Fair Do’s

‘Why you?’

Neville stared at Liz in astonishment, as if the answer were self-evident.

‘Because I’m a man of the world. An experienced professional man. A man whose working life brings him into daily contact with sorrow and distress. A man who knows what to say.’

‘What are you going to say?’

‘I don’t know. Oh Lord.’

Neville wandered off, to prepare himself for his errand of mercy. Left alone, Liz flashed a dazzling smile at the world, reducing the dazzle level sharply when she realised that she was smiling at Ted.

Ted approached his ex-lover cautiously.

‘Marvellous spread,’ he said.

‘Paid for by him, I should imagine. And rather more generously than the one poor Laurence laid on for Jenny’s wedding. Not a tuna fish vol-au-vent in sight.’

‘Odd, isn’t it?’

‘I think it’s very sensible. I hated those tuna fish vol-au-vents.’

‘I meant …’ Ted lowered his voice and looked quickly round the room, hoping most people weren’t looking at them, hoping the woman in yellow was looking at them. ‘I meant you and me, here, in this very room, where, less than two years ago, in this very room, we … went upstairs to the very room above this very room and … made love.’

‘I had remembered.’

Liz looked up at the ceiling, then at Ted, and shook her head ever so slightly at the memory of what she had done.

‘How is my baby?’ whispered Ted.

‘Flourishing. I wish you wouldn’t talk about him, Ted.’

‘I care about him. Does he … er … still takes after me, does he?’

‘No. He’s losing the resemblance rapidly. Which, I would say, shows a remarkable degree of tact for an eight-month-old baby.’

Liz walked away. Ted went to the buffet table, seeking a displacement activity. He grabbed the first bit of food that didn’t need cutlery – it was a slice of leek and stilton quiche, as it chanced – rammed a great piece into his mouth, and chewed slowly while he tried to regain his composure. He looked up to find the attractive yellow lady at his side smiling radiantly. He chewed desperately, tried to swallow, chewed again, tried to smile, chewed, and mumbled, ‘Hello. I’m Ted Simcock,’ through a porridge of half-chewed quiche.

‘Of course you are,’ said the symphony in yellow.

‘You what?’

‘I’ve had my card marked.’

At last the quiche was gone, and he could speak freely. He failed to take full advantage. ‘What?’ he said.

‘You’re opening a new restaurant in Arbitration Road.’

‘What?’ Really he might as well take another mouthful, if he couldn’t do better than this.

‘I’ve made it my business to find out about you.’

Her voice was cool, but not cold. It was classy without being shrill. He liked it. He liked her. He tried to think of something interesting to say. He said, ‘Good heavens.’

‘You interest me.’

‘Good Lord.’

There was a loud crash of plates.

‘Good God.’

It couldn’t be.’

He turned slowly, towards the kitchen door.

It was.

It was Sandra. Sandra, whom he’d met at the DHSS. Sandra, whom he had found a job at Chez Albert. Sandra, with whom he lived.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Oh heck.’

As she bent down to pick up the broken plates, the cake-loving Sandra Pickersgill flashed Ted a look of defiance. The left leg of her tights had snagged.

Gerry Lansdown, hoping that the dreadfulness of his predicament would disappear if he ignored it, was holding a determinedly casual conversation with his best man and his best man’s wife. They had exhausted the charms of Dundee and its environs, the state of the jam industry, the rope industry, and the royal burghs of Fife, and had turned to his native Surrey, far from this hard North Country into which he had strayed with such disastrous results.

‘I love that whole area,’ he was saying. ‘Farnham. Guildford. The Hog’s Back.’

Neville approached, concern creasing his bland face.

‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ he said.

‘No. No.’ Gerry excused himself reluctantly from the enjoyable geographical chit-chat.

‘Only, I … er … I felt I had to come and talk to you. You see, Gerry …’ Neville became portentous, ‘I’ve been there.’

Gerry was puzzled. ‘Been there? Been where? Guildford?’

‘Guildford?’ It was Neville’s turn to be puzzled.

‘We were just talking about Guildford,’ said Gerry.

‘Oh! Oh, no. No, no, no, no.’ Neville felt that these repeated negatives might be construed as an unworthy slur on a fine town. ‘I mean, I have been to Guildford, but no, I … nice town, specially the old part. No, I meant, I too have … Jane and I went to the theatre, with friends … no, I … er … and a little Chinese restaurant, nice crunchy duck, funny how these things stick in the … no, I meant, I too have been through great sorrow. I too have visited the pit of despair. I know how you’re feeling.’

‘Ah.’

‘Dreadful.’

‘What?’

‘You’re feeling dreadful.’

Gerry’s lips twitched. ‘Fancy you sensing that,’ he said. ‘How shrewd.’

Neville was oblivious of Gerry’s anger. ‘I want to promise you,’ he persisted, earnest concern etched on his rather tired face, ‘not as a cliché, because it can be a cliché. You’ll get over this, Gerry. Time is a great healer.’

Gerry smiled faintly, and spoke very quietly, so that it was a while before Neville realised that he had actually said, ‘Why don’t you stuff a sea trout in your gob and drown yourself in wine jelly?’

Sandra came in from the kitchens bearing, somewhat precariously, a magnificent sea trout on a large Royal Doulton plate. Her expression matched that of the fish. She looked not to left nor to right. Guests made way for her. She plonked the fish on the buffet table, behind the wrecked carcass of its fellow.

Ted had been standing by the locked French windows, looking out on the paths and patios of the walled garden. The shadow of a cloud cast a brief winter gloom over the bare, pruned roses, the empty urns, the ornamental pond where silver carp lived out their monotonous lives. What a lot had happened, what monumental changes there had been, since he had sat in that garden, at Jenny and Paul’s wedding, trying to give Rita the courage to face the throng. And now … had her courage failed her, or had she shown a great degree of courage? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know what to do about Sandra and the yellow lady. He sensed Sandra’s entry with the sea trout.

He adjusted his trousers, remembered the dirty mark, shrugged, tried to look taller than he was, and sidled through the guests to the buffet, where he stood irresolutely beside his inamorata, trying hard to look as if he was interested not in her, but in the buffet; because, as far as he knew, nobody in the town knew of his affair with Sandra, except the staff at Chez Albert and, inevitably, the postman. In fact Ted had even promised Monsieur Albert, the eponymous owner of Chez Albert, that he had ended the association, since Monsieur Albert – who hailed from Gateshead – was installing Ted as manager in a sister restaurant, and thought Sandra insufficiently classy to be the bedfellow of one of his managers.

‘Sandra! What are you doing here?’ hissed Ted.

Sandra turned her hurt, pert face on him. ‘They phoned just after you left. They’d been let down. I held out for double overtime. I thought you’d be chuffed.’

‘Well, yes, very nice, Sandra, more than useful, we can put it towards those curtains, I’m dead chuffed. But.’

‘I know,’ said Sandra, ‘but I never dreamt you’d be here.’

‘No, well …’ The Sillitoes drifted past. They smiled at Ted. He changed his tune rapidly. ‘Could I have a sliver of salmon, please, waitress?’ The Sillitoes had passed out of earshot. ‘I didn’t know either, Sandra.’

‘You’re ashamed of me,’ said Sandra flatly. ‘You don’t want anyone to see you talking to me. And it’s sea trout, anyroad.’

They began to move along the buffet table. Sandra put dollops of the various salads on Ted’s plate as they talked.

‘Rubbish,’ said Ted. ‘It’s rubbish, is that, Sandra. I don’t want anyone to see you talking to me.’

‘You what?’

‘In case you get sacked and lose your double overtime.’ Liz was approaching. ‘I’ll have a bit of the salad niçoise, as we in the catering industry call it.’

Sandra put a sizeable dollop of salad on Ted’s plate. A piece of anchovy slid onto the carpet unnoticed.

‘So!’ she said, when Liz had gone. ‘A sensational development.’

‘Sensational!’ said Ted with relish, forgetting that he was supposed not to be pleased.

‘And you’re pleased.’

‘I am pleased. I admit it. But only because he’s not right for her, not because I … Rita and I are over, Sandra.’

‘I know.’

‘Honestly, love! We are! Over. Finito. You what?’

‘I know. I’ve seen how you talk to that tarty piece.’

‘Sandra! She is not a tarty piece.’ Ted realised his mistake. ‘And I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.’

‘So!’ A scoop of potato salad. ‘You’re smitten!’ A scoop of Waldorf Salad. A couple passed close by. ‘Bean salad, sir?’ said Sandra, playing Ted’s game scornfully.

‘Thank you, Sandra.’

The couple threw hostile glances at Ted. He recognised Rita’s sneezing uncle and his wife. Her hat matched his nose. They moved on without speaking. It was a deliberate snub, for what Ted had done to Rita.

‘I am not, Sandra,’ he said. ‘I am not smitten. But I like to get my facts right. And the lady to whom I assume you refer, with whom I had a brief sophisticated exchange of views on Beaujolais Nouveau, happens not to be a tarty piece. All right?’

‘“Beaujolais Nouveau”! The only Nouveau you’ve ever drunk is Theakston’s Nouveau. She’s a tarty piece and you’re besotted.’ Ted began to raise his voice, forgetting that he was supposed to be having a casual conversation with a waitress who happened to be a colleague.

‘She’s a classy, elegant, attractive woman and I am not besotted.’

For a moment they glared at each other, eyeball to eyeball. Ted, expecting a deadly insult, was surprised to hear Sandra say, ‘Mayonnaise, sir?’ He was even more surprised to see the huge scoopful of mayonnaise that she plonked onto his absurdly heaped plate. It dropped off the edges. There would be a yellow stain just beneath the pale stain on his trousers. He turned away, trying not to show his anger.

The Sillitoes sailed unsuspectingly towards him and met the full force of the gale.

‘Hungry?’ said Rodney, seeing Ted’s piled plate.

‘Get stuffed,’ said Ted, as he stomped off.

‘What did I say?’ said Rodney.

Betty indicated Sandra with her head.

‘Ah!’ Rodney nodded, as if he understood, then realised that he didn’t understand. ‘What?’

He found himself staring into Sandra’s disconcertingly knowing young eyes and turned away. Now the Sillitoes were on collision course with Neville and Liz.

‘Ah!’ said Neville. ‘The Sillitoes! Calmer waters!’

‘What?’ said Rodney. ‘Well, who’d have thought Rita’d ever do a thing like that?’

‘Will we ever understand the minds of …?’ Neville hesitated, ‘… people?’

‘You were going to say the minds of women, and then thought I’d accuse you of being sexist,’ said Liz.

‘What an awful thing for Rita to do, though,’ said Betty Sillitoe, over-explicit as usual.

‘Yes,’ said Liz. ‘How to upstage everybody by not being present.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ said Betty.

‘So, what are you two planning now that your chickens will never come home to roost again?’ enquired Neville.

Rodney Sillitoe, who still looked as though he had spent the night in a chicken coop in his suit, even though he was no longer the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens, having let all his battery chickens go free in a fit of remorse, explained their new plans briefly, but with evident enthusiasm. ‘We’re opening a health food complex.’

‘With wholefood vegetarian restaurant,’ added Betty proudly.

Liz laughed. Her laugh trilled through the tense gathering like the cry of a curlew on a misty morning.

‘Liz!’ said Neville.

‘Sorry.’ Liz seemed contrite. ‘But Mr and Mrs Frozen Drumstick selling nut cutlets!’

‘Why does everybody think vegetarian food is just funny laughable old nut cutlets?’ protested Betty.

Liz’s dainty hand fluttered to her neck, to be impaled there, a dying butterfly. ‘My God! You’re serious converts,’ she said, and laughed again, a less elegant laugh, a magpie’s malicious cackle.

‘Liz!’ said Neville.

‘Oh Lord,’ said Liz. ‘I shouldn’t laugh at anything today, should I? Sorry, Neville. Social lapse over.’

There was an uneasy pause. Neville, usually the first to fill uneasy pauses, leapt in. ‘Can I get you two a drink?’ he asked, before remembering that it wasn’t wise to offer the Sillitoes drinks.

‘Oh thank you,’ said Betty. ‘Grape juice, please.’

‘Apple juice, please,’ said Rodney.

This time Liz’s laugh was an owl’s hoot.

‘Liz!’ said Neville.

It would have been impossible for all the guests to have remained hushed all afternoon. It would have been unnatural if they had all continued to behave unnaturally all afternoon. So, as the sun dipped, as clouds bubbled up in the increasingly unstable air, as champagne flowed and sea trout slithered down throats, and an Egyptian cherry tomato with no respect for class squirted down the waistcoat of a merchant banker from Abinger Hammer, it was only natural that stories should be told, that laughter should be heard, that cautiously desirous looks should be exchanged between the head waiter at Chez Albert and the mysterious yellow lady whose blonde hair might have been natural.

By the time Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, approached the cynical Elvis Simcock and his long-haired fiancée, Carol Fordingbridge, a casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking that it was a happy occasion.

‘Hello,’ said Simon. ‘What an extraordinary … er … what can I say? What can one say? I’m … er … I’m …’

‘This is an unprecedented moment in our island’s history, Carol,’ said Elvis. ‘An estate agent lost for words.’

‘Here we go again,’ sighed Simon. ‘It’s bash an estate agent time. It’s mock an easy target time.’

‘You could say the situation leaves considerable scope for improvement,’ said Elvis. ‘Which is estate agent-ese for a ginormous cock-up.’

‘Except it isn’t,’ said Carol, who looked charming in an apricot crêpe, short-sleeved, belted dress.

‘What?’ said Elvis.

‘You never wanted your mum to marry him.’

‘No, but … I didn’t want her to do that to him.’

‘I believe you’re starting to like him now he isn’t going to be your new father.’

‘Well … he’s quite a nice bloke.’

Carol was appalled. ‘He’s a faceless, ambitious, self-satisfied, crummy, crappy, yuppie smoothie prig,’ she said.

‘He’s quite a nice faceless, ambitious, self-satisfied, crummy, crappy, yuppie smoothie prig.’

‘Hey!’ said Simon. ‘When are you two love-birds going to name the day?’

‘Poor Simon. Thank God I’m not cursed with good manners,’ said Elvis.

‘What?’ said Simon.

‘Trying to change the subject so tactfully.’

‘Except it wasn’t tactful, was it?’ Both men were shocked by Carol’s vehemence. Vehemence wasn’t her stock-in-trade.

‘What?’ said the philosophy graduate feebly.

‘He won’t name the date, Simon, till I’ve passed my philosophy finals.’

‘What?’ said the bemused young estate agent.

‘Oh, bloody hell, stop saying “what” alternately, will yer?’ said this new vehement Carol. ‘I’ve yet to satisfy Elvis, Simon, that I’m a mentally worthy partner for his philosophic journey through life.’

‘What?’ said Elvis.

Carol stormed off, leaving one rather surprised young man and one very surprised young man.

‘Women!’ said the very surprised young man.

‘I know,’ said the rather surprised young man. ‘They have an uncomfortable habit of hitting on the truth, don’t they?’

‘Simon! That was almost clever.’

‘I know. I have the occasional flash.’

‘How is your sex life?’

‘Non-existent.’ Simon dropped his voice. ‘I’ve given it up. That married woman I showed round one of our properties was the last woman I will ever have in my life.’

‘That’s funny,’ said Elvis. ‘I had the distinct impression she was the first woman you’d ever had in your life.’

Simon’s concern for his image wrestled with his need to confess. The need to confess won.

‘She was the first woman and the last woman I’ll ever have in my life. I hate sex. It terrifies me,’ he said. ‘There! I’ve admitted it. I’m a happy man, Elvis.’

Simon’s sister Jenny was staring at the fading day, trying to fight back tears as she thought about her own wedding day, only seventeen months ago.

The sky was dotted with clouds now. Jenny watched their shadows. At her wedding, she had been real. Now she felt that she was a shadow.

These dark shapes that floated across the neat rectangles of that over-careful garden, what could they be to a young woman so sensitive to the prospect of cosmic disaster but the shadows of strange flying creatures, birds and mammals rendered enormous and grotesque by nuclear radiation on a vast scale, huge deformed multi-breasted limbless freaks with pitted scaly skins? She shuddered and turned away from the horror of it, towards the horror of the pretended normality of the Garden Room. She walked instinctively towards Elvis, her husband’s brother, and he seemed to walk equally instinctively towards her, so that what he said became curiously important to her.

On the whole, she wished that he hadn’t said, ‘Hello, Jenny. What on earth are you wearing?’

‘Thank you,’ she said bitterly. ‘It’s made out of llama wool by very poor Peruvian Indians who need our support.’

‘Several llamas died to make it possible,’ said Elvis. ‘And you a vegetarian.’

‘Nobody’s ever suggested that having a social conscience is easy, Elvis.’

At last Elvis noticed that Jenny was close to tears. ‘I’m sorry, Jenny,’ he said, and he looked momentarily surprised at his own sincerity. ‘You look lovely.’ He kissed her, warmly, on her cold cheek. ‘Paul’s a lucky man.’

‘So are you.’

‘You what?’ Elvis was puzzled.

‘Carol’s lovely too.’

‘Oh. Yes. Right. Right. You don’t resent her for what she did with Paul, then?’

‘Not any more. That’s all over. Sorted out. Helped us to move on to a deeper and ever more satisfying plateau of shared feelings and emotions.’

‘So you’re happy?’

‘Happy!’ snorted Jenny. ‘I thought you were a philosopher. Happiness is unattainable.’

Jenny left behind her a rather lost young philosopher, who, for all his cynicism, found it easier to cope with plateaux of shared feelings and emotions than with the possibility that happiness was unattainable.

Rodney and Betty Sillitoe steamed up, two frigates in rigid formation.

‘Elvis,’ said Betty. ‘We’ve a proposition to put to you.’

‘How would you like to work for me again?’ said Rodney.

‘For us,’ corrected Betty.

‘Oh yes. Absolutely. Us. Quite. What I meant.’

‘Work for you? What as?’ said Elvis.

‘In our health food complex,’ said Betty.

‘With wholefood vegetarian restaurant,’ said Rodney.

Elvis laughed. The Sillitoes looked hurt. He wiped the laugh from his face.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just … surprised. No, it sounds great. Sadly, though, it clashes with my career structure.’

‘Career structure?’ echoed Rodney faintly.

‘I’ve got a job,’ said Elvis. ‘With Radio Gadd. I’m …’ He couldn’t resist a self-satisfied smile, although later he would regret that he hadn’t been more modishly cool. ‘I’m moving into the media.’

Elvis hurried off, as if hot-foot on his first scoop.

Rodney and Betty exchanged looks of amazement, saw Gerry collapse wearily into a chair, and exchanged looks of social responsibility. They were lifeboats now, speeding to the scene of disaster.

‘It’s a lovely buffet, Gerry,’ said Betty.

‘Thank you,’ said Gerry politely, but from a long way away. He stood up, wearily.

‘It’s usually sit-down these days, isn’t it,’ said Betty. ‘But I like a buffet myself, on an occasion such as … this would have been.’

‘Betty!’ said Rodney. ‘It’s a very nice do altogether, Gerry. A great … er … well, not success exactly.’

‘Because of the … er … the non … er …’

‘Betty!’

‘It’s quite all right,’ said Gerry coldly. ‘I do still remember that my fiancée hasn’t turned up.’

They watched him stride away.

‘She’s well out of that,’ said Betty. ‘There’s a nasty streak there.’

‘Are you surprised?’ said Rodney. ‘He’s not exactly having a nice day.’

But Betty was no longer listening. Now that she didn’t touch alcohol, curiosity had become her tipple. And her sharp, sexual antennae had spotted Ted, far across the room, beyond the bewildered Liberal Democrats, beyond Rita’s guzzling, puzzling uncles.

‘Ooooh! Rodney! Look!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who’s that woman Ted’s talking to?’

Rodney Sillitoe, the big wheel behind a planned health food complex with wholefood vegetarian restaurant, tried not to swivel round and look.

‘Betty!’ he said. ‘Don’t be so inquisitive. It’s not the right social attitude now you’re joint managing director of –’ Yet swivel round he eventually did. ‘Oooh!’

The objects of Rodney and Betty’s interest were oblivious to these ‘oooh’s’. They were oblivious to anything except each other.

‘You’re a fascinating man, Ted,’ the striking lady in yellow was saying. ‘You have a wonderful earthy appeal.’

‘Good Lord!’ said the man who had once made the best toasting forks in Yorkshire, bar none.

‘Are you surprised that I find you interesting?’

‘Oh no, not about that. Well, yes, a bit. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to think I was big-headed or anything.’ Ted gazed into the yellow lady’s blue eyes. ‘No, I was surprised because … I mean … they say lightning never strikes twice in the same place twice.’

‘What?’ She was puzzled. ‘What lightning?’

‘Nothing. Er … Ted returned hastily to more mundane matters. ‘I … er … I don’t even know your name.’

‘Corinna Price-Rodgerson.’

Even mundane matters didn’t seem mundane. Ted Simcock was found interesting by a woman with a double-barrelled name. He caressed both barrels. ‘Corinna Price-Rodgerson! Corinna, would you …?’ The forgotten Sandra stalked past, a pile of plates wobbling dangerously. ‘Oh, you sauté your mushrooms first! How clever!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the astonished Corinna.

‘I … er … I didn’t want the waitress to overhear our … er …’

‘You know her?’

‘No.’ There was a crash of plates. Ted closed his eyes. It was the best attempt he could make to blot out the incident, since it is impossible to close one’s ears. ‘No! No, but … not in front of the servants, eh?’

‘My God!’ There was double-barrelled astonishment in Corinna’s voice. ‘That’s an old-fashioned attitude even for my family.’

‘Tell me about your family.’

‘They’re all in East Africa. Daddy’s a bishop. He’s also a dish.’

‘You what?’

‘A lovely man.’

‘Ah. And … er … do you have … or I mean have you had … er … ever had … a husband, as it were?’

Corinna smiled. ‘No. I’ve never married.’

‘Good Lord!’

‘Thank you. Some women are choosy, Ted. They wait for Mr Right to come along.’

‘Yes, well … I’m divorced, as you probably … I was in business. I had a foundry specialising in … domestic artifacts.’

‘Domestic artifacts?’

‘Toasting forks. Boot scrapers. Door knockers. Fire irons. I needed a sea change. I moved laterally into catering. Oh, Corinna, you’re lovely.’

‘This room is so public,’ said Corinna. ‘Ted, I have an idea.’

‘Good God!’ said Ted. He couldn’t resist a quick glance at the ceiling. ‘Good God!’

‘What?’

‘Lightning does strike twice in the same place twice!’

‘What?’

‘You’ve got a room upstairs.’

Corinna Price-Rodgerson may have been a bishop’s daughter, may have regarded herself as pretty nimble socially, but Ted’s remark left her frankly at a loss. ‘What?’ she said. ‘Room upstairs? What room upstairs?’

‘Ah! No, I … er … when you said … I mean, there’s room upstairs. I mean, there are rooms upstairs. I mean, I imagine, I’ve never … funny hotel if there weren’t … and I thought, I’d like to book one. A double room.’ Sandra passed them again, giving Ted another glare. ‘Double cream! And a touch of kirsch! So that’s the secret!’

‘No,’ said Corinna Price-Rodgerson, with gentle rebuke in her voice. ‘You do know that waitress. That’s the secret.’ She handed Ted a card. ‘I think you and I should get together.’

‘“Financial consultant”!’ he read.

‘ ’Fraid so. I leave God to Daddy, and I look after Mammon. I might be able to help you, Ted. Why don’t you take me to dinner next Tuesday?’

Sandra bore down on them with a plate of canapés.

‘Sir? Madam?’ she said with controlled fury. ‘Some canapés?’

‘Oh, thank you, waitress,’ said Ted. ‘I’ll … er … I’ll try one of these Tuesdays.’

Ted reeled away, chewing his untasted canapé. Rodney and Betty Sillitoe loomed through the smoky afternoon fog and fetched up neatly on either side of him.

‘Ted!’ said Rodney. ‘The very man! We have an emerging new business, and you have a great big hole.’

‘What?’

‘In life,’ said Betty. ‘Where your foundry used to be.’

‘Oh!’ said Ted. ‘No. No.’

‘Can we let bygones be bygones?’ said Rodney. ‘Will you work for me … us?’

‘But I don’t have a great big hole,’ said Ted. ‘Monsieur Albert’s installing me as manager of his sister restaurant to Chez Albert. It’s called …’ He had the grace to hesitate. ‘Chez Edouard.’

‘Oh Ted!’ said Betty.

‘So, what’s this business of yours?’ said Ted.

There was a fractional pause, as though neither Sillitoe wanted to be the first to speak.

‘We’re opening a health food complex,’ said Rodney.

‘With wholefood vegetarian restaurant,’ said Betty.

Ted laughed, an honest snort of a laugh.

‘Yes, well,’ said Betty, ‘isn’t it lucky you have Chez Edouard and don’t need to join our rib-tickling, side-splitting venture?’

Betty and Rodney swept onwards, on a tide of injured pride, through the increasingly animated gathering.

‘Here’s somebody who won’t find it funny, anyroad,’ said Rodney. ‘Hello, Jenny love.’

Jenny accepted Rodney’s semi-avuncular kiss without enthusiasm. ‘It’s great,’ she said. ‘I can kiss you without feeling hypocritical, now you’ve given up battery chicken farming.’

‘The perfect cue!’ exclaimed Betty.

‘Betty and I are opening a health food complex,’ said Rodney proudly.

‘With wholefood vegetarian restaurant,’ enthused Betty.

And Jenny laughed. She shook with laughter. The baby in her womb shook with her. Several llamas shook with her. Then she saw the Sillitoes’ hurt faces, and a guilty hand flew to her mouth.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s terrific. Oh, well done!’

‘So, why the mirth?’ said Rodney.

‘Well, not because of the business,’ said Jenny. ‘Because … it’s you! Sorry.’

She laughed again. Rodney and Betty joined in, but not with much conviction.

Gerry Lansdown, standing with the Badgers, said grimly, ‘What a lot of laughter this gathering is causing.’

‘It’s nerves, Gerry,’ said Liz. ‘People are finding this difficult.’

‘Me too, funnily enough,’ said Gerry.

‘Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Gerry,’ said Neville. His remark cut through the discussion like a rifle shot.

‘What?’ said Liz.

‘I was married for many years, Gerry. My wife died. Did I move quietly into the peaceful backwaters of bachelordom? No! Dived head first into the chill, choppy waters.’

‘Neville!’ Liz stormed off.

‘Oh Lord!’ said Neville. ‘Sorry, Gerry.’

Neville hurried off in pursuit of Liz, who had ceased storming a few yards away, in order to wait for him.

‘Liz!’ he said. ‘Don’t be a fool. I was only cheering him up.’

‘But how could you say such things?’

‘Because I didn’t mean them. I was just trying to get him to look on the bright side.’

‘You’re in danger of cheering up the whole world except me, Neville,’ said his bride of four months.

Outside in the ornamental pond, as the afternoon sagged, the carp swam round and round, unseen.

Inside, in the Garden Room of the Clissold Lodge Hotel, it seemed that social tension sharpened the appetite. A plague of locusts could not have made a more thorough job of the buffet. Just one lone langoustine languished on a vast plate. No one would have the cheek to eat it now.

Amid the debris, the cake remained conspicuously uncut. It would never wing its way, in tiny slabs, to expatriate nephews and trail-blazing uncles, who were assumed to be still alive, since no news of their death had been received. It would be sent, complete in, its magnificence, to Sutton House, a home for mentally handicapped children, where a beautiful girl of seventeen with a mental age of six would burst into tears because she would believe that it was her wedding cake.

And in the foyer of the Clissold Lodge Hotel, on that darkening brideless afternoon, a budding radio reporter who had suddenly remembered that he was a budding radio reporter put his duty to his chosen profession above his duty to a family that he had been given no opportunity to choose, and rang the newsroom of Radio Gadd.

‘Elvis Simcock here,’ he announced urgently, while the receptionist fed guests’ mini-bar purchases into the computer, and pretended not to listen. ‘The old abbey church has seen some sensational scenes, but it’s seen few scenes more sensational than the sensational scenes it’s seen today. The glittering wedding of popular local personality, Rita Simcock, ex-wife of prominent local ex-foundry owner, Ted Simcock, to Godalming micro-chip magnate Gerald Lansdown, a rising star in the Social Liberal Democratic firmament, was called off today when the bride failed to turn up, but the reception in the Garden Room of the famous old Clissold Lodge –’