Authors: David Nobbs
Ted didn’t see his son pass. His eyes were on Liz, who was approaching him again in a manner that made him feel excited and nervous.
‘You’re absolutely right,’ she said, raising her eyes and her glass of champagne to him. ‘Words are too easy.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Action’s the thing.’
‘Absolutely. Pardon?’
‘Meet me in room 108 in five minutes.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’ve booked room 108. For them to change in before they go away. For me to do my hair in if it was blown to bits in the churchyard. Meet me there in five minutes.’
Ted looked round nervously. The hum of conversation was so loud that Kim Philby could have passed secrets to the Russians in the middle of the room without anybody noticing. But he was still nervous.
‘Liz!’
‘Don’t you want to?’
‘Well … yes … of course. Of course I do. But.’
‘Oh! “But” again. But what?’
‘I’m the groom’s father. You’re the bride’s mother. It’s their wedding day.’
‘Is doing it any worse than wanting to do it?’
‘No, but … I mean … they might come in themselves.’
‘In the middle of their wedding reception? Besides, I have the key.’
‘Yes, but … they’ll be cutting the cake. There’ll be the speeches.’
‘We’ll be back. Nobody’ll miss us in this crush.’
‘Yes, but … we’re pillars of the local community. I mean … Liz! … they don’t do things like that, pillars of the local community. They don’t.’
‘Yes, they do. They just don’t get found out. As we won’t. We’ll never get a safer moment.’ She moved closer towards him, so that briefly their bodies touched. He had to admit that the sensation beat washing up into a cocked hat. ‘I thought you were a man of nerve,’ she said.
‘Oh heck,’ riposted the man of nerve.
‘We’re off on holiday tomorrow. A month with Laurence! I want to remember you and me every day of that month, Ted. Give me something to remember.’
‘Bloody hell. Bloody hell, Liz.’
‘Room 108 in five minutes.’
And then she was gone.
‘Oh heck,’ said Ted. ‘Oh utterly and confounded heck. Oh good God almighty.’ Rita was approaching. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Can I have a word, Ted?’ said Rita anxiously.
‘Yes, if it doesn’t take too long. I mean … oh God.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Rita chose an alcove on the other side of the garden, as far away as possible from the one in which she had talked to Paul. That was one recess she never wanted to see again!
The sun was high in a sky that was now almost entirely blue. Ted’s bushy eyebrows asked the rather weary question, ‘What is it this time?’
‘It’s Paul,’ said Rita. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ said Ted. ‘They’re never splitting up already! I know youngsters don’t regard marriage as sacred, but …’ He glanced at his watch. ‘… an hour and ten minutes!’ He wished he hadn’t looked at his watch. It reminded him that three of the five minutes had already gone.
‘No! He’s gone to have his hair cut.’
‘Is he mad? Rita!! You’ve been on at him, haven’t you?’
‘I may have just touched on it.’
Rita began to cry. The immaculate Neville Badger approached them. He was adrift on the afternoon’s unfamiliar currents, and was looking for somewhere to drop anchor. He saw that Rita was crying, and developed a sudden interest in silver carp.
‘Love!’ said Ted desperately. ‘What’s up, love?’
‘Everybody says what a picture Jenny looks.’
‘Well … she does.’
‘Nobody says what a picture Paul looks.’
‘Well … he doesn’t.’
‘Bolivian tin miners indeed!’
‘You what?’
‘She’s changing him. He’s never even mentioned Bolivia before. He’s never even sent charity Christmas cards.’
‘He’s never sent any Christmas cards.’
‘This is what I say. She’s changing him.’
An airship was drifting slowly overhead. It had the name of a cigarette firm printed on it in huge letters, and was travelling towards the athletics meeting which the firm had sponsored in a moment of guilt. Did anybody look down from the airship? If so, could they have seen Ted glance surreptitiously at his watch? Five minutes and seventeen seconds. Zero hour plus seventeen. Oh good! Oh God!
He stood up.
‘Don’t leave me alone,’ implored Rita. ‘I hate functions. I feel so … dreary … drab … dull.’
‘Don’t be silly, love,’ said Ted, trying desperately to encourage her, and swiftly. ‘Don’t be so self-conscious. I mean … nobody’s looking at you.’ He realized, even as he said it, that it was not the most felicitously expressed piece of encouragement in the history of the world.
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I’m just a grey smudge.’
‘Love!’ he said. ‘You aren’t a grey smudge. You’re not! I mean … love … I’m a man of discernment. A leader of industry. Would I have married a grey smudge? I mean … would I?’
‘I wasn’t a grey smudge when you married me!’
‘Rita! Love! Look, I’m an Englishman. I’m a Yorkshireman. So, I can’t come out with sweet nothings. I mean … I just can’t. But … I promise you, love … you aren’t … to me … in any way
… a grey smudge.’ The die was cast. He knew that he couldn’t not go to room 108, whether he wanted to or not. He would always feel that he should have gone. ‘So … come on. Circulate. Mingle. We’ll never establish our social equality with the Rodenhursts by sitting in comers and moping, will we?’
He led her in through the French windows, into a wall of talk.
Behind them, Neville Badger gloomily dropped a dollop of pilchard mousse into the pond. The silver carp fought for the privilege of devouring their distant relation.
‘There’s Laurence,’ said Ted. ‘Talk to him. Do your bit. Use your charm. Establish our social credibility.’
‘Where are you going?’ Rita was near to panic.
‘If you must know,’ said Ted, lowering his voice, ‘I feel a pressing need to perform a certain natural function.’ It wasn’t a total lie.
‘Ted!’ said Rita, scandalized. ‘You don’t talk about that sort of function at this sort of function!’
‘Well, you asked.’ He steered her over to Laurence, who was moving away from the champagne table with a recharged glass. Ted carried straight on towards the doors which led into the bowels of the hotel.
Rita glared at him, then turned to Laurence and gave him what she hoped was a charming smile. It wasn’t.
‘It’s a lovely buffet,’ she drooled, hating her ingratiating voice. ‘The tuna fish vol-au-vents are a revelation.’
‘They have a good reputation here.’
‘It’s a lovely do altogether. I do like lovely dos.’ Oh shut up, Rita. Listen to yourself. Unfortunately, Laurence had shut up as well. The seconds ticked by, and Rita felt that everyone in the room was gloating over her discomfiture. She felt absolutely enormous, and also about two inches high.
‘Have you had your holidays yet?’ she heard Laurence ask from what seemed like a great distance.
She heard herself start up again. ‘No. We’re going to the South of France with Rodney and Betty Sillitoe. You met them. He’s the one who’s the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens.’ Oh God, Rita, why did you have to drag that in? ‘We like France. Well, let’s face it, it’s a bit more sophisticated than Spain these
days. We like something a bit out of the ordinary. Where are you going?’
‘Peru.’
They would. They just ruddy well would.
Her parents hobbled painfully towards them, and her heart lurched in anticipation of further disasters.
‘Hello!’ said Laurence, glad of any interruption. ‘And how are Mr and Mrs Twigg?’
‘Spragg,’ said the bow-legged Percy Spragg.
‘Are you really?’ said Laurence. ‘That’s grand! Jolly good! I love these old dialect words.’
‘Dialect words?’ said Percy Spragg, puzzled.
‘Spragg.’
‘That’s my name.’
‘Ah.’
Rita felt real fondness for her father then, for the first time in many years. It wasn’t destined to last long.
‘Well, how are you, anyway?’ said Laurence.
‘Grand,’ said Percy Spragg. ‘Just grand. By ’eck, Mr Rodenhurst, all them cars in t’car park. We’ve seen some changes in us lifetime, eh, Clarrie?’
‘Oh aye,’ said the barrel-chested Clarrie Spragg. ‘We’ve seen a few changes all right, Perce.’
‘I remember when it was all horses,’ said Percy Spragg. ‘Horse manure all over t’ roads.’
‘Percy!’ said Clarrie.
‘We used to shovel it up off t’ roads when it were still steaming.’
‘Dad!’ said Rita.
‘It were the ’alcyon age of rhubarb, never to return.’
‘What a fascinating snippet of social history. Excuse me,’ said Laurence, and he moved over to talk to his brother, who was held by many to be the leading gynaecologist in Crewe.
‘Why do you have to show me up?’ hissed Rita.
Her father’s eyes glinted maliciously.
‘Because you always think I’m going to show you up,’ he said.
The afternoon sun streamed into room 108. Liz had pulled back the purple coverlet on the double bed. The sheets looked crisp and worldly.
Amos Clissold stared down at them sternly from the wall above the bed, as he did from the wall above every bed in the hotel. Ted wanted to turn the gum magnate’s disapproving face to the wall. He wanted to put the Gideon Bible in the drawer of the bedside table. He didn’t dare, for fear that Liz would laugh at him. As he slowly undid his shoes, he found himself wondering about hotel soap. What happened to all the unfinished cakes left by departing guests? Did the chambermaids take them home and recycle them, to supplement their meagre incomes? He tried to force his mind into more amorous channels. To no avail! Damn it, he could hear the hum of conversation and laughter from his son’s wedding reception.
‘Do you usually make love with your clothes on?’ asked Liz.
‘I can hear the reception.’
‘They’re chatting. They’re laughing. They haven’t missed us.’
‘No, but … I mean … Liz … if we can hear them, maybe they’ll hear us.’
‘Above all that noise? That sounds promising!’
‘Oh, Liz!’
‘We’re wasting time, and even I agree we shouldn’t be away too long,’ said Liz. ‘Don’t you want me?’
She removed the last of her clothes and stood before him, bronzed from her sun lamp, just a slight fleshiness about the thighs and stomach, maybe the breasts not quite as high as once they were, but he knew then that he would have wanted her if a hundred photos of the Archbishop of Canterbury had been staring down at him.
‘Oh, yes! Oh Liz! Oh heck!’ he said.
‘Oh, Betty!’
Betty Sillitoe, who was over-perfumed as usual, was standing by the champagne table, sipping her drink. ‘All a bit much?’ she said.
‘Dad talked to Laurence about horse manure.’
‘Think yourself lucky he said manure.’
Rita poured herself half a glass of champagne. She had reached her limit. Any further crises would have to be met out of her own resources.
‘You’re the only person I feel close to,’ she said. ‘Not even the boys any more. What’s happening to me? I want to scream, Betty.’
‘Well … weddings.’ Betty put an arm round Rita affectionately. ‘I’m standing by the drink where I can keep an eye on Rodney and see he doesn’t drink too much, bless him.’ She sipped her drink and pointed towards her husband, smiling.
Rodney Sillitoe, the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens, was standing by one of the sash windows on the far side of the room. He was in earnest conversation with the radiant bride.
‘Your dress is lovely, Jenny,’ he was saying. ‘Lovely.’
‘Thank you.’ She was holding her luxurious train over her arm. ‘It’s funny. You seem quite human.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today. Not when you’re a guest at my wedding.’
‘I didn’t know it was rude to call somebody human,’ said Rodney Sillitoe.
‘No, but you know what I meant. You seem quite nice, but you run a kind of concentration camp for chickens. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’
‘Yes, you should, because you mean it, and I admire you for it.’
‘It’s just that I think that if we think we have the right to exploit animals because we’re superior to them, that makes us inferior to them because they never exploit us. Does that make me a crank?’
‘No!’
‘He can’t resist an attractive young woman,’ said Betty Sillitoe.
‘Don’t you ever feel jealous?’ said Rita.
‘Oh, he doesn’t mean anything by it. He just likes being near attractive young women.’
‘I envy you.’
‘Rita! She does look a picture, I must say.’
‘Must you?’
‘Rita!’
‘Chickens aren’t like people, Jenny. They don’t have the same feelings. They don’t have the same expectations of life style.’