Fair Do’s. David Nobbs
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change. Ted Simcock, ex-foundry owner, ex-husband, ex-refuser of foreign food, handed his ex-lover and her second husband a card and said, unnecessarily, ‘Our card.’ They studied the card’s limited text without interest. He continued unabashed. ‘Our cuisine will be basically a marriage of the bountifulness of Yorkshire hospitality …’ he stretched his arms, to etch in the size of the portions, ‘… with the flair and je ne sais quoi of cuisine nouvelle.’ He garnished the air with his fingers.
‘Who’s your chef.’ It was just a social noise, not inquisitive enough to justify a question mark.
‘Ah! That’s the only slight snag at the moment. Genius doesn’t grow on trees.’ Ted handed his former lover’s husband a bright orange voucher. ‘Present that during our first week, you’ll get a free half-carafe of house wine.’
‘Thank you,’ said Neville politely.
‘Very generous,’ said Liz, her voice drier than Ted’s house wine was likely to be.
Ted moved on, to distribute his vinic largesse more widely.
‘I must go to Rita,’ announced Neville.
‘Neville!’ said Liz sharply.
‘She looks rather trapped with Carol, who has no conversation, poor girl. She’ll be feeling awful.’
‘No. You mean she’s found today an ordeal?’
Liz felt that she had delivered these little shafts of sarcasm rather well, dressing the depth of her feelings in an elegant lightness of tone, rather as a lark might sing if livid. Neville appeared not to notice. Liz raised her eyes larkwards as he ploughed on earnestly.
‘In Rita’s case I feel it’s my particular duty to talk to her. I suspect that she once carried a bit of a torch for me.’
‘Good God, Neville.’ Liz realised that her raised voice was attracting the interest of one of Rita’s aunts. She didn’t care. ‘I’d have thought that was a special reason for not talking to her.’
‘I’m going to talk to her, Liz. By all means come too, if you feel like it.’
‘Righty-ho, sir.’ Liz gave a mock salute and wished she hadn’t. If she kept longing for Neville to be masterful, it wasn’t fair that she should wax sarcastic every time he approached that state.
Carol was giving the lie to Neville’s assertion that she had no conversation, although perhaps laying herself open to the charge that she did not have a wide range of topics.
‘I use tomato purée in lasagne,’ she was saying.
‘I’m sure it’s delicious.’
Behind them a single shaft of crimson defied the onset of night. In front of them, the talk was frenzied. Only Rita and Carol and a couple of footsore aunts were seated in all that throng. Only Carol had the task of keeping a conversation going with the architect of the day’s sensational doings. She searched for something further to say, and, happily, inspiration struck. ‘I use tomato purée in moussaka,’ she said. ‘Probably that’s wrong too. Probably I’m dead ignorant.’
‘I’m sure you’re a very good little cook.’ Rita winced, regretting the ‘little’.
‘No. Elvis says he’ll have to do all the cooking when we give media dinner parties.’
‘“Media dinner parties”! My son, philosopher, rebel and slob, plans “media dinner parties”! Oh, Carol!’ She surprised Carol by leaning over and kissing her warmly.
Neville and Liz arrived, Neville smiling earnestly, Liz faintly.
‘Hello!’ said Neville too brightly. ‘All ship-shape and Bristol fashion?’
‘Absolutely.’ Rita managed a smile. ‘Carol and I have been having a fascinating chat about tomato purée.’
‘Jolly … good.’ Neville frowned as he considered the possibility of fascinating chats about tomato purée. ‘Rita, I wanted to say that, whatever you may think, and whatever you may think anybody else thinks, and I think if you knew what they were thinking you might find that they aren’t thinking what you think they’re thinking, I think, in fact I know, that I have never admired you as much as today.’
Rita burst into tears, threw her posy of freesias at Neville, and rushed from the room.
‘Neville!’ said Liz, before rushing off to comfort her old enemy.
Ted’s ex-wife and the woman who had taken him from her left the room arm-in-arm. Some heads turned to watch, others turned so as not to watch.
‘What did I say?’ said Neville Badger, puzzled doyen of the town’s legal community.
Ted stood beside Sandra, his waitress, his mistress, and watched as his ex-wife and ex-mistress left the room. The dollop of trifle on his plate was forgotten.
‘Well!’ he said. ‘Could this be the start of a beautiful friendship?’
He didn’t want the trifle. He was full to bursting. But he’d felt obliged to take some notice of Sandra, and, since he was determined to keep their relationship secret, he could hardly say, ‘Sandra! I want you. How about a bit tonight?’ He had therefore said, ‘Waitress, I wonder if you could rustle up a last dollop of trifle.’ An excellent ruse, the only drawback being that, the dollop of trifle having been rustled up, he now had to eat it.
‘She can’t keep her eyes off you.’ There was withering scorn in Sandra’s voice, as if anybody who couldn’t keep her eyes off Ted must be mentally deficient.
‘What?’ Ted was puzzled. ‘Who? Liz? Rita?’
‘The tarty piece!’
Ted willed his neck not to swivel. It was no use. He found himself gazing, across Rita’s craggy relatives, past Gerry’s poncy friends, far across the crowded function room towards his vision in yellow. Corinna was waiting for him to look. She smiled. His heart churned. He turned back to Sandra, who was also smiling, grimly.
‘Sandra!’ Ted spoke with a mouth full of trifle. ‘The “tarty piece” only happens to be double-barrelled. Her father’s only a bishop. And a dish.’
‘You what?’
‘A lovely man. And she’s nothing to me, anyroad. So, I’ve nothing to hide. So, I’m going to talk to her. All right? Good.’
He was aware of Sandra’s eyes boring into his back as he negotiated a path between the wedding guests, refusing to meet the eyes of uncles who had drunk all his whisky every Boxing Day and aunts who had given him so much aftershave and deodorant that he had begun to wonder about his personal freshness. What did Rita’s relatives matter now, in this wonderful world in which Corinna Price-Rodgerson had eyes only for him?
‘You’ve been avoiding me.’ She seemed amused.
‘No! Look, Corinna, meeting you today has been very, very exciting for me. I feel …’
‘Aflame with desire?’ She smiled, slightly awkward in her advances, as one might expect from a bishop’s daughter.
‘Lightning does strike twice in the same place twice!’
‘What?’ Corinna was again puzzled.
‘Nothing. I want to be alone with you, Corinna. I can’t wait for Tuesday …’ Sandra arrived with champagne. ‘… s will be stewsdays, stewsdays every Tuesday, Sundays and most days will be roast days … Sandra!’
Sandra continued to pour champagne into Ted’s glass long after it was full. The champagne cascaded onto the floor around his feet. Sandra smiled. Her smiles were formidable.
‘Ladies and gentlemen.’
Ted turned eagerly to listen to Gerry. Anything was better than this confrontation