Elizabeth Noble - The Way We Were

Also by ElizabethNoble

The Reading Group

The Friendship Test

Alphabet Weekends

Things I Want My Daughters To Know

The Girl Next Door

ELIZABETH NOBLE

MICHAEL JOSEPH

an imprintof

PENGUIN BOOKS

For A and L, with my love and mythanks

The kiss, like everything else about the day, waspicture-perfect. Not too chaste, not too intimate. The groom, an ideal several inchestaller than the slender woman beside him, took his brides face in his hands,tender and possessive. He laid his forehead against hers for a second or two beforetheir lips met. Her eyes shone with tears of joy. There was an appropriate collectivesigh among the congregation. It was like watching a Hallmark card come to life.

First married kiss over, the beaming newly-weds turned to face thecongregation, their cheeks touching, her retrouss nose wrinkling in shyself-deprecation, and the veil that had been lifted from her face a few minutes earlierframed them both in a cloud of fairytale tulle.

The vicar raised his hands in an expansive gesture. Ladies andgentlemen, Mr and Mrs Hammond, and the whole church erupted into spontaneousapplause.

In the second pew on the grooms side questions raced throughSusannahs brain so fast she could barely put them in order.

1. Since when did we applaud in church?
2. How is it that my little brother is old enough to get married?
3. Was I really ever as naive as they appear?
4. Just when did I get so cynical, and so bitter?

The answers didnt come quite so quickly. Except aboutthe clapping. It was modern. Not for the first time, Susannah found herself strangely atodds with the practices of her own generation. This wasnt a performance. This wasa solemn, dignified ceremony.

Her baby brother Alexander was thirty-three. Not young tomarry, by most peoples standards. It was the fact that his being thirty-threemeant that she was thirty-nine that choked her a little bit. She remembered him beingborn so vividly a living Tiny Tears, a six-year-old girls dream cometrue.

Yes, yes of course shed been that naive all that,and more. Naive and delirious with the same joy shed seen on their faces, andcertain, so very certain, that shed be married for ever. Shed stood atthat very altar, exactly where Alex and Chloe stood now, and she imagined shedfelt exactly as they did (though she also remembered a disconcerting sensation that thestrangely uncomfortable garter she was wearing was slipping down her thigh towards herknee). The certainty was the part that had deserted her. She couldnt have livedwithout him. Back then, shed have viewed it almost as a physical impossibility that her heart, the one shed just finished giving him,would literally stop beating in her chest if he wasnt beside her. Shewasnt certain about anything any more.

And the getting cynical and bitter part? That that question shecouldnt answer. If shed known it was happening if shedstood apart from herself and watched she wouldnt have let it. Wouldshe?

Chloe was radiant. Really. Everyone said it about every bride itwas one of the required words for days like today but it wasnt true aboutevery bride. At least, not as true as it was about Chloe today. (Had everyone said itabout her? Was it true, about her?) Chloe was Canadian and, actually, she alwaysglowed with North American wholesome health. All straight white teeth andsmooth blonde waves. She looked, Susannah acknowledged, particularly lovely today. Herdress was a long sheath of heavy ivory duchesse satin. Elegant and timeless, it suitedChloe perfectly. As she passed, she shook her bouquet slightly at Susannah in triumphantgreeting, and Susannah felt herself shaking her clenched fists in response, hershoulders hunched.

Alexs chest was puffed out with pride. Chloes arm wasthrough his, and he had clasped her fingers with his other hand. He kept looking fromher to their guests, and quickly back to her, as though he still couldnt believeshe was his wife, at last.

It was hard not to believe in these two, watching them now. Even forSusannah.

Maybe Alex and Chloe would be okay. Some people were,werent they?

Susannahs mother, Rosemary, turned now to her only daughter. Herface was wet with what Susannah had called happy tears when she waslittle, and she dabbed carefully at her eyes with a white lacy handkerchief saved forjust such an occasion. Wasnt that wonderful?

Susannah smiled indulgently, which was easier said than done, given thatshe found her teeth were clenched. Another required word. It was.Wonderful!

And didnt she look beautiful?

Absolutely!

This Q&A could take a while. Although most of her mothersQs seemed to be rhetorical, and she probably neednt bother with theAs. This and the photos. Susannah wondered how far she was from her first glassof champagne. Too long, almost certainly. Perhaps she should have slipped a hip flaskinto her handbag.

Im so thrilled they did it here.

This was not news. St Gabriels Parish Church was at thegeographical centre of the village and the spiritual centre of Rosemary Hammondslife, inextricably linked to her and her family. She felt a glow of pleasure andsatisfaction, remembering her own marriage here on the July day England had won theWorld Cup in 1966. All three of her children had been christened and confirmed here, andher parents were buried beside each other, though twelve years apart, inthe churchyard outside. Before she and her husband had joined the French invasion andbought a converted barn there, she never missed a Sunday service except when shewas away on holiday, and twice, after the hysterectomy shed had in 2005 and on almost every Friday afternoon for the last fifteen years, shed dusted andpolished the pews with three or four of her friends. Clive, her husband, called itdusting for Jesus and was always rewarded with a harmless flick of theyellow duster as she left.

Alastair, the eldest and the first of her children to marry, had marriedfrom Kathryns home near Cambridge. Of course. It was the right thing to do,although Rosemary knew, and was slightly resentful of the fact, that no one inKathryns family seemed particularly religious, and Kathryn herself had never evenmet the vicar who performed the service before they started planning the wedding.Rosemary hadnt liked the flowers much (gerberas so casual), and she waspretty sure that the pulpit hadnt seen Pledge for a few weeks.

Alastair and Kathryns daughters were Alex and Chloesbridesmaids today. Millie and Sadie were tripping excitedly down the aisle behind Chloe,delighted by the swoosh of their tulle petticoats and the elaborately styled hairtheyd had done at the hairdressers.

Susannah had married Sean here, sixteen years ago. She had joked abouteloping in the early days of her engagement, but Rosemary knew she would never do that to her. Susannah was her only daughter, after all her onlychance to really organize a wedding. Rosemary had been daydreaming about her littlegirls wedding since the day Susannah had been born. Saving for it, too squirrelling away money from her housekeeping. There hadnt been any money whenshe and Clive had married, not for extras bells and whistles Clivecalled them. Shed been determined that Susannah should have them all. Floralarrangements at the end of each pew not just at the altar realchampagne, and not just one glass for the toast

But Alexs wedding had been a bonus. Alex had been a bonus all hislife, in fact, conceived five years after Susannah and long after shedstopped hoping it might happen, and had determined to be content with the two childrenGod had already given her and Clive. Chloe, bless her, had wanted a traditional Englishwedding, and shed loved St Gabriels since shed spent her firstholiday with the Hammonds, three years earlier, and theyd all traipsed up therefor midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Alex had proposed three months ago, on a walkingholiday in Scotland. Theyd telephoned from a pub, and Chloe had said then,straight away, drunk on happiness and sentiment (and a couple of whisky macs), that shewanted to marry at St Gabriels, that she couldnt imagine doing it anywhereelse. It had all been a bit of a rush, if Rosemary was honest. Theyd been luckythis Saturday was free. It was the first one since Easter the Reverend Trevor had hadfree, and would be the last one until after October half-term. Shesuspected though she hadnt asked, since it seemed like bad luck there might have been a cancellation St Gabriels was a very picturesque Four Weddings and a Funeral type of church, and alwaysin demand, and no amount of polishing or praying could get you a Saturday at shortnotice in the summer.