They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

101 November 2017

I wore a veil and felt every inch the black widow. Which just shows how messed up the inside of my head is. The only person here who’s dead is me, and this isn’t a funeral; it’s a wedding.

But it was sure going to feel like a funeral to me.

It’s quite a pretty church, I’ll give Roy credit for that, the kind of olde England Norman and Saxon mishmash that looks great in photos in Hello! And on the mantelpiece. Not as pretty as ours — the one we got married in — but a good second best, for a second marriage.

There’s a long queue of people waiting to go in, a few of them in smart police tunics, the rest in suits and dresses, many of them wrapped up against the biting wind.

‘Bride or groom?’ says a male voice and my heart stops. For a moment, all I want to do is turn and flee. Shit, shit, shit.

It’s Roy’s best friend, Dick Pope. We were due to go out to dinner with Dick and his wife, Leslie, to celebrate Roy’s birthday that night. That day I disappeared.

Why the hell hadn’t I thought that he’d be here? An usher, of course.

But he was pretty distracted and clearly had not recognized me through my very dark veil and with my short hair. And why would he? Sandy is dead.

‘Bride,’ I said, to obfuscate. He handed us each an order-of-service sheet and indicated the left side of the church.

Every pew was full, but that suited me fine. We made our way to the back of the church and stood. Bruno had a clear view down the aisle and I could see over the tops of the sea of heads in front of me.

I’d been rehearsing my lines rigorously. Well, I say lines, but, to be honest, it’s not much more than one line, really.

Then, suddenly, I was stricken with panic. This was crazy, I had to get out. I grabbed Bruno’s arm and half pulled the confused boy out of a side door at the rear. No one noticed. I stood, gulping down air, while Bruno asked me what was wrong, why I was so upset. I shook my head. I had to go back inside. We hadn’t come this far to just walk away.

I just had to calm down enough to be able to say that line, that one line. I said it silently now.

‘Mama, why are you whispering?’

We slipped back inside. I said that line to myself again. Then again. Finally, I sort of felt ready. Sort of.

When the vicar, quite a jolly figure with a white beard, queries if anyone knows of any legal impediment to the marriage, I will listen like everyone else. To the same words most of the congregation will have heard so many times.

And I guarantee that not one of these people in this packed church will ever before in their lives have heard someone speak up who is actually not prepared to forever hold their peace.

Boy, were they in for a treat today.

I was shaking, feeling as if I was on some alien planet, in someone else’s world where I totally did not belong. It wasn’t a massive church and I could see Roy, his hair short, cutting an elegant figure in his grey tails standing by the front right-hand pew chatting nervously to a tall black man, also in tails, who was smiling. He put a reassuring arm around Roy’s shoulder. His best man, presumably, but who was he? He looked like a cop. Of course he would be a cop.

Suddenly the organ struck up loudly. Pachelbel’s Canon.

No, really? How cheesy.

Roy and his best man sat down. Roy, on the end of the pew, turned and stared up the aisle. Smiling, all soppy.

The bride appeared, on the arm of a silver-haired man who looked a total toff. Here was Barbie. About to wed Ken.

Moments later, Ken and Barbie were standing, facing the vicar.

This was just nuts. Too nuts. Like one of those panic dreams where you try desperately to stop something and you can’t.

‘Are those people getting married, Mama?’ whispered Bruno.

I barely heard him. All I could think was: My husband is getting married to another woman, right in front of me! My husband with a best man I’ve never met. My husband getting married in a church full of many people I have never met.

I felt the anger swirling through me, like the first gust of a brewing storm.

‘Mama, are they?’ he whispered again. ‘Are they getting married?’

‘Maybe,’ I whispered back.

But maybe not. I can stop it.

‘Only maybe?’ whispering still, but a little louder. ‘Why are they standing there if they are not going to get married, Mama?’

The vicar, blocked from my view now by Ken and Barbie, boomed through the speakers, ‘The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.’

His name, according to the service sheet, was Father Martin.

There was a typically murmured, self-conscious response from the congregation. ‘And also with you.’

Everything became a blur. I felt in total turmoil. Roy looked so confident, so handsome, so mature now. Such a different person from a decade ago.

He had had his faults, I was thinking, but in the eight years we were together I was certain of one thing, from the deep love he had always shown me, that he had never been unfaithful. Thinking back, I’d never, in all that time, even seen him eye another woman. He had told me, many times, that he loved me to bits, that I was his soulmate, that something incredibly powerful had drawn us together. And I had agreed with him each time then. In those early days, I had truly believed we would be together for ever.

Until.

I shuddered.

‘God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them,’ Father Martin intoned.

In just a few minutes, Roy would be gone for ever. Married to another woman.

I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.

‘Why are you sad, Mama?’

Almost the entire congregation read aloud the words printed on their order of service sheets. I clutched Bruno’s left hand tightly and held my sheet, which I’d not yet looked at, with my free hand. On the front was printed Roy, Cleo, with the date and a dinky drawing of church bells between them.

I was starting to hyperventilate. Tears were flooding down my face now, stinging my eyes and blurring my vision. I only had moments left. I had to stop this. Had to. Stop this lie. This sham. Bigamy was about to happen. I had to stop it. I was duty-bound, surely, to stop it?

Wouldn’t I be breaking the law if I forever held my peace?

And I wanted him back so desperately at this moment. So damned desperately. I didn’t care what anyone would think when I blurted out — shouted out — those words, I was damned well going to do it.

I had to do it.

Yes, me! I can show just cause. He’s already married — to me!

‘God of wonder and joy: grace comes from you, and you alone are the source of life and love. Without you, we cannot please you; without your love, our deeds are worth nothing. Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, that we may worship you now with thankful hearts and serve you always with willing minds; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’

Grace. The word kept coming up in the service. Grace. The word — name — seared my heart. The sight of the man I had once loved so much, and still loved, standing with his bride-to-be.

I have the power to stop it.

I have come here to stop it.

I am going to stop it.