Turbulent Wake by Paul E. Hardisty

Author:Paul E. Hardisty [Paul E. Hardisty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781495629938
Publisher: Orenda Books
Published: 2019-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

A Wedding

‘We are here to be married,’ he said, pushing the stamped and sealed Notice of Wedding form towards the Justice of the Peace, who sat slumped behind his desk, white-haired head on folded arms. An old rotary phone perched at the edge of the desk, its cord coiled on the floor, disconnected. A ceiling fan clicked slowly overhead. Green hospital paint peeled from the walls, institutional grey beneath. A lizard scurried across the cinderblock, darting between the bands of light and shade streaming through the shuttered windows. And from the schoolyard next door, the shrieks of children playing.

Kwesi said something in Twi and the Justice lifted his head from the desk. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath reeked of alcohol. He looked at the paper, as if in search of some missing approval, and then nodded and put out his hand, the signal to sit.

They sat in chairs facing the desk. Kwesi and the men of his rig crew stood in a semi-circle behind them.

The Justice opened a desk drawer and retrieved an elaborate form adorned with swathes of blue, and a red, black and yellow crest – the Ghanaian coat of arms. He placed the form on the desk and reached out to a glass jar crammed full of pens and pencils. His deeply veined hand trembled and shook, and for a moment, it appeared he would be unable to close his fingers around one of the implements. Finally, he succeeded in drawing a Bic ballpoint pen from the jar. Coagulated blue ink balled around the pen’s nib. The Justice looked up and said:

‘Name.’

They spelled their names out slowly, the man registering their commitment in unsteady and illegible handwriting. After the form was complete, he opened a small book and read in a deep, gravelled voice:

‘Do you, Helena Dubois, take this man to be your husband?’

‘I do,’ she answered, squeezing the young engineer’s hand and looking into his eyes.

‘Will you love, honour and obey him till death do you part?’

‘I will,’ she said, glancing up at him.

And then the Justice asked the young engineer if he would spend the rest of his life with this one woman, or at least give it his best shot, and do his utmost to protect her and provide for her and her children, and care for her and live up to all of her expectations of what life should bring, and stay with her even if she were to fall ill, or go insane and forget his name and slowly grow incapable of even the most basic functions, just as his grandmother had when he was still a boy … And he looked at this creature who he hardly knew and he realised that he felt no fear. The trepidation and hurt of before were gone. There was no panic in him and no urge to flight, and when he said yes, and it was done, and the man pronounced them wed, he realised that it was the easiest thing he had ever done.

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