by David Nobbs
Ted Simcock looked up defiantly at the glass-and-concrete structure of the hotel. He was delighted to see that it was already disfigured by one narrow, rusty, dribbling stain. He hoped it was a harbinger of structural problems to come.
The glass doors hissed open like alarmed snakes at his approach, and hissed shut behind him with the disapproval of puritanical women. He walked smack into a wall of plastic sexuality. There was a faint smell of air freshener. Piped music tinkled all about him, and in the centre of the vast foyer a fountain tinkled. He found it hard to lift his feet across the luxurious carpet. He felt clumsy, cloddish, wet. He was sure everyone knew that he was bankrupt. He glared about him with a defiance which he thought concealed, but which in fact revealed, his lack of confidence. His prized raincoat, the most expensive that Beacock and Larkin’s stocked, felt like a flasher’s mac. How fervently he wished that he didn’t have to ask the way to the Royalty Suite.
To his right, a huge noticeboard told him, uselessly, what time it was at that moment in every Grand Universal Hotel in the world.
Behind the reception desk, a much smaller noticeboard announced the day’s events. ‘Royalty Suite: Miss Frozen Chicken (UK). Hawaiian Room: Consolidated Linen. Balinese Room: Mr E. G. Davies (Private Party). Your duty manager: Mr F. Lombardo.’
The music tinkled to a stop, and a sing-song female voice, its human equivalent, announced, ‘We have a message for Sir Hamish McTaggart. Will Sir Hamish McTaggart please contact the reception desk situated in the ground floor foyer immediately? Thank you.’
Ted felt tempted to pretend that he was Sir Hamish McTaggart, a rich eccentric in his flasher’s mac. It was lucky he didn’t. There was no Sir Hamish McTaggart. There was no Consolidated Linen or Mr E. G. Davies (Private Party). Early bookings were poor, and the manager, Mr Gilbert Pilgrim, was as frightened of looking a failure as Ted.
The Royalty Suite was on the first floor. Ted only took the lift because he couldn’t find any stairs. There wasn’t the slightest noise when the doors closed, no sickening lurch of his nervous stomach as they set off, not a groan, not a hiss, not a shudder, to indicate that they were moving. Ted was reluctantly impressed.
The doors slid open silently, and he stepped back into the foyer.
‘Sorry, sir. Bugger’s been on the blink all week,’ said an elderly porter, who appeared to be wearing the uniform of a colonel in the New Zealand Army.
He was quite surprised when Ted gave him fifty pee.
The patriotically decorated bar of the Royalty Suite was airy, well lit and gleaming. The carpet was red. The wide, square armchairs were blue. The walls were white. Everything was set at right angles. The chrome ashtrays revolved when pressed, and could mash large cigars into tiny pieces.
The moment Rodney Sillitoe saw Ted, he approached him. The room had an enormous capacity for devouring crowds and didn’t yet appear at all full, but he knew that it would take courage for Ted to enter it.
‘Ted!’ he said. Ted would have known who he was even if he hadn’t been his best friend, because Rodney wore a name tag. All the representatives of the intensive poultry industry wore name tags. ‘I’m glad you came!’
Ted took some pieces of paper from his pocket, and handed one to Rodney.
‘Thank you for inviting me,’ read Rodney. ‘What’s up, Ted? Have you lost your voice?’
Ted handed another piece of paper to Rodney, with grim satisfaction.
‘No. I’m not talking to you,’ read Rodney. ‘Ted! There’s no need to take it like that.’
But Ted was already on his way to the bar, by a circuitous route which took him right past Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, so that good manners obliged Simon to turn away from a group of name-tagged chicken executives to greet him.
‘Ted! Good to see you!’ lied Simon.
Ted handed Simon one of his pieces of paper.
‘Or to you,’ read Simon. ‘What?’
But Ted hadn’t waited for a reply.
The males wore drab, sombre suits. The females wore colourful, glamorous evening dresses. It was the bird world in reverse. Simon joined drab Rodney and his gleaming gold-and-red mate Betty.
‘Ted wouldn’t talk to me,’ he said.
‘He isn’t talking to me,’ said Rodney. ‘He’s accepted my invitation, and he isn’t talking to me.’
‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Betty.
‘Will he talk to you?’ said Simon Rodenhurst.
‘If he doesn’t, I’ll give him a talking to such as he’s never had,’ said Betty Sillitoe.
‘Thank you for inviting me,’ said Laurence Rodenhurst.
‘Don’t thank me,’ said the immaculate Neville Badger. ‘Thank Cock-A-Doodle Chickens. Rodney’s invited me and my guests at his expense. It’s my reward for fifteen years of legal service. I think he genuinely believes he’s doing me a favour.’
‘And you thought that if you have to endure it, why shouldn’t I?’
‘Exactly. No!’
‘Neville?’ Laurence led Neville over to the wide windows, which afforded an excellent view over the rain-drenched ring road. All the main function rooms looked east, away from the town, over the ring road to the twee, red-brick houses of an almost completed executive housing estate. Right opposite the hotel and the flags of all the nations, across the busy, perilous ring road, there was a smaller row of sodden, flapping flags marking the Show House, which would soon afford its lucky executive purchaser a magnificent view of the Grand Universal Hotel. ‘I’m probably being a bit rude, as your guest,’ said Laurence, ‘but will you give me a straight answer to a straight question?’
‘It depends what the question is,’ said Neville Badger frankly.
‘The question is …’ Laurence pressed down on an ashtray. Its top spun fiercely, as it mashed the air. ‘… are you involved in an intimate relationship with Liz?’
‘This is what you were hinting at the horse-racing evening, isn’t it? I didn’t understand at the time.’
‘Don’t prevaricate. You aren’t in court now. Are you having an affair with my wife?’
‘Certainly not! When I realized that must be what you’d been driving at, I couldn’t understand why. Why on earth should you think that?’
‘On the slenderest evidence. Liz told me she loved you.’
‘What???’
A taxi detached itself from the stream of traffic, and slid into the cul-de-sac. It carried Rita Simcock. She hated spending money on taxis, but if she’d come by bus she’d have got splashed with mud between the ring road and the hotel, and she didn’t want Neville to see her all splashed with mud.
Neville, unaware of this, was staring at Laurence with something near to horror. Laurence didn’t take his eyes off the ring road.
‘She said it was serious and the real thing,’ he said.
‘She did? Good Lord. Good Lord! She said … she loved me? I assure you this is complete news to me, Laurence.’
‘Is it? You took her to dinner at the Clissold Lodge last Thursday fortnight.’
‘My God! Have you been employing a private detective?’
‘The wine waiter told me. He’s a patient of mine. He’s an awful gossip.’
‘He’s an awful wine waiter. I’ve seen Liz twice since that evening at the golf club. It was pleasant. Intimate in the manner of old friends. But totally platonic. Well, there may have been the vaguest tingle of sexuality. You know Liz.’
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘Me, in that sense, I do assure you,’ said Neville Badger, with all the hurt dignity at his command.
Betty Sillitoe waited until Ted had got his drink from the dark, intense Alec Skiddaw, who had seen not only the signed photographs but also the writing on the wall, and had left the Angel the moment the Grand Universal opened.
‘Hello, Ted,’ she said, approaching him warily. ‘I gather you aren’t talking to Rodney.’
Ted didn’t reply.
‘Aren’t you talking to me?’ she asked.<
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‘I’m talking to you, Betty,’ said Ted wearily. ‘I’ve no quarrel with you.’
They sat, side by side, on the square blue chairs with gleaming chrome arms.
‘Ted!’ said Betty. ‘Life’s too short. Rodney’s your best friend.’
‘Was.’
‘Ted!’
‘Was, Betty! I mean … Betty … it was my life, the foundry.’
‘It was a tumble-down mess of rusting sheds.’
‘It was mine, Betty. I mean … it made things. Good things. The best toasting forks this side of Scandinavia. I mean … it did. So when it fails, what does my “best friend” do? He rushes in and buys it. I mean … stupid birds crapping on the very spot where quality door knockers had been lovingly fashioned by skilled craftsmen. I mean!’
‘You got a quick sale at an excellent price. Rodney was helping you in your fight to return to solvency.’
‘It wasn’t an excellent price. It was the market price.’
‘For a site in that condition in that area sold at that speed under those circumstances, the market price was an excellent price.’
‘He was helping himself. A quick sale when he needed it. Be honest, Betty. He was.’
‘I won’t deny it was convenient. But … business is business.’
‘Exactly. This is it. It doesn’t count for much, when business is concerned, doesn’t lifelong friendship. So … I won’t speak to him.’
Tinkle tinkle of piped music. God, its complacency was irritating when you were angry. And Betty was angry. It was another reversal of bird life, the glamorous female being fiercely protective of her drab mate. She pulled angrily at her chair to swing it round, to face Ted, to use her anger. But the bloody things were fixed to the floor. Everything conspired to keep people at a distance from each other. Tinkle tinkle. Only piped emotions please. ‘This is his big night,’ she said, fighting her anger down. ‘Please … for me … don’t spoil his big night.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ted.
‘Why have you come?’ said Betty.
‘To spoil his big night,’ said Ted.
Laurence Rodenhurst and Neville Badger were also finding that the only way to sit was side by side. If you sat facing each other, you were so far apart that you had to shout. It reminded Laurence of an airport lounge. No wonder he felt a tension which grew with every tinkle of music, so carefully chosen to dispel tension by Grand Universal’s consultant industrial psychologists.
‘Do you promise me there’s nothing behind these dinners with Liz?’ he asked tensely.
‘Nothing. I’ve taken Rita out more than Liz.’
‘Maybe, but only because you keep having to make up to her for being rude to her.’
‘I suppose so, though actually I find her quite good company. I admire her spirit in refusing to have Ted back.’
‘Do you admire Liz’s spirit in refusing to come back to me?’
‘That’s different. I wish she would come back to you.’
‘Will you …?’ Laurence closed his eyes. He found appealing for help difficult. ‘Will you use your influence to make one last appeal to her? As my oldest friend.’
‘Well, if you put it. that way, I … yes … I’ll talk to her tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘She’s my other guest.’ Laurence looked appalled. ‘I thought I’d try a bit of peacemaking. Get you together in public, where you’re forced to be polite.’
‘That principle doesn’t seem to have worked too brilliantly recently,’ said Laurence.
Paul Simcock looked round the corridor furtively, for evidence of closed circuit television. Then he realized that, if anybody was watching him on some distant screen, the last thing he should be looking was furtive, so he tried to look extremely casual, but that didn’t work very well, and it was all wasted effort anyway, because there was no closed circuit television.
‘Do we have to?’ he said again.
‘There’s nothing illegal in opening a door,’ said Jenny.
‘You can’t say it’s just opening a door, when we know perfectly well that fifteen fanatical feminists are going to pour in through it and disrupt the crowning.’
The corridor had a green carpet. There were tubs of plastic flowers, complete with plastic greenfly. On one side there were several small windows and, on the other side, doors numbered 108–126. The very absence of atmosphere seemed redolent of furtive sexuality.
‘Why can’t they take their chance coming in the front door?’ said Paul, stopping to look out of a window onto a small gravel courtyard studded with weeds, and overlooked by the windows of other corridors.
‘It’s too risky,’ said Jenny. ‘There’s bound to be a security system.’
‘Exactly,’ said Paul. ‘So this is risky.’
‘I’ll do it on my own if you’re scared.’
‘Of course I’m not scared. It’s just that … he’s my Uncle Rodney.’
‘He isn’t a real uncle. He’s just a friend.’
Paul was wearing his elderly teenage suit, Jenny a multi-coloured long dress hand-knitted in the Punjab.
‘“Just a friend”? Is anything more important than friendship?’ said Paul.
‘Yes. Right and wrong. Justice. Sexual equality. Human dignity.’
‘I know, but our Elvis works for him.’
‘More shame on him. With a philosophy degree he ought to know it’s wrong to keep chickens in conditions of abject misery.’
‘With a philospohy degree he knows how superior people are to chickens.’
‘Not morally. Chickens don’t keep people cooped up in conditions of abject misery.’
‘They would if they were superior to people.’
‘We don’t know that. Maybe they’d be wonderful employers.’
‘Anyway, they aren’t protesting about cruelty to chickens.’
‘Er … I think there may be some animal rights people as well.’
‘Oh, Jenny! I mean you yourself have refused twice to let Uncle Rodney’s chickens out.’
‘Because I’ve realized it’s the wrong way to do it! You can’t suddenly say to a chicken, “Push off. You’re free-range now.” It’s like letting prisoners out with no after-care.’
A slim, almost thin girl came down the corridor in a swimsuit. She wore a sash which proclaimed ‘Miss West Midland Oven-Ready Poultry’. She passed them rather hesitantly, and they suddenly became deeply interested in gravel.
Paul tried not to turn to look at the girl’s back view, but it didn’t prove possible. Her legs and arms were too thin, and she had goose pimples, but her bott …!
‘Miss West Midland Oven-Ready Poultry!’ said Jenny, as soon as the girl had disappeared round the corner. ‘It’s humiliating.’
‘Oh. Yes. Right.’
‘Treated as if she’s a lump of meat, like the chickens.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Battery people.’
‘Appalling.’
‘Well come on, then.’
‘Right.’
Paul and Jenny continued towards the other end of the corridor. As soon as they had disappeared round their corner, the girl peered round her corner, saw that the coast was clear, and hurried back along the corridor.
She knocked on the door of room 114. The door opened almost immediately, and she stepped into the room.
Rita’s increasing confidence in entering crowded rooms was suffering a setback. On the credit side, she was entirely free of mud, but this had to be balanced against the fact that she was wearing one of her bottle-green outfits which she now knew to be hideous. Yet she couldn’t bear to get rid of all those old clothes. Waste and extravagance were wrong. Oh God, there was Ted. Avoid him without having to snub him. Make a beeline for Betty.
‘Thanks for the invitation, Betty.’
‘Well, we just hope that if you meet Ted often enough, it’ll lead to a reconciliation.’
‘Is it you who’ve invited Ted tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘Rita! You and Ted breaking up. Ted refusing to talk to Rodney. It’s as if a whole era is ending.’
‘Maybe it is, Betty,’ said Rita. ‘Eras do.’
At the back of the hotel, at the end of a labyrinth of characterless corridors, a door marked ‘Emergency Exit’ led to a flight of stone steps. At the bottom there was another door, which opened only from the inside. Jenny pushed this door open, and Paul hurried out into the rain.
He hurtled across a muddy, uneven, lunar landscape which would one day be a landscaped garden. He splashed through puddles as he searched for something with which to prop the door open. He felt as if eleven security guards were training rifles on him.
He picked up a large stone. An indignant toad jumped off and terrified him. He splashed back to safety, wondering how he would react if he should ever find himself under gunfire. Would he have the courage to move at all? Would he have the courage not to?
They wedged the stone against the door, holding it open. Again, Paul felt that he was being watched. He turned to look. He caught a brief glimpse of faded blue jeans at the top of the steps, and a shapely backside. He was almost certain that it was a girl’s.
‘Rita?’
They sat side by side in the thinly populated rows of chairs. They would have had a good view of the departures board, if it had been an airport lounge. Rita hoped Betty wasn’t going to appeal to her to appeal to Ted to talk to Rodney. She would never appeal to him about anything again.
‘Not being inquisitive, Rita …’
Rita braced herself for the inquisition.
‘… but did there tum out to be anything in that business with Neville?’
Rita’s heart began to pump at the mention of his name. This was ridiculous. ‘I think so, yes,’ she said cautiously.
‘What do you mean, you “think so”?’
‘Well …’ Rita waited till a man with a name tag had passed by. She didn’t want J. Hedley Watkins overhearing her private business. ‘… he keeps taking me out to dinner. He’s very charming. Very generous. He seems to like me, but it never gets any further than a friendly good-night kiss. I think I’m the first woman he’s taken out since his wife died, and he’s having to learn the whole process of going out with somebody else step by step. I …’ She glanced round the room. Neville was miles away. She’d have to go and say hello to him soon. ‘I think I’m falling in love with him.’
