The Night Following

“Exactly!” Evelyn said, sighing happily. “Stan’s Mam’s not going to be much help to us, neither. She’s going to let us fend for ourselves, she says, it’s better that way. So there’ll be Stan’s tea to get, never mind seeing to the baby, and I’ll have to rise to more than toast and dripping, won’t I, even if he does get his canteen dinner. I can’t be lugging shopping and a baby on and off the tram with a clutch bag, can I?”

She laughed. “Anyway, all that’s as may be.” She fished in the breast pocket of her jacket and drew out a tiny pair of nail scissors. “Here, Mam, take these for me. I’ll need them later. Hang on to them till I ask for them, all right? And don’t look like that!”

Mam sighed and shook her head. “I won’t pretend to know what you’re up to, Evelyn Leigh. But if you say so, love,” she said.

“Thanks, Mam. Now I’m all ready, aren’t I? I’m wearing my locket and I’ve got my posy to hold. I’m marrying Stanley Ashworth today and there’s nothing more I need. I never wanted a big shindig, anyway. So let’s be going.”

27 Cardigan Avenue

Dear Ruth

Carole takes the view I should keep these letters going. She says undoubtedly not getting any reply is hard, but coming to terms with that can be part of the process.

Anyway, easier to fit in time for a letter as I’m off my feet, in general.

Also have plenty of time for reading.

Your pages made me think of our wedding. You never wanted a big shindig either, or so you said. It seemed quite big enough to me when it came to it, though. Looked out our Order of Service, here it is.

All right, I didn’t look it out, it just came to hand, unearthed from bowels of attic. Hadn’t seen it for years. It’s easier to put my hand on things, now stuff is down from attic and where I can get at it.

Order of Service

Wedding of Arthur and Ruth

St. Mary’s Church, Abbotsbourne

14 June 1972

The Procession: A Whiter Shade of Pale

Introduction: The Reverend Geoffrey Greene

Hymn: “Jerusalem”

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountain green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the countenance divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among those dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!

Bring me my arrows of desire!

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England’s green and pleasant land.

The Marriage

The Lesson and Reading

Hymn: “Lord of the Dance”

(see separate sheet)

The Prayers

The Apache Blessing

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other. Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years. May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.

The Signing of the Register

Hymn: “Blowin’ in the Wind”

(see separate sheet)

Reminds me what you were like in those days, not that you went the whole hog on the hippie front. But you and your Apache blessings and blowing in the wind and all sorts. Remember the arguments? I’m glad I won the day over Jerusalem. I’m glad you wore white, even if it was a kaftan, and at least the daisies in your hair didn’t start to wilt till after we were out of the church.

I’m glad I held my own and didn’t let you get me in a caftan-I won that argument, thank God, ditto matching daisies for a buttonhole.

A nurse has been. Mrs. M muttered something to the effect she’d called the doctor for me. Not a face I knew, the nurse, but she insisted she knew you. She’s attached to the community nursing team. I said oh, attached are you, so where’s the strings, but she was looking at my legs and didn’t laugh.

Legs very sore. Nurse says they need bandaging. This kind of thing takes time to heal, she says, she’ll be popping in to keep an eye, or it might be somebody else, all depends on rota. She left leaflets about support hose and hot meals. I put them with Carole’s about loss.

But how long is all this meant to go on for is what I want to know, and of course nobody’s got a leaflet about that.

Or about the dreams I get. Maybe dreams are more vivid if you sleep in daytime, I don’t know. The latest one was me following a man who’s got his back to me and I was following him because I was going to kill him with my bare hands. Quietly and calmly, but quite certainly, I was going to kill him. I couldn’t see his face, but it was the driver of the car.

Well that’s all

Arthur

Cardigan Avenue was the kind of place I would never have just happened into, even in daytime. It wasn’t on the way to anywhere else. The road beneath the moon swayed in shallow intentional curves between trees set at intervals along the pavements, its nonchalance contrived for what would no doubt be labelled residential charm. The houses, set in large competitive gardens, stared out through luminous windows. There was something about them that would deter loiterers, an atmosphere of settlement that was not the same as neighbourly. I moved carefully from tree to tree, pausing under each one. Up ahead of me somebody’s feet were stopping and scraping on the pavement; a chain clinked and I heard whispers urging a dog to hurry up. I waited in the dark. After a while there was more shuffling and then from further away more words to the dog and the sound of a door closing, and I moved on.

Number twenty-seven, its number and name, “Overdale,” spelled out in looping black wrought iron fixed to the wall, sat quietly among its neighbours. But it didn’t quite match up to them and their immodest embellishments; everywhere along the avenue were conservatories, jutting extensions, gazebos, many of them floodlit in the dark. The front windows of Arthur’s house were black and all the curtains were closed.

Earlier that evening I had studied a follow-up piece in the paper under the headline TRAGEDY DEEPENS. The report heaped new and wretched detail upon the case, as if the woman’s being merely killed would not interest the readers for long. It outlined the hope and waste, the ruined plans. Arthur and Ruth had been about to go on the trip of a lifetime, a world cruise ending in Australia where they were planning to spend at least six months, and