Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan

Chapter Forty-four

Sometimes, there is just one step. One tiny last step; a little nudge, just to push you over the edge. And luckily for Marisa, hers came soon.

It was Nazreen on the phone, sounding anxious. And on a Saturday too.

‘Hey, how are you doing?’ she said. ‘We still miss you at the office.’

‘Thanks,’ said Marisa. Her first new admin part-time pay cheque had been a shock, she had to admit. But she was getting by. In a funny way, the office and Exeter were fading from her mind. Mount Polbearne was feeling more and more like home.

‘The thing is . . .’ said Nazreen. ‘I haven’t replaced you. And there’s nobody else around. And. Could you? Just cover this one? It’s urgent and there’s nobody about and I know, I know you’re not well but . . .’

And she explained.

Marisa took a deep breath.

‘Have they got a Registrar General’s letter?’

‘Yes. You know it’s just over the causeway . . .’

‘We’re cut off!’ said Marisa. ‘No, I can walk it. Or there’s boats . . .’

‘You sound a lot better,’ said Nazreen, a smile in her voice. ‘Great. Can you get yourself over there? He’s a Mount Polbearne boy, his mum says.’

‘What’s the name?’ said Marisa. Nazreen was delighted. She’d obviously decided to do it.

Marisa didn’t recognise it.

‘No local gossip?’ said Nazreen.

‘I don’t . . . I haven’t. Well. Not much gossip,’ said Marisa, although in fact she’d got quite a grip on several of the villagers just through helping Polly. Everyone knew Polly.

‘Be careful,’ said Nazreen. ‘I know these places can be triggering.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Marisa. ‘I can do it.’

Marisa had only done one other RGL in her career. They were rare, heart-rending occasions. There was only one reason people were allowed to get married without due notice.

The small cottage hospital was indeed just on the other side of the causeway. Marisa had got Archie the fisherman to take her and sat hugging herself in the galley of the boat, her eyes half shut, telling herself to get out of her own way; if ever a day wasn’t about her, it was today. Fortunately, Archie was happy to chatter on about how busy they were, and hadn’t it been amazing saving the causeway and what a great place they lived in.

The perspective on Mount Polbearne from the sea was really quite something; the ancient rock rising from the water, in the days where if you wanted to get somewhere fast, doing it by water was the quickest method. The imposing old church at the top, the houses wound around it, its strange, proud solitary shape, with the beautiful golden sand at the bottom of it. Looking at it, and hearing Archie’s excited chatter, made Marisa feel oddly proud of her adopted home, even if it wasn’t what she would have chosen. It shone brilliantly outlined against the bright blue sky as the boat bobbed up and down and she found herself taking deep breaths, not because she’d remembered, or because it had been something to tick off in her book, but because the fresh, salty air felt so very good.

She had a little wobble as she got to the hospital. The person she was dealing with had been having every dose of radiotherapy and chemo the hospital could throw at them, just to keep them alive for long enough to see this day. It was a huge responsibility.

The doctor, Indira, came and met her, smiling, but grimly.

‘His immune system is severely compromised,’ she said. ‘Can you mask up? Anything could carry him off.’

She held out a mask and a plastic apron.

‘Of course,’ said Marisa.

‘We had to limit guests,’ she said. ‘He’s . . . not in a good way.’

In that case, Marisa wondered why it mattered, but didn’t say so, just snapped on the gloves.

‘And it can only be ten minutes, can you do that?’

Marisa nodded. She glanced at the names.

‘Can I have a word with Linnet beforehand?’

Indira shook her head. ‘No. Sorry. I can’t tell you . . . Time is of the essence. Let’s go.’

Marisa followed her, Indira’s crocs clopping on the highly polished surface of the linoleum, feeling nervous, even though she’d done the ceremony a hundred times.

The HDU was hushed, with figures looking like spacemen slowly pacing to and fro.

Undeniably, the hospital had done its absolute best. The bed had been moved to a private room at the very end of the ward, where there was a set of French doors out into a garden. Normally shielded with blinds, these had been pulled up, and the door opened, just a tad, to let the sunlight and fresh air stream in.

Flowers had been hung around the outside of the windows, their scent blowing in on the breeze.

Lying on the bed was a diminished young man who kept taking long draws from the oxygen mask next to him. He was wearing a pale blue suit that was far too large for him, and a flower in his buttonhole. His long hair had been combed to one side.

‘Hello,’ she said, conscious to speak loudly. ‘Are you Denys?’

The man nodded. Another man stepped forwards. His hair was dreaded and in neat rows, his eyes full of pain.

‘Linnet?’

He nodded.

Indira stayed, along with another nurse, to act as witnesses, but Marisa became aware of a group of healthcare staff lining up behind her, heads bent solemnly, to observe. One, she was pleased to notice, was filming. Linnet and Denys each had their mothers there, who were themselves holding hands, and trying not to cry too loudly. That was the limit of people it was safe to have in the space.

‘Shall we start?’ she said, making her voice as warm as she could. She had a few notes on a piece of paper.

‘I know this place and time are not ideal for the wedding you would wish, to pledge your lives to each other. But my job is to assure you that love is here, and that this wedding and this marriage are as legal and as real as any other, as the love you bear for one another on this day and on every day.’

The mood was solemn when suddenly, to Marisa’s horror, she saw a hand creeping round the bottom of the French doors. Everyone stopped and all you could hear was the sound of machines beeping.

The hand had a plug and was trying to fit it in a socket that was just to the right of it.

‘What the hell?’ said Indira, starting forward.

The owner of the hand slowly straightened up outside the French windows, also wearing a mask, standing well back and putting his hands in the air as if someone was pointing a gun at him. It was, to Marisa’s total astonishment, Alexei.

‘Sorry. Sorry. I late. Sorry!’

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Carefully, Alexei pushed the French doors open a little and revealed a large electronic keyboard.

‘Sorry. Everyone in village know there is wedding, I think, wedding sad without music.’

‘Well, I’m afraid—’

‘No way,’ interjected Linnet. ‘Are you going to play for us?’

He squeezed Denys’s hand who squeezed back, and they looked at one another.

‘What you like?’

‘You can play anything?’

‘I try.’

‘Hang on,’ said Indira, watching in astonishment as, over the garden, figures started appearing, bright in the sunshine, and clearly dressed for a wedding; more and more. It looked to Marisa’s eyes like the entire village. Mrs Baillie and Mrs Bradley and dozens and dozens of friends wandering over the hospital grounds in their finest wedding clothes, hats and flowers, bottles of champagne, waving madly. Denys had to take a long draw of oxygen but started waving and grabbing at Linnet, who now had tears in his eyes.

‘I can’t allow this,’ said Indira. ‘You’re all going to have to go—’

‘Ah, Indira, come on. As long as they stay outside, what harm can it do?’ said another female doctor. Everyone backed up a few feet. There were curtains separating them from the rest of the ward and the patients. Everyone stared at the fierce doctor.

Indira rolled her eyes.

‘It will agitate my patient.’

‘Good,’ said Denys, with some effort from the bed.

‘Make it quick,’ said Indira to Marisa, who opened her book.

‘Do you know . . . “As”?’ said Linnet. ‘It was . . . is . . . it’s kind of our song.’

‘ABSOLUTELY NO SINGING,’ said Indira.

‘Mr Steven Wonder?’ said Alexei. ‘Of course. He genius like Shostakovich.’

And, gently, he bent down and plugged the keyboard in, and to Marisa’s absolute astonishment, after all the horrible clatter she’d been subjected to, set a gentle grooving rhythm on the keyboard, and started playing, sensationally, the uplifting song, picking out the melodic line with his top fingers, as if he had three hands.

It was, it turned out, almost impossible not to sing along. It was absolutely impossible not to dance to the groove and everyone dotted around the garden started to jiggle just a little, as did the line of nursing staff behind them. Even Mrs Brodie was tapping a foot.

Linnet and Denys stared into each other’s eyes and mouthed how they would love each other always. At the very final chorus, one of Linnet and Denys’s friends could not contain themselves any more, and in a voice of extraordinary power from behind a tree, belted out the last chorus, which meant automatically Alexei kept on playing it, until, gradually there was an entire choir singing, a chorus of people out in the garden, joined by more and more as you could hear the windows open all over the hospital.

The mood of the entire room changed completely. The sadness evaporated: there was clapping, and smiling, and eyes full of happiness. When the song ended, the applause rang from every window and doorway.

‘All right,’ said Marisa, smiling. ‘Before you are joined in matrimony I have to remind you of the solemn and binding character of the vows you are about to make. Marriage, according to the law of this country, is the union of two people, voluntarily entered into for life, to the exclusion of all others.

‘Now I am going to ask each of you in turn to declare that you know of no lawful reason why you should not be married to each other . . .’

She was hustled out as soon as they had both legally signed the register, but she couldn’t help smiling all the way out in the corridor, for overcoming something she had been dreading, and as soon as she reached the car park and could pull off her mask, she took in the fresh air in gulps, thankfully, feeling guilty for what she had left behind – but she had done her job.

She glanced around for Alexei, but he was nowhere to be found. Faintly, though, she heard the faintest suggestion of ‘Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing’ across the dingy car park. She guessed he was busy. There was a party going on back there, whatever the hospital authorities had to say about it. She considered joining them, but decided against it. She felt depleted. But it was done.