by David Nobbs
‘You mean we …’ Ted was staggered at the scope of the idea, at the scale of its implications. ‘East Africa! But that’s … in Africa. You mean we go and live in East Africa?’
‘Why not?’
The Hebden Bridge Griddlers launched themselves into ‘Wild Rover’. Wild Rover! Why not?
‘Why not indeed?’ His enthusiasm was so sudden that it took Corinna aback. ‘Chat show host! If he thinks he’s the only one with wide horizons, he’s got another think coming. I mean, he has.’
Rita approached her elder son, who was mouthing sweet nothings to his brother’s wife across the chile sin carne.
‘Elvis?’ said Rita, and there was an ominous pleading tone in her voice. ‘Can I have a word?’
Elvis moved off with his mother. They stood in a corner, underneath ‘Root Vegetable Medley’, by Trevor Coldwell. ‘Wild Rover’ continued in the background, half ignored. Rita spoke so earnestly, so secretively, that several people stopped to wonder what it was all about. Others knew.
‘We must have a talk.’
‘Not now, Mum. It isn’t the time.’
‘It’s never the time with you, is it? This is worse than the Rodenhursts.’
‘What?’
‘You and I don’t talk to each other, not because we aren’t talking to each other but because we can’t find anything to talk about even though we are talking to each other. Elvis, I want to talk about Carol.’
‘Mum, there’s nothing to talk about.’
Jenny was watching them from behind the food counter, straining to catch their every expression. They were both aware of her eyes upon them, though neither of them looked in her direction.
‘She’s a lovely girl. I don’t like to see her hurt.’
‘I always thought you didn’t like her.’
‘I’ve warmed to her. Mothers never like their sons’ girl-friends at first.’
‘I don’t want to see her hurt either. But it didn’t work out. It was lust, not love. There is a difference.’
‘Thanks. A useful hint. Where’s my diary, I must make a note of it.’
Rita pretended to search in the non-existent pockets of her Sillitoe’s uniform. Jenny, seeing the gesture, was puzzled.
‘Mum! Besides, Jenny’s a lovely girl too, and she’s having to look after two kids on her own, and I don’t like to see her hurt, and our Paul hurt her.’
‘I know, but that’s not your responsibility.’
‘Yes, it is. I love her.’
Elvis moved off, out of range of Rita’s eyes. Rita stood stock still, struck dumb. Slowly she turned to look at Jenny.
Jenny gave her mother-in-law a hopeful little smile.
Rita tried to respond.
The Hebden Bridge Griddlers continued to strum, and sing, and smile, and sway, and shake.
‘You talked to Rita, didn’t you?’
Neville carefully finished his mouthful before speaking. He ate immaculately.
‘If anybody’d told me that I’d enjoy a cashew nut moussaka, I wouldn’t have believed them,’ he said.
Liz ignored his evasion contemptuously. ‘You talked to Rita, didn’t you?’ she repeated.
‘No. No! Well, yes, but … no.’
‘What on earth does that mean?’
Neville shifted uncomfortably in his stripped pine chair.
‘It means I talked to Rita purely to tell her I wasn’t talking to her.’ He speared some more moussaka and raised it halfway to his mouth. ‘I said you weren’t talking to her, so I wasn’t talking to her because … you weren’t talking to her.’
‘Oh, Neville, what on earth is the point of not talking to people if you tell them why you’re not talking to them? Why must you be so nice all the time?’
‘You miss Laurence, don’t you? His barbs. His sarcasm. His icy retorts.’
‘I don’t miss Laurence. I do miss the cut and thrust. A bit. But I want it to be your cut and thrust.’
‘So sorry I’m sarcastically inadequate.’ Neville’s face suddenly contorted with sarcastic fury. ‘So sorry I suffer from brewer’s droop in the icy retorts department.’
‘That’s better,’ said Liz admiringly.
In a far corner of the now-deserted shop, behind bags of millet and bulgar wheat, Elvis Simcock and his younger brother’s wife explored each other’s mouth and lips.
‘This is fantastic, Jenny,’ said Elvis softly, without a trace of cynicism. ‘I didn’t know such happiness existed.’
‘Elvis?’ Jenny’s voice had a diffident but unmistakably searching tone, as if she was about to tread on dangerous ground. Before she could do so, a door marked ‘Store room. Private’ opened. The young lovers stepped away from each other. Betty Sillitoe emerged, clutching an almost full glass of carrot juice.
‘Had a dreadful thought,’ she said. ‘We ordered organic rhubarb. I couldn’t remember seeing it. It’s there.’
She moved off towards the restaurant, seemingly oblivious to the nature of Elvis and Jenny’s meeting.
‘Elvis?’ said Jenny. ‘I’ve always liked you … admired you. The philosopher. The rebel.’ There was a catch in her voice. It was the shyness of new love. But there was also a frown. ‘It worries me that you’re becoming so ambitious.’
‘It’s not ambition for its own sake, Jenny,’ explained Elvis earnestly. ‘I only want to become famous in order to gain the influence to have my controversial and highly socially relevant and innately rebellious philosophical thoughts taken notice of.’
‘I can’t tell you how happy it makes me feel to hear you say that.’ Jenny kissed Elvis warmly. Then a further worry darkened her brow. ‘What controversial and highly socially relevant and innately rebellious thoughts?’
‘The ones I’ll have when I’m famous.’
Jenny looked somewhat sceptical still. Elvis began to kiss her again. He pressed her gently against a shelf of polyunsaturated fats. He held his hard body against hers and drove the scepticism out. He became aware that somebody was in the shop. He let go of her and swung round.
His mother was watching them gravely.
They could think of nothing to say. Jenny’s hand clasped his. Far away, on a distant planet, the musicians griddled remorselessly.
‘I wanted to say to you,’ said Rita. ‘It’s none of my business I suppose, these days, but … I love you both, you see, so … I wanted to say … are you really serious?’
‘Yeah. ’Course we are, Mum,’ said Elvis with a decisiveness that would have been more impressive if he hadn’t looked anxiously at Jenny for confirmation.
‘I really think we are, Rita.’ Jenny’s confirmation was all the more convincing for being so quietly and carefully expressed.
‘Well in that case … for what it’s worth …’ said Rita, ‘… you have my blessing … I suppose.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jenny. ‘I don’t think we’ll get Mum’s blessing.’
‘Oh Lord!’ Rita snorted with mirth. ‘Not that that thought gives me any pleasure whatsoever.’
The snow turned rapidly to slush on the streets of the dim, unpeopled town. The lines of cars swished grimly down Arbitration Road. The lights burned wastefully in the windows of the shops near its junction with Westgate. There were few pedestrians about on that filthy night, and not many of them stopped to gaze at the absurdly expensive dresses in the boutiques that failed each year, to be replaced by even more expensive boutiques, which failed even quicker.
Towards the top end of the street, beyond the Gadd Garage, beyond the Chinese take-away with its dimly-lit waiting room, where the few customers sat uneasily like nervous patients – ‘I’m still having trouble with my squid in black bean sauce, doc, can’t seem to shake it off’ – beyond the gloomy Arbitration Arms and the marginally less gloomy Jubilee Tavern with its upstairs disco with your resident host, Deke Ramsbottom, beyond the turf accountant’s and the pet shop and the empty, failed greengrocer’s, beyond the antique shop full of huge, hideous gilt eagles and the grimy video shop packed
with grimy videos, there were signs of incipient gentrification: a bistro at number 167, named, imaginatively, 167, Arbitration Road; a kitchenware shop called The Cook Boutique; an up-market antique shop, without a gilt eagle in sight; an arts materials shop offering framing and restoration; and, newest of all, the flagship of this frail, brave navy, Sillitoe’s; and beyond that, blackness. Planning blight. Dereliction. The dead hand of what would, one brave new rainswept dawn, be the outer inner relief ring road, carved as by the knife of a mad surgeon through the delicate intestines of the town.
In the Good Ship Sillitoe, the first evening at least was turning into a real success. Perhaps the absence of alcohol was a source of some regret. Possibly a perfectionist might have cavilled at the gloomy expression on the face of Eric Siddall, barman supreme. Maybe a musicologist might have noted a slight lack of variety in the repertoire of the Hebden Bridge Griddlers – who had moved on from ‘Wild Rover’ to ‘Gipsy Rover’ – but the lights were bright, the juices were tasty, the food was superb, the talk was lively, and a hostile world was splendidly if briefly defied.
Rodney and Betty basked in their success like unpolluted seals. Not only would they receive a rave report from Elvis in his ‘Gosh, what nosh’ spot, but Ginny Fenwick, ace reporter from the Argus, had come, had seen, had eaten, and had been conquered. As Marjorie Boon, cookery editor, Ginny had recently been starring a series of articles by the distinguished cookery writer Delia Brown, who was also Ginny Fenwick. Delia Brown, Ginny had assured the basking Sillitoes, would give this place top marks.
The Sillitoes tried not to look too pleased with themselves as they watched Ted Simcock approach across the bar. Little did they know that he was now a gipsy rover to whom Chez Edouard in Arbitration Road would have been small beer indeed.
‘Well, it’s all going very well, to say there’s no meat, fish or alcohol,’ he said. ‘The omens are good.’
‘Nice of you to say so, Ted.’ Rodney tried not to sound surprised.
‘I’m delighted you’ve taken that attitude,’ said Betty.
‘Life’s too short to be petty, Betty.’
‘Rodney!’ Betty prompted her husband.
‘I know,’ said Rodney. ‘Ted, we’re very sorry about nextdoor, truly, but … one man’s loss is another man’s opportunity, as they … will you come and work for me?’
‘For us!’ corrected Betty indignantly.
‘Oh Lord. Us. Sorry. Takes some getting used to. Ted, will you work for us?’
‘No.’
‘What?’ said Betty. ‘Oh, Ted. Let bygones …’
‘It’s not the bygones. They’ve gone by. They have! Did Rodney buy my premises when my foundry went bankrupt? I can’t remember.’ Ted couldn’t help showing his satisfaction at this linguistic device, which enabled him to air his grievances while claiming to have forgotten them. ‘Is your business going to flourish next to my pile of rubble? I forget. But.’
‘But what?’ The response was dragged out of Rodney by Ted’s silence.
‘I wouldn’t work for you if you were the last tea in China.’
‘Oh, Ted.’ Betty sounded hurt. ‘Why?’
‘Because, in the words of your barman tonight, “It just isn’t me, isn’t carrot juice.”’
Eric Siddall wouldn’t have been flattered if he’d heard Ted’s impression.
‘Eric said that?’ said Rodney. ‘When we asked for him specially, as a favour? After he’d said he’d be delighted to rearrange his week so as to make himself available?’
‘All right.’ Ted began to reveal the resentment that he claimed not to feel. ‘You’ve found a bandwagon and you’ve climbed aboard. Fair enough. Good luck to you.’
‘It’s not a bandwagon,’ said Betty rather haughtily. ‘It’s a sincerely held belief.’
‘All right. But it’s not my belief. In my book, with respect, it’s trendy, overpriced garbage, and I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole even if I didn’t have plans of my own.’
‘Plans of your own?’ Rodney was tactlessly amazed.
‘The concept of the Yorkshire pudding is a closed book on the dark continent.’
‘You what, Ted?’ Betty was frankly bemused.
‘Africa. Yorkshire pudding. They don’t have it. Same difference with fish and chips. Batter as we understand the term is unknown from Mozambique to Mogadishu.’
‘You what, Ted?’ This time, the bemusement was Rodney’s.
‘I’m telling you about my business expansion plans, and all you can say is, “You what, Ted?” You’ve become insular. We’re an insular nation. I expect it’s with being an island.’
‘You what, Ted?’
‘Corinna was talking about how tourism has increased in East Africa. Her father’s a bishop there, I don’t know if you know that. And … well, if you have an eye for a business opportunity you never lose it, it’s like se …’ Ted glanced at Betty and found himself unable to talk about sex, ‘… riding a bicycle. I saw our chance immediately. I’ve persuaded her to open a chain of English restaurants in East Africa. You’re impressed, I can see.’
‘Impressed’ was not perhaps the first word that a casual watcher would have applied to the faces of Rodney and Betty Sillitoe.
‘Well …’ said Rodney, recovering slowly.
‘Good luck,’ said Betty.
‘Thanks. And thank you for your offer. I don’t doubt it was kindly meant,’ said the embryonic East African entrepreneur patronisingly.
Ted set off towards the restaurant, from which the strains of ‘When I Was Single’ were now emerging. But before he could get there he was collared by Neville.
‘I want your advice, Ted. A man’s advice.’
‘Neville!’ Ted was flattered. ‘Well … absolutely … I’m your man. What’s the problem? You can tell me. These things happen to the best of us.’
‘It’s nothing like that. It’s Liz and me.’
‘Well, yes, I assumed it was.’
‘I irritate her. It gets on her nerves that I’m so nice all the time. I thought of you immediately.’
‘Really?’ Ted was pleased.
‘I want to learn how to become nasty.’
‘You what, Neville?’ Ted was no longer pleased.
‘Not very nasty. Somewhat nasty. Less nice.’
‘Neville? Why have you come to me?’ Ted was becoming indignant. ‘Do you regard me as nasty? Or less nice? Am I the acknowledged local expert on obnoxiousness?’
‘No. Of course not. In no way.’
‘So, I repeat, and I’d like an answer, why the hell come to me?’
‘I’m sorry I did now.’
‘So am I, Neville.’ Ted’s anger was rising steadily. ‘So am I.’
‘But there you are, you see. You really are rather good at being angry.’
‘Why don’t you get stuffed?’ Ted was almost shouting now. He stalked off hurriedly towards Corinna.
Betty Sillitoe, the joint big wheel behind Sillitoe’s, stood near the end of the food counter with her employee and good friend, Rita Simcock, and surveyed the scene.
At a nearby table, Trevor Coldwell sat gazing at James Whatmore and, beyond James Whatmore, at his own painting, entitled ‘The Prize Marrow’. You could almost taste the juice.
Beyond them, Prunella Ransom was talking earnestly with Ginny Fenwick. As the Green Party candidate she lost no opportunity of publicising her cause. Mock not, gentle reader. If everybody stole every suit of clothes you produced, you’d feel the need to publicise yourself.
‘So far so good,’ said Betty.
‘Very much so, Betty.’ A sigh took Rita unawares. Betty looked at her questioningly. She found she wanted to explain. ‘Well, it doesn’t look as though my man’s going to come. I never really thought he would.’
‘There’s still time, Rita.’
‘It was just an hour in a pub, I suppose. It was just that we seemed to … click. He said he thought I was …’ Rita couldn’t say it.
‘Beautiful?’
&nb
sp; ‘Well, yes. How did you …? And I was thinking, “Is it it this time?” and he was thinking, “This isn’t a bad way of filling up an hour. M’m! This ham roll’s nice.”’
Simon entered the restaurant with a bespectacled, rather primly dressed young lady. They stopped to talk with Neville and Liz. Betty was riveted.
‘The silly thing is,’ continued Rita, ‘it’s not as if I feel the need of a man. Will I ever learn, Betty? Or is this sort of thing going to happen all the time?’
‘M’m? Oh. Fourteen minutes to nine,’ said Betty, looking at her watch.
‘My love life is incredibly boring, I agree,’ said Rita.
‘No. That was fascinating,’ said Betty. ‘Utterly fascinating, Rita. I expect. But I just wasn’t listening. I was watching. Simon’s friend has arrived.’
Simon brought his friend over to them. She wore glasses. She looked demure in a pale grey Prince of Wales check suit with a blue silk blouse, but she might, Betty felt, have hidden depths.
‘Hello, Betty,’ said Simon. ‘This is Lucinda Snellmarsh. Betty Sillitoe, our hostess.’
They shook hands and Lucinda said ‘Hello.’ There followed a lacuna, as Lucinda waited to be introduced to Rita.
‘It’s rather awkward,’ said Simon to Lucinda. His voice, though lowered, was loud enough for Rita to hear. ‘I can’t introduce you to the other person. We’re having a feud.’
‘Goodness,’ said Lucinda. ‘What fun!’ She turned to Betty. ‘Sorry I’m so late. I had to show a client round a house.’ She looked in the direction of the food. ‘Is that the food?’ She went to peer closely at the remains of the hot dishes. Simon followed her. ‘Mm! It looks super.’
‘She is a short-sighted estate agent,’ said Betty to Rita.
‘What?’
‘We wondered what sort of girl-friend Simon would have. said, a short-sighted estate agent.’
‘I think that’s very cruel and rather unfair,’ said Rita.