The Rain Before it Falls by Jonathan Coe Page A

that.
    They had met a few months earlier, at a dance given in Wellington Town Hall by the Young Conservatives. Whether Beatrix herself was ever a Conservative, in any meaningful sense, is a question that I cannot really answer. She had no politics, so far as I know. Certainly, in all the thirty or more years that I knew her, I cannot recall her ever expressing a political opinion. However, she was a paid-up member of the Young Conservatives, and on the night of this dance made a considerable impression by all accounts. She was chosen as ‘Miss Conservative’ or some such title, and if there survived a photograph recording that occasion you can rest assured that I would have described it to you. She must have caught the attention of many young men that night, and I dare say the most handsome of them was Roger. A certain amount of beer and wine was consumed (she would not have been used to this, at such a young age), she was offered a lift home and… well, the rest you can probably imagine. Remember that Beatrix had left school a few months earlier and that she was desperate – and I do mean desperate – to find some way of escaping her parents’ household. Whether the actual conception (your mother’s conception, that is) took place that night, I cannot say with any certainty. All I know is that, three months later, she and Roger were engaged to be married. Much to the horror, I suspect, of both families. But back in those days, nobody would have had much choice in the matter.
    Beatrix told me only one thing about their courtship (if that’s the right word). I shall pass it on to you, if only because it suggests that, during their brief time together, it was not the case that they were at all staid or conventional, or that they never managed to have any fun. She told me that in those days Roger used to ride a motorbike – don’t expect me to tell you which model, I am the wrong person to ask about that sort of thing – and they would often take rides together through the Shropshire countryside. Now, on more than one occasion, apparently, he drove her all the way up to the top of the Wrekin – which, as you must surely know, is the most visible landmark in that district: it stands at the very heart of Shropshire, and can be seen rising, bell-like, from almost every point in the county. When you climb to the summit, at a height of about one thousand feet, you find a strange rock formation with a giant cleft between two of the rocks. This cleft is known as the Needle’s Eye, and it is only a few feet wide: if you are feeling really daring, you can attempt to squeeze yourself through it, which I believe can be a hazardous experience because there is quite a drop on either side. The story I remember being told, anyway, is that one evening, at sunset, Roger took Beatrix up to the Wrekin on the back of his motorbike and they actually managed to ride as far as the Needle’s Eye itself. I have always found it such a romantic image! The path is very steep, very rocky, and I honestly wonder whether such a thing has ever been done again, before or since. It strikes me that any man who could take his girlfriend – or fiancée, I suppose, as she must have been then – on an excursion like that could not have been an entirely bad catch.
    However. The marriage did not work out well. I suppose you have guessed that by now. I can see it all, the whole sequence of events, implied in this photograph, but perhaps I am being over-imaginative; and relying too much on the benefit of hindsight. Beatrix at any rate looks happy enough. She is wearing, of course, the traditional bride’s outfit, all in white, despite the fact that this could not, strictly speaking, have been considered a white wedding. Her face has aged considerably since the photograph of her at the skating pond. It is noticeable how tightly she is clinging to Roger, how close together they are standing, while there must be a whole foot of distance between Beatrix and