by David Nobbs
‘Oh Simon!’ His mother began to cry. Simon was astounded. He had never seen her cry before, not even at his father’s funeral.
Liz had understood that Neville was going to arrange the seating for the wedding breakfast. This was probably because he’d said ‘I’ll arrange the seating for the wedding breakfast’. Judge then of her astonishment when he made no attempt to do so. The guests drifted towards the table. She gave Neville a meaningful look, but its meaning escaped him. People sat exactly where they liked, or, if they were among the last to arrive at the table, exactly where they didn’t like.
‘I thought you were going to arrange where people sat,’ she said.
‘I forgot,’ said Neville. ‘Anyway, it’s all worked out all right, hasn’t it? Anybody unhappy?’
Everyone shook their heads.
‘You see,’ said Neville. ‘Everybody’s perfectly happy.’
Liz forebore to point out that it wasn’t possible to say, ‘No. I’m extremely unhappy. I hate the people I’m sitting next to.’
‘It couldn’t have worked out better if we’d planned it all,’ beamed Neville.
Neville sat at one end of the table. On his left, along the wall, with their backs to a huge photograph of the wide, shallow, stony river Loire, sat Gerry Lansdown, Rita, Carol Fordingbridge, Elvis, Simon and Jenny. Liz sat at the other end. On her left were Rodney and Betty Sillitoe, Arthur Badger, Paul, and Andrew Denton. If one started at Rodney, it went man, woman, man, man, man, man, man, woman, woman, man, man, woman, woman. Hopeless. Liz felt that it was quite wrong that Rita should sit next to Gerry, Elvis next to Carol, and Rodney beside Betty. Couples should be split up and made to be sociable, otherwise they might just as well be at home. It was also wrong that Jenny should be beside Simon, and appalling that Simon should be next to Elvis. And it seemed almost deliberately perverse that Paul and Jenny, the one couple who should be next to each other, because they were estranged and should therefore be made to be sociable, were separated by the length and width of the table.
Apart from these criticisms, she was totally happy with the seating arrangements.
Monsieur Albert entered with a huge tray, resplendent with ten portions of lobster mayonnaise. Sandra followed with a smaller tray, and three portions of egg mayonnaise. Ted brought up the rear with the chablis.
Monsieur Albert placed a dish in front of Liz, beaming with self-satisfaction. He waited, as if expecting lavish praise and astonishment.
‘Thank you,’ said Liz coolly.
‘Ah!’ said Neville, as Ted approached him with the chablis. ‘Good man!’
Ted didn’t exactly relish being addressed as ‘Good man!’ by Neville, but he bore it stoically. He was almost beyond social suffering on his own behalf. His main concern was for Sandra.
Sandra moved stiffly and nervously round the table under Ted’s discouragingly encouraging eye. After what Lil Appleyard and Ros Pennington had said, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the twenty-six round red radishes and the thirteen sad shrivelled gherkins that topped the garnishings.
Nobody else had realized that there were thirteen at table, but it worried Sandra dreadfully.
Miraculously, there were no disasters.
‘Chef, ‘e apologizes if ze egg, he is slightly of ze lukewarm,’ said the Gallic Monsieur Albert. ‘’e was not given much noticings.’
Neville smiled apologetically at Liz.
Paul had been particularly unfortunate over the seating arrangements. Not only was he seated between Arthur Badger and Andrew Denton, but every time he looked across the table he could see his mother making a fool of herself with Gerry Lansdown. Mutton dressed as lamb was bad enough, but mutton dressed as lamb and falling in love with another lamb, that was going too far. He munched his lukewarm eggs morosely. If he wasn’t going to be able to go back to Jenny, he’d a good mind to become a meat-eating, fish-guzzling slob again.
Jenny said, ‘Doesn’t it worry you that they scream when they’re boiled alive?’ to Rodney, and Paul called down the table, ‘Thanks to you, Jenny, two fluffy yellow chicks have been aborted,’ but apart from that the conversation was well suited to the occasion, and Andrew Denton enjoyed his lobster so much, being happily oblivious that it had recently been sliding across the kitchen floor, that he didn’t make a single joke throughout the whole first course.
Ted replenished their glasses with the pale yellow chablis most punctiliously. He caught a look of surprised approval on Liz’s face as he carefully gave Rodney and Betty Sillitoe rather less than their due. He was also less than generous to Gerry Lansdown and Rita. ‘It has a certain flinty integrity, doesn’t it, sir?’ he said icily to Gerry, investing the ‘sir’ with a light coating of irony. Gerry sipped his wine reflectively, and said, ‘I hate to take issue with an expert, but I think it has a rather flighty insouciance. I find that most of the wines from the southern end of that particular vineyard, near the railway bridge, do have a slightly roguish character,’ and Ted moved on hurriedly.
People were cracking lobster limbs long after the last lukewarm egg had disappeared. The vegetarians felt superior but hungry.
Monsieur Albert carved the chateaubriand himself. It was crisp outside, and juicily red inside. Ted neatly divided the mushroom omelette into three portions.
‘Chef, ‘e is desolate that it is for ze vegetarians once again ze egg,’ said Monsieur Albert. ‘If ‘e ‘as only ‘ad more time, what a wonderful creation ‘e will ‘ave been making for you.’
Neville smiled apologetically at Liz.
There were seven separate vegetables. Sandra served them, and there was only one unfortunate contretemps, and even this could have been worse, since braised fennel matched Rita’s trouser suit perfectly.
‘I grew twenty-three vegetables last year,’ said Andrew Denton.
‘Very good!’ said Paul morosely. The beef smelt magnificent. The mushrooms were tinned, and the omelette was rubbery.
‘Seventeen peas and six beans,’ said Andrew Denton. ‘Joke.’
Ted poured a tiny drop of the Gevrey-Chambertin. Neville examined it against the light, sniffed it, and said it was excellent.
Ted left most of the glasses less than half full, so that the wine could breathe. He gave Liz a defiant glare as he filled Rodney’s and Betty’s glasses almost to the brim. He made no comment on the wine to Gerry Lansdown.
Liz asked Rodney if he had seen the revealing and degrading photographs of the Crowning of Miss Frozen Chicken (UK) in the colour supplement of the … er … she couldn’t remember which one. They were all the same, weren’t they? They had accompanied an article about the degrading awfulness of beauty contests, which had been sandwiched between a feature on Europe’s last stretch of untouristy coastline and how to get there, and a tirade against the cheap sneers made about our royal family in the foreign press, with all the cheap sneers reprinted in full. He told her that he had seen them, and would like to wring Barry Precious’s neck, if he could trace him. She asked him if he had seen the series of nude studies of Denise Saltmarsh doing very strange things with chickens, which had appeared in the pornographic magazine Slime, or so she had been told, as of course she hadn’t seen them. He told her that he had seen them, and would like to wring Nigel Thick’s neck, if he hadn’t left Marwoods of Moor Street and gone to London. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, as if the thought had suddenly occurred to her. ‘I do hope this isn’t an embarrassing subject for you.’
Carol Fordingbridge told Rita how Denise Saltmarsh had been stripped of her title as well as her clothes, so that Beverley Roberts was now Miss Frozen Chicken (UK) and Carol was now second, which was just as useless as being third. Rita didn’t bother to launch herself into her views on female dignity, partly because it wasn’t an appropriate time but mainly because she was conscious that Gerry was trying to get her attention. Gerry was trying to get her attention partly because Andrew Denton was telling him jokes, but mainly because he had a very important question to put to Rita. But Rita couldn’t wriggle
free from her conversation with Carol Fordingbridge as long as Carol seemed so eager to talk to her because Elvis, her intermittently negligent fiancé, was busy listening to the whispered confessions of Simon, which were irritating Liz enormously, partly because it’s rude to whisper at table, but mainly because she couldn’t hear them.
‘You remember you were talking about all the opportunities I must get, showing beautiful women round houses, of making mad, passionate love to them, and I said that sort of thing isn’t done at Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch,’ Simon was saying.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, it’s not quite as much not done as it used to be not done.’ There was no mistaking the pride, coyly though it was expressed, that throbbed in the young estate agent’s veins.
‘Congratulations, Simon. Tell me more,’ said the cynical Elvis Simcock. ‘I know you’re dying to.’
‘Not at all!’ Simon Rodenhurst was as loftily indignant as it’s possible to be in an undertone. ‘I always think men who boast of their sexual exploits are pathetic.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Elvis. ‘Good point.’
‘She’s a married woman,’ said Simon. ‘Very attractive. She went to look at this house, said her husband wanted to move, but she didn’t, but she had to go through the motions to please him. She said he was a bit of a drip, and her life was dreadfully dull. Even I could see she was making advances to me.’
‘So you ripped up your specifications, said, “Darling, forget the handsome proportions, the charming southerly aspect over the well-stocked garden,” and flung her on the spacious, convenient bed and had her there and then.’
‘Good Lord, no! That would have been professionally unethical. It was someone else’s house.’ Simon looked round the table anxiously. Elvis wasn’t sure whether he was worried that he might be overheard or worried that he might not be. ‘I took her to my flat.’
‘Who is this mystery woman?’
‘Elvis! This is a small town. She’s a married woman. Credit me with a little common sense and discretion.’
‘Sorry.’
Sandra cleared the dirty plates. Paul wondered morosely whether the dessert would be egg pudding. It wasn’t.
‘Better than losseroles, eh?’ said Andrew Denton.
‘You what?’ said Paul blankly.
‘These are profiteroles.’
Oh, Jenny! thought Paul. I want you so much.
‘Profiteroles are better than losseroles.’
I need you so much, thought Paul.
‘Joke.’
I love you so much, thought Paul. He realized that Andrew Denton had been speaking. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Joke.’
‘Ah.’
He laughed.
‘Elvis?’ said Simon, still warm with the glow of the confessional.
‘Yes?’ said intensive chicken farming’s leading young thinker cautiously, warned by something in Simon’s tone.
‘I … er … this isn’t easy, but … you and I …’
‘Oh my God! I think you’re going to say something nice to me.’
‘Exactly. Oh Lord, I wish I wasn’t so Anglo-Saxon. It shouldn’t be that difficult to say “Elvis. I’m so glad I met you.”’
‘Well … thanks, Simon. I’ve met worse twits myself. Not many, but some.’
‘You’ve changed me, you see. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have had the courage to get anywhere with Judy.’
‘Judy!’
‘Oh Lord.’ Simon Rodenhurst looked round the table anxiously, and this time he definitely hoped that he hadn’t been overheard. ‘I’m no good at this sort of thing.’
It was almost three o’clock on a sunny autumn afternoon. The weather seemed to be holding up pretty well in the Loire Valley too. The little group in front of the huge photograph of the river bed, in the otherwise deserted restaurant, were mellowed by good food and wine. Simon turned to talk to his young sister. How lovely she was. How fond he was of her. How well, he felt, they had always got on. Squabbles, rows, fights, whole weeks when they had refused to speak to each other, these had merely been light fluffy clouds in the perpetual sunshine of their youth.
When she saw that Simon was talking to Jenny, Carol Fordingbridge grabbed the opportunity of having a few words with her fiancé. They discussed their honeymoon, and what they would do on it. One ambition was to stand naked in the Mediterranean, with their hands round each other’s bums and a ripe fig in their two mouths, and to chew the fig until their lips met. Some of their other plans were of a rather more sensuous nature.
And so, like a ripple through a pack of cards, Simon’s turning to talk to Jenny had its repercussions throughout the group. Rita no longer had to talk to Carol. Gerry was therefore able to put his question to her.
‘Will you marry me, Rita?’ he asked.
Rita was astounded. She was pretty astounded by her answer too. Expecting to hear herself say, ‘Yes, of course I will, my darling’ she found herself saying, ‘You’re just saying that because you’ve had a few drinks and you’re infected by the romantic mood of the wedding.’
‘No,’ said Gerry Lansdown. ‘The drink may have helped me pluck up courage, but I decided to ask you days ago.’
‘I’m married.’
‘Get divorced.’
‘I’m more than ten years older than you.’
‘Hardly what I’d expected, but you can’t plan love.’
‘I’ve two grown-up sons.’
‘Don’t you want to marry me?’
Rita thought hard. She thought quickly. After all, there’s a limit to how long you can decently pause before answering a question of that nature.
‘No, Gerry,’ she said, looking straight into his pale blue eyes. ‘Quite honestly I don’t think I do.’
Neville Badger, unable to talk to Gerry Lansdown, had a choice between his own company and that of Andrew Denton. No contest! He began to think about Jane.
With his belly full of beef and burgundy, and his heart full of warmth and love for all women, but especially Judy and Jenny, in the early afternoon of that autumn day, Simon Rodenhurst felt that he must sort out his young sister’s life for her. ‘Go back to Paul,’ he urged. ‘I mean, he’s not the first or the last married person to have a fling.’
‘We built our marriage on an edifice of total trust which was an essential part of our whole philosophy of existence.’
‘Phew!’
‘I know. It’s very easy to laugh at us.’
Simon hesitated, then decided that he owed it to her to persist.
‘I wouldn’t laugh at you if you could laugh at yourselves,’ he said.
‘Yes, but you’ve got to try to live your life with some ideals and standards, haven’t you?’ said Jenny.
‘Yes, and if you fail, maybe you ought to try harder next time, rather than just give up.’
‘That’s not easy.’
‘I’m aware of that, but …’ He knew he was sounding pompous. Well, his dignity was less important than Jenny’s happiness. He gritted his teeth and continued. ‘… nothing worthwhile ever is easy, is it?’ he said. ‘I didn’t find that easy to say,’ he added, ‘but …’
‘… nothing worthwhile ever is easy, is it?’ said Jenny, and they both laughed. ‘You know, you’ve improved recently, Simon,’ she said.
‘That’s one of those awful remarks that sound like a compliment and are really an insult, like “you look smart!”, suggesting that for twenty-five years you’ve looked as if you’ve just crawled through a hedge,’ said Simon.
‘No. What I mean is … you’ve suddenly grown up.’
‘At last, do you mean?’ said Simon. ‘Is that the implication?’
‘Oh God,’ said Jenny. ‘Did I sound awfully patronizing?’
‘Dreadfully.’
‘Oh Lord.’ She gave a rather forced, uncertain little laugh. ‘You see,’ she said. ‘I am laughing at myself a little.’
Suddenly Jane was there, all around Neville, and the pain o
f it was shocking. He looked down the table at Liz, whom he had known for so long, who was so beautiful, as lovely perhaps as Jane, and he saw a total stranger. He needed to be on his own. He rushed out. He dimly saw Jane’s alarmed face. No, Liz’s alarmed face. Oh God. He locked himself in a cubicle in the gents’ toilet. It was the only course of action he could think of in which his movements would not need explaining.
Perhaps he had noticed Ted’s wet bottom at the charity horse-racing evening, or perhaps he expected somebody to lie full length on the tiled floor and peer under the door to check up on him. Or perhaps he dropped his trousers from force of habit.
There, in that undignified position, with his pants and trousers round his ankles, the immaculate Neville Badger called out to his former wife.
With the profiteroles Ted had served premier cru Sauternes. Neville Badger had done things in style. What a pity that he was sitting in the lavatory, communing with his dead wife, and couldn’t immediately enjoy the vintage port which was served with the cheese. Ted was careful to fill the glasses of Rodney and Betty Sillitoe to the brim.
‘Thank you, Ted,’ said Rodney. ‘It’s funny,’ he said to Betty, ‘how it took Ted and Rita to realize that we take it in turns to get drunk when we go to dos.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Betty. ‘Absolutely absolutely.’
‘You realize why we take it in turns to get drunk at dos, don’t you?’
‘So that there’s somebody sober to drive home.’
‘I think there’s more to it than that. I think one of us stays sober instinctively to protect the one they love from making fools of themselves or herselves which they may very well do if drunk and have. Because we love each other so much.’