Fair Do's

by David Nobbs

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the astonished Corinna.

  ‘I … er … I didn’t want the waitress to overhear our … er …’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘No.’ There was a crash of plates. Ted closed his eyes. It was the best attempt he could make to blot out the incident, since it is impossible to close one’s ears. ‘No! No, but … not in front of the servants, eh?’

  ‘My God!’ There was double-barrelled astonishment in Corinna’s voice. ‘That’s an old-fashioned attitude even for my family.’

  ‘Tell me about your family.’

  ‘They’re all in East Africa. Daddy’s a bishop. He’s also a dish.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘A lovely man.’

  ‘Ah. And … er … do you have … or I mean have you had … er … ever had … a husband, as it were?’

  Corinna smiled. ‘No. I’ve never married.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘Thank you. Some women are choosy, Ted. They wait for Mr Right to come along.’

  ‘Yes, well … I’m divorced, as you probably … I was in business. I had a foundry specialising in … domestic artifacts.’

  ‘Domestic artifacts?’

  ‘Toasting forks. Boot scrapers. Door knockers. Fire irons. I needed a sea change. I moved laterally into catering. Oh, Corinna, you’re lovely.’

  ‘This room is so public,’ said Corinna. ‘Ted, I have an idea.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Ted. He couldn’t resist a quick glance at the ceiling. ‘Good God!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lightning does strike twice in the same place twice!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got a room upstairs.’

  Corinna Price-Rodgerson may have been a bishop’s daughter, may have regarded herself as pretty nimble socially, but Ted’s remark left her frankly at a loss. ‘What?’ she said. ‘Room upstairs? What room upstairs?’

  ‘Ah! No, I … er … when you said … I mean, there’s room upstairs. I mean, there are rooms upstairs. I mean, I imagine, I’ve never … funny hotel if there weren’t … and I thought, I’d like to book one. A double room.’ Sandra passed them again, giving Ted another glare. ‘Double cream! And a touch of kirsch! So that’s the secret!’

  ‘No,’ said Corinna Price-Rodgerson, with gentle rebuke in her voice. ‘You do know that waitress. That’s the secret.’ She handed Ted a card. ‘I think you and I should get together.’

  ‘“Financial consultant”!’ he read.

  ‘ ’Fraid so. I leave God to Daddy, and I look after Mammon. I might be able to help you, Ted. Why don’t you take me to dinner next Tuesday?’

  Sandra bore down on them with a plate of canapés.

  ‘Sir? Madam?’ she said with controlled fury. ‘Some canapés?’

  ‘Oh, thank you, waitress,’ said Ted. ‘I’ll … er … I’ll try one of these Tuesdays.’

  Ted reeled away, chewing his untasted canapé. Rodney and Betty Sillitoe loomed through the smoky afternoon fog and fetched up neatly on either side of him.

  ‘Ted!’ said Rodney. ‘The very man! We have an emerging new business, and you have a great big hole.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In life,’ said Betty. ‘Where your foundry used to be.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Ted. ‘No. No.’

  ‘Can we let bygones be bygones?’ said Rodney. ‘Will you work for me … us?’

  ‘But I don’t have a great big hole,’ said Ted. ‘Monsieur Albert’s installing me as manager of his sister restaurant to Chez Albert. It’s called …’ He had the grace to hesitate. ‘Chez Edouard.’

  ‘Oh Ted!’ said Betty.

  ‘So, what’s this business of yours?’ said Ted.

  There was a fractional pause, as though neither Sillitoe wanted to be the first to speak.

  ‘We’re opening a health food complex,’ said Rodney.

  ‘With wholefood vegetarian restaurant,’ said Betty.

  Ted laughed, an honest snort of a laugh.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Betty, ‘isn’t it lucky you have Chez Edouard and don’t need to join our rib-tickling, side-splitting venture?’

  Betty and Rodney swept onwards, on a tide of injured pride, through the increasingly animated gathering.

  ‘Here’s somebody who won’t find it funny, anyroad,’ said Rodney. ‘Hello, Jenny love.’

  Jenny accepted Rodney’s semi-avuncular kiss without enthusiasm. ‘It’s great,’ she said. ‘I can kiss you without feeling hypocritical, now you’ve given up battery chicken farming.’

  ‘The perfect cue!’ exclaimed Betty.

  ‘Betty and I are opening a health food complex,’ said Rodney proudly.

  ‘With wholefood vegetarian restaurant,’ enthused Betty.

  And Jenny laughed. She shook with laughter. The baby in her womb shook with her. Several llamas shook with her. Then she saw the Sillitoes’ hurt faces, and a guilty hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s terrific. Oh, well done!’

  ‘So, why the mirth?’ said Rodney.

  ‘Well, not because of the business,’ said Jenny. ‘Because … it’s you! Sorry.’

  She laughed again. Rodney and Betty joined in, but not with much conviction.

  Gerry Lansdown, standing with the Badgers, said grimly, ‘What a lot of laughter this gathering is causing.’

  ‘It’s nerves, Gerry,’ said Liz. ‘People are finding this difficult.’

  ‘Me too, funnily enough,’ said Gerry.

  ‘Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Gerry,’ said Neville. His remark cut through the discussion like a rifle shot.

  ‘What?’ said Liz.

  ‘I was married for many years, Gerry. My wife died. Did I move quietly into the peaceful backwaters of bachelordom? No! Dived head first into the chill, choppy waters.’

  ‘Neville!’ Liz stormed off.

  ‘Oh Lord!’ said Neville. ‘Sorry, Gerry.’

  Neville hurried off in pursuit of Liz, who had ceased storming a few yards away, in order to wait for him.

  ‘Liz!’ he said. ‘Don’t be a fool. I was only cheering him up.’

  ‘But how could you say such things?’

  ‘Because I didn’t mean them. I was just trying to get him to look on the bright side.’

  ‘You’re in danger of cheering up the whole world except me, Neville,’ said his bride of four months.

  Outside in the ornamental pond, as the afternoon sagged, the carp swam round and round, unseen.

  Inside, in the Garden Room of the Clissold Lodge Hotel, it seemed that social tension sharpened the appetite. A plague of locusts could not have made a more thorough job of the buffet. Just one lone langoustine languished on a vast plate. No one would have the cheek to eat it now.

  Amid the debris, the cake remained conspicuously uncut. It would never wing its way, in tiny slabs, to expatriate nephews and trail-blazing uncles, who were assumed to be still alive, since no news of their death had been received. It would be sent, complete in, its magnificence, to Sutton House, a home for mentally handicapped children, where a beautiful girl of seventeen with a mental age of six would burst into tears because she would believe that it was her wedding cake.

  And in the foyer of the Clissold Lodge Hotel, on that darkening brideless afternoon, a budding radio reporter who had suddenly remembered that he was a budding radio reporter put his duty to his chosen profession above his duty to a family that he had been given no opportunity to choose, and rang the newsroom of Radio Gadd.

  ‘Elvis Simcock here,’ he announced urgently, while the receptionist fed guests’ mini-bar purchases into the computer, and pretended not to listen. ‘The old abbey church has seen some sensational scenes, but it’s seen few scenes more sensational than the sensational scenes it’s seen today. The glittering wedding of popular local personality, Rita Simcock, ex-wife of prominent local ex-foundry owner, Ted Simcock, to Godalming micro-chip magnate Gerald Lansdown, a ris
ing star in the Social Liberal Democratic firmament, was called off today when the bride failed to turn up, but the reception in the Garden Room of the famous old Clissold Lodge –’

  He broke off as Rita entered through the swing doors. She stopped by the door to the Garden Room and turned towards Elvis. She raised a finger to her mouth, pleading for silence. Then she drew a deep breath and entered her reception.

  ‘Cancel all that,’ barked Radio Gadd’s ace reporter. ‘Cancel all that, urgent. The bride has just swept in, in a sensational scene. Await further news. This is Clissold Lodge … this is Elvis Simcock, the Garden Room, the Clissold Lodge Hotel.’

  He banged the telephone into its cradle and hurried after his mother.

  Heads turned to look at Rita. Other heads turned to see what it was that the heads were staring at. Silence draped the room like a hollow fog. Cousins and uncles and aunts shivered. Leaders of moderate opinion in Hindhead felt cold tingles down their spines. A description of a memorable meal in Esher was cut off in mid-timbale.

  Rita stood in the double doorways of the function room and smiled, a brittle smile. She was wearing an inappropriately virginal white satin embroidered three piece suit, with a small flowered headband. She was clutching a small posy of freesias, which she hadn’t had the heart to dump in a rubbish bin.

  ‘Hello,’ she said brightly.

  She walked towards Gerry. The guests parted before her as if she were a line of police horses.

  Gerry Lansdown, white-faced, grim-lipped, tried on several expressions without success. Anger. Self-pity. Stoic resignation. Manly dignity. All failed him. He ended up smiling stiffly, sardonically, with eyes that hid everything.

  ‘Oh, Gerry,’ said Rita. ‘I think this is the worst moment of my life.’

  ‘I’m not enjoying myself as much as I’d expected, either.’ Gerry whipped her with sarcasm. ‘I can’t quite work out why. Can’t seem to put my finger on it.’

  ‘Oh, Gerry.’

  ‘Am I to get some more eloquent explanation of your incredible behaviour?’ asked her jilted fiancé coldly. ‘Or am I to have to make do with “Oh, Gerry”?’

  ‘Oh, Gerry.’

  Janet Hicks, the red-headed waitress, remembered that Rita had smiled at her at the wedding of Jenny and Paul. She hurried up now, to reward that smile with a glass of champagne. Rita nodded her thanks. Janet, a martyr to verrucas, hobbled off.

  ‘How can I explain?’ said Rita.

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Suddenly I just couldn’t.’ Ted had edged his way to the front of the listening throng, and was hanging on his ex-wife’s words. ‘Suddenly I realised that it was a case of “out of the frying pan into the fire”.’

  ‘I’m a frying pan now. Terrific,’ said Ted.

  ‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.

  ‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.

  ‘Ted!’ Rita was belatedly astounded. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I wanted to see you happily launched on your new life.’

  ‘Oh, Ted.’ Rita turned back from her ex-husband to her ex-fiancé. ‘Oh, Gerry’. What words could begin to explain? ‘For the best part of my adult life I’ve felt like a doormat.’

  ‘Terrific. Thank you, Rita,’ said Ted.

  ‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.

  ‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.

  ‘I’m a frying pan,’ grumbled Ted. ‘She’s a doormat. What are the boys? Garden gnomes?’

  ‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.

  ‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.

  For the first time, through the mists of her emotions, Rita saw the rapt, staring faces of the guests. She was appalled.

  ‘Is everybody listening to us?’ she said. ‘For God’s sake! Please! I’m trying to have a private conversation with my fian … with my ex …’ She shook the freesias in frustration, ‘… with Gerry.’

  There was a brief, stunned pause. Neville turned hurriedly to Rodney and said, ‘How were your roses last year, Rodney?’

  ‘Covered in greenfly,’ said Rodney.

  ‘Really? Ours weren’t. Isn’t that extraordinary, Liz? Rodney’s roses were covered in greenfly and ours weren’t.’

  ‘Good old Neville,’ said Liz. ‘First to the social rescue yet again.’

  All over the room, trivial conversations were cranked into fragile life, and Rita turned back to face her jilted fiancé, in total privacy, in the middle of the crowd.

  ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, Gerry,’ she said. ‘And after you’ve paid for all this.’

  ‘That’s hardly the aspect that upsets me most, Rita.’

  ‘Oh, Gerry. I had no idea I wasn’t going to be able to go through with it, or I’d have broken it off earlier. I’d have done anything to spare you this humiliation.’

  ‘I think anybody considering how you and I have behaved today might think it’s your humiliation, not mine.’

  ‘Thank you, Gerry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For making it easier for me by being nasty.’ Rita was shocked by Gerry’s hot, hostile eyes, and tried an altogether less combative approach. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I set out today to marry you. Probably I still love you.’

  ‘Unfortunately it doesn’t say that in the wedding service.’ There was a remorselessly thorough quality to Gerry’s sarcasm. ‘“Do you take this man probably to love, perhaps to cherish even, in minor illness and in health, maybe almost till death or a long holiday do you part?”’

  ‘Precisely. So I couldn’t marry you. Look, all this is entirely because of me and because of my life history and how I see my role as a woman.’

  ‘Ah! Aha!’

  ‘Well all right. “Ah! Aha!” away. Gerry, I’m afraid I realised that I just don’t want to be a politician’s wife. Your brother said … er …’

  ‘What did my brother say? Why did I let him give you away? Where is he?’

  Rita had found it difficult to decide who should give her away. Her father was dead, she had no brothers, her sons were out of the question. If she chose any other relative, she would offend her remaining relatives. So she had chosen Gerry’s brother and offended them all.

  People were trying not to seem interested in how things were going between Rita and Gerry. But they wished, even the most unselfish and thoughtful and well-mannered of them wished, even Neville wished, that they could hear every word.

  ‘I wanted to face you on your own,’ the lovely bride that wasn’t to be was saying. ‘We were driving along, we were more than half way there, I said, “I can’t go through with it, Nigel.” He took me for a drink.’

  ‘He didn’t even try to persuade you? The bastard!’

  ‘He did try to persuade me. It was no use. I had four large gins in the Three Tuns, where my appearance caused quite a sensation. Pool players stopped in mid-clunk. “Nigel,” I said, “I don’t want to be the little woman who fondles his constituents’ babies. I’ve played second fiddle too long. I don’t want to be an appendage. I don’t want to be a smile on his manifesto.”’

  ‘And what did he say, my wonderful brother?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Rita! You must.’

  Yes. She must. In not turning up at the church she had exhausted her capacity for acting against Gerry’s wishes.

  ‘Oh Lord! He said … he said, “But, Rita, he’ll never be elected. It’ll just be one humiliating campaign and then ‘Goodnight, Hindhead.””

  ‘The bastard!’

  ‘I said I didn’t believe that.’ Rita’s head was swimming. She was finding it difficult to control her speech. ‘You’re intelligent, good-looking, energetic. Apart from an unfortunate tendency towards niceness and honesty you have all the qualities a politicians needs.’ She frowned, aware that she had used too many plurals. She must concentrate. She must get things right. ‘But you see, Gerry, when the crunch came, I found I didn’t love you enough to give up my career.’

  ‘What career?’ Gerry didn’t attempt to hide his scorn.
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br />   ‘Precisely! I must do something soon. I don’t love you enough to fill my garden with Bulgarian wine, Lymeswold cheese, and hordes of frantically argumentative moderates. I don’t love you enough to host elegant dinner parties for smiling Japanese businessmen with microchips on their shoulders. It came to me that I must release you before I trapped you. I’m so very, very sorry. And really, dear dear Gerry, there’s nothing more to be said and oh God I must explain to them before I cry.’

  Rita scurried to the end of the room, clutching her posy fiercely. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she called out. Silence fell with suspect haste. She stood facing all her guests; all Gerry’s guests; her ex-husband, whose face was a vault of secrets; his ex-lover, whose face was an open book; Neville, his face creased in concentration and sadness; Jenny and her llamas on the verge of tears; Rodney and Betty frowning in unison, synchronised swimmers in a pool of sorrow; Elvis, unaware of Carol Fordingbridge’s drowning arm clinging hopefully to him; Simon, as concerned for another person’s predicament as it’s possible for a young man to be while remaining an estate agent; a pale shaft of late afternoon sunshine catching Corinna’s yellow dress; Sandra, her corn-coloured hair dishevelled, her apron crooked, her hands clutching a disturbingly large pile of dirty pudding plates, her fierce young eyes uncertain whether to look at Rita or Corinna; and, between Rita and all these people, the wrecked buffet, over which the uncut cake towered, a snow-covered cathedral that had miraculously survived the bombing of the surrounding city.

  Rita looked at all this through wet eyes and saw none of it. Saw a blur. Lowered her eyes as if she might find on the floor the words that she sought.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I owe you all an apology for ruining this dreadful day. I mean this wonderful day that it would have been if I hadn’t ruined it. Ladies and gentlemen … and everybody else … what I’ve done today is because of being a woman, and the unhappiness of my first marriage.’

  ‘Terrific!’ said Ted. ‘I’m having a wonderful day.’

  ‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.

  ‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.