David Nobbs - Fair Do’s

Rodney Sillitoe collapsed into one of several Restoration chairs dotted around the walls, but singly, as if to discourage social sitting. There was also the occasional occasional table.

The cynical Elvis Simcock made a bee-line for Rodney, leaving his fiancée in the social lurch. He fetched a second chair and sat beside Rodney.

‘Auntie Betty’s been away quite a lot lately, hasn’t she?’ he asked.

‘Yes. She’s having to look after an elderly aunt. She’s at Tadcaster more often than she’s at home these days.’ Rodney gasped and grimaced.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Elvis.

‘No. Last night I succumbed to temptation. I’m reaping the whirlwind.’

‘Would you be prepared to tell me what temptation exactly you succumbed to?’ persisted Elvis.

‘Meat.’

‘You what?’

‘Rump steak. Rare. Bloody. Marvellous. Bloody marvellous. Now I’ve got the gripes.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Elvis sounded disappointed.

‘Disappointed? Thought I was talking about “another woman”?’

‘No! ’Course not. Has it ever crossed your mind that when she’s at Tadcaster Auntie Betty might be seeing “another man”?’

‘It has crossed my mind, yes.’ Rodney raised Elvis’s hopes only to dash them. ‘Once. Just then, when you asked it. Of course it hasn’t, Elvis. We have the perfect marriage.’

‘Of course you do.’ Elvis sounded disbelieving, as befitted one so cynical.

Rita approached her new hosts. She sported a knitted navy suit with three-quarter-length coat and cream knitted top. Her hat, shoes and bag were white. Liz had plumped for a purple, pink and yellow silk jacket and skirt, with a lilac silk top and large lilac bows in her hair. Neville wore a dark suit.

‘Rita!’ he said. ‘There’s tea or champagne, except there isn’t any tea yet.’

‘Champagne then?’ said Liz. ‘Or does that clash with your image as a Labour councillor?’

‘I don’t deal in images, Liz,’ said Rita. ‘I deal in truth and justice. Oh Lord, that sounds pompous. I hope in time I’ll learn to be serious without being pompous. Champagne, please.’

Eric Siddall, barman supreme, sidled up as if on castors. ‘There you go, madam,’ he said, handing Rita a glass. ‘Just the job. Tickety-boo.’

‘Thank you, Eric,’ said Rita. ‘Eric! Are you working here now?’

‘As of last Monday fortnight, madam,’ said Eric. ‘There was … let’s say there was a clash of personalities at the golf club.’ He flung a hostile glance towards the bluff, egg-shaped Graham Wintergreen.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Eric,’ said Neville. ‘I noticed you’d gone of course.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Eric excused himself, leaving them regretting that they hadn’t asked him to elaborate.

‘So …’ said Neville, ‘… how are you faring, Rita?’

‘In what way?’

‘Well … in life. At home. The evenings. The nights. Without …’

‘Neville!’ said Liz.

‘Without what?’ asked Rita. ‘Gerry? Any man? Sex?’

‘No! Well, yes.’

‘Neville!’

‘I’m faring well. I’m not the sort of woman who feels incomplete without a man.’

‘Is that a dig at me?’ said Liz.

‘No,’ said Rita. ‘Good heavens, no, Liz. We’re friends now.’

‘Ah.’

‘Subject closed. Feminist speeches over.’ Rita did try to leave it at that. ‘I just hate the idea that without marriage men are fine but women aren’t. Men seem to have managed to project the idea that bachelors are admirable and spinsters are pathetic. As if marriage was an institution for the benefit of women, when it’s clearly almost entirely for the benefit of men.’

‘I see corduroy’s staging a revival,’ said Neville.

‘What?’ Rita and Liz were as united in their bemusement as they had ever been in their lives.

‘I read somewhere that corduroy is making a comeback. I was steering us towards safer waters,’ explained Neville. ‘Sorry.’

‘No. You’re absolutely right,’ said Rita. ‘Let’s try and avoid ructions of any kind, just this once.’

Sandra entered hurriedly and inelegantly with a large pot of tea and a large jug of hot water.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said to the Badgers, ‘but he’s a right dozy ha’p’orth, him.’

‘Sandra!’ Rita sounded appalled.

‘Oh Lord.’ So did Neville.

‘What’s wrong?’ Sandra plonked the tea and water down and picked up the milk jug.

‘You’ll see,’ said Liz.

Ted entered with Corinna.

Sandra dropped the milk jug onto the cups.

‘She’s seen,’ said Liz.

Ted also looked thunderstruck. ‘Oh heck. That’s torn it,’ he said. ‘Come on, Corinna. Let’s leave. It’s best. I mean, it is. Isn’t it?’

But his vision in orange was made of sterner stuff. ‘I don’t want to leave, Ted,’ she said. ‘I enjoy champagne. And I’m not frightened of a waitress. My father’s a bishop.’

Corinna Price-Rodgerson marched forward resolutely. Ted had no option but to follow.

‘Ted! Corinna!’ Neville’s enthusiasm for welcoming new arrivals was a bottomless well. ‘Tea or champagne?’

‘Champagne for me, please,’ said Corinna.

‘There you go, madam,’ said Eric Siddall, barman supreme. ‘No problem. Just the job. They can’t touch you for it.’

‘I think I’ll start with tea,’ said Ted. ‘I’ve got a mouth like an elephant’s …’ he glanced at Corinna, ‘… mouth.’

Ted’s choice of tea involved an encounter with Sandra, lover of cake and, until recently, lover of Ted. Well, so be it. It was unavoidable.

Sandra, who had made a creditable job of clearing up the worst of the mess that she had made, gave Ted a cup of tea and enquired, with suspect solicitude, ‘Do you take sugar, sir?’

Ted was uneasily aware that people were listening.

‘You know I … yes. Two, please,’ he said.

‘Nice to see you again, sir. We haven’t seen you around lately,’ said Sandra.

‘No, I … er … I … er … I’ve been … er …’

‘Tied up? I know how these things happen, sir.’

Jenny came in, carrying an electronic baby link.

‘They’ve put the babies in room 108,’ she announced.

‘They’ve what?’ said Ted.

‘That’s hardly appropriate,’ said Liz. ‘That’s the room he was … put in last time.’

‘Well they say they use that room as a kind of spare because it’s next to the boiler so it’s noisy at ni … What last time?’ said Jenny.

‘I didn’t realise it had ever really gone away,’ said Rita.

They all gave her blank looks.

‘Corduroy,’ she explained.

‘You’re religious,’ Ted told Corinna. ‘Come and have a look at our great Yorkshire abbeys.’

He led Corinna off to admire the paintings.

Rita slipped off without explanation.

‘What last time?’ insisted Jenny.

Neville excused himself without explanation.

‘Mum,’ said Jenny, suddenly alone with Liz. ‘He’s never been to the hotel before. Were you going to say “That’s the room he was conceived in”? Was he conceived during my wedding reception?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ admitted her mother. ‘I was so overjoyed at your marrying your road sweeper that I got carried away.’

‘Oh my God,’ wailed Jenny. ‘No wonder our marriage is going wrong. Oh Lord. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’

She plugged in the baby-listening device.

Ted and his fiancée stood beneath Fountains Abbey. The artist had imposed his romanticism on the natural romance of the ruins. He had imposed his concept of beauty on their natural beauty. The result was uniquely, inspiredly ugly.

‘Your waitress showed a bit of style there,’ said Corinna.