Marriage Act

by Kerry Hadley-Pryce

THEY ARRIVE AT the community centre but can’t find a parking spot. Eventually, they have to park right round the corner, by the bins. A cat, or a rat scoots out from behind the bushes, and by the time they get to the wedding reception, it’s started to rain and the bride and groom have already arrived. Julie says something about how they should have left their car at the church, got an Uber, or got a lift. They should have, she says, they definitely should have. She holds her hat on by the brim and makes a big deal of trying to run in her high heels and tight skirt. There are puddles, and mud flicks up onto the back of her legs as she runs, or at least it looks like mud to him just then. Barry catches up with her, out of breath, just as they enter the community centre. He sees the cake hasn’t been cut yet, and reaches for his phone to take a quick snap, but it’s not there, his phone. He’s patting all his pockets like he’s putting out a fire, but there’s no sign.

‘Julie,’ he calls. ‘Is my phone in your handbag?’

But Julie is talking to the bride’s mother, or the groom’s, and there are small children dressed as adults, all bow ties and waistcoats, or flammable-looking puffed-up dresses, racing around making noises like faulty washing machines.

‘Julie,’ he says, touching her on her padded shoulder. ‘My phone, have you got it in your bag, or..?’

Julie shudders, or seems to and turns to him in what seems like slow motion. ‘I’m talking to Iris,’ she says, then she turns to Iris, says, ‘Sorry, Iris, what were you saying?’

The community centre is decked out with a ‘Just Married’ banner and strings of glittery paper horseshoes and hearts. A sagging table, on which there are plates of sandwiches, sausage rolls and so on, covered in cling film, and the cake, lines the longest wall. A DJ is setting up on a shallow stage at the far end, and the shutters are open at the bar. The bride looks like someone she isn’t, dressed like a Disney character. She’s had her nails done, and her hands look too big for the rest of her. The bridesmaids are batting false compliments to each other: ‘I love your hair,’ ‘No, I love your hair,’ ‘I love the colour,’ ‘No, yours is much better, colour-wise.’ The groom has pretty much finished his first pint. His shirt is hanging out at the back, and his tie is loose. He’s surrounded by his mates, and he’s laughing at something. Barry is sure he sees a long-familiar face there somewhere just beyond the crowd, but when he feels for his specs on the top of his head and in his pockets, he can’t find them.

Julie says, ‘Yes, yes. This is where we had ours. That was a long time ago now.’ She glances back, and says, ‘That was a long time ago now, wasn’t it, Barry?’

Barry is looking around, orienting his thoughts. ‘Aren’t there going to be any speeches, and all that?’ he says. ‘Best man, father of the bride and what not?’

Julie adjusts her gaze to somewhere out into the middle distance, beyond his left ear, beyond the DJ. Iris fixes her stare on him.

‘Just asking,’ he says.

‘That isn’t the way they do things nowadays,’ Julie says. ‘Is it, Iris?’

Iris is sitting on a bench seat, holding an unlit cigarette. She has a mop of hair held together with what looks like glue. She looks like a caricature of a philosopher, or as if she could be related to Donald Trump.

‘Are you wearing eyeshadow?’ she says to Barry.

Julie sniggers, says, ‘No, he’s just tired. He’s always tired, aren’t you, Barry?’

‘Or just old,’ Iris says. ‘Looks like eyeshadow to me.’ And she places the cigarette between her lips. She’s had her nails done as well. To Barry they look like something prehistoric.

The DJ starts counting. Not counting. Just saying, ‘Two, two, two. One, two.’ And Barry thinks about couples, ones becoming twos. For ever. He watches as small children race around the dance floor to music that isn’t yet playing, and their energy amazes him. He’d like some of that. He wonders where all of his went. He thinks about Julie’s late father tinkling a champagne glass with a steak knife all those years ago and speaking like he knew exactly what he was going to say: ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ and then all about his little girl and how proud he was to be giving her away, and how that speech felt, at the time, just as important as the vows for heaping responsibility, for confirming the commitment, for making him the same as them. He thinks how good, how important, it would have been if there’d been speeches today, and a sit-down meal, and an open bar, which they had had, and which he realises, there is not.

‘Have you got any cash on you?’ he says to Julie, and he motions as if he’s taking a drink.

Julie sighs, looks at Iris and rolls her eyes, says, ‘I’ll get them.’

She walks off in the direction of the bar, and Barry notices, afresh, the mud on the back of her legs is, in fact, ill-concealed varicose veins, but he also sees that her heels are bloodied. New shoes, rubbing. He thinks about following her, but she’s moving quite fast across the dance floor, fiddling around in her handbag, so he stays where he is. Iris, he notices, is looking up at him.

‘Julie says this is where you’re having your thirty-fifth anniversary do,’ she says. ‘Like when you had your reception here.’ She says it out of the corner of her mouth because she’s still got the unlit cigarette between her lips.

He nods, wants to say something about how young they were, how very young. Too young. And foolish. But he just nods again and glances over at the bar, sees Julie’s in a queue. Sees what he thinks is that familiar face, again, next to her. Is it hope that’s doing this? Is it imagination? He blinks, isn’t sure, but he feels something he can’t name.

The groom seems to appear. He’s holding a full pint of beer. His wedding ring catches the light from the disco ball. He looks red in the face, glazed. He keeps sniffing.

‘Baz,’ he says. ‘Cheers for the gift, like. The missus loves an air fryer, and all that.’

‘A what? A head fryer?’ Iris says. She removes her cigarette and Barry can see how damp the tip is, how it’s covered in pink lipstick.

‘Air. Air fryer. She can cook my dinner in it quick,’ the groom says, pointing with his pint towards the bride. He shakes his head, sniffs, says to Barry, ‘Head fryer. Fuckin’ ‘ell. Mind you, I feel like frying her head most of the time.’ And he motions as if removing his wedding ring, says, ‘If it don’t work out, there’s always divorce, right?’

Iris shuffles in her bench seat, straightens her back, stretches out her hands across her lap, examines the tip of the cigarette, says to the groom, as if it’s just come to her, ‘Here. See him here? He says he’s not wearing eye shadow, but I think he is.’

The groom says something, wipes his nose on his sleeve and lets out a guffaw of laughter, but Barry can’t hear any of it because the music is suddenly there, loud. I’m Not in Love. The throb of the first few repeated bars. He can feel it, the mass of harmonics, all bleeding together, vibrating the floor. He can feel it creeping up his body, into his sternum. He puts his hand on his chest and feels it there. He feels it coming out of him, he feels it coming out. The temptation to tap his foot or even slightly sway his body, his hips—to dance—comes like a relief. He feels his back, his shoulders, relax. He knows the words. He knows them all. He closes his eyes, tips back his head, goes to loosen his tie, unbutton that top part of his shirt.

Julie nudges his elbow, holds out a glass of lemonade, mouths, ‘Behave yourself.’

The music builds up and the room seems full of it. Iris says something and he sees her mouth move and squirm into a grin, but can’t hear the words over the noise of everything. And when he looks, the square that is the dance floor, the place itself, is like a photograph, and he wants to be transported into it—not physically, but mentally—as if he’s travelling back in time but he can feel Julie about to say something to him, and, anyway, he’s looking for that familiar face. He’s sure now. He knows he’s not imagining it. And she touches him, Julie does, on the arm, and he can see she’s had her nails done as well, just like all the others. She’s the same as them. And she says something, but the music takes her words. Sometimes her voice is a tsunami. It is now. Her lips are moving and, honestly, sometimes he thinks she’ll never stop talking. Be quiet, he thinks. The music ebbs and flows, it’s choral and hypnotic, and he knows all the words, he does, and he wants to sing along, I’m not in love. But you don’t, do you? Sing along like that. That isn’t the way they do things nowadays.

And he sees the bride at the long, sagging table, peeling off the clingfilm, and guests are casually stacking paper plates with food. Someone, the groom or one of his mates, shouts something out to the DJ about playing something else, something modern, not this old crap. And somehow there are lights: red and green and purple, and the music changes to something he doesn’t know, has never heard before, but he’s absolutely sure he sees that familiar face, there on the dance floor, or by the bar, and it’s yearning he feels, and he thinks, thirty five years. His glass is empty but he doesn’t remember drinking any of it, and he puts the glass down on the table next to Iris, turns to leave, but sees Julie, there, on the dance floor, moving mechanically, doing the same dance as everyone else, the same moves. She’s kicked off her shoes and is dancing in a line with the groom and all his mates, not smiling exactly, because he realises she never does. Iris grabs his arm with her prehistoric hands and he stoops down so his face is close to hers. He can smell the cigarette smoke on her breath when she says, ‘We all end up dead, you know. It’s the only certainty in life.’

And he nods like she’s just said some kind of passcode, and as if, Tetris-like, his thoughts have fallen into place. And he picks up his glass. There will be a speech, he thinks, there will be a speech today. And he looks about for a steak knife, or any knife. And when he finds one, he knows exactly what he’s going to say.

oOo

Kerry Hadley-Pryce has had three novels published by Salt Publishing: The Black Country (Michael Schmidt Prize); Gamble (shortlisted for The Encore Award) and God’s Country. Her fourth novel, Lie of the Land, is due for publication by Salt Publishing in January 2025. She has a PhD in creative writing from Manchester Metropolitan University, teaches creative writing, and has contributed to Palgrave’s Smell, Memory & Literature in the Black Country anthology. She has had short stories published in Best British Short Stories 2023 and Best British Short Stories 2024, Takahe Magazine, Fictive Dream and The Incubator and read by Brum Radio.

https://kerryhadley-pryce.weebly.com
https://www.saltpublishing.com/collections/author-kerry-hadley-pryce.