Jeanette (not the author) is a girl brought up with the unwavering religious certainty and absolutism of her evangelist mother in the North of England, who plans for her to become a missionary. I asked her why she did it, and she said ‘You never know until it’s too late.’ There was a woman in our street who told us all she had married a pig. The next night I had sausages, but I still had the dream. I told my mother about it, and she said it was because I ate sardines for supper. Sometimes he was blind, sometimes a pig, sometimes my mother, sometimes the man from the post office and once, just a suit of clothes with nothing inside. Finally we came to the moment, ‘You may kiss the bride.’ My new husband turned to me and here were a number of possibilities. The priest was very fat and kept getting fatter, like bubble gum you blow. I thought everyone would point at me, but no one noticed. As I walked up the aisle, the crown got heavier and heavier and the dress more and more difficult to walk in. My dress was pure white and I had a golden crown. It was spring, the ground still had traces of snow, and I was about to be married.
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