Authors: David Nobbs
‘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.’
‘Oh, Betty!’
‘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.’
‘Rita!’
‘Don’t sound so shocked. I’m not a nun. My God, I must have led a dim sort of life. You all seem to think I’m about as emotional as a pumice stone. Be honest with me, Betty. Does a relationship between me and Neville strike you as totally impossible?’
‘I wouldn’t say that. I’ve seen the most unlikely and unsuitable liaisons.’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘Oh, Rita!’ Betty Sillitoe reached out and touched Rita’s arm. ‘All this change! What’ll happen to our friendship?’
‘It’ll survive, if it means anything.’ Rita turned to look Betty straight in the eyes, and Betty flinched, as if Rita were a peashooter. ‘If it doesn’t, why should it survive? You two don’t need me. You have so much affection for each other.’
‘That’s true.’ Betty sighed. ‘Oh God. I feel sick with nerves for him. I just hope he doesn’t get drunk.’
‘He oughtn’t to,’ said Rita. ‘According to my calculations, it’s your turn.’
Betty gawped. ‘What on earth do you mean?’ she said.
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you suggesting Rodney and I take it in turns to get drunk?’
‘Well … it does tend to happen like that.’
‘I see!’ Betty stood up abruptly. ‘Well … we do learn about the value of our friendships.’
‘Betty! It’s one of the many things we love and adore about you.’
But Betty Sillitoe had swept off towards the bar. Rita watched her stop abruptly as she realized that she might look as if she were about to fulfil Rita’s prediction. She turned, gave Rita a defiant glare, and swept out towards the toilets, for want of anywhere better to go.
‘Comment on it and I’ll belt you one,’ said the cynical Elvis Simcock.
‘Comment on what?’ said Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch.
‘My name tag.
Elvis
Simcock. My shame revealed for all the world to see.’
‘Why are you wearing it?’
‘Because I’m a masochist.’
‘What?’
‘Because I have to, you twit. Philosophy graduate learns hard lesson about nature of freedom.’
‘I presume you know that I don’t like being called a twit,’ said Simon Rodenhurst.
‘Of course. That’s why I call you a twit, you twit.’
‘Do you know why I don’t like being called a twit?’
‘Because it offends your inflated ego.’
‘Utterly wrong! It’s because I know I’m a twit, you twit.’
‘What?’
‘Do you think I chose to be a twit?’
Elvis was appalled. ‘Simon! Please!’ he said. ‘This is terrible. We’ll end up as friends if you go on like this.’
Jenny and Paul entered nonchalantly. They approached Simon and Elvis nonchalantly. ‘Hello,’ they said nonchalantly.
‘What have you two been up to?’ said Elvis.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Have we, Jenny?’ said Paul nonchalantly.
‘No. Nothing,’ said Jenny nonchalantly. ‘Why?’
‘You look too nonchalant to be true,’ said Elvis.
‘I think some swift naughties have been going on,’ said Simon.
‘Oh belt up, you twit,’ said Paul.
On their way to the bar, Paul and Jenny met Rodney Sillitoe. He greeted them with a warmth that made them feel dreadfully guilty. Jenny blushed as he kissed her.
‘No need to blush,’ he said. ‘You’re forgiven for not helping me let my chickens out. I’m glad you didn’t.’ And Jenny blushed all the more. Rodney pushed on towards the bar. Jenny called after him, ‘You didn’t forget the two vegetarian meals, did you?’ and Ted, approaching to greet them now that Rodney had gone, stopped dead in his tracks.
‘Two?’ he said. ‘You’ve not turned vegetarian as well, Paul?’
‘Yes.’
‘I credited you with a mind of your own, but your mother was right.’ Ted closed his eyes, as if wishing to erase his mention of Paul’s mother.
‘I do have a mind of my own,’ said Paul. ‘It so happens that when I use my mind of my own I find that my mind of my own finds that most of what Jenny thinks with her mind of her own is right.’
‘Paul doesn’t have any false machismo hang-ups which force him to argue just to assert his independence,’ explained Jenny.
‘Oh good, I am glad,’ said Ted, and he stomped off sourly.
‘Did I ever tell you about my ex-brother-in-law from Falkirk, who was an income tax inspector and an amateur ventriloquist, and his first wife did these amazing dog impressions,’ said the dark, intense Alec Skiddaw, as he served Rodney his large drink.
‘You certainly did, Eric,’ said Rodney. ‘A fascinating tale.’
‘Alec! Well, the most amazing thing has happened.’
‘Has it really? How amazing! Excuse me. I have to pop out for a moment.’
‘It won’t take a minute,’ said Alec Skiddaw intensely as he gave Rodney his change. ‘He was in this motel with his second wife, who came from Nailsworth …’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ said Rodney. ‘I really do have to go. You see, in past years the girls have paraded after dinner in their swimsuits, then there’s been entertainment while they’ve changed into their sophisticated evening wear, and there’s still been the five finalists to interview after that, and the judging hasn’t ended till nearly midnight, and people have lost interest.’
In the face of this conversational onslaught, Alec Skiddaw
darkly fingered what he suspected to be the beginnings of the first boil he’d had since he’d joined Grand Universal. He’d begun to think that the boost to his morale had transported him into a happier, boil-free existence.
‘Plus which,’ continued the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens remorselessly, ‘last year’s comedian managed to offend the Irish, the Welsh, the Jews, the Mayor of Dumfries and our guest colleagues from the tandoori chicken industry, who walked out. So this year we’ve dispensed with the entertainment, which will be a big improvement, and they’re parading in their swimsuits before dinner and changing into their sophisticated evening wear during dinner. I’ve got to go and make sure they’ve grasped all that. They aren’t all Einsteins.’