by David Nobbs
Ted looked round nervously. Nobody was listening. ‘Liz!’ he said. ‘I don’t regard what we did today as reasonably discreet. I’m out of my depth.’
‘You’re going to find that you’re a better swimmer than you ever believed,’ said the bride’s mother.
‘Oh heck,’ said her new lover, who had so recently promised himself that he would give her up.
The glider was barely more than a speck now, the same size as the kestrel that was hovering above the grounds in the gentle but freshening breeze.
Rita still sat in her comer, behind the urns, beside the hydrangea, protected from the breeze by the mellow brick wall, recently rather untidily repointed by employees of J. G. Frodsham and Nephew.
‘Hello! There you are!’ said Laurence, as if he’d been hunting for her for hours.
‘Yes. Here I am. Hello.’
Rita made an effort, and smiled. Despite her smile, Laurence sat beside her and rested his arm on the bench behind her, as if to suggest that, had the back of the bench not been there, he would have embraced her actual flesh.
‘You know, Rita, you and I have a lot in common,’ he said.
‘How do you make that out?’
‘Well … I may seem to you to be the happy professional man … successful society dentist, lovely house, beautiful wife, two highly satisfactory children, suave, good-looking, confident. Actually I’m a seething mass of doubts and inadequacies.’
‘Are you suggesting that I’m a seething mass of doubts and inadequacies?’
‘No! Good heavens, no!’
‘Well, why do you say we have a lot in common, then?’
The breeze brought the first faint smell of tomorrow’s rain over the warm, walled garden, stirring the shrubs. The symmetrical elegance of the place was defiled by abandoned plates, with dollops of wasted pilchard mousse and mayonnaise.
‘Why on earth should anybody think you aren’t good with people?’ said Laurence.
‘Who told you that?’ said Rita. ‘Who sent you?’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Laurence. The faint gleam in Rita’s eyes disconcerted him, and the knowledge that it was there surprised her. It was a faint indication that somewhere, beneath all the anxiety, there still remained vestiges of a sense of humour, that all might not yet be completely lost in the fragile, never-to-be-repeated adventure that was Rita Simcock’s brief life on earth.
‘People are being sent out in streams to see if I’m all right,’ she said. ‘It’s very worrying.’
‘Aren’t you going to come in? It’s cooling down.’
‘In a minute. Now, please, Laurence, leave me alone.’
‘Right. Right.’
And Laurence Rodenhurst returned to the Garden Room, not feeling quite as suave and confident as he had when he came out.
And Rita sighed with relief and stretched out her tense legs in her quiet arbour.
Enter the immaculate Neville Badger, bearing tuna fish vol-au-vents.
‘Ah! There you are,’ he said, as if he had been hunting for her for hours.
‘All right,’ said Rita. ‘Who sent you?’
At the very moment when Rita said, ‘Who sent you?’ Eva Blumenthal, in room 109, was gently rubbing unsalted Welsh butter over the genitals of her husband Fritz, in an effort to alleviate the com chandler’s pain. In the Garden Room, exactly below this touching scene, Jenny was telling her young husband that she felt sick.
‘I thought it was only in the mornings,’ said Paul.
‘It’s the tension,’ said Jenny. ‘We’ve let the baby down, pretending it doesn’t exist. Who knows what insecurities that may lead to? The science of the unborn baby is in its infancy.’
‘Love!’ said her husband of more than three hours. ‘Love!’
‘I think I might be going to be sick.’
‘Well, walk out calmly. Look natural.’
‘“What will they think?”’
‘What?’
‘They say as men get older they start to resemble their mothers.’
‘That’s a dreadful thing to say.’
Paul walked off in a huff, and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Neville Badger entered from the garden, with his plate of tuna fish vol-au-vents. He saw Jenny walking slowly away from the buffet, trying to look calm and natural while feeling sick. Suddenly it became absurdly important to him that he shouldn’t be entirely defeated in his efforts to get rid of the vol-au-vents. He hurried over to her.
‘Jenny!’ he said. ‘Have a tuna fish vol-au-vent.’
She gasped, clasped her hand over her mouth, and rushed out.
Neville Badger stared after her.
Paul rushed past.
‘Paul! Have a …’
‘Sorry,’ said Paul, stopping briefly, out of politeness. ‘It was a dreadful thing to say, but it was dreadful of me to say that it was a dreadful thing to say. I mean, in her condition. I mean, on her wedding day. Well, our wedding day.’ Paul felt that this explanation discharged his social obligation to Neville Badger, and hurried off after Jenny.
Neville stared after him.
Ted approached. ‘Any luck with Rita?’ he enquired.
‘No,’ said Neville. ‘Sorry. Have a tuna fish vol-au-vent.’
‘Thanks.’ Ted took a vol-au-vent.
‘Tut tut!’ said Laurence, hurrying forward to snatch the pastry case out of Ted’s hand before he could put it in his mouth. ‘Tut tut! You mustn’t eat that. You’re allergic.’
Laurence put the tired little delicacy back on Neville Badger’s plate, and his eyes met Ted’s.
How much had Ted done?
How much did Laurence know?
‘Lovely wedding,’ said Betty Sillitoe, who was over-powdered as usual, and she raised her almost empty glass in tribute.
‘Thank you,’ said Liz.
‘No, I mean it. Really lovely. Really really lovely.’
‘Well, they do these things well here.’
‘Yes, but the point I’m trying to get across is, it’s been a lovely wedding.’
‘The message is getting through, I do assure you,’ said Liz, her voice drier than the champagne, and she hurried on.
‘Terrible snobs, those Rodenhursts,’ announced Betty Sillitoe to nobody in particular.
‘We’ve made it, haven’t we?’ said her husband Rodney, the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens.
‘You what?’ said Ted, who would have been astounded if somebody had pointed out that he was saying ‘What?’ or ‘You what?’ to people who had been on their side of the church, and ‘Pardon?’ or ‘I beg your pardon?’ to the Rodenhursts and their friends and relations.
‘In life,’ explained Rodney Sillitoe. ‘We’ve made it in life. Who’d have thought it, a couple of dunces like us at school, and now I’m exporting frozen chicken drumsticks to Botswana and your door knockers in the shape of lions are gracing every front door on a neo-Georgian housing estate in Allwoodley. We’ve made it. Moderately prosperous. Happily married. Stayed the course. Survived. And remained friends. I’ve never told you this, Ted, but your friendship is one of the most important things in my life.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Ted! Do we have to be drunk before we can express affection?’
‘No. Sorry. Sorry, Rodney. No, what you said, it … it touched a chord … I mean … it hit a spot. I … sorry.’
‘Ted!’ Rodney was alarmed. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘No!’ said Ted overemphatically. ‘It’s an auspicious event. A right good do. A happy day. Nobody’s happier than Betty.’
They looked across at Betty, who waved from the other side of a crush of mixed relations and friends, and gave an unmistakeably drunken lurch.
‘Oh Lord,’ said Rodney. ‘I’ll see if I can get her off the premises without a scene, bless her.’
‘I envy you,’ said Ted.
Rita decided that she had summoned up enough reserves of strength to enter the fray. She entered the fray from the garden at exact
ly the same moment as the happy couple entered it from the hotel.
Ted approached Rita, and the four of them met in the middle of the room.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Ted.
He was speaking to Rita, but it was Paul who answered.
‘She’s been sick,’ he said.
‘Sick?’ said Rita.
‘Usually only in the mornings, but today in the afternoon,’ said Jenny.
‘Oh heck,’ said Ted.
‘Everybody! Please!’ shouted Jenny.
‘What?’ said Paul.
‘I’ve got to, Paul,’ said Jenny. ‘Everybody! Please! I have an announcement!’
Paul and Jenny stood with their backs to the remains of the cake. The guests gathered from the comers of the room, they poured in from the garden, uncles and aunts, friends and colleagues, Simcocks and Rodenhursts, cousins once, twice and three times removed, people who were longing to go home, people who were hoping it would go on for hours because they never knew what to do after a wedding, you felt flat and not entirely sober and there was the whole evening still to go, and you wished it was the first night of your honeymoon. Even Percy and Clarrie Spragg, who had been nodding off peacefully in a comer, perked up and hobbled painfully over to join the throng.
The only guests who were not gathered round to hear Jenny’s announcement were the Reverend and Mrs Thoroughgood, Rodney and Betty Sillitoe, Elvis Simcock, Simon Rodenhurst, and Neville Badger. The Reverend and Mrs Thoroughgood had gone to their dark, lonely home; Rodney Sillitoe had managed to get Betty out of the room, but was meeting problems in the lobby; Simon and Elvis were arguing in a far comer of the garden; and Neville Badger was walking in the grounds, tears streaming down his face, telling his dead Jane all about the day’s events while he waited for the moment when he could decently take his leave.
Jenny looked grimly determined. Paul looked nervous.
‘I’m pregnant,’ said Jenny.
There were some sharp intakes of breath, but nobody said anything.
‘We should have told you when we found out,’ she ploughed on doggedly. ‘But all the invitations were issued, and we couldn’t very well send out a newsletter, and the white dress was ordered and everything. We thought of cancelling it and just doing it quietly in a registry office, but we knew everybody was looking forward to a bit of a do, a white wedding and everything, and you’d probably bought presents – I mean, that’s not why we didn’t cancel it, but if you’ve bought the present and then your invitation’s cancelled, and you’re left with a toaster you don’t want, it’s a bit annoying, so we decided to go through with it and not tell anybody and then go away or something round about the time so you didn’t cotton onto the dates and even if you did cotton on later, well, by then it would be a fait accompli anyway.’ She began to cry. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Jenny!’ said Paul. ‘Come on, Jenny. Come on, love.’
‘I’m sorry,’ sobbed Jenny. ‘We should have just done it quietly on our own like we wanted, but we wanted you all to have a lovely do like we knew you wanted.’
‘Come on,’ said Paul. ‘Let’s go and get changed and be on our way. Come on, love.’
He led her tenderly to the door. Afterwards, Rita felt quite proud of how tender he had been.
‘I feel much better now I’ve told everybody,’ wailed Jenny, and off she went with Paul to room 108, where Liz had carefully remade the bed, though Ted would later wonder whether, as they believed nobody had used the bed, the chambermaids would change the sheets before the next occupancy and, if they didn’t, whether the next occupants would notice.
There was a massed tactful movement of guests to the four corners of the room, to the walled garden and to the toilets. One or two even set off home without saying goodbye, feeling that it would be the least embarrassing thing to do.
Ted and Rita and Liz and Laurence stood in silence for a moment, and then Clarrie Spragg came forward and asked Ted for the car keys.
‘I’m going to sit him in the car,’ she said. ‘He’s had enough.’
Ted started to fish out the car keys. His hands were shaking slightly.
‘I ’aven’t,’ said Percy Spragg. ‘I want to stick it out to the bitter end.’
‘I’m not sure if I appreciate that phrase,’ said Liz.
Clarrie Spragg began to lead Percy out, and everything might have been all right if Betty Sillitoe hadn’t lurched in, with Rodney hanging onto her, trying to stop her. Naturally, Percy stopped to watch.
‘No, Rodney, it must be said,’ said Betty Sillitoe. ‘Can’t go without telling them. Rude. It was a lovely wedding. Lovely. Obviously it wasn’t perfect. The tuna fish vol-au-vents were disgusting, and, all right, there were some of the biggest snobs in this town in this room – no names, no dentists’ drills – but it was a lovely wedding, give or take a few snobs and vol-au-vents, and that’s the main thing.’
Betty Sillitoe staggered out of the room.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Rodney.
‘Never mind,’ said Laurence grimly.
‘You don’t mind much, do you?’ said Liz to Rodney.
‘Not much, no,’ said Rodney. ‘I love her for her foibles, you see.’
‘I envy you,’ said Liz.
Betty blundered in again.
‘Come on, Rodney,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see we’re interrupting a family row?’
Once more, Betty Sillitoe left the room.
‘Goodbye,’ said Rodney Sillitoe. ‘Thank you. Sorry.’ And he too left.
Rita had watched this display by their closest friends with even more horror than Ted, but it was Ted who felt obliged to say, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Please!’ said Laurence, rubbing it in while appearing to dismiss it. ‘You can’t be held responsible for the behaviour of your friends.’
‘So our Paul couldn’t wait, eh?’ said the barrel-chested Percy Spragg, who was still only halfway to the door. ‘I’m not surprised. She’s a right cracker.’
‘Or your relatives,’ added Laurence, not quite softly enough.
‘Go to the car, Dad,’ said Rita.
‘Wants to get rid of me,’ said Percy Spragg. ‘Didn’t want me to come.’
‘Dad!’ said Rita, pink spots flaring. ‘The things he says!’
‘Never has welcomed me in her house.’
‘Dad!’
‘Pretends it’s Ted, but Ted’s all right.’
‘Dad!’ said Ted.
‘Come on, Father,’ said Clarrie Spragg.
‘A bit different from our wedding, eh, Clarrie?’ said Percy. ‘July the twenty-first, 1938. Long time ago, i’n’t it?’
‘Jolly well done,’ said Laurence.
‘I never forget the date ’cos it was exactly two months to the day after our Rita was born,’ said Percy.
Rita gasped, and Ted pulled a chair forward. She crumpled into it.
‘Percy!’ said Clarrie. ‘You wicked old man!’
‘I wouldn’t have said it if she didn’t want me out of the way. Come on, Mother.’ Percy lowered his voice to a whisper, discreet for the first time now that it was too late. ‘I need to go.’ Out loud, he added, ‘It’s the only good thing in this bloody awful business of growing old. You don’t have to give a bugger.’
Percy and Clarrie hobbled from the room with agonizing slowness, agonizing to them because of their age and rheumatism and arthritis, agonizing to everyone else for fear that Percy would start up again with further revelations.
Liz flashed Rita a smooth, cool, social, understanding smile, as of one woman to another who is very nearly her equal.
‘There’s no need to look at me like that, Mrs Rodenhurst,’ said Rita.
‘I was smiling, Mrs Simcock,’ said Liz.
‘Well, I don’t need your smiles, thank you very much,’ said Rita. ‘Your family isn’t exactly as pure as the driven snow.’
‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ said Laurence.
‘Well, your daughter’s pregnant on her weddi
ng day,’ said Rita.
‘Your son did have something to do with that,’ said Liz.
‘I hope,’ said Ted.
‘Ted!’ said Rita.
‘Mr Simcock!’ said Laurence.
Elvis Simcock and Simon Rodenhurst entered from the garden.
‘I bet you fifty pounds you never make it as a philosopher,’ Simon was saying. ‘I mean, who ever heard of a famous philosopher called Elvis?’
Elvis didn’t mean to knock Simon out, just to give him a good, hearty biff. But the rising young estate agent, who had also drunk rather more than he should have, fell backwards across the buffet table. He caught his head on the edge of a large plate, which jerked up into the air. Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, slid slowly onto the ground, the upturned plate crashed onto his forehead, and a shower of tuna fish vol-au-vents descended on his inert body.
Rita fainted.
The immaculate Neville Badger entered, complete with hat, and gazed at the scene with eyes that saw nothing.
‘I’m off now,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, and thank you. Sorry if I … it was just too soon. I just couldn’t cope with the sight of so many people enjoying themselves.’
Second Do
October:
The Dentists’ Dinner Dance
Laurence Rodenhurst felt that it was rather vulgar of a three-star hotel to decorate the walls of its bars with signed photographs of celebrities. He appeared to be looking with extreme disfavour on the smiling face of Terry Wogan, who had signed his picture with the message ‘Super nosh. Pity about the flab. Love – Tel’. But Laurence’s expression might equally have been because he was talking to Larry Benson, of fitted kitchen fame.
The Angel Hotel stood in Westgate, which sloped gently away from the abbey church towards the westerly loop of the Gadd. Seven building societies, four shoe shops and the great concrete frontage of the Whincliff Shopping Centre had replaced its old town houses. Only the Angel’s long, peeling facade remained to recall the street’s Georgian heyday.
