A Bit of a Do

by David Nobbs

  Paul and Jenny set off slowly back towards their reception, blissfully unaware that they were the object of so much attention.

  ‘I don’t want to lie to you,’ said Paul. ‘I did intend to have my hair cut.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘There was a queue. Just as I got to the front a man barged in in front of me. Just because he had an appointment. I saw red and stormed out.’

  ‘What a stormy day.’

  ‘Well … I’m on edge. Weddings.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Paul, increasing his pace sharply. ‘Everybody must be wondering where I am.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenny doubtfully.

  ‘Anyway, it all ended up all right. I’ve taught her a lesson, and I haven’t had the haircut she wanted.’

  ‘I wish you would have a haircut,’ said Jenny.

  ‘What chance have they got?’ said Rita, after the happy couple had returned and normality had been largely restored.

  ‘They’ll sort it out,’ said Ted. ‘You’ll see.’

  There were distinct signs of impending speeches. The best man, the uncouth Neil Hodgson, was sorting the tele-messages and looking sick.

  ‘What does marriage mean these days?’ said Rita.

  ‘Love! Give them a chance.’

  ‘What does our marriage mean?’

  ‘Love! It means I love you, love.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Love! I mean … really!’

  ‘I’m frightened for them. I mean … what chance have they got if they haven’t got any back-up?’

  ‘Back-up?’

  ‘Our two families making a real effort to be friendly to each other.’

  ‘I’m doing my bit,’ said Ted.

  Laurence Rodenhurst made quite a good speech, which drew a few modest laughs from the guests. His Aunt Gladys from Oswestry described it as ‘very appropriate’. She employed understatement in her choice of adjectives almost as much as the classless Nigel Thick used overstatement, and Laurence, a boy again, as always in her presence, blushed with pleasure at this high praise. ‘At least the bridegroom was brief,’ was her comment on Paul, but she couldn’t bring this degree of enthusiasm to the uncouth Neil Hodgson’s reading of the telegrams. She refused to call them tele-messages. And if ‘Get Stuck In’ was considered a suitable message from a teacher, it was no wonder that the nation was full of vandals and hooligans and drug addicts and sex maniacs and anarchists and businessmen who couldn’t speak a word of Japanese.

  Then there was the cutting of the cake. Soon that great three-tiered masterpiece, created by the Vale of York Bakery in Slaughterhouse Lane, would be travelling in tiny wedges in white boxes to distant, not-quite-forgotten relatives in Braemar, Vancouver and Alice Springs.

  Now, as Laurence had arranged, the two waitresses took up permanent station at the champagne table, in the hope that this would deter all but the most unashamedly avid consumers of free booze. The waitresses couldn’t afford to buy champagne, on their wages, and yet the smiles of this good-natured duo were a great deal less tired than their feet, even with people who treated them like automatic vending machines. Pam Halliday, the blonde, was dreaming of a big win on the Australian pools, and the ranch-style bungalow she would build for her parents. Janet Hicks, the redhead, was trying to forget her verruca. That night, in the public bar of the Crown and Walnut, she would drink pint for pint with Derek Wiggins, who drove a lorry for Jewson’s, and after-wards … well, it would be nice to get the weight off that verruca. She smiled deep in her eyes and got a rather startled look from Ted Simcock.

  Ted sighed with instinctive envy of Janet’s Saturday night, as he took his champagne out into the walled garden and approached his wife. There were quite a lot of people in the garden now, but Rita was just sitting there in a far, hidden comer, on a wrought-iron bench all on her own, not looking at anything. All was not well. In front of her there were two urns, in which geraniums, lobelia and begonias were flowering. Beside her there was a hydrangea. Rita had once said that, if she had been born a shrub, she would have been a hydrangea.

  ‘Rita! What on earth are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Exactly. Come on, love. Please! Mingle!’

  ‘Why? Nobody wants to talk to me. I see it in their eyes when I approach. “Oh God, here she comes.”’

  ‘Rita! Love! That’s rubbish. I mean … it is. Absolute rubbish. Now come on! Make an effort, for Paul’s sake. You can do it.’

  ‘Just give me a minute.’

  ‘Right.’ He kissed’her. ‘Love!’

  He entered the Garden Room, looking back to give her an encouraging ‘see how easy it is’ smile.

  Ted’s aim in entering the Garden Room was to summon up reinforcements to deal with Rita. It was family rally-round time. They must show her how much they loved her. Meeting Laurence was a nuisance.

  ‘Reinforcements for Liz,’ said Laurence, who was carrying two glasses of champagne.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I’m a lucky man, aren’t I?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘My wife’s a very attractive woman.’

  ‘Yes, I …’ Ted looked briefly into Laurence’s eyes, searching his intentions, wondering how much he knew. He found nothing, just two blue eyes searching his brown eyes. He hoped that Laurence was finding nothing except a pair of brown eyes searching his blue eyes. ‘Yes, I … I suppose she is. I mean … I hadn’t really … well, I mean, I had noticed, you couldn’t not, it sticks out a … but … I mean … it hadn’t exactly … if you see what I … Yes. Yes, I suppose she is. Yes, I suppose you are. Very. Yes.’

  ‘I thought Paul made a good speech, considering.’

  Ted wanted to say, ‘What the hell do you mean – “considering”?’ but actually said, ‘Thank you. I thought he did very well.’

  He approached Paul, who was talking with a group of his friends in front of the wrecked cake. ‘Paul?’ he said, and his tone made Paul move away from his friends. ‘Paul? Your mother’s in the garden on her own. She looks lost.’

  ‘Oh heck. I shouldn’t have gone off like that.’

  ‘You’re a good lad.’

  At the other end of the buffet, the cynical Elvis Simcock was talking to Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. Replenishments had ceased, and the buffet was now a pretty sad display. There were a few sausage rolls and slices of wet ham wrapped round cubes of pineapple, and quite a mound of tuna fish vol-au-vents, but many of the more popular plates were bare except for a few wisps of cress. Simon was shovelling sausage rolls into his mouth at a speed of which only nurses and people who have been to boarding schools are capable. ‘Give up, Simon,’ Elvis was saying. ‘We’ve tried politics, religion, the royal family, the class system, sex, the nuclear holocaust, the meaning of life, estate agents’ fees, blood sports, cars and Belgian beer, and we haven’t found anything we agree about yet.’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Ted.

  ‘Please do,’ mumbled Simon Rodenhurst, sending a thin spray of soggy pastry and suspiciously pink sausage meat over Ted’s suit. ‘Oh Lord,’ he apologized, and his cheeks briefly matched the sausage meat.

  Ted asked Elvis to go to the rescue of his mother. The great philosopher looked for a moment as if such a task were beneath him, then did a brief mime of the US cavalry. Ted didn’t understand it, but assumed that it meant that he agreed.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ said Paul. ‘Are you all right?’

  Rita tried a cheery smile. ‘Fine,’ she said.

  High cloud was beginning to move in from the west, and the sun was more watery now. They’d been so lucky, considering.

  ‘Mum?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I went off like that.’

  ‘I thought you were going to miss the cutting of the cake. What would they have thought?’

  Elvis approached.

  ‘Oh hello,’ he said, with unwonted heartiness. ‘I wondered where you were, our Mum.’

&
nbsp; ‘Who sent you?’ said Rita.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve both come out to cheer me up. I thought for a moment it was spontaneous.’

  ‘Surprisingly good speech, I thought, Paul,’ said Elvis, ignoring this, ‘but your friend Neil Hodgson was the worst best man I’ve ever come across. I couldn’t make out whether he was drunk or dyslexic.’

  ‘Dyslexia’s a very serious condition, Elvis. You shouldn’t make light of it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Elvis was genuinely contrite. ‘He is dyslexic, is he?’

  ‘No, he’s drunk, but he could have been.’ Paul grinned triumphantly, then turned serious. ‘It’s yet another proof that this is not a caring society. I mean, fancy calling the condition of not being able to spell by a word nobody can spell.’

  ‘All this caring about things, Paul,’ said Rita, and Paul turned guiltily towards her. He had almost forgotten she was there. ‘It worries me. You never used to care about things.’

  Elvis looked up at a glider drifting peacefully towards Scummock Edge. He wondered how small they looked to the pilot. He wondered how small they really were.

  ‘You never used to turn a hair about dyslexia among Bolivian tin miners,’ said Rita, unheard by Elvis.

  ‘They don’t have that problem,’ said Paul.

  ‘Oh good.’

  ‘They’re illiterate.’

  ‘She’s changed you.’

  ‘Yes. Until I met Jenny I was a great wet slob.’

  ‘I loved that great wet slob. He was my son.’ Rita burst into tears.

  ‘Mum!’ said Paul. ‘Mum! What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’ve worn myself to a frazzle trying to lead a good life. A frazzle. Ask Doctor Gillespie. Is it asking too much that there’s somebody somewhere who likes me?’

  ‘Mum!’

  Paul put an arm round his mother, and even the cynical Elvis sat on the other side of her and put an arm round her too, and she couldn’t remember when she’d last had any physical contact with Elvis.

  ‘I like you, Mum,’ said Paul, and he kissed her. ‘I love you.’

  ‘We both love you,’ said Elvis, and he too kissed her. ‘You just drive us up the wall, that’s all.’

  As soon as the lovely bride saw Paul’s face, she detached herself from her friends and came to meet him. ‘What on earth is it?’ she said.

  ‘Our two families. It really pisses me off. Mum’s got the idea that they aren’t hitting it off. And she’s right, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Jenny. ‘Bloody families.’ She was still holding the train of her dress, even though it had been torn and stained during the chase along the hotel drive. ‘It’s supposed to be our great day and here we are having to hold a summit conference.’ And indeed, as their reception swirled noisily around them, the young couple in the middle of the now untidily elegant Garden Room did look as if they were bowed down by the responsibilities of high office. ‘We’ve got to do something about it, for our own sakes if not for theirs. I will not start my married life under a cloud. Look, you get my father to talk to your mum. I’ll work on your dad and my mum.’ Despite her politics, Jenny still found it difficult to refer to her father as ‘dad’, except to his face where she was encouraged by her knowledge of how much it irritated him.

  ‘Right,’ said Paul. He looked nervously across at Laurence, who was nodding and smiling at what looked like a very boring story. ‘Oh heck.’

  As soon as Laurence broke away – who else but his gynaecological brother would even know three jokes about hysterectomies, let alone tell all three, in swift succession, at a wedding reception? – Paul approached him, trying to think of an opening gambit.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, in the absence of any greater inspiration.

  ‘Hello, Paul.’

  No help there.

  ‘Hello.’ Pause. Can’t go on saying ‘hello’ for ever. ‘Er … will you do something for me?’

  ‘Of course!’ Unwise. Qualify it rapidly. ‘If I can, that is. What … er … what is it you want me to do?’

  ‘Mum.’

  Total blankness.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Mum. She’s a bit upset.’

  ‘Oh. “Mum”! Upset?’

  ‘Yes. You know, losing a son, all that. You know my mum. Well, no, you don’t, but … you know.’

  ‘You’d like me to have a little chat with her?’

  ‘Well … yes … if you could. Now that we’re related. She’s … er … not always that good with people. You know. So, if you could sort of … you know … without her knowing that … you know … that’d be great.’

  ‘Fine. Fine. Well … fine. Yes. I’ll just top up my glass and … er … steam in. Yes.’

  Jenny had to wait for her chance to talk to Ted. He was being buttonholed by Elvis. They were standing in front of the buffet, blocking access to the plate of tuna fish vol-au-vents, but nobody seemed to mind.

  ‘Dad?’ Elvis was saying. ‘What would you do if I said that I’d like a job at the foundry? I mean, it’s a hypothetical question.’

  ‘Of course. Well, I’d say “Oh ho! We’ve changed our tune a bit, haven’t we?”’

  ‘Supposing I said, “Yes, I admit it. I have. I realize now that toasting forks have their place in the scheme of things. Mankind needs door knockers as well as linguistic analysis.”’

  ‘Well … I’d … I’d say the same thing as I said to our Paul. I’d say … “You’ll respect yourself more if you can make your own way in the world.” So, it’s lucky the question’s hypothetical, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is. Very lucky.’

  Elvis went off to insult Simon Rodenhurst, but before Jenny could steam in, Ted had seen Neville Badger looking lost, and had steamed in on him.

  ‘There’s no need to bother with me, you know,’ was Neville’s encouraging opening gambit.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have come. People disappear when I approach them. They form groups to exclude me.’

  ‘Surely not? This is England. This is Yorkshire.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t blame them. They aren’t being callous. They just can’t cope. Oh God, here comes poor Neville who talks about his dead wife and has tears in his eyes. You’d think a solicitor would know that grown men don’t cry. It’s so embarrassing.’

  ‘Neville!’

  ‘She’d have loved this day. She adored Jenny.’

  ‘What can I say?’

  ‘Precisely. Leave me be, Ted. I’m a ship without a rudder, drifting on a cold grey sea.’

  ‘Exactly! So you’re the very man.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know a harbour where there’s a peeling old houseboat that could do with a lick of paint.’

  ‘Peeling old houseboat?’

  ‘My wife. She’s in the garden. She’s finding this difficult too. Would it be too much trouble for you to …?’

  ‘… bring my charm to bear? Why not? There’ll be some point in my existing for ten minutes or so.’

  ‘Take her some tuna fish vol-au-vents. She loves them.’

  ‘Right. I’ll just top up my glass and … steam in.’

  Neville Badger turned away to collect his cargo of vol-au-vents, and Jenny bore down on Ted.

  ‘Hello, Jenny!’ said Ted with an exclamation mark in his voice which meant, ‘How lovely you still look.’

  ‘I’d like to feel that our two families can be friends,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Oh, so would I. Very much so. Very much so.’

  ‘Go and talk to Mum. I’d like you to get to know her better.’

  ‘Bloody hell. I mean …’

  ‘Please! She won’t eat you.’

  ‘Possibly not.’

  ‘If only you’d give her a chance, I’m sure you’d get on. She isn’t too bad.’

  ‘No, I … er … I’m sure she … well … right … yes … OK … I’ll … I’ll give her a chance, Jenny.’

  Jenny led Ted over to Liz, who wa
s at one of the windows, admiring the peacocks with Laurence’s Aunt Gladys from Oswestry.

  ‘Such stylish birds,’ Aunt Gladys was saying. ‘They quite put some people to shame.’

  ‘Do you mind if I borrow Mum, Auntie Gladys?’ said Jenny.

  ‘You may borrow your mother,’ said Aunt Gladys. ‘But I do hate to hear you call her “Mum”.’

  Aunt Gladys sailed away, an old tea-clipper, splendid and obsolete. She had found an artificial pearl in her portion of cake, and Liz had felt that her outrage was almost as much because it wasn’t real as because it shouldn’t have been there at all.

  ‘Mum?’ said Jenny. ‘I want you and Ted to be friends.’

  ‘Oh! Well, that’s nice.’ Liz’s eyes met Ted’s briefly. Neither dared hold the look for long. ‘That’s very nice. Well … I don’t see why we shouldn’t try to be friends, do you, Ted?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t. No … I don’t see why we … er … shouldn’t try and be friends at all.’

  ‘Good.’ Jenny moved off, with the satisfaction of a job well done.

  ‘If she knew,’ said Liz.

  ‘I know. I feel terrible,’ said Ted.

  ‘Oh Lord. You don’t suffer from post-coital depression, do you?’

  ‘Liz! Please! I mean … really! Liz!’

  ‘Do you want to forget it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again?’

  ‘You know I don’t.’

  ‘Well, then. Nobody’s suffered. Nobody knows.’

  ‘I think Laurence suspects.’

  ‘Well, yes, possibly. But Laurence and I have an arrangement. I do what I want, provided I’m reasonably discreet, and he doesn’t do anything.’