It’s funny how important a good ending is.  No matter how much you’ve enjoyed a book, a film, or a TV series, a lousy ending can retroactively taint the whole experience (no, I didn’t watch the How I Met Your Mother finale, but I heard the wails of anguish from miles away).  But on the other hand, if the ending’s good enough, it can raise a story from average to great, or at least from bad to passable.

Let’s say that Chapter Nineteen of Memory Lives On begins the morning after Gary’s proposal.  Anja wakes up to hear some strange noises downstairs.  She checks her alarm clock, sees that it’s only 4am, and goes down to check that everything’s alright.  When she gets to the living room, however, she sees a terrible sight.  Gary is lying on the floor, having been beaten practically into unconsciousness.  And on the other side of the room, Joe is grappling with an unidentified opponent.

Anja can’t see Joe’s opponent properly in the dark, but her first thought is that it must be Cherry- she must have caught Joe trying to kill Gary, and now Joe is trying to silence her as well.  She picks up a heavy blunt object (possibly a lamp?), and waits for the right moment to whack Joe over the head.  But, as she’s inching towards them, something sets off an epiphany.  Maybe Gary whispers something.  Maybe she sees the look on Joe’s face.  Maybe something triggers a memory of the time when she and Joe were friends.  Either way, she finally realises that Joe can be trusted, and decides to take a leap of faith.  The second she gets a clear shot, Anja whacks Joe’s opponent over the head, knocking them out.

And it’s just as well that she did, because as Joe’s opponent falls to the ground, she sees that it’s a blond man a few years older than her.  Gary identifies him as his stepbrother Jordan, recently released on bail while the court desperately tries to put together the remaining evidence for his trial.

Anja calls the police, and, while they’re waiting for their arrival, Gary and Joe fill her in on what happened.  Gary went downstairs to get a drink, and was pounced on by Jordan, who would probably have killed him if Joe hadn’t been woken by the noise and run to his defence.  The three of them speculate that Jordan had been in touch with James, who offered him money to kill Gary (and thus presumably take the rap for all his crimes).  Finally, as the police car appears in the driveway, Anja suggests that the investigation might go a lot more smoothly if they tell the police everything they know- including who they are and why they’re still alive.

That ending wouldn’t tie up all the loose ends- there would probably have to be a direct confrontation with James a few scenes later- but it would resolve a lot of plot threads.  It would conclusively end Anja’s grudge against Joe, it would involve the main characters actually making an effort to fight against their enemies, and it would mean that Gary’s backstory wasn’t a huge red herring.  In general, it would pull this whole mess of a book together into an actual plot.

Anyway, that’s not the ending you’re getting.  I just thought I’d taunt you with it.

It was a registry office, not a grand church filled with relatives. 

Because all your relatives think you’re dead.  No, I’m not going to stop harping on about that.  You are the worst person who ever lived.

And Emily, in her specially tailored pink and white wedding gown, looked for more beautiful than I did, in a dress that I’d picked from a local shop on the basis of it being the only white dress that I could find.  But, as anyone who was present and who saw the grin on my face can safely confirm, I didn’t care.

You didn’t care about your relatives, either.

I was marrying Gary Wolf.  The one person who loved, liked and fancied me exactly the same amount as I did him.  “‘Til death us do part” wasn’t a vow that everyone took to heart, considering the divorce rate around these parts, but I knew it would count for Gary and me. 

SPOILERS- “Especially since. in our case, ’til death us do part’ only meant ten years!  I could easily put up with him for that long!”

No matter whether we grew apart or not, we would always remember the unity that helped us through that troubling month in between our alleged death and Cherry’s inheritance. 

“Troubling,” she says.  In case you’ve forgotten, she showed how troubled she was by making jokes about being reincarnated as a porcupine.

We would always stay together, knowing that, in both a practical and emotional sense, united we stand, but divided we fall.

How cute.

I suppose that most people, whether their marriages end in divorce or death, have thoughts similar to mine just before their wedding.  Not many people walk down the aisle thinking, “Well, if this doesn’t work out, I can always marry someone else.”  At least, I hope not.  But, because happiness and egotism often happen together, I was convinced that nobody had ever been surer of keeping her marriage together than I was.  Don’t worry that I’m going to be happy for the rest of this story, though. 

Thanks for being so considerate.  Schadenfreude’s practically the only thing getting me through this thing, you know.

If you’re thinking (and, admit it, some of you were), “Oh great, Anja’s started on all this romantic garbage.  I only liked her when she was dealing with James Foster and so on.

“Started”?  “Dealing with”?  Which book do you think we’ve been reading, Anja?

I think I’ll throw this book away,” then take heart.  I’m not going to be happy for the rest of this story; that I can assure you of.  In fact, this is the happiest that I’m going to get, so make the most of it.

GOOD. 

Cherry, my alleged legal guardian, signed the permission slips and the vows began. 

“Permission slips.”  Because marriage is exactly like a school trip.

“Repeat after me- I, Emily Rose Jenkins…”

After giggling and forgetting their lines occasionally, Emily and Jack finally finished their vows.  Then it was my turn.

“Repeat after me- I, Honour Maureen Cleary…”

If anyone recognized the name, or worked out on their own that “Honour” and “Anja” sounded alike, it didn’t show.  Either Melissa had warned everyone in advance, or everyone had simply forgotten about what had happened the previous October.  Maybe, I thought as Gary put the ring on my finger, I’m a different person now.  In the past eight months, Honour had achieved a lot more than Anja had ever dreamed of. 

Like what?  Sitting on her arse while her cousin inherited a house and a nightclub?

Nobody needed to remember Anja Cleary, tragically killed before she reached the potential that she might never have reached.  In her place stood someone else, someone a great deal happier and more fulfilled.  Honour was more important.

“Insufferable,” Anja.  It’s spelled “insufferable.”

At some point, my eyes flicked over to the back of the registry office.  A man wearing a figure-concealing coat stood outside, furtively looking through the window.  Melissa looked at him, and smiled lovingly.

Joe Foster smiled back.

The tragedy is that, although that was the first time Melissa had seen her lost son in almost a year…

And we still don’t know why that is, by the way!  She could have been talking to him every day since she found out he was still alive.  She could have taken him home with her!  Nothing about this had to happen!

…she would never see him again.  For Joe left the registry office before the wedding was over, and within twenty-four hours, something happened that would destroy any hopes our story had of a happy ending. 

Your personality destroyed any hopes this story had of a happy ending.

Although we both know whose fault it really was, neither Cherry nor I can ever stop blaming ourselves for the disaster that happened after the wedding reception.

And so you should!

“Gareth and Honour, I now pronounce you husband and wife.  You may now kiss the bride.”

“Our dad is going to be so disappointed, Honour,” darling little Robbie chirped, before his mother dragged him into his place for the wedding photos.  So if, in that photo, I have a grim look on my face, that’s why.  An irritating fourteen-year-old had just given me some unsettling thoughts.  I didn’t want to think about James Foster on a day like this. 

You should have thought about that before you decided to have a double wedding with James’ oldest son, then, shouldn’t you?

This was supposed to be my day.  Well, possibly Gary’s, Jack’s and Emily’s as well, but that’s beside the point.

“Possibly.”  Possibly this day could be used for something other than unbridled Anja worship.  We’ll see.

Of course, I could have forgotten all about Mr. Foster if I’d wanted. 

No you couldn’t.  He’s at the wedding.  He’s giving a speech.  He probably paid for it.  Today, of all days, you’re not going to be able to forget about Mr Foster!

I could have thought that, now James had no chance of gaining the money, Estelle or me, and now that he’d even lost Melissa, he would just fade out of my life. 

Because that’s what people who are driven to murder to achieve their goals do.  They back down as soon as they encounter a minor setback.  Trufax.

After all, there was nothing he wanted from Cherry, Gary, Joe or me anymore.  We were safe.

But, if you remember, those had been my exact thoughts before Christmas, and he’d shown up to ruin everything then as well.

If by “ruin everything,” you mean, “invite you to a family dinner.”

From where I was standing, I could see him on the end of the group being photographed.  His grin was too white for the rest of his body.  James Foster should have had, by all rights, nicotine-stained teeth with a lot of fillings.  That would have fit with the rest of him.  Instead, his teeth were, if not exactly pearly white, around the colour of aged paper.  The other problem that I had with his teeth was that they looked (to me at least) more triangular than square.  Maybe I would have thought differently if he’d been a complete stranger, but from where I was standing, knowing what I did about him, James Foster seemed like a man with a shark’s teeth.

It wasn’t James who came up and hugged me after the photos were taken; you’ll be relieved to hear.  I didn’t even have time to remember who the cool-eyed, midnight-black-haired woman with the baby in tow was before she started squeezing.

“I can’t believe it, Anja!” said Estelle, “I knew you and Gary were right for each other!  I knew it from the time you were at my house.  You just needed a push in the right direction.”

“I want a word with you about that, Estelle Freeman,” I replied, “Giving us the same room in the Black Heart that time was a dirty trick.”

“Aw, come on!  You two would never have got into bed if I hadn’t intervened.  Think of me as your fairy godmother.”

“Hmm.”

So there you have it.  Estelle wanted these two spectacularly immature teenagers to have sex.  She’s happy that they’re getting married before they’re old enough to buy alcohol.  That makes her Gary and Anja’s fairy godmother, and certainly not a menace to society!

Gary noticed that Estelle had started talking to me, and walked across the registry office lawn to join in.  “Hello, Estelle.  Is this Jean?”

“Yep!” beamed Estelle, “You can hold her if you like.  But don’t drop her.”

“Isn’t Mark here?” asked Gary, picking up Jean.  She promptly threw up over his jacket.

“No, stupid, everyone here would think he was a zombie.  We still need to get Melissa to break it to them that he’s not.  This whole thing is way too complicated.”

AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT!?!

“So Melissa told you that she knew?” I asked.

“Huh?  Oh yeah.  She said when she phoned up to invite me.  She said, I wouldn’t bring Mark if I were you, Estelle.”  She laughed.  “I was so shocked when she said that I couldn’t speak!  Then she told me about you revealing all.  That was very risky, Anja.”  She wagged her finger in a mock-stern way.  “But I’m glad that things are being sorted out.  Some guys, mentioning no names, have started to think I’m going to be a merry widow, if you know what I mean,” she said, nudging Gary and me.

Sixteen-year-old me certainly didn’t.

“Wow,” replied Gary, handing Jean back to her mother, “What does Mark think about that?”

Estelle was about to answer when Jack made an announcement.  He spoke in the tone of voice used by someone who doesn’t have a microphone and really wishes that they did.  “Erm, hello?  Hello, everyone?  The photos are done, so I thought we could all head over to Wild Cherry for the reception.  OK, so everyone, soon as you’re done chatting, head for the car park.”

Estelle started walking towards her Peugeot.  “Mark’s sorry he couldn’t make it to the wedding, but he says he hopes you both have long and happy lives.”

I wasn’t convinced.  “That doesn’t sound like something Mark would say.”

“That’s probably because I made it up while the photos were being taken.  What he actually said was more along the lines of Bring me back some cake.  But I think my idea was more romantic.”

 ***

If Wild Cherry House looked stately under normal circumstances, it was a scene from a fantasy novel for the wedding reception.  Cherry, as the hostess and therefore the person to whom it fell to do all the decorating, had gone nuts.  She had draped red tinsel over the tables, banisters and walls in the hall…

Tinsel!  Exactly what you want at a wedding reception!

…and the floor, under the pink tablecloths, had been polished to within an inch of its life.  It now looked as though the room was paved with gold, rather than just very expensive varnished wood.

I’m sure that the bride (one of the brides) isn’t supposed to feel underdressed at a wedding reception, but I did.  All the other women were wearing clothes that looked as though they were designed especially for models from one of the more snobbish fashion agencies, only to be stolen by the people currently wearing them in time for the wedding.  I, meanwhile, was wearing an off-the-peg dress that I’d bought from a shop (and not a particularly stylish or expensive shop) a few weeks previously.  Maybe I was imagining it, but I’m sure I saw some pretty sneering expressions on the faces of some of the Fosters’ relatives.

Because Anja is DOWN-TO-EARTH, got it?

At least, though, all the men were dressed in penguin suits.  But I could think of a disadvantage to that.  For one thing, it meant that Gary was wearing the same clothing as the man currently giving a speech at the main table.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” James Foster smirked when everyone had shut up, “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Gary, Honour, Emily, and of course my son Jack.  I wish them every happiness in the future.  Marriage is an important step in anybody’s life, and, unfortunately, many people get it wrong.” 

“Like the time I alienated my wife by murdering one of our children.  Honestly, who would have thought she’d get upset about that?”

He didn’t look at Melissa at this point.  He didn’t need to.  She was fuming with rage anyway.  “But, young as they are, I feel that these four people have made, without doubt, the right choice. 

Stop enabling Anja’s boneheaded decisions, Mr Foster!  I know you’re a serial killer, but have some standards!

Look at Jack and Emily, never far from each other’s sides.  Emily is a family friend of old, and she and Jack have stayed together through the toughest times, comforting each other and giving each other the confidence to go on.  Losing our beloved Violet, as well as Joe and Aunt Jean last year, followed by the strain put on our, Jack’s parents’, marriage- None of these things have been easy on Jack, any more than they have been easy on his brothers and sister.  But he has survived, and why? 

“Because he didn’t get in my way!”

Because Jack has the love of a good woman.”

Or that.

At this point, James Foster turned his shark’s grin on us.  “Honour and Gary are, obviously, not people who I have known as long as I have my son.”  For some inexplicable reason, everyone laughed.  “But from when our very own wild cherry, Svetlana Hughes, introduced me to her dazzling younger sister last year, I was beset with a great urge to get to know her and the man in her life. 

“And by ‘know her,’ I mean ‘know her,’ if you, er, know what I mean.  Ahem.”

Their friendly conversation, their hardworking personalities…

Friendly?  Hardworking?  Are we talking about the same Anja here?

…their affection for both our younger children, Leah and Robert, and Svetlana’s dear Ben- All of these things combine to create two splendid young people.  They are a credit to their country, to their workplace, to their families and to one another.  Honour and Gary are two young people who are an example to us all, for unlike many people their age, they find no joy in promiscuity. 

Mr Daly’s been gone for eight chapters, so James will now briefly take up the mantle of Straw Daily Mail Reader.

Honour’s honour, if you will, is matched only by her love for Gary, and it is clear to anyone that these feelings are mutual.  Why, it was only last week that Vick was telling me about a beautiful picture that Gary had drawn of his bride.”

Gary went bright red, and looked away from the table.  He’d been very private about his sketchpad for the past few months, and if he hadn’t shown me any of his drawings then chances were that he hadn’t given Vick permission to look at them either.  It was more likely that Vick had snuck a look while Gary was in the loo, or something.  In any case, it was an extremely inappropriate thing to bring up.

“Who’d have thought a serial killer would be so disrespectful of other people’s privacy?”

“So,” James concluded, “I propose a toast to the two happy couples.  May they have long and happy lives together.”  As everyone toasted us, I wondered if Mr. Foster remembered that, if it had been up to him, Gary and I wouldn’t be alive at all.

See?  Serial killers are rude!

Ben’s voice broke through the laughter of the party.  “Told you, Robbie!” he shouted, “Am not a baby!  Am three!  Mummy, aren’t I three?”

“Sh, Ben,” Cherry whispered, “Robbie didn’t mean you were a baby, just that you were little.  Now why don’t you and Leah dance to the nice music?”

And that, I believe, is the final Cute Ben Moment of the book.  Didn’t they add such a lot to the narrative?

As it turned out, everybody in the room wanted to dance to the allegedly nice music (a compilation of the cheesiest love songs you’ve ever heard).  Cherry wouldn’t start, though, until she’d walked straight over to us and kissed us both on the cheek.  “Good luck, you two,” she smiled as she lingered a little too long on Gary’s face.  Joe’s furious glance apparently just spurred her on.

As Gary and I tried to dance heavily enough to drown out the music, he whispered, “I love you, Anja, really I do.  If it hadn’t been for you, I might have tried to kill myself by now.”

Because that’s a sweet thing to say to your (sixteen-year-old) girlfriend/wife!  Not passive-aggressive or manipulative at all!

“I love you and all, Gary,” I replied. 

Anja is suddenly Northern.

I didn’t realize exactly how much, though, until an hour later, when Gary showed me his sketchbook again.  After the drawing of the burning fortress, the one I’d seen before, all the dozens of sketches in the book were of me.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, fifteen/sixteen-year-old-me had a hard time distinguishing between “sweet” and “creepy.”

There were some traditional portraits, some racy ones (the most embarrassing of which I was sure was the one that Vick had sneaked a look at) and some surreal ones.  But the most surprising one was also the earliest, drawn right at the back of the book so that nobody would see unless Gary pointed it out.

It was a picture of me as I had appeared on the bus all those months ago.  I knew that had to be when it had been drawn- there was the same school uniform, the same bus seats, the same bored look on my face, everything.  That picture had been the one Gary had been drawing the first time I had seen him.

“Well, I’d heard that artists often do sketches of pretty girls they see, and I couldn’t afford a model…”

That’s a lot of words to say, “I’m kind of a creeper.”

Gary seemed apologetic.  When he’d drawn this, he hadn’t expected me to see the book (or him) ever again.

Gary had been interested in me from the minute he’d seen me, I knew that now.  And I’m glad that, whatever happened next, I knew that.

 ***

The sun set on the best day of my life, and it rose ten hours later on the worst.

(Grabs the popcorn.)  Go on.

There are some days that get off to a bad start from the minute you wake up, and the day after my wedding was one.  I was woken by Cherry tearfully shouting my name.  “Anja…  Anja wake up.”  She gulped down some air before her trembling hands started to shake me awake.  “Anja…  It’s Gary, he…”

As my eyes opened, I looked sideways.  Gary wasn’t where he should have been, and I couldn’t wait for Cherry to finish crying to find out where he was.  I pushed past her and ran into the living room.

I will never, if I live to be the oldest woman on the planet, forget the scene in that room as I ran in.

On the sofa sat Joe, his face frozen into a blank expression, cuddling a wailing Ben.  Opposite them were some paramedics, lifting a stretcher as they walked out of the door.

On the stretcher was a boy with his eyes shut, either with bruises or unconsciousness, his arm clearly broken, and his face bleeding.  I knew, as soon as I saw Gary like this, that my life had been ruined.

Join us next week for the final chapter and epilogue.  We’re nearly done!