the two cards side by side, he thinks about opening his for a moment and decides not to. He looks for the matches, and he thinks about that day.
It wasn’t a spectacular wedding. It happened in a hurry, and they only spent one night together before he went away again, went away properly. They’d been told to tie up their loose ends, and they knew what that meant, so he’d sent her a telegram, just before his leave, saying are you at a loose end stop buy a nice dress stop will buy rings stop, and they’d rushed off to the registry office, dragging in the woman from the cake shop for a witness.
But it was a wedding, and they looked each other in the eyes and said the words, they made their vows and they have kept them all these years.
Her hand in his hand, watching him say to love and to cherish, watching him say until death us do part.
When they kissed, as they were signing the register, the woman from the cake shop turned her face away, as though she was embarrassed.
And they took the wedding certificate back to their new house, propped it up on the chest of drawers at the foot of the bed, and spent the whole evening looking at it, both feeling as though they’d just stepped off a fairground ride, both feeling dizzy and exhilarated, struggling to get their breath back, struggling to absorb everything that had happened.
She said, tell me the story of us, tell me it the way you’ll tell our children when they ask.
She said it a lot, in those first few years, when she was feeling sad, or poorly, or she couldn’t sleep. She’d lay her head on his chest, her hands tucked up under her chin, and she’d say tell me the story of us, tell me it the way you’d tell our children.
And he’d always say it the same way, starting once upon a time there was a handsome soldier boy with a smart uniform and he went to a dance with his friends and minded his own business, and she’d always lift her head up and pull a shocked face and say you were not minding your own business you were making eyes at me all evening you’re a big fat liar.
And he’d always put two fingers to her lips and say so the handsome soldier boy was surprised to see a nice-looking young lady standing in front of him and asking him to dance, and she’d say what happened then, did they dance, did they dance well?
Oh yes, he’d always say, yes indeed, they did dance, and they danced very well, spinning and twirling and looking deeply in one another’s eyes so they didn’t know everyone else was looking at them so amazed and you know what happened that very moment he’d say, not waiting for her response, what happened without them even knowing was they were in love.
And then? she’d say, what happened then? Did they kiss? and he’d say no no, not so soon, he was a gentleman you see, a gentleman as well as a soldier and so he didn’t kiss her until the second time they met he’d say, and she would ask him for more details and he would tell them to her, their first meetings, where they went to, what they did, the first night they spent together in the hotel in Blackpool and she’d say you mustn’t tell the children about that bit and he’d laugh and say no.
And that first time he’d told the story, that night, lying side by side on the bed, fully clothed, neither of them said anything when he finished, they just lay there looking at the certificate, looking at the official type, the formal words, looking at their names laid down in sloping black ink.
And she’d whispered it’s a good story isn’t it?, unbuttoning his shirt, spreading her fingers out across his chest as though smoothing wrinkles from a bedsheet, and he’d said yes, yes it is, it’s a good story. And the last thing she’d said to him, just before she went to sleep that night, quietly, almost as though she thought he was asleep, she said you will come back won’t you, you will keep safe, please, you will come home?
When I got back from that first appointment it rained for a day and a half.
It woke me up in the middle of the night, a quiet noise at first, burbling across the roof, spattering through the leaves of the trees, and it was good to lie there for a while and listen to it.
But later, when I got up, it was heavier and faster, pouring streaks down the windows, exploding into ricochets on the pavement outside.
I stood by the window watching people in the street struggle with umbrellas.
I phoned work and said I can’t come in I’m sick.
I thought about what my mother would say if she saw me skiving like this, I remembered what she said when I was a child and stuck indoors over rainy weekends.
There’s no use mooching and moping about it she’d say, it’s just the way things are.
Why don’t you play a game she’d say, clapping her hands as if to snap me out of it.
And I’d ask her to point out all the one-player games and she’d tut and leave the room.
I wonder if that’s what she’ll say when I finally tell her, that it’s the way things are, that there’s no use mooching and moping about it.
It doesn’t seem entirely unlikely.
She used to lecture me about it, about taking what you’re given and making the most of it.
Look at me with your dad she’d say, gesturing at him, and I could never tell if she was joking or not.
But it’s how she was, she would always find a plan B if things didn’t go straight, she would always find a way to keep busy.
If it was raining, and she couldn’t hang the washing out, she would kneel over the bath and wring it all through, savagely, until it was dry enough to be folded and put away.
If money was short, which was rare, she would march to the job centre and demand an evening position of quality and standing.
That was what she said, quality and standing, and when they offered her a cleaning job or a shift at the meatpackers she would take it and be grateful.
She always said that, she said you should take it and be grateful.
And so I tried to follow her example that day, hemmed in by the rain, I sat at the table and read all the information they gave me at the clinic.
I tried to take in all the advice in the leaflets, the dietary suggestions, the lifestyle recommendations, the discussions of various options and alternatives.
I read it all very carefully, trying to make sure I understood, making a separate note of the useful telephone numbers.
I even got out a highlighter pen and started marking out sections of particular interest, I thought it was something my mother might approve of.
But it was difficult to absorb much of the information, any of the information, I kept looking through the window and I felt like a sponge left out in the rain, waterlogged, useless.
I was distracted by the pictures, by all these people looking radiant and cheerful, smartly dressed and relaxed.
I knew I didn’t look like that, I knew I didn’t feel relaxed or cheerful.
I didn’t feel able to accept
