Fair Do's Page 6

  Liz blushed. She was thoroughly disconcerted. Ted was astounded. He didn’t realise that Rita’s abrupt return to acidity had made her feel angry and confused about her dramatic new role as Rita’s friend and saviour.

  ‘I really must go and … er …’ Liz couldn’t find any way of ending her sentence.

  Ted, not known for his social rescues, leapt to her aid. ‘See if Neville’s all right?’

  ‘Yes! Exactly! Thank you, Ted!’ Ted wished that Liz didn’t sound so surprised.

  Ted and Rita looked into each other’s eyes and saw only the past, their marriage, the painful separation and divorce. The duty manager, Mr O’Mara, trim, precise, prissy and finger-clicking, was fussily organising the drawing of the curtains. It was that moment, on late winter afternoons, that is the most magical of the day for those who are happy at home, as they enfold themselves in a womb chosen and furnished by them; but which, for the lonely, the bored, the inadequate, the defeated, the frightened, is the bleakest moment of all, as they face the long dark evening, and welcome into their homes a group of Australians because, empty-headed and indifferently acted though they may be, they are better than loneliness, or more fun than their nearest and dearest.

  Ted, feeling the bleakness, shivered, and reached out to touch Rita.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I have to say, Ted … we have to get this straight … my not marrying Gerry has nothing to do with any feelings for you. I’m not coming back to you, ever.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Ted. ‘No, no, I know. No. I’ve … er …’ Corinna walked past behind Rita and flashed Ted a quick invitational smile. ‘I’ve … er … I’ve reconciled myself to that.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That rather striking woman who just passed.’

  It wasn’t the first time that Ted had wondered how Rita could see behind her.

  ‘Do you notice everything?’ he said.

  ‘I’m a woman.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re worried about your sexual prowess, and here you are surrounded by your conquests.’ Rita shook her head at the absurd neuroses of men.

  ‘Rita! Don’t exaggerate.’ But Ted couldn’t help looking slightly pleased.

  ‘Me. Liz. The striking woman. The waitress.’

  ‘Waitress? What waitress?’

  ‘The one you’re living with. The one you’re so busy trying to keep secret that everybody knows about her.’

  Ted was appalled. ‘Rita! You mean …? Oh heck.’

  ‘I even saw Doreen from the Frimley Building Society going into the other bar. All we need now is the blonde Swedish nymphomaniac and Big Bertha from Nuremberg and we’d have the full set. Ted and his women.’

  ‘Rita!’ said Ted, desperately trying not to think, ‘Well, yes, I’ve had me moments,’ even more desperately trying not to think, ‘What a pathetic list, compared to Don Juan and President Kennedy and Simenon.’ ‘Why rake over cold ashes, Rita? Why spoon up dead custard? The past is dead. Dead. How is Doreen? How’s she looking?’

  Rita gave Ted a long, hard stare, and didn’t tell him how Doreen was looking.

  The immaculate Neville Badger of Badger, Badger, Fox and Badger approached. Liz followed, as if on this occasion she were his lapdog.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ said Neville. ‘Almost like … well, no, not really very like old times.’

  ‘No,’ said Rita with feeling. ‘Not really.’

  It was as if Neville’s approach had been the signal for the full social rescue of Rita Simcock to be put into operation. Elvis and Carol arrived next. Rita’s mind whizzed. Would Carol talk about tomato purée? Did Elvis know that she had never been able to love him quite as much as she loved Paul?

  ‘Hello,’ said the great philosopher.

  ‘Hello, Elvis,’ said Liz, and a stranger would have sworn that she was pleased to see him. ‘I heard your sports bulletin yesterday. Very pithy.’

  Elvis swelled with pleasure. ‘Thank you, Liz,’ he said. ‘I aimed for … pith.’

  ‘Then you succeeded.’

  Was she mocking him? Could he avoid blushing? Luckily Simon and Jenny scurried up, Simon breezily, Jenny more warily.

  ‘Hello!’ said Simon. ‘Everybody gathered! Almost like … well, no, not really at all like old times.’

  ‘No,’ said Ted. With what depths of regret he invested the monosyllable.

  ‘I’m very grateful to you all for rallying round,’ said Rita, ‘but I think I ought to face the massed ranks of Gerry’s friends and relations now.’

  ‘I don’t think you should,’ said Ted. ‘They might lynch you.’

  ‘Thank you, Ted.’

  ‘No, but is there really any point?’ said Jenny. ‘Will anything you can say to them make anything any better? You’ve explained already. Can you add anything?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ admitted Rita. ‘Perhaps we should just go home. “Home”!’

  And indeed a few people were beginning to drift off, now that the curtains had been drawn. It was dawning on them that it wasn’t appropriate to linger to the end of such an occasion. Others were staying because they weren’t quite sure how to leave. Should one just drift away? That seemed rude. But was it appropriate to give thanks? And to whom?

  ‘When I tell Paul!’ said Jenny. ‘He’s going to be so sick he missed it. Oh Lord. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today. Oh Lord. I think I’m going to cry.’

  ‘Don’t cry! Please!’ implored Rita. ‘Nobody cry. Once I start –’ She changed the subject desperately, the words pouring out. ‘You know, Jenny, what you said about explaining. There’s something I didn’t explain. I couldn’t. Gerry wouldn’t have understood. One of the reasons I couldn’t marry him … it’ll probably sound very silly … he never had any doubts. I doubt whether I could live with somebody who had no doubts.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Simon.

  ‘I do,’ said Carol Fordingbridge. Elvis couldn’t prevent his eyebrows from rising caustically. ‘I do, Elvis!’

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ said Elvis.

  ‘I have doubts,’ said Rita. ‘Tremendous doubts. I’m constantly testing my beliefs against my doubts. I don’t intend to hide that even from the selection committee.’

  ‘Well, no, quite right,’ said Ted. ‘Why should … selection committee? What selection committee, Rita?’

  ‘I’m trying to enter politics myself,’ said Rita. ‘In a modest way.’ She smiled modestly, shyly. ‘I’m putting myself up to be Labour candidate for the Brackley Ward council by-election.’

  Jenny was the first to recover, but even she wasn’t quite quick enough. Later, Rita would wish that her friends hadn’t all been quite so stunned.

  ‘Great,’ said Jenny, hurrying forward to kiss her mother-in-law. ‘Fantastic. No, that’s really fantastic. Great.’

  ‘You! In politics!’ Ted didn’t attempt to hide his incredulity.

  ‘Thank you, Ted.’

  ‘I’ll have to preserve the full impartiality of my reports, Mum,’ said Elvis grandly.

  ‘Well of course you will,’ said his mother. ‘I’d have expected nothing less from you.’

  Elvis sniffed her remark, suspecting mockery.

  ‘Labour?’ said Neville, as if the enormity of it had just filtered through.

  ‘Do you know nothing of my beliefs?’ said Rita.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Neville.

  Liz let her head sink onto Neville’s arm in an affectionate exasperation.

  ‘If they’ll have me after this,’ said Rita. ‘Oh God.’ She doubled up, as if in physical pain. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I just … I feel awful.’ Ted and Carol grabbed her. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh.’ She tried to smile up at their concerned faces. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘when I came in and faced Gerry and everybody, funnily enough I didn’t feel as bad as I expected. I suppose the drama of it keyed me up. But now, when it’s over, and when I wake up in the nights to come, in the months to come, and realise, no, it isn’t a nightm
are, I, Rita Simcock, did this dreadful thing … will I ever feel able to smile again? Will I ever feel able to laugh again?’

  Betty and Rodney Sillitoe sailed up. They were two galleons, laden to the gunwales with sympathy.

  ‘Hello!’ said Betty.

  ‘Hello!’ said Rodney.

  ‘All gathered together,’ said Betty encouragingly. ‘Almost like … well, no, not really very much like …’

  ‘No,’ said Ted. ‘Not very. Not really.’

  A heavy little silence sat on them, as they reflected upon how unlike old times it was. Rita, whom they had come to support, was the first to make the effort.

  ‘So, what are you two busy bees up to these days?’ she asked the Sillitoes.

  Rodney and Betty exchanged uneasy glances.

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

  ‘With wholefood vegetarian restaurant,’ said Rodney.

  Rita laughed.

  Second Do

  February:

  The Christening

  Neville Badger looked down at young Josceleyn, snug in his up-market pram, and thought, ‘Will you, one day, ensure that there will still be a Badger at Badger, Badger, Fox and Badger?’

  A male mistle-thrush, head on one side as he listened between the gravestones for the faint underground stirrings that would indicate the approach of his unsuspecting lunch, saw the pram out of the comer of his bleak bright eye and refused to give ground.

  Liz Badger, resplendent at the side of her immaculate husband, looked down at young Josceleyn and told herself for the umpteenth time, ‘There’s nothing of Ted in him.’

  Rita Simcock joined them, bent to admire Josceleyn, and thought, ‘Is he really beginning to resemble Neville? Can emotional influences really produce so rapid a change?’ But all she said was, ‘Bless him.’

  Neville smiled and said, ‘Well, it could have been worse. It could have been raining.’

  The ravishing Liz Badger looked slightly less ravishing as she frowned at her husband’s banality.

  A moist south-westerly air-stream had produced a soft, heavy, soupy grey day in which it was possible to shiver and sweat at the same time. Later, the Meteorological Office would declare it to be the most humid February day since 1868. That day, in fact, Selby was more humid than Rangoon. Yorkshire had awakened that Sunday morning to find a layer of red Saharan dust over everything. Compulsive washers of cars had smiled over their watery bacon, in their softly sweating, newly fitted kitchens. It wasn’t much fun, week after week, washing cars that were already clean. Here was a challenge.

  ‘We knew we were taking a risk, having it in February,’ said Neville to Rita. ‘But we realised that if we didn’t have it soon, he’d be walking. He’s very forward.’

  ‘Neville’s terribly proud of him. Almost as if …’ Liz didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to.

  ‘Quite,’ said Rita.

  Neville carefully negotiated an uneven stretch of pavement, taking care to give Josceleyn a smooth ride. A man born to be a father, he had never had a child of his own. Rita made a mental note to refer to inadequate maintenance of pavements in her maiden speech, and Neville, as if he could read her mind – an ability of which he had never given the remotest sign – said, ‘Incidentally, congratulations … Councillor.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Rita couldn’t help being slightly coy.

  ‘Who’d have thought – ?’ Neville stopped so abruptly that it was clear he had been going to say something tactless.

  ‘When I was a down-trodden, neurotic housewife, that within two years I’d sweep onto the council by five votes after four recounts?’

  ‘Well, not exactly, no, but …’

  ‘Who would have?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  The pram slipped smoothly towards the abbey over a more even stretch of path.

  ‘A small majority,’ continued Rita, ‘but a vital moment in our town’s history.’

  ‘What?’ Liz bit her tongue. She had meant to show no interest whatever in Rita’s political career.

  ‘It changes the balance of the council. This town is now Labour controlled. Exciting, isn’t it?’

  Rita glanced at their faces, looking for the excitement which she knew she wouldn’t see. Neville tried not to look too appalled. Liz didn’t try.

  ‘I hope you don’t intend to talk politics today, Rita,’ she said as they rounded the heavily buttressed South West corner of the great building. ‘I hardly think it’s the time. Have you heard from Gerry? Did he enjoy his honeymoon on his own?’

  ‘Liz!’ Neville stopped the pram abruptly. Josceleyn whimpered.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think these things should be swept under the carpet, Neville, or they’ll hang over us forever,’ said Liz airily.

  ‘You put your carpets on the ceiling, do you?’ said Rita.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Liz. ‘I mention it purely in order to exorcise it, not to be nasty.’

  ‘I choose to believe you. And you’re right.’ Rita gave Liz a smile that was superficially innocent of malice. ‘No skeletons in cupboards. No carpets hanging over us. I understand that he had quite a good … God, Ted!’

  Ted Simcock, former owner of the Jupiter Foundry, soon to be manager of Chez Edouard, smiled at them rather awkwardly. He was wearing a somewhat flash suit which he believed befitted his new status as a restaurateur.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, and he only just failed to sound at ease.

  ‘Have you invited him?’ said Rita under her breath.

  Liz shook her head.

  ‘Ted! Really!’ said Rita.

  ‘Well, I … er … incidentally, congratulations, Councillor.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Again, Rita couldn’t help being slightly coy.

  ‘Who’d have thought …?’

  ‘Quite. But really, Ted! Turning up today!’

  Liz leant across the pram, ostensibly to pull Josceleyn’s coverlet up over his neck, but actually to hiss, ‘Pretty tactless, Ted, even for you.’

  Ted leant forward, ostensibly to have a close look at his son, but actually to hiss back, ‘You once said you liked me because I was tactless and uncouth.’

  ‘I hardly think we need mention that,’ hissed Liz.

  Ted gave the three of them what he hoped was a proud, dignified look. ‘I think I of all people have the right to be here,’ he said. He realised that there were people within earshot, and added, out of the side of his mouth, ‘The baby is mine.’

  ‘No, no, Ted. No, no,’ said Neville. ‘You’re his father. He isn’t yours. He isn’t anybody’s. He’s himself. Circumstances have meant that it’s my duty … and my great privilege … to look after him till he’s old enough to look after himself.’

  They were stunned. In the town, four young men roared out of the car-park of the Coach and Mallet in a souped-up Escort with a faulty exhaust, and the landlord’s caged-up Rottweilers, sensing their aggression, barked excitedly.

  ‘Well said, Neville,’ said Liz at last.

  ‘Yes. Marvellous,’ said Rita.

  ‘I wish you didn’t sound so surprised,’ grumbled Neville.

  ‘I care about the boy,’ said Ted, resuming his self-justification as if Neville hadn’t spoken. ‘I’d like to witness the service at least. I’ll give nobody any reason to suspect the truth. I mean, I won’t. I’m capable of being civilised and discreet. I mean … I’m a leading restaurateur. And I mean … I’m hardly likely to make a scene in front of my fiancée, am I?’

  Rita and Liz were astounded. Ted’s startling information took rather longer to filter into Neville’s keen legal brain.

  ‘Well, all right,’ he said, ‘but if you do, Ted, if you do … your fiancée?’

  ‘You’re not marrying your waitress?’ Liz sounded as if she couldn’t believe that a man with whom she had slept could ever sink so low.

  ‘No, Liz. Nothing as disturbing to your social nostrils as that. I’m marrying Corinna Price-Rodgerson.’
r />   ‘Oh, Ted.’ It was Rita’s turn to sound shocked.

  ‘Thank you, Rita.’

  ‘Well, congratulations, Ted,’ said Neville.

  ‘Yes, congratulations,’ said Liz.

  ‘Yes, congratulations,’ echoed Rita.

  Into the inappropriately cool silence that followed these congratulations there stepped the lady in question. Where before she had been yellow, she was now orange. She greeted them vivaciously, as if she had already taken them to her heart.

  ‘Congratulations, Corinna,’ said Neville and Liz in unison.

  ‘Yes, congratulations,’ said Rita, after just too long a pause.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Corinna graciously. ‘And congratulations to you too … Councillor.’

  ‘You see!’ said Ted. ‘Congratulations all round. Worry not. It’s going to be a wonderful day.’

  It began to seem that it would indeed be a wonderful day. A narrow gash of hard cobalt appeared in the gloomy sky, and widened and softened as the banks of cloud rolled away. The sun shone warmly. The humidity seemed to stream up through the gap in the clouds, towards the amazing blue of that winter sky. Foreheads eased. People took sumptuous breaths. It was as if the lid had been taken off this pressured, gaseous universe.

  Liz and Neville’s guests were gathering on the paths around the church. The sun shone on the earrings of elegantly dressed ladies and on the port-wine noses of men who had lived well. It shone on Matthew Wadebridge, a colleague of Neville’s at Badger, Badger, Fox and Badger, and on Mrs Wadehurst, who was big in the Red Cross, and pretty big in the sunshine outside the abbey church. It shone on the bald head of the bluff, egg-shaped Graham Wintergreen, manager of the golf club, and on his golfophobe wife Angela. It shone on the queenly Charlotte Ratchett, of the furniture Ratchetts, greying but undefeated, no mean wielder of a number two iron in her hey-day. It shone on Morris Wigmore, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group on the Council, whose son had come to a sticky end in Brisbane, despite which, or perhaps because of which, he never seemed to stop smiling. It shone on Rodney Sillitoe, the former big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens, in a crumpled suit and with a crumpled face, Band-Aid on his chin and no Betty at his side. It shone on Liz’s skeletal, ramrod uncle, Hubert Ellsworth-Smythe, who had made his money in Malaya and Burma, and lost it in York, Doncaster, Wetherby and Market Rasen. It shone on Simon Rodenhurst, up-and-coming estate agent, assiduous cleaner of teeth.