to marry me, and he's available on the last Saturday in June,” Emma said.
Her parents exchanged alarmed glances. “Who is he? What does he do? How long have you known him?” Mr Dobson demanded.
“He's called Oscar and he's a poet and I met him four days ago. On a canal towpath.”
“I told you, Mabel,” Mr Dobson said. “She's having a nervous breakdown. It's this wedding. It's all been too much for her. She needs help.”
“I don't blame you for thinking that,” Emma said. “I admit I have been a bit mad lately. But I've never felt more sane in my life than I do now.”
“Sane? You call it sane to marry a man you met four days ago? And a poet? There's no money in poetry.”
“Oscar has a private income, which I shall manage for him more sensibly that he does now.”
“How much?”
“I don't know exactly.”
“Of course you don't. The man's a confidence trickster, obviously. I know what it is - you've become obsessed with this wedding, and you'd marry anyone, I believe you'd marry the dustman, rather than cancel it. You'd make a laughing stock of us. Well, I'm not going to let you. I'm going to cancel the whole thing. And don't ask me to pay for another wedding one day.”
“All right,” Emma said equably. “We'll get married quietly in a register office.”
This made Mr Dobson pause for thought, since it suggested that Emma really did love this poet for his own sake. He became even better disposed when he discovered that she had met Oscar's parents, that his father was a High Court judge and his mother a well-known newspaper columnist, and that his private income was an annuity left him by his godmother, a Lady Somebody. By the end of the day Mr Dobson had come round to the idea of having Oscar fill the place of the despicable Neville. Mrs Dobson was pleased for Emma but still apprehensive about the likely reaction of their relatives and friends to the last-minute change of groom. “Let'em laugh up their sleeves, if they want to,” her husband said. “The main thing is that Emma will be happy.”
And she was. The last Saturday in June was breezy and cloudy, but the sun came out and shone on the bridal couple as they emerged from the Longstaffe parish church. Emma looked radiant. Oscar looked angelic. The reception went off perfectly. The best man made a speech alluding wittily to the revision of a minor detail in the original invitations which provoked much laughter. Emma knew that for this reason, if no other, everyone present would always remember her wedding.
Afterword
M ost novelists cut their teeth on the short story, for obvious reasons. Writing a novel, even a short novel, requires a daunting investment of time and effort, and causes a corresponding degree of disappointment if it is rejected or has to be abandoned. But you can usually bring a short story to some kind of conclusion, and if it fails to get published that's not a disaster. My fictional debut, published in the school magazine, was a short story about a young man who obtained a scholarship to go to drama school by impersonating the Devil at his interview so effectively that he scared the members of the board out of their wits. I had recently appeared before a similar board at the old London County Council in pursuit of a university maintenance grant, and my best friend at the time had ambitions to be an actor. My fictions often have some oblique connection like that with my own experience, but usually I find the basic idea needs to be developed in the more complex and expansive form of the novel. Occasionally, however, it seems suited to a short story, such as the three collected here. I see them as three verbal snapshots of British sexual manners and morals at three different periods of my lifetime.
“Where the Climate's Sultry” , is set in the nineteen-fifties, when nice girls didn't have sex before marriage, and nice boys respected that code, but it was written in the nineteen-eighties, by which time the
Her parents exchanged alarmed glances. “Who is he? What does he do? How long have you known him?” Mr Dobson demanded.
“He's called Oscar and he's a poet and I met him four days ago. On a canal towpath.”
“I told you, Mabel,” Mr Dobson said. “She's having a nervous breakdown. It's this wedding. It's all been too much for her. She needs help.”
“I don't blame you for thinking that,” Emma said. “I admit I have been a bit mad lately. But I've never felt more sane in my life than I do now.”
“Sane? You call it sane to marry a man you met four days ago? And a poet? There's no money in poetry.”
“Oscar has a private income, which I shall manage for him more sensibly that he does now.”
“How much?”
“I don't know exactly.”
“Of course you don't. The man's a confidence trickster, obviously. I know what it is - you've become obsessed with this wedding, and you'd marry anyone, I believe you'd marry the dustman, rather than cancel it. You'd make a laughing stock of us. Well, I'm not going to let you. I'm going to cancel the whole thing. And don't ask me to pay for another wedding one day.”
“All right,” Emma said equably. “We'll get married quietly in a register office.”
This made Mr Dobson pause for thought, since it suggested that Emma really did love this poet for his own sake. He became even better disposed when he discovered that she had met Oscar's parents, that his father was a High Court judge and his mother a well-known newspaper columnist, and that his private income was an annuity left him by his godmother, a Lady Somebody. By the end of the day Mr Dobson had come round to the idea of having Oscar fill the place of the despicable Neville. Mrs Dobson was pleased for Emma but still apprehensive about the likely reaction of their relatives and friends to the last-minute change of groom. “Let'em laugh up their sleeves, if they want to,” her husband said. “The main thing is that Emma will be happy.”
And she was. The last Saturday in June was breezy and cloudy, but the sun came out and shone on the bridal couple as they emerged from the Longstaffe parish church. Emma looked radiant. Oscar looked angelic. The reception went off perfectly. The best man made a speech alluding wittily to the revision of a minor detail in the original invitations which provoked much laughter. Emma knew that for this reason, if no other, everyone present would always remember her wedding.
Afterword
M ost novelists cut their teeth on the short story, for obvious reasons. Writing a novel, even a short novel, requires a daunting investment of time and effort, and causes a corresponding degree of disappointment if it is rejected or has to be abandoned. But you can usually bring a short story to some kind of conclusion, and if it fails to get published that's not a disaster. My fictional debut, published in the school magazine, was a short story about a young man who obtained a scholarship to go to drama school by impersonating the Devil at his interview so effectively that he scared the members of the board out of their wits. I had recently appeared before a similar board at the old London County Council in pursuit of a university maintenance grant, and my best friend at the time had ambitions to be an actor. My fictions often have some oblique connection like that with my own experience, but usually I find the basic idea needs to be developed in the more complex and expansive form of the novel. Occasionally, however, it seems suited to a short story, such as the three collected here. I see them as three verbal snapshots of British sexual manners and morals at three different periods of my lifetime.
“Where the Climate's Sultry” , is set in the nineteen-fifties, when nice girls didn't have sex before marriage, and nice boys respected that code, but it was written in the nineteen-eighties, by which time the
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