Fair Do's (42 page)

‘Well, we are married.'

‘Yes. I remember the ceremony. I thought the registry office people did their best to make it seem a happy occasion.'

‘Geoffrey also tells me you don't relish the prospect of …'

‘Intruding on your marital bliss? Amazingly enough, I don't.

‘Well, perhaps one day you'll bring your …'

‘New man? You seem to assume I want one.'

Behind them, Hutton and Washbrook were walking out to face the Australians until the world ended, or the photograph faded, whichever was the sooner.

‘Well …' Rita didn't want to say too much. Not today. ‘Er …'

‘Oh come on, Rita. What?'

‘Well, all right. I don't mean it rudely, but … I think you're the sort of woman who finds it difficult to live without a man.'

‘Whereas you don't?'

‘No.'

‘But you aren't.'

‘Well, as it happens, no. But I've married Geoffrey because I want to, not because I needed to.'

‘Are you hinting that I needed Neville?'

‘I wouldn't think any the less of you if you did. Look, what I really want to say …'

‘You mean all this so far has been small talk?'

‘Well – no – but Geoffrey and I are going to pop in soon to wish Ted and Sandra well. And we wondered if … well … you'd find it easier to pop into Ted's reception if you came with us.'

‘Why should I find it difficult?'

‘Well, you having … er … with Ted, and its not being … er …'

‘My kind of thing? Why are you so frightened of saying it? No, it isn't. Not my kind of thing. Not my kind of people. However, I suppose I shall “put in an appearance”. But not tagging along with you, either as a sop to your consciences or a pathetic lonely figure to remind you of your good fortune. You've taken my brother, Rita. Cease this pathetic charade that you want me too.'

‘Rita! You came! Geoffrey! You came! Come on in.'

The Geoffrey Boycott Room was about half the size of the Sir Leonard Hutton Room. Doug Watkin's painting of Sir Leonard Hutton looked like a Rembrandt by comparison with his portrait of ‘Our Geoff'. It was a grinning grotesque, with a retouched mouth, who gave his blessing to the boisterous gathering of the Pickersgill clan, in the spick and span, gold and grey function room.

Ted's boyish delight at the arrival of Rita and Geoffrey was irresistible. They found themselves smiling broadly.

‘Meet everybody,' said Ted. ‘Everybody!' he shouted. Gradually, the young men with their pints of beer and the ladies with their asti spumante turned to greet the new arrivals. ‘Everybody, this is … er … my good friend Rita Simc … Ellsworth-Sm …'

‘Spragg,' interrupted Rita. ‘Rita Spragg.'

‘Spragg. Spragg? Spragg. And her fian … husband, Geoffrey Ells … er …'

‘Spragg. Geoffrey Spragg.'

‘Spragg. Er … Sandra's mum.' A platinum blonde smiled warmly. ‘Sandra's dad.' A tall, greying man smiled with shyer warmth. ‘Sandra's nan.' A little old lady in frilly black smiled roguishly. ‘Sandra's brothers, Darren and Warren and Dean.' Three very large young men, with ruddy faces and big horny hands, squirmed in suits that were too small.

Sandra hurried over to hand the new arrivals glasses of asti spumante.

‘Sandra!' said Ted. ‘Somebody should be serving
you
today.'

‘It doesn't make me inferior, doesn't serving people,' said Sandra. ‘And it's my wedding day, and why shouldn't I do what makes me happy, 'cos it's a happy day, i'n't it, Rita?'

‘Oh yes, Sandra,' said Rita. ‘It certainly is.'

Eric Siddall, barman supreme, realised that he was walking towards the Sillitoes. He pretended not to see them, made a small but vital adjustment to his course, and walked straight past them.

Betty Sillitoe sighed.

‘I know,' said Rodney. ‘Give a dog a bad name and the mud sticks.'

‘You what, Rodney?'

‘You sighed because when Eric saw us he turned away because we have a reputation which is no longer justified but which when once won is not easily unwon.'

‘No. I sighed because of the young people. Because I noticed, at the registry office. Tensions.'

‘Oh … well … right … well … you couldn't not notice.'

‘And I thought, tensions, sadness, at a wedding – it's a pity. At a double wedding it's a double pity. So, let's go and pour
a bit of the calming balm of our experience over the stormy waters of their immature emotions.'

‘Well, if you put it like that!'

They looked round for a young person onto whom they could begin to pour their calming balm, and saw Elvis wandering purposelessly across the room, a lover without his woman, a reporter without his bleeper.

‘Elvis!' said Betty, intercepting him. ‘Rodney and I couldn't help noticing, well, you couldn't …'

‘Not that we were poking our noses in,' said Rodney. ‘Well, we wouldn't.'

‘But you couldn't.'

‘And we did.'

‘Notice that you and Jenny …'

Rodney saw a possibility of detaching Jenny from a group of Rita's relatives, and went off to do so.

‘That I'm barely speaking to the little cow,' said Elvis to Betty.

‘Yes. Well, not the little cow, no, but … yes.'

Rodney returned with his prize.

‘Children!' said Betty. ‘Make your peace, for your mothers.'

‘Absolutely,' said Rodney. ‘Specially for Rita. On her wedding day.'

‘And for your father, Elvis.'

‘On his wedding day.'

‘Quite unusual; really, both your parents marrying on the same day. When they're not marrying each other, I mean.'

‘Betty! So, how about it?'

For a moment, neither Jenny nor Elvis spoke. Then Elvis leapt in.

‘Why not? Maybe Jenny meant it when she said she loved me. Maybe our love could have survived anything except martyrdom.'

‘Martyrdom?' Jenny was puzzled.

As the argument between the former lovers developed, the Sillitoes found themselves turning their anxious gazes back and forth, like spectators watching Britain's last representative in the second round of the Wimbledon championships.

‘You can't resist feeling sorry for people, and with Paul in prison you were bound to feel sorrier for him than for me.'

‘That's totally untrue, Elvis.'

‘Elvis didn't mean your love for him wasn't genuine,' said Rodney.

His intervention wasn't a great success.

‘Yes, he did,' said Jenny.

‘Yes, I did,' said Elvis.

‘I'm only glad I went back to Paul before you exposed Simon and lost him his job, and it seems his fiancée, because if I'd gone afterwards, everyone would have said I'd gone because you'd exposed him and I went because I love Paul more than ever now after prison, which has matured him.'

‘Oh, it's the “suffering matures people” syndrome, is it? Well, I've suffered too, being dragged through the emotional mangle by you, so I'm just as mature as him, so there, fishface. And you needn't think I'm sorry, I'm glad, 'cos it's Carol I love.'

Betty swooped on Carol like a heron and brought her into the group triumphantly. Indeed, Carol looked barely more comfortable than a goldfish that is being swallowed whole.

‘Carol!' said Betty. ‘Come and get these young people to look on the bright side.'

‘I am trying to look on the bright side,' retorted Elvis. ‘I'm trying to forget Jenny.'

‘I wish you would,' said Jenny.

‘Elvis?' said Rodney. ‘You and Carol were friendly once. Why don't you ask her out?'

‘No chance!' said Carol.

‘He's just told us,' said Betty, ‘… I hope you don't mind, Elvis … that he loves you.'

Clearly Elvis minded very much.

‘Obviously linguistic analysis wasn't your strong point in philosophy,' Carol told him.

‘You what?' said the philosopher.

The Sillitoes were centre court spectators again.

‘Words have meanings. Love has a meaning. It means …' the former beauty queen searched for a definition, ‘… “love”. It doesn't mean, “Knock about with till somebody cleverer comes along.'

‘Nobody cleverer came along.'

‘Are you saying she's cleverer than me?' demanded Jenny.

‘No.'

‘Are you saying I'm stupider than her?' asserted Carol.

‘No. You're of identical intellectual ability.'

‘What a cop-out,' said Jenny scornfully.

‘Right,' said Carol.

The flickering candle of female solidarity was quickly snuffed out.

‘I don't think it was very clever what you did with my husband, Carol,' said Jenny, with unaccustomed aggression.

‘Hell's bells, Jenny, nor do I, but that was yonks ago. I was an immature kid, then.'

The removal of youngsters from this social pond continued as Rodney netted Simon, detaching him expertly from Madge Longbottom, who'd just discovered that he'd never heard of Emmylou.

‘Simon. Help us sort these young people out,' said Rodney.

‘What's wrong?'

‘Relationships. Life. Love. Families.'

‘Oh, that. Well, they'll all grow up one day.'

‘Does that include me?' said Jenny.

‘Well, yes, frankly.'

‘You pompous idiot.'

‘Well said, Jenny,' said Elvis. ‘I suppose everybody's right sometimes. Law of averages.'

‘Don't start being sarcastic about my sister, you rancid slug.'

Simon smiled at Jenny. She wasn't as grateful as he'd hoped.

‘I can defend myself without your support, thank you very much, Simon,' she said.

‘I'm glad to hear it. I think I'm well out of it.'

‘Well, go then.'

‘I will. Don't you worry.'

Simon departed with injured dignity. This was more than Jenny could bear.

‘I shouldn't have said that. Not today,' she said, hurrying after her brother.

‘Carol, I've been thinking …' began Elvis.

‘Wonders will never cease,' retorted Carol. She tossed her long hair like a startled horse, and slid smoothly away.

‘Kids!' said Elvis. ‘This is the trouble with being mature for your age. All your friends seem so childish.'

Elvis walked listlessly away, a lover without his woman, a reporter without his bleeper.

Rodney and Betty contemplated the wreckage of their hopes.

‘Well, we tried,' she said.

‘Yes.'

‘We were right to try.'

‘Yes.'

‘The peacemaker was a hard row to hoe.'

‘Very true.'

Eric Siddall, barman supreme, realised that he was walking towards the Sillitoes. He pretended not to see them, made a small but vital adjustment to his course, and walked straight past them.

‘Let's go and give Ted our blessing,' said Betty.

‘Good idea,' said Rodney. ‘We may even get a drink there.'

Ted and Rita sat in a corner of the Geoffrey Boycott Room, outside the gaze of its eponymous hero, and talked in undertones which contrasted with the extrovert enjoyment in the room.

‘He'll be all right, in time,' said Rita. ‘He just couldn't face crowded rooms … or Elvis.'

‘I'm not surprised,' said Ted. ‘How can he go fishing, anyroad? He's a vegetarian.'

‘Oh, he doesn't catch things. He just sits by gravel pits and dreams. He'll be all right, in time.'

‘They'll be having fishing for vegetarians next.' Ted climbed onto a hobby horse, but it ran without its old spirit. ‘Stocking gravel pits with lentil cutlets. Throwing veggieburgers back because they're too small. Ruddy trendy …'

‘Vegetarianism isn't trendy, Ted. It's popular. If you call things trendy because a lot of people do them you'd say breathing was trendy.'

There was a burst of laughter from Warren and Darren and Sandra's hairdresser, Russell, who, with Darren's friend Wayne, ran ‘Peter and Angelo's' in George Street.

‘They're a lovely family, Rita,' said Ted. ‘I'm a lucky man.'

‘Do they … are they … worried?'

‘Because I'm so much older than her?'

‘Well, yes. Partly.'