I grew up in a house full of books.
Books in the mahogany bookcase, books in the vitrines, in place of figurines, knick-knacks and glassware. Books instead of side tables. Books supporting dressers and cabinets, books in wall crevices. Books in the wardrobe. Books in corridors, books behind doors, books on the kitchen table, books in beds, books on the upright piano, books on windowsills. Books at the entrance, books in the balcony.
My friend would say: ‘you’ve finally written that post about books’.
I was surrounded by books, by their smell and their magnetism. I was read to and read, all the time. This was my own private library, so I read whenever I wanted, whatever I felt like.
Once I had finished the Grimms, Charles Perrault, Hector Malot, Andersen, I moved on to Dickens, Victor Hugo and Jules Verne.
Somewhere in-between, when I was about 9 or 10, I had a period of reading anything but classics. I finished my father’s science-fiction collection, perused all the crime novels I could find, and then I got to a huge book with wooden covers, titled ‘The Explorers’. Now, this particular book is what stayed with me. It had beautiful illustrations and incredible tales of brave people who had acted before their time; who imagined worlds that were not, and went on to discover them. Some returned, some did not. For nights on end I imagined being like Magellan, or Christopher Columbus, or Bartholomeu Dias.
And then I grew up and I continued to dream. My priorities, as a young adult, were:
· Be independent
· Conquer the world
Getting married, as you can see from the above list, was nowhere in sight.
So you can imagine my utter amazement and total disbelief when I found myself in a white dress, on that hot day of summer, all those years ago.
Had this been part of the plan? No.
This is part three of our wedding, and hopefully the last part, so best not waffle along.
We lived close to the registrar’s, so that morning, once the ceremony ended, we all walked home. By now, we had been joined by late arrivals, all the way from Poland – Pawel’s friends, who had travelled by bus especially for the occasion.
We stopped by a shop that is no more (I have checked) and grabbed the cheapest bottle of wine we could find. That broke the budget. It also classed as ‘something old’, as the bottle was, unknown to us at that stage, old Romanian wine.
Upon arriving home, we had a feast of beans on toast and gazed at the beautiful sunset over the sea. And as the sun was going down, Pawel romantically asked where we had placed the marriage certificate. This was also the very moment when we both realised that said certificate was lost.
I retrieved my steps quickly, I remembered my movements and gestures. I ultimately realised the fault was not my own. I had passed the certificate to Pawel, for safe keeping inside his suit jacket. But the day was canicular, and the suit too big, and the shirt sweaty, and thus the jacket had been carried mostly in hands all the way home.
All searches were futile, the certificate was gone. We cleared our plates and smoothly set back to the registry office, where the celebrant was just leaving. He issued another original proof of marriage. And as the sun set, we all managed to get home, to some sleep.
You may ask what happened with the first original document?
Life has a way of telling you what will be, ahead of time.
The second day, mid-morning, there was a knock on our door. A man who had slept rough that night had found our marriage certificate as a car drove off. He kindly saw our address and returned it.
To this day, we have two original versions of the same document. And to this day I wonder whether I did not see that man, or even worked with him, a couple of months later, when I started working for the YMCA in Brighton. He was tall and imposing and had a kind face, that is all I can remember. We did not ask his name, we did not invite him in. And this, too, is one of those possible errors in life that you keep going over and over.
This is officially the end of my wedding story. Part 1 is here. Part 2, here. And soon, a love story, not mine, but one that you could have read in turn of century novels. Only, it’s real.
