by David Nobbs
‘I didn’t know it was rude to call somebody human,’ said Rodney Sillitoe.
‘No, but you know what I meant. You seem quite nice, but you run a kind of concentration camp for chickens. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’
‘Yes, you should, because you mean it, and I admire you for it.’
‘It’s just that I think that if we think we have the right to exploit animals because we’re superior to them, that makes us inferior to them because they never exploit us. Does that make me a crank?’
‘No!’
‘He can’t resist an attractive young woman,’ said Betty Sillitoe.
‘Don’t you ever feel jealous?’ said Rita.
‘Oh, he doesn’t mean anything by it. He just likes being near attractive young women.’
‘I envy you.’
‘Rita! She does look a picture, I must say.’
‘Must you?’
‘Rita!’
‘Chickens aren’t like people, Jenny. They don’t have the same feelings. They don’t have the same expectations of life style.’
‘I know. Fish have no nerves in their mouths, foxes enjoy being hunted, lobsters get a sexual thrill out of being boiled alive. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’
Jenny looked round the crowded room. She was searching for help, but no help was at hand. She didn’t want to go on with this conversation, on this day of all days. and yet she couldn’t let it go.
‘But how can you live with yourself?’ she said, ‘knowing how your chickens live.’
And Betty, from her strategic position beside the champagne, smiled indulgently as she watched their lips move.
‘I love him for his foibles,’ she said.
‘You must feel envy sometimes,’ said Rita.
‘No. I wouldn’t want anything in my life to be different from what it is.’
Rita closed her eyes, and swallowed her champagne as if it were medicine.
‘I envy you,’ she said.
‘I don’t look at it the same road as you, Jenny,’ said Rodney. ‘They’re units. Costed items. I employ three hundred people in an area of high unemployment. I couldn’t do that without my rationalized, cost-effective methods.’
The window could have afforded them a pleasant view over the park-like grounds. They could have seen peacocks strutting, songthrushes holding their heads sideways as they listened for their afternoon tea, and a distant water tower, ringed by pines. Rodney and Jenny spurned these attractions.
‘I suppose that’s what people do,’ Jenny said. ‘Compartmentalize. I mean, they say Himmler was very fond of dogs. Or was it Goebbels?’
‘It must have been dogs,’ said Rodney. ‘I don’t think he was at all fond of Goebbels.’
‘No! I meant … oh! How can you joke when I’m comparing you to … oh, not that I mean that you’re really … sorry.’
‘Bless you!’ said Rodney Sillitoe, and he gave her an avuncular kiss which, like many avuncular kisses, held a distant echo of kisses less avuncular.
Jenny was angry. ‘You’re being patronizing now,’ she said. ‘You’re forgiving me because I’m an attractive young thing. I don’t want that. I hate that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’
She kissed him.
‘Bless them,’ said Betty Sillitoe, watching the kiss.
‘I envy you,’ said Rita.
And in room 108, the father of the groom withdrew from the mother of the bride, in a moment of exquisite ambiguity, of relief and regret, of pride and shame, of ecstasy and horror. It was three minutes to four, and in the lounge and on the terrace the residents were ordering afternoon tea.
Exactly below the wet patch in the double bed in room 108 was the dry, happily innocent head of the bride’s only brother, Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. He was talking to Elvis Simcock, the groom’s only brother.
‘I’m sorry to hear you can’t get a job, Elvis,’ he said.
‘Oh, that’s all right, then, Simon,’ said the cynical Elvis. ‘That makes me feel much better about the total uselessness of my life.’
‘I’m trying to be pleasant, Elvis,’ said Simon.
‘Effort, is it?’ said Elvis.
‘I just thought that as we’re related by marriage it might be a good idea if we tried to get on with each other.’
‘You’re right,’ said Elvis. ‘I’ll try. Sorry, Simon.’
Elvis gave Simon a semi-apologetic, semi-embarrassed hint of a smile, and they stood for a moment in a reasonably companionable silence as they searched for suitable topics of conversation.
‘Were you named after …?’ began Simon Rodenhurst.
‘Of course I was, you stupid twit!’ said Elvis Simcock, and he stormed out through the French windows.
And Rita, seeing this, said ‘Oh dear’ and sighed deeply.
‘Rita!’ said Betty Sillitoe, her blonde hair with its unashamedly dark roots mocking her friend’s joylessly careful appearance. ‘Rita! You can’t take responsibility for how the whole of your family behaves, or you’ll crack up. Relax. Have a drink.’
She poured half a glass of champagne for Rita, and topped up her own glass in order to be sociable.
‘Thanks, but I’ve had enough,’ said Rita. She put her glass down. Betty drank half her glass and refilled it from Rita’s glass, so that Rita wouldn’t feel guilty about the waste. You will crack up, Rita, she thought. You’re heading for a collapse, my girl, and where will we be then? What’ll happen to our cosy foursome, our holiday in the South of France, our pleasant life together, our just reward for the modest wealth that we create for this community?
And Rita looked at the door and wondered why on earth Ted was taking so long. And she wondered how long Paul would be, and how they would explain his haircut. Where was her family when she needed them? Spread to the four winds. The panic came over her in waves, and she wanted to scream, and she mustn’t.
Luckily, she hadn’t realized, in all the crush and her self-obsessed panic, that Liz was also absent.
And Ted Simcock drifted into a half-sleep, vaguely conscious of Liz Rodenhurst’s warm buttocks lodged in his crotch in the great warm tent of sensuality and satisfaction which was room 108 of the Clissold Lodge Ho …
The Clissold Lodge Hotel! He sat bold upright, every part of his body rigid, except one.
‘Come on, Liz,’ he said, leaping out of bed. ‘We’ve got to get downstairs.’
As Simon Rodenhurst wandered out into the walled garden, determined to effect an improvement in his relationship with the cynical Elvis Simcock even if it ended with neither of them ever speaking to each other again, he passed the immaculate Neville Badger, drifting slowly into the Garden Room through the weeds of his Sargasso Sea.
Elvis Simcock was making faces at the carp. It was a one-sided game.
‘I wish I was as thick as a fish,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry about … er …’ said Simon. ‘But you really shouldn’t have a chip on your shoulder about something as unimportant as a name.’
‘How would you like it, Simon, if you were called Garfunkel?’
‘What did you read at university?’
‘Dirty books mainly.’
‘No. I meant …’
‘I know what you meant. That was a little thing we Simcocks call “a joke”. Philosophy.’
‘Philosophy!’
‘Don’t sound so scornful. I’ve registered as a philosopher down the Job Centre. No luck yet. Although the way relations are between the two sides of industry in this country I’d have thought a bit of logical thought might come in handy.’
‘Why don’t you work for your father?’
‘I have some pride. Our sort of people tend not to rely on that kind of privilege.’
They watched the carp in silence for a few moments, until that entertainment palled.
‘What do you do?’ Elvis made it seem more of an accusation than a question.
‘I’m an estate agent.’
‘Ah!’
‘What do you mean – “ah!”?’
‘I meant “Ah! I can’t think of anything to say in response to something so incredibly boring, so I’ll say ‘Ah!’”’
‘You can mock, but selling houses is a bit more useful than philosophy.’
‘Well, I doubt if Bertrand Russell and Nietzsche would agree with that.’
‘Bertrand, Russell and Neetcher? It rings a bell. Are they those big estate agents over at Beverley?’
‘They are among the most famous philosophers in the history of Western thought, you ignoramus,’ said the cynical Elvis Simcock.
‘It was what we Rodenhursts call “a joke”,’ said Simon Rodenhurst of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch.
And the carp swam round and round. Round and round.
Liz entered first, as casually and inconspicuously as she could.
Laurence detached himself without regret from a discussion about video recorders – his cousin Leonard was saying what a burden they were, all those programmes you’d recorded and never had time to watch, so you ended up getting up at seven on Sundays to catch up with them – and approached his wife. His eyes were cold.
‘Where have you been?’ he demanded.
‘Having it off with the king of the door knockers.’
‘What?? Liz!!’ Laurence had turned quite white.
‘I’m joking! Do you think I’d do a thing like that in the middle of my daughter’s wedding reception? And, if I did, do you think I’d tell you?’
‘Well, where have you been?’
‘I needed some fresh air. In the immortal words that you have used to me so often, I have a headache.’
Liz moved on, towards Betty Sillitoe and Rita.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I feel the need for some more champagne.’
‘I’m practically a fixture in this comer,’ said Betty, pouring a glass for Liz.
‘Good idea,’ said Liz. ‘Best place to be.’
‘Oh, not for the drink. To keep an eye on my wretched husband. He has been known to overindulge.’
‘Haven’t we all?’
‘No,’ said Rita, and she could feel the telltale pink spots appearing on her cheeks.
‘What?’
‘I know how much I like. I know how much is good for me. I won’t change my ways just to please the so-called fashionable.’
‘And why should you?’ said Liz, pushing Rita’s hostility round the post like any competent goalkeeper.
‘I must say, Mrs Rodenhurst, it’s a lovely do,’ said Rita, accepting that her hostility hadn’t landed on its target. ‘The tuna fish vol-au-vents are quite an eye-opener.’
‘“Mrs Rodenhurst”! Call me Liz! We’re related now, Rita. Incidentally, where’s that lovely husband of yours?’
‘Well … er … Mrs … Liz … er …’ Rita dropped her voice, and the pink spots blazed. ‘I can’t really say.’
‘A mystery! How intriguing!’
‘No. There’s no mystery. He’s …’ The voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He’s answering an urgent call of nature.’
Liz seemed to find this amusing. She actually laughed. Really, there was no accounting for tastes.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Liz. ‘Well, enjoy yourselves.’ And she moved on.
‘She hates me,’ said Rita.
Ted felt that the casual air with which he returned to the reception was totally unconvincing. Everybody must be able to see how furtive and nervous he felt.
Rita made a beeline for him.
‘You took your time,’ she said. It was a question in the form of a statement.
‘Sorry,’ he said. He lowered his voice to a near-whisper, and answered her statement. ‘I’ve been really badly. I think it must be the tuna fish vol-au-vents.’
‘They’re delicious, Ted. They’re different.’
‘They’re different all right. I happen to be allergic, that’s all. Remember Sorrento.’
‘Sorrento?’
‘I had tuna fish then.’
‘That was twenty-four years ago!’
‘What difference does that make? It’s lifelong, is an allergy.’
‘Why did you eat them if you’re allergic?’
‘I didn’t know I was allergic. I mean … love … I’ve only just discovered the common denominator.’ Rita made no reply. ‘Tuna fish.’ Still Rita said nothing, and Ted realized that she was close to tears. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Sorrento,’ she gasped.
‘What?’
‘We were happy then.’
‘Rita!’ He looked round desperately at the apparently happy and increasingly noisy throng. He had to stop her bursting into tears, here in the middle of the reception. He’d never live it down. ‘Rita! We’re happy now. I mean … we are. Aren’t we?’
‘I’m not. I’m absolutely miserable.’
But he knew then that she wouldn’t cry. She had herself under control. Good old Rita. Oh God! What had he done? Well, he knew what he’d done. What he meant was, why had he done it? Well, he knew why he’d done it too. Oh God!
‘Oh, Rita,’ he said. ‘Why? I’m happy. I am, love. I mean … reasonably. I mean … life’s no picnic, but … I’m not unhappy. So … I mean … why are you?’ He had managed to steer her over to the champagne table during these tortured exchanges. ‘Hello, Betty,’ he said. He took a glass of champagne. Rita took it away from him immediately.
‘You shouldn’t drink champagne if you’ve been badly,’ she said.
‘Oh. No. True. Right.’ Was she suspicious? Married twentyfour years, and he didn’t know. Oh God. Whether she. was suspicious or not, he vowed to give Liz up. He would give up sex entirely and stick to marriage and washing up and fishing. He felt briefly better after making this decision. Then he remembered Paul’s absence. He led Rita away from Betty Sillitoe and asked her if anybody had noticed that he was missing.
‘No.’
‘Oh good.’
‘Good? It’s a great tribute to our son’s personality, isn’t it? The first man in the history of the universe to go for a haircut in the middle of his wedding reception, and nobody even notices.’
‘Oh, Rita! I hope they don’t notice.’
‘Don’t you think they’ll be a bit surprised when he comes in with a short back and sides?’
Jenny approached them, still holding her train. Her arm ached. What a palaver. If only they’d done it in a registry office.
‘Have you seen Paul?’ she asked, as if she had read their thoughts. ‘Only I’ve just realized I haven’t seen him for quite a while.’
‘My word!’ said Rita. ‘Married for over an hour, and you’re still so devoted to him.’
Jenny stared at Rita, thunderstruck, dismayed.
‘Rita!’ said Ted.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rita. ‘I’m on edge.’
Jenny touched Rita gently with her free arm. ‘I want us to be good friends,’ she said.
‘So do I, Jenny,’ said Rita. ‘So do I.’ She kissed her daughter-in-law on the cheek.
‘Well, where is he?’ said Jenny. ‘I’m worried.’
‘He’s gone for a haircut,’ said Ted.
‘A haircut?? During his wedding reception??’
‘It’s probably my fault,’ said Rita. ‘He’d promised to get one, and I ticked him off about it.’
‘Are you thinking of coming on the honeymoon?’ said Jenny.
‘What?’ It was Rita’s tum to look thunderstruck and dismayed.
‘If he goes for a haircut during his reception because you tell him to, he may need you on the honeymoon to tell him what to do.’
Jenny blundered off in tears towards the door, and at that moment Paul entered, rather sheepishly. He hadn’t had a haircut.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘I went for a walk. I was nervous.’
‘That’s not much of a haircut,’ said Jenny. ‘Was it worth it, I ask myself.’ And she stormed out of the room.
‘Oh
heck,’ said Paul.
Now it was a wonderful summer’s afternoon, cloudless, windless. The buzzing hour. Light aircraft. Distant mowers. Imminent wasps. Whatever could buzz, did buzz. How lucky they would have been with the weather, if such considerations had still been important.
The residents having tea on the glass-roofed terrace watched the frantic groom chase the tearful bride along the hotel drive. The families on the putting green flinched as Jenny let her superb train trail along the gravel.
‘Jenny! Come back!’ yelled Paul.
‘Why?’ shouted Jenny, still running at full pelt. She’d been quite an athlete at school. In fact she could have played hockey for the county, if she hadn’t found the atmosphere surrounding organized sport so reactionary.
‘Because it’s your wedding reception,’ gasped Paul through bursting lungs. ‘You’ll always regret it if you spoil it.’
‘That didn’t stop you,’ shouted Jenny. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t go to the pictures while you were out.’
She was fitter than him! He was making no impression on the gap between them. He felt that he was making no impression on the emotional gap either. ‘Jenny!’ he panted. ‘I did it to stop her thinking she could get me to do what she wants any more.’
‘By doing what she wanted? That’s a funny way of showing it,’ shouted Jenny over her shoulder, pounding on towards the Tadcaster Road.
She was drawing away from him! He felt a pang of sexist humiliation. He felt a pang of guilt at feeling a pang of sexist humiliation. He struggled on desperately. ‘I never intended to have my hair cut,’ he croaked. ‘I just wanted to frighten her. That’s all, love. Oh, Jenny, please! I love you! I love you!’
Paul’s shouted endearments caused a sentimental chemist to miss a two-foot putt on the seventh hole. It also caused Jenny to turn and wait for him. She held out her arms, and he buried himself in her loveliness. They clung to each other, motionless. Eva Blumenthal, a florist from Freiburg, watching their youthful embrace with delight and not a little envy, missed the teacup at which she was aiming and poured half a pot of scalding tea down the crotch of her husband Fritz, a com chandler from the same ancient city. They play little further part in this tale, and sympathetic readers should be assured that they are happily married, with two boys, one daughter, a labrador and a BMW, and that they enjoyed their holiday, except for the ruining of a pair of Italian trousers and a Saturday night.
