Want of a Strong Man

Ruth had tried not to laugh that day when Anna was sixteen. It would have been fatal since her mouth had been full of pins as she worked on the velvet patchwork bell bottoms for which her grand daughter had begged.

“I shall never get married,” Anna had said. “I shall have lovers. But I shall not marry!”

Slowly Ruth took each pin from her lips. “You may change your mind. “Never” is one of those words that struggle with time; it’s a bit like “forever”,” she had said.

And now, only five years later, Anna, the bride, would, in a few minutes, walk down the aisle on her father’s arm.

Ruth smoothed the mauve crepe de chine that covered her knees and let her eyes wander around the old church. It was small. Cool. Simple. A marble altar. The sort of church Martin Luther would have wanted to preach in, the sort of church in which she should have married.

Heinrich would have married her in a church like this. He was the man whose arms had held her, the man who forever would have protected her. But Heinrich was dead. Of a broken neck. Broken necks cannot heal. Not like hearts. Ruth’s hand floated to her chest and she closed her eyes to let her fingers feel her heartbeat. A bypass had left its mark, but no one had ever really seen the scar. Albert had noticed it, of course, but for him it had only ever been the proof that everything inside was all right.

Albert was still by her side. The old man sat slightly stooped and stroked his knees with his large fingers. Ruth took his left hand. She traced the swollen veins on its back, the wedding ring glinting against the papery skin of his finger. He had never been a strong man. But he had always been there and now she just had to carry him a little more.

Ruth had always wanted a strong man, but already on her honeymoon she had known that Albert was not the strong man she wanted. She had been lucky to have had a honeymoon at all. It had been wartime then and every year after that, for some reason, there had been no going back.

Not that she hadn’t thought of going back. Going back to the homeland. Grabbing her child. Dragging Celia through the brambles growing over the side door of the garage, their first home in Australia, in the Blue Mountains, in Mount Victoria.

Ruth turned her head at the gentle swish of taffeta. A tall bearded man in morning suit strode proudly past her. On his arm, Anna, his daughter, her grand daughter. Anna in cream taffeta.

The priest suddenly stepped out from behind a statue of Saint Christopher. Ruth hadn’t noticed the statue at first. She remembered the beard and the staff and the child on the large man’s shoulders from a bronze amulet nailed to the dashboard of a car. A bright red car. A sports car. No. This would not have been the right church for Martin Luther after all. Martin Luther never had had his place in this country, her country now, one in which Albert had long since been converted to quiet rambling walks in the bush.

The priest spoke. He welcomed the congregation assembled to celebrate the union of Anna and Alan who faced them, their backs to the altar. The priest was all in white, just the cuffs of his jeans peeped out from beneath his robes, Ruth noticed. So different from her own wedding, she thought.

She had stood with Albert before the mayor whose shirt tail saluted stiffly through his unbuttoned fly. They’d got the mayor out of bed at two in the morning. Albert had been due to leave for the front. Things had to go quickly in 1942.

Dear Albert, Ruth thought and gripped the old man’s hand. Who would have thought that they’d see the millennium, and now it had come like any of the other passing years. Albert was a good man; but with each year he had leaned on her more and more. And all she had ever wanted was her one strong man.

Anna’s father. Rob. Now, Rob was a strong man, Ruth thought and looked across at her daughter, Anna’s mother, sitting on the other side of the church. Celia did not look her age. None of the women of the family did. Ruth smiled at the thought. Celia had done her own thing. She had run off with Rob. Las Vegas. Just a telegram. We got married today. Love. Celia had married her strong man. But where had it got her? Celia was happy. Yes, Ruth thought. Celia was happy. She would have had more lines, more grey hairs, had she been less so. Ruth brushed her forehead with her hand as if trying to brush away a cobweb. Celia was a writer. Writers.

They wanted everything, but were never fulfilled. They were always traipsing off after their characters, as if they were lovers, Ruth suddenly thought. Funny that she should think of them as lovers. Surely there were other important characters in Celia’s head. Ones more important than lovers. Ruth remembered that there had been times when she had been seriously worried about the state of her daughter’s mental health. Was it possible to cram all those people into one head? All at the same time? No. Celia could not be fulfilled. Even if Rob was a strong man. It was not his fault. And Celia had not been a writer back in Las Vegas. That had only come later. How many generations did it take, Ruth wondered, to find out that love was not what one thought it would be. Rob did not seem to mind, she thought as she looked at his beard. A wife other than Celia would insist it be clipped. But this is Anna’s wedding, not Celia’s, Ruth said to herself and straightened up against the wooden backrest.

The young man, the groom, - his name was Alan - stood stiffly with his back to the altar. Ruth was sure that he’d swayed just a fraction towards his bride before straightening up and wiping his right hand over the wool of his black knife-creased trousers. Anna stood tall and serene by his side. She resembles a lily, Ruth thought. It was the first time Ruth had seen her grand daughter with anything less than a freesia blush since she had rushed in that day just three months ago to introduce the young man who had brought her home in the red sports car.

“This is Alan, Gran,” Anna had said, as if she had just caught the impossible fish that was always much longer and stronger than its own waters of reality would allow.

Later, out on the porch, swinging on the couch alone with her grand daughter, Ruth had asked: “ And what about all those lovers?”

“Oh, Gran,” Anna had said. “You only say that when you haven’t got any.” Anna leaned over, stretched out her legs and placed her head in Ruth’s lap. “I’m so much in love. Just like you were. Just like you were, like you still are, with Grandpa.”

Ruth’s hand stroked her grand daughter’s blonde hair back from her brow. “I know what you mean,” she said. “I know what you’re asking.” Anna closed her eyes and Ruth kept on stroking. “How can anyone know if it’s all,” she heard herself whisper.

The priest turned to face the congregation. Ruth squeezed Albert’s hand. A tiny smile flickered beneath his white moustache. Anna’s father, looking more and more like the patron saint of voyagers, settled in by his wife’s side. Ruth watched as he held a white handkerchief for his wife to take. Celia had been so lucky, she thought. And she hardly knew it. Ruth watched her daughter wipe the corner of her eye with the handkerchief. A movement of Rob’s arm told her that he had received the bunched up cloth for stowing into his pocket. Ruth sighed. Celia had never wanted to hang onto soggy hankies. Ruth closed her eyes for a second. What if, she thought. What if, only Heinrich? She shook her head. There would have been no Celia. There would have been no Anna. But she would have perhaps known what Anna might know, what even, her daughter, Celia had perhaps once known. Suddenly an arythmn fluttered and Ruth’s hand went to her heart. Now it was far too late for all that. She had at least had her Heinrich. Ruth took a deep breath. Her pulse was beginning to calm. She leant forward to listen. The moment had come.

The priest was asking the one question that could make the voice of the strongest man quaver. “Do you …. “, the question that demanded just one two-word answer. Ruth watched as Alan gripped Anna’s hand. When she married Albert, she’d been asked first. Times had changed, she thought. Or had they really? She shook her head as if to brush away the thought. Ruth fixed her eyes on Alain. He did not fluff his lines. “I do.” How easy, Ruth thought. How easy for him to commit for a lifetime.

The priest then turned to Anna and asked the same question. Ruth felt a stillness about her, like smoke hung in the air after fireworks. A murmur rose through the pews. As Anna’s eyes met hers Ruth took Albert’s hand. The fingers of her other hand began to tremour, only coming to rest in the dying echo of her grand daughter’s “Yes!”

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Published online and in print in Ex Tempore in 2003