Rachel Wolcott, Fact & Fiction

The theme this week is “a fish out of water”. More info on WAG: here. Thanks again to India Drummond for the ideas. More on India and her upcoming debut novel: here. Anyway, I’m continuing with Jenny the farmer’s daughter from WAG 25. Turns out that at a wedding everyone’s a fish out of water.
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Her father smiled in a drunken way. To the other guests and the bride’s family he looked rosy cheeked and jolly, but Jenny knew he’d been drinking before they got to the church. Soon he’d wander off to find a chair in a warm corner and have a nap. Next to him, her mother appeared oblivious, but she must have been worried. It might be best to leave before the disco and vodka shots or at least pack her parents off home. Her mother tried speaking to Hayley’s parents a few times during the afternoon, but they were taciturn people. Not the gregarious hosts she and Jenny expected. Her mother wondered whether they were looking down their noses at her, because she was a farmer’s wife. The idea these people were judging her parents, made Jenny angry, but as the evening progressed she realized they were diffident. Hayley’s father had little positive or interesting to say in his speech. Apparently, he ran a watch repair concession at the department store in Colchester.

Her brother Geoff met Hayley while Jenny was working as a medic at the Red Cross in Phnom Penh. Before she got on the plane to return to the UK for the first time in two years, she assisted the senior surgeon in a complex amputation. He’d texted to let her know the elderly female patient died. “We were too late,” he’d written. It happened more than she liked. Many patients, particularly the elderly, arrived at the clinic only to be diagnosed as terminal, having suffered for years. Jenny was due back in Asia in two weeks time, but her brother had almost convinced her to stay on in Essex. It wouldn’t be for him. She didn’t believe her parents had become the burden he described. Being back at Rookery Farm, walking the muddy footpaths, even in the dead of winter, was exhilarating. Perhaps she’d had enough of the tropics. For the first time in months her heat rash had vanished. She loved her mother’s cooking.

Geoff and Hayley sat on the dais, smiling and laughing at the best man’s speech. They were flanked by their parents and the wedding party. Hayley had two sisters, both older and married. They looked on with distain. Jenny couldn’t remember their names, but Geoff assured her they were horrible, complete and utter bitches. Hayley was a bit too orange for Jenny’s restrained tastes. She and her sisters freely used spray-on tan, which in the stuffy hotel ballroom had started to leech into their satiny dresses. The bride wore a tiara and her fingernails were bejewelled with tiny rhinestones. Jenny wondered how she would like being a farmer’s wife. That was assuming Geoff stayed on at Rookery Farm. She got the impression he’d be happier working in a more social environment.

Since they’d met Hayley had remarked on Jenny’s gaunt appearance to her face and behind her back. She’d overheard her telling Geoff she was started to look like one of them, like one of them refugees. Jenny went along on the hen night, where her somewhat emaciated figure was commented on by many of Hayley’s friends. One girl asked her if she had cancer. It had been a long night and Geoff had called her far too early to get all the details. He was paranoid and asked a lot of questions about male strippers and a woman called Mel.

She ate her cake and the piece of the woman sitting next to her. Keeping a watchful eye on her parents, Jenny reckoned her father was fading. He’d nodded and snapped his head back a few times during the speeches. Her mother looked uncomfortable, as if her stockings were twisted or too tight. It was time to go. She walked her parents to the cloakroom where they retrieved their coats and headed out to a cab waiting in the rainy night. As soon as the cab turned onto the main road, her father fell asleep.