The Dictaphone
What about what Roy said on the dictaphone? He and Cathy are about to say their wedding vows. She hardly looked like a carefree bride on the happiest day of her life as she walked down the aisle. But that can be ascribed to nervousness. If you didn’t witness what we, the viewers, did in the parking lot.
Cathy pulled out her dictaphone to go over her vows one more time. She heard what else had recorded on it. Roy telling Brian and Tyrone that he may not want to marry Cathy, but he had given her his word so he would do so.
What do you do then? There is no time to think it over or talk to Roy about what he says or how he feels. The minister, guests and groom are inside, awaiting the bride. Cathy can’t really call a ‘time-out.’
What she heard…
She walks past all the smiling faces to the altar. Then as the minister begins, she tells Roy and all what she heard on the tape. She asks the minister to get rid of everybody so she and Roy can talk.
Theirs is not the first Weatherfield wedding to come to a screeching halt at the altar. The ministers likely pull out their evacuation and containment plans every time they get a booking from someone resident on or near Coronation Street.
Cathy and Roy’s abrupt end to the scheduled ceremony was certainly more civil than others have been. Compare it to Peter giving Leanne divorce papers at the altar during the reaffirmation of their vows. Or, more recently, Nick going through with his marriage to Carla, only to call an end to it during the reception. The prize for the best ever altar fight still has to be Karen and Steve McDonald’s second wedding.
Compared to those, Cathy and Roy’s cancelled wedding was the model of decorum. Cathy stated the facts of Roy’s feelings as she had heard them on the dictaphone. She also got her digs in at Tyrone and Brian (“Usain Bolt, there”), the two who forced the questioning of the marriage.
Roy did not disagree with her. After the people had been cleared out, he and Cathy sat in a pew and discussed what had happened, what hadn’t happened and what they would do next. All very civilized. We’ll see what happens next.
For me, I hope they try again. Cathy is not Hayley, and her relationship with Roy is not the same. But that doesn’t mean it is not equally valid and good for both of them. Will Roy see that?