Bells

Bells

‘I CAN’T UNDERSTAND

why people get married in churches,’ Bella says, taking a bite of her banana. On the corner of Pigeon Park, the bride is just getting out of the big black car, hampered by her voluminous skirt. A bridesmaid in navy silk wiggles around from the back and hands the bride a jacket made of the same ivory fabric as the dress, which is far too angular across the décolletage.

‘It just doesn’t make sense,’ Bella continues through her mouthful of banana. ‘You’re in your nicest dress, on the happiest day of your life, and you’re hosting the thing in a garden of bodies and old bones.’

‘We have lunch in a graveyard,’ I observe.

‘That’s because we’re edgy and cool,’ she says, taking another bite of her banana. ‘And also because it’s in between where we work. But a wedding is supposed to be about happiness and hope. And I don’t find graveyards particularly hopeful.’

The man dressed in a cheap suit who has been loitering not far from our bench throws his cigarette on to the ground,

pulls a DSLR camera from his backpack and makes his way over to the bridal party.

‘I suppose a church is traditional?’ I suggest, though I must admit I’m not particularly committed to this idea.

‘Think of all the boxes of bones down there,’ Bella says, gesturing across the park, where the graves bear names of people for whom nobody brings flowers any more.

‘I’d rather not.’ I pull on the unyielding plastic container of my Mexican chicken wrap.

A stocky man in a grey morning suit emerges from the bridal car, balancing a grey top hat atop his head. Bella snorts a laugh through mushed banana. ‘A top hat? And who is he, the Monopoly man?’

As the Monopoly man links his arm with the bride, her tiara catching the late-morning sun, the photographer takes photos of them from a kneeling position. Those won’t be flattering at all. Next, there is a series of photographs of the bride standing alone beside the above-ground tombs, which must contain only dust by now.

‘Do you think you had to pay extra for a grave with a front-row seat of the church?’ Bella asks. ‘You know, in the old days.’

‘I would imagine so.’

‘It must be nice to be able to watch the comings and goings,’ she says. ‘People arriving and leaving for the Sunday services, the pigeons and all that.’

In Bella’s mind, what the gravestone sees, the dead soul sees as well. I find that idea quite fun.

As the bridal party makes its way towards the front doors of the cathedral, the photographer jogs ahead, catching them

walking from all different angles as though they are models at Fashion Week. They pass us on our bench, sweeping past with a smell of hairspray and perfume and anticipation.

I wonder if we will be in any of these photographs – Bella and I, she in her Sainsbury’s uniform and me in my red cords, Bella eating a banana and me trying to open a discounted Mexican chicken wrap. Hung up on this young woman’s wall and consulted during times of marital trial. Will she ever notice us, or will she be preoccupied with her hair, her veil, her bouquet? Will she have concluded, as I have, that the bridal jacket was a sartorial mistake? Will she see anything other than a young bride filled with anticipation? A woman about to marry the wrong man? Will she return to the image often for a reminder of their perfect day with the living among the dead.

I pull as hard as I can on the plastic container that prevents me from reaching my lunch, and then the thing bursts open and the top half of the Mexican chicken wrap in a flour tortilla

flies across both Bella and me and lands on the ground.

I’m up in a flash. I pick it up and blow hard, dusting off the bit of the tortilla that was touching the ground. ‘Three-second rule,’ Bella declares. I don’t know what this means, but by Jove, you’d best believe I’m going to eat it anyway. I take a tentative bite. It’s none the worse for being on the ground.

‘Do you want to get married?’ Bella asks me as I chew.

‘I think it’s a little late for that.’

‘ You are not too old and it is not too late

,’ she says, and then she hangs the now-empty banana skin by its stalk and gathers its unzipped pyjamas into her palm.

It is a nice day for a wedding. The grass that rises up around the gravestones ripples in the soft breeze. I chew on my wrap, and Bella looks with unfocused eyes at the gravestone closest to us that marks where some unremembered person rests.

‘I didn’t go to the funeral.’

‘Jake’s funeral?’

‘There was nothing they could tell me about Jake that I didn’t already know. So, I drove to our spot, listened to the last playlist he made me, put on his favourite hoodie and smoked one of the cigarettes he used to keep in my car.’

‘Do you regret not going?’

‘Never. It makes no difference to the dead person. A funeral is all for the eyes of the living.’

After saying these wise words, Bella fishes a bag of chocolate buttons from her fleece pocket and tips about half the pack into her mouth. ‘So, you don’t think you’d get married now

,’ she says. ‘But did you ever meet anyone you wanted to marry?’

‘There is one person I would have liked to have married, yes.’

‘And why didn’t you?’

‘Because she was already married to somebody else.’

From inside the church, the notes of the organ catch on the breeze and bring ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ to my ears and a pigeon flaps down from somewhere to peck at the bit of ground where my wrap fell. I give the pigeon a nod.

‘She sends me birds from time to time.’

Bella tips the remainder of the bag of chocolate buttons into her mouth. ‘I’ve been looking out for a sign from Jake.’

‘What do you think he might send?’

‘That’s the thing. I don’t know. We didn’t have one song that was “our song”. We didn’t have an animal or a poem or anything. How would I know?’

‘You’ll know,’ I tell her. ‘He’ll make sure of it. Keep looking. Keep listening, it will come.’

She swallows her chocolate buttons. ‘We used to talk about getting married sometimes,’ she says. ‘We wanted to go to a chapel in Vegas and I was going to wear a short black dress and a leather jacket with our initials on the back in a white, arrow-shot heart. And then we’d send our parents a Polaroid photograph of us in front of the Las Vegas sign with our rings held up. And then we’d go to the casinos and gamble so we could make use of all the free drinks.’

‘That sounds like a lot of fun.’

‘I wish we could have done it,’ Bella says in a small voice, and I put my arm around her and she rests her head on my shoulder.

We sit like that for a while, as inside the church the bride and groom transform from ordinary people into a husband and a wife and somewhere far away Jake lies sleeping, having taken Bella’s dreams with him when he went.

‘We should go,’ Bella says, sitting back up. ‘My break ended twenty minutes ago.’

As we stand and brush the crumbs from ourselves, the doors to the church open and the bride and groom tumble out, on a wave of excitement and love, confetti skittering around the side of the church towards us. And I wonder what that feels like. What their kiss at the top of the aisle felt like and if it was different from all the other kisses they’ve ever

kissed. Because that kiss was sealing a union, a promise, a hope of forever.

Watching the bride and groom with an unreadable expression as more people follow them out of the church and throw confetti and fuss over the bride’s dress and take photographs on their phones, Bella says, ‘I’m glad I got to love him.’

And she then asks, ‘Do you know what I mean?’

And I do. I really do.