Little did I realize when I went to Bequia that I would be spending the rest of my life there. The original plan of teaching for one year at the high school had turned into something completely different, and I often wonder what life would have been like if I had never fallen in love with Bequia and a man named Mac.
Mac and I didn’t have any money to speak of. My Government salary for teaching was $236.00 EC per month, the equivalent of $88.00 U.S. Mac worked with his father Bluesy as a sail-maker and was given money as and when needed. I was about to give the high school notice, and Mac had already left the sail loft to pursue his “pizza in paradise” dream. We would be starting a new life with no income, a daunting prospect to be sure!
In June of 1979 I left Bequia bound for Canada, where I would once again spend two months working as a waitress at a restaurant in London Ontario. Mac would be joining me at the end of August, at which time we would get married. Momma Simmons was thrilled by the news, happy that Mac would be marrying Father Armstrong’s daughter! She liked me well enough but what really pleased her was the respectability that went along with her youngest son’s choice for a bride. Momma started making travel plans, she was NOT going to miss Mac’s wedding in Canada.
My father, an Anglican minister, would be marrying us at his church in Thornhill, a parish not far from Toronto. My mother had been given little time to plan a wedding, but as I wanted to keep it small and simple it wasn’t going to be difficult. Mac and I had agreed to invite family only, the exceptions being his best man Brian and Brian’s girlfriend Sue. All Mac had to do was provide a list of family members living in the Toronto area so that Mom could send out invitations.
My family is not large. Mac’s turned out to be more of a challenge than anyone had anticipated, especially my mother! A lot of his relatives lived in Canada, many of them in and around Toronto, and every time Mom thought Mac’s family had all been invited she would get a call about “cousin” this, or “tante” that. Our small wedding was in danger of getting out of hand, growing into something neither Mac nor I wanted. I finally told my mother to invite immediate family only, there was no way we could invite all the distant relatives that seemed to be popping out of the woodwork!
I worked long hours that summer, taking extra shifts at the restaurant so that I could earn as much money as possible. Mac was hard at work on Bequia, constructing the restaurant he had been dreaming about for so long. With few phones on the Island we didn’t communicate, placing long distance calls was too difficult back then, not to mention outrageously expensive. I could only hope that he would arrive in time for the wedding, Mac was rarely on time for anything and I knew my mother was worried!
Mac was also afraid he would be late, which is why he arrived in Canada three days before he was expected. The wedding would take place on September 1st as planned.