Last night was the wedding. I say last night, but more like all of yesterday and into the early hours. Quite the endurance test but that’s the nature of weddings. With any luch I won’t have to attend very many more of these, certainly not stay for the whole thing.
The day started off unfortunately. I had a deadline on Friday New York time, and had hoped to finish the text the day before. But the final set of information, from two people who had been instructed to provide it, didn’t arrive. I had hoped to submit it before the wedding, but it was so dispiriting and I was so tired in the morning that I decided (a terrible decision, I knew at the time) to wait till after the wedding.
So I spent a couple of hours trying to wake up, then packed my suitcase for Canberra and ironed my sarong (poorly) and we drove to North Sydney where we parked and got an uber to the Museum of Contemporary Art where I was supposed to help with the decoration. In the event, the only thing I did was to put the name cards on the table following a really confusing seating map, but managed it.
Here’s all that went wrong with the wedding:
- the groom’s father, mother and aunt got COVID
- the father is an anti-vaxxer and had to be locked into a hotel room and not attend the wedding
- the mother who had had one dose at least and was several days ahead of her husband, arrived but sat on the terrace throughout, well masked up
- the aunt also has some bad illness which put her in hospital for days, until she was discharged at 10 in the morning on the day of the wedding – she also sat on the terrace, and was dressed in what looked like tennis shorts
- a gigantic cruise ship moored just outside the terrace, so the very expensive view was not visible
- there was a stiff wind so the arches before which the ceremony was to take place would only stay in place if there were two people holding it down, so it had to be moved to an awkward corner
- the video stream didn’t quite work
- the music system failed as the bride came in
- the stand for the doughnut table collapsed
- two guests started eating the doughnuts which were supposed to be in lieu of wedding cake
Despite this impressive list, it all went well. Not to my taste, as it was the whitest of weddings, and full of romantic nonsense, but I think the bride and groom were happy. The cruise ship sailed away at 1830, leaving the Opera House bathed in the light of the setting sun, and later, in the colours of Ukraine. The speeches were short and sweetly awkward. The person who ate the doughnuts left early. And I chatted to a couple of interesting people, including a human rights lawyer. And a friend gave me a running account of the Lahore Literature Festival where Abdulrazak Gurnah, one of my favourite authors these days, was giving a keynote speech.
Dinner was long and adequate and apparently very expensive for the bride and groom, but such is the Australian way. Another thing that is the Australian way is the interjection OI with a spherical volume of air in the mouth and a moist roll of the tongue.
At one point I became tired and hid in the store room. At another point I had to order an Uber for the sick aunt and stayed outside where there was partying across the city on the eve of the Mardi Gras parade. When I got back, dancing had begun, with an average but enthusiastic and well-meaning covers band. So that passed some time, and the elders were really quite tipsy, with one person dancing all night by herself and a very elderly lady doing the most old-fashioned luddi to a cover of Will Smith’s ‘Getting jiggy with it’.
After, finally, everyone left, thankfully the decorators took all the decor and we only had to clear away valuables like the ‘wishing well’ (a box in which guests put their red envelopes, so to speak), and a US post box filled with postcards on which guests were asked to write loving advice to the bride and groom. One of the very nice people I’ve met here, a bridesmaid, and I cleared it all up and took an Uber off to the bride’s flat. The married couple are staying in a hotel for a couple of nights and my job was to leave their stuff there, spend the night on the sofa, and then take the train from the station 10 minutes away the following morning.
The nice person hung around for an hour or so and ordered dinner – which was all very enjoyable – and then she left and I had to turn to work. I could barely move, though, and soon fell asleep, to wake up at 5.40 for a shower (no towel, so I used a few pieces of kitchen roll, I’m afraid) and to leave for the train station.
On the train, I opened the document and got my reward for tardiness: the information I’d needed had arrived. The train stalled for an hour (it was a small and miserable little train, very slow) and this turned out to be a stroke of good luck as it was close to the city and I had mobile reception to do my work, send it off, and get an appreciative acknowledgement back. Soon after, we were out of range of the networks.
I was a little zonked through the first half of the journey, then gave in and bought an expensive coffee and deadly muffin which revived me enough to keep my eyes open during the prettiest part of the journey, through wetlands and over canyons filled with green native bush.
At the tiny station I was met by the people I am staying with and was taken to their very suburban feeling house (though all of Canberra seems to be suburban by nature). It is scrupulously clean which is a particular delight, and food is light and delicious and not leftovers.
Some interesting conversations and then after an early dinner we went down to see what I really wanted – kangaroos. It felt for the first time that I was properly in Australia, with kangaroos in an arid orangy brown landscape. They hop so very lightly.
And now I’m in bed, about to sleep but got a message so will post this and have a work call.