David Nobbs - Fair Do’s

Rita looked at all this through wet eyes and saw none of it. Saw a blur. Lowered her eyes as if she might find on the floor the words that she sought.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I owe you all an apology for ruining this dreadful day. I mean this wonderful day that it would have been if I hadn’t ruined it. Ladies and gentlemen … and everybody else … what I’ve done today is because of being a woman, and the unhappiness of my first marriage.’

‘Terrific!’ said Ted. ‘I’m having a wonderful day.’

‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.

‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.

‘Shut up, Gerry,’ said Rita. ‘Leave this to me. Ladies and gentlemen, Gerry’s been very good to me. The best and most generous lover I’ve ever had.’

‘Tremendous!’ exclaimed Ted.

‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.

‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Corinna Price-Rodgerson.

‘Starved of true love as I had been for most of my life – shut up, Ted!’

Ted, who hadn’t spoken, looked outraged, as if he would never in his life dream of interrupting a woman.

‘I mistook my gratitude, my freedom, for love,’ continued Rita. ‘I thought I wanted to marry Gerry, but I can’t, because I’d only be a manifesto, and I don’t want to end up as a smile on his appendage.’

‘She’s drunk,’ said Betty quietly, but not quite quietly enough.

‘Yes!’ said Rita. ‘And it takes one to know one. I am a bit drunk, because I had three tuns at the Four Gins … and tonic.’ She raised her glass to her lips, then seemed to notice it for the first time. ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘No!’ She put her hand over the top of the glass. ‘Coffee, please. Black. For a black day. Ladies and gentlemen, Gerry will meet a fine woman who will love him as I can’t, and you … you will all forget this day. Please! And … I’m so sorry.’

Rita hurried off, past people torn between compassion, horror and the knowledge of what a good story it would make. She was shuddering and gasping.

Elvis rushed over to her and took her in his arms.

‘Mum!’ he said. Despite his years of study, despite the vast riches of the English language, he could think of no words to add, so he repeated the one word that seemed appropriate. ‘Mum!’ And Jenny hurried over, tears streaming, llamas heaving, and said ‘Rita!’ and kissed her, and Rita said ‘Jenny!’ and Elvis hugged them both, and they looked round for a chair, and a rather florid man – he was an architect who designed futuristic tubular shopping fortresses and lived in a Georgian house near Hazlemere, did they but know it – saw the gesture, and his good manners overcame his feelings of solidarity with Gerry, and he brought over a chair, saying unnecessarily, ‘A chair,’ and Jenny said, ‘Thanks,’ and Rita subsided into the chair, and Elvis said, ‘Mum!’ and the riches of the English language remained unexplored.

Rita gave a tiny, tired grin. ‘I’m all right now,’ she said. ‘Suddenly I’m all right. I feel very small and very cold but very sober.’

‘How lovely she would have looked!’ Betty Sillitoe, over-sentimental as usual, gave a vast sigh. ‘How magnificent her dress would have been.’

‘It still is,’ protested the former big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens.

‘You know what I mean.’ Betty sighed again. ‘It was sad to see her drunk, though.’

‘It’s always sad when somebody you like and admire lets themselves down in public. More grape juice?’

‘Please.’

Carol Fordingbridge smiled at Rita, but could think of nothing to say, so, sensibly under the circumstances, she said nothing. She tried to link arms with Elvis, but he shrugged her arm off. Behind them, cold streaks of orange and red were fading slowly to mauves and purples as the short day died.

Sometimes Rita dreaded asking the most simple questions, but this one couldn’t be avoided. ‘Where’s Paul?’

‘He refused to come,’ said Jenny, half embarrassed, half defiant.

‘Good for him,’ said Rita.

‘Oh terrific,’ said Elvis. ‘I face up to the total embarrassment of the occasion, because I love you, and Paul gets praised for copping out.’

‘Elvis! Your mother’s got enough problems without you getting in a temper,’ said Carol.

‘Temper?’ Elvis showed just a touch of temper at the suggestion. ‘I’m not getting in a temper.’

‘No. I know. I’ve seen your tempers,’ said his fiancée. ‘Like when I put tomato purée in the coq au vin.’

‘Carol!’

‘I don’t suppose Jean-Paul Sartre ever lost his temper because Simone De Beauvoir put tomato purée in the coq au vin.’

‘That’s the whole point.’ Elvis sounded wearily long-suffering beyond his years. ‘Simone De Beauvoir would never have put tomato purée in the coq au vin.’

‘Elvis!’ said Jenny. ‘Three quarters of the world are starving.’

‘I know. And I deplore it,’ said Elvis. ‘But I fail to see any logical link between that and putting tomato purée in coq au vin.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Jenny. ‘We’ve got more urgent things to think about.’

‘No. Please,’ begged Rita. ‘I can’t take any more talk about the urgent things. Let’s talk about tomato purée.’ Nobody spoke. ‘Nobody has anything to say about tomato purée, it seems.’

‘Hello!’ Simon tossed his absurdly cheery greeting into their resonant silence.

‘Hello, Simon,’ said Rita. He was a man made for morning dress. In sweaters he was a fish out of water, in jeans a laughing stock. He was made for great occasions and Rita had ruined his great occasion, she had ruined everybody’s great occasion. Oh God! ‘Sorry to ruin your day.’

‘Not at all,’ protested Simon, with that bottomless willingness to please that would surely take him far up the ladder with Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. ‘Not at all. It’s been a terrific … well, not a terrific … not at all terrific, of course, but … apart from not being terrific, it’s been … well …’

Elvis finished it for him. ‘… terrific.’

‘Well, yes. Well, it has.’

Carol turned the torch of her beauty full onto Elvis’s face. It was a beauty to which only he, it seemed, was blind. And he was her fiancé. Strange are the ways of young love.

‘I’ve spotted a flaw in your logic,’ she said.

‘You what?’ Elvis was incredulous.

‘You said you’d faced up to the total embarrassment of the occasion, but you didn’t know it was going to be embarrassing when you faced it.’

‘I was talking of the embarrassment of Mum marrying Gerry, not the embarrassment of her not marrying him.’

Elvis stomped off. Carol gave a little embarrassed laugh.

‘I can’t seem to do anything right these days,’ she said.

‘Settle for celibacy, Carol,’ said Simon. ‘I have, and it’s terrific. I mean, look at all the chaos the sexual urges get people into.’

‘Yes! Oh yes!’ said Rita.

‘Oh Lord.’ He was appalled. ‘Oh no, Rita. I wasn’t meaning you.’

‘Come on, Simon.’ Jenny led her brother away as one would a small child who has become a nuisance.

Alone with Rita, Carol looked young and vulnerable. ‘Well, I’d …’ she began.

‘No, please, Carol, stay with me,’ begged Rita. ‘I have an awful feeling that the moment I’m on my own Ted will loom up, and I can’t face that yet.’

‘Oh. Right.’ Carol fetched a chair just vacated by Rita’s sneezing uncle, and sat beside Rita. Behind them, a large flock of rooks chattered homewards towards the long narrow wood that screened the hotel grounds from the Tadcaster Road. Their day was ending. Rita felt that hers would stretch ahead of her for ever.

There was an awkward but affectionate silence between the two women as each searched for a topic.