love and marriage

And so it was that after all this time of surreptitious courting by Albert that it was Sarah who made the bold move of stating her attraction and intentions towards him. She pushed him into an apple tree and fairly threw herself at him. What else was there for Albert to do but to go along for the ride?

The Moriarty’s insisted that in order for the marriage to take place, Albert would first have to convert to Catholicism, which he duly did without any real conviction other than it seemed to be the thing that had to be done in order for his happiness to be complete. They were married 2 months later in the little church in Sarah’s settlement in a ceremony attended by most from the surrounding communities. The church overflowed with loved one’s and onlookers curious about this union between the small and tempestuous Irish girl and the stocky and graceless Pom.

After the ceremony and the crying and fussing of the mother’s-in-law everyone migrated across to the Moriarty’s place for a dinner consisting of disparate dishes brought by well-meaning wives. They ate and drank and after nightfall the barely walking groom and his moonshine-fired bride clambered into their buggy and trailed spent paint tins, lit firecrackers and bride-and-groom scarecrows hitched by the neck with rope over the ridge and into the night.

                                                           ***** 

No one was really sure how it happened, but Albert and Sarah managed to live an extremely contented and harmonious life together. Some people hypothesise that this came about through Sarah beating down on Albert, with him just taking and going along with all of her decisions out of fear of incurring her wrath if he were to do otherwise, but I think there was more to it than this simplistic theory. From my observations- and believe me I had all the time in the world to observe the goings-on in the valley and beyond either through my own perception or through reliable sources spread throughout the area- they were truly in love. Yes she was often impetuous and prone to outbreaks of anger, but she would always return after cooling off and apologise and broker a compromise that suited the both of them. And he allowed her these flurries of emotion because he knew that at the end of the day she would have calmed down and be able to approach the problem rationally and with common sense.