Mum spoke to the pastor at her church and he agreed to squeeze us in between other weddings on the Saturday before Roy was due to leave. The paperwork was harder: we had to obtain permission from Roy’s commanding officer, character references for both of us, my certificate of citizenship from the police and my birth certificate. Luckily Mum had the certificate from when she registered my birth—and she pulled it from a box I’d never seen before, with letters Dad had sent her when he was away at war and photographs of my brothers and me as babies. They were pasted into an old album which was falling apart at the binding. There we were on the farmhouse verandah, our clothes stained and worn, our faces wind-burned. I was only two or three in the photograph; Jack was a baby and I was holding him in my arms. Mum said I was like a little mother to Jack when he was born, always wanting to hold him and feed him, change his nappies. I felt a tear roll down my chin to my neck. I missed Jack so much it was an ache in my chest. I had never heard her talk about us as little babies, and until I heard it I didn’t realise just how much I wanted to know.

‘Do you miss the farm?’ I asked, shutting the album and palming dust from the cover.

She sighed. ‘It was so much work. I miss having everyone together, close, but I don’t miss the work. Never a day’s break. I was always so weary. You know the headaches I get?’

I nodded.

‘It was almost a relief when I felt one coming on, as painful as it was. To be able to shut myself in a dark room for an afternoon. To lie down and not work.’ She shook her head. ‘To think a feeling like a shard of glass piercing me between the eyes was a welcome thing.’

•

The girls at work were excited to hear of the wedding, though Dot stuck out her tongue and said, ‘Told you so.’

She and the girls from the typing pool gave me clothing coupons to use for gloves and shoes, and coupons to buy ingredients for the cake. Mum and Aunt Joy were going to make the other food, and Dot said she wanted to bake the cake for us, as a wedding present. She was going to be my bridesmaid, and Bob would be the groomsman. I told Roy about my dress on layby and he pretended to be upset that I had been saving for it so long before I met him.

‘What, so I’m just the groom? I come second to the dress?’