Chapter 6
The Wedding
Colin’s intellect came to terms with the events of Easter. There was work to do and lessons to learn and exams to pass and in the evenings, country lanes to explore. He had been for several years a surrogate and platonic husband to his brother’s wife. Peter had been often abroad and she had lived with them. Now they decorated the bungalow together and the old house that Peter was buying from his father. It was a very convenient way for Colin to have a girlfriend without the complications of romance or sex. They also got on well together. He had no time to brood or even to think.
He married Fay in August when he was 21 years old. He stood at the alter feeling he was going into a shotgun wedding while having done nothing to justify such a disgrace. He dismissed his thoughts as bridegroom’s nerves. They flew to Guernsey for a week’s honeymoon. In those days the jet airliner was almost unknown and flying was only for the rich. They stayed at a good hotel and hired a mini for the week. They saw everything on the island worth seeing and on the last day the sun at last came out and they sat on the sand until the sun went cool and they were attacked by a swarm of flying-ants.
They were both virgins on their wedding night and for several nights afterwards. Now that he had the opportunity to get his end away it no longer seemed important. It somehow did not seem quite right to attempt to jump a girl you had just married. He was not too sure how to go about it anyway. So they fell asleep. She was disappointed but never told him so for years. She never gave him any encouragement. She, too, was shy and ill prepared.
On the third or fourth night they sort of managed it. They had to wash the sheets to hide their embarrassment from the chambermaids but still had not achieved union. The first time he got his end away properly was the night after they returned home. God it felt good. Suddenly all was well with the world.
They lived with his sister-in-law in the old family home. He often worked late with his college studies. She had to go out to work quite early so retired early. He would climb into a lovely warm bed and reach between her legs. He would tickle her gently and her body would respond while she was fast asleep. When he entered her she would gasp and awake and they would fuck like lovers should. That was a good year.
The following September they bought their first house and started nesting. That Christmas he brought her 21 presents. Some of them were jokes and some practical household items but still there were 21 presents. They worked hard and played often and were part of the vanguard of the swinging sixties. Others were to be much more liberated but they had smoothed the path and shown the way. Now was the time for building.
The following March he took his wife to their new settee, threw her down on it, undressed her and screwed her. She was delighted until she realized he had not used a contraceptive. When she questioned him he said little. They both knew it was time to start their family. Eleven months later their son was born.
The lad was about 15 months old when he started to walk. He could not get out of the back door which had a high step so was often allowed the run of the dining area. One day Colin went to get the car out of the garage in preparation for an outing. When he got into the car he noticed the wing mirror had been knocked out of position as he had walked past but it would be much easier to correct it after he had driven the car out of the garage. He had moved only ten feet when the car shook and he knew he had run over something. He stopped, put on the handbrake and got out. His son was lying beside the car.
Colin screamed and his wife and several neighbours appeared instantly. This was the luckiest day of his life. The lad had been knocked sideways by the car and the wheel had passed over his leg exactly halfway between knee and ankle. They took him to hospital and the leg was x-rayed and the bandaged. Two weeks later there was no sign of the incident. It could have been so different.
A few days later Colin drove his wife and son for a week’s holiday staying with his brother’s wife and children in Portsmouth. The weather was good and they had a good time. Colin had returned home for the week. It was the first time he had been by himself in his life. He went out one night to a dance. He chatted up a girl and made a date that he never kept. He did little wrong but his actions revealed to himself the suppressed desires and need to learn about women. His relationship with his wife had this permanent scar over it. He could not understand exactly why but he suddenly felt very trapped.
When he had brought them back from holiday he attempted to tell his wife of his fears. She was very upset and so was he. It was news to her that he felt trapped by the marriage. She did not understand. Either she had misunderstood him just before her father’s death or the shock had wiped all thoughts from her mind. They did not get very far and the matter was let lapse. But within Colin there began a long and slow process of alienation from both his wife and from his reality.
The following Christmas day was spent with Colin’s parents. Mother was unbearable. She had taken to sulking when she could not get her own way and ruined the evening by demanding to play card games that nobody else wanted. This really pissed Colin off. A couple of days before he had propositioned a secretary at work who had politely but firmly put him down. He was pretty miffed at this and having to spend a day confined with a sulking mother was nauseous.
It was soon after this he started thinking seriously about moving to Canada. The following November he took one suitcase and left at 8.04 for London exactly 25 years to the day after Coventry had been the first city in earth to be destroyed by bombing. By 6pm local time on that same day, Thursday the 15th November, he was a Landed Canadian Immigrant living and working in Montreal. He had left very little behind except a considerable emotional baggage.
Two days previously he had driven his mother to the West Riding to the funeral of the husband of one of the sisters. He felt no pain or sadness. He realized he was just glad to be leaving them. He was totally incapable of expressing any reason or emotion. There was just an emptiness within him, probably the result of the years of repression and guilt instilled in him by a thoroughly misguided upbringing. Much later he was to realize just how much these sisters had dominated his life even though most of it was by proxy. Now he felt nothing. Three more days and it would be over.
There were six inches of snow on the runway at Dorval and the temperature was 20 below zero Fahrenheit. The following morning he awoke to the scream of traffic in Rue Sherbrooke outside his hotel window and looked out onto the slopes of Mount Royal that gives the City its name.
He explored the City on foot all morning but soon found his British clothes were ill suited to the harsh climate. The snow soon became slushy and by noon he had purchased a pair of overboots which are worn for six months of the year and without which life would be nearly impossible.
In the afternoon he took a taxi to the company for which he would work for the next five years. He was introduced to the Vice-President who would be his boss and was to immediately discover the totally different approach to work which characterizes the North American citizen. It suited him well.
The next day he realized that his eczema that had stayed with him all his life in one form or another had totally disappeared. That night he phoned the secretary he had met at work the day before and made a date for dinner on Saturday night. Removed from the repressive background of his traumatic previous life he became a totally different person. Relations with girls became easy. Relations with his boss and work colleagues were easy. Suddenly he found life attractive and exciting. He really was a new man.