We picked up either a sherry or whisky as we went in the door and I stood about again. A girl in a white blouse was saying to her friend dressed in creamy jacket and suit, ‘It was in Luigi’s you see and this chap said to me out of the blue, “I like you but I don’t know if I could afford you”.’ She giggled and repeated the story a few times. Her friend said: ‘You meet queer people in Italian restaurants. I was in an Indian restaurant last week with Colin. It doesn’t shut till midnight you know . . . ’ I moved away to where another group of girls was talking and one of them saying: ‘Did you hear the story about the aspirin?’ They gathered closely together and when the story was finished there was much laughter.
After a while we sat down at the table and watched the wedding party coming in and sitting down. We ate our food and the girl on my left spoke to another girl on her left and to a boy sitting opposite her. She said: ‘This chap came into the hotel one night very angry. He had been walking down the street and there was this girl in a blue cap dishing out Barclay cards or something. Well, she never approached him at all though she picked out other people younger than him. He was furious about it, absolutely furious. Couldn’t she see that he was a business man, he kept saying. He was actually working in insurance and when we offered him a room with a shower he wouldn’t take it because it was too expensive.’
The other girl, younger and round-faced, said: ‘There was an old woman caught in the lift the other day. You should have heard the screaming . . . ’ I turned away and watched the bride who was sitting at the table with a fixed smile on her face. Her father, twisting his neck about, was drinking whisky rapidly as if he was running out of time. Her mother smiled complacently but wasn’t speaking to anyone. The minister sat at the head of the table eating his chicken with grave deliberation.
‘Did you hear that Lindy has a girl?’ said the boy in front of me to the girls. ‘And she’s thinking of going back home.’
They all laughed. ‘I wouldn’t go back home now. They’ll be at the peats,’ said the girl on my left.
‘Well,’ said the boy, ‘I don’t know about that. There was a student from America up there and he wanted to work at the peats to see what it was like. He’s learned to speak Gaelic too.’
‘How did he like it?’ said the girl at my left.
‘He enjoyed it,’ said the boy. ‘He said he’d never enjoyed anything so much. He said they’d nothing like that in America.’
‘I’m sure,’ said the small girl and they laughed again.
‘Wouldn’t go back for anything anyway,’ said the girl to my left. ‘They’re all so square up there.’
When we had all finished eating, the Master of Ceremonies said that the groom would make a speech which he did very rapidly and incoherently. He was followed by the best man who also spoke very briefly and with incomprehensible references to one of the bridesmaids who blushed deeply as he spoke. There were cheers whenever an opportunity arose such as, for instance, when the groom referred for the first time to his wife and when there was a reference to someone called Tommy.
After that the telegrams were read out. Most of them were quite short and almost formal, ‘Congratulations and much happiness’ and so on. A number, however, were rather bawdy, such as, for instance, one which mentioned a chimney and a fire and another which suggested that both the bride and groom should watch the honey on their honeymoon. While the telegrams were being read some of the audience whispered to each other, ‘That will be Lachy’, and ‘That will be Mary Anne’. I thought of those telegrams coming from the Highlands to this hotel where waitresses went round the tables with drinks and there were modernistic pictures, swirls of blue and red paint, on the walls. One or two of the telegrams were in Gaelic and in some strange way they made the wedding both more authentic and false. I didn’t know what the bride thought as she sat there, as if entranced and distant. Everything seemed so formal, so fixed and monotonous, as if the participants were trying to avoid errors, which the sharp-witted city-bred waitresses might pick up.
Eventually the telegrams had all been read and the father got up to speak about the bride. I didn’t know what I expected but he certainly began with an air of businesslike trepidation. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I am here today to make a speech which as you will know is not my speciality.’ He twisted his neck about inside the imprisoning collar and continued. ‘I can tell you that the crossing was good and the skipper told me that the Corona is a good boat though a bit topheavy.’ He beamed nervously and then said, ‘But to my daughter. I can tell you that she has been a good daughter to me. I am not going to say that she is good at the peats for she is never at home for the peats and she never went to the fishing as girls of her age used to do in the past.’ By this time people were beginning to look at each other or down at their plates and even the waitresses
