My name is Mary Turner, and today is the happiest day of my life. Today is my wedding day, when I will marry the man I love more than anything: John Turner. That’s right, I said “yes” to a chimney sweep. When I met him he was holding a broom, and his face was black with soot. I believe in all honest trades, though I did not know much about John’s, but I shall return later to our chance meeting. I myself am an opera singer; I have performed in Italy, in London and even in Chicago. I sing like a nightingale, and I have five vocal chords. My career is only beginning. I have sung since a young age, when I was a choir girl in our village church. Singing is not an innate skill; it is an ability one must practice diligently to obtain. I would come home from church and sing alone in my room to train my voice. I was a dreamer even then, and I thought about who I would marry. One fine day, a man spotted me among the choir girls. It was a great stroke of fortune. I joined the London Opera as an understudy, and the vocalist I was accompanying fell gravely ill due to a lung infection. Sometimes, when I see John, I am haunted by the idea that he might catch the same illness from working in the chimneys. On the night I stepped up to replace my mentor, the London elite were wowed and lulled by my talented voice. I received a standing ovation, and was moved to tears. The audience called me “The Callas of London”. That is how it all started for me.
I would hold receptions in my London apartment, and sophisticated guests would come to sip glasses of whisky around my fireplace. The winter nights were cold, and one never knew from whence a chance encounter might occur. My chimney needed sweeping, and so I brought in John Turner, the local chimney sweep. He showed up at my flat with an armful of brushes. He knocked at my door, saying: “Chimney sweep! Finest sweep in Notting Hill!” When I saw his face for the first time, that angelic, faintly lined face, I was ensnared. I like working men, and John is certainly one. He lives by the sweat of his brow, as the Bible says. Something changed in me the day I saw him. I wasn’t about to just fall in love with a chimney sweep. The idea was quite mad. But he was so handsome, and big and broad-shouldered. His arms were thick, and his stomach flat.
When the big day came, John invited all his chimney sweep friends to come and attend the wedding. They were all dressed in the same way, like English boarding school students in white shirts with green-striped ties. At the end of the ceremony, the sweeps all pulled off their ties and threw them over me on the church steps. John had organised an unusual performance, asking all the sweeps to dance with their brooms. They turned me in a circle and lifted me up. “Hip hip, hooray! Three cheers for the bride and groom!” they cried.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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