Fair Do's (43 page)

‘Well, I suppose they might have preferred somebody younger
at first, but I think as they've come to appreciate my … qualities, my … maturity, my … sincerity … what do you mean, “partly”?'

‘Well, I mean – are they worried because of your …?'

‘Employment prospects? Not at all. We have plans.'

‘Because of your reputation.'

‘Reputation? What on earth do you mean, Rita … reputation?'

‘Well, as a bit of a – I mean, take us. Our marriage not working. Doesn't that …? I mean, she's their only daughter.'

‘You and I were very young, and still lasted twenty-four years. Par for the course.'

‘It was supposed to be love, not golf.' Rita saw Geoffrey, pint glass in hand, chatting surprisingly animatedly with Sandra's parents and her nan, to whom he seemed to be being quite gallant, and she felt so very happy, and she wished she hadn't spoken to tartly. ‘Sorry. I don't want to row today, Ted.' Ted looked relieved, almost smug. Rita wished she hadn't spoken so gently. ‘But … oh Ted! Some of the things you did.'

‘Don't you think sometimes we made mountains out of molehills?'

She couldn't let that go. It was outrageous. ‘No, Ted, I do not! Doreen from the Frimley Building Society wasn't a molehill. Big Bertha from Nuremberg certainly wasn't a molehill. And as for Liz … she was a sexual Alp.'

‘All in the past.'

It has to be said, but make it gentle, Rita.

‘Leaving Sandra for Corinna? Not that long in the past, Ted.'

‘I'm grateful to Corinna, Rita. No, I am. I believe she may have been sent, to show me the error of my ways. Much of my behaviour for much of my life has been that of a berk.' Rita couldn't hide her surprise. ‘I've surprised you, haven't I?'

‘Well … yes.'

‘Difficult to see me as a berk.'

‘No. I was surprised because
you
saw yourself as a berk.'

‘What?'

‘Sorry.' He looked so hurt that Rita felt she had to say this.

‘Well, all right, but give me a chance. I love Sandra. Maybe I've never before …'

‘I see.' What a knack the man had for making you sorry you'd said “sorry”.

‘Well, no, of course I loved you.'

‘And it went wrong and now you love Sandra and it won't go wrong.'

‘Yes, because … Ah! They've come!'

Rodney and Betty Sillitoe were standing by the door, looking for somebody to greet them.

Ted leapt to his feet.

‘Danger of meaningful conversation with Ted narrowly averted,' said Rita.

Ted shrugged and approached the Sillitoes.

‘Rodney! Betty!' he said. ‘You came!'

Sandra hurried up with a tray of glasses.

‘Have some champagne,' said Ted.

‘Oh!' said Rodney and Betty, as if this was a thought that had never crossed their minds.

Each took two glasses, intending to hand one glass to the other.

‘Oh!' they said again.

And they laughed.

But neither of them handed their second glass back.

Elvis approached Carol, who was standing beneath a photograph of Sir Leonard Hutton shaking hands with Sir Donald Bradman after he had beaten the Don's record of the highest score ever made in test cricket.

‘You're looking more beautiful than ever,' said Elvis.

‘Nice body, pity about the brain.'

‘No. You look more intelligent than ever too. I underestimated you.'

‘Well, I think so.'

‘Is there really no chance at all?'

‘None. I'm not sure I don't want to remain without a man forever, but even if I ever decide I don't want to remain without a man I'd be stupid not to look for one who never thought I wasn't good enough for him.'

Carol had sailed through all the double negatives with utter confidence. Elvis plodded behind, trying to work them out.

‘All those negatives,' he said at last. ‘They seem to add up to one enormous negative.'

‘That was the general idea.'

Elvis was beginning to feel that this wasn't his day so far as women were concerned. So he wasn't surprised to see Liz advancing on him almost before Carol had gone. There'd be no comfort here.

‘The rat must expect to be deserted by the ships that he's helped to sink,' said Liz, justifying his fears. ‘Thank goodness there weren't three of you. Three Simcock sons for my daughter to rebel against me by falling in love with.' Liz, almost as fastidious about her grammar as her appearance, frowned at the inelegance of the sentence.

Her discomfiture gave Elvis room to attack. ‘Do you have to be the central figure even in that scenario?' he said.

‘Very good. Quite an effective little thrust. In some ways you're improving. What a pity I shall never forgive you for destroying my son's career.'

‘He destroyed his own career. I merely did my duty.'

‘To what?'

‘Justice. Truth.'

‘Phooey! Now excuse me. I must go and disconcert Ted.'

Ted was showing the Sillitoes off to Sandra's family as ‘my valued old friends'.

Rita set off to rescue Geoffrey. He'd be out of his depth in that heaving throng.

She found her path blocked by Sandra, magnificent in her ivory gown, resolute in her determination to speak to Rita.

‘Thanks, Rita,' she began, ‘for your concern. It does you credit.'

‘You what?'

‘I saw you talking to Ted. You're right worried about him. How he'll treat me. Whether he'll look for bits on the side like what he did with you.'

‘Well, I wouldn't have put it quite like that, but … look, it's none of my business, but … no, there's no point. You're married. The damage … oh Lord, I don't mean the damage. I hope I don't mean the damage, anyway. Sorry, Sandra. I shouldn't be saying anything.'

‘You can't understand how I can marry Ted after he ditched me for that con artist.'

‘Well … no, frankly, I can't.'

Sandra appeared to be staring at the wall behind Rita. Rita knew, from the romantic look in those proud eyes, that she wasn't seeing Geoffrey Boycott acknowledging the applause for his hundredth hundred. What she didn't know was that Sandra was seeing the store cupboard, in the town hall, with its folding chairs, discarded detergents and griffin.

‘Ted apologised,' said Sandra, ‘and it was right beautiful, it really was. And when I thought about it, I felt he was sincere. With her being so false it opened his eyes to what's real. That's what I reckon, anyroad.'

‘Well, I hope so.'

‘His having done summat like that before we were married, there's less chance of his doing it afterwards. That's what I reckon, anyroad.'

‘Well, I hope you're right.'

There was a roar of beery laughter from the far side of the room. Sandra looked round.

‘Your Geoffrey's a right yell, i'n't he?' she said.

‘I beg your pardon?' Rita was utterly astounded. ‘Are you calling my husband, that dear quiet bearded man over there, a right yell?'

‘Yeah. 'Cos he is.'

Liz Badger,
née
Ellsworth-Smythe, stood in the door of the Geoffrey Boycott Room,
née
the Ridings Suite, and gave a cool, brittle smile to anyone who might be privileged enough to be looking in her direction.

Sandra hurried over to her, unself-consciously.

‘Mrs … Liz! You came!'

Ted wasn't far behind.

‘Have some champagne,' he said, handing her a glass.

‘Ah, you do have champagne,' she said, with infuriating pretence. ‘I heard a dreadful rumour that you only have asti spumante.'

Ted smiled. Rita could have sworn that his eyes twinked. ‘We do,' he said, ‘as you very well know, but we call it champagne, and we like it.'

Rita also smiled.

‘What's so funny, Rita?' asked Liz.

‘You're trying to disconcert Ted, and are disconcerted to find that you can't disconcert him, and, since you bring out the worst in me, I find that funny. Sorry.'

Rita surprised Ted and Liz by moving off abruptly. Sandra surprised them even more by saying, ‘I'll leave you two together so you can discuss old times.'

Ted Simcock and his ex-lover eyed each other warily.

‘Rita's right,' said Ted at last. ‘If you have come to laugh at us, don't bother. We're beyond the reach of ridicule.'

‘How touching!'

‘Yes, Liz. In the peace and tranquillity of my new love …' There was a roar from Sandra and her brothers, ‘… I feel no old bitterness. I hope – no, I do, I mean it – that you'll find … happiness again.'

‘A man, you mean.'

‘No. Well, yes.'

‘Half of me never wants to find another man. Half of me understands too late exactly how Neville felt about Jane's death.'

‘And the other half?'

‘Screams with loneliness. And I can't tell anybody.'

‘You just told me.' Ted sounded slightly indignant, as if Liz might have told him because he wasn't anybody.

‘Yes, I did,' Liz sounded surprised, as if she hadn't realised that she'd told him. ‘You're cutting a really rather good figure today.' Her body was almost touching his. Ted suddenly felt totally in control. ‘It's all absurd, but you're carrying it off. I've always admired that.' She looked into his eyes and spoke very softly. ‘Suddenly I remember why I once found you so attractive.'

Ted felt something very like pity for her. He smiled at her, calmly, only a trifle smugly. ‘Thanks for coming,' he said as he turned away.

‘Geoffrey? Sandra said you're … I can hardly say it … a right yell.'

‘Oh, did she? How nice.' Geoffrey realised that Rita was waiting for an explanation. ‘Well, I
am
at ease among her friends and relations.'

‘But you've never been even remotely a right yell with me.'

‘Of course not. I'm in love with you. But maybe, when passion fades, in the evening of our lives, my right yellishness will take over.'

Rita smiled at Councillors Narbett and Elliot. It was the smile of a hostess. As soon as she'd finished smiling, she realised that she wasn't the hostess here, and she should have given them a different kind of smile, a smile of gratitude for coming to Ted's reception, as she had asked. But she hadn't time now to make fine distinctions between different kinds of smiles.

‘What on earth were you talking to them about?' she asked.

Geoffrey spoke so quietly that Rita could only just hear him above the rumbustuous gathering. ‘I was talking about the peoples I've studied, their rituals and taboos.' He gave a gentle stroke to his soft, grey beard, the way he did, the way she loved. ‘I told them about native women who greet tourists wearing grass skirts and bare breasts, when at the back of their huts there are clothes lines hung with T-shirts and jeans. I told them of Indians who accept American Express cards for shrunken heads. I told them how the advanced world is dragging the primitive world into its clutches. Some see it as a comedy. I see it as a tragedy. The dividing line between the two is wafer-thin.'

‘I'm frightened.'

‘Why? My love, why?'

‘I don't know you.'

‘Then what a voyage of discovery awaits you,' said Geoffrey Spragg,
né
Ellsworth-Smythe, softly.

In the Sir Leonard Hutton Room, Jenny approached her husband's brother, her ex-lover, with her jaw set firmly, the way it was when she was doing her duty.

‘Elvis,' she said, ‘I'm feeling ashamed. I've been talking to some of your mum's councillor friends, and some of them knew your dad and have rather dropped him, and your mum's made them promise to go and give him their blessing. You and I should go in there and be nice to each other, for your parents' sake.'

‘You're right,' said Elvis reluctantly, as if circumstances were forcing him to behave well against his will.

‘Thanks.'

Next, Jenny tackled Carol, who had surprised Madge Long-bottom by admitting that she had never heard of Emmylou.
‘And I thought you were young,' Madge Longbottom was saying rather mysteriously. Carol wasn't sorry to have an excuse to leave Madge Longbottom.

‘We're burying our differences and going to give Ted and Sandra our blessing,' said Jenny.

‘Smashing,' said Carol. ‘I'll come too. I'd like to be at peace with every single person in the world.'

‘With the possible exception of Simon,' said Elvis. ‘Oh, hello, Simon.'