A Bit of a Do

by David Nobbs

  ‘Sorry. Was it a secret?’ asked Simon, looking from one to the other.

  ‘It was, yes.’

  ‘Only from me, Simon,’ said Ted. ‘Clearly I wasn’t supposed to know.’

  ‘Ted!’ said Rodney.

  ‘Well, according to your story you were on a knife-edge, not expanding,’ said Ted.

  ‘I am,’ said Rodney, trying hard not to sound like an even bigger wheel behind an even bigger Cock-A-Doodle Chickens. ‘I’m forced to expand in order not to collapse. I’m on a treadmill of failure. You don’t want me to collapse, do you?’

  ‘’Course I don’t,’ said Ted. ‘But … I mean … I’d appreciate being told the truth. I mean … I’d appreciate not being patronized because you think I can’t face the truth because you think I’m a failure.’ He stomped off.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Simon Rodenhurst.

  ‘Take my advice, Simon,’ said Rodney. ‘Don’t have friends. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.’

  Rodney Sillitoe moved off to the bar. It was only right, if he kept on winning, that he should buy a few drinks for the less fortunate. Betty tried to stop him buying a large one for himself, but he explained that it would look mean if he didn’t.

  Ted queued and placed his bet for the sixth race, glad to have something to do. All around him there was chatter and warmth and self-assurance. There was smug enjoyment of success. Only he was bankrupt. Only he had failed. Only he had lost his lover. Only he was in danger of losing his wife. As he moved away from the tote he found himself approaching Neville Badger, and decided to veer away. Before he could do so, Neville veered away from him. The insufferable cheek of the man.

  Graham Wintergreen announced the auctioning of the horses for the last race, and Ted knew that he couldn’t face the humiliation of sitting there again, unable to afford to bid. But he didn’t want people to say that he hadn’t had the courage to stick it out to the end.

  The gents! That was the answer. He locked himself in a cabinet, away from that petty and ignorant throng. What did they know? His boot scrapers with the faces of famous prime ministers had been ahead of their time. His toasting forks were too elegant for a utilitarian age. He was a man out of his time.

  He heard the distant cheering for the sixth race. How hollow it all was. How false that undiscriminating rabble were. Anger coursed through him, and he pulled the chain savagely. He had forgotten that he was sitting there fully dressed. The water splashed up and soaked the seat of his trousers.

  Betty Sillitoe had won at last, and queued for her winnings, hoping that, as Rodney had lost, it would be safe to leave him on his own for a few minutes.

  Rodney bought drinks for everyone at the bar, to celebrate the fact that at last he had lost.

  Ted slid back into the bustling bar and stood with his back to the radiator.

  Rita couldn’t decide whether to approach Neville Badger, so she walked slowly towards him, giving him the chance to approach her. But Harvey Wedgewood approached her first.

  ‘Are we going to meet again, Rita?’ he demanded.

  ‘I very much doubt it.’

  ‘Now listen. I’ve landed a very small part in a new production of Hamlet. They seem to think I can bring a bit of much-needed light relief to the gloomy ramparts of Elsinore. I want you to promise to come and see it and come backstage afterwards.’

  ‘You’d be horrified if I did. If you remembered me.’

  ‘I’m not that drunk! Now promise!’

  ‘All right. I promise!’

  ‘Good. Good. Good Rita.’ He spoke to her as if she were a puppy. ‘A little kiss for Uncle Harvey.’ He kissed her expansively, fruitily, boozily, not at all as if she were a puppy. He broke off as he saw Laurence passing by, on his way to have a talk with Neville Badger, for which he had been screwing himself up for half an hour. ‘It’s Dan, Dan, the dental man,’ he cried, catching Laurence in his huge goalkeeper’s clasp.

  Laurence wriggled free from the human contact like a desperate eel.

  ‘My good friend Laurence,’ exclaimed Harvey Wedgewood. ‘Do you know my good friend Rita? Of course you do. Now listen to Uncle Harvey. You two have been badly bruised. Why don’t you lick each other’s wounds?’ He saw the distaste on Laurence’s face and added, hurriedly, ‘As it were.’ He lurched away from them, had a thought, and was among them once more. ‘Laurence dreams he’s Welsh,’ he announced. ‘Rita dreams she’s a rabbit. Together you can dream you’re Welsh rabbits.’ He laughed, and was gone.

  ‘What an awful man,’ said Laurence.

  ‘I rather like him,’ said Rita. After a pause she added, ‘Don’t worry. I prefer you.’

  ‘What?’ gasped Laurence.

  ‘Your place or mine?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For our affair. Harvey has a point, don’t you think? We undeniably have the wounds. So … why don’t we lick them?’

  Laurence was making heroic efforts not to look too horrified.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Rita.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For making those heroic efforts not to look too horrified. I’m teasing, Laurence.’

  ‘Teasing? Teasing? You?’

  ‘I know! What can have got into me?’

  Rita bobbed away from him, feeling wonderfully irresponsible, drunk with the delicious power of not caring what people thought of her. She would speak to Neville Badger before the bubble burst, as burst it must, that being the fate of bubbles.

  Laurence watched her in astonishment, and scurried off, also to speak to Neville, who seemed a safe haven after the typhoons of Rita’s appalling playfulness. Laurence reached him before Rita. Neville felt apprehensive. Something in Laurence’s manner reminded him of Ted. He feared another conversation which he wouldn’t understand.

  ‘Neville?’ said Laurence. ‘May I have a word?’

  Neville Badger’s heart sank. It sounded ominous. ‘Well … yes … of course,’ he said.

  Laurence interpreted Neville’s apprehension as evidence of guilt. ‘As one of my oldest friends,’ he said, and Neville flinched slightly, ‘would you think very hard before embarking on a course of action that would hurt and humiliate me?’

  It was a nightmare! ‘Well, of course,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I … er …’

  ‘I think you know what I’m talking about!’

  ‘No! I don’t!’ The sincerity, even desperation, in Neville’s denial was unmistakeable.

  Laurence stared at him. ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What are you talking about, Laurence?’

  Laurence thought furiously. Maybe he was on the wrong tack altogether. Liz could be very mischievous. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m not sure that I know what I’m talking about.’

  Laurence moved off hurriedly, and Rita was able to approach at last, wondering why the immaculate Neville Badger, that urbane and dignified man, was gawping in total mystification and disbelief, as if he were the Messiah and had just made his Second Coming in the middle of an English Christmas.

  Neville recovered slowly, and waited for her opening gambit with stoic resignation. Used in these last months to being avoided, he was suddenly being approached from all sides.

  ‘I’m all right for a lift home, am I, Neville?’ Rita asked.

  Neville slowly realized, with a feeling of immense relief, that somebody had said something which he understood. Perhaps the nightmare was over. ‘Oh, absolutely!’ he said. He put an arm round Rita and hugged her warmly, in impulsive gratitude for her comprehensibility. ‘Dear Rita! You’re a breath of sanity in a mad world!’ He realized that he had his arm round her, and withdrew it as speedily as good manners permitted.

  What has happened? thought Rita. Had she suddenly become a raging beauty? True, ‘You’re a breath of sanity in a mad world’ was hardly what every woman wanted to hear from the man in her life, but Neville’s hug had procla
imed a different message. Rita tried not to show how fast her heart was beating.

  What has happened? thought Neville. Here’s another one approaching. Suddenly I’m not poor embarrassing old Neville any more. I’m the sparkling epicentre of a town’s social whirlpool!

  ‘You couldn’t by any chance give me a lift home,’ said the new arrival.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Neville with a hint of disappointment, for it seemed that his popularity was as much for his car as his personality. Rita noticed the hint of disappointment, and her heart leapt. ‘The more the merrier,’ said Neville, and Rita saw with pleasure the displeasure that Liz couldn’t quite hide when she realized that she was going to have to share her lift with Rita. ‘Come on, girls!’ said Neville, and he put one arm round Rita and the other arm round Liz, and Rita and Liz gave each other false smiles and wondered which of them Neville would drop off first, or, more important, which he would drop off last and, as he yawned and lurched at the same time, whether he would drop off before he dropped either of them off, and Laurence and Ted tried to hide their dismay as they watched the trio depart, and Rita’s last sight of Ted that night was of him lolling nonchalantly against a radiator, with steam … yes, steam! … rising from his backside! And Betty Sillitoe, flushed with her winnings, felt the pleasure drain away as she witnessed the total failure of her plans for reconciliation all round, and Neville Badger, utterly oblivious of the effect their exit was having on so many people, breezed out, his weariness forgotten in the pleasure of having a woman on each arm, and the moment he was out of the door, he remembered Jane and felt … yes yes! … a sharp pang of the old loss, so that it wouldn’t matter at all which of them he dropped off last.

  And at the bar Rodney Sillitoe found himself between Harvey Wedgewood and Jenny, who was handing back their empty glasses because she counted barmen among the world’s underprivileged, which would have hurt the dapper, ageless Eric Siddall deeply if he’d known.

  ‘Help me, Jenny,’ said Rodney.

  ‘What?’ said Jenny cautiously, alarm bells ringing.

  ‘I keep my chickens in conditions that would make the average Siberian labour camp look like a Masonic dinner by comparison with.’

  ‘Oh, Rodney!’

  ‘My chickens never go to Masonic dinners. My chickens never get the chance to roll one trouser leg up and become chief constables. You’ll help me let them out this time, won’t you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jenny. ‘I just don’t think it’s the right way to go about it.’

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Jenny.’ Rodney turned to Harvey Wedgewood, the actor, who wasn’t as pretty, but might prove more receptive. ‘How do you feel about doing something really amazing tonight?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ boomed Harvey Wedgewood, the actor. ‘But with whom?’

  ‘With me.’

  Harvey Wedgewood fixed a withering glare on Rodney.

  ‘Sir!’ he thundered. ‘You have allowed a popular prejudice against the theatre to cloud your judgement!’

  ‘No! Not that!’ said Rodney, but Harvey Wedgewood had stalked off with a greater sense of being wronged than he had ever shown as Lear. Rodney turned to Eric Siddall, his last chance. ‘Alec?’ he said. ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘If I can, sir,’ said Eric Siddall. ‘What can be done will be done. Have no fear.’ He made no further attempt to correct Rodney’s belief that he was called Alec. In the end, the customer is always right. ‘What can I do for you, sir? Speak and I shall listen.’

  ‘All my chickens have come home to roost and it’s time to let them roost where they like.’

  ‘What? Sir.’

  ‘We’re going to let my chickens out of the factory. Set them free.’

  Eric Siddall slid off along his invisible rails, grabbed an empty glass, and hesitated. The perfect barman was about to make his first mistake. He flung his right arm up in the air.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Rodney. ‘Is she?’

  Betty hurried over. To Rodney she said, ‘Oh, Rodney!’ To Eric she said, ‘Thanks, Alec, but I thought you said you couldn’t raise your right arm.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Eric Siddall, barman supreme.

  ‘Oh, Betty,’ said Rodney. ‘Are you drunk again?’

  ‘Not me!’ said Betty. ‘You!’

  Betty and Rodney stared at each other, then turned to stare at Eric Siddall.

  ‘Alec!’ they said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the dapper, ageless Eric Siddall, suddenly naked of catch-phrases.

  Now there was much putting on of coats. The room rang with good nights loud and good nights soft, good nights sincere and good nights false. There was a sudden rush for copies of With A Hey Nonny No. Harvey Wedgewood signed them both with pleasure.

  ‘Your taxi’s arrived, Mr Wedgewood,’ said Graham Wintergreen to Harvey Wedgewood’s surprise, since he hadn’t ordered one.

  Melissa Holdsworthy, the tall, handsome sculptperson, strode out majestically with a last, meaningful glance at the suave Doctor Spreckley. Betty Sillitoe managed to get Rodney Sillitoe to the car. At last the actor was gone. Graham Wintergreen breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘No reconciliation, then?’ said Ted, as Laurence put his coat on prior to leaving alone.

  ‘No. Nor you?’

  ‘No. Well … we’re better off without them, Laurence. We are!’

  ‘Please don’t try to pretend you’ve done me a favour,’ said Laurence.

  ‘Laurence! Don’t be like that,’ said Ted. ‘I mean … we’re in the same boat, you and I. I mean … we are!’

  Then Laurence was gone, and Paul and Jenny were approaching with the carrycot and Elvis Simcock and Simon Rodenhurst converged on them too, and Elvis turned and gazed straight into the gauche Davina Partridge’s hot, uncomfortable eyes, and she blushed and bolted for the last time that night, and the cynical Elvis said, ‘I wonder how much her parents paid for the education that screwed her up. Probably sent her to a finishing school in Switzerland which finished her completely,’ and Simon Rodenhurst knew that Elvis was really talking about him, and couldn’t think of anything witty to say, and scowled, and scurried off with an impulse to ask Davina Partridge out to dinner, but as usual with women he was too late, the whole covey had gone. And Elvis hurried off to insult Simon one last time, and Paul and Jenny were left alone with Ted.

  ‘You certainly find out who your friends are at a time like this,’ said Ted, whose backside was now completely dry.

  ‘We’re your friends, Dad,’ said Paul.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Jenny.

  ‘I thought you were angry with me for what I did,’ said Ted.

  ‘We are,’ said Paul. ‘But I don’t think we expect people to be perfect any more.’

  Ted and Paul hugged each other, and Ted and Jenny kissed each other, and Ted set off for his lonely home, and Paul and Jenny kissed each other.

  ‘Except you,’ said Jenny.

  ‘You what?’ said Paul.

  ‘I think you’re perfect,’ said Jenny.

  She turned to wave cheerfully to the long-haired Carol Fording-bridge, who was in a group that were just leaving. Carol managed to catch Paul’s eye, behind Jenny’s back, and her look said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll never tell,’ and then she was gone.

  ‘I have a perfect husband,’ said Jenny. ‘I have a perfect marriage.’

  ‘Oh heck,’ thought Paul.

  Fifth Do

  May:

  The Crowning of

  Miss Frozen Chicken (UK)

  The mournful swish of the windscreen wipers was making Rodney Sillitoe feel nervous. If only he hadn’t decided to act as compère as well as host.

  It was established policy to give all the regions a tum at hosting the most prestigious event in the intensive poultry farming calendar. It was established tradition that the managing director of the largest firm in the chosen region should act as host. Last year, when the chicken caravan had rolled into Dumfries, Norman Preston, the ebullient head of Border Frozen Product
s Ltd, had also acted as compère, and by common consent he had handled a difficult evening with skill and humour. ‘Anything Norman Preston can do, I can do better,’ had been the sentiments of Rodney Sillitoe, the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens. Now he wasn’t so sure. He wished he’d chosen one of the disc jockeys from Radio Gadd.

  He had been thrilled to learn that the Grand Universal Hotel would be opening at last a fortnight before the crowning. Instead of the drab ballroom of the clapped-out Angel, his great moment would come in the gleaming new Royalty Suite of the Grand Universal. Now he wasn’t so sure about that either. It would be too new, too impersonal, too efficient. He longed for the cosy, raddled charm of the Angel. He even felt nostalgic about Alec Skiddaw’s boils. What was good enough for Terry Wogan, Ian Botham, Des O’Connor, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, General Dayan, Frank Carson, Michael Heseltine, Professor A. J. Ayer and Joan Sutherland, should have been good enough for him.

  Rodney sighed deeply as he pulled off the Flannerly Roundabout into the cul-de-sac. Onto the top of the signpost, which for many years had read ‘C.E.G.B. Only’, the Automobile Association had tacked a rather pathetic small yellow sign which stated, but only for those with excellent eyesight, ‘Hotel And’.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Betty Sillitoe, who was overdressed as usual.

  ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’s first Grand Universal Hotel,’ said a dripping billboard.

  ‘I wonder if I was wise to invite Ted,’ said Rodney Sillitoe.

  Twenty minutes later the cold, relentless spring rain was still falling on the bare flowerbeds and immature saplings of the muddy, semi-landscaped gardens of the Grand Universal Hotel. In front of the hotel, facing the ring road, the flags of all the nations were flapping petulantly in the breeze, indignant at landing up in this bleak comer of the globe. Beside the hotel, a large car park, studded with yet more immature trees which in less than twenty years might become adequate windbreaks, stretched down to the concrete banks of the muddied, rain-swollen Gadd.