The Way We Heard - All Time Low

The Way We Heard - All Time Low

Jimmy didn’t care much for weddings but he went to them anyway. He had no choice as by the time he turned fifty he’d used up all his best excuses for getting out of unwanted invites to social occasions. His granny could only have one funeral, the chances of there being a repeat of the time a herd of migrating wildebeest had encircled his house and garden were slim, and people had seen how happy his dog was so he could no longer claim he had to stay at home to help it through its veterinary clinical depression. And he was far too polite to just say no.

He struggled with the small talk he felt obliged to make with other guests who he knew he would never meet again. There seemed little point in having a conversation with the chief bridesmaid’s dotty aunt Dorothy who had travelled on the bus all the way from Gildersome and had spent the whole of her journey worrying that her hat might get squashed or someone a bit mucky had been sitting on her seat immediately before her. She’d seen it before. There were some filthy people travelling on buses these days, especially in Morley.

Olives and cured salami had long since taken the place of pineapple chunks and cheddar cubes impaled on cocktail sticks and stuck into a half grapefruit in the vague hope that the end result would look like a hedgehog, but painful memories of 1970’s finger food lingered on despite this new Mediterranean feel. Adjacent to such creations you’d find vol-au-vents with fillings that resembled fishy Whiskas in various stages of digestion, and crudités made from only the best crud with four or five ramekin dishes of colourful haemorrhoid preparations to dip them in.

The pièce de résistance gastronomique was undoubtedly the wedding cake, a sugar-coated replica of Leeds Town Hall topped with Subbuteo figures of Lady Gaga and Jimmy ‘Whirlwind’ White. This masterpiece, guests were assured by the bride, was going to be delicious because it had been made by her brother’s girlfriend who was doing an NVQ in catering during her stay at Flockton Young Offenders’ Institution, but nobody was allowed a slice because they were saving it for the forthcoming christening.

The wedding list might have been an email containing website links to essential domestic items from the posher shops, but it could also have taken the form of an Argos catalogue with kettles, toasters, a portable black and white television, a set of Carmen heated rollers, a fondue set and a cuddly toy, all marked with a pink highlighting pen for easy identification. Jimmy would always think carefully for fifteen minutes to estimate how long the marriage might last before deciding how much money to spend on a gift. At his cousin Pauline’s wedding the happy couple had had a row and split up before the presents had been opened, but despite this he didn’t get to take the potato peeler in the shape of Marge Simpson home with him. He’d kept the receipt and everything!

Listening to the speeches was a chore. The groom would be nervous, the bride’s father would be a combination of pissed, racist and out of touch with the modern world, and the best man would usually say something sufficiently risqué to prove that he wasn’t at all the best man for the job. Sometimes a speaker who lacked speech-writing skills would borrow from his mate a crumpled sheet of paper containing words that had been read out at someone else’s wedding months or even years before. Nervous laughter would fill the room as it came to light that he’d forgotten to change the original names to those of the newlyweds he was congratulating and presenting to the world as the loveliest bride and groom he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.

The ceremony itself was usually quickly forgotten by most of the guests. Jimmy found the ritual tedious with all those shallow promises about loving and obeying and never forgetting to put the bin out on the right day for ever and ever amen. He always hoped that the marriage would be a never-ending success but it seemed that the modern-day terms of a socially, culturally, and legally binding union between two people were in many cases adhered to with the same level of loyalty and commitment that a top footballer would show in honouring his contract. Remarriage exacerbated the uneasiness he felt as he could think of few occasions worse than a person’s second or third wedding, where joining in other guests’ inevitable comparisons to previous matrimonial get-togethers had been difficult to avoid. An invitation to a second or third wedding also meant buying a second or third wedding present and a second or third new tie.   

However, the worst part of the proceedings by far was the evening disco. At that stage the level of Jimmy’s boredom would deepen dramatically as the DJ lined up the predictable medley of ‘Boogie Wonderland’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘You’re the One That I Want’, and ‘Birdie Song’. But it was what everybody wanted. They were the songs that got everybody up and dancing, provided that everybody was under the age of seven or over the age of seventy.

By then Aunt Dorothy was thoroughly enjoying herself. Her posh hat hung on the back of a chair in a condition that gave the impression it had spent the whole day unaccompanied on a bus going backwards and forwards between Gildersome and Morley, via Kyiv. She’d had one more Cherry B than she should have done if she was to retain her dignity (i.e. two) and she’d had a sherry trifle chaser into the bargain. She loved weddings. The only one she hadn’t enjoyed had been her own back in 1952, because in the back of her mind she’d felt that she and Charlie weren’t quite right for each other. Friends tried to reassure her it was just a few nerves jangling inside as she was about to take that big plunge of leaving the parental home, where she’d always lived, to become a wife. What made the ordeal worse for her was the fact that it would be another six years before Cherry B would first go on sale in Britain.

But tonight dotty Dot was single and ready to mingle. Around twenty years ago Charlie had run off to Sweden (or it could have been Swindon) with a blonde and buxom barmaid from their local pub, the aptly named Bird in Hand. Finding himself showered in her leftover confetti, Jimmy stifled a grimace as together they stuttered about on the laminate dancefloor to the singalong vibes of ‘Come On Eileen’.

Jimmy loved music and he knew that the evening hadn’t needed to be like this. He thought back to a night long ago in the Beckett’s Arms on Meanwood Road in Leeds. His workmate Mark had just married a blonde and buxom barmaid from his local pub (the Beckett’s Arms, so they got a good price for renting the room) and Jimmy had a brilliant time dancing with Debbie from Accounts as the Undertones, the Specials and Bob Marley pulsed from a nearby speaker. Everybody was dancing. Nobody was dancing under duress.

When Cher’s ‘Shoop Shoop Song’ came on, he wriggled free from Dorothy’s uncomfortably tactile clutches and headed off to the bar for another pint of Guinness. She headed off to the buffet table for another pint of trifle. As he waited for his beer to settle he tried to imagine what it was that made people think ‘Y.M.C.A.’ was appropriate at a celebration of marriage. Bewilderment ensued.

In the mid 2010’s, when good quality new music and weekly episodes of The Old Grey Whistle Test had completely disappeared from the face of the earth, artists called Sam Smith, Rachel Platten and Shawn Mendes had enjoyed chart-topping success with records (or downloads) entitled ‘Writing's on the Wall’, ‘Fight Song’ and ‘Stitches’, respectively. Although none were exactly Jimmy’s cup of tea, when he thought back to some of the nuptial evening do’s he’d been to in recent years, these three coupled together were an accurate prediction of what might go on after the big lights had gone off. Surely they were the wedding music of the new generation.

In his annoyance and frustration it took all his mental strength to stop himself tapping the DJ on the shoulder and asking him to play ‘Les Noces’, a twenty-five-minute-long Russian-language ballet-cantata (otherwise known as ‘Svadebka’ or ‘The Wedding’) by Igor Stravinsky. But the man with the wheels of steel was already lining up a CD single of ‘All Time Low’, by the Wanted. The song seemed to fit the occasion perfectly.

He followed Dorothy’s route to where the food was, put a couple of chicken liver with cod vol-au-vents on a plate, and returned to his Guinness thinking that if he freed his mind, the rest would follow.

Image:

Her last cigarette as a free woman. My own photograph.