Fair Do’s

At the porch Neville stopped. ‘Liz?’ he said. ‘I don’t query the basic truth of what was said, but wasn’t that rather too much of a mutual admiration society?’

‘Oh, Neville,’ she said. ‘I was trying to make you jealous.’

‘What?’

‘By praising Gerry.’

‘Why should I be jealous?’ Neville was struggling to understand, knowing from experience that his puzzlement would irritate her.

‘I wanted you to think I find him attractive.’

‘Maybe you do. He is attractive … I imagine … to a woman … which you are.’

The wedding guests were strolling slowly into the church. Two glorious hats bobbed past, wide-brimmed navy to the left of the stationary Badgers, bowl-shaped orange to their right.

‘I’m trying to get you to show me how fiercely possessive you can be when aroused,’ explained Liz.

‘Oh, I see,’ said the doyen of the town’s lawyers. ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh, Neville, you’re hopeless.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No. It’s why I love you, I suppose.’

‘Because I’m hopeless?’ Neville was aroused now that Liz no longer wanted him to be. ‘I see!’

‘No, you don’t. You see nothing.’

‘I see Jenny.’

Liz’s daughter Jenny was smiling broadly but nervously. Her hair was cropped shorter than her mother would have liked. She was almost eight months pregnant. She would soon become the first person ever to enter this most English of churches wearing a dress which illustrated the life cycle of the llama.

‘Hello, Mum,’ she said, knowing that Liz preferred to be called ‘Mother’. ‘Hello …’ she hesitated, as if making a serious attempt to call Neville ‘Dad’ for the first time. ‘Neville.’ She kissed her mother and almost kissed Neville.

‘Where’s Paul?’ said Liz.

‘He wouldn’t come. He says he’d find it impossible to dredge up a smile.’ Neither of Rita’s boys had welcomed their mother’s engagement to a man more than ten years younger than herself.

‘Oh dear,’ said Liz. ‘Honesty can be so socially inconvenient.’ She made the remark sound as though it might just possibly be witty.

Neville had dredged up a faint smile which appeared to be set in concrete as he listened to the conversation between his second wife and her daughter.

‘I think Paul’s trying to be ultra-honest in order to try to make me forget the time he was dishonest over Carol Fordingbridge,’ said Jenny.

‘How sophisticated his feelings are,’ said Liz. ‘No wonder he’s doing so well with his road sweeping.’

‘Oh Mum.’ Jenny began to cry, big drops out of clear eyes like a summer shower. ‘Oh Lord. Now look what you’ve made me do.’

She hurried off, blowing her nose angrily.

Liz clutched Neville’s arm. ‘Oh Lord,’ she said. ‘I didn’t … why do I always …? Darling, say something very nice, very quickly.’

As people drifted almost reluctantly into the great church, Neville Badger stood at his wife’s side, his baggy face creased with mental effort.

‘Those scrambled eggs we had this morning were really delicious,’ he said at last.

‘Oh, Neville, you’re hopeless.’

Liz swirled into the church, the sun glinting on her large silver three-leafed clover earrings. Neville scurried immaculately in her wake.

As soon as Gerry Lansdown saw Jenny blowing her nose, he extricated himself without reluctance from a discussion on the ethics of High Street credit with a loss adjustor from Camberley, and hurried over to favour her with one of his most winning smiles and eliminate this blip of sorrow from the great joy of his wedding day.

‘Jenny!’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Fine. Great.’ She gave him a brave but watery smile. ‘Terrific.’

‘Good. Good.’ He kissed her. He liked her. He felt that she might make a good Liberal one day, when she had learnt to accept the compromises necessary for the conduct of civilised life. ‘Is Paul all right?’

‘No, he’s got a touch of … er …’ To her fury, Jenny felt herself blushing. ‘A touch of … er … a slight … I can’t lie. Paul and I promised. No more lies. He’s refused to come.’

‘I see.’ Gerry frowned. He didn’t really care whether Paul came or not, but Rita would be very upset, and that would upset him. Blast the ghastly youth. ‘I see. But you did.’

‘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.