Joe and Carla have got married! It’s as simple as it sounds.
It was probably inevitable after Joe and Carla’s wedding that Dorothy and Al were the only show in town. Jane and Carla were talking to Dorothy, as indirectly as possible, about things, concentrating on talking about Carla’s wedding.
Carla had made a truly radiant bride, and it was the first time they’d ever seen Joe actually happy like that. The various parents had floated about blissfully on a sea of friends, and to both Joe and Carla’s surprise, had hit it off well. Joe was a far better ambassador for the Arthurson clan than he realized, and his first meeting with Carla’s parents had created some real goodwill. The irony of this was that they’d met during the plaster duck episode, and it was his obvious, stunned, reaction to Carla which had convinced them even then that he was someone they could trust with her. There are few things more obvious than a man in love surrounded by smashed plaster ducks. There was a tide of photos and things to discuss.
“There was a pre-nuptial agreement?” asked Dorothy, self consciously, since Carla had brought it up.
“Yeah, it was pretty odd, if you think that those sorts of agreements are always slanted to the one with the money. Ian, believe it or not, insisted that I be able to have some financial peace of mind of my own. The next thing I know I’m a millionaire, before the wedding. They did this like I was just being given a lift home, or something. Joe was embarrassed, severely, but they talked him round when they said this just evened things up a bit. It’s actually a mutual no-claim, on both sides, but I got all this as well.”
“So how do you feel about it?”
“Ah…. I was wondering for a while why the subject hadn’t come up. They’re so honest…. Sometimes it’s frightening. My worry was that they’d be suspicious of me on principle. It’s a bit hard to have money like that and not be pretty wary of the wannabe in-laws. Joe said that he was dreading the whole thing, and actually had an idea of his own to make me feel more comfortable. Seems he thought of something close to what Ian came up with, but not as generous or as thorough.”
Carla’s expression, usually closely guarded except under real stress, when she didn’t care, was that of a woman thinking about her next baby. It was so…. focused and relieved… that she seemed to have finished a decathlon and won it.
“Wow.” Dorothy was more than a little impressed. The Arthursons had obviously been thinking a lot about this, and for a while. A good idea, and a great way of making sure that money wasn’t the dominant factor in the relationship.
It was the very thing that had been a real bane of Dorothy’s love life for some time. Early boyfriends had had a strangely alien response to her family’s prosperity, and later versions, pre Al, had had a predatory air. It was very repulsive, eventually, and Al had really been a quantum jump, someone who was independently wealthy and personally at home in the larger numbers.
Dorothy, who was a romantic to her toenails, and a dedicated one, had been despairing of finding anyone in her income bracket who could prove that he was any more than a mindless collection of suburban values. Money isn’t class, and the tiresome parade of boyfriends regularly proved it. The only other male she’d ever met who really came close was Bill, who had always been a real person with real feelings, who she thought of as a virtual brother. Bill’s background was self made to a very large extent; they’d become close friends on personal grounds, not as a result of dipping in the same social thimble. She’d been overjoyed for him when he’d married Jane, another relative, unimpressed by anything or anyone who wasn’t as genuine as she. That had reassured her that it was possible to have a real working marriage without the hideous delineations of income and background which can be so poisonous.
Her money had been a real weight to carry, both professionally and personally. Professionally there was also no shortage of business people whose main aim seemed to be to attach themselves to money, in any way possible. That was a lesson her father had taught her well, although she hadn’t recognized it at the time. He’d just pointed out who the really useful people were, and who weren’t, and why. He’d started teaching her that when she was about ten. Her mother had also been a quiet conceptual construction site, with the timely reminiscences and bits of anecdote which make mothers so deadly. At puberty her mother had just had a few memories of old boyfriends, and little romantic interludes, and fun they’d had. Nothing dictatorial, not sermons or edicts, no implied disapproval, just insights from someone who knew what she was talking about.
The effect of two dedicated parents working tirelessly for years on their much adored daughter was all they could have hoped. From both, she received a supply of positive inputs, all useful. They both practically danced on the ceiling when she became a vet. Her mother, even now, was staying off Dorothy’s toes regarding Al. Her sole comment about one of Dorothy’s earlier efforts, to the effect that “if I’m going to be a grandmother I’d prefer the grandchildren to be vertebrates, and if that’s a problem why not try that nice horse”, had made the only point she’d thought needed making.
Dorothy giggled. The other two looked at her expecting a Dorothy-ism, and they got one.
“I was just thinking. Al and I have never even mentioned money to each other, even now.”
“Joe was like that. It was as if he was embarrassed. He actually apologized to me for buying me my watch. I eventually got it out of him that he liked it so much he couldn’t resist.”
“Bill never said a word. He’s also never said “we can’t afford it” to me, even when he lost his job.”
“Did either of you ever have a vision of the guy you would marry?”
“When I was a kid, and Joe is the exact opposite. Funny thing is he’s actually so much more masculine than that. I thought guys were all, sort of, “blokes around the keg”, and ever since I’ve been discovering that the ones that really do anything are totally different. The idiots around the keg are just that, and usually lousy all round in any sort of relationship.”
“Until I met Bill, and he wasn’t even in the categories. Somehow the idea of a really loving, happy, maniac wasn’t what I was thinking about.”
“I had a vision of this wonderful, blonde, Bohemian, who was mad about kids and of course politically active. I met him, and he was the most selfish, conceited, jerk I think I’ve ever set eyes on. We spent a whole day discussing his wardrobe and hairstyle. Very good looking, but nobody in there worth knowing,” mused Dorothy.
She explained her mother’s reaction.
“That was all I needed to know. I already felt like I was a matching handbag to something, and the horse was spoken for…..”
“You do know that they don’t allow kids to run in the Melbourne Cup any more…..?” asked Jane.
“Curses. Now we’ll have to let them in the house, not just let them run around the paddock,” said Dorothy, not noticing the large number of Freudian slips.
“How many kids do you want, Dorothy?” asked Carla.
“Oh, a battalion or so should do it…..”