The Reginald Perrin Omnibus (39 page)

‘Revolutionists, devolutionists, atheists, agnostics, longhaired weirdos, short-haired weirdos, vandals, hooligans, football supporters, namby-pamby probation officers, left-wing social workers, rapists, papists, papist rapists.’

‘Oh, Jimmy…’

‘Foreign surgeons, head-shrinkers who ought to be locked up, Wedgwood Benn, keg bitter, punk rock, alcoholics, gluesniffers,
Play for Today,
squatters, Clive Jenkins, Roy Jenkins, Up Jenkins, Up everybody’s, everybody who’s dragging this great country into the mire. Chinese restaurants

‘Jimmy, really.’

‘Oh yes. Why do you think Windsor Castle is ringed with Chinese restaurants?’

There was a pause. The vein slowed. The fierce light in Jimmy’s eyes faded. He sat down.

‘I’d be the last to suggest that everything’s perfect in Britain,’ said Reggie.

‘Good man,’ said Jimmy.

‘There’s a lot wrong with our society.’

‘So you’re with us?’

It was Reggie’s turn to stand up and pace the room.

‘Do you realize who you’re going to attract?’ he said. ‘Thugs. Bully-boys. Psychopaths. Sacked policemen. Security guards. Sacked security guards. National Front. National Back. National Back to Front. Racialists. Pakki-bashers. Queer-bashers. Chink-bashers. Anybody-bashers, Basherbashers. Rear-admirals. Queer-admirals. Fascists. Neo-fascists. Loonies. Neo-loonies.’

‘Really think so?’ said Jimmy eagerly. ‘Thought support might be difficult.’

Reggie sank back into his chair. Jimmy stood up. It was as if the conversation couldn’t continue unless one of them was standing.

‘Well, are you with us?’ said Jimmy.

‘No,’ said Reggie.

There was a long pause.

‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ said Jimmy.

‘No, I won’t tell anyone, Jimmy.’

‘Not even big sister?’

‘Not even big sister.’

‘Scouts’ honour?’

‘Scouts’ honour.’

‘Are you worried there may not be any money?’

‘It isn’t the money, Jimmy. It’s just that I’ve had the offer of another job that’s quite irresistible.’

‘They’re glad to see you back,’ said Mr Pelham.

‘The feeling’s mutual,’ said Reggie.

‘I thought we’d seen the last of you with that bloody back of yours.’

‘I couldn’t keep away.’

It was the hottest day of the summer to date. Whenever Reggie swept a bit of pig shit into the ditch, crowds of flies buzzed angrily at this unwarranted interference with their luncheon.

Some pigs had been slaughtered and replaced. Was it just fancy, or did the new ones treat him more warily than those who had come across him before?

Perhaps these grotesque squealing creatures really did like him. Perhaps he really had found his metier at last.

He shuddered.

Chapter 7

C.J.’s invitation to lunch came as a complete surprise to Elizabeth. They went to the Casa Alicante, a new Spanish restaurant not a melon’s throw from Sunshine Desserts.

‘It’s very private,’ said C.J. ‘The Sunshine Desserts rabble haven’t caught up with it yet.’

David Harris-Jones was seated at a table close to the door, with a plump young lady. She was plainly and inelegantly dressed, in the hope that people would blame the effect of dumpiness upon her clothes rather than her body.

David Harris-Jones blushed, half stood up, half acknowledged them, and sat down again.

‘Morning, David,’ said C.J. ‘Nice place, this.’

‘Super.’

C.J. escorted Elizabeth to their alcove table. There were many arches, surmounted by wrought-iron entwined with plastic vines. The wallpaper was of false brick.

While David Harris-Jones was still trying to attract attention, C.J. had ordered aperitifs, food and wine.

‘Are you interested in Wimbledon?’ he said.

‘Very,’ said Elizabeth.

‘I hear the women are threatening a boycott unless they get equal pay, and the men are threatening a boycott unless they get more than equal pay,’ he said.

‘So I hear,’ said Elizabeth.

‘If that’s sport, I’m the Duchess of Argyll,’ said C.J. ‘Tell me, Elizabeth, do you believe in all this women business?’

Be bold. Weakness will not impress C.J.

‘I don’t believe that women can ever attain real equality,’ she said.

‘Of course they can’t,’ said C.J.

‘That’s why they must never give up the fight for it,’ said Elizabeth.

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Tony Webster and Joan. They were steered to a table between C.J. and David Harris-Jones. David Harris-Jones half rose, the confusion growing.

‘Morning, Tony,’ said C.J. ‘Nice place, this.’

‘Great.’

‘You were jolted by my answer, C.J.,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You didn’t get where you are today by having women take the initiative. Especially when you are the boss and I am only a secretary. Why did you employ me, by the way?’

‘Perhaps it was conscience,’ said C.J.

‘Perhaps it wasn’t,’ said Elizabeth.

Tony Webster was being served. David Harris-Jones was still trying to attract attention. Waiters are as aware of the pecking order as chicken farmers.

‘Do you think women are really so unequal?’ said C.J.

‘Oh yes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘If Reggie had an affair with Joan, people would say: “Good old Reggie.” If I had an affair, they’d be shocked. “Fancy Elizabeth letting herself down like that.”’

Their first course arrived, whitebait for C.J., gazpacho for Elizabeth.

‘Surely Reggie treats you as an equal?’ said C.J.

‘Reggie behaves like the main character in a novel,’ said Elizabeth. ‘It’s about time I had a chapter to myself.’

They ate in silence for a few moments. David Harris-Jones was being served at last, and Tony Webster’s hand met Joan’s beneath the table.

The hands disengaged. Elizabeth caught Joan’s eye and smiled. She felt that the smile came out as regal and patronizing. It hid the fear that Joan had had an affair with Reggie.

‘I expect I’ll be accused of being patronizing,’ said C.J. ‘But you are a very much more thoughtful person than I had supposed.’

‘It’s not been required of me,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’ve been an appendage.’

‘No longer?’

‘Perhaps not. A dramatic development. Little woman fights back. Surrey housewife in Spanish restaurant chat holocaust.’

Tony Webster, the collector of dolly birds, was sexily but not indiscreetly sliding his right hand up Joan’s left leg. Had Reggie done that?

At David Harris-Jones’s table, the hands remained unengaged.

Their paella arrived, far too succulent a dish to precede an afternoon’s work.

Elizabeth met C.J.’s eyes, and it was almost as if they were trying to smile but had forgotten how to do it after all these years, because smiling with the eyes is not like riding a bicycle.

The restaurant was full of the clatter of crockery and conversation. Far away, a loud crash was followed by unshaven Iberian oaths.

‘More paella?’ said C.J.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re a beautiful woman, Elizabeth.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Reggie doesn’t appreciate how lucky he is.’

‘Thank you.’

C.J. poured more wine. He indicated Tony and Joan with his eyes, then David and his plump young companion. Tony and Joan were talking in an animated if apparently trivial way. At David’s table the conversation flowed like glue.

‘Hanky-panky,’ said C.J. ‘I don’t like it and I never will.

Large lunches, erotic thoughts. The nation can’t afford it. The International Monetary Fund would take a dim view. Would you like some trifle?’

‘Please.’

C.J. ordered two portions of trifle.

‘I didn’t get where I am today by indulging in hankypanky,’ he said.

‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Elizabeth.

The waiter brought the sweet trolley. They watched as if hypnotized as he gave them their trifle.

‘I’ve got some papers at home that need to be sorted through,’ said C.J. ‘I wonder if you could come over some time and help me.’

‘Certainly,’ said Elizabeth.

‘How about Saturday?’ said C.J.

‘Saturday,’ said Elizabeth.

Chapter 8

‘I don’t like your working on a Saturday,’ said Reggie.

‘Nor do I,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But what can I do?’

‘Especially when I’m working on Sundays,’ said Reggie.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, finishing his last cup of coffee. His legs and back ached after a week at the piggery, and the washing machine and spin drier were going full blast, cleaning his pig-infested clothes.

‘What time will you be back?’ he said.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘Mr Pardoe said there was a lot to do.’

‘I thought your boss was called Steele.’

‘What? Oh he is. He’s lending me to Mr Pardoe.’

‘It makes you sound like a library book.’

The sky was leaden and heavy summer rain drummed against the windows. There was no wind.

‘I’ll be back sooner if I take the car,’ said Elizabeth.

She kissed him and left hurriedly.

Reggie walked to the shops. A lady JP drove through a puddle and splashed him.

‘Hooligan,’ he shouted.

‘Wife away, Mr Perrin?’ said J. F. Walton, family butcher and high-class poulterer.

‘She’s working,’ said Reggie.

‘Ah!’ said L. B. Mayhew, greengrocer and fruiterer. ‘Working, eh?’

Was that an innuendo? Reggie wouldn’t put anything past a man who raised his tomato prices by 12p a pound at the weekend.

Home again, wet and muggy, Reggie prepared the dinner and listened to the cricket commentators valiantly waffling through the rain. Needless to say, England would have been batting on a perfect pitch before the largest crowd of the season.

The afternoon stretched endlessly before him, bereft of the three E’s – Elizabeth, England, and
Emmerdale Farm
. Reggie’s mind turned to a weekend a year ago. This was a Saturday, that was a Sunday. This had dawned wet, that had dawned sunny. That time it had been he and Joan. This time it was Elizabeth and …

No! Elizabeth wasn’t like that.

But then no more was he, and that hadn’t stopped him.

‘Oh belt up, Brian Johnston,’ he cried, switching off the radio.

Silence, save for the dripping of rain and suspicion.

The Scottish-Hungarian boss, with the wooden leg, who drank like a fish! If his father came from Budapest, and his mother from Arbroath, he’d have a Hungarian name, not Steele.

Steele! Pardoe! False names! Liberal party leaders! An unconscious slip. A Clement Freudian slip.

She was having an affair. And after he had spurned Joan’s advances for her sake.

Anger swept over him. He dialled Joan’s number savagely, as if it was his telephone that had cuckolded him.

‘Three-two-three-six,’ said a man, sleepily.

The windscreen wipers hummed their monotonous symphony all the way to Godalming, and on the River Wey sad hirers of leaking cruisers played travel scrabble.

C.J.’s pile was a mock-Tudor edifice, a fantasy of timber, gable and ostentatious thatch, built on the profits founded on the sweat of men like Reggie Perrin. Elizabeth parked beside the privet pheasants, and pulled the Gothic bell-rope.

C.J. opened the door and stood resplendent in a velvet suit.

‘Come in, modom. C.J. is expecting you,’ he said with ponderous skittishness, leaving her waiting in the living-room with six paintings of ancestors – not C.J.’s ancestors, but presumably somebody’s.

C.J. re-entered as himself.

‘Elizabeth!’ he said. ‘Nice to see you.’

She sat on the settee, facing the generous fireplace which dominated the mock-Gothic room.

‘Well, here we are,’ he said.

‘Yes, here we are,’ she said.

‘Champagne?’

‘Champagne?’

‘Why not?’

He poured champagne and joined her on the settee.

She began to feel uneasy.

‘Well, here we are,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Here we are. What about these papers that need sorting, C.J.?’

‘First things first,’ he said. ‘More haste less speed.’

Her uneasiness grew. Could it be that he was bent on pleasures naughtier than the grape?

No. It couldn’t be.

Not C.J.

‘Where’s Mrs C.J.?’ she asked.

‘In Luxembourg,’ he said. ‘More champagne?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Very wise,’ he said, pouring her another glass.

‘Well, here we are,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

He
was
bent on pleasures naughtier than the grape. Elizabeth couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d been told that Attila the Hun had rented a council allotment which was his pride and joy.

C.J. shifted along the settee towards her. She moved away.

‘It’s wet, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘The champagne?’ said C.J., puzzled.

‘No. The weather.’

‘Oh. Yes. The champagne’s dry and the weather’s wet.’

C.J.’s laugh was like the mating call of a repressed corncrake.

‘Nasty for them,’ he said.

‘For who?’

‘I don’t know. Them. One says: “It’s nasty for them.” Meaning, I suppose, for the people for whom it’s nasty because it’s wet.’

She must know the worst. She must find out if there were any papers to sort.

‘I am in a bit of a hurry,’ she said. ‘Can’t we get down to it straightaway?’

The moment she had spoken, she regretted her choice of words.

‘We’ll get down to it after luncheon,’ said C.J.

They dispatched the bottle and C.J. left the room.

He re-entered immediately.

‘Luncheon is served, modom,’ he said.

They lunched off cold duck, stilton and burgundy. When he had drained the last of his wine, C.J. smiled uneasily at Elizabeth.

‘We’ll get down to it in a minute,’ he said.

They returned to the living-room. C.J./butler served coffee and mints. Elizabeth and C.J./host did justice to them.

‘Now we’ll get down to it,’ he said.

He gave a long deep shuddering sigh, and produced a large pile of papers.

‘Anybody in your firm called Thorpe?’ said Reggie casually in bed that night.