Independence Day 1979 – The Prologue

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I understand there’s another celebration going on today, but for me it’s a bit more personal

Thirty one years is traditionally a timepiece, apparently. As if after thirty one years you might not have noticed where the time all went…

I really didn’t have any intention of getting married. I was far too young – even I knew that.  The original plan was that I would finish my degree first. That would have been a long wait, as it turned out, since I finally got my act together and graduated last year.

So what happened to change our minds?

It was all a little spooky.  We spent the afternoon in a house in Hope Street, Liverpool where a group of our friends lived. We’d been playing bridge – which we thankfully soon gave up or really we’d never have stayed together so long…

There were some very well behaved people who lived in that house, and some naughty ones. The well behaved ones created a long list of rules about what was and what wasn’t acceptable behaviour in the house.  Our friend David had recently been reprimanded for answering the door to some visiting parents in his girlfriend’s pink nightie. This was now against house rules.

So there we were, in the kitchen, with our naughty friends. Sitting around a large table, the cards set aside for a moment, as we considered the list and discovered something they had forgotten to ban.

At the sound of approaching footsteps as one of the well behaved residents came down the stairs, we picked up the cards and started to play again. Ryan bid no trumps. She looked through the door, saw us all sitting innocently at the table.  Four neat piles of clothes on the floor. And she blushed furiously and ran away back up the stairs, to convene a house meeting.

At the next house meeting a new rule was imposed

That evening we went back to our Hall of Residence. Walking back through the park,  past the lake where there weren’t any crocodiles, I suddenly became extremely cold.  I stopped walking, my heart beating faster.  I was really, really frightened – just out of the blue, with no reason for it at all. Ryan put his arms around me to comfort me, and slowly I started to feel better. And that was when he said to me, “Why don’t we get married this summer,  instead of waiting?”

Later that evening, I discovered that at that exact moment, Dad was dying forty odd miles away.

Of course, I interpret it now that he was kind of approving of my choice. That he was just checking to make sure I had someone to love me when he was gone. I suppose if it had all gone wrong, I’d be interpreting it as a warning…

But anyway – that was when we decided to go ahead and get married.

It’s possible my father’s death made it more likely that I’d go ahead with the wedding. I wasn’t happy at home, and knew that everyone would assume I was just getting married to escape. I suppose I was, in a way, but at least I wasn’t leaping blindly into the fire. I’d thought about it – rationally. There was an actual list. There’s always a list…

I kind of expected I’d get married in the church I’d been dragged to unwillingly all those years, but it was not to be. I suppose Mum thought it would stop me from getting married at all, but she persuaded the vicar to talk to me. He convinced me that it would be unfair on my family to have my wedding in the chapel so soon after my father’s funeral. He convinced me of that, but he couldn’t convince me that it was unfair of me to get married at all.

So we decided we’d organise the wedding ourselves and have it in Liverpool right after exams, to make it easy for all our friends to join us.

It didn’t exactly go according to plan. So the first problem was that my birth certificate was considered inadequate by the Registrar. It was a special copy certificate, with my birth mother’s name removed, so that my parents could pretend we were just a normal happy family.  Acquiring a new certificate took an extra couple of weeks, and that meant the wedding was put back to July 4th – a week later than we’d originally planned.

Our friends in Hope Street allowed us to use their house for our party, and we have volunteers who helped us prepare the food. Another friend took the photographs. My best friend’s mother bought us a lovely wedding cake, and we were to spend our wedding night in their cottage in the Lake District.

I wanted to wear my jeans – and I wish I’d stuck to my guns about that. However, my friends over-ruled me. One of them made my dress, and another loaned me her shoes. I tottered around somewhat unconvincingly in those, and spent most of the time carrying them and walking barefoot… Really, jeans would have been much more me

But surprisingly, it did all get organised…and soon enough it was the night before our wedding day.

Of course, that was the point at which we snapped.

First of all, everyone decided that we really ought not to spend the night together.

“It’s bad luck for you to see each other before the wedding,” they said

“Oh really,” I said. “Well, in that case, it’s going to be very difficult tomorrow morning when we’re doing the cooking for the party.”

“Well, anyway, you shouldn’t sleep together. Your wedding night is supposed to be special.”

My regrets about my wedding night will be spelled out later; don’t worry about that.

So in the middle of all this nagging from all sides, Ryan and I had a blazing row, and he stormed off to play bridge with his pals.

But we were still snuggled up in that narrow bed in Hall the night before our wedding.

Ann

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About Ann Godridge
Ann Godridge has just completed her first crime novel, The Mermaid's Shroud, and has started work on the sequel. Her story the Tree of Knowledge was shortlisted for the Asham Award. She writes about writing and sometimes about textile arts at her blogStraw into Gold. You can find out more about her here - About Ann G.
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