Touching From a Distance by Deborah Curtis Read Free Book Online Page B

spiteful.
    In 1974, when we attended the wedding of my cousin Susan in Liverpool, the occasion was marred when Ian forbade me to dance, as he considered the scooped neckline on my cotton dress to be too low cut. I judged that even Ian would not dare to make a fool of himself in such a public place, so I danced anyway and ignored Ian’s sullen, miserable face. I thought itunreasonable for him to try to spoil my fun again. Luckily he was restrained, but insisted we make love on the train home to Manchester. By now I was used not only to Ian’s jealous and possessive attitude, but also his particular brand of retribution. I felt he was re-establishing ownership.

CHAPTER THREE
FACE TO FACE
    Once we had named the day, our wedding preparations seemed to set themselves in motion. Ian showed little concern for the arrangements, but knowing his fetish for making sure my body was covered I chose a high-necked wedding dress. He didn’t like other men to look at me. I also bowed to his request that one of the hymns would be ‘Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken’, sung to the music of Haydn which is the same tune as the German National Anthem. Although I enjoy the flamboyance of the church, I hold the cynical view that some of the Christians I know are the most ‘un-Christian’ people. In fact, initially Ian was reluctant to marry me in a church. He predicted I would be struck down as I walked along the aisle.
    On the eve of our wedding, my insides were churning and my own and my mother’s nerves were in shreds. As I ironed my going-away dress and counted my ‘sexy knickers’, I felt afraid rather than excited. I convinced myself that the feeling that things ‘weren’t right’ was just wedding nerves, but I still had an understandable desire to take more than a few steps backwards in time. Since then I have discovered that Ian had doubts of his own. He told Lindsay Reade (Tony Wilson’s first wife) that he had thought about cancelling the wedding because he knew in his heart that he would eventually be unfaithful.
    We were married on 23 August 1975 at St Thomas’s church, Henbury, followed by a reception at the Bull’s Head in Macclesfield market place. Ian chose Kelvin Briggs as his best man, which surprised me as I thought Oliver Cleaver was a closer friend. However, his choice was a good one as Kelvin was more dependable and responsible. Ian wore a peach-coloured pinstripe suit from Jonathan Silver in Manchester and looks terribly dated in the photographs. Heworried himself silly about how he would look in a suit. He had visions of Oliver outshining him by turning up in black leather, which I suspect was what Ian would have preferred to wear. The event seems to have had little meaning to Ian or his friends. Oliver told me that he was surprised when Ian got married and commented, ‘The wedding was almost secondary to what we were all going to wear on the day.’
    Despite all this, everything went according to plan. Ian looks very handsome in our wedding pictures and his face is full of expectant pleasure – a mien which would gradually be lost. Young and stubborn, we were determined to prove people wrong. We were out to put the people who predicted an early divorce firmly in their place.
    We spent our wedding night at the Lime Tree Hotel near Victoria Station in London. It took so long to wind our way to the top of the building, I was beginning to think it was some kind of joke but, yes, this tiny room was ours for the night. As Ian sank into contented sleep, I lay awake listening to the traffic. In the morning I pounced on Ian, nearly piercing his bare foot with my stiletto heel. His anguish released my apprehensive tension and, gratefully, I sat down on the bed and sobbed at last.
    We stayed at the Hotel Pretty on rue Amelie and the honeymoon was planned with Ian’s usual zealotry – no ordinary visit to Paris. The Crazy Horse rather than the Moulin Rouge, the Modern Art Museum not the Louvre, and so on. He must