How Ninka Planned Her Wedding

Nina found it baffling why her luck in love seemed cursed. She was capable – sharp, attractive. Her job as the large farm’s vet was good pay. Perhaps, folks whispered, it stemmed from her being an incomer. And let’s be honest, Nina stood apart from the village women.
“If only Nina would shift that ruddy crown off her head, maybe a chap might appear,” declared Beryl, sparking the evening gossip session amongst the grannies perched on the fence rail. She always initiated appraisals of village life, knowing news before it even happened.
Yet, she always met her match in Doris. Lifelong friends, lifelong antagonists. If Doris said white, Beryl argued black until hoarse.
The grannies swivelled towards Doris, anticipating the next comedic round. She obliged. “What nonsense is this? To stink of socks, she must lower herself. Listen to her, women! Needs nothing from a man but the lingering stench while she does all the work? Pah! Best keep the crown!”
Beryl flushed crimson. “What rubbish are you spouting? A woman needs a man!”
“Explain *why*? You say only hombound louts remain! For what? To wipe his nose?”
Beryl sprang up. “You daft biddy! To *have a baby*!”
“*You’re* daft! Have the baby, then drag this so-called man forever? Isn’t it easier to pop to town, find a fit, smart bloke, manage the baby bit, and live happily without a penny-pinching layabout?”
The women gasped. Moral arguments between these two sparked fiercest. Once they didn’t speak for a month, stopped sitting out. It was dreadfully dull. The root? Beryl buried her only husband twenty years prior. Doris had buried three. Now, old Vinnie the chimney sweep fancied merging households. Doris was over seventy, Vinnie near eighty. Good going.
Naturally, their views diverged. This threatened another mighty row until their subject appeared.
“Evening, girls!”
Nina halted, smiling at the old women.
“Evening, love! Back from town?” asked Doris.
“Just so. Brought flea drops. Whose cats itch? I’ll pop round.”
“Tsk, Nina,” tutted Beryl. “Cats ought to have fleas!”
“Now, Mrs B., these drops last six months. Cat stays on the bed.”
Doris cut in, eyeing her friend scornfully. “Come by mine, love. Unlike folks stuck in the dark ages scrubbing with cinders, I see the sense. Ignore such like.” Doris cackled, shoulders trembling. Beryl flushed with rage.
Nina smiled. Six village years taught her: private life is communal life. First it stung, then she understood: silence was the insult. No talk meant *nothingness*.
***
Nina answered a calling. Pure city girl, yet she’d dreamt since childhood of village life, healing horses, cows, creatures. Animals, she insisted, were the truest, kindest souls. They just couldn’t speak their pain.
Seeing the advert – vet needed at the new farm, cottage included – she didn’t hesitate. Called, came, stayed. Tamed the cottage in two months. Borrowed a bit from her parents, repaid swiftly – salary was fair.
Parents visited. “It’s lovely, dear, truly,” Mum said, followed inevitably by, “But it’s the *sticks*. No fun, no culture! Even the single street lamp barely glimmers!” Dad looked sour, though he’d have agreed if Mum decreed it paradise.
Nina just laughed. “Patience! I’ll get a piglet! Supply your Sunday roasts!” They shook bewildered heads.
***
True to promise, Nina kept hens, turkeys, a piglet. Parents, conceding defeat, soon relished their visits.
One sadness lingered. Like anyone, Nina desired marriage. Later, she realised it felt obligatory. But a child? At thirty-two, that seemed right. Mum pressed the point: “City life, you’d be wed ages ago!”
So, Nina resolved to marry. Simple task: find the groom.
First, local lads. Like Paul the Tractor-man, eyeing her persistently. Prime candidate? Strong, comely. Once, she met his gaze. That evening he knocked. Nina, grown woman, skipped games. Set the table, poured homemade cider. Cider gone, Nina cleared dishes. Paul gaped.
“Hold up! We barely settled. No more cider?”
“All gone. Didn’t you detour to the shops? Buy bubbly, chocs? As is proper?”
“Mum wouldn’t stump up. Said ‘waste of tuppence’.”
Nina erupted in uncharacteristic laughter. Paul fled and vanished. Village gossip flared briefly over the botched suit then faded.
Next, Yuri, the farm’s agronomist. He paced her cottage, tape measure whirring, tallying what her cottage (bought outright last year) might fetch and how much extra they’d need for a flat.
After these, Nina nearly quit, loath to disappoint her parents. Then, luck: she met Ian, city-bound. Pleasant, educated, crucially single. Crisp, pressed. Regional manager, lived with his mum… He fancied her; she fancied him more. Dates bloomed, conversation endless. On the third, bashfully, he invited her home.
“Mum’s away at her cottage… Unsure how this is done, so plain speaking: I want you to stay tonight.”
Nina agreed.
***
That evening by the grannies, Nina returned from Ian’s. Time well spent; surely he wouldn’t let her vanish? Correct. He invited himself over.
“Ian, won’t suit you. I live rurally… You’re pure city.”
“And you were city too, yet chose this? Maybe I’ll fancy it.”
“Come. We’ll see.”
Nina walked home smiling. Ian tonight. If the grannies spotted him? Talk guaranteed. Morning would bring requests for flea drops and nosy glances inside, probing for detail.
Exactly so. Ian arrived, stayed, awoke to an endless chain of grannies clutching spitting, twisting cats. Cats hissed; grannies eyed Ian.
Despite this, Ian loved it. Nina’s cottage, even the piglet charmed him. When the cat-parade ended, he gazed dreamily. “Nina… Marry me?”
Nina smiled. Waited.
***
Events accelerated. Down the central lane sped a black cab, stopping at Nina’s gate. Grannies craned necks, gauging news weight.
A well-dressed lady emerged. Beryl hissed, “The mother-in-law? La-di-dah…”
For the first time in years, Doris agreed. “Quite. Our Nina’s landed.”
Ian sat on the step as Nina fed the piglet.
The gate creaked. Nina, unbolting the sty, heard Ian’s startled voice: “Mum! What brings you?”
“Rescuing you,” floated to Nina.
“Mum, don’t.”
“Don’t? Watch you mire yourself in muck next to some milkmaid?”
“Mum. I’m thirty-five…”
He sounded frail. Mother pressed: “No sense! Pack! Before your charwoman appears.”
Nina could bear no more. Marriage unlikely. Perhaps just as well; see how Ian *scuttled* inside to pack! Fit husband? Nina smiled wryly and opened the piglet’s gate wide.
Barnaby shot out like a cork. He adored jailbreaks, especially with visitors. Madness gripped him. Lucky he was young, barely six months. Full-grown?
The woman spotted the accelerating piglet. “Ia-a-an!” she shrieked.
Ian burst out, saw Barnaby circling his mother purposefully, and lunged to defend. They retreated. Ian shielded her, chanting, “Shoo! Git! No!”
They backed towards the rear yard.
Barnaby shot past them, scattering hay and dust in his joyous frenzy, vanishing back into the barn while they gasped amidst the upturned compost heap.