To Sail Beyond The Sunset

‘Maureen, it probably is too late to change anything now. Stipulated, your wishes should have been followed. But now it is less than forty-eight hours till your wedding and when Adele takes the bit in her teeth, she doesn't listen. I wish I could help you. But she won't listen to me, either.' Father looked as unhappy as I felt. ‘Grit your teeth and wait it out. Once Brother Timberly says, "I pronounce you man and wife", you no longer have to pay any attention to anyone but Brian. And I see that you have a ring in his nose; you won't find that too difficult.'

‘I don't think I have a ring in his nose.'

The Reverend Timberly had been told that the Methodist Episcopal service was to be followed exactly, none of these modern innovations. He had been told also that it would be a single-ring ceremony. The muttonhead didn't listen on either point. He stuck in all sorts of stuff (from his lodge rituals, I think; he was a past Grand Chancellor of the Knights and Lords of the High Mountain), stuff that had not been in the rehearsal, questions and responses I didn't recognise. And he preached, telling each of us things we didn't need to hear, matters not in the wedding service.

This went on and on, while my feet hurt (don't buy shoes by mail order!) and my corset was stifling me. (I had never worn one before. But Mother insisted.) I was about to tell Brother Timberwolf to stick to the book, stop improvising (it was getting closer and closer to train time), when he reached the point where he wanted two rings and there was of course but one.

He wanted to back up and start over.

Brian spoke up (and a groom isn't supposed to say anything but ‘I will' and ‘I do') and said in a whisper that could not be heard more than a hundred yards, ‘Reverend, stop stalling and stick to words in the book... or I won't pay you a red cent.'

Brother Timberly started to expostulate and looked at Briney - and stopped suddenly, and said, ‘By AuthorityvestedinmebythesovereignstateofMissouri I pronounce you man and wife!' And thereby saved his own life. I think.

Brian kissed me and we turned and started down the aisle and I tripped on my train. Beth was carrying my train and was supposed to move it off to the left.

It wasn't her fault; I turned the wrong way.

‘Briney, did you get any wedding cake?'

‘Never had time.'

‘Me, too. I suddenly realise that I haven't eaten anything since breakfast... and not much then. Let's find that dining car.'

‘Suits. I'll enquire.' Briney got up, was gone a few moments. When he came back he leaned over me. ‘I found it.'

‘Good. Is it in front of us, or behind us?'

‘Behind us. Quite a bit behind us. They left it off in Joplin.'

So our wedding supper was two stale ham sandwiches from the news butcher and a bottle of soda pop, split.

About eleven o'clock we finally reached the Lewis and Clark, where Briney had a reservation for us. The hack driver had apparently never heard of that hotel but was willing to search for it as long as his horse held out. He started away from the depot in the wrong direction. Briney spotted this and stopped him; the driver gave him an argument and some lip. Briney said, ‘Back to the depot; we'll have another hack.' This ultimatum finally got us there.

I suppose that it was only to be expected that the night clerk had never heard of Briney's reservation. But Brian can't be pushed around and he won't be intimidated. He said, ‘I made my reservation by mail three weeks ago with a postal money order deposit. I have my receipt right here along with a letter of confirmation signed by your manager. Now wake him up and put a stop to this nonsense.' Briney shoved the letter under the clerk's nose.

The clerk looked at it and said, ‘Oh, that Mr Smith And the bridal suite. Why didn't you say so?'

‘I did say so, ten minutes ago.'

‘I am very sorry, sir. Front!'

Twenty minutes later I was in a wonderful tub of hot, soapy water, just like Chicago six years earlier. I almost fell asleep in the tub, then realised that I was keeping my bridegroom out of the bath, and pulled myself together. ‘Briney! Shall I fill a tub for you?'

No answer. I dried off a bit, wrapped the towel around me, aware that I was a scandalous sight (and a provocative one, I hoped).

My gallant knight was fast asleep, still in his clothes, lying across the bedspread.

There was a silver bucket just inside the door - ice and a bottle of champagne.

I got out my nightgown (virginal white and perfumed; it had been Mother's bridal nightgown) and a pair of bunny slippers. ‘Brian. Briney. Please wake up, dear. I want to help you undress, and open the bed, and get you into it.'

‘Murrf.'

‘Please, dear.'

‘I wasn't asleep.'

‘No, of course not. Let me help you off with your boots.'

‘I c'n get ‘em.' He sat up and reached for them.

‘Ali right, dear. I must let the water out of the tub, then I'll run a bath for you.'

‘Your water is still in the tub?'

‘Yes.'

‘Let it be; I'll use it. Mrs Smith, you couldn't get a tub of water dirty; you would just impart a delicious flavour?

Sure enough, my gallant knight did bathe in my bath water (still lukewarm). I climbed into bed... and was sound asleep when he came to bed. He did not wake me.

I woke up in darkness about two or three, frightened to find myself in a strange bed - then remembered. ‘Briney?'

‘You awake now?'

‘Awake some.' I snuggled closer.

Then I sat up and got rid of that nightgown; I was getting bound up in it. And Briney took off his nightshirt, and for the first time both of us were bare all over and it was wonderful and I knew that all my life had just been preparation for this moment.

After an unmeasured time that had started out slowly, we both took fire together - after that, I was lying quietly under him, loving him.

‘Thank you, Briney. You are wonderful.'

‘Thank you. Love you.'

‘Love you, my husband. Briney. Where's your cat? In Cincinnati? In Rolla?'

‘Eh? No, no. In Kansas City.'

‘Here? Boarded with someone?'

‘I don't know:

‘I don't understand.'

‘You haven't picked it out yet, Mo. It's the kitten you're going to give me. Bride's present to the bridegroom.'

- ‘Oh! Briney, you're a scamp!' I tickled him. He tickled me. It resulted, by stages, in Maureen being disgracefully noisy again. Then I got my back scratched. Having your back scratched is not the only reason to be married, but it is a good one, especially for those spots that are so hard to reach by yourself. Then I secratched his back. We finally went to sleep all tangled up in each other like a basket of kittens.

Maureen had at last found out what she was good for, her true destiny.

We had champagne for breakfast.

Chapter 7 - Ringing the Cash Register

From having read candid autobiographies written by liberated women in the twentieth century, especially those published after the second phase of the Final Wars, c. 195= et seq., I know that I am expected to tell in detail all aspects of my first pregnancy and of me birth of my first child - all about morning sickness and my cyclic moods and the tears and the loneliness... then the false labour, the unexpected breaking of the bag of waters, followed by eclampsia and emergency surgery and the secrets I spilled under anaesthesia.

I'm sorry but it wasn't that way at all. I've seen women with morning sickness and it's obviously horrible, but I never experienced it. My problem has always been to ‘stay on the curve', not gain more weight than my doctor thought was healthy for me. (There have been times when I would have killed for a chocolate éclair.)