Reverend waited and even though there was some muffled muttering no one said anything loud enough for the whole congregation to hear so Gracie turned back to look up the Reverend’s big nostrils.
Young Colin couldn’t have spoken up at Beth’s wedding even if he wanted to. He had made a point of telling everyone he was working this Saturday and he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in nobody’s wedding. Now his body was deep below the earth. The mine, driven by hunger and vengeance at being raped and carved out to its very soul, sucked in the heavy spring rain that had come crashing down and sent the water racing down its tunnels and shafts, chasing its prey, leaving no dark corner untouched. Without warning the currents rushed at Young Colin, belting his chest, throwing him into its torrent as though he was no more than a grain of dirt. It gushed and hated and pushed against Young Colin’s ribs and cracked them into splinters that pierced his skin and his lungs. The surging water then filled Young Colin’s lungs with
