Читать книгу Fair Do’s - David Nobbs - Страница 7

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.’

‘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.

‘Hello,’ beamed Simon whitely. ‘Congratulations, Councillor!’

‘Thank you very much.’ This time Rita almost managed not to sound coy.

Simon beamed at the whole group: Neville and Liz and Rita and Corinna and … Ted!

‘Ted!’ he said.

‘I think you’ve met my fiancée, Corinna,’ said Ted.

‘Yes, we’ve … er … fiancée? Good God!’ Simon gulped. ‘I mean, “Good God is certainly giving us something to celebrate today!” Congratulations!’

Simon was less than overjoyed to see, approaching at a fast lick, and smiling broadly, Andrew Denton, Neville’s nephew, who was in banking in Leeds and not doing as well as had been hoped. Simon was even less overjoyed to see, approaching at a slower lick, Andrew’s wife Judy, whom he had once shown round a house, and then round his flat, and then round his bedroom, and then round his body. He was even less overjoyed to see Judy’s stomach. From what Andrew had said at his mother’s wedding to Neville, Simon was certain that what was in there was the result of the one and only indiscretion in his unintentionally celibate young life.

‘Fiancée!’ said Andrew cheerfully. ‘I heard that! Congratulations! Hello, all. Mrs Simcock! I heard! Congratulations!’

‘Thank you very much.’

Simon tried hard to look at something other than Judy’s stomach.

‘Quite a warm day,’ said Andrew Denton. ‘We won’t need heating. That’s lucky.’

There was a mystified pause.

‘Because we don’t want it to be a baptism of fire,’ he explained. ‘Joke,’ he added.

‘You remember my nephew do you, Simon?’ said Neville.

Curls of grey cloud swirled in from the West. The sun fought feebly, and was gone. The lid came down again. The day pulsed with moist pressure. The greyness, to which they had earlier been reconciled, was terrible now.

‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘Yes, I … er … I … er … yes.’

‘And you know my wife Judy?’ said Andrew. ‘Heavily pregnant, but still lovely.’

‘Yes, I … er … yes, I … I showed her round a … er … a … er …’ Simon was a rabbit frozen before life’s full beam.

‘House,’ said Judy. ‘It was a house, Simon.’

‘Yes. Absolutely. A house.’

‘And here’s the godmother, even more pregnant, but also still lovely,’ said Liz.

Jenny was wheeling her son, Thomas, in an altogether more mundane pram. She did indeed look fairly enormous, being due any day now.

‘Hello, everybody,’ she said. ‘Congratulations, Rita. Fantastic! Fantastic! Ted!’

‘You know my fiancée, don’t you?’ said Ted.

‘Fiancée? Fantastic.’ Jenny tried to invest this ‘fantastic’ with the enthusiasm she had shown in her previous ones. It was a gallant failure. ‘Well … congratulations. What a happy day.’

‘Where’s Paul?’ said Rita nervously.

‘We had a terrible row this morning, and he’s refusing to speak to me, and he wouldn’t come. Oh Lord. I was going to say he has this mystery virus, but I couldn’t lie, but I should have lied, I shouldn’t have spoilt things, not today.’

The suave Doctor Spreckley glared at the Christening party, as if they had no right to be there. There were only thirty-six people gathered round the fifteenth-century font, and he had fifty-eight Belgians in tow. Doctor Spreckley, precise and delicate wielder of instruments at the General and, more frequently, the Nuffield, had thrown himself enthusiastically into the town’s twinning with Namur. He had visited that charming city twice and on each occasion had managed to wield his instrument precisely, if not delicately. Since his wife had left him, because of his unfaithfulness, he had thought of very little except sex and food, and nowhere did that combination seem more promising than in gallant little Belgium. These last few months had seen an incomprehensible falling-off of these appetites, and today he was in a thoroughly sour temper. He no longer felt attracted to his physiotherapist from Liège. His roast beef dinner at the Grand Universal Hotel had been vile – goodness knew what the Belgians must have thought. He was damned if he would deny them a tour of the church just because of some blasted service.

And so, the new young vicar took that small gathering through the service of baptism accompanied by a loud echoing whispered commentary, in vile French, on the charms of his church, and by the tip-toeing of fifty-eight Belgians, many of whom may have been gallant, but very few of whom were little.

The three godparents stood at the front of the gathering, with Jenny between Simon and Andrew. She was holding Thomas, and she was terrified that he would cry.

The congregation recited along with the vicar, temporarily drowning Doctor Spreckley.

‘Heavenly Father, in your love you have called us to know you, led us to trust you …’

Simon did something he hadn’t done since boarding school. He prayed, silently.

‘Oh Lord,’ he said, ‘I expect you know this, well you know everything, but in case you were looking the other way or something … I mean, you must sometimes, you’re only human, well no, you’re not … anyway, the thing is, the only time I’ve ever … you know … it was with the wife of the other godfather. She’s … you know … and I think it’s very probably mine. I’m very sorry and I’ll never … you know … again with anybody ever, but what am I to do? I should never have agreed to take on the moral welfare of this child. Should I back out now? Help me.’

He finished just in time to hear the vicar say, ‘Therefore I ask these questions which you must answer for yourselves and for this child. Do you turn to Christ?’ And the parents and Godparents responded, ‘I turn to Christ.’

What should he say? ‘Sorry, vicar. No can do’?

‘I turn to Christ,’ he said.

‘Do you repent of your sins?’

This time Simon joined the others. ‘I repent of my sins,’ he said, so intensely that Jenny turned to look at him.

‘Do you renounce evil?’

‘I renounce evil.’ Andrew Denton was also surprised by Simon’s intensity.

‘We will now sing …’ The vicar paused to glare at the Belgians. ‘… hymn number one hundred and sixteen, omitting verses four and five.’

The dimly-lit House of God thundered to the uninspired playing of Leslie Horton, water-bailiff and organist, who hated to be called Les.

‘All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,’ sang the congregation.

Rita glanced at Rodney. He looked rough. ‘Rodney’s on his own again,’ she thought. ‘I hope nothing’s wrong.’

‘Each little flower that opens

Each little bird that sings.’

The Belgians began to file out of the church. They had tickets for the rugby league match against Featherstone Rovers.

Jenny, oblivious of everyone, including the Belgians, told herself, ‘Concentrate on these young lives. Forget your own troubles. Pretend you believe, and pray.’

‘All creatures great and small

All things wise and wonderful …’

Ted craned his neck to catch a glimpse of Rodney. ‘Oh dear,’ he thought. ‘Don’t say they’re splitting up.’

‘The river running by,

The sunset and the morning …’

The long-haired Carol Fordingbridge looked charming in a grey and white floral patterned dress with white collar, and a natural straw hat with a black band. But Elvis in his thrusting young media person suit had no eyes for her charms.

‘Oh Lord,’ she prayed, ‘make the whole world happy. Get rid of poverty and disease, and make Elvis love me.’

‘All things wise and wonderful,’ sang that small congregation, dwarfed by the cool, echoing church. ‘The Lord God made them all.’

Even Liz, the high and mighty, the haughty and naughty, couldn’t resist a curious glance at Rodney.

‘Rodney looks awful,’ she thought. ‘Don’t say he’s got marital problems.’

‘How great is God almighty,

Who has made all things well …’

‘I wish He could make me well,’ thought Rodney. ‘But I deserve it. I have strayed, oh Lord.’

‘All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.’

The last notes of the organ reverberated around the empty nave, and died. There was total silence. The vicar couldn’t have taken Liz’s son from her with less confidence if the boy had been a great lump of soap.

Ted Simcock, former maker of door knockers, macho Yorkshireman, found himself smiling inanely as the vicar held his son awkwardly over the font, and as the infant splashed water over himself, baptising himself before the vicar could do it.

Ted’s smile died as he heard the vicar’s words.

‘Josceleyn Neville Selwyn, I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

‘Josceleyn Neville Selwyn,’ he thought. ‘My son is going to be known to the world as Josceleyn Neville Selwyn Badger.’

A greater sense of loss than he had ever known swept over Ted. He felt as if he was the biggest of a set of Russian dolls. He felt that if he could be opened up other Ted Simcocks would be found there, less puffed-up, less pretentious, better, more honest, more loving, more caring Ted Simcocks. Happier Ted Simcocks.

Liz Badger, mother of his baby, didn’t acknowledge at that moment that he existed.

Corinna Price-Rodgerson clutched Ted’s arm, and his sense of loss was almost swept away.

Stepping out of the church was like colliding with a damp flannel. The afternoon was as grey as the face of a dying man.

Outside the West Door, where mythological stone beasts hid among exquisite carved leaves, the new young vicar spoke with Neville and Liz, playing the conversation game, at which he was already being compared unfavourably with the old vicar by some inappropriately uncharitable Christians in his flock.

‘He looks so very like you, Mr Badger,’ he said. ‘I find that extraordinary.’

‘Yes, I … I find it rather extraordinary myself,’ said Neville.

‘So many people take these things for granted,’ said the vicar. ‘But the seed, the tiny seed, growing into a person that resembles its parents, every time I see it I think “This is a miracle.”’

‘In this case it certainly is,’ said Liz, half to herself. She moved off, taking Neville in her slip-stream, and the vicar made a mental note to be less religious in his small talk.

The guests stood around, chatting, waiting for their hosts to set off for the party.

Rita tackled Rodney. ‘Betty didn’t make it then?’ she prompted.

‘No. She was hoping so much … Oooh!’ He gasped with pain. ‘Excuse me, Rita.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Rita as she walked away. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

Rodney was just lowering himself onto a wooden bench beside the church when he saw Ted and Corinna bearing down upon him. With a sigh he stood up almost straight again.

‘Are you all right, Rodney?’ asked Ted.

‘Yes. Grand.’ His voice was as contorted with pain as it had often been with drink. ‘Just grand. Right good. Top form.’

‘You know Corinna, my fiancée, don’t you?’

Corinna beamed at Rodney.

‘Your fiancée!’ said Rodney. ‘What happened to …’ Ted, behind Corinna, shook his head furiously. ‘… to the famous British reserve, our native shyness …’ Ted nodded. ‘… that you’ve got engaged so quickly?’

‘Love brooks no frontiers, Rodney.’

‘You what?’

‘Love breaks down barriers. Betty away again?’

‘Yes, she’s … er …’ he groaned again, ‘… excuse me. I have sinned, and I’m reaping the whirlwind.’

Rodney collapsed onto the bench.

Corinna continued to smile. She seemed happy to be silently benevolent until called upon to speak.

‘Oh dear,’ said Ted, as they walked away from the ailing former imprisoner of chickens. ‘Oh Lord. Oh heck.’

Liz and Neville stood watching the clusters of guests, as if they were outsiders who had no right to be there, rather than the raison d’etre for the elegant little shindig. Neville was looking worried.

‘He’ll be all right with his godparents,’ said Liz.

The pregnant, charmingly shapeless, slightly fey Judy Denton had carried little Josceleyn off, in practice for the days ahead.

‘It’s not that,’ said Neville. ‘I was thinking, it’ll look odd if we don’t invite Ted and Corinna back now they’re here. It’ll set tongues wagging.’

‘Oh Lord,’ said Liz. ‘Do we really still care that much about wagging tongues?’

‘And they have just announced their engagement. It’ll look a bit graceless.’

‘Oh Lord. Today of all days, Neville, I would like to be free of memories of Ted.’

‘He’ll be discreet. He’s with his fiancée, whose father is a bishop.’

‘Ah! So that means she’s so socially acceptable that we must ask her.’

‘No. Of course not. No, I think that, accepting as we must that your son … our son … is in reality the product of Ted’s … er …’

‘Spermatazoa.’

‘Liz! Well, yes, in a … that it would be a Christian gesture, on a Christian day, to invite Ted to … wet the baby’s head.’

A two-carriage Sprinter train clanked slowly through the quiet Sunday afternoon. A few married couples were walking along the paths that criss-crossed the churchyard. Their dogs were fouling the paths. They gazed at their shitting dogs with adoration. Ted and his orange fiancée bore down on Neville and Liz.

‘Well …,’ said Ted, ‘… we’ll just slip quietly away, so …good luck, eh?’

‘No, no,’ said Neville. ‘No, no. No need. I’d … er … we’d … er … I’d very much like it if you came to the … er …’

‘I thought it was family only,’ said Corinna.

‘Ted is very much family, Corinna, in a way,’ said Liz.

Ted leapt in much too quickly. ‘Liz is referring to the fact that our two families are linked by wedlock, darling,’ he said.

‘Well, yes, that’s what I assumed she meant,’ said Corinna with apparent innocence. ‘What else could she have meant?’

‘What else?’ agreed Ted. ‘Exactly. Nothing else. Precisely. My point exactly.’ He turned to the Badgers. ‘We’d love to come,’ he said. ‘Where are the junketings? À la maison de les Badgers?’

‘No, Ted,’ said Neville. ‘At the Clissold Lodge. But the Brontë Suite this time. It’s smaller.’

‘Then we’ll see you in the Brontë Suite,’ said Ted, and he winked to show them that they could rely on him, because he knew how to behave in public, but Liz and Neville, seeing him wink, thought, ‘Oh Lord. Ted doesn’t know how to behave in public. Can we rely on him?’

Simon was unused to holding babies. You didn’t get much call for it, at Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. He realised that Judy had found Josceleyn heavy, in her condition, but her handing over of him in public had seemed a tactless symbolic gesture under the circumstances. He was terrified that the boy would slip from his grasp, or choke to death, or merely scream his head off. He held him as if he were a carrier bag of doubtful strength full of bottles of Château Lafitte. He was terrified that Judy intended to begin a meaningful conversation. He would have welcomed the arrival of a third party, had it not been Andrew Denton, fellow godfather, life-long wag, husband of Judy, and official father of the child in Judy’s womb.

‘He does look a bit like his father, doesn’t he?’ said Judy, who was practising having maternal feelings by gazing at Josceleyn fondly.

‘Let’s hope our baby doesn’t look like his father, eh?’ said Andrew.

‘What?’ said Simon and Judy, aghast.

‘Because I’ve got an ugly mug,’ explained Andrew Denton. ‘Joke.’

‘Ah. Yes. Joke. Right,’ said Simon and Judy. And they laughed. They were worried that their laughs hadn’t sounded convincing, but Andrew hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. He was only too used to receiving unconvincing laughs.

The Brontë Suite, the fifth smallest of the fifty-seven Brontë Suites in hotels in Yorkshire, was barely half the size of the Garden Room. It looked out over the front of the hotel, where the gravel drive curved away through the park-like grounds, dotted with oaks and chestnuts, to the narrow woods that screened the hotel from the Tadcaster Road. It made no nod to the existence of the Brontë sisters beyond taking their name. There were dark polished wood panels interspersed with dignified striped green wallpaper. The modern stainless steel lights didn’t go with the crystal chandelier. The three paintings – of Bolton Abbey, Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx Abbey – had known more apposite days, when it had been the Abbey Suite. But what they lacked in relevance, they also lacked in quality.

On trestle tables at one end of the room, beneath Rievaulx Abbey, as it chanced, there was a fine array of sandwiches – smoked salmon, cucumber, rare roast beef – and fancy cakes and biscuits. There was also a christening cake, with baby and cradle atop it, and this was widely held to be consistent with the standards expected of the Vale of York Bakery in Slaughterhouse Lane.

Eric Siddall, barman supreme, polka-dotted bow tie slightly askew, as if to suggest that he had a vaguely rakish past, stood by a table on which there were several bottles of champagne, two of them in ice-buckets. There were fluted champagne glasses and tea cups. Eric looked uncomfortable when Graham Wintergreen, manager of the golf club, entered. Graham Wintergreen looked uncomfortable when he saw Eric.

The guests were filing in from their cars. Many carried little presents, which they handed to Neville and Liz, who didn’t unwrap them.

Rodney Sillitoe collapsed into one of several Restoration chairs dotted around the walls, but singly, as if to discourage social sitting. There was also the occasional occasional table.

The cynical Elvis Simcock made a bee-line for Rodney, leaving his fiancée in the social lurch. He fetched a second chair and sat beside Rodney.

‘Auntie Betty’s been away quite a lot lately, hasn’t she?’ he asked.

‘Yes. She’s having to look after an elderly aunt. She’s at Tadcaster more often than she’s at home these days.’ Rodney gasped and grimaced.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Elvis.

‘No. Last night I succumbed to temptation. I’m reaping the whirlwind.’

‘Would you be prepared to tell me what temptation exactly you succumbed to?’ persisted Elvis.

‘Meat.’

‘You what?’

‘Rump steak. Rare. Bloody. Marvellous. Bloody marvellous. Now I’ve got the gripes.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Elvis sounded disappointed.

‘Disappointed? Thought I was talking about “another woman”?’

‘No! ’Course not. Has it ever crossed your mind that when she’s at Tadcaster Auntie Betty might be seeing “another man”?’

‘It has crossed my mind, yes.’ Rodney raised Elvis’s hopes only to dash them. ‘Once. Just then, when you asked it. Of course it hasn’t, Elvis. We have the perfect marriage.’

‘Of course you do.’ Elvis sounded disbelieving, as befitted one so cynical.

Rita approached her new hosts. She sported a knitted navy suit with three-quarter-length coat and cream knitted top. Her hat, shoes and bag were white. Liz had plumped for a purple, pink and yellow silk jacket and skirt, with a lilac silk top and large lilac bows in her hair. Neville wore a dark suit.

‘Rita!’ he said. ‘There’s tea or champagne, except there isn’t any tea yet.’

‘Champagne then?’ said Liz. ‘Or does that clash with your image as a Labour councillor?’

‘I don’t deal in images, Liz,’ said Rita. ‘I deal in truth and justice. Oh Lord, that sounds pompous. I hope in time I’ll learn to be serious without being pompous. Champagne, please.’

Eric Siddall, barman supreme, sidled up as if on castors. ‘There you go, madam,’ he said, handing Rita a glass. ‘Just the job. Tickety-boo.’

‘Thank you, Eric,’ said Rita. ‘Eric! Are you working here now?’

‘As of last Monday fortnight, madam,’ said Eric. ‘There was … let’s say there was a clash of personalities at the golf club.’ He flung a hostile glance towards the bluff, egg-shaped Graham Wintergreen.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Eric,’ said Neville. ‘I noticed you’d gone of course.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Eric excused himself, leaving them regretting that they hadn’t asked him to elaborate.

‘So …’ said Neville, ‘… how are you faring, Rita?’

‘In what way?’

‘Well … in life. At home. The evenings. The nights. Without …’

‘Neville!’ said Liz.

‘Without what?’ asked Rita. ‘Gerry? Any man? Sex?’

‘No! Well, yes.’

‘Neville!’

‘I’m faring well. I’m not the sort of woman who feels incomplete without a man.’

‘Is that a dig at me?’ said Liz.

‘No,’ said Rita. ‘Good heavens, no, Liz. We’re friends now.’

‘Ah.’

‘Subject closed. Feminist speeches over.’ Rita did try to leave it at that. ‘I just hate the idea that without marriage men are fine but women aren’t. Men seem to have managed to project the idea that bachelors are admirable and spinsters are pathetic. As if marriage was an institution for the benefit of women, when it’s clearly almost entirely for the benefit of men.’

‘I see corduroy’s staging a revival,’ said Neville.

‘What?’ Rita and Liz were as united in their bemusement as they had ever been in their lives.

‘I read somewhere that corduroy is making a comeback. I was steering us towards safer waters,’ explained Neville. ‘Sorry.’

‘No. You’re absolutely right,’ said Rita. ‘Let’s try and avoid ructions of any kind, just this once.’

Sandra entered hurriedly and inelegantly with a large pot of tea and a large jug of hot water.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said to the Badgers, ‘but he’s a right dozy ha’p’orth, him.’

‘Sandra!’ Rita sounded appalled.

‘Oh Lord.’ So did Neville.

‘What’s wrong?’ Sandra plonked the tea and water down and picked up the milk jug.

‘You’ll see,’ said Liz.

Ted entered with Corinna.

Sandra dropped the milk jug onto the cups.

‘She’s seen,’ said Liz.

Ted also looked thunderstruck. ‘Oh heck. That’s torn it,’ he said. ‘Come on, Corinna. Let’s leave. It’s best. I mean, it is. Isn’t it?’

But his vision in orange was made of sterner stuff. ‘I don’t want to leave, Ted,’ she said. ‘I enjoy champagne. And I’m not frightened of a waitress. My father’s a bishop.’

Corinna Price-Rodgerson marched forward resolutely. Ted had no option but to follow.

‘Ted! Corinna!’ Neville’s enthusiasm for welcoming new arrivals was a bottomless well. ‘Tea or champagne?’

‘Champagne for me, please,’ said Corinna.

‘There you go, madam,’ said Eric Siddall, barman supreme. ‘No problem. Just the job. They can’t touch you for it.’

‘I think I’ll start with tea,’ said Ted. ‘I’ve got a mouth like an elephant’s …’ he glanced at Corinna, ‘… mouth.’

Ted’s choice of tea involved an encounter with Sandra, lover of cake and, until recently, lover of Ted. Well, so be it. It was unavoidable.

Sandra, who had made a creditable job of clearing up the worst of the mess that she had made, gave Ted a cup of tea and enquired, with suspect solicitude, ‘Do you take sugar, sir?’

Ted was uneasily aware that people were listening.

‘You know I … yes. Two, please,’ he said.

‘Nice to see you again, sir. We haven’t seen you around lately,’ said Sandra.

‘No, I … er … I … er … I’ve been … er …’

‘Tied up? I know how these things happen, sir.’

Jenny came in, carrying an electronic baby link.

‘They’ve put the babies in room 108,’ she announced.

‘They’ve what?’ said Ted.

‘That’s hardly appropriate,’ said Liz. ‘That’s the room he was … put in last time.’

‘Well they say they use that room as a kind of spare because it’s next to the boiler so it’s noisy at ni … What last time?’ said Jenny.

‘I didn’t realise it had ever really gone away,’ said Rita.

They all gave her blank looks.

‘Corduroy,’ she explained.

‘You’re religious,’ Ted told Corinna. ‘Come and have a look at our great Yorkshire abbeys.’

He led Corinna off to admire the paintings.

Rita slipped off without explanation.

‘What last time?’ insisted Jenny.

Neville excused himself without explanation.

‘Mum,’ said Jenny, suddenly alone with Liz. ‘He’s never been to the hotel before. Were you going to say “That’s the room he was conceived in”? Was he conceived during my wedding reception?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ admitted her mother. ‘I was so overjoyed at your marrying your road sweeper that I got carried away.’

‘Oh my God,’ wailed Jenny. ‘No wonder our marriage is going wrong. Oh Lord. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’

She plugged in the baby-listening device.

Ted and his fiancée stood beneath Fountains Abbey. The artist had imposed his romanticism on the natural romance of the ruins. He had imposed his concept of beauty on their natural beauty. The result was uniquely, inspiredly ugly.

‘Your waitress showed a bit of style there,’ said Corinna.

‘Surprised?’ said her fiancé. ‘That’s stereotyped thinking, Corinna. That’s a very glib social judgement, is that.’

‘I do not make glib social judgements, Ted.’ Corinna’s rebuke was cool but affectionate. ‘I was brought up not to. Don’t forget, my father’s a bishop.’

‘Some chance,’ muttered Ted.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing. Well, you do rather drag it in. “Nice cup of tea, this. Incidentally, my father’s a bishop.”’ He lowered his voice, in order to talk about sex. ‘“That was magnificent. You’re the best lover I’ve ever had, Ted. Not that I’ve had that many. My father’s a bishop.”’

‘I’ve never said you’re the best lover I’ve ever had.’

‘No. You haven’t. Why not?’

‘Maybe you’re the only lover I’ve ever had.’

‘What?’ Ted’s astonishment slipped out. He worked hard to alleviate his tactlessness. He wasn’t entirely successful. ‘I mean, not that I’m surprised. No, it’s just that … statistically speaking, it’s very unusual for women to reach your … oh heck …I mean … well … great!’

‘Don’t forget, my …’ began Corinna. Ted joined in. ‘… father’s a bishop.’

They laughed.

Sandra watched. Her face was a rigid mask.

‘Sorry if I was a bit edgy, love,’ said Ted. ‘But, I mean … I am. It’s with seeing her. Being reminded what a … well, not a bastard exactly. I mean, I didn’t intend when I … I had no idea I’d be passionately loved by a beautiful, glamorous, sophisticated virginal goddess. I forget sometimes how attractive I am.’

Liz’s skeletal, ramrod uncle, Hubert Ellsworth-Smythe, who had never refused liquid refreshment in his life, stood with a cup of tea in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, regaling Angela Wintergreen with anecdotes about faux-pas at tiffin, and Angela Wintergreen was enchanted, because he hadn’t mentioned golf once. Matthew Wadebridge, Neville’s colleague, whose wife did charity work six evenings a week and snored in her chair on the seventh, looked out over the grounds, watched a heron flapping indolently through the murk in search of more promising waters, shivered, thought how long the night must be for herons and what jolly times he had in the Bacchus Wine Bar in Newbaldgate each weekday lunchtime, decided that perhaps being human wasn’t too dreadful after all, and turned back to the jollifications with renewed enthusiasm. Jenny Rodenhurst, charming despite her advanced pregnancy in a red and cream chiffon tent-style dress, with a natural straw hat and a shoulder bag hand-woven by the wives of Bolivian tin miners, approached her mother diffidently, wondering how to present Paul’s absence in a not wholly unfavourable light.

‘Mum?’ she began.

‘Paul’s absence from social functions is becoming habitual, Jenny,’ said Liz, driving a coach and pair through her daughter’s diffidence.

‘He hates do’s. Any excuse. Look, Mum, we’ve had difficulties arising from lack of mutual faith arising from Paul’s lapse with Carol, but our troubles pale into insignificance compared to floods in Cambodia and earthquakes in Armenia and poverty in the shanty towns of El Salvador. So, let’s not talk about it.’ She wanted to get away from the mother she had longed to talk to two minutes ago. She saw Eric at his drinks table. ‘Champagne!’ she said, and set off without further excuse. ‘Better not,’ she said, looking down at her swollen body. ‘Have you any orange juice, Eric?’

‘Certainly, madam,’ said the dapper, ageless Eric Siddall. ‘No problem. Here we go. Tickety-boo. And how’s that husband of yours?’

‘Fine,’ lied Jenny. ‘Great.’

‘Sometimes, I – not having ever myself – sometimes I look at married couples and I … but with you two, I see you, so devoted, such loving parents, and I … I do, I come over all unnecessary …’

‘Oh, belt up, Eric. You know nothing about it,’ said Jenny.

Eric Siddall, barman supreme, stared at Jenny aghast.

‘Oh Lord,’ she said. ‘Oh, Eric. Oh, I’m sorry, Eric.’

Eric bore his hurt with dignity.

‘No problem, madam,’ he said.

Betty Sillitoe had intended to make something of an entrance. Entering a room without Rodney at her side was, after all, something of a rarity. She had planned to stand in the doorway, smiling, looking really rather fetching, she felt, in her coral crêpe dress edged with apricot ribbon, and throwing her arms out in a gesture of affection; embracing them all in the warmth of her personality, as if she were the Pope and the Brontë Suite St Peter’s Square.

This touching tableau was ruined before it started, by Jenny hurtling tearfully towards her, trembling with self-disgust, wailing, ‘I shouldn’t have. Not today,’ and hurrying out into the lobby. Betty turned towards her in amazement, then turned back towards the room, and was embraced by Rodney before she had regained her composure.

‘Betty! You came!’ His delight removed all traces of regret for her lost entrance.

‘I’m sorry I missed the service,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t leave her while she was hallucinating.’

‘Hallucinating?’

‘She thought she was Joan of Arc. She might have burnt herself.’

‘Oh, Betty.’

Rodney embraced Betty again, even more warmly.

‘Rodney!’ she protested. ‘A bit of decorum in public, if you please. As befits joint managing directors of a major new business. I’d have been earlier but I popped home to change because this dress creases if you travel. Rodney, there’s a dreadful, soggy, wobbly, smelly mess on the kitchen table. What is it?’

‘Carrot and cashew nut roulade. A treat for tonight, for your homecoming.’

‘Oh, Rodney. I’m sorry.’

‘No. I knew it had gone wrong. I meant to throw it out.’

Neville, Rita and Liz came forward to greet Betty.

‘Hello, Neville,’ she said. ‘Hello … Councillor! Congratulations.’ Now at last she embraced the whole room in her gaze. ‘Ted! Corinna! Sandra!.’

Sandra approached, smiling serenely, ignoring Betty’s surprise. ‘Tea, madam, or champagne?’

‘Oh tea first, I think, please.’ Betty called out to Eric. ‘Eric? Later I’d like a drink. Do you have any fruit juices?’

‘What?’

‘I do not touch alcohol. It is a poison. Do you have any fruit juices?’

Even Eric Siddall, barman supreme, found it impossible to hide his astonishment entirely.

‘Yes, madam,’ he said, recovering. ‘Can do. No problem.’

Betty turned back to Neville, Liz and Rita. ‘Well, she said, ‘I suppose my absence has set you all wondering if Rodney and I’ll be splitting up next.’

‘No, Betty. Good Lord, no,’ said Rita.

‘You splitting up? That’s a good one,’ said Neville.

‘That’s the best laugh I’ve had in weeks,’ said Liz.

‘Absolutely,’ said Rita.

They laughed. It would be hard to decide which of the three laughs was the least unconvincing.

Underneath the hideously romanticised painting of Bolton Abbey, Elvis Simcock, elder son of Ted and Rita Simcock, was questioning Simon Rodenhurst, only son of Liz and the late Laurence Rodenhurst.

‘So, Simon, are you still planning to give up what it would anyway be an exaggeration to call your sex life?’

‘Too right. Today has confirmed that.’

‘What’s so special about today?’

‘The other godfather’s wife was the woman in question.’

‘The pregnant one?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘Exactly.’

Elvis tried to hide his excitement at this revelation. He assumed a dignified, caring expression as he sought the words that he needed.

‘What exactly went through your mind,’ he enquired carefully, ‘when you realised that the woman you’d made pregnant on your one and only foray into the world-renowned delights of sexual intercourse was the wife of your fellow godfather?’

‘What do you think went through it, you steaming berk?’ countered Simon angrily. ‘I thought, “I am unfit to undertake the moral welfare of a mature garden slug with psychopathic tendencies, let alone an innocent infant boy. I must tell them I can’t do it.”’

‘But you didn’t tell them you couldn’t do it, did you?’

‘Because what could I say? “I can’t go through with this. I’m the twit who got Andrew’s wife preggers”?’ He changed the subject. ‘How’s things with Carol?’

‘Terrific. Great. Couldn’t be better.’

‘Hello,’ said Carol, as if she’d been waiting for her cue. ‘You’re Elvis Simcock, aren’t you?’ She held out her hand politely. ‘I’m Carol Fordingbridge, your fiancée. Remember me?’

‘Carol!’

Elvis was all the more furious because he knew that he had no right to be.

‘I’ve got to sit down,’ said Rodney Sillitoe, and, as though to prove that he hadn’t been lying, he sat down.

Betty looked round for another chair. Morris Wigmore leapt to his feet and handed her his chair, smiling. When Betty said that he shouldn’t have, he pooh-poohed the idea that he had made any sort of sacrifice. He smiled confidently, frankly at Betty, little knowing that she was thinking, ‘Why don’t I trust this man? Why does he send goose-pimples up my spine? If only his son hadn’t come to a sticky end in Brisbane, so that I could loathe him without feeing a heel.’

‘Last night I strayed,’ confessed Rodney in a near-whisper, when Betty had settled herself in her Restoration chair.

‘Strayed? How do you mean, “strayed”?’

‘What do you think I mean?’

‘Well, not a woman. You wouldn’t.’

‘Aaaah!’

‘So it must have been either alcohol or meat. The way you look, I’d say …’ Betty examined his rough, red, battered face lovingly, ‘… meat.’