The Reginald Perrin Omnibus Page 5

‘What about your wife?’ she said.

  ‘She’s gone away for the day. She’s at the hippopotamus’s.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Oh – er – I mean her mother’s. She resembles a hippopotamus. Her mother, I mean. Elizabeth doesn’t resemble a hippopotamus at all.’

  He poured her another sherry. They drank. He kissed her glistening, medium dry lips.

  ‘What about the neighbours?’ she asked.

  They can’t see in.’

  He ran his lips along her thin right arm.

  ‘Why now?’ she said. ‘Why today, after all these years?’

  ‘Suddenly it all seemed such a waste,’ he said.

  For forty-six years he had been miserly, miserly with compliments, miserly with insults, miserly with other people and miserly with himself.

  She kissed his right ear. He was pleased that she was so amenable, yet he felt cheated of the pleasures of seduction.

  The phone rang. He tried to ignore it, but the habit was too strong for him.

  It was Elizabeth. He stiffened, motioned to Joan to keep quiet.

  ‘Yes, I’m all right . . . No, I haven’t had lunch yet . . . No, I’m not working too hard.’ Joan leant forward to run her tongue gently over his ear. She was irresponsible, exultant, not a bit the way he’d imagined. He tried to look stern and frightened. ‘Do I? I don’t think I sound funny . . . It’s probably just the line . . . No, I’ll be having it soon . . . Pickle . . . Well of course it’s on the shelf where you keep the pickle, in the jar marked “pickle” . . . No, I’m not angry . . . I’m perfectly all right. How’s your mother? . . . Oh dear . . . Oh dear . . . Yes . . . No, I’m all right . . . Of course I’m sure . . . Bye bye, darling.’

  He put the phone down.

  ‘Anything wrong?’ said Joan.

  ‘Her mother’s got to go into hospital.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  She kissed him gently on the lips. He stood up, held out his arms to her, and pulled her up off the settee. She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Is it safe?’ she said.

  ‘Of course it is,’ he said.

  They left the room. The orange cushions which his wife had embroidered herself were crumpled evidence of his betrayal.

  ‘I don’t like to go into our room,’ he said. ‘We’ll use Mark’s.’

  ‘Your son?’

  ‘It’s all right. He left home two years ago. It won’t be aired, but it shouldn’t matter in this heat.’

  ‘No.’

  They went into Mark’s room. Mark had decorated it himself – green and purple paint – posters of Che Guevara and Mick Jagger. It had the sad air of an abandoned bedroom. Nothing had been altered – but it was tidy – and without Mark’s dirty socks and pants strewn all over the floor it looked cold and lifeless. But it would make a suitably unsuitable setting for their love.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I – er – I haven’t got any – anything – we don’t use them – Elizabeth’s got a thingummybob,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘It’s all right.’ She was embarrassed too. ‘I’ve got something in my bag.’

  ‘You mean . . . ?’

  She blushed.

  ‘I always carry it, just in case.’

  He showed her the bathroom.

  ‘Joan?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t . . . er . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t come back undressed at all. I want to . . . you know . . . undress you.’

  He sat on Mark’s bed. Well, Mark old thing, your old dad’s not a has-been yet.

  Che Guevara looked at him sternly.

  ‘Come off it, Che,’ he said. ‘You liked a bit yourself. It wasn’t revolution all the time.’

  Mick Jagger gazed down on him mercilessly.

  ‘The permissive society comes to Coleridge Close,’ said Reggie.

  It’s going to be all right. I’ll prove I’m not past it at fortysix.

  I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but I do love you just as much as ever.

  What’s she doing in there? Hurry up.

  Don’t tell me you never had any sexual troubles, Che.

  Already he couldn’t really remember what Joan looked like.

  He hoped she hadn’t taken off her tights. He needed to do that himself.

  Oh hell, he thought, I do believe I’m going to be shy.

  Truth is, Che, I’m a bit of a coward. Wouldn’t have been much shakes in a revolution. Senior sales executive, yes. Picking off the filthy Fascist pigs one by one, no.

  She came in, shyly. She hadn’t taken off her tights. They sat on the bed.

  Turn your head to the wall, Che, there’s a good chap.

  ‘Well,’ he said, awkward, unused to this sort of thing, ‘better get undressed.’

  He started to pull the tights off her. He bent down and kissed her thigh, rolled the tights off her knees, kissed her bony knees, her legs smelt of bracken, he caught Che’s eye, then unbuttoned his shirt, he was sweating, damn it, he was sweating again.

  They were naked. They stood together. He was five inches taller than her. Her breasts were magnificent. He wanted to praise them but didn’t know how to do it. ‘What beautiful breasts’ would sound stilted and ‘Christ, you’ve got a marvellous pair of Bristols on you’ would sound crude. So he just held them in his hands, and smiled foolishly.

  It was the hour for washing up the Sunday dinner things, as Reggie Perrin said awkwardly, ‘May as well get into bed.’

  The sheets were cold even on this hot day. They lay side by side and turned to look at each other very seriously.

  ‘To think it took me eight years,’ he said. ‘Hardly in the Owen Lewis class.’

  ‘Yes, but they all have to wear yellow oilskins with him.’

  The sun went behind a cloud. He pressed his body against Joan’s, and a series of fierce shudders ran through him. He could feel his forty-six years of existence streaming through his fingers and toes into the clammy summer air.

  In the dark cosy cave of Mark’s bed he put the knobble of her knee in his mouth and bit it, very gently, so as not to leave embarrassing toothmarks. Suddenly his fear of impotence started up, the joy began to ebb away.

  It was at this moment that the front door opened. Reggie thought, It can’t be the front door. It’s a projection of a subconscious fear. I fear Elizabeth will return, and I make myself hear her return. And then he heard the door slam shut very solidly, very physically, only one person slammed the door like that: Mark, his son, struggling actor and erstwhile admirer of Che Guevara. They should have insisted on taking Mark’s front door key when he left home.

  ‘It’s Mark,’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Quick. Into the wardrobe.’

  ‘Hullo. Anyone at home?’ called out Mark.

  ‘He’ll come in here. Quick.’ Reggie practically pushed Joan into the wardrobe. He flung her clothes in after her and slammed the door. He began to dress, hurriedly, both legs in the same leg of his pants, hopping frantically, Che witnessing his humiliation, Mick Jagger laughing secretly.

  ‘Hullo,’ Mark called out again.

  Reggie went to the door.

  ‘Just coming. I was having forty winks,’ he shouted. ‘Get yourself a drink.’

  He hurriedly made the bed, opened the window wide, blew a kiss and an apology through the wardrobe door, and went downstairs.

  Mark was lounging in an armchair, drinking whisky. He was wearing suede shoes with huge buckles, Levis, and a ‘Wedgwood-Benn for King’ T-shirt.

  ‘Hullo, Pater, me old darling,’ he said.

  ‘Hullo old son.’ He was always liable to use awkward phrases when dealing with Mark. Mark unnerved him. Mark was shorter and slimmer. He looked like a smaller edition of Reggie, portrait of the father as a young man, and Reggie found it curiously disconcerting. ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods?’

  ‘Just thought I’d pop down and s
ee the old folks.’

  Off-stage – and he was off-stage more than on – Mark didn’t look like an actor. He had adopted a cockney accent at the age of fourteen, dressed with a maximum of informality, and only came home when he wanted money.

  ‘Your mother’s out. She’s gone down to Worthing to see Granny.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What are the two sherry glasses for?’ said Mark.

  ‘What? Oh, for drinking sherry.’

  ‘Twit.’

  ‘We had a sherry, your mother and I. Before she went.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Reggie dumped himself down on the settee. He looked around for handbags or other incriminating evidence, but couldn’t find any.

  Mark kicked off his shoes and smiled genially. He had holes in his socks again. Elizabeth had once said: ‘Peter Hall won’t want you in the Royal Shakespeare Company if you’ve got holes in your socks,’ but despite remarks of that kind Mark still got on better with her than with Reggie.

  Mark saw Reggie’s involuntary glance and put his shoes on again. So he did want money.

  ‘Why didn’t you go with the old lady, then?’ said Mark.

  ‘I’ve got some work to do.’

  ‘I thought you said you were taking a nap.’

  ‘Just for half an hour. I was tired. I’ve been working all morning. Have you had lunch?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  He never was. No wonder he was only five foot seven. You didn’t get tall without working for it.

  ‘It’s hot,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Reggie couldn’t think of anything except Joan, stuck in the wardrobe. Upstairs there was a new life, a life in which your son didn’t think you a poor sort of fish.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?’

  ‘Why bother? If you’d been out I’d have made myself at home.’

  Mark made a habit of arriving unannounced so that they couldn’t stiffen their resolution not to lend him any money. He lit a cigarette and began a coughing fit.

  ‘You smoke too much,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Rubbitch.’

  ‘Well I’d better get upstairs and get on with my work, if you don’t mind,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Upstairs?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve one or two things to finish off upstairs. Look, old stick, go into the kitchen and have something to eat. Get me something too. There’s cold meat in the fridge, and some salady bits.’

  ‘In a minute. I just want to go up to my room and look for something.’

  ‘You can’t. I mean, it’s always in a minute with you, isn’t it? Delay, delay, delay. I’ll have to do it in the end.’

  ‘Oh all right, then. I’ll go and do the bloody food first. God, I wish I hadn’t come home. Nag, nag, nag. You’re like an old woman.’

  ‘Don’t slam the door.’

  Mark slammed the door. Reggie hurried up to Mark’s bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Joan came out stiffly, clutching her clothes.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ he whispered. ‘He’s coming up here any minute. Go into Linda’s room, get into bed. I’ll get rid of him as soon as I can.’

  They tip-toed along the corridor, he clothed, she naked, carrying her clothes.

  Linda’s room had been redecorated now that she was married. It had pale pink flowery wallpaper and the wan neutrality of a guest room.

  Joan hopped into bed. Reggie kissed her, blew her another kiss from the door, and hurried downstairs. Mark had laid out pork, salami, a piece of lettuce and a tomato each. Reggie got out a bottle of hock.

  They took their plates and glasses into the living room.

  ‘Sorry I got cross,’ said Mark.

  ‘That’s all right, old prune.’

  Silence. The sun went in behind a thicker, darker cloud.

  ‘That’s a new picture over the mantelpiece, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Albufeira.’

  Reggie knew that Mark looked down on him for buying Mr Snurd’s pictures.

  ‘I need me Edwards seen to.’

  ‘Edwards?’

  ‘Me Edward Heath. Teeth.’

  Reggie never understood Mark’s rhyming slang.

  ‘How’s big fat sis?’ said Mark.

  ‘Linda? She’s fine.’

  He poured a second glass of wine.

  ‘How’s work?’ he asked.

  ‘So so.’

  ‘Auntie Meg wrote and said how good she thought you were in that ad for fish fingers.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, I can do without praise for bloody adverts!’

  ‘I know, but you were good. I mean you can be good or bad in an advert just as much as in a play.’

  ‘Sorry. Can’t eat any more,’ said Mark. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could you be a darling and lend us a few bob – just a quid or two – just to tide me over. Just a fiver. I’m seeing this man on Tuesday, he thinks there’s a real chance of me getting a job with his rep.’

  ‘Which rep is that?’

  Mark looked embarrassed.

  ‘Wick. It’s a bit off the beaten track but it’s got a fantastic reputation. It’s a fantastic jumping-off ground.’

  ‘Into the sea?’ said Reggie.

  ‘I just need a tenner to see me through.’

  Reggie hesitated.

  ‘Please, dad. You couldn’t refuse your own dustbin, could you?’

  ‘Dustbin?’

  ‘Dustbin lid. Kid.’

  ‘Oh. Well how much do you really need?’

  ‘Well – they’d like me to go up there and suss the joint – say – er – thirty quid. I’ll pay you back.’

  ‘You haven’t paid the last lot back yet.’

  ‘No, but I will.’

  ‘All right. I’ll give you forty. But this really is the last time.’

  Ponsonby came in through the French windows and waited for Mark to make a fuss of him. It had gone dull and gloomy outside, and the heat hung even more heavily without the sun.

  Reggie wrote out the cheque and Mark stroked Ponsonby.

  ‘Well, Ponsonby, me old fruit cake,’ he said. ‘What’s my dad been getting up to, then? Keeping a fancy woman upstairs, is he?’

  Reggie gulped and Ponsonby miaowed.

  ‘Look, Mark, here’s the cheque,’ said Reggie. ‘Now the thing is, I have got a bit of work to do, I don’t want you to think I’m turning you out, but . . .’

  The doorbell rang. He couldn’t let anyone else in, not with Joan upstairs.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  He went reluctantly to the door. It was Elizabeth’s brother Jimmy, otherwise known as Major James Anderson, of the Queen’s Own Berkshire Light Infantry, stationed at Aldershot. He had a ginger moustache and was wearing mufti.

  ‘Sorry to barge in like this. Fact is, something I want to . . . er . . . oh hullo, Mark,’ said Jimmy, marching into the living room.

  ‘Hullo, Uncle Jimmy,’ said Mark.

  ‘Where’s Elizabeth?’ said Jimmy.

  ‘She’s gone to see your mother,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Must get down there myself.’

  ‘Drink, Jimmy?’

  ‘It’s ten past three. Almost tea time. Whisky, please,’ said Jimmy.

  Jimmy parked himself in one of the fluffy white armchairs. He sat stiffly, regimentally. Even Mark sat up a bit in the presence of the military.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Jimmy, sipping his whisky. ‘Well, Mark, how’s things on the drama front?’

  ‘Not too bad, Uncle Jimmy.’

  ‘All the world’s a stage, eh?’

  ‘Pretty well.’

  ‘Jolly good.’

  ‘How’s the army?’

  ‘Oh, mustn’t grumble. Saw you on the idiot box last week. Just caught the end of it. You were all sitting round eating fish fingers and smiling. Nice to see a play with a happy ending for a change.’

  ‘Yes, it was a good play,’ said Mark. ‘A bit short, but
interesting.’ He winked at Reggie, and Reggie felt pleased to be able to enjoy a private joke with Mark.

  The sun, which had made another effort to penetrate the cloud, disappeared once again. The room seemed very gloomy now.

  ‘Look,’ said Jimmy. ‘No beating about the bush. Bit of a cock-up on the catering front. Muddle over shopping. Fact is, right out of food. Just wondered if you’d got anything. Just bread or something. Pay of course.’

  ‘No, no, Jimmy. I wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘Oh, thanks. Decent of you. Wouldn’t have asked, only kiddies yelling, general hoo-ha. Feel bad about it. Third time it’s happened.’

  ‘Not to worry, Jimmy.’

  ‘Your dustbins all right, are they?’ said Mark.

  Jimmy looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘Think so, yes. Bit bashed about. Dustmen don’t take much care,’ he said.

  There was a ring at the bell. Reggie went to the door. It was Linda and Tom, accompanied by Adam and Jocasta.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Come on in.’

  ‘You don’t look very pleased to see us,’ said Linda.

  ‘Nonsense. I’m delighted.’

  ‘Our little man brought the car back, so we thought we’d pop round to – you know – see if you’re all right,’ said Tom.

  ‘I’m fine. Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘No reason. None at all.’

  ‘Come in, all of you. Jimmy’s here, and Mark.’

  ‘Oh. Only we rang Worthing, and heard you were alone,’ said Linda.

  ‘I was. I’m not now,’ said Reggie.

  He escorted them into the living room. There was much standing up and sitting down. Mark said, ‘Hullo, droopydrawers,’ to Linda, and Tom frowned, and when Tom frowned Mark smiled, and when Mark smiled Linda gave him a look, and when Tom saw her giving him a look he gave Linda a look.

  ‘Yes, we thought we’d pop along and make sure you weren’t depressed or anything,’ said Linda.

  ‘Pressed or anyfing,’ said Adam.

  ‘Preffed or fing,’ said Jocasta.

  ‘No, I’m not depressed or anything,’ said Reggie. ‘What would you all like to drink? Tea? Whisky? Sherry?’

  ‘Tea time,’ said Jimmy. ‘Usually drink tea this time. Whisky for me, please.’

  Tom drank sherry, Linda gin. Mark stuck to whisky, Adam and Jocasta spilt orange juice.

  ‘I did poopy-plops in my panties,’ reminisced Adam.

  ‘Would you two like to go and play in the garden?’ said Reggie.