AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SERIES. List of Instalments

PROLOGUE

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PART ONE (AUSTRALIA 1975)

1  Sydney

2  The Murray River, Streaky Bay and Adelaide
3  Wilpena Pound
4  Melbourne, Brisbane and Mackay
5  Before
6  A Whitsunday Island
7  Lindeman Island
8  The Great Barrier Reef
9  The Letter
10 I’ll be back’

PART TWO (THE STORY CONTINUES)
1 Cloak-man
2 The Disco
3 The Party
4 The Supper
5 The Cottage
6 The Confession
7 February
8 March

PART THREE
1 Bedfordshire
2 En Route
3 Kent
4 Another Letter
5 Another Letter continued
6 June
7 July and August
8 Missives
9 Results

PART FOUR
1 A Late Arrival
2 The Pub and the Church

PART FOUR. 2 The Pub and the Church

This is an instalment of  an as-yet unnamed autobiographical series that started in Australia in 1975.

Click here for the first instalment.

A link to the full list of instalments is in the sidebar to the right.

I can’t remember much about my wedding day. I think I was numb. John and I had fought so hard for it and now it was actually happening it seemed unreal. Parts of it stand out, like sunbeams, and other parts are lost in the dusty corners of my mind.

Once in the village, my family and John headed for the church, while Jo and I hung back. I pulled him into the Tuns and downed two vodkas. I’ve no idea why. I think I thought they were part of the ritual. Jo didn’t join me in a drink but he stood by, offering his usual uncritical support.
    

All I remember of the service is John, me and the vicar going into some back room and signing the register, with Liz and Rod as witnesses. I suppose I went through the rest automatically,  and it didn't imprint itself on my brain cells. It was all too much for me.
    Outside, we must have posed for photographs as I have a collection: some of me and John; some of me, John and Richard; and some group photographs.
    In these, John’s parents are one end, Mollie sweet and smart in a brown velvet jacket. John and I are in the middle, holding tight to each other’s hand. My mother is next to me with Jo behind her, bushy-haired and tall.
    I don’t like to look at those group photographs now. Perhaps because they’re a lie. We weren’t a happy group, at least I wasn’t happy to be next to my mother. I’m looking away from her, holding myself tight on the side next to her. She looks grown-up and confident. I look like an overweight child.
    My favourite photograph shows John and me with our back to the camera, walking away with our arms around each other. Safe at last.
    We didn’t have an official photographer but two friends with cameras were standing outside, waiting for us all to come out of the church. How did they know to be there? Such thoughtfulness. Such kindness.

I remember our rings, of course. John had designed them, and a silversmith he’d met at a craft fair on Exeter’s Cathedral Green had made them. His was a wide band with my name engraved on it in runes. Mine was three rings twisted together. It was heavy and clunky on my finger and I wondered if I’d ever get used to it.

Looking at my new wedding ring

Back at the The Three Tuns, Richard had chilled champagne ready. We sat at two tables, the young on one and the old (older) on the other.

    The older table was the noisy one. The vicar had joined us for lunch and he was regaling them with scurrilous stories (I heard something about him having to blow the smoke from his cigarette up a chimney) and they were all laughing loudly. In the pictures they are all smiling except for Betty who’s looking askance at my mother.

 

John T and Betty, looking askance

I sat mute in the centre of the other table.
    Friends of John’s from the pub joined the party and bought John and me brandies.
    Everyone was celebrating, except for John and me.

When we went outside after lunch we discovered that Simon had sprayed the Mini with ‘Just married’ in shaving foam and tied bells to its rear bumper. John was almost speechless with anger.
    ‘How could you,’ he shouted. ‘You’ve probably damaged the paintwork.’

He untied the bells immediately.

We went back to Liz’s cottage with Mollie where we found four congratulatory telegrams – from my father’s older sister who was also my godmother, my grandfather (my father’s father), my godfather (who was related in a complicated way to my mother) and his daughter who’d been to stay with John and me at Liz’s cottage over the summer. (She and her boyfriend had slept in our room and we’d slept in a tent in the garden.) There were presents too. I began to feel a little more conscious. The world came into focus again. I’d expected everyone to be on my parents’ side but perhaps I mattered to people as well.
    John wiped the Mini clean. The paintwork was intact, thank goodness. We changed out of our wedding clothes, shaking the confetti out of our hair and underwear, and packed the car. We were off to Cornwall for a week, staying for two nights in a B & B and then camping. John had all the gear.
    We kissed Mollie goodbye and set off, alone at last, married at last.

John cried all the way down to Cornwall. I wasn’t sure what to do as I’d never credited men with emotions, not subtle ones anyway, and I didn’t yet know what to do about my own.
    I kept my hand on his leg in what I hoped was a reassuring way, and passed him tissues when he needed them.

To be continued . . . 

PART FOUR. 1 A Late Arrival

This is an instalment of  an as-yet unnamed autobiographical series that started in Australia in 1975.

Click here for the first instalment.

The full list of instalments so far is in the sidebar to the right.

September 1978

‘Where’s Pa gone now?’ said John in an irritated voice – the one he always used when speaking of his father.
    ‘I’ll go and look for him,’ said Simon, leaping to his feet.
    We were in The Three Tuns having a meal with John’s parents and brother. Betty, his aunt, had retired to her room at the Bed & Breakfast where they were all staying.
    Simon returned.
    ‘He’s in the Gents,’ he reported. ‘He says he can’t come out because he’s “flatulating”.’
    Mollie and I looked at each other and, as one, we broke out laughing, and once we started, we couldn’t stop. We kept setting each other off.
    John and I had visited his parents a couple of times over the summer and I’d got to know them better. I never quite knew how to behave with John T or what to call him, but he was funny. He spent hours agonising over words and social conventions - and nearly always got them wrong. Mollie, on the other hand, had natural grace and I’d felt relaxed with her from the start.
    The whole family was more open than mine and they’d never judged me. I was happy sitting with them here in the pub. I felt like myself.
    It was the night before the wedding.

The next morning I hopped around on our mattress in Liz’s cottage trying to get dressed. I couldn’t find the white tights I’d bought to go with my pink and white dress but eventually they surfaced and I lay down and tried to pull them on. It was all so awkward. I was fumbling everything.
    John meanwhile dressed in the dark blue pinstriped suit, pale blue shirt and dark blue tie his mother had insisted - in spite of his protests - on buying him at Christmas when she’d renovated his wardrobe. He didn’t look like himself but Mollie would be pleased to see him in the suit and he didn’t have anything else appropriate. In a way I was proud of him.
    John’s family were going straight to the church, but my family who didn’t know the way were coming via the cottage so that they could follow John and me.
    John and I stood outside the front door waiting for them. I jiggled from foot to foot, peering down the dirt track that led to the cottage. They were long overdue.
    Sun shone through mist in an early-autumn way.

My brother Jo, child number two and the wise owl of the family, had rung me two nights earlier.
    ‘I’ve been speaking to Mum,’ he said, ‘and she wants to come to your wedding.’

    Which I translated as meaning that Jo had persuaded her.

    ‘We could drive down early on Saturday.' he continued. 'Mum says could you arrange some sort of lunch for us all afterwards. She’ll pay. And would you like me to “give you away”?’
    By then, so close to the wedding, I was finding it difficult to deal with anything practical so I agreed to the plans without thinking. But as soon as I put the phone down I regretted doing so. The prospect of seeing my mother cast a shadow over everything. Did she really think I would welcome her after everything she’d said?
    But it was a bridge of sorts, I supposed.
    It was certainly reassuring to know that Jo would be with me up the aisle. And helpful, as although John and I had had a run-through of the service with the vicar during the week I’d got no further with the ‘giving away’ part. It was appropriate too, in the absence of my father, not to say preferable because Jo was an equal so I would feel less like a parcel and more like a person.
    I’d rung The Three Tuns in a panic and Richard’s wife and the pub’s cook had risen to the occasion and promised to reserve a room for the party and cook the stew and baked potatoes that had been my unimaginative suggestion for lunch.

At last, in a swirl of stones, my parents’ turquoise Volvo estate car pulled up. My two sisters, my mother and Jo piled out.
    I hadn’t expected my sisters and tears pricked my eyes.
    Being so close in age (five of us in six and half years), we siblings had been a tight gang as children and the thought of losing them over this débâcle was almost the worst part of it.
    I wondered what story they’d been told.
    They’d dressed up for the occasion, Amelia – child number five - in a long checked dress and Cass in a smart white shirt and pink poplin skirt.

    Jo was in a suit, like John.
    ‘Where’s Danny?’ I asked. He was child number four.
    ‘He was already booked to play in a cricket match,’ said Jo.
    I hoped he didn’t feel left out.
    ‘Sorry we’re late,’ chorused my sisters. ‘Jo insisted on stopping for a full breakfast.’
    That was typical of Jo – timekeeping was not one of his strengths - but he got away with everything.
    ‘And I miscalculated the time,’ said my mother.
    I kissed her dutifully on the cheek and avoided her eye.
    ‘We’d better get going,’ I said, climbing into the Mini with John.

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PART THREE. 9 Results

 This is an instalment of  an as-yet unnamed autobiographical series that started in Australia in 1975.

Click here for the first instalment.

The full list of instalments so far is in the sidebar to the right.

My results arrived in the post. I’d almost forgotten about them with everything that was going on, but my hands shook as I ripped open the envelope. All I wanted was to have passed. The mark didn’t matter.

    I was astonished to discover that I’d received a 2/1, the second-best mark. I didn’t think I deserved it.

    I wanted to tell my parents – perhaps at last I might have done something that pleased them – so I wrote them a letter.

    At the same time I told them the date of the wedding along with the time and where it was happening. I’m not sure why I did that, as I knew my father couldn’t come and I didn’t want my mother to. Perhaps I thought I was covering myself and giving them a last chance. Or perhaps I was trying to take charge of the situation.

 

On Saturday, a week before the wedding, John and I were down in the kitchen having breakfast when we heard the ominous thump of letters landing on the mat in the hall. I fetched them. They were from my parents, of course, and I gave my mother’s to John.

    ‘I don’t want to read this now,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I can. Can you put it away somewhere I won’t find it and perhaps I’ll read it another time.’

    I took my father’s letter back to bed with me. I wanted to read it on my own. This was my problem, not John’s.

 

It was only two pages long and the handwriting was almost unrecognisable. It was larger than usual and untidy and it sloped backwards instead of forwards.

  

25 August

 

My dear daughter

 

You have told us your decision and I am, of course, very sad. It is so far from the happy family occasion it should be but the abruptness of your actions have obviously made that inevitable.

    What is a major worry is the thought that you may be turning your back or opting out of many of the standards to which we did our best to bring you up. I don’t think we are old-fashioned. That is an accusation that the younger generation always make to the older when they want to do something without approval.

    If friendships wither it is not always the friend’s fault. It is even odds that it is caused by oneself. It is not clever nor tolerant not to respect and consider other people’s point of view. It is even odds that they are more right than you.

    Nor is it hypocrisy to observe the usual courtesies and respect the social graces and behaviour of the company you are in at any time. It is kindness and thoughtfulness. Many of the most courteous and well-mannered people are some of the poorest and their company some of the most delightful.

    Bigotry is the belief that you are always right. Honesty is to say what you think even if you accept that you may be wrong.

    Selfishness and intolerance are the bane of the world. Kindness and good manners the blessings.

    Sorry to be a pompous bore.

    With love Daddy

I could barely read I was so tense but words jumped out and they seemed to be a criticism of John and me – as usual. The strange thing was that everything my father was saying could have applied to my parents - as far as I could see.
     He sounded broken and the letter broke me too. I couldn’t bear seeing my father so unhappy. What had I done to deserve all this? 

    My opinion of John wobbled, as it always did when my parents described him from their point of view, but I didn’t waver in my determination to marry him. He was, I now realised, the only thing I had left.

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PART THREE. 8 Missives

This is an instalment of  an as-yet unnamed autobiographical series that started in Australia in 1975.

Click here for the first instalment.

The full list of instalments so far is in the sidebar to the right.

We found the letter on the doormat when we returned from work. We both recognised it instantly from the blue envelope and the scrawled address. It was from my mother.

    It was beautiful summer’s day so we took the letter, a blanket and a cup of tea each out into the garden and sat in the shade of the old apple tree in the far corner.

    I leant into John. I was so tired of all this. 

 16 August 

My dear Belinda

 

So be it. I think you are putting us all in rather an invidious position. Why this unseemly haste? Either you should have got married quietly without telling anyone beforehand or you should give everyone due warning. Don’t forget that we are all very fond of you and it is a big day. Have you considered Grandpa, H & Minda, Dennis & Peta etc? I think this hole and corner business is most unsavoury. Unless you are pregnant, why do you have to rush it so?

 What unseemly haste? It was now six months since we’d been to see my parents and eight months since John and I had first realised we wanted to marry.

    Yes, we should have got married without telling them.

     No I hadn’t considered the wider family. I hadn’t been married before. I didn’t know how one was supposed to behave. And anyway, I didn’t think our marriage concerned anyone except John and me.

    The word ‘pregnant’ hit me like a punch to the gut. My mother never normally used it. It was too crude. She always said that someone was ‘expecting a baby’. I knew she was using it to hurt.

    Apart from anything else it is a little unfair to Daddy who has already made all his travelling arrangements for the business trip which you have known about for a long time.

That was puzzling. I didn’t know anything about a trip. Had I missed it in one of the letters of the ‘usual mundane gossip’ or had my mother forgotten to tell me? She did sometimes forget to whom she’d told what, telling one child something twice and another nothing at all.

    I felt bad about the clash as I didn’t want my father to think I’d deliberately excluded him but I couldn’t change the date of the wedding now. It was only just over two weeks away.

 

    You are our oldest and first born and of course we want to be at your wedding, whoever you marry. We may not like John, but you have rather taken it for granted that we wouldn't ‒  you said so before we even met him ‒ and we’ve never had a chance to get to know him better and change our minds.

 

I never said they wouldn’t like him. I said that he was ‘unsuitable (exclamation mark)’, by which I meant that he was unsuitable by my parents’ standards, not by mine. I wondered if that had been a misunderstanding all along.

    Somehow, though, I couldn’t be bothered to correct anything. What would be the point? They wouldn’t listen.

    And no, they hadn’t had a chance to get to know him better. That was my fault. I was a coward. I couldn’t risk any more criticism of him. I was afraid of what that would do to me.

    Anyway this is my immediate reaction and I won’t write any more at the moment. If you feel like it, ring up and reverse the charges.

    Love

    Mummy

 We put the letter down and looked at each other.

    ‘We’re not that poor,’ said John indignantly. ‘Why’s she put in that bit about “reversing the charges”?’

    ‘God knows,’ I said.

 

The next day when we returned from work we found a letter from my father waiting for us. Usually we left the sitting-room to Liz as it was her house, but she was upstairs, so we huddled together on the sofa. I felt slightly sick.

My dear Belinda

There is of course nothing we can do if you decide to go against our wishes except to convey our real sorrow at such estrangement. But if you are looking for our approval then I feel bound to say that, at this stage, I am unable to give you away.

I hadn’t asked him to give me away. I was hardly aware of that part of the wedding service as I hadn’t been to any weddings as an adult. Our friends didn’t get married, or at least weren’t married yet. John and I were an exception.

    What was this ‘giving away’ bit, anyway? It struck me as rather quaint.

    But I was sorry to have upset my father, if that was what I’d done.    

We hardly know John although we are aware that you come from different backgrounds. I do find him very difficult to talk to and while that is partly my fault he does not seem to be forthcoming in general conversation. Of course he is nervous but we cannot make a real judgement if he will not talk. About his home and family, interests, sport, holidays he’s had, school, training – in fact anything. He doesn’t necessarily have to talk to me but some initiative is essential if we are to get to know him.

       ‘I ballsed it up, didn’t I,’ said John.

       ‘You didn’t play their game,’ I said. ‘And why should you?’

       ‘I didn’t know there was a game to be played,’ he said. ‘I was out of my depth.’ 

    I don’t want to repeat all I’ve said in my previous letter but I do think that you yourself will not know your own mind if you stay at Exeter where obviously you will see John all the time and think of little else. If you get a job well away from Exeter, you and he would be welcome to see each other at weekends and hopefully here at home as often as you like. If you do this, and if your mind remains unchanged and we know more about John, we shall feel properly placed to be fair and reasonable. You must know our only concern is your long-term happiness. I also trust that John will appreciate all this, that he will be fair to you and not wish for hasty and irreversible action.

    

    With much love

    Daddy

 We hadn’t spent a night apart since the snow in February. It would be unbearable to do so. How could my father not realise that?

    Perhaps we were rushing things but I was so frightened – of being prevented from marrying John, of having my mind changed. 

 

Something horrible was starting to happen to me. I was flipping viewpoints. Sometimes I saw John as this extraordinary person I loved and sometimes I saw him as my parents did – useless, ‘common’ (as my mother would have put it) and boring.

    I didn’t know how to stop the flipping. I didn’t know what it meant.

    Was I being worn down? Was this ‘reverse brainwashing’?

    Which was the real John? Which was the real me? How could people have such different views? Which viewpoint was right?

    How could I be so weak?

 

If anyone had ballsed things up, it was me. I’d done everything wrong.

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