Chapter Fifteen: Members of the Wedding

Should heterosexuals be allowed to marry?

Of the grand wedding party of six invités, plus Dee, I must first introduce you to the Parkays. In the Yellow Pages, I found that there were only two celebrants in the sparsely populated Far North for “civil unions” and so I decided to contact the nearest one, a certain Juliette Parkay. We met her and her husband in the flower garden of their romantic little cottage in Mangonui.

“I have been the celebrant at lots of weddings but this will be my first gay marriage. Until now, I’ve only done straight marriages and funerals, once at the same time, as the groom dropped dead on the spot after saying I do!” says Juliette. “Now I am very excited about this, Boys.”

Juliette is an average-sized woman of about seventy with a cloud of beautifully coiffed Champagne-colored hair but she gives the impression of being huge. It is her personality and her big heart and spirit, her big presence that all conspire to lend the impression of heft to this midsized woman.

Antoine says something about funerals but my ears are ambushed by an extremely thick Dutch accent and I miss the gist. Juliette notices that we have not understood her husband and explains mischievously that Antoine, like Beau and me, is an immigrant to New Zealand.

“He has only been here for forty-five years so his accent is still quite strong.”

Antoine laughs heartily.

Yes,” I say, getting into the act, “we have noticed this is a trait common to Dutch New Zealanders.”

“Well, Madame La Juliette,” says Beau, “perhaps the charming Dutch don’t bother to try to speak with a comprehensible English accent because Kiwi English is itself so often incomprehensible and the Dutch immigrants have no good role model.”

Juliette cocks a beautifully sculpted eyebrow at Beau and Antoine laughs even more heartily, throwing his head back like a happy Old Dutch Master.

“No,” I say, “it may be because Dutch and English are both West Germanic languages, along with West Frisian” —Antoine looks happily surprised at my mention of Frisian— “along with West Frisian, and German, of course. And Dutch and English are so similar in so many ways really that the accents never get any consideration from Dutch speakers of English. These charming folk simply speak English as if they are speaking Dutch and usually this works well enough. You know, although Dutch grammar shares many traits with German, especially in syntax, it has a less complicated morphology caused by deflexion and this puts it closer to English.”

Both Juliette and Antoine look at Beau to see what he will say.

 “You sound like a boring linguist.”

“Actually, the consonant system of Dutch did not undergo the High German consonant shift and has more in common with English and the Scandinavian languages. But the prominent use of velar fricatives in Dutch does cause considerable mother tongue interference for Dutch speakers of English, like Monsieur Antoine Parkay here, whose name, by the way, reminds us of the French occupation of the Netherlands at the beginning of the nineteenth century under Napoleon’s First French Empire.”

“I wonder,” says Beau, “why I want to marry a professor. The world’s foremost authority.” Beau yawns loudly.

“I have not yet formally made that proposal,” I say.

“Fricative you, you pedant,” he says.

Juliette speaks up. “Of course there will be a marriage, mes Beaux Garçons. You will not deprive me of that joy and satisfaction, my first gay marriage. Well, I know the government wants to call it a civil union to placate the mercifully tiny religious right wingers here in New Zealand, but let’s be honest—a marriage is a marriage is a marriage. But we will sign the civil union papers they ask for; I will ‘civilize’ you two.

“Now, Boys, let’s get back to Antoine’s delicious accent. Do you want to know the truth of the matter?”

We nod.

“The truth is this. Antoine speaks English the way he does because the first European to set eyes on New Zealand was Abel Tasman and that was on December thirteenth of 1642, and Abel Tasman was so handsome and so able and so Dutch that nobody cared how he spoke, or if he spoke at all, and this is also Antoine’s problem. So very handsome, so very able, and so very, very Kiwi-Dutch, with the accent on the Dutch.” She strokes his thick, beautiful gray-white hair and beard, and kisses him on the nose.

It is true that Antoine is a very handsome old-world gentleman.

Antoine’s eyes twinkle like a character in a nineteenth-century novel and in many ways he strikes me as the kindliest of characters who stepped right out of the pages of Dickens, bringing his curly locks and curly whiskers with him. A Mr. Fezziwig or perhaps a Mr. Wemmick or even an older Mr. Prince Turveydrop.

Antoine is perhaps the happiest individual you will ever meet in this sad-happy world. Beau and I believe that is because he is married to Juliette.

“Anyway, Tw, you were saying something about funerals?” says Juliette.

“Tw?” I say.

“My daughters and granddaughters all have trouble with the correct pronunciation of Antoine, it’s the ‘t-o-i’ that throws Kiwis off, so I coached them with Tw, Tw, Tw, Ant-w-w-woine so many times that now they call him simply Tw. So, Tw, you were saying something about funerals?”

“We are none of us quite ready for that yet, La Juliette, but I want to say to the Boys here that we could give them a special package. Wedding today and funeral on the lay-away because Juliette loves to do funerals! Lay-away funeral! Do you get it?” Antoine thinks this is the funniest thing he has ever heard so we all oblige him by laughing long and loudly.

“There is no life without death,” says Juliette. “And have you noticed that everyone lives as if they will never die? And that people always seem genuinely shocked when someone does die, even someone very old or someone who has been very ill? Well, of course, there is a good reason for that. Everyone lives as if they will never die because deep in our hearts, deep, deep down, we all know it is true. There is no ‘death,’ really. Just a transition. To exactly what or where, we are not quite sure but we shall all find that out in due time and in the meantime I do enjoy celebrating those transitions in as beautiful a way as possible. Some of my most beautiful celebrations have been funerals.”

Aaron, do you know you have—

I change the subject. “December thirteenth, 1642, you say, and Abel Tasman was the first European to see New Zealand. December thirteenth, an auspicious day. My own parents, James and Eva, were married on December the thirteenth in 1934, by a justice of the peace in southern Missouri. They eloped on Friday the thirteenth, in fact. My father says he married my mother for her money—he had none and she had ten dollars. Yes, they have been married for over seventy years. So with that pair of coincidences of December the thirteenth, I formally propose. Beau, will you marry me?”

“Let me think about it.

“OK. Sure. Pourquoi pas?”

“It is an official proposal, then,” says Juliette. “Now, come into the parlor and we shall have a cup of tea and a chat.” Juliette leads the way and Antoine herds us down the hall and into the most charming parlor you can imagine. So charming that I will not even attempt to describe it—you would think I was making up an idyllic picture. But I must tell you, it really exists, right here in Mangonui, on Beach Road. All I will say is this: The day when we first meet Juliette and her Antoine, all the French casement windows are thrown open and flowering shrubs and assorted twittering birds are peeking in enviously at all the happy life taking place within those little walls.

“Now tell me. Why do you two want to get hitched?” Juliette puts a bright red kettle on the stove and turns up the flame.

“Well, we’ve been together twenty-five years and this is—”

“ ’S truth! Stop right there. You obviously know what you’re getting into! I can’t wait to be your celebrant! Twenty-five years and you look so young! Life together obviously agrees with you two.”

“Well, I guess we are sort of young.”

“Well,” says Tw, “I was about to say that marriage requires that two people swear an oath, making what for most people seems to be almost impossible-to- keep promises of fidelity, promises of love and lifetime support for each other, financial support, emotional support, support mental and spiritual, and then punishes both parties legally and socially if they fail or have made a mistake in their choice.

“And it just doesn’t seem fair that gay people shouldn’t be saddled with these burdens too! It’s just not fair!” Again, he throws back his head and laughs—no, guffaws—at his own joke.

“Oh, go on,” says Juliette as she takes the whistling kettle off the stove. “But, you know, now that I think of it, maybe a law should be passed that no one can get married until they have successfully and happily lived together for twenty-five years.

“Or maybe ten years should be enough to get a marriage license, what do you think? Yes, ten years. And they probably shouldn’t have children for those first ten years. That would put an end to the fifty-percent divorce rate and to so much heartache and heartbreak and people feeling like failures.

“And to so many unwanted and poorly brought-up and neglected children in the world. Do you know? I read that the majority of parents say they wouldn’t have children if they could do it all over again! But they only say that in anonymous surveys. So sad, so sad.”

Juliette shakes her head and pours four perfect cups of tea into four tiny porcelain English rose teacups. She sets out a plate of biscuits, what we would call cookies in America.

“I’m so lucky,” she continues. “I love all my children and would do it all over again.”

“But sometimes I wonder,” says Antoine. “Do you think heterosexuals should really be allowed to marry at all?”

“You are very naughty,” says Beau. “It’s shocking.”

Naughty is a favorite Kiwi word. That and shocking.

I notice a small painting on the wall, a painting of a cow drinking from a stream. A full moon shining on a silvered meadow, the moon reflected in the stream. Something about the picture is very appealing and it reminds me of Henri Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy. It is just a cow but it has a certain something about it that makes it almost mythical, mystical, magical.

“An everyday mythical, mystical magical cow,” I say aloud but almost to myself and I get up from the table and walk over to examine it closer. The name painted in the bottom right-hand corner says June Carrington.

“June Carrington. I think we met her. An elegant old woman who lives up on Matthews Road. A painter, an artist, I mean. She’s very good but this painting is very different from all the ones we saw.”

“No, that’s a different Carrington,” says Juliette. “June Carrington is me.”

“A stage name, a pen name, what do you call it for an artist?” says Beau.

“No, no, no. You see,” says Juliette, “my full name, I guess, is June Stratford Carrington Bosley Juliette Bosley Parkay.” She looks pleased with herself.

“You look smug at being able to remember it all,” says Tw. “Explain for these perplexed fellows, smug wife.”

“Well. I was born here in Mangonui, not so long ago,” she looks sideways at a smiling Antoine. “Not so long ago at all and my dear parents called me June because I was born in June. I loved my parents but I always hated that name and I hated being named after a month. Good heavens! What would they have done if I had been born in February? I always asked my mum, Would you have named me February Stratford? Or how about October Stratford?

“Sheesh kabab, I never liked it but I felt that I was stuck with it. Then I grew up, well, not really, I was only seventeen, and got married and became for a short time Mrs. Carrington. June Carrington, June Stratford Carrington. Put it down to my foolish youth but that marriage was a huge mistake and it didn’t last long at all.”

“Because it wasn’t me,” says Antoine.

“Exactly right, little Dutch Boy Buster Brown. If only we had met when I was seventeen. Well, you can’t cry over the past. Just so grateful that Tw and I did finally meet. Our universes finally got themselves lined up together. But I was saying. I went from being June Stratford Carrington, when I painted the portrait of that cow that everyone hates but you, dear Aaron, so I went from being June Stratford Carrington to being just June Stratford again.

“Until I met my second husband and I became Mrs. June Bosley. June Stratford Carrington Bosley, if you will. We were married for fifteen years and they weren’t all bad.”

This is the first time I see a sad look come across Juliette’s face but it is as brief as a June bug minute.

“One day a year or so after we were married, that husband and I were lying in the grass, looking at the clouds and I allowed as how I had always hated my name June, and my new husband, Mr. Bosley, said he had always hated his name, Arnold. So we made a pact and changed our names on the spot. I became Juliette because I liked it, thought it was pretty and I felt more like a Juliette than a June.

“And my new hubby chose his new name, he chose to become—well, let’s just say he became not Arnold. Anyway, we had three beautiful children but not Arnold had so many problems, started drinking too much and he became not Arnold in so many ways. To annoy me, he took to calling me July instead of Juliette.”

Juliette shakes her head. “I must say, I am not all that impressed with Kiwi blokes in general. I was so depressed after my second divorce but that didn’t work out for me. Depression just did not work out for me so I decided to be happy on my own.

“And then, thank all goodness in Heaven, I found me a full-grown Buster Brown Dutch Boy here in KiwiLand. I’ve never been to the Netherlands. Are they all like you, Tw?”

“Certainly not. I am special. And who found whom?”

“Unique and special you are. So, anyway, back then I became June Bosley for about one year, then I became Juliette Bosley. So there you are, I was June Stratford Carrington Bosley Juliette Bosley. And to make this long story shorter, I met the love of my life, finally, and I became quite simply Juliette Parkay.

“Or, if you will, June Stratford Carrington Bosley Juliette Bosley Parkay. And have been for thirty years now. Juliette Parkay. That’s what I tell my grandchildren.

“And the moral of the story is this, children: If you don’t like your name, change it right away. And don’t get married for any reason-soever until you really meet the Love of Your Life. And if you do have children, make sure you truly want them, whether you are married or not.

“And if you are not married, you probably should not have children because it is the most difficult job in the world and you will usually need help. But everybody is different so I try not to make absolute morals of stories for everyone. Just general guidelines.

“I tell people that they will certainly have to figure most things out for themselves but to keep their wits about them. That is about the only real advice I can give. Keep your eyes wide open, pay attention, stay awake, even in your dreams. And keep your wits about you.

“But you don’t need morals of stories for children, do you, Boys? Or, actually, I guess you could have children if you want. Just look, even your ex-vice-president Cheney’s daughter had her artificially seeded babies, her and her girlfriend.

“And then all that big Republican celebration of Mrs. Palin’s young unmarried pregnant daughter a few years back. My goodness. I think your culture wars in America are over, Boys, and your Republican Fundamentalists have surrendered; they might as well start waving white flags.

“I read they have more unwed mothers and teen pregnancies than any other segment of the American population. I suppose there will be an even bigger spike in teen pregnancies and turkey-baster babies in the evangelical movement in America now.

“I wonder if they will stop judging and condemning everybody else and become more like Kiwis in that respect. Respect. Live and let live, that’s one thing we are good at. I do wonder about America, though.”

“Do you still paint?” I ask.

“I do. And once I signed a painting June Stratford Carrington Bosley Juliette Bosley Parkay. I didn’t like that painting, couldn’t get it right after trying and trying and really messing it up but good. So I just signed my long full name right across it in exasperation and do you know?

“Somebody bought it at an arts and crafts festival in the Mangonui Town Hall. A JAFA.”

“What’s a jafa?” Beau asks.

“JAFA. Just Another Fucking Aucklander,” says Juliette. “Pardon my franćais, Boys, but that’s what it means. Ask any New Zealander. Just another—”

“That’s enough, Juliette,” says TW. “They understood the first time.”

“Right. I expect they do. So a JAFA bought the painting. You know, from Auckland. He said it was very avant-garde and reminded him of what’s-his-name who does all the paintings with words and letters all over the canvas.

I felt so guilty but I took his money and thanked him for the compliment.

Compliment!” Juliette snorts.

END OF CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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Aaron Allbright’s novel in five parts will be published soon.

IN A DESERT OR A CITY

BOOK I

 ‘PRINCE CARTIER’ or HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE BEING GAY WITH MY SAUDI PRINCE AND TO START WORRYING

BOOK II 

MONSIEUR LE PRINCE, PARIS

BOOK III 

THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS

BOOK IV 

TYROMANCY AND LUCIFER

BOOK V 

WHY WAIT FOR THE LIGHT?