Not Married, Not Bothered. Carol Clewlow

I’m more than happy, just like Beatrice, to pay for my state by leading apes in hell when I die, this being the mythological punishment for spinsters, but one that holds no fears for me, coming of age as I did at a time and in a place where men were still getting used to the upright position. Confronted by the word ‘clitoris’, there’s still a few would guess at one of the lesser known Greek islands.

      All in all I’d say the only downside, if downside there be to my name, is the jokes it provokes. Or rather, The Joke. Because there is only one. I’ve heard it a thousand times but, trust me, that’s not something that ever spoils the enjoyment of the joker.

      ‘Ri-l-ey …’ he’ll say, and I’ll watch as that geeky smile dawns and behind the skin of his face those old wheels and cogs start turning. ‘I suppose you live the life of Riley, then?’

      And if you want know what all this Spinster’s Alphabet stuff is about I’d say it’s just that.

Because as a matter of fact, I think I do.*

* Answers in reverse order: Yes, No and How could we know?

* Author’s note: Cass was 29 and I was 26 by the time our father passed peacefully and gratefully away from our mother.

* Among many others. See B for Bridesmaids.

*As will be clear by now, the aim of this book is ever to inform. Thus you may be interested to know whence comes the term Life of Riley. It first appeared in a popular song performed by one Pat Rooney in 1880s America, ‘Are You the O’Reilly’, which describes all the things said O’Reilly would do if he was rich. Another song, ‘The Best in the House is None Too Good For Reilly’, shortened the name to the one we know and introduced the notion of R (e) iley as a carefree soul. The actual words the ‘Life of Riley’ appear in a third and later song, ‘My Name is Kelly’.

      Faith and my name is Kelly Michael Kelly,

      But I’m living the life of Reilly just the same.

      With ‘My Name is Kelly’ the metamorphosis was complete. Reilly had become the idle, ne’er do well of popular fiction, and in particular of my mother’s morning newspaper for whom the phrase is indispensable, especially when applied to that vast amorphous body of people whose sole unifying feature is that they’re all somehow not just getting something for nothing but something due, by rights, to readers of said paper. This body includes but is by no means confined to:

       single mothers

       students

       gays

       lesbians

       blacks

       any teacher, vicar, lawyer, film or theatre director deemed by her morning newspaper to be ‘trendy’

       anyone with a good word to say for the sixties

       criminals (unless they’re actually members of the Tory Party)

       and last, but definitely not least, anyone receiving Unemployment Benefit.

      ‘Scroungers,’ is my mother’s rallying cry as she waves her paper in the air. ‘On the dole. Lying in bed all day. Leading the Life of Riley.’

       B is for … Bridesmaid (as in 3 times a …)

      According to The Guinness Book of Records, the world’s most prolific bridesmaid is believed to be one Euphrenia LaFayette of Big Flat, Arkansas. A combination of a large family and lack of good bridesmaid material in her mountain home is said to have led to Ms LaFayette being called on no less than sixty-three times. Interviewed by the Arkansas Sentinel upon her retirement at the age of forty-four, Miss LaFayette said, ‘Ah been up that damn aisle in every kinda dress, n’ carried every damn kinda posy. I’ve had every damn kinda contraption on ma head too, and dang me, if a gal caaaint get tired o’ that sorta thang.’

      Ms LaFayette has never married.

      I lied.

      There is no Most Prolific Bridesmaid category in The Guinness Book of Records. Which is a pity.

      I could have been a contender.

      When I told Cass about Mad Magda deciding to marry herself and asking me to be one of her bridesmaids, she said, ‘Well, it’s not like you don’t have the experience.’

      It’s a weird thing when you think about it that once upon a time the best way to bless the bridal pair, to wish them good luck in their marriage, was to have them met upon the church steps by a raggedy, smutty-faced boy chimney sweep complete with pneumoconiosis and brushes. You can still find the scene depicted on wedding cards, although it’s harder to lay your hands on the real thing these days, boy chimney sweeps having gone the way of so many of our great traditions – children down the mines, nimble-fingered seamstresses working by candlelight, blind and starving match-girls on every street corner. However, whereas we now balk at sticking young boys up chimneys, we show no such compunction at grabbing some innocent young female, thrusting her into a bad dress and bonnet, and pushing her, posy in hand, up the aisle behind the bridal party.

      I know. I was that bridesmaid.

      Look, the way I see it is this. Some people are born bridesmaids (particularly if they’re cursed with blonde ringlets); some people achieve bridesmaidhood; others, thanks to what can only be termed sheer dereliction of duty on the part of their sisters, have the bridesmaid thing thrust upon them. (Cassie, are you listening?)

Because if that whole ‘Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride’ thing* really is the ancient curse that Archie alleged all those years ago at Cass and Fergie’s wedding, then all I can say is my fate as a spinster was sealed early on. Six times – and this before the age of ten – I was forced into taffeta and tulle, to my mind a human rights abuse of the first order. In part this was due to Cassie cleverly throwing up on her frock within sight of the altar on her first booking (you’re pretty much finished on the bridesmaid circuit after that). But mainly it was due to all those Buffies and Madges and Snowies.

      There’s a picture on the mantelpiece in my mother’s front room. More than a picture, an icon. Because the fact is that she looks wonderful in that photograph. They should have used it for a recruitment poster.

      ‘They did. How many times must I tell you?’

      There’s not a ruck or a tuck or wrinkle in that uniform. The cap sits squarely on her head as she gazes straight-backed and grave into the camera. She sheds a tear over that picture sometimes and, trust me, my mother sheds a tear over very little.

      ‘All this will go when I go,’ she says, dabbing at her eyes pitifully with one of her customised floral Kleenex. ‘You two’ll just throw it away.’

      ‘Never, Mother, never.’

      ‘We’ll hang it on the wall.’

      ‘Light a candle beneath it.’

      ‘We’ll have one of those dippy little finger bowl things underneath so we can flick holy water on our foreheads as we pass.’

      ‘Oh, you.’ But there’s real pain in her voice.

      It’s one of the few occasions when I feel genuinely sorry for my mother. For herein lies the source of my mother’s madness, the reason for all