Authors: David Nobbs
Paul and Jenny hovered uneasily. They didn’t want to be so friendly as to offer Ted and Liz drinks, or so rude as to refuse to do so. And neither Ted nor Liz offered them drinks.
‘George Pilbeam told me all about the problems he’s having with his spigotted ferruleless rod, whatever that is,’ said Liz. ‘I suggested he see a doctor. It didn’t go down too well.’
‘Do you think they could do me one?’ said Jenny.
‘A spigotted ferruleless rod?’ said Liz.
‘A salad.’
‘Why? You’ve not turned vegetarian?’ Jenny’s silence proclaimed her guilt. She resented feeling guilty. Liz resented her
daughter’s vegetarianism. Paul resented Liz’s resentment. Ted resented all their resentment. The air crackled with resentment. ‘Still trendy, then?’ said Liz. ‘I thought marriage to Paul might knock that out of you.’
‘It’s not a trend,’ said Paul indignantly. ‘It’s a conviction. I don’t share it, but I respect it.’
‘I’m not going to not do the things I believe are right just because other people are doing them,’ said Jenny.
‘I’ll go and see if Mavis can rustle up a salad,’ said Ted grimly. ‘It shouldn’t be totally beyond her.’
Paul asked Jenny what she’d like to drink, but didn’t ask Liz.
Kevin Loudwater intercepted Ted before he reached Mavis. He was a tall, sensually handsome man of forty, with permed, crinkly hair and tight, complacent buttocks. He was a pork butcher. He kept his life outside the pub very much to himself, and was variously rumoured to be a great womanizer and a homosexual. There was no hard evidence either way.
‘Can I have a word outside, Ted?’ he asked.
‘Outside? It’s freezing, Kev.’
‘I know, but … I don’t want people to hear what I have to say.’
‘What is all this?’
‘Blackmail,’ said Kevin Loudwater.
‘You what?’
‘I’ve got some dirt on you, Ted, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to blackmail you.’
‘Say what you have to say, Kev. Shout it through a megaphone. I’ve got no secrets.’
‘Oh, come on,’ pleaded Kevin Loudwater. ‘Play fair. How can I blackmail you if everybody overhears? I won’t have any hold over you any more.’
‘You haven’t got any hold over me now. I mean … there
is
no dirt on me. There isn’t.’
‘It’s about the fracas at Wisbech.’
‘Let’s go outside.’
‘Cast your mind back to Wisbech,’ said Kevin Loudwater, the permed pork butcher. ‘A rotten day. Grey clouds over the flat, black Fens. A howling easterly wind blowing straight from Russia.’
It felt as though there was a howling easterly wind blowing straight from Russia to the car park of the Crown and Walnut.
‘You’re getting carried away, Kev,’ said Ted through chattering teeth.
The Crown and Walnut was an old canal pub, with fishing rights over five hundred yards of the Rundle and Gadd Navigation. At the back of the pub, beyond the car park, there were six rustic tables with rustic benches on a thin strip of coarse grass beside the canal. In summer this was gay with drinkers and their squealing children, and the bank was dotted with old crisp packets and discarded tissues. Now it was deserted except for the blackmailer and his victim, hunched against the gale. Behind them, a dim light almost lit up the neatly parked cars. In front of them, the canal and the housing estate beyond were invisible in the inky night.
‘Aye, but it’s not irrevelant,’ said Kevin Loudwater. ‘It all contributed to the frayed tempers. It made the fracas inevitable.’
‘There’ll be another fracas if I die of exposure here,’ said Ted.
‘Right. So the argument occurs. The pretext is the habits of tench. The real cause is the habits of a redheaded waitress called Janet Hicks.’
Ted was transported back, far away to the distant flat lands south of that mythical line from Birmingham to the Wash, which used to be so popular with weather forecasters. He was on the long, straight bank of the Ouse, on that grey Fenland day of endless horizons, so dreary in bad weather, so miraculously beautiful in the vastness of sunny days.
‘Trevor Barnwell makes repeated boasts regarding himself, the redhead and Derek Wiggins,’ continued the inexorable pork butcher. ‘Derek Wiggins responds with counter allegations, casting doubts on Trevor Barnwell’s ability as angler and lover. Trevor Barnwell pushes Derek Wiggins in. Derek Wiggins can’t swim. Trevor Barnwell refuses to rescue Derek Wiggins. Alan Wallis pushes Trevor Barnwell in.’
Listening to Kevin Loudwater’s account, Ted had a ridiculous hope that this time the outcome would be different. It reminded him of his boyhood, when he was still an avid supporter of the United. Sometimes he’d bought an evening paper on the way home, in the hope that he’d read that they hadn’t lost 3–1 after all.
‘Trevor Barnwell can swim, but it takes three men to rescue Derek Wiggins. You are not among them. Your Elvis is, but you aren’t.’
‘I was prepared,’ said Ted. ‘I mean … I was. If necessary. Which it wasn’t.’
‘I don’t dispute that, Ted,’ said the sensual pork butcher. ‘But you didn’t, did you? What did you do? While all eyes were on the water … except mine … you removed two roach and a bream from Trevor Barnwell’s keep-net and put them in yours, thus winning the Arthur Tong Cup under false pretences.’
Ted didn’t reply immediately. When he did, the wind tore his words away and scattered them to the night.
They turned, and walked slowly back along the bank, with the wind behind them.
‘Kev!’ said Ted. ‘It’s ridiculous, is that. Ludicrous. I mean … why should I do a thing like that? I mean … tell me … just tell me. A respectable citizen, owner of his own foundry, a recently elected Rotarian. I mean … Kev! … be sensible! … Why should I do a thing like that?’
‘Because it was about to be won by your son. You resent him for having a university degree. You feel inferior. You couldn’t bear to see him beat you. Suddenly, on an impulse, you saw your opportunity.’
‘Kev! It’s ludicrous, is that. Ridiculous. I encouraged our Elvis to join the angling club. And why should I envy him, anyroad? I’m the premier maker of toasting forks and door knockers in Yorkshire. He’s an unemployed waiter. I mean … Kev! … really! You’re a pork butcher, not a psychiatrist.’
‘I saw you take them fish.’
Ted stopped walking, and watched a car’s headlights swing wildly across the sky as it mounted the humped canal bridge.
‘What do you want?’ he asked at last.
‘Nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds seventy-three pee.’
‘You what?’
‘That’s the estimate for my roof. I’m not greedy. I won’t even ask for the extra twenty-seven pee.’
The car turned carefully into the crowded car park.
‘I need the money,’ said Kevin Loudwater. ‘It’s no picnic, being a pork butcher in this town. A high Jewish influx, the price of
meat, the depression, the common market, the greed of the farmers, the collapse of the traditional pattern of family eating, the health food fad, vegetarianism. We’re a persecuted minority, surrounded by enemies. It’s our name. Take history. The Butcher of Magdeburg. The Butcher of Lyon. Never the Greengrocer of Magdeburg. Never the Ironmonger of Lyon. We are, Ted. We’re a persecuted minority.’
‘What if I don’t pay?’ said Ted.
‘I denounce you at the next committee meeting. Your sons despise you. Your mistress finds out what a hero she’s hitched her wagon to.’
‘Oh heck.’
The car’s headlights were extinguished. Inside the car, Henry the Eighth released his seat belt, gave a deep sigh, and wondered whether it might not be better to drive off home.
Ted made an unobtrusive return to the lounge bar, where thirty-five people were now present. The abstemious Pilbearns and Hortons had formed a tiny, respectable party within the more raucous, larger party.
Ted approached Liz, trying to look casual.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘Just chatting to Kevin Loudwater. He’s a bit upset.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t leave me on my own!’
It was like an echo of Rita!
‘Liz! Talk to people! Mingle!’
‘What was he upset about?’
She was suspicious. She could see that he was shaken. He should have prepared his story. He cast around for inspiration.
‘Having fish and chips,’ he said. ‘He wanted meat. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? I mean … he’s a butcher. It’s a devil sometimes, the responsibility of office. I said to him, “Kev! You’re letting your business interests cloud your judgement. It was democratically decided on. Majority verdict.” No use. Stubborn.’
He never found out whether she believed him. Their thoughts were diverted by the arrival of Henry the Eighth. All conversation in the rosy lounge bar faltered momentarily, as anglers and their wives and friends and the lads from the public bar and their lugubrious hosts Mavis and Lester Griddle gawped at him.
‘Are you the entertainment?’ asked Pete Ferris, the self-appointed doorman, hopefully.
‘What? Oh! No! No no!’ said Henry the Eighth. ‘No, I’m Neville Badger, of Badger, Badger, Fox and Badger. I’m an old friend of … of Mr Simcock’s … er … his …’ Neville could find no suitable word for Liz’s present status in Ted’s life. ‘… of Liz.’
‘Only they said they’d be here by half eight, and it’s nearly nine fifteen,’ said Pete Ferris.
Ted approached the magnificently padded figure. ‘Neville!’ he said.
‘You were kind enough to say that if I could drop in I’d be very welcome,’ said the immaculate Neville Badger.
‘Oh yes. Yes. Good.’ In Ted’s expression there was the unstated addition, ‘But not dressed as Henry the Eighth.’
‘I’m sorry about the garb,’ said Neville, answering the unstated addition. ‘I was invited to a fancy-dress party, and I couldn’t find it.’
Ted laughed, then quickly recovered himself.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Liz approached. She’d hung back, thinking it was some maniac fisherman of Ted’s acquaintance. Only now had she recognized Neville. ‘Neville!’ she said. ‘It’s you!’
‘He was invited to a fancy-dress party, and he couldn’t find it,’ said Ted.
Liz laughed, then quickly recovered herself.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I really think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.’
She kissed Neville. A tiny bit of false beard adhered to her face.
‘I’m Henry the Eighth,’ said Neville.
‘Well, obviously.’
‘She loved fancy dress. I felt she’d have wanted me to go. We did every year. But they’ve moved, and I couldn’t find them, and I didn’t like to knock on people’s doors dressed like this.’
The red wall lights and the fairy lights on the tree flickered as the gale hurled the overhead cables against the swishing tops of the frantic poplars by the Mead Farm. Mavis Griddle gave Lester Griddle a look which said, ‘Get the candles ready.’ But
the lights recovered.
‘Nobody ever knew what I was supposed to be,’ said Neville. ‘Nobody. Ever. Now at last I succeed, and I can’t find the blasted party. I combed the streets for Napoleons and Nell Gwyns. I followed somebody dressed like Hitler. It turned out to be some wretched youth going to a disco. Well, I couldn’t go on all night. And I knew that if I went home to change, I’d lose impetus. I wouldn’t find the courage to come. And I’d be a bit of a sore thumb in a round hole here anyway in these surroundings … oh, not that they aren’t nice. Awfully jolly little place. All those matchboxes. Fascinating … So in a way being Henry the Eighth might make it easier. I felt. And I certainly haven’t the courage to stay at home, on my own. I dread this Christmas.’
‘You’re welcome to spend it in our cosy little penthouse with us,’ said Liz. ‘Isn’t he, Ted?’
Ted tried to hide his dismay at this suggestion, also at their diminutive attic flat being described as a cosy penthouse. It wouldn’t have been difficult to guess that Liz was the mother of an estate agent. ‘Yes! Yes, of course!’ he said.
‘Well, thank you,’ said Neville. ‘Thank you! We’ll see.’
‘Telephone call for you, Ted,’ said Lester Griddle lugubriously as they approached the bar. ‘Summat about an accident,’ he added rather more cheerfully.
‘Oh no,’ said Ted. ‘If that’s the entertainment, we’re sunk. Incidentally, Lester, can Mavis rustle up a salad or something? We have a vegetarian in our midst.’
Ted hurried off. Liz bought a drink for Neville Badger, and Lester Griddle said, ‘A vegetarian, in the angling club! It’s a contradiction in terms.’
Neville and Liz went to sit at one of the beaten copper tables, near the curtained bay window. Behind them was a garishly improbable painting of the canal and bridge. No water was ever so blue, no sky so purple, no clouds so manicured.
‘How are you feeling?’ said the immaculate Henry the Eighth.
‘Fine.’
‘Morning sickness?’ He spoke about it as something very distant, which he had read about but never encountered.
‘Not really.’ Liz spoke of it as a phenomenon experienced only by lesser mortals.
‘I ran into Laurence outside the Rotherham Building Society on Tuesday.’
‘Oh?’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me how he is?’ continued Neville, when he realized that ‘Oh?’ was all Liz was going to say.