by David Nobbs
‘Something very similar to what I had at Sunshine Desserts,’ said Reggie. ‘You always said how nice that was.’
‘Ah. Yes. Quite. Good,’ said C.J.
Reggie stood up. C.J. and Elizabeth followed suit.
‘I thought your back was locked,’ said Elizabeth.
‘It’s unlocked itself,’ said C.J. ‘Funny things, backs.’
C.J. and Elizabeth made the long walk towards the door side by side.
‘One point, C.J.,’ said Reggie.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you feel that you can take on a new and challenging job in a highly modern business concept with drive and enthusiasm?’
‘I’m sure I can,’ said C.J.
‘Good,’ said Reggie. ‘I’m glad to hear it. We aren’t one of those dreadful firms who think people are old-fashioned just because they’re over fifty.’
Joan’s voice was icy.
‘Mr Webster is here,’ she said.
‘Send him in Joan.’
Tony entered the office jauntily but not too jauntily. The Flexisit chair had been returned to the makers on the grounds that it made an embarrassing noise, and he sat on a silent German model.
‘Good to see you again, Tony,’ said Reggie.
‘Great,’ said Tony.
‘I was sorry to hear about Sunshine Desserts.’
‘Yes. Dramatic happenings in jelly city.’
‘Quite. Cigar?’
‘Great.’
Tony took a large cigar and lit it with aplomb. Reggie ordered coffee.
‘Great pad you have here,’ said Tony, glancing appreciatively round Reggie’s lush executive womb.
‘Yes. What are you planning to do next, Tony?’
‘I’ve a lot of offers. I don’t know which to take up.’
‘There’s not much point in my offering you a job, then. Still, nice to see you.’
‘Oh, sod it,’ said Tony. ‘This is cards-on-the-table-ville. Obviously in the long term, in the long term, Tony Webster’s still the lad.’
‘But in the short term?’
‘Nobody’ll touch me with the proverbial.’
‘Tarred with the C.J. brush?’
‘Well, I should have seen the crash coming. It doesn’t reflect well on my vision.’
‘No.’
‘I’ve been a twat, Reggie. That bastard C.J. really stitched me up. It’s taught me a lesson, though. I’ve grown up at last.’
Joan entered with the coffee. Tony sprang to his feet.
‘I’ll take it,’ he said.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Joan.
Tony sat down reluctantly. Joan served coffee in icy silence.
‘Phew!’ said Tony when Joan had gone. ‘Ouch city. Icebergsville.’
‘She’s an attractive woman,’ said Reggie.
‘Oh, sure, it’s got good form.’
‘If you want to get anywhere with Joan,’ said Reggie, ‘may I suggest you trying saying “she’s very attractive” rather than “it’s got good form”?’
‘Thank you, Professor Higgins. Any other advice?’
‘Yes. Ask her out to lunch tomorrow.’
‘No chance. But no chance. Is this why you’ve got me here, to bring us together again? I always thought you fancied her yourself.’
‘I think that if you really want Joan, and if you show great patience, and eschew Helsinki ravers and their ilk, you could find yourself in Main Street, Reconciliationsville.’
Tony gawped, momentarily speechless.
‘Now to business,’ said Reggie. ‘I can offer you a job here, but you will not have the same status as you had at Sunshine Desserts. You’ll have to prove yourself anew.’
‘I will, Reggie.’
‘In that case, Tony, why don’t you start next Monday?’
‘Great.’
Reggie poured Tony a second cup of coffee.
‘I gave another Sunshine Desserts man a job last week,’ he said.
‘Oh. Who?’
‘That bastard C.J.’
‘I should be more careful of my tongue, shouldn’t I?’
Reggie picked up the red phone.
‘Ask the Head of Expansion (UK) to come in, would you, please, Joan?’ he said. ‘Your new boss,’ he explained to Tony.
Tony turned pale.
‘It isn’t C.J., is it?’ he asked.
‘Would I do a thing like that to you – make you work with C.J. again? Of course it isn’t C.J.’
‘Oh good.’
‘It’s David Harris-Jones.’
‘What?’
‘It’s David Harris-Jones.’
‘You mean I’m to be under David Harris-Jones?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Yes.’
There was a soft knock on the door.
‘Come,’ said Reggie.
David Harris-Jones approached them like a grounded bat.
‘Oh hello, Tony. Super to see you,’ he said.
‘Tony’s going to join us, David,’ said Reggie.
‘Super.’
‘He’s going to be working under you, David. You’re his new boss.’
David and Tony looked at each other in silence for some seconds. David seemed almost as thunderstruck as Tony.
‘Great,’ said David Harris-Jones at last.
‘Super,’ said Tony Webster.
Joan was late back from her lunch with Tony the following day.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ said Reggie as she entered with her dictation pad.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Perrin. I got held up,’ she said.
‘Nice lunch?’
‘Yes.’
She began to cross her legs, remembered, and uncrossed them.
‘Good. Good. To the Quicksek Employment Bureau. Dear Sirs, I am urgently looking for a high-class secretary … You aren’t taking it down, Joan.’
‘You haven’t replaced me yet, then, Mr Perrin?’
‘Not yet, Joan. I soon will, though, don’t worry. To the Quicksek Employment Bureau. Dear Sirs, …’
‘Would it be all right if I stayed on, Mr Perrin?’
It was in breach of their unwritten contract, but he gave her a kiss.
The weather turned cold again for the weekend. There was snow on many football grounds, and the Pools Panel was called in. There was snow at Hillingdon, causing the abandonment of the third round FA Trophy match between Hillingdon and Climthorpe. And there was snow at Bagwell Heath, but it wasn’t the snow that caused the abandonment of the match between James Gordonstoun Anderson and Lettuce Isobel Horncastle.
Chapter 19
The organist gave a spirited rendition of old favourites, and the heating system accompanied him with a cacophony of squeaks and gurgles.
There was a large gathering in the spacious fifteenth-century church with its famous Gothic font cover.
On the left were the friends and family of the bride.
There were small men with skin like old brown shoes.
There were large, fierce women, their massive faces so dark beneath their huge hats that it almost looked as if they could do with a shave. Truth to tell, several of them could.
There was one beautiful young blonde and a very tall distinguished man in morning dress.
There were eight rather embarrassed Indians in flowing robes, and three physiotherapists with hacking coughs.
On the right were the friends and family of the groom.
There were Tom and Linda and their two children, Adam and Jocasta. Adam had started proper school and nose-picking.
There were some old army colleagues, including a whitehaired old man in the uniform of a colonel in the Territorial Army. They had red noses indicative of liquid indulgence.
There were three rows of large men from the ranks of assorted families.
There were three rows of large men from the ranks of Jimmy’s secret army. They looked like retired boxers, sacked policemen and failed security guards.
Reggie and Eliza
beth were just about to take their places in the church when an ancient Land Rover drew up, squirting slush across the pavement to the very foot of the white-coated lych-gate.
Out stepped Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther. He sported a carnation in his trench coat.
‘Hello there,’ he called to Reggie in an urgent but low voice.
Reggie walked hurriedly over towards him.
‘I’ve lost the groom,’ said Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther.
‘Lost the groom?’ said Reggie. ‘How can you lose the groom?’
‘Pub down road, quick one, Dutch courage. Groom goes for piss. Excuse language. Doesn’t return. I go look-see. Not pissing. Missing.’
‘What are we to do?’ said Elizabeth.
‘He may have just wanted a bit of time to himself to collect his thoughts,’ said Reggie.
‘Vamoosed,’ said Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther. ‘Cold feet. Don’t blame him.’
The vicar rode up on his bicycle and wobbled to a slippery halt in the slush.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I feared I was cutting it fine, but I see no sign of the happy couple.’
‘You may not do,’ said Reggie. ‘We appear to have lost the groom.’
‘Lost the groom?’ said the vicar. ‘How can you lose the groom?’
‘Stop off, pub, quick fortifier,’ said Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther. ‘Groom goes for a …’
‘Groom goes to smallest room,’ said Reggie hastily. ‘Doesn’t return. Best man worried. Best man goes to smallest room. No groom.’
‘I see,’ said the vicar. ‘Well, maybe he just wanted a few minutes to himself. Believe me, in the nervous excitement of one’s wedding day, anything can happen. Even I, so calm when officiating, felt decidedly queasy when I was on the receiving end. I expect he’ll draw up any moment in a taxi.’
‘He’s vamoosed,’ said Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther. ‘He’s gone AWOL.’
‘He’s a military man,’ said Reggie.
‘Ah!’ said the vicar, as if that explained everything.
The vicar looked up and down the road.
‘Still no sign of the lovely bride either,’ he said.
‘Without wishing to strike an uncharitable note on such a potentially auspicious occasion,’ said Reggie, ‘I think it is germane to the issue that the bride cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as lovely.’
‘Reggie!’ said Elizabeth. ‘What an awful thing to say!’
‘Bloody true, though,’ said Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther. ‘She’s as ugly as sin.’
‘Sin is not ugly, because it is redeemable,’ said the vicar. He glanced at his watch. ‘What is the groom like? Is he also – excuse my bluntness – an horrendous specimen?’
‘I’m his sister,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Dear lady, forgive me,’ said the vicar.
‘That’s all right,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He isn’t horrendous, but he’s no oil-painting.’
‘Perhaps the bride won’t turn up either,’ said the vicar.
‘He’s vamoosed,’ repeated Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther. ‘He’s deserted in the face of the enemy.’
‘And here comes the enemy now,’ said Reggie.
A beribboned Rolls-Royce drove slowly round the edge of the churchyard, past the great yew.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said the vicar, and he rushed up the snowy path and round the side of the church.
‘You’ve still got your bicycle clips on,’ called Reggie, but he was too late.
The driver of the Rolls-Royce braked. The car slid remorselessly onwards across the treacherous slush. It struck the vicar’s bicycle a glancing blow before running gently into the back of the Land Rover.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther.
The driver descended from the car and examined the damage. Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther hurried over to remonstrate with him and examine the rear of the Land Rover.
The radiant bride descended slowly from the car. Nothing, it seemed, could spoil the greatest day of her life. Her incredulous father stepped out behind her, and two tiny bridesmaids in shocking pink held her proud white train clear of the slush.
Reggie stepped forward to speak, but his hesitant ‘er … excuse me’ was tossed into the sky by the mocking wind of March.
The bride slid remorselessly past him, as unstoppable in her white tulle as a great tanker gliding down the slipway into the smooth waters of a Japanese inlet.
The procession swept into the church, and moved slowly up the aisle, while Reggie and Elizabeth crept round the side-aisle to their seats.
The organist, who had been approaching the end of his repertoire, struck up ‘Here Comes the Bride’ with joyous relief. The happy music swelled and burst upon bearded lady, bewildered Indian, bewhiskered colonel and bored right-wing fanatic alike. The right-wing fanatics gazed at Lettuce in open-mouthed astonishment.
Her father stepped back to stand alongside Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther, and the hapless cleric stood irresolute in his bicycle clips, as the bride turned a face stiff with exultation towards the empty space where the groom should have stood. The organist came to the end of the tune, and the church was filled with a dreadful silence, broken only by the coughing of the three physiotherapists.
The radiance on the bride’s face turned to puzzlement. The vicar cleared his throat. The organist began ‘Here Comes the Bride’ at the beginning again.
Once more the resonant notes of the organ died slowly, like the last rumblings of celestial catarrh. There was a deep, damp, vaulted silence.
‘We are gathered here today,’ said the vicar, ‘to witness the ceremony of Holy Matrimony, to join together two happy and radiant souls, one of whom we see here today. Alas, the efforts of the other to be present at the greatest day of his life seem to have met with some misfortune, some setback which is doubtless not unconnected with the inclement road conditions which are affecting Bagwell Heath and its environs, not to mention large areas of the Northern Hemisphere.’
The vicar glanced at his watch. It was the largest congregation he had had for years, and he wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.
‘Let us pray,’ he said.
The congregation knelt.
‘Almighty God,’ improvised the vicar. ‘Who hast delivered many travellers safely to their havens through danger and peril, storm and avalanche, flood and snow-drift, fog and typhoon, landslide and water-spout, grant, we beseech Thee, that Thy blessed subject James Gordonstoun Anderson, may be safely delivered to this place of worship through the perils of the March snow and the dangers of the new experimental one-way traffic system in Upper Bagwell, with its linked traffic lights and mini-roundabouts, that he may be truly and gratefully and joyously united in Holy Matrimony, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.’
The congregation sat. The vicar, still ignorant of the partial destruction of his bicycle, walked as slowly as he dared into the pulpit, coughed as often as he dared, fixed the congregation with a fierce glare for as long as he dared, and finally, when he could delay no longer, spoke.
‘What is Holy Matrimony?’ he said. ‘It is the union of two souls, is it not?’
The eight Indians, who had been looking somewhat puzzled, nodded.
‘It is a solemn sacrament, which should not be entered upon lightly.’
‘If at all?’ whispered Reggie.
‘S’ssh,’ whispered Elizabeth.
‘Vicar man’s got a big nose,’ said Adam.
Reggie thought about his infrequent visits to church. They seemed doomed to irregularity. On the last occasion he had attended his own memorial service, having no right to be there. Now Jimmy was not attending his own wedding, having every right, nay, obligation to be present. Reggie reflected on the many-layered ironies of life, while the vicar talked on, in the desperate hope that the groom would find unsuspected reserves of courage, and would finally arrive.
‘Marriage is essentially a partnership,’ he was saying, ‘a matter of give and take.�
��
‘Give up, vicar,’ said Lettuce, in a loud, firm, resolute voice. ‘The bastard isn’t coming.’
Only on the exposed banks were there still traces of snow in the headlights. Relentless rain swept across the roads, filling the West Country rivers, turning Exe and Lyn and Dart into torrents, swelling Taw and Torridge and Tamar into muddy flood. On the darkened motorways the juggernauts sent jets of water streaming over Reggie’s car, and on the good old A.303 the leak in the side window of Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther’s Land Rover was worse than ever.
Where would Jimmy make for but back to earth, back to Trepanning House, in the County of Cornwall?
It had been decided that Reggie and Linda would stay at the Fishermen’s Arms, Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther would keep vigil at Trepanning House, Elizabeth would wait at home, and Tom would look after Adam and Jocasta.
Tom had wanted to go in place of Linda, but she had insisted.
‘Jimmy’ll need cheering up, Tom,’ she had said.
‘Linda’s right, Tom,’ Reggie had said. ‘Jimmy’ll need cheering up. You’d better not come.’
As they drove over Bodmin Moor, where the remains of deep drifts were turning dull and grey in the rain, it was comforting to know that they had booked rooms in the hospitable old stone inn.
The road dropped steadily off the moor towards the anonymous, eponymous town. They were heading now for the ancient battered coasts where even a gorse bush was a minor miracle. The grey villages were silent and deserted in the cruel rain.
The last bell rang just as they drew up outside the Fishermen’s Arms.
They drank beer and whisky chasers.
‘We’ve seen nowt of him,’ said Danny Arkwright. ‘Nowt of him nor t’long bugger.’
‘Well, he’ll have had to hitch-hike,’ said Linda. ‘Clive’s got their car.’
‘I made sure he were wed by now,’ said the landlord. ‘Hey, Annie!’ he shouted.
The former canteen operative joined them.
‘T’feller from Trepanning House what’s getting married today, he never turned up.’
‘Ee,’ said the landlady. ‘Who’d have thowt it?’
‘I would for one,’ said the landlord. ‘She come down here back end, stayed like. I’ve seen better faces on pit ponies. Mind you, she’d come in handy pulling a truck of coal, I grant you that.’