He turned away, satisfied. "Oh, yes, it helped a lot. It was real nice. I'd like to be comforted every day."
She laughed. "You might like to be comforted every day, but it isn't going to happen. When something is done too often it loses its attraction, don't you think? If you were comforted every day whether you needed it or not, you'd soon get a wee bit tired of it. It wouldn't be nearly as nice any more."
"But I need comforting all the time, Mary, I need to be comforted every day!"
"Pooh! Fiddle! You're a conniver, my friend, that's what you are! Now I think it's bedtime, don't you?"
He climbed to his feet. "Night-night, Mary. I like you, I like you better than anyone except Pop and Mum, and I like you the same as I like Pop and Mum."
"Oh, Tim! What about poor Dawnie?"
"Oh, I like my Dawnie too, but I like you better than I like her, I like you better than anyone except Pop and Mum. I'm going to call you my Mary, but I'm not going to call Dawnie my Dawnie any more."
"Tim, don't be unforgiving! Oh, that's so cruel and thoughtless! Please don't make Dawnie feel that I've taken her place in your affections. It would make her very unhappy."
"But I like you, Mary, I like you better than I like Dawnie! I can't help it, I just do!"
"I like you too, Tim, and really better than anyone else in the whole world, because I don't have a Pop and a Mum."
Twelve
It transpired that Dawnie wanted to marry Michael Harrington-Smythe at the end of May, which left little time for preparations. Learning the background of their son's bride-to-be, Mick's parents were just as anxious as Dawnie's to reduce the size of the wedding to a bare minimum.
The two sets of parents plus the engaged pair met on neutral ground to plan the wedding, neutral ground being a private room at the Went-worth Hotel, where the reception was to be held. Everyone was uncomfortable. Distressed in collar and tie and Sunday corsets, Ron and Es sat on the edges of their chairs and refused to be drawn into polite conversation, while Mick's parents, to whom collar and tie and corsets were an everyday occurrence, chatted in bored voices which held a slight suggestion of plum-in-mouth. Mick and Dawnie tried desperately to lessen the stiffness, without much success.
"Dawn will naturally be married in a long white gown and have at least one attendant," Mrs. Harrington-Smythe said challengingly.
Es looked stupid; she had forgotten that Dawnie's real name was Dawn, and found it disagreeable to be reminded that the Melville family had chosen a low-class diminutive. "Um," she answered, which Mrs. Harrington-Smythe took to mean acquiescence.
"The men in the wedding party had better wear dark suits and plain blue satin ties," Mrs. Harrington-Smythe continued. "Since it's a small, private wedding, morning dress or white tie and tails would be most unsuitable."
"Um," said Es, her hand fumbling underneath the table until it found Ron's and clutched thankfully.
"I'll give you a full list of those the groom's side will want invited, Mrs. Melville."
And so it went, until Mrs. Harrington-Smythe remarked, "I believe Dawn has an older brother, Mrs. Melville, but Michael hasn't given me any idea of what part he's to play in the wedding. Naturally you realize he can't be best man, since Michael's old friend Hilary Arbuckle-Heath is filling that role, and I really can't see what other function is available for him in such a small wedding party. Unless, of course, Dawn chooses to change her mind and have a second attendant."
"That's all right, Ma'am," Ron said heavily, squeezing Es's hand. "Tim don't expect to be in the wedding party. In fact, we were thinking of letting him go to Miss Mary Horton's for the day."
Dawnie gasped. "Oh, Pop, you can't do that! Tim's my only brother, I want him to see me married!"
"But Dawnie love, you know Tim don't like crowds!" her father protested. "Think what an uproar there'd be if he vomited all over the place! Sweet balls of Christ, wouldn't that be just lovely? No, I think it would be better all around if Tim just went to Miss Horton's."
Dawnie's eyes glittered with tears. "Anyone would think you were ashamed of him, Pop! I'm not ashamed of him, I want everyone to meet him and love him as much as I do!"
"Dawnie love, I think your old man's right about Tim," Es contributed. "You know how he hates crowds, and even if he wasn't sick everywhere he wouldn't be very happy if he had to sit still all through a wedding ceremony."
The Harrington-Smythes were looking at each other, absolutely bewildered. "I thought he was older than Dawn," Mrs. Harrington-Smythe said. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize he was only a child."
"Well, he isn't a child!" Dawnie flared, red spots staining her cheeks. "He's a year older than me but he's mentally retarded, that's what they're trying to conceal from everyone!"
There was an appalled silence; Mr. Harrington-Smythe drummed his fingers on the table, and Mick looked at Dawnie in surprise.
"You didn't tell me Tim was retarded," he said to her.
"No, I didn't, because it just never occurred to me that it was important! I've had Tim there all my life, and he's a part of my life, a very important part of my life! I never remember that he's retarded when I'm talking about him, that's all!"
"Don't be angry, Dawn," Mick pleaded. "It really isn't important, you're quite right about that. I was simply a little surprised."
"Well, I am angry! I'm not trying to hide the fact that my only sibling is mentally retarded, it's my mother and father who've apparently taken it upon themselves to do that! Pop, how could you?"
Ron looked embarrassed. "Well, Dawnie, it isn't that we was trying to hide it exactly, it's that we thought it would be less of a business for you if he didn't come. Tim don't like crowds, you know that. Everyone always stares at him so much that it makes him go all funny."
"Oh, dear, is he very bad to look at?" Mrs. Harrington-Smythe asked, a slight doubt in her eyes as they rested on Dawnie. Perhaps it ran in the family? What an idiot Michael was, to choose a low-class girl like this after all the perfectly marvelous girls he had ignored! Of course, they said she was extraordinarily brilliant, but brilliance was no substitute for good breeding, it could never outweigh vulgarity, and the whole wretched family was vulgar, vulgar, vulgar! The girl had absolutely no polish, no idea of how to comport herself in decent company.
"Tim is the finest-looking man I've ever seen," Dawnie replied fiercely. "People stare at him in admiration, not in disgust, but he doesn't know the difference! All he knows is that they're looking at him, and he doesn't like the sensation."
"Oh, he is lovely to look at," Es offered. "Like a Greek god, Miss Horton says."
"Miss Horton?" Mick asked, hoping to change the subject.
"Miss Horton is the lady Tim gardens for on weekends."
"Oh, really? Tim is a gardener, then?"
"No, he's not a bloody gardener!" Dawnie snapped, nettled at the tone. "He works as a builder's laborer during the week, and he earns a little extra money on the weekends by gardening for this wealthy old lady."
Dawnie's explanation only made matters worse; the Harrington-Smythes were shifting on their chairs and trying not to look at each other or the Melvilles.
"Tim has an IQ of about 75," Dawnie said, more quietly. "As such he's not supposed to be employable, but my parents were wonderful about him, right from the start. They realized they wouldn't be here to support him all of his life, so they brought him up to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible under the circumstances. From the day he was fifteen Tim's earned his own living as an unskilled laborer, which is the only kind of work he's fit for. I might add that he's still working for the man who took him when he was fifteen, which may help you understand what a valuable and well-liked employee he is.
"Pop has paid on an insurance policy for him since he first knew Tim was retarded, so he'll never have to worry financially, he'll always have enough to live on. Since I started working I've helped increase the size of the premiums, and some of Tim's wages go into it, too. Tim is the richest member of the family, ha-
ha!
"Until recently he couldn't read or write or do any sort of arithmetic, but Mum and Pop taught him the really important things, like how to get about the city from job to job and place to place without having to have someone always with him. They taught him to count money though he can't count anything else, which is strange: you'd think he would associate what he can do with money with other kinds of counting, but he can't. One of the weird little jokes the retarded mind plays, that is. But he can buy himself a ticket for the bus or the train, he can buy himself food and clothes. He isn't a burden to us now any more than he ever has been. I'm very fond of my brother and I'm very devoted to him. A kinder, sweeter, more lovable person doesn't exist. And, Mick," she added, turning to her fiance, "when Tim's all alone and needs a home, I'm taking him in. If it doesn't suit you, then it's too bloody bad! You'd better call the whole thing off right now."
"My dear, dear Dawn," Mick said imperturb-ably, "I fully intend to marry you, if you have ten mentally retarded and utterly moronic brothers."
The answer did not please her, but she was too upset to analyze why it did not please her, and later on forgot all about it.
"It don't run in the family," Es explained, a little pathetically. "It was me ovaries, the doctors said. I was over forty when I married Ron, and I'd never had any kids before that. So Tim was born not the full quid, you see. Dawnie was fine because me ovaries had got going by then. It was only the first one, Tim, what got affected by them. But it's like Dawnie says, a nicer little bloke than Tim just don't exist."
"I see," said Mr. Harrington-Smythe, not knowing what else to say. "Well, I'm sure it isn't up to anyone but Mr. and Mrs. Melville to decide whether their son should attend the wedding."
"And we decided," Es said firmly. "Tim don't like crowds, so Tim don't go. Miss Horton will be glad to take him for the weekend."
Dawnie burst into tears and rushed to the powder room, where her mother found her a few minutes later.
"Don't cry, love," Es soothed, patting her shoulders.
"But everything's going wrong, Mum! You and Pop don't like the Harrington-Smythes, they don't like you either, and I don't know what Mick thinks any more! Oh, it's going to be awful!"
"Stuff and fiddle! Ron and me come from a different world to the Harrington-Smythes, that's all.
They don't normally mix with the likes of us, so how can you expect them to know what to do when they find themselves having to mix with the likes of us? And the same goes the other way, love. The Harrington-Smythes aren't the sort of people I play tennis with on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays, or the sort Ron meets at the Seaside and the Leagues Club.
"You're a big girl, Dawnie, and a real brainy girl. You ought to know we couldn't ever be friends. Why, we don't even laugh at the same things! But we aren't enemies either, not with our kids getting married to each other. We just won't meet either side of this wedding, except maybe for christenings and suchlike. And that's how it should be. Why should we have to pee in each other's pockets just because our kids got married, eh? Now, you're clever enough to understand that, aren't you?"
Dawnie dried her eyes. "Yes, I suppose so. But, oh, Mum, I wanted everything to be so perfect!"
"Of course you did, love, but life ain't like that, not ever. It was you picked Mick and him you, not us or the Harrington-Smythes. If it had been left to us, we'd never have matched you with Mick, and nor would the pewie Harrington-Smythes. Double-barreled name, indeed! Bloody putting on the dog, if you ask me. But we're all making the best of it, love, so don't go creating a big fuss over poor Tim, for heaven's sake. Tim don't enter into this and it ain't right of you to make him enter it. Leave poor Tim to his own life, and don't go pushing him down the Harrington-Smythes' throats. They don't know him the way we do, so how can you expect them to understand?"
"Bless you, Mum, I don't know what I'd do without you! I'm supposed to be the clever Melville, but sometimes I get the funny feeling that it's really you and Pop who are the clever ones. How did you get so wise?"
"I didn't, love, and nor did your old man. Life makes us wise, the longer we live it. When you've got kids as old as you are now, you'll be doing the dazzling, and I'll be shoving up daisies."
In the end Ron telephoned Mary Horton and asked her to resolve the question of whether Tim should be allowed to go to the wedding. Though they had never met and he was aware that Miss Horton belonged more in the Harrington-Smythe circle than the Melville, Ron somehow felt at home with her; she would both understand his dilemma and offer a reasonable solution for it.
"It's a bad business, Miss Horton," he said, breathing noisily into the receiver. "The Harrington-Smythes aren't too pleased with their precious son's choice of a wife, and I can't honestly say I blame them. They're afraid she won't fit in, and if it wasn't that Dawnie's so bloody smart I'd be afraid on that score, too. As it is, I think she'll learn a lot faster than they can teach, and no one will ever have the chance to be embarrassed because of anything she says or does."
"I don't know Dawnie personally, Mr. Melville, but from what I've heard, I'm sure you're right," Mary responded sympathetically. "I wouldn't worry about her."
"Oh, I ain't!" he answered. "Dawnie's got the iron in her, she'll be apples. It's Tim that's getting me down."
"Tim? Why?"
"Well, he's different, like. He's never going to grow up properly, and he don't know when he makes a mistake, he can't learn from making it.
What's going to happen to the poor little bugger after we're gone?"
"I think you've done a splendid job with Tim," Mary said, her throat unaccountably tight. "You've brought him up to be remarkably independent and self-sufficient."
"Oh, I know all that already!" Ron replied, a little impatiently. "If it was just a question of him looking after himself I wouldn't be worried, but it ain't, you know. Tim needs his Mum and Pop for love and peace of mind, because he ain't growed up enough to find someone to replace us, a wife and family of his own, I mean, which is what a man normally does."
"But he'll have you for many years to come, Mr. Melville! You're young yet, you and your wife."
"That's where you're wrong, Miss Horton, Es and me ain't young at all. We was born six months apart, and we had our seventieth birthday this year."
"Oh!" There was a blank silence for a moment, then Mary's voice came again, rather uncertainly. "I hadn't realized you and Mrs. Melville were as old as that."
"Well, we are. I tell you, Miss Horton, with Dawnie marrying a bloke who definitely won't want his wife's mentally retarded brother hanging around, Es and me is nearly mental ourselves worrying about Tim. Sometimes at night I hear poor Es crying, and I know she's crying about Tim. He won't outlive us long, youse know. When he find's out he's all alone, he'll up and die of a broken heart, you wait and see."
"People don't die of broken hearts, Mr. Melville," Mary said gently, out of the ignorance of her emotionally impoverished existence.
"Bullshit they don't!" Ron exploded. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Horton! I know I shouldn't swear like that, but don't you ever believe people don't die of broken hearts! I've seen if happen, and more than once, too. Tim will, he'll just fade away. You need the will to live as much as the health to live, love. And when there's no one to care about him, Tim will die; he'll just sit there crying and forgetting to eat until he dies."
"Well, as long as I'm here I'll see there's someone to care for him," Mary offered tentatively.
"But you're not young either, Miss Horton! It was Dawnie I was hoping for, but not any longer. . . ."He sighed. "Oh, well, no use crying over spilt milk, is there?"
It was on the tip of Mary's tongue to assure him she wasn't seventy, but before she could speak Ron began again.
"What I really rang to ask you was about Tim going to the wedding. I'd like to have him come but I know he'll be miserable, sitting still all through the ceremony and then the reception. Dawnie was very upset when I said I didn't think Tim ought to go, but I still don't think
he ought to go. What I was wondering was, would you mind if Tim stayed with you that weekend?''
"Of course not, Mr. Melville! But it seems a great shame that Tim can't be in the house to see Dawnie getting ready, and that he can't see her married. ... I tell you what, why don't you bring him to the church to see her married, and I'll pick him up outside right afterward, so he doesn't have to go to the reception?"
"Hey, that's a great idea, Miss Horton! Crikey, why didn't I think of that? It would solve all our worries, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, I think it would. Give me a call when you have all the details about the time and place and et cetera, and I give you my word I'll look after Tim after the ceremony."
"Miss Horton, you're the grouse, you really are!"
Thirteen
Tim found the wedding preparations exciting. Dawnie was especially considerate and tender during the week preceding what in her heart she termed her desertion, and devoted all her time to her family.
On the morning of the wedding, a Saturday, he was enthralled with the bustle and panic that seemed threatening to overwhelm them any moment, and wandered about getting under everyone's feet, full of helpful suggestions. They had bought him a new, dark blue suit with flared trousers and a waisted, slightly skirted coat, a la Car-din, and he was thrilled with it. He put it on the moment he got up and strutted about in it preening himself and trying to catch glimpses of his reflection in the mirrors.
When he saw Dawnie dressed he was awed.
"Oh, Dawnie, you look just like a fairy princess!" he breathed, staring at her with blue eyes wide.
She caught him to her in a violent hug, winking away tears. "Oh, Tim, if I ever have a son I hope he'll be as nice as you," she whispered, kissing his cheek.