by David Nobbs
‘Neville!’
‘Oh, I’m not going mad,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I know she’s dead. But she comes to me in dreams, and she seems so real. Last week she ticked me off for being so rude to Rita. Jane lays great store … laid great store … by manners. I’m being very charming to Rita, for Jane’s sake.’
‘Rita does have a point,’ said Liz.
‘What?’
‘You must try to live in the present.’
‘Why don’t you shut up?’ said Neville. ‘What do you know about what it’s like?’
As he stormed towards the restaurant area with Rita’s drink, Neville met Harvey Wedgewood, the actor, wandering expansively towards the bar.
‘Hello, I’m Harvey Wedgewood, the actor,’ said Harvey Wedgewood, the actor.
‘Really? I’m Neville Badger, the lawyer,’ said Neville, and he continued on his way, leaving Harvey Wedgewood stranded.
All Neville’s anger left him immediately, and he hurried back to Liz. ‘My dear Liz. I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying these days.’ He gazed into her eyes, remembering suddenly how vulnerable she must feel tonight, hoping he hadn’t hurt her. He squeezed her hand and kissed her. ‘Dear Liz,’ he said. ‘We must have dinner one day. I’ll phone you.’
Liz watched him as he made his way towards Rita, giving Harvey Wedgewood a wide berth. She saw him smile. She saw Rita’s answering smile. She wouldn’t have believed, if somebody had told her at Jenny’s wedding, that, less than eight months later, she’d look across a crowded golf club, heavily pregnant, and feel jealous of Rita.
Harvey Wedgewood couldn’t have looked more staggered after his encounter with Neville if he’d been the Duke of Edinburgh opening a traditional knitwear centre, and a tourist had approached him and said, ‘Don’t I know you?’ and he’d said, ‘I’m the Duke of Edinburgh’ and the tourist had said, ‘Oh yeah? And I’m the Archbishop of sodding Canterbury.’ But no man who has toured Egypt in a British Council production of Titus Andronicus is at a loss for long, and by the time he’d bought his drink his public persona was back in place. He even felt able to smile at that idiot who thought he ran an off licence. After all, the incident would be worth a self-deprecating chuckle in his local in Princes Risborough.
Ted was looking round rather anxiously. He wanted to avoid Liz, but catch Rita on her own. He found himself staring at the man whom he now knew to be Harvey Wedgewood, the actor. He’d better apologize.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, ‘but you’re so familiar to us in our lounge that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t met you.’
‘Please! The incident is closed,’ said Harvey Wedgewood, mollified by Ted’s explanation. ‘Now, tell me about yourself. I want to meet everybody. You are?’
‘Ted Simcock.’
‘And what do you do for a crust, Ted Simcock?’
Ted found that he was on the verge of concealing the truth. That wouldn’t do. His only hope was to face it head-on.
‘I had a small foundry,’ he said. ‘I’ve just gone into voluntary liquidation.’
‘I played a bankrupt once,’ said Harvey Wedgewood. ‘The critics said I was too cheerful. They always do. They said my Lear looked about as tragic as a man who’s just discovered that the spare wheel’s flat. But I believe in looking on the bright side. What’s wrong with that? They’ve paid good money. They don’t want to go home feeling depressed.’
Liz was almost upon them before she saw Ted. She attempted to veer away, but Harvey Wedgewood shot out a firm but friendly arm with an agility that would have been surprising to anybody who didn’t know that in his palmier days he had played in goal for Equity, and drew the captured Liz slowly towards Ted.
‘Ted!’ he said. ‘I’d like you to meet a lady I’ve been lucky enough to be introduced to tonight. Liz Rodenhurst. Ted Simcock.’
‘How do you do?’ said Ted, grasping Liz’s hand in a painful grip.
‘Ow!’ said Liz. ‘You’re hurting.’
‘Oh good,’ said Ted. ‘Now you know what it feels like to be squeezed through a mangle.’
‘I have the impression that you two know each other,’ said Harvey Wedgewood.
‘Inside out,’ said Ted.
Far away, on the peripheries of the world, the social hubbub could be heard as if through water. Here, between Ted and Liz and the watching Harvey Wedgewood there was a silence that was like the ice age must have sounded, if there had ever been a brief lull in the screaming of the wind.
‘Er … excuse me,’ improvised Harvey Wedgewood. ‘Uncle Harvey must go and place his bet on the next race.’
He scampered away, as if he’d seen three critics approaching.
Eyes were straining on the edges of their sockets as people studiously avoided looking as if they were watching Ted and Liz. They stood just far enough away to be socially respectable, but near enough to hear if things should really hot up. Ted and Liz were left facing each other like stags in a clearing. Liz was amazed at how coarse Ted’s features were. Ted noticed that she was beginning to develop a double chin. Neither of them could believe that not many weeks ago they had found each other deeply attractive.
‘What’s it like back in the upper middle classes?’ asked Ted.
‘You didn’t exactly make it easy for me to stay,’ said Liz.
‘You didn’t exactly make it easy for me to make it easy for you to stay. How’s Laurence looking forward to bringing up my baby?’
‘I haven’t seen him. I must say, Ted, I admire your courage in coming.’
‘Not as much as I admire yours. They’re saying far worse things about you than they are about me.’
Anger had given Ted an eloquence to which he rarely aspired. For a few seconds, as he strode away, he felt like a successful matador. But instead of a cheering crowd of Spaniards exalted by their vicarious courage there was a gathering of middle-class Anglo-Saxons pretending that they hadn’t even noticed him. Already, by the time he found himself face to face with his daughter-in-law, his triumph had been eroded, and when she said, ‘Have you seen Paul?’ the most eloquent and elegant reply that he could manage was, ‘Oh! Er … yes. Yes. He’s … er … he’s gone for a walk. He’s got a headache.’
Paul and the long-haired Carol Fordingbridge sat with their feet dangling in one of three particularly vicious bunkers which guarded the tight, awkward green of the short thirteenth. It was a mild, soft, still spring night, but Paul could take no pleasure from its velvet charms.
‘So what do you want to talk about?’ said Carol Fordingbridge.
‘Well … you know … what happened. As we’d met, I thought … well … it’d be nicer to talk than just … not talk. Pretend it hasn’t happened. I didn’t want to arouse suspicions so …’
‘… you suggested meeting in the men’s locker room.’
‘I didn’t know my dad would be there.’
‘And now outside.’
‘No one’ll notice we’re missing. It needn’t take long. I just … didn’t want it to … er … end messily. You know. And … er … my wife doesn’t know anything about it, Carol. And I’m a happily married man and I don’t want to destroy that.’
‘Perhaps you should have thought of that before you …’
‘I know. I know.’
The moon came out from behind a bank of quiet cloud. Paul felt very visible. Supposing the whole gathering decided to admire the night.
‘But … she needn’t know. Need she?’
‘I don’t even know your wife.’
‘She’s here tonight. I just thought … if you could avoid her … it might be best.’
‘I’ve no burning desire to meet her.’
It wasn’t an unqualified assurance, but Paul sensed that it was all he’d get.
‘I didn’t mean to do what I did,’ he said. How could he say that he’d been drunk without seeming rude and unsympathetic to feminine sensitivities? His reserves of tact were stretched to the full. ‘I … I was … I’d been cele
brating the birth of my first child. I was … in a state of … exaltation.’
‘You were drunk.’
‘Carol! I’d had a few. Who wouldn’t? You overwhelmed me. In my … emotional state …’
‘You were as emotional as a newt.’
‘You knew I was married. You knew I’d just become a father. You shouldn’t have done it if you disapprove.’
‘I was pretty emotional myself.’
‘Exactly. You said yourself you’d been in the pub for hours. Oh, Carol. I’m not like that really. I’m a young idealist brimming over with concern and respect for all forms of life. My ambition is to eliminate poverty from the Third World, not have a drunken sex orgy the night after I’ve become a father. I long to go back to that night, and do something different. Anything. March through central Leeds protesting about unemployment. Break into Molesworth Camp and sit on a cruise missile. Be a kidney donor while still alive. Anything, rather than meet you.’
‘Thanks very much.’
He heard the cheering as the guests watched the second race. It made him feel safer.
‘No! Carol! What I mean is … lovely though that was. Particularly because that was lovely. I mean I must admit that after-wards … what I could remember … I wondered if it was only because I was … so emotional … that I’d thought you were so lovely. It isn’t. You are. You’re amazingly lovely.’
The moon went in again, hiding her amazing loveliness. He longed to take her creamy body out here, now, in the dewy grass. Well, not take her body, he was a sensitive enlightened feminist. He longed to give her pleasure, to let her take him, here among the rabbits, beneath the floating owls. He closed his eyes and fought against it. ‘Down, down!’ he told his penis, as if it were an overexcited dog. He forced himself to think about asexual things – golf, Graham Wintergreen, the Tory Party Conference. He sighed with relief. The moment of danger was over.
‘We’d better go in,’ he said.
Half the world was starved of water, but they could hear the soft hiss of the sprinklers, making sure that the green wouldn’t be too fast the next day. In view of this, and his youth, and the dark, and his emotional turmoil, golfing readers may perhaps excuse Paul for not tidying up the bunker where their heels had scuffed a pit in the sand.
As they walked back, Paul put round Carol Fordingbridge an arm that was intended to be comradely, affectionate, respectful, grateful, apologetic, non-sexist and unpatronizingly protective. To his horror his hand squirmed its way down her back and felt the outline of her superb buttocks as they swung rhythmically through the night. She removed the hand and gave it a smack. Three startled rabbits scuttled off into the rough.
The second race was over. Ted had lost five of his thirty pounds. The cynical Elvis had explained to his employer that he was making a simple error of logic. If he wanted to lose, it was no use backing his unlucky number. Since it was unlucky, he would win. He must back his lucky number, and thus achieve the desired effect – defeat. Luckily, Jenny had been too busy to worry about Paul’s absence. Laurence had asked her to indicate to Liz that he regretted his earlier sarcasm, and wished to discuss the situation in a civilized way. Jenny had conveyed this message to Liz, who had indicated that if her father wished to have a civilized discussion, he should approach her and have it. He had been rude and it was up to him to make an apology, which she would accept in handsome fashion. Jenny had conveyed this message to Laurence, who had sighed. Ted had bought one more large whisky, to give him the courage to approach Rita. Harvey Wedgewood, as he walked away from Graham Wintergreen’s one-man tote, pocketing his betting slip for the third race, needed no such courage. After all, he was Harvey Wedgewood, the actor.
‘Hello, dear lady,’ he boomed fruitily. ‘You are …?’
‘Rita.’
‘Rita! What a lovely name!’
‘Thank you.’ Rita felt a glow suffusing her cheeks, a faint flush, quite unlike those pink spots. ‘You’re Harvey Wedgewood, the actor, aren’t you?’
‘Alas! My anonymity is shattered!’ said Harvey Wedgewood with a gesture of regret, which he hoped would seem like self-effacing modesty, though it was actually an attempt to hide a spasm of irritation. It was all very well his using the suffix ‘the actor’, but when the punters used it it reminded him that he had never become quite as famous as he had expected. This Rita woman would have said to Sir Alec Guinness ‘You’re Sir Alec Guinness, aren’t you?’ not ‘You’re Sir Alec Guinness, the actor, aren’t you?’ as if it was necessary to distinguish him from all the other Sir Alec Guinnesses that were clogging up the civilized world. He switched off the irritation and turned a charming smile onto Rita. ‘But don’t let’s talk about me,’ he said. ‘Actors are boring. Our job is to observe, to listen. Tell me about yourself.’
‘I’m just a very ordinary woman.’
‘Rita!’ Harvey Wedgewood’s outrage at this description was so loud that the headmaster of the Abbey School almost dropped the half-pint of bitter which was all he ever allowed himself in public in case one of his boys saw him setting a bad example. ‘Nobody’s ordinary!’ There was deep concern on his richly cratered face. ‘Don’t sell yourself short. My agent used to say to me, “Harvey, never sell yourself short. You’re a genius. Never forget it.”’
‘I saw you in The Dance of Death at Dewsbury,’ said Rita, who had never been told she was a genius by anybody.
‘I thought I was quite good in that,’ said Harvey Wedgewood. ‘I thought I brought out an optimistic side that is usually sadly overlooked in Strindberg. But don’t let’s talk about me. What’s your favourite food, Rita? Your favourite colour? Your deepest hope? Your greatest fear? I’m fascinated by people’s dreams. What did you dream about last night? Spill the beans to Uncle Harvey.’
‘Well … last night, actually …’ Rita didn’t want to talk about her dreams. ‘… it’s so silly, but …’ You just couldn’t disappoint this great bear of a man. ‘… last night I dreamt I was a rabbit.’
‘A rabbit! Good Lord! Sounds like one for Clement Freud rather than Sigmund.’
Rita shook her head. She knew that the repeated images of her own insignificance in her dreams were definitely for Sigmund.
Ted found himself approaching Rita on his way from the bar with the large whisky which was to give him the courage to approach her. He was in a quandary. He didn’t want to talk to her when she was with the actor, but he didn’t want to snub her by veering away. While he was debating his course of action, Harvey Wedgewood grabbed him in a bear-like hug so affectionate that most men would have reserved it for old friends who had just returned to freedom after seventeen years in a Siberian labour camp.
‘Rita,’ said Harvey Wedgewood. ‘I’d like to introduce you to a very old friend of mine, Ted Simcock. Ted has recently liquidated his foundry, Rita. Ted, meet Rita, who dreams she’s a rabbit. I didn’t catch your other name, Rita.’
‘Simcock.’
‘What?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You mean …?’
‘Precisely,’ said Ted.
‘But I thought Ted and …’ Harvey Wedgewood stopped, wishing he hadn’t started.
‘Absolutely,’ said Rita.
‘Ah!’ improvised Harvey Wedgewood.
‘Rita?’ said Ted. ‘It’s time we had a talk.’
‘My friends!’ said Harvey Wedgewood, putting one hugely affectionate arm round each of them. ‘Take a leaf out of old Harvey’s book. Look on the bright side. Be reconciled. Forgive and forget. Life’s too short. ‘Nuff said? Exit Harvey Wedgewood left, tactfully.’
Harvey Wedgewood exited left, thankfully. A young lady was approaching him, tall and gauche. He was about to speak, but she blushed and bolted. She was the daughter of Colonel Partridge, who was on the theatre management committee. Colonel Partridge was no intellectual, but he knew what he liked. He liked mystery plays (Agatha Christie and Francis Durbridge, not York and Oberammergau); port; stilton; hunting; shooting his namesakes; being kind to t
he poor and driving them to polling stations to vote Conservative; and his dear, over-loved, overprotected daughter Davina. How horrified he would have been if he had seen the swift exploratory sniff which Harvey Wedgewood gave her before she rushed from his aura. He smelt expensive perfume, horses, dogs, tomato soup and fear. Then the more general aroma of the room assailed him. Sweat, aftershave, cigarette smoke, alcohol, furniture polish and heat, the whole confection bound together with a hint of distant goulash. Hello! Who was this stick approaching?
‘Excuse me,’ said Laurence. ‘You’re Mr Wedgewood the actor, aren’t you?’
‘Please! No formality. Call me Harvey. And you are …?’
‘Laurence. I saw your Othello in Leeds.’
‘Yes, yes, never mind that. What do you do, Laurence?’
‘Me? I’m just a dentist.’
‘Priceless! Absolutely right!’ exclaimed Harvey Wedgewood so loud that several people turned their heads.
‘What?’ said Laurence faintly.
‘You being a dentist. Well done, the great casting director in the sky. A slightly up-market dentist, but … very good. I suppose, Laurence, as you went through all the business of sitting through it, it’d be selfish of me not to ask you what you thought of my Othello.’
‘Well … I thought the critics were unnecessarily cruel.’
‘I never read the critics. If the Daily Telegraph want to say that I showed all the passion of a man who has just discovered that Desdemona has been buying rather expensive curtain material, let them. What do they know? Can they act, Laurence? You’re quite right. They can’t. Don’t they realize that I want to send the audience home feeling there’s still some hope in life? But let’s talk about you. Your hopes. Your fears. Your dreams. I love other people’s dreams. Tell me, Laurence, what did you dream about last night?’
‘Well … actually …’ Laurence didn’t want to go into great detail about his dream, in which he had been judging an Eisteddfod in which every contestant had been Liz. But he felt obliged to say something. ‘It’s stupid, but I dreamt I was Welsh.’
