A Marriage Made in Heaven – Ken Cooper

 “I call upon these persons here present, to witness that I, Fiona Jane Williams, do take thee, Michael John McMurray, to be my lawful wedded husband.”

   Fiona finished her side of the declarations as the pilot called out “Nine thousand!” By the time the single-engine plane with its seven passengers had climbed to ten thousand feet, the registrar had declared Mike and Fiona to be husband and wife, and the necessary paperwork had been completed.  Jacqui couldn’t help her face cracking into the biggest grin ever.

The plane was now circling over Cricket St Thomas estate.

“Thanks, guys”.  Mike gathered up the legal documents.

“Thanks Ray.” Ray took his left hand off the plane’s controls and, reaching over his left shoulder, eventually made contact with the proffered papers. He tugged at a zip on his flying suit and stuffed them inside.

“Are we set?” Ray shouted, his head only just deviating from the straight ahead.

“Roger to that,” Jacqui responded.

Half an hour earlier the party had set off from Dunkeswell Airport to fly the few miles to Cricket St Thomas. Like many estates with lovely houses in pretty surroundings this Somerset estate had become a licensed wedding venue. When Mike had discovered that a fellow skydiving club member was a superintendent registrar of births, marriages and deaths, he hit upon the idea of marrying Fiona, his fiancé of three months, at ten thousand feet.  Jacquie declared that, in principle, she was up for it, but she pointed out some practical difficulties in actually conducting the whole ceremony in mid air. Perhaps they could leave the signing of the register until they were back on terra firma? Mike and Fiona were adamant that they should be husband and wife when they hit the ground. In the end, they agreed that all the formalities should be conducted in the plane. Then bride and groom, the two witnesses, and the registrar, would leave the aircraft and manoeuvre into a five-sided polygon. Kevin, the sixth passenger, was also a member of the club, but not really part of the Mike/Fiona clique. He was only too pleased when asked if he would take the wedding photo – possibly more than one if they had time.

“I’ll be able to dine out on this for ages,” he quipped. “Not to mention the press coverage.”

Rick called out “Let’s go!” Rick, the seventh passenger, would not be jumping. He was the designated flight safety officer.

The participants made their way to the hatch. It was a perfect May day. The cloudless blue sky allowed a pink tinge to taint it. The county below was cut into strips, squares, triangles, and oblongs, a collage of baize, corduroy, felt, embroidery, and knitted pieces.

Kevin took a final look at his camera, lowered his goggles, shouted “Geronimo”, and disappeared out of the doorway. Jacquie was second out, followed in quick succession by Ken and Toby. Rick had to shout “Let’s go! Let’s go!” because Fiona and Mike’s unauthorised lingering kiss threatened to put the kybosh on the photo opportunity. Fiona lowered her goggles and launched herself into the stream of cold, fast air. Mike held out his hand to Rick as if wanting to shake it. Rick’s instinctive reaction was to grasp the glove and shake it, but it was only after shouting “Get going!” that he thought Mike’s gesture a bit unusual.

Kevin’s intention was to get a shot of the pentagon of bent arms and legs from below and then, if time allowed, by increasing his air resistance, get above the group for a shot which would feature the terrain below. He looked up. Everything was going to plan. Jacqui and Toby had already linked up and Ken was joining in. Soon the three of them had formed a trio of crooked limbs and brightly coloured jump suits. Then Jacqui and Toby made way for an incoming Fiona. Within five seconds Mike had grasped Fiona’s left hand and was looking for Toby’s right. Contact! Kevin wasted no time and snapped away as fast as his digital camera would let him. He rolled over a couple of times but managed to fire off about a dozen shots and he felt confident that several of them were near perfect. He gave a ‘thumbs up’ to the team. Then, by spreading his body as much as possible he managed to get above the group. This was a more comfortable position for him and he fired off lots of shots. He thought he had done extremely well in the forty-odd seconds of free fall. He manoeuvred to one side and shortly afterwards Jacqui gave the break signal, indicating to the team that they needed to separate in preparation for the deployment of the parachutes. Jacqui, Toby and Ken turned through 180 degrees horizontally and slid away from each other. Kevin saw that Fiona and Mike still had contact.

“For God’s sake, break!” he thought. “Break away now!” But the newly weds locked even closer.

Jacqui’s chute deployed, followed by Ken and Toby. Kevin momentarily lost sight of them as their chutes dramatically slowed their descent. He took another look at Fiona and Mike before deploying his own chute.

Everything went suddenly quiet, as it usually does when the air is no longer rushing past you at 120 miles an hour. But the silence lasted only a few seconds. Soon he heard Jacqui shouting “My God, deploy, deploy!” But the two bodies, now one bundle, were far beneath them. They could only watch as the newlyweds plunged to the unforgiving world below.

Kevin could see the drop zone below. Running people were converging on a single point. Another three dream-like minutes passed and Kevin suddenly saw the ground coming up to meet him. Survival instinct made him snap out of his state of shock but he made the worst landing in his parachuting career, twisting his leg badly at the knee. A paramedic ran over to him but Kevin had thrown off his chute and was trying desperately to get to the accident.

“You don’t want to go over there, mate,” the paramedic said, shaking his head. Kevin threw up. It was not long before three ambulances and four police cars were on the scene. All seven were stationed with their blue lights flashing. “Why do they do that?” thought Kevin. He was joined by Ken and Toby, their faces looking not white, but greyish, with a hint of green. Jacqui was sitting on the grass a few yards away, sobbing uncontrollably.

“What went wrong?” said Kevin. Toby just shrugged.

“Please can you stay here until the detective sergeant has asked you some questions?”  The policeman signalled with his head to a female colleague to stay with Jacqui. The policewoman nodded back and took up position just in front of her.

News of the incident had reached Dunkeswell aerodrome even before Rick and Ray had landed. They had witnessed everything and were both feeling shaky.

“What happened?” one of the ground crew asked.

“They just didn’t deploy,” said Ray. “I don’t know. Maybe they were entangled somehow. But then one of them at least would have deployed. I just don’t know. I’m going to call Toby.”

He went into the office and fished inside his flying suit for his mobile. He came across the bundle of papers that Mike had handed him. Along with the official documents was a single, folded piece of paper addressed “to our friends at the skydiving club.” Ray unfolded it and started to read.

“Dear Friends,

“By the time you read this we will no longer be members. We’re sorry for the deception, and any distress we may cause with our method of departure, but we both loved diving so much we thought it an appropriate way to end our lives.

“Two months ago Fiona was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, and was given only a short time to live. She decided that she did not want a lingering, painful death. Mike knew he would not want a life without Fiona.”

…ooOoo…