Читать книгу Five Silver Daughters - Louis Golding - Страница 24

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Esther Tishler came round one morning to Oleander Street to see how the new sideboard looked. It had been made special for Mrs. Silver’s parlour by Joe Tishler’s firm, Pliskin & Co., and it had wonderful new-fashioned legs—not legs at all, but big balls clasped round by claws. But she didn’t get so far as the parlour. As she mounted the steps, the front-door opened, and Sarah, her sister, stood there. It was eleven o’clock, and a weekday, and Sarah should have been at work; but she had her Saturday hat and coat on, and she was carrying the silver mesh bag Smirnof had given her, which she only used for best occasions.

“What you doing at home, Sarah? Aren’t you well?”

“I’m quite well, thank you, Esther. How are you?”

“Have you got a cold or anything? Is there a strike? Why aren’t you at work?”

“I’m going to see a house. Up in the avenues, it is. Running hot and cold water.”

“What you going to see a house for? Why do you stand smiling?”

“Wish me mazel tov. I’m going to get married.”

“Married? Who? What are you talking about? You’re mad! When?”

“Who do you think? Sasha, of course! In three weeks.”

“I never heard of such a thing! It isn’t true!”

“Oh, yes, it is!”

“Who said you should get married?”

“Well, Sasha did, and I did. So we’re going to.”

“It’s not true, Sarah. You’re making a fool of me!”

“I say it is. Go and see for yourself in the office in Begley Hill Road.”

“In the office?” She looked absolutely bewildered. “What office?”

“Where you go when you die and get born and get married! The register office!”

“The register office?” Her face looked quite stupid with dismay. “You can’t go and get married in a register office!” She had for the moment completely lost sight of the fact of the marriage itself, or who the proposed partner in the marriage was. She was merely aware it was in a register office that one of the Silver girls was proposing to get herself married ... like an elderly widow, like a girl without two pennies to her name, like a cold-scrubbed Gentile nobody, like a girl who’s going to have an illegitimate baby if she doesn’t hurry up and——

“Listen!” She took hold of her sister’s arm fiercely. “Has he been up to any nonsense? Have you got to—get married quick?”

Sarah shook off her arm in disgust. She blushed to her ears. Her full lower lip came out uglily. “How dare you say such a thing!”

So that wasn’t the reason. “Why, then? In a register office?”

“Because we want to,” Sarah informed her coldly. She swept off, lifting her skirt from the ground magnificently. Her silver mesh bag rattled bleakly.

Esther put her hand on to her stomach. She felt exactly as if she had gone up on a swing or on a boat, high to the top of the curve, and she had been left up there, forgotten. She had had quite clear ideas about the next Silver wedding. She hadn’t been quite sure which of her sisters it was going to be, for she was not enthusiastic about the various candidates. On the whole, she was definitely opposed to them. But whoever the next sister was, and whoever the man might be, the next Silver wedding was not going to be like the last one, her own. She and Joe and the whole family were going to make up for that hole-and-corner mockery of a wedding. In a sense it was going to be a re-wedding for herself and Joe, whoever else was going to get married, Sarah or Susan or anybody, They had had to be content with Unity Hall on the earlier occasion. Now it would be the Convention Rooms, in Begley Hill Road, where all the really classical families got married. You should just see those chandeliers! And there would be a glass of champagne for everybody just after the ceremony under the canopy. As for the bridesmaids, they would wear pink silk, with little wings, like angels! Or would they think that was just a little, perhaps, Christian?

Her bosom swelled with rage. No bridesmaids, no champagne, no Convention Rooms! A register office! Because she couldn’t marry him under a Jewish canopy! Because he was a goy. Yes, that’s what it was! Her sister was going to marry a goy. What would they all say in Longton? Joe’s boss was very particular, too. Joe’s boss wouldn’t like his foreman to have a wife who had a sister who married a goy in a register office!

“She will, will she? Ho, she will, eh? We’ll see about that!” She swivelled her bosom round and marched off to the corner. She pawed the ground like an impatient war-horse till the tram came and, lurching a little, bore her off to Smirnof’s office in the Silver factory in Rochdale Road.