Jemma’s Version
There’s a reverent silence in Derek’s office. Ashford and I sit opposite one another; Derek is at one end of the long, shiny wooden table and the secretary is at the other end.
“Following her marriage to Mr Ashford Parker, the twelfth Duke of Burlingham, Jemma Pears accesses her right to inherit the land and personal property bequeathed to her by her grandmother Catriona. The inheritance consists of: an estate…”
I’m struggling to pay attention, but I just can’t. Derek is reading the entries on the inventory one by one, but it’s an eighty-nine page file packed with numbers and words such as Manor Park, House, Monet, yacht, bonds, stocks… this is blowing my mind.
Even more, when he shows me the bank statements which are full of tiny little numbers.
As soon as Derek notices that I’m staring at the bunch of documents with a glazed look, he grabs a piece of paper and scribbles one big number on it, then he gives it to me.
“All right, Jemma, I can see that you’re not following what I’m saying, so this is all you need to know: the total amount of the account which will be in your name from tomorrow.”
I look at him wide eyed: I have never seen such a huge number in my whole life. It’s as long as an international telephone number! Both Ashford and I lean forward in disbelief.
When I see his amazed expression, I grab the note and hold it against my chest.
“Hands off, this stuff is mine! You’ll touch my money when and if I say so,” I threaten him, possessively.
“If it weren’t for me, you would keep dreaming about that money.”
Derek snatches the piece of paper out of my hands, balls it up and tosses it away, annoyed. “Let’s go on. Following his marriage to Ms Jemma Pears, Ashford Parker, Duke of Burlingham, takes possession of the agreed amount of money needed to clear the most pressing debts owed to various banks, so as to regain full control of his assets.”
Derek looks at us alternately, to make sure everything is clear.
“There’s one last point to clarify,” says Ashford with his arrogant attitude. “Marital life. There are four people at this table, four people who know that it’s a marriage of convenience. For this reason, I suggest that, after we sign the register at the Register Office, we go back to our lives the way we have led them to this day.”
“I agree. There’s no need to tell anyone,” I echo.
Derek coughs nervously. “Well, Ashford, maybe you’ll have to tell Portia, won’t you?”
“What does Portia have to do with it?”
“Who is Portia?” I ask curiously.
“Can we leave Portia out of this? She doesn’t need to know anything about it!”
“All right,” says Derek, raising his hands in surrender. “I just assumed…”
“You assumed wrong, as you often do, lately.” Ashford remarks.
“Anyway, I’m perfectly okay with pretending this never happened. What if my parents knew that I got married for money? It would kill them!”
“Well, can you imagine my mother? If she saw Jemma, she would have herself deported to the colonies!”
“We no longer own colonies,” points out Derek.
“We do, according to her.”
Derek points out the silver lining of the situation. “Cheer up, my friends! All your problems will be gone by tomorrow. Jemma, you will no longer have to worry about looking for a job in cheap theatres. And you, Ashford, you will retain your place in high society with no one any the wiser.”
Ashford looks right into my eyes. “And I’m confident that I will never see you again, after tomorrow.”
My eyes express just as much rancour. “You bet.”
*
How do you get dressed for a fake marriage? I mean, the marriage is real, but the reasons behind it aren’t: I don’t love Ashford, and we have no intention whatsoever of living together.
Ashford, Derek, the registrar and I will be alone in a featureless room, and the whole thing will last no longer than fifteen minutes, so my look should be plain, nothing special at all, nothing to shout out ‘just married’.
When I get there, Ashford is walking up and down the stairs of the Register Office with a bored expression, while Derek is inside on the phone.
“You took your time, didn’t you,” Ashford welcomes me with his usual friendliness.
“I had to wait for my parents to leave the house, to avoid explanations.”
“It’s not my problem, I don’t care why, I just wanted to point it out.”
His words make me furious and I decide to answer in kind. “Anyway, it makes no difference if I’m on time or late, because, you know, I changed my mind. Perhaps I’ll have to work like a dog in the worst theatres of London and make do with sharing pizza with Latin-American dancers in my basement, but I’ve always been poor, I’m so used to it, that it doesn’t scare me at all. I thought about it last night and realised that I want a love match. You’ll have to find somebody else to give you the money. As for me, I’ll pretend that my grandmother’s inheritance never existed.”
Ashford’s expression goes from arrogance to sheer terror.
He stutters in the attempt to reply but he’s struggling. God, thank you for this priceless scene. For the first time, this pompous, snobby aristocrat is left speechless.
“See, Ashford? I’ve just shown you that you can’t always have the last word. Since I will never see you again, I wanted to have the satisfaction. And, by the way, I’m still gonna marry you, so let’s go do it and cheerio forever.”
Ashford grabs my arm and drags me towards the entrance. “You know what you are? You’re the start of a nervous breakdown!”
“Be gentle, dear, we’re about to get married!” I mock him. “My sweet love!”
“Don’t say that ever again, it gives me the creeps.”
We hand in the copies of our IDs and all the necessary documents and, as we deal with the marriage paperwork, the clerk looks at us with her eyes wide open. We must look quite weird as newly-weds: frowning long faces, aloof attitude, and we snatch the pen out of each other’s hands like primary school children.
“Are you getting married?” The clerk asks.
“What do you think?” Ashford replies morosely.
“I just wanted to make sure…”
Ashford gives her the signed documents with a sharp movement.
“You’re sure now.”
“Jemma Pears and Ashford Parker, Duke of Burlingham! Blimey, no less! Miss, you found your Prince Charming!”
“Yeah. As charming as a cod,” I reply.
The clerk stops asking questions, visibly confused, and she gives us a number. “Take your place in the queue. The registrar will call you when it’s your turn.”
The queue is pretty long and we take our place in silence.
“Queuing up as though I were at immigration. How the mighty have fallen,” mumbles Ashford beside me.
“That’s for sure, in your case. As for me, I’ve always been at the bottom of the social ladder, so there’s no difference, apart from your irritating presence.”
Ashford turns the other way with a snort of annoyance.
We’ve been standing here for over an hour as there are no available seats, a torture for me because of my high heels. What’s more, Ashford hasn’t said a word the whole time. Derek sneaked into an office, and I have nobody to chat with to kill time. I leave Ashford’s side and begin to play with the toy cars of a four year old whose mother is in front of us in the queue. She’s more than happy to leave her child with me for a while, so I take my shoes off and start playing with him. I’m the garage owner and he parks the cars. The problem arises when Kelib decides that one of Ashford’s shiny shoes is a hump that all his cars must overcome.
The first transit makes Ashford leap.
“What’s the matter with you! It’s a toy car, not a chainsaw!”
“Leave me out of your infantile regression.”
“You should ask yourself some questions if I prefer the company of a four year old to yours after an hour together,” I remark.
He shrugs, holding back a laugh. “I won’t, actually. I perfectly comprehend why you’re at ease with a four year old.”
Kelib’s mum picks the child up and they disappear in a room; just then, a robotic voice announces it’s our turn.
While I’m standing up, Ashford has already gone into the room, so I follow him still barefoot, and arrive in front of the officer who will record the wedding. I had not noticed how tall Ashford is. I’m still barefoot, but he’s really tall. I feel inexplicably intimidated for a second as I cannot see over his shoulder.
Derek hands in a folder which contains all our documents.
“Where’s the other witness?” Asks the registrar, without raising his eyes from the folder.
Derek rolls his eyes and gives an exasperated snort.
“One is not enough, there must be two witnesses,” the man insists.
Derek tries to buy some time. “I know, my assistant is late, but she should be here any minute…”
“I can’t wait all day!” He says, noticeably irritated.
“There’s Claire, the clerk. It happens quite often that the couples fail to read the requirements in our guidelines. In those cases, sometimes the clerks are involved.”
Derek runs to the offices and comes back with Claire, the clerk we first saw.
The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes: the registrar reads out our rights, he asks Ashford if he’s free to lawfully to marry me (Ashford isn’t exactly enthusiastic as he replies ‘I am’) and then he asks the same of me (for a second, I consider shocking my husband-to-be by saying ‘I’m not’), we sign the register, we are declared husband and wife and we are sent outside.
It’s over. I’m married.
And I’m rich!