Mary's Marriage

Dated: Oct 1st 2001

“Home sweet home. It is so nice to be back home after 3 long weeks.”
“Welcome, indeed, dear.”
“Harry, I need to speak to you urgently.”
“Me, too.”
“Eh? Well, after me, then, all right?”
“Very well.”
“You know what?”
“I had my schooling at the Oxford University. They taught me that if you are told ‘You know what?’ then you are supposed to say ‘No, what?’ even if you do know what is being talked about.”
“Oh, shut up! Mary has attained the age of marriage.”
“Mary Stuart?”
“Mary Patterson. Your daughter, dammit!”
“Oh.”
“By the way, who’s Mary Stuart?”
“A character in Alistair MacLean`s novel ‘Bear Island’.”
“Harry, she was our classmate, wasn’t she?”
“Was she?”
“Stop acting. I always wondered how you married me while all the time you were staring at her.”
“What rubbish. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“So, you are still in touch with her, are you?”
“Would you believe me if I say ‘No’?”
“No.”
“Well, there you are then. Tinkerty-tonk. Marriage is a bachelor’s blunder to taste the thunder. No use justifying one’s innocence to a lady.”
“If that is so why did her name crop up?”
“The name just happened to chance by my lips.”
“Are you lying?”
“Would you believe me if I say ‘No’?”
“Mary Patterson didn’t happen to chance by your lips.”
“Forget it, now. Everybody has a past, you know.”
“So you admit that she was your girl friend?”
“Would you believe me if I say ‘No’ & that I was just saying a general feeling experienced in the present day generation.”
“No.”
“Well, there you are then. Tinkerty-tonk again. Tally-ho, too, not to mention tantivy!”
“A crime once denied is twice committed.”
“There are two times a man understands a woman – before marriage & after marriage.”
“What was that again?”
“I was just wishing Adam had died with all his ribs intact.”
“Adam died?”
“I was talking about the first man. Adam & Eve”
“Oh.”
“By the way, who were you talking about?”
“A character in Robin Cook’s novel ‘Mindbend’.”
“Sally, he was our classmate, wasn’t he?”
“Was he?”
“Stop acting. I always wondered how you married me while all the time you were staring at him.”
“What rubbish. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Jeez, you are a liar!”
“And you are a cheat!”
“Fine! Now that we have identified ourselves, we might as well get on with it.”
“We might as well get on with what?”
“For Sake’s pete, you---.”
“You mean, ‘For Pete’s sake’.
“A tongue of the slip.”
“ ‘A slip of the tongue’, Harry.”
“Whatever. What I intend to say is that you started the conversation.”
“I did?”
“Trust a woman on the witness box & you might as well start walking to the gallows.”
“I guess it was about Mary.”
“Mary westmacott?”
“Now who?”
“Pen-name of Agatha Christie.”
“I shall refrain from the trodden conversation.”
“My life on Earth has increased by one day.”
“I saw her kissing her boy friend.”
“Bless the Lord!”
“Eh?”
“She’s not a lesbian.”
“Please, Harry, be serious.”
“I guess she was just whispering in his mouth.”
“Next thing I know, hugging means rubbing each other’s backs.”
“They were doing that too?”
“They will, if we don’t act fast.”
“But what’s wrong in rubbing each other’s backs? It relieves Mary of her constant back-aches.”
“How could I ever have married you?”
“Sometimes I wonder the same thing myself.”
“You are one of the stupidest persons I have ever seen.”
“I rather not bother repeating the same sentences.”
“Can you not ever take life seriously? She’s your daughter after all, dammit.”
“True, she’s my daughter. But why are you worried?”
“She’s my daughter, too, Harry.”
“Ah, but that’s what you think.”
“WHAT?!! What do you mean?”
“The baby you delivered died immediately upon arrival. Bypassed Hell to go to Heaven. Since you badly needed a girl & somebody in the same hospital didn’t, we replaced the babies.”
“AAAHHH!!! Not my baby? This is not true. This cannot be true.”
“Would you believe me if I say that indeed it is not true.”
“Of course not. Atlast you have confessed. I always wondered how she didn’t resemble me at all.”
“Now that you feel I have confessed, I might as well tell you everything.”
“What do you mean ‘everything’?”
“Shouldn’t you be asking why I didn’t tell you all this earlier?”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this earlier?”
“A case of selective amnesia, I guess.”
“Oh, I feel sick. I feel like killing myself. I feel like killing you first, though.”
“Better today than Monday.”
“What?”
“Nothing. About killing me. I said better be quick about it. There are deserving girls waiting for me in the next world.”
“Wait a minute! You fathered Mary, didn’t you?”
“I thought you will never get to it.”
“Oh my God!”
“Remember you yourselves said: ‘She’s your daughter, after all’ & I replied: ‘True’.”
“Who’s her mother?”
“Why do you think she’s called Mary?”
“Mary Stuart? Oh, Harry, what have you done?”
“Do you want me to spell it out?”
“But, this complicates the matters.”
“What matters?”
“Mary is in love with Rod.”
“Mary is in love with a stick?”
“Upper case ‘R’. But he’s a stick all right. Rod is Mary Stuart’s son.”
“Sister marries brother, then?”
“Step-brother, please. Or is he your son, too?”
“Adam’s”
“Adam’s!”
“Adam’s.”
“But Mary’s married to Swanson.”
“True.”
“My god! So much for the faith & trust in this world. But Swanson thinks Rod is his son?”
“Past tense.”
“Past tense?”
“Thought.”
“Now he knows then?”
“Yup.”
“Then he’s not living with Mary?”
“No.”
“Where is he living, then?”
“The next world.”
“WHAT!!”
“You are getting deaf.”
“But what do you mean, the next world?”
“Dead.”
“Dead!”
“Murdered.”
“Murdered?!! But who..?”
“Adam.”
“Adam?!!”
“Adam.”
“Jailed?”
“Mary Stuart.”
“MARY STUART?!! How?”
“Adam murdered Swanson & framed it on Mary.”
“But why did he murder Swanson?”
“To have Mary.”
“Mary Patterson?”
“Mary Stuart.”
“Lord! What is happening to the world? I will go bonkers now.”
“Adam had proved time & again he had less grey cells.”
“Less? Non-existent, I would say.”
“He is, now.”
“His grey cells are non-existent now?”
“He is non-existent now.”
“WHAT!!”
“You are getting deaf.”
“I am not getting deaf. When I said ‘What!’. I didn’t mean ‘What?’, I meant ‘What!’.”
“What on Earth are you talking about?”
“Forget it. But what do you mean, non-existent?”
“Dead.”
“Dead!”
“Murdered.”
“Murdered?!! But who..?”
“Rod.”
“Rod?!!”
“Rod.”
“Jesus H. Christ!”
“No.”
“Eh?”
“I said not Jesus H. Christ. It’s Rod who murdered Adam.”
“But why?”
“Because his father sent his mother to jail after killing his step-father.”
“But Rod himself will be jailed then?”
“Apparently not.”
“How do you mean?”
“He’s framed me.”
“YOU?!!”
“Should you repeat everything I say?”
“Should I repeat----.oh, I guess my tongue’s got used to it! But Why you?”
“Because I had a relationship with his mother.”
“He knows?”
“Mary told him.”
“Mary Stuart?”
“Mary Patterson.”
“She knows?!!”
“I told her.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!!”
“I told Mary Patterson what Mary Stuart had told me not to tell Mary Patterson & Mary Patterson told Rod what I had told her not to tell.”
“You couldn’t have put it better.”
“Anyway, the Police will be here any minute.”
“The Police will be---. But you are so calm.”
“I have nothing to fear. As I said, the girls in the next world are desperate for me.”
“In the jail?”
“I will be dead on Monday morning 10:00am.”
“Surely you will not commit suicide?”
“Of course not.”
“Then how do you know---?”
“The judge told me.”
“The judge told you?!!”
“Here we go again.”
“But you didn’t do anything.”
“Ah, but that’s what you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say.”
“But what’ll happen to me?”
“Mary will look after you.”
“Not now. Now that she knows I am not her mother.”
“Mary is a nice girl.”
“And she’s going to be married to Rod.”
“Past tense.”
“Past tense?”
“She was going to.”
“She changed her mind?”
“Forced to.”
“Forced to, by whom?”
“Mother Nature.”
“Nature? Whatever happened to Rod?”
“Dead.”
“Dead!”
“Murdered.”
“Murdered?!! But who..?”
“Me.”
“YOU?!!”
“Me.”
“HHHHHAAAAAAA!!!”
“Isn’t that supposed to be ‘AAAAAHHHHH!!!’?”
“I thought a little change will do the climate a lot good. Why ever in the hell did you murder Rod?”
“Because he killed his father & framed me.”
“Why do I get all the problems of this world? Come back, oh, Jesus, come back & save the world.”
“It’d be better if we move out there ourselves.”
“Eh?”
“I said it’d be better---“
“I know what you said. By ‘Eh?’, I meant I didn’t understand what you said.”
“I meant, instead of Jesus & Company coming back, it might be better if we---.”
“That’s not the point, Harry. You fool! What have you done! Poor Mary. She might commit suicide.”
“If she does, you will be the odd one out. You might as well join us in our journey to the next world. But you would rather not be my wife.”
“You are insane. You are all insane. Where is Mary?”
“She’s gone to her friend’s house to get a gun.”
“A gun?!! To shoot herself?!!”
“I vaguely remember her threatening me that she’d kill me first & then shoot herself”.
“Everybody has gone crazy! You talk of killing people as if you are having tea.”
“How did you know?”
“Don’t tell me you were having tea while you were killing Rod?”
“Wow, you were there?”
“I don’t believe this. This can’t be true. How can all this happen in just 3 weeks? You must be lying.”
“I am.”
“WHAT?!!”
“I am lying since I told you Mary’s not your daughter. Mary is your daughter. Rod is Swanson & Mary Stuart’s son. Adam is Mary’s brother. None of them is dead nor jailed.”
“But why did you lie to me?”
“You did not think Mary resembled you. You always suspected me. You never believed me. So I thought I might as well play with you.”
“Oh, Harry, you fooled me properly.”
“Lacking in grey cells, too, is my wife. Talking of grey cells, Adam was always the topper in our class.”
“Hey, you wanted to tell me something too?”
“I wanted to tell you that Mary Patterson, our daughter, loves Rod, Swanson & Mary Stuart’s son, & that I have arranged their marriage to be held on Monday.”
“The day you die?”
“Father of the bride is the most sufferer in the wedding.”
“Oh, Harry, I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mary ...ouch! I love you, too, Sally.”