A Bit of a Do

Paul rushed past.

‘Paul! Have a …’

‘Sorry,’ said Paul, stopping briefly, out of politeness. ‘It was a dreadful thing to say, but it was dreadful of me to say that it was a dreadful thing to say. I mean, in her condition. I mean, on her wedding day. Well, our wedding day.’ Paul felt that this explanation discharged his social obligation to Neville Badger, and hurried off after Jenny.

Neville stared after him.

Ted approached. ‘Any luck with Rita?’ he enquired.

‘No,’ said Neville. ‘Sorry. Have a tuna fish vol-au-vent.’

‘Thanks.’ Ted took a vol-au-vent.

‘Tut tut!’ said Laurence, hurrying forward to snatch the pastry case out of Ted’s hand before he could put it in his mouth. ‘Tut tut! You mustn’t eat that. You’re allergic.’

Laurence put the tired little delicacy back on Neville Badger’s plate, and his eyes met Ted’s.

How much had Ted done?

How much did Laurence know?

‘Lovely wedding,’ said Betty Sillitoe, who was over-powdered as usual, and she raised her almost empty glass in tribute.

‘Thank you,’ said Liz.

‘No, I mean it. Really lovely. Really really lovely.’

‘Well, they do these things well here.’

‘Yes, but the point I’m trying to get across is, it’s been a lovely wedding.’

‘The message is getting through, I do assure you,’ said Liz, her voice drier than the champagne, and she hurried on.

‘Terrible snobs, those Rodenhursts,’ announced Betty Sillitoe to nobody in particular.

‘We’ve made it, haven’t we?’ said her husband Rodney, the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens.

‘You what?’ said Ted, who would have been astounded if somebody had pointed out that he was saying ‘What?’ or ‘You what?’ to people who had been on their side of the church, and ‘Pardon?’ or ‘I beg your pardon?’ to the Rodenhursts and their friends and relations.

‘In life,’ explained Rodney Sillitoe. ‘We’ve made it in life. Who’d have thought it, a couple of dunces like us at school, and now I’m exporting frozen chicken drumsticks to Botswana and your door knockers in the shape of lions are gracing every front door on a neo-Georgian housing estate in Allwoodley. We’ve made it. Moderately prosperous. Happily married. Stayed the course. Survived. And remained friends. I’ve never told you this, Ted, but your friendship is one of the most important things in my life.’

‘Are you drunk?’

‘Ted! Do we have to be drunk before we can express affection?’

‘No. Sorry. Sorry, Rodney. No, what you said, it … it touched a chord … I mean … it hit a spot. I … sorry.’

‘Ted!’ Rodney was alarmed. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No!’ said Ted overemphatically. ‘It’s an auspicious event. A right good do. A happy day. Nobody’s happier than Betty.’

They looked across at Betty, who waved from the other side of a crush of mixed relations and friends, and gave an unmistakeably drunken lurch.

‘Oh Lord,’ said Rodney. ‘I’ll see if I can get her off the premises without a scene, bless her.’

‘I envy you,’ said Ted.

Rita decided that she had summoned up enough reserves of strength to enter the fray. She entered the fray from the garden at exactly the same moment as the happy couple entered it from the hotel.

Ted approached Rita, and the four of them met in the middle of the room.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Ted.

He was speaking to Rita, but it was Paul who answered.

‘She’s been sick,’ he said.

‘Sick?’ said Rita.

‘Usually only in the mornings, but today in the afternoon,’ said Jenny.

‘Oh heck,’ said Ted.

‘Everybody! Please!’ shouted Jenny.

‘What?’ said Paul.

‘I’ve got to, Paul,’ said Jenny. ‘Everybody! Please! I have an announcement!’

Paul and Jenny stood with their backs to the remains of the cake. The guests gathered from the comers of the room, they poured in from the garden, uncles and aunts, friends and colleagues, Simcocks and Rodenhursts, cousins once, twice and three times removed, people who were longing to go home, people who were hoping it would go on for hours because they never knew what to do after a wedding, you felt flat and not entirely sober and there was the whole evening still to go, and you wished it was the first night of your honeymoon. Even Percy and Clarrie Spragg, who had been nodding off peacefully in a comer, perked up and hobbled painfully over to join the throng.

The only guests who were not gathered round to hear Jenny’s announcement were the Reverend and Mrs Thoroughgood, Rodney and Betty Sillitoe, Elvis Simcock, Simon Rodenhurst, and Neville Badger. The Reverend and Mrs Thoroughgood had gone to their dark, lonely home; Rodney Sillitoe had managed to get Betty out of the room, but was meeting problems in the lobby; Simon and Elvis were arguing in a far comer of the garden; and Neville Badger was walking in the grounds, tears streaming down his face, telling his dead Jane all about the day’s events while he waited for the moment when he could decently take his leave.

Jenny looked grimly determined. Paul looked nervous.

‘I’m pregnant,’ said Jenny.

There were some sharp intakes of breath, but nobody said anything.

‘We should have told you when we found out,’ she ploughed on doggedly. ‘But all the invitations were issued, and we couldn’t very well send out a newsletter, and the white dress was ordered and everything. We thought of cancelling it and just doing it quietly in a registry office, but we knew everybody was looking forward to a bit of a do, a white wedding and everything, and you’d probably bought presents – I mean, that’s not why we didn’t cancel it, but if you’ve bought the present and then your invitation’s cancelled, and you’re left with a toaster you don’t want, it’s a bit annoying, so we decided to go through with it and not tell anybody and then go away or something round about the time so you didn’t cotton onto the dates and even if you did cotton on later, well, by then it would be a fait accompli anyway.’ She began to cry. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Jenny!’ said Paul. ‘Come on, Jenny. Come on, love.’

‘I’m sorry,’ sobbed Jenny. ‘We should have just done it quietly on our own like we wanted, but we wanted you all to have a lovely do like we knew you wanted.’

‘Come on,’ said Paul. ‘Let’s go and get changed and be on our way. Come on, love.’

He led her tenderly to the door. Afterwards, Rita felt quite proud of how tender he had been.