David Nobbs - Fair Do’s

‘Oh yes. I think one has to accept what happens in life, and try to make the best of it.’

‘Terrific.’

‘Oh Lord,’ said Jenny. A stylised llama on her chest heaved with embarrassment, looking as if it might be about to give stylised birth. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’ A distant siren put her agony into context. Somebody might be dying out there. She rallied. ‘Amazing day,’ she said.

It was indeed. Later, the Meteorological Office would announce that this had been the hottest January day since 1783. That day, in fact, Pontefract was hotter than Algiers.

Paul’s elder brother, the cynical Elvis Simcock, strolled semi-insolently towards them, running a hand through his hair to make sure that it was ruffled. At his side was his fiancée, the long-haired Carol Fordingbridge, whose one night stand with Paul was ignored but not forgotten. At Jenny’s wedding to Paul, when all the men had worn suits, Elvis had worn a sports jacket. Now, when the men were in morning dress, he was wearing a suit, a grey chalk-stripe, single-breasted suit, which matched his insolence, but not his ruffled hair.

‘Well Elvis has come anyway,’ said Gerry. ‘In a suit, not morning dress. How carefully calculated his little acts of rebellion are.’

‘You see, Gerry. You laugh at us,’ said Jenny.

Gerry ignored this remark, as he ignored all suggestions that he was less than perfect.

‘Couldn’t bring myself to wear morning dress, I’m afraid,’ said Elvis.

‘Why should you?’ said Gerry, smiling warmly, as if grateful to Elvis for giving him the opportunity to show his broad-mindedness. ‘What do appearances matter? Good for you, say I.’

Two low-flying jets from the American base at Frissingfold hurled themselves against the elegance of the scene, banked steeply over the sturdy Norman tower and were gone, leaving behind them a crying baby, several barking dogs, two shattered greenhouses and a group of Social Liberal Democrats staring at the ruthless blue of the winter sky with a range of emotions, from fury to reassurance, which reflected the unbridgeable gulfs between their various views on defence.

Carol Fordingbridge was the first to drag her eyes down from the ruptured sky. She was therefore the first to see Ted. Ted Simcock, first husband of Gerry’s bride-to-be, former owner of the Jupiter Foundry, was approaching in a hired grey morning suit that almost fitted.

‘Ted!’ said Carol.

‘Dad!’ said Elvis.

‘Hello.’ Ted smiled, well pleased with the effect that he had created. Gerry couldn’t have looked sicker if he’d come fourth behind the Green Party. ‘I … er … I just happened to be passing and I thought, “Good Lord! There’s Gerry in morning dress. It must be Rita’s wedding today. I’ll just pop in and …” Hello, Jenny.’ He broke off to kiss his daughter-in-law, frowning only briefly at the llamas. ‘Hello, Carol.’ There was a kiss for Carol too. ‘Hello, Elvis. “… just pop in and see the woman I was married to for twenty-five years launched on her new idyll of bliss.” As it were.’

‘You just happened to be passing, in full morning dress,’ said Gerry drily, his poise swiftly recovered.

‘Ah. Yes. I’m … er …’ Ted couldn’t help glancing down towards the pale stain on his hired, striped trousers, which he’d only noticed as he was putting them on. ‘I’m on my way to another wedding, funnily enough. Quite a coincidence. The wedding of …’ Ted’s attempt foundered ignominiously on the rocks of their disbelief. ‘Am I hell as like? I wanted to bury the hatchet. Give my blessing to Rita, who still means a lot to me, on what is after all the second happiest day of her life. It’s unconventional behaviour, I know, but then Ted Simcock has never given a fig for convention. I mean, I’m not coming to the reception, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Quite. I mean, that’s invitation only.’

‘Quite.’

‘Obviously. But churches are public. I have the right, if I read our unwritten constitution correctly. So, I thought, I’ll come to the church. In morning dress.’ Ted glowered at his elder son. ‘As befits.’

‘I thought you didn’t give a fig for convention,’ said Elvis, smiling with a self-satisfaction that he couldn’t quite conceal, even though he knew that his hero, Jean-Paul Sartre, would not have regarded such a tiny conversational triumph as worthy of self-satisfaction. But then Jean Paul Sartre hadn’t got a bad third at Keele University.

‘You have to know which figs you give for which conventions,’ said Ted. ‘That’s known as maturity of judgment in my book.’

Jenny’s brother Simon Rodenhurst approached, splendid in his wedding attire. He saw Elvis and Ted, tried not to look like an estate agent, and failed.

‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Ted! You here? Good Lord.’

They gave him looks which said, ‘Shut up, Simon. We’ve just been through all that.’

‘Hello, little sister,’ he said. ‘Where’s Paul?’

They gave him looks which said, ‘That’s another can of worms best not opened.’

‘What have I said?’ he said.

They gave him looks which said that it would have been better if he hadn’t said ‘What have I said?’

‘Come on, Simon,’ said Jenny. ‘Let’s get inside.’

‘We all better had,’ said Carol. ‘It’s nearly five to.’

Jenny approached the porch with Simon. Carol followed with Elvis.

Elvis called out, ‘You’re looking very spacious today, Simon.’

‘Oh belt up.’ Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, tossed his reply over his shoulder. A gust of wind caught his ‘Oh belt up’ and sent this example of his repartee swirling over the jumbled roofs of the town, over the turgid brown waters of the River Gadd, over the central Yorkshire plain, up and up through the weakening ozone layer into the blue beyond, to become a whisper around the planets long after this earth has been destroyed.

Rita’s fiancé and her ex-husband stood alone together, as the last of the guests made their way into the church, along with the funny little man with the big ears who went to all the weddings.

‘I hope my presence isn’t unwelcome, Gerry,’ said Ted.

‘Do you really want Rita to be happy?’ said Gerry.

‘Course I do, Gerry.’ Ted met Gerry’s piercing gaze firmly. ‘Course I do. I mean, what do you take me for?’

‘In that case you’re very welcome indeed, Ted.’

They shook hands.

‘Is there … er …?’

‘Somebody in my life? Yes, I’m glad to say my recent amour still flourishes.’ Ted had taken to using the occasional French word now that he was in catering.

A tall, attractive woman who had taken great pains to be of indeterminate age walked elegantly past them. Ted caught a whiff of expensive scent. She was wearing a bright yellow fitted top, yellow skirt, yellow pill-box hat, with a yellow bag and yellow shoes. The general effect was … yellow. On a summer’s evening it might have proved irresistible to moths and midges. On an early winter’s afternoon it proved irresistible to Ted. She turned and gave him a look which was unmistakeably meaningful although he felt that he must be mistaken over the meaning. Then she entered the church.

‘I’m … er …’ Ted tried to sound as if he hadn’t even noticed her. ‘I’m a very lucky man.’

He hurried into the church. Gerry Lansdown looked at his watch, and followed at a much more leisurely pace.

Ted Simcock, once the town’s premier maker of fire irons, now living in a furnished flat off the wrong end of Commercial Street with a waitress called Sandra, whom he had met at the DHSS when she was an unemployed bakery assistant, hesitated briefly on entering the church. He was about to sit on Rita’s side … after all, he hardly knew Gerry but had been married to Rita for a quarter of a century … but then he realised that this might not be entirely tactful, so he settled himself down near the back, on Gerry’s side, behind the thinning hair of moderate politicians, the carefully tasteful hats of their moderate wives, and the more arrogant hats of the wives of the microchip men.