by Alfreda de Silva
The sights and sounds of this day are different from those of any other. There is an excitement here that infects me.

I get up very early in the morning and go into the drawing room. What I see there is unbelievable. It is a white structure of several tiers, that rises up from the floor to the ceiling.

White flowers deck the whole thing. An angel sits on the highest tier. This must have been put up after I went to bed.

"That," Grandmother points out coming up behind me suddenly, "is Aunty Millie’s wedding cake. Every bit of it is made of sugar and can be eaten."

"What? the roses and the bows and the angel up there?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "And that’s not an angel, that’s a Cupid." She does not explain who a Cupid is. But I decide that I must have him after the guests have gone.

After the family lunch and a short rest, excitement runs high. We start getting dressed for the ceremony at St. John’s Church.

Aunty Millie, who is marrying Uncle Eddie, wears a saree of silver lace with scallops at the edges. She has high-heeled silver court shoes on her feet and orange blossoms in her hair, above her veil.

Doreen and I are the flower girls. Our white georgette dresses have sashes of emerald green ribbon. We wear ribbons of the same colour in our hair and green silk garters above our white socks and shoes. We carry posies of white ox-eyed daisies tied with green ribbon. It is all very fresh-looking Łor an afternoon wedding.

Grandmother looks regal in a coffee-coloured brocade skirt and pleated organdy blouse. A fringed silk shawl is around her shoulders.

In church, the bridesmaids Merle and Nesta, the page-boy Derek, and Doreen and I walk up the aisle behind Grandmother and Aunty Millie.

I do not think it strange that. Aunty Millie is walking on Grandmother’s arm, but apparently all the grown-ups there do.

I must confess that I have never, after this occasion, seen a woman give away a bride. This seems to be traditionally a man’s role.

But Grandmother, widowed very early in life, has decided t give away this her youngest child herself.

We are walking slowly up the aisle to the strains of ‘The voice that breathed o’er Eden.’ I am directly behind the bride. Doreen is behind Grandmother.

Suddenly, she pulls a petal off one of her daisies. I pull a petal off one of mine. And so we go on, walking and pulling petals, till our posies are a mess. Then I change sides and step up behind Grandmother, nudging her slightly inadvertently. "Behave," she commands. But her voice is lost in the singing.

When we return to the house, photographs are taken on the lawn, in full view of all the guests, and we walk into the drawing room for the reception, while the Wedding March booms on. The bride and groom cut the cake and go over to a carved settee, where they sit.

The house is full of people. They spill over from the drawing and dining rooms to the verandah and the study, which has been cleared of its cupboards and desks and set up with chairs and tea- poys. Outside, the greenery and flower-decked magul maduwa is also full of people. Lively music fills the air.

I join my parents. The cake is served by the bridesmaids and trays of food and drink come out.

It is time for the couple to leave. Doreen and I and the bridesmaids line up by the doorway. We throw handfuls of rice and confetti, for luck, on the couple as they come out.

Aunty Millie has changed into a strawberry pink silk saree embroidered with silver beads. Some of the bride’s friends tear off the arum lilies from the maduwa and lightly beat her with them as she runs to the car on her husband’s arm. To their car are attached old shoes and tins that make a din as it takes off. My six-year-old mind cannot understand what this is all about.

After the guests have gone, I remember my Cupid and rush into the house. But a small cousin has beaten me to it. He is perched on an obliging uncle’s shoulders reaching out for it. "That’s mine," I cry out loud.

The uncle acts as mediator, "You can both share it once he gets it down," he says, raising the boy higher and higher. There are other children round the cake now, getting their teeth into those roses and lovers’ knots.

The next day I get up late. I am tired. Aggie brings me half-boiled egg, bread and butter and milk.

I turn them away in disgust. "I want cake," I tell her. "What cake? The wedding is over," she says curtly.

But I know that there is a whole basket of the silver-paper wrapped cake in the chiffonier. I take out six pieces and sit on the bridal settee eating them.

Grandmother is in the garden watching the maduwa being dismantled. Everything is in disarray. The cake structure, stripped of its sugar decorations, has lost its magic.

Bits of cake paper, faded flowers and confetti litter the floor. Servants move around with dusters, mops and brooms.

It will be a long time before Pagoda House knows such excitement and enchantment again. The children have gone and the day turns cold, and waves of loneliness sweep over me.