Wedding Video

Every piece of rubbish that ends up in a recycling centre has a story which is never told. Sometimes, it needs a happier ending . . .

Every year, the average family throws out nearly 200 food cans, 250 drinks cans, 300 bottles and jars, over a hundred kilogrammes of plastics, and five trees-worth of paper. That’s according to the poster on the wall opposite where Terry is standing. It doesn’t mention videos, but they get a fair few of those in here too. We’re in a Waste Recycling Centre, and Terry is a sorter and grader. Which means he spends most of his working hours beside a stream of rubbish passing by on a conveyor belt, salvaging metal cans and plastic bottles.

Videos, yes: they pluck them off the conveyor belt when they can. You’d be surprised how many cassettes survive intact the crushing maw of the refuse trucks that disgorge in the adjoining hall. In fact, Terry’s just found another. The plastic casing has been punctured and stained a murky brown. But the cassette inside seems to be OK, and the title is plainly visible: The Wedding of Mr Roger Fraser Drew and Miss Andrea Jane Stowell by “Grace Wedding Services.” Through force of habit, Terry chucks it into the corner with the two high-powered wank mags he rescued earlier.

A bloke at the Household Waste Collection Site spent five minutes fixing a video machine someone had left there. He wired it up to the TV in the recreation room. The lads use it to check out their pickings. Most of the cassettes carry bootleg Hollywood, all flicker, hiss and fury, and destined once again to fly to the nearest bin.

At lunchtime, Terry puts the Wedding Video into the slot. He wants to see the bride. He presses the rewind button, lets the machine whirr for a moment, then presses the play button. Pictures appear on the screen: of people dancing in the dark, some grinning as the camera passes them by, others transfixed by their partners, a few lost in the music or the flashing lights or their own private fantasies. The DJ is giving us Abba - Dancing Queen. Terry’s heard that at every wedding reception he’s been to. He’s not married himself. He’s been with a few of the local tarts, and a woman who drunk too much and kept telling him he was cute. (He’s short certainly, but no oil painting, to use his own phrase.) He thought he was going to marry someone once: the friend of a friend’s girlfriend. The four of them hung out a lot: they were ‘rock solid.’ He kept meaning to ask her. But her mother died suddenly, and she had to leave the area to look after her Dad. They’ve lost touch now.

“What’s come in today then?” asks Pete.

“Someone's chucked their wedding video! Say no more, eh?” Terry grins. He checks the stats listed on the case: “It was only two years ago.” He stops the video, takes it from the machine and puts it back in its case. He leaves it beside the TV, in case someone else is interested.

But come five o’clock, Terry is passing through the recreation room on his way out to go home, and notices the video exactly where he left it. He slips it into his pocket.

In the seclusion of his flat, Terry rewinds the video to the start, and then for thirty minutes he sits watching it. First on the screen after the title frame is a cluster of black-suited men, hands in pockets, standing outside a church. Terry isn’t sure which is the groom . . . Inside now, and the ranks of hats and slick combed-back hair turn as the bride enters (slow theme ‘Nimrod’ from Elgar’s Enigma Variations). Her face is invisible under her veil. The camera is stood a discrete distance from the couple as they repeat their vows: the bride’s voice chokes briefly, the groom puts his hand on her side. The minister speaks the rite but he is inaudible: the echo in his church must have confused the recording equipment.

They’re in the churchyard now. Terry sees the bride’s face at last: she’s almost beautiful, he thinks. Confetti and flashlight bombard the couple as they stand enfolded by pink and purple rhododendron blossom. Bouquets are arranged around them: the bride grins and whispers something to her man. He does not answer or turn to her, but his mouth flickers some acknowledgement. “Look! He’s cleaned his teeth!” someone shouts. Cackles of laughter. The groom struggles to keep a straight face. There is a drawn-out shuffling of bodies to foil bride and groom: one family, then another; two sets of parents; bride with bridesmaids; bride with best friends; best man and bride’s father. Lit by an invisible sun, these images glow richly in the thinning daylight of Terry’s living room.

We’re at the reception: the families receive their guests. The parents seem to be enjoying themselves – except the bride’s mother: she smiles a lot but round her eyes she looks scared. Pictures of the lunch: the bride’s face red with wine and laughter; a toddler struggling with a large piece of cake and finally simply pushing it into her mouth.

There are the speeches of course: first the bride's father, a surprisingly elderly man. Even Terry is embarrassed for him, he is so nervous and stilted - except the bit at the end where he tells everyone how much he and his wife love their daughter and know how much she loves Roger and they couldn't be happier for her. Someone goes "Ahhh!" and there is a little spontaneous applause. Next there is the best man, a dorkish fair-haired four-eyed stick insect. Terry is expecting an attempt at racy humour, and sure enough there follows something about a camping trip in Wales, about the groom being chased across a field by a couple of raging lambs. You can hear a few titters; the groom’s cheeks are a bright crimson. And then it’s his turn: “Well, here I am!” he shouts to the room. “You never thought I’d manage it, did you?”

Soon, we’re back to the evening do. The coloured disco lights bathe the couple in a soft, pale glamour as they lead the first dance ((I’ve Had) The Time of My Life by Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley). There’s something going on here, Terry thinks. It’s in the bride’s face, the way she looks at her man. He’s a bit wooden at first. But then his Adams Apple vanishes for an instant. He closes his eyes and smiles, like he’s in the middle of a gorgeous dream. The bride brings her forehead to his chin.

Terry fast-forwards through the rest of the tape: dancers zip across the screen, the couple do a cartoon trot down the avenue of their guests, and then everything is black, blank. He continues to watch until the video clicks to a halt.

It just so happens Terry has a couple of spare video cassette cases, clean and in good condition. He pulls the title cards from behind the soiled see-through pockets of the old case. He works them dextrously into a new case and snaps it shut on the wedding video. He decides not to keep it on the shelf with his own (rather earthy) collection, but places it neatly in a drawer.

Because people do call at the Waste Recycling Centre, desperate and dejected yet still hoping. Searching for things they never really meant to throw away.

And we all need to work miracles at least once in our lives.