The Wedding Party (16 page)

In the interval of her being there I threw two buttery fillets over my shoulder, into a clump of cow parsley. Uncle Freddie solemnly wrapped two of his in a handkerchief. I saw Valerie slide one of hers under the table-cloth and for the second time within a few minutes drench her beautiful breast in perfume. She also winked at me and I, prompted by this, wrapped the remains of Peggy's perch in a paper napkin. In return she had neither wink nor smile for me but instead was gazing at Mr Benson with a kind of remote and pained compassion. There were almost tears in her eyes.

‘What swans? You must be imagining things. I could see no swans.'

‘You were too late.'

Before she could counter this Mr Benson staggered slowly to his feet.

‘Would you mind,' he said, ‘if I just went for a little walk?'

Flushed and tottering, he started to grope his way along the lakeside. He had scarcely gone twenty yards or so before Aunt Leonora, with that smile of divine triumph of hers, leaned over to Peggy, touched her lightly on the hand and said in a breath of almost secretive sweetness:

‘Go with him, dear. I think he needs your help.'

As Peggy got up to go I could hear Mr Benson being horribly sick by the lakeside. At the first ghastly groan of his pain she broke into a cry and started running and for the rest of that sombre humid afternoon she sat under the shadow of a silver poplar, Mr Benson's head in her lap, just occasionally shyly stroking his hair. And occasionally also, as Aunt Leonora looked with fond solicitude on the two of them, Aunt Leonora would give that charming, innocent toothy smile of hers and say something like:

‘You think they're all right? They've had no food. You think we should take them a piece of pie? Perhaps not. Perhaps they're best left together. When two people are together like that I don't suppose they're interested in food. No, let's leave them. Perhaps they'll have a zizz. Then they can have pie when they wake up. I thought the crust was so good today.'

This triumph of divine end-shaping happened a long time ago. Mr Benson and Peggy are married now and once a year, on their wedding anniversary, Aunt Leonora always gives them a little dinner party, to which I too am invited. Always we drink red-currant wine and always, with that divine tactlessness of hers which so infuriates and fascinates, she serves one course of fish fried in butter. And always, half way through this course, I look up first at Peggy and then at Mr Benson and see on their two faces the same strange, lost, distant, groping look.

It is exactly as if they had never met each other before.

Every year the elderly Miss Rigby and the slightly older Miss Pinkerton, affectionately known to each other as Spud and Pinkie, celebrated some part of Christmas by having a few glasses of port, a slice of plum cake and a wedge of Cheshire cheese in the old air-raid shelter that still stood, after so many years, under their bottom garden wall.

‘Sort of thanksgiving for what we got through at the time,' they would explain.

Late in the autumn, after the leaves of the pumpkins that always grew on the roof of the shelter had been blackened to sloppy pulp by the first frosts, Pinkie raked off the old dead vines, scrubbed down the interior corrugated iron with strong carbolic soap and opened the door for several days to give the shelter what she called ‘a bit of a sweetener'.

Pinkie was small, very cherubic and fierily red in the face, with light blue eyes that protruded eagerly like little silver thimbles. After a few drops of what she called ‘the you know what' she glowed hotly, with positively mustard-like excitement, and chattered with panting merriment, looking like a breathless Pekinese. In the household she rushed from object to object in sniffing and palpitating pursuit, as if everywhere seeking a hidden bone.

Miss Rigby, Spud, was neither so active nor so lucky. She was big, slow, imperturbable and misshapen. Her face was so like a large discoloured potato that the name Spud really suited her. She suffered, among other things, from painful swellings of the legs, uneasy shortness of breath and false teeth that didn't fit very well and continually got gummed together by pieces of marshmallow, her favourite sweetmeat. But these minor pains never discouraged her. She waddled everywhere with wheezy and jovial optimism, sometimes carrying large orange pumpkins about, nursing them in her arms like fat babies to which she had miraculously given birth.

In the shelter all the antique paraphernalia of war-time – the war was so far away and yet sometimes seemed like only yesterday – was preserved as it had always been: stirrup pump and two buckets, one of water and one of sand, torch, candle in its holder, whistle and even a pair of gas-masks neatly hung in their khaki bags on the wall.

A small square window, its glass of the kind that is reinforced with wire, gave out on to the garden, and here Spud and Pinkie sat on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, gazing at the damp earth outside, sipping port-wine and munching on cake and cheese.

‘We always seem to have good weather,' Pinkie said. ‘Goodness knows what we'd do if it snowed.'

‘Of course you know what we'd do if it snowed,' Spud said. ‘We'd sit here just the same. It would take more than that to put us off.'

‘I suppose so. I suppose so. I suppose it would, Spud dear.'

‘Do you remember how it snowed in 1940?' Spud said. ‘We got snowed in and there were enormous drifts and we couldn't get out again.'

They laughed in chorus at this: Spud rather like a deep French horn, Pinkie like a cymbal.

‘And I blew so hard on the whistle to get Mr Ackerly to come and dig us out I thought I'd blow my teeth out,' Spud said. ‘I always say that's what first loosened them.'

They laughed again at this and Pinkie poured more port. It didn't seem like Christmas until they were well on with the port and they could hear the evening bells across the town. The candle always made a difference too and presently Spud said:

‘Let's have the candle alight, shall we, Pinkie? I love the glow of the port in the candlelight.'

‘I'll do it, Spud dear, I'll do it. Don't move.'

In the candlelight it was not only the port that glowed. Pinkie glowed too, a fiery little cherub flashing silver thimble-eyes.

‘Funny how the candle all of a sudden makes it seem dark outside,' she said. ‘And then you see that wonderful blue in the sky. And the first stars.'

‘They say the band will be coming this way on Christmas Eve this year,' Spud said, ‘instead of Christmas morning.'

‘Oh! do they? I didn't put their Christmas-box ready. You think I ought to pop back and get it in case they arrive?'

‘No, no. Sit still. We shall hear them when they come.'

‘You mean we will if we don't drop off. You remember
the year we both dropped off? And slept through that awful raid? Sound as babies. And everybody said how ghastly it was.'

They laughed again at this stirring and hilarious memory and Pinkie poured out a further drop of port. War was awfully funny, really, depending on how you looked at it.

‘I don't see it starting to rain, do I?' Pinkie huffed on the little glass window and then rubbed it with the sleeve of her musquash coat and peered out. ‘No, I don't think so.' She champed on a piece of plum cake like an eager puppy. ‘I tell you what I do see. though. There's somebody in the garden. Wandering around.'

‘Not the Angel Gabriel, is it?' Spud said. ‘We don't want him here. Not yet, anyway.'

This was the signal for another jovial duet of laughter and then Pinkie opened the door of the shelter and called:

‘Hullo there. Who is it? Who's about?'

An answering voice called ‘Hullo there!' and Pinkie said:

‘Oh! it's you, Mr Ackerly. We're in here. In the shelter.'

‘What's come over him?' Spud said. ‘He doesn't usually call till Christmas Day. Everybody's changing their habits.'

‘Come in, Mr Ackerly, if you can get in,' Pinkie said. ‘Come and join us.'

‘Yes,' Spud said, ‘come and join our happy throng.'

Mr Ackerly, a tall stooping figure looking rather like a pessimistic giraffe with a bowler hat on, appeared from the outer gloom, carrying a bottle wrapped in tissue paper.

‘What a nice surprise,' Spud said. ‘What brings you on Christmas Eve? You usually come tomorrow.'

‘Oh! I don't know.' Pessimism oozed out of Mr Ackerly like dark vapour; there was almost a cloud about the candle. ‘After all, there might not
be
a tomorrow.'

‘Now don't start talking about The Bomb again,' Spud said. ‘It's Christmas Eve.'

‘No, no, not The Bomb, please,' Pinkie said. ‘Have a drop of port. I'll go and get another glass for you.'

‘Oh! I don't know if I should—'

‘Oh! of course you should!' Spud said. ‘Sit down. I don't like you standing up. You're so tall I feel you'll lift our dear old shelter off its feet.'

While Pinkie raced puppy-like across the garden to get another glass from the house, Mr Ackerly sat down and stared about him with increasing gloom. Our dear old shelter – did you ever hear anything like it? Heavens, it was awful. Whatever made them do it every year? Dear old shelter – there was a terrible monkish sort of odour about the place that repelled him. The mould of death lay on it – it really made him shudder.

Candlelight always depressed him too, anyway. What with that and The Bomb it seemed a pretty desolate outlook, he thought, as he sat there staring at Spud, the trembling candle and all the silly, derelict paraphernalia of war-time. He couldn't for the life of him fathom what made them do it. The future was bleak enough without dragging up the past.

Cheerfully, actually humming a few bars of
Christians Awake!
, Pinkie came back from the house with a glass for Mr Ackerly.

‘Just a modicum,' Mr Ackerly said. ‘That's ample—'

The sight of Pinkie pouring the port reminded Mr Ackerly that he was the bearer of a gift. With a struggling sigh he handed over the bottle to Spud as if it were The Bomb itself.

‘Just my usual little offering to both of you.' He seemed to be about to render the first notes of a sepulchral anthem.

‘You'd better drink it up quick. If you ask me we haven't got much time.'

Pinkie shut the door of the shelter and Spud ripped off the tissue wrapping of the bottle as if it concealed a new hat.

‘Oh! our favourite whisky. Nice man. Thank you so awfully much,' Spud said. ‘Kiss.'

Mr Ackerly, with despondent reluctance, suffered himself to be kissed first on one cheek by Spud and then on the other by Pinkie.

‘How nice. How generous of you. Well, cheers,' Spud said. ‘Here's to Christmas. And the best of luck in the future.'

‘Great Heavens, we'll need it,' Mr Ackerly said. ‘No, we won't though, because there isn't going to be any.'

‘Any what?' Spud said. ‘Future? Don't talk out of your back collar-stud, man.'

‘Everybody was saying that in 1940,' Pinkie said. ‘And dear knows they were the dark days—'

‘Ah!' Mr Ackerly said, ‘but this is different. This is different.'

Spud laughed again, French-horn fashion, and held out her glass.

‘I'll have a drop more, Pinkie dear, please. I need fortifying.'

‘We all do,' Mr Ackerly said. ‘That's why I say “Drink up your bottle while you can.” There isn't much time. There can't be.'

‘I vote we do that,' Spud said. ‘What say, Pinkie? I feel in that mood.'

‘You know me,' Pinkie said. ‘I'm game for anything. Especially the you know what. It's Christmas anyway.'

Again the duet of careless laughter, to Mr Ackerly's increasing despondency, echoed merrily about the shelter. Where, he thought, was there any possible cause for laughter? The terrible dark claw of everlasting oblivion was hanging over all of them and the best these two could do was howl with laughter. You might have thought it was just some silly bun-fight.

‘Shall we start the whisky?' Spud said. ‘Let's.'

She drained her third glass of port, at the same time urging Mr Ackerly to drink up, and held out her empty glass to Pinkie, who immediately started to tot out whisky.

‘Oh! by the way,' Pinkie said. ‘Don't let me forget when you go. We've got the most marvellous pumpkin chutney for you.'

Pumpkin chutney! – Mr Ackerly was shocked to speechlessness. Pumpkin chutney! – Ye Gods, it was as if in the middle of a terrible and obliterating earthquake you sat trying to thread a needle. It was like sitting under the fiery lava of Vesuvius trying to set a mouse-trap.

When he had partly recovered from the ghastly incongruity
of the whole thing he started to get up and say:

‘If you don't mind I think I ought to be getting along.'

‘Oh! no you don't,' Spud said. ‘You're going to have some whisky. After all it was your idea.'

‘Of course,' Pinkie said. ‘Don't be inconsistent.'

‘No, but really I ought to go. It's getting dark and I've quite a lot—'

‘Dark?' Spud said. ‘Good Heavens, man, you're not frightened, are you?'

‘No, no,' Mr Ackerly said. ‘I'm not frightened of
anything
.'

‘Do have some whisky,' Pinkie said. She sat sipping at her glass, all rosy fire in the candlelight, occasionally smacking her lips exactly like a panting little dog. ‘It's delicious.'

‘Do you mind if I don't mix it?' Mr Ackerly said. ‘It really isn't good for me.'

‘Have a piece of plum cake and some cheese,' Spud said. ‘They go awfully well together.'

With rising nausea Mr Ackerly rejected the idea of cake and cheese and then slowly sat down again, painfully resigned.

‘We got quite tight once,' Pinkie said, ‘didn't we, Spud dear?'

‘Gloriously.'