A Love Story

Leaning back on the bench, unsteady from the pegs of whisky he had downed, Walter watched Mary, standing with her back to him. The hair was unusually done up into a bun at the back of her head, and was adorned with golden beads arranged in a circular pattern. The yellow window-glass imparted a distinct hue to the beam of sunlight which trickled in through it and illuminated her ear-stud and her flushed left cheek.

And for Walter, who watched her, the sight turned the clock back, to four years back, when she had joined their office.

They had joined together, four ladies, and among them one would never notice Mary, unless he looked a second time. Lips set in a tight line, gaze fixed at her toes, hip-long hair braided plainly and unfashionably, there was some unsettling about her. He had liked her understated beauty initially, Walter recollected, but he couldn't remember precisely when he had started falling for her - but a similar sight, on an early June morning was still fresh in his memory. On his twenty-fifth birthday.

Mary and himself had been the first to reach office that morning. Her hair was wet, and was uncharacteristically let down, cascading to her hip and the sunlight had fallen on her cheek, spreading golden dust on it and lending it a cherubic charm, as it did today. She had come up to him, a rare smile playing on her lips, and wished him a happy birthday. He never had a way with women, did Walter, and the moment - her abrupt beauty and the unexpected birthday wish - had completely swept him off his feet. It was since then, that he, neither at ease with girls in general nor particularly handsome, started trying to catch her attention, albeit unsuccessfully. Mary went back to her normal self and seemed genuinely unaware of the affection that her colleague secretly harbored within.

For the smitten Walter, expressing his feelings for Mary was a struggle. He would rehearse conversations at home and reach office prepared, and either would end up deciding against it or would burn with envy at the sight of someone else talking to her. Almost a year passed before he decided that enough was enough, and come what may, he would go ahead with a proposal. Three tense days and two tossing-around-in-bed nights and a hell lot of deliberation, Walter remembered, was what it had taken him to summon the gumption to let her know.

He smiled to himself and craned his neck, looking over the tall man who sat in front of him. He could see Mary better now. She had turned sideways, her profile visible to him.

"Are you already engaged?", was what he had asked her then.
"Yes", came the reply.
"You know why I am asking this, I hope?", he had asked her, hoping that she knew all the while.
"No, never", she had replied, her eyes widening. "I never saw you that way, Walter. You have been a good friend. Always."

Since then, they grew closer. Walter found himself talking more freely, once he had let out his feelings for her. Mary too, when she talked to Walter, dropped the unapproachable air that seemed to surround her like a shroud. They found themselves talking to each other much more, and in one of their conversations Mary had told him something.

She wasn't engaged, she had admitted, and was smarting from a broken love affair. She had been in love with a guy, for three years, and had planned to marry him, but being unable to convince his parents, the guy had backed out of marriage. She had vowed never again to venture into an affair, she had told Walter and that she could never recover from the blow that the experience had given her.

Even then, he couldn't love her any less.

Instead, with each passing day, his obsession kept growing but he could never bring himself round to broach the topic again in their conversations. Status quo remained, till one day, he, excessively drunk and spirits buoyed by his drinking-mate’s tale of how he had won his girl over with his persistent proposals, had telephoned Mary late into the night. After a breathless drunken speech, he expected reproach from her, but the answer that she gave stunned him.
"I am okay with it", she had said, "but I need to talk it over at home". She wanted a week to talk it over, she said.

As the week passed on; Walter had waited, his own optimism both exciting and scaring him. He tempered his optimism with his own fears about how her conservative family would react to his proposal, and waited.

The bad news came soon from Mary. Her family wouldn't even consider taking up his proposal and spurred by it, had started arrangements to find a suitor for her at the earliest. He had tried to convince her, persuading, coaxing and cajoling but she wouldn't act against her family's will. He had given up, but still felt queerly contented. At least, she was ready he consoled himself; it was just her family who stood at loggerheads. If not for them, she would have been his girl.

He had been downcast for a few days, but had started to recover and life was getting back on track, when he had decided to pay a visit to Mary's apartment. They had tea together, and he loitered round the apartment, when a leather-bound book, with a pen kept inside to mark the pages caught his eye. It was her diary and he flipped through the pages. And a small note, scribbled on one of the pages, had left him shell-shocked.

“I like Walter.” Mary had written. “But I would never bring myself to marry him. I can't love anyone else in my life again. But I just can’t disappoint him anymore. After a week, I will tell him that mom and dad couldn’t agree to his proposal. So yesterday, I lied to Walter. I told him that I was ready to marry him, if Mom and Dad allowed me to. But I didn't. I know, anyhow, that they wouldn’t agree. Sorry Walter.”

She had written it on the day after he had made his drunken proposal. He had felt sick, and his mouth went dry. He hurried out quickly, bidding a quick good-bye to Mary, making it quick so that his face would not betray him. He never let her know that he had seen the diary, never when they talked afterwards.

He had felt cheated. All the way, she never intended to marry him. And even if it was for those few days, he had made castles in the air, day-dreamed; all for nothing. He had felt an intense loathing for himself. Slowly, he shook off the disappointment, and later, when she had invited him for her marriage, he had wished her good luck in the cheeriest way he could. She had to give in to her parents’ pressure, she had said.

Remembering all this, Walter smiled. Still, he realized, he couldn’t love her less.

Mary stood ahead on the dais, now facing him. He fought off the whiskey-inspired urge to walk up to her and proclaim his love once again; and instead clutched the armrests of the chair and remained seated.

The hitherto seated crowd now got up on their feet. The priest finished his prayers and the bespectacled, suit clad guy, who stood beside Mary slipped the wedding ring onto her finger. As the wedding bells tolled, he watched the old lady next to him; her eyes closed and lips quivering as she said her prayers.

Then, Walter got on his feet, crossed himself, closed his eyes and muttered. “God Bless”.