Silver Wedding (34 page)

Deidre's mother was on the phone next.

'Yes Tony, perfectly satisfactory, no opportunity. No, no, not reneging on anything, but you know the whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things. Yes, yes. Nothing changed. Absolutely. Me too. Lots.'

Father Hurley picked up the telephone to tell Father Hayes that he was getting a mini-cab back, he would be sharing it with several others, a large car had been ordered.

Yes, he said, it had been delightful, he just felt he mustn't take up the phone, other people might be telephoning people to say they loved them.

No, he said testily to Father Hayes. He wasn't even remotely drunk, he had just been sitting listening to a woman and her granddaughter talking on the telephone. That was all.

The move to go was general now. But there was a sense of something not quite completed.

Deirdre found the camera. She had a new film in it all ready for the occasion, she ran into the kitchen where Philippa's team were busy putting polythene on the leftovers and storing them in the fridge. There would even be things for the freezer.

Deirdre explained how the camera worked and Philippa listened patiently. It was a characteristic of this kind of woman that they thought their cameras were complicated.

They gathered around the couple in a semicircle. They smiled. The camera flashed and flashed again.

Amongst the pictures in the roll of twenty-four there would be one which was bound to look good when enlarged, would look just right. There would be the picture of The Silver Wedding on the wall, for everyone to see. Everyone who came to Rosemary Drive from now on.