by David Nobbs
The bluff Graham Wintergreen approached.
‘Hello, all,’ he said breezily. ‘Good to see you. Awful lot of non-golfers turning up. The actor’s arrived. He’s freshening up upstairs. Tote opens in ten minutes. I’ll get the actor to make a little speech.’ He moved off, then returned. ‘Nearly forgot,’ he said. ‘Congratulations, Laurence.’ He flicked his head at
Laurence, indicating that he would like a word in private. Laurence followed him.
‘I don’t know if this is good news or bad news,’ said Graham Wintergreen. ‘I met Liz in town. She’s coming tonight.’
‘Ah!’ Laurence’s tone was carefully neutral. ‘Well, she’s always been a great aficionado of the boards.’
He rejoined the others, determined not to show that he was feeling weak at the knees.
‘I don’t know why Graham had to be so mysterious,’ he said. ‘That was just to say that Liz is coming.’ He looked into Ted’s eyes, searching for pain.
‘Oh good!’ said Ted. ‘I hope that makes you very happy.’
Ted strode off towards the windows. Laurence’s lips twitched in slight triumph.
‘“Congratulations”?’ said Rodney Sillitoe.
‘Didn’t you know?’ said Laurence. ‘I’m a grandfather. Jenny’s had a little boy.’
‘Oooh!’ said Betty Sillitoe. ‘Lovely! Bless her!’
‘He weighed eight pounds ten ounces. They’re calling him Thomas.’
‘She was so sure it was going to be a girl,’ said Rodney.
‘Well, there you are,’ said Laurence. ‘That’s life. Can I get you a drink, to celebrate?’
‘Oh well,’ said Rodney. ‘Under the circumstances. Thank you.’
‘“Under the circumstances”!’ said Betty, when Laurence had gone. ‘You make it sound as if there were circumstances under which you’d have refused.’
‘There are.’
‘Such as?’
‘If it was Laurence who’d gone bankrupt.’
‘He should have. Or been defrocked. Or struck off, or whatever dentists are.’
‘Drilled out, I expect,’ said Rodney.
‘People never fail to amaze me,’ said Betty. ‘I just wouldn’t have thought Laurence was the sort of man to remember a baby’s weight.’
‘Eight pounds ten is probably the price of a fillet steak at the Clissold Lodge,’ said Rodney. ‘Well, it could be a very interesting evening.’
‘It could be a marvellous evening.’
‘Marvellous?’
‘Reconciliation. Between Ted and Rita. Between Laurence and Liz.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought you cared about Laurence and Liz.’
‘Oh, I do. They deserve each other. Here’s Rita now.’
The room was filling up. Several tables were already occupied. A few women were wearing trouser suits, but most wore dresses that ranged from the sober to the sexy. The men wore suits or sports jackets, with one or two blazers and sweaters. There wasn’t much evidence of Marxism, but there were two men in jeans and tee shirts and, as they made their slow journey to the bar, Neville Badger and Rita passed the man in the orange wig, who had been to all the shows for the last twenty years, from Ibsen to ‘The Wombles’.
The immaculate Neville Badger looked over-immaculate for the occasion. Rita looked as if she was curtained, but at least these russet-and-gold curtains suited her.
‘Hello,’ said Neville to the Sillitoes. ‘How are things in the world of intensive chicken farming?’
‘Not bad,’ said Rodney.
‘Unless you’re an intensive chicken,’ said Betty.
‘Betty!’
‘Good. Good,’ said Neville Badger. ‘What are you two … er …’ Rita was shaking her head with a movement large enough to be clear to Neville but small enough to remain undetected by the Sillitoes. Neville rather spoilt the effect by saying ‘Ah!’ very pointedly. ‘What are you two … er … planning to put your money on in the first race?’
‘I haven’t studied the form yet,’ said Betty.
‘I don’t intend to study the form,’ said Rodney. ‘Winning isn’t the object of the exercise. The object of the exercise is to give for our theatre.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Neville. ‘Well done. Well done indeed.’
Neville went off to the bar, but Betty caught Rita’s eye, and Rita stayed.
‘Ted’s here,’ said Betty.
‘I know,’ said Rita. ‘I’ve seen him.’
‘I think he wants to talk to you,’ said Betty.
‘I think that’s an excellent idea,’ said Rita. ‘I’ll look forward to hearing what he has to say,’ and she joined Neville, just in time to hear the dapper, ageless Eric Siddall say to Laurence, ‘There you go, sir. One whisky and Canadian, not American, one fruit of the grape, white, medium-dry, chilled. Just the job. Tickety-boo. One pound eighty, sir. The exact change? You’re a gentleman, sir.’
It was still not Neville’s turn to be served, but he waited patiently. Very few people mind waiting for drinks, they only mind other people being served out of turn before them, perhaps because most people have a secret fear that they are so insignificant as to be to all intents and purposes invisible. Eric Siddall, barman supreme, had never, in seventeen years, served anybody out of turn, so there was no problem.
‘That sounds promising,’ said Betty.
‘What?’ said Rodney.
‘She’s looking forward to talking to Ted.’
‘She said she was looking forward to hearing what he had to say. That’s not quite the same thing.’
Laurence arrived with their drinks. They raised their glasses and said, ‘To Thomas.’
Laurence sipped his drink like a mouse nibbling cheese.
‘I’ve seen more repulsive babies,’ he said. ‘He isn’t totally bald and wrinkled.’
‘Exactly!’ said Betty.
‘What?’ said Laurence.
‘You’ve never struck me as a great lover of babies. I was amazed you remembered his weight.’
‘Well, funnily enough, eight pounds ten happens to be the price of a rump steak at the Clissold Lodge.’
‘God! Their prices have got worse,’ said Rodney Sillitoe. ‘I thought it was fillet.’
‘What?’ said Laurence.
‘Thanks, Neville,’ said Rita, as they left the bar to make room for others. ‘To you. To the future.’
‘To you, Rita,’ said Neville Badger. ‘Thank you for coming with me.’
They raised their glasses and drank. Their eyes met. Neville was the first to look away. He found himself looking at the list of winners of the ladies’ individual championship. There she was. 1966 Mrs J. Badger. 1971 Mrs J. Badger. 1973 Mrs J. Badger. 1978 Mrs J. Badger.
‘Excuse me a moment, Rita, dear,’ he said, adding the ‘dear’ to take the sting out of his impoliteness.
Rita watched him walk over to the window. Her legs felt rubbery. She felt such a fool. But was it so foolish? He had looked away, as if to look into her eyes was more than he could bear. He had called her ‘dear’.
The scarlets and mauves and purples were slowly darkening. When he was a small boy, Neville Badger had thought that the sun went to Lancashire when it dropped behind the Pennines, and that when it was night in Yorkshire, it was day in Lancashire.
Over to the right, along the edge of the golf course, ran a row of pleasant villas, rambling brick houses from the years between the wars, with one or two outbreaks of Mock Tudor. Over there, just visible in the fading light, was the seventeenth green, where Charlotte Ratchett, of the furniture Ratchetts, had three-putted in 1978, giving Jane the last of her four titles.
He waited for the pain, that sharpness of loss which surged through him as if he had just taken a huge bite out of a lemon. It didn’t come. There came instead a vague melancholy, a distant sadness, an emptiness.
Briefly, as it darkened, the sunset looked like a great bruise. That was all Neville could feel in his heart. A great bruise.
He knew the c
olour of her eyes, it was on her passport, but he could no longer see those eyes. Her mouth had been wide and generous. He remembered the words which described it. He could no longer see the mouth. Jane was the sunset, fading, soon it would be night.
Huge green curtains slid slowly, electronically, across the picture windows. With an insensitivity that verged on genius, the bluff Graham Wintergreen had decided that it was night.
Paul and Jenny arrived, with little Thomas in a carrycot. Jenny was wearing an attractive Taiwanese dress which emphasized her return to normal size and clung revealingly to her milk-large breasts. Paul was wearing jeans, an anti-apartheid tee-shirt, and a defiant air. To his fury, he felt embarrassed about the tee-shirt.
Rita praised Jenny’s dress, made no remark about the tee-shirt, gazed fondly, hungrily at the baby and said, ‘Bless him! He looks just like you, Paul!’
‘Mum!’ said Paul.
‘Like you did at his age, I mean.’
‘What?’ said Jenny. ‘Do you mean he’ll grow up to look like Paul?’
‘Jenny!’ said Paul.
‘Are you disappointed it’s a boy?’ said Rita.
‘No,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m glad. I felt guilty about being so sure it was a girl. I’d hate to burden it with sexist favouritism before it was even born.’
People came from all sides to see the new arrival. Neville Badger was the first. He beamed carefully, said ‘Ah! Little Thomas’ and bent immaculately over the cot. He was still there when Liz arrived. Her entrance was a little too defiant to be described as self-possessed. She knew that she was the object of many looks, some disapproving, some rather less friendly. Infuriatingly, to those who disapproved of her conduct, she still looked sexy and attractive, managed in fact to make it seem that looking almost eight months pregnant in a shapeless grey smock was the thing to be that spring.
‘Hello,’ she said, rather too cheerily.
Neville Badger gasped. As he looked at the sleeping baby, he had experienced a feeling that he was Jane. The pain of his loss of her became the pain of her sorrow at being childless. The emotions that he had sought swept over him. He hurried away, in the presence again of his loss, in the joy again of his sorrow.
Liz turned to watch him.
‘Oh Lord!’ said Jenny.
‘What?’ said Paul.
‘Uncle Neville wanted children so much.’
Liz forced her eyes off Neville. ‘Hello, Rita!’ she said, as if seeing her for the first time.
Rita went through a bad moment when she thought the pink spots were going to appear, but she fought them off.
‘My word!’ said Liz, peering at the sleeping baby. ‘He’s getting to look just like you, Jenny.’ To the baby she whispered, ‘That’s right, Thomas. You sleep on. Very sensible. Nothing so very extraordinary about a pregnant granny.’
She says granny to emphasize that she doesn’t look like one, thought Rita.
The next admirer was Leslie Horton, water bailiff, organist and theatre-goer, who hated to be called Les.
‘What’s her name?’ he asked.
‘Thomas,’ said Jenny.
‘Ah. It’s a boy. I can see that now,’ he said. ‘Hello, little Tom.’
‘Thomas,’ said Jenny firmly.
And then there came the cynical Elvis Simcock, in dark blue cords and Peruvian sweater. He was smoking a large cigar.
‘God!’ he said. ‘I suppose I’m an uncle now.’
‘Keep that thing away from him,’ said Jenny.
‘Sorry.’ Jenny’s fierce protectiveness wrung a rare apology from him. He held his cigar ostentatiously out of harm’s way, at the end of his outstretched arm, as he looked down at his sleeping nephew. ‘Hello, Thomas,’ he said. ‘I’m your Uncle Elvis. Oh God, that doesn’t sound right.’ He turned away from the baby, looked his younger brother in the eye and said, ‘He’s boring.’
‘Shut up, Elvis,’ said Paul. ‘It’s your pseudo-macho cynicism that’s boring. I’m suspicious of people who don’t like children and animals.’
‘I’m suspicious of people who’re overcareful to show how much they do like children and animals,’ said Elvis. He kissed Jenny, blushing slightly. ‘Is your brother going to be here?’ he asked.
‘I think so. Why?’
‘I enjoy insulting him. He takes it so seriously.’
Elvis moved on. He hadn’t acknowledged Liz’s existence. Rita wouldn’t have believed that she could ever be so proud of rudeness in one of her sons.
People became aware of a large bear-like man who had just entered the room. He had a lined, lived-in face with deeply pitted cheeks. He wore a bow tie and a burgundy velvet jacket. This was Harvey Wedgewood, the actor. They took furtive looks at him, while pretending to be too sophisticated to be interested in this rare appearance of the almost famous in their midst.
Paul and Jenny set off to take young Thomas upstairs, where Angela Wintergreen would watch over him, giving her a great excuse not to come downstairs.
Ted hurried over to them, now that they were no longer with Rita.
‘Well well well! How’s my little grandson?’ he said.
‘He’s doing well,’ said Jenny.
‘He looks grand,’ said Ted. ‘Just grand. I mean … he really does.’
Looking at his grandson, he felt a deep longing to be back with his family again. And, as if reading his thoughts, Jenny said, ‘Have you seen Rita?’
‘Yes, I … er …’
‘How did it go?’
‘Oh, I haven’t spoken to her. I mean … what can I say?’
‘You’ll have to talk to her, Dad,’ said Paul.
‘Oh, I know. I know. But … I mean … I was hoping she’d speak to me.’
‘I really think under the circumstances it’s up to you to speak to her,’ said Jenny.
‘Oh, I know. I know. But … I mean … I’m frightened she’ll snub me.’
Paul promised to have a word with his mother, and Ted moved on. He found himself face to face with a large man of about sixty, who looked vaguely familiar.
‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said.
‘Very possibly,’ said Harvey Wedgewood, trying not to look too pleased.
The penny dropped.
‘You used to run the off licence in Frog Lane, didn’t you?’
‘I’m Harvey Wedgewood, the actor.’
‘Oh Lord. I’m sorry.’
‘Please!’ Harvey Wedgewood raised his hand in a gesture eloquent of self-deprecation. ‘It’s so boring being constantly recognized!’
Ted moved on, in such confusion that he was almost upon Rita and Liz before he realized it. He called ‘hello!’ to somebody he’d never met, and bolted round the side of the chimney breast, where he spent what seemed like several minutes studying a cartoon of Adolf Hitler struggling unavailingly in deep sand while a sultry woman watched contemptuously. The caption was, ‘I’m never going to get out of this bunker, Eva.’ Ted had never felt less like laughing in his life.
‘It’ll be embarrassing for you if yours grows up looking like Ted, won’t it?’ said Rita, as they watched Ted bolt behind the chimney breast. Their conversation so far had been cool and cautious.
‘Please, Rita. I did love him, you know,’ said Liz.
‘For several months. Your persistence does you credit.’
‘I’d have thought you’d be pleased I’ve left him.’
‘It makes me livid. You broke up my marriage, and for what? The moment he’s bankrupt, you’re off like a shot.’
‘That’s unfair.’
‘Is it? You shied away from the social disgrace like a terrified horse.’
‘That’s an exaggeration. I stayed with him for three and a half weeks after it happened.’
‘Do you want a medal?’
People tried to look as if they weren’t watching Rita and Liz. But the suave Doctor Spreckley, in the middle of a hilarious story about a ruptured spleen, which had never yet failed, realized that he had completely lost the attention
of Zoë Brookes, the pale, thin but immensely tough ballet teacher, whose choreography had won plaudits for the Operatic over more years than she would ever admit to remembering.
‘It was an awful time,’ said Liz. ‘We had no money. We couldn’t go out.’
‘Millions have to live their whole lives like that,’ said Rita.
‘Yes, and I’ve realized how much I admire them,’ said Liz.
‘It’s a start, I suppose.’
‘You didn’t make it easy, Rita. He can be a difficult man.’
‘Really?? Thank you for the information! I hadn’t noticed that! But then I’ve only been married to him for twenty-five years. I had a lovely silver wedding anniversary on my own, incidentally.’
‘I want to say one thing, Rita,’ said Liz. ‘Please don’t blame Ted. This whole affair was entirely my fault.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ called out the bluff Graham Wintergreen. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Please!’
Silence fell rapidly. Graham Wintergreen stood on top of the steps that led up from the bar area to the restaurant area. People on the far side of the chimney breast moved round so as to be able to see him. Rita and Liz remained motionless. Behind Graham stood Harvey Wedgewood. Ted thought that if a photograph of Harvey Wedgewood’s face was blown up to enormous size, it would be difficult to distinguish it from the car park of the Crown and Walnut. Yet the women were drooling over him. He certainly was immaculately groomed. Ted felt that he ought to carry credits for make-up and wardrobe.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Graham Wintergreen, in a voice in which the last obstinate traces of a childhood in Rugeley still persisted. ‘Welcome to the golf club and our racing evening, on behalf of our splendid Theatre Royal, the so-called “Gem of Slaughterhouse Lane”. For those who haven’t been to a racing evening before, it works like this.’ Jenny and Paul returned, free of care and ready for fun. ‘We show you films of six races. You have the opportunity to bet on the tote – that’s me. Fifty per cent of all bets goes to the winners, the rest to our charity. We also auction off the ownership of all the horses in the race. Again, half the money goes to the owner of the winning horse, the rest to the theatre. There will be a fork supper after the third race, and Brenda’s goulash is never forgotten by those who have experienced it.’
