Fair Do’s

‘No, Ted,’ said Neville. ‘At the Clissold Lodge. But the Brontë Suite this time. It’s smaller.’

‘Then we’ll see you in the Brontë Suite,’ said Ted, and he winked to show them that they could rely on him, because he knew how to behave in public, but Liz and Neville, seeing him wink, thought, ‘Oh Lord. Ted doesn’t know how to behave in public. Can we rely on him?’

Simon was unused to holding babies. You didn’t get much call for it, at Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. He realised that Judy had found Josceleyn heavy, in her condition, but her handing over of him in public had seemed a tactless symbolic gesture under the circumstances. He was terrified that the boy would slip from his grasp, or choke to death, or merely scream his head off. He held him as if he were a carrier bag of doubtful strength full of bottles of Château Lafitte. He was terrified that Judy intended to begin a meaningful conversation. He would have welcomed the arrival of a third party, had it not been Andrew Denton, fellow godfather, life-long wag, husband of Judy, and official father of the child in Judy’s womb.

‘He does look a bit like his father, doesn’t he?’ said Judy, who was practising having maternal feelings by gazing at Josceleyn fondly.

‘Let’s hope our baby doesn’t look like his father, eh?’ said Andrew.

‘What?’ said Simon and Judy, aghast.

‘Because I’ve got an ugly mug,’ explained Andrew Denton. ‘Joke.’

‘Ah. Yes. Joke. Right,’ said Simon and Judy. And they laughed. They were worried that their laughs hadn’t sounded convincing, but Andrew hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. He was only too used to receiving unconvincing laughs.

The Brontë Suite, the fifth smallest of the fifty-seven Brontë Suites in hotels in Yorkshire, was barely half the size of the Garden Room. It looked out over the front of the hotel, where the gravel drive curved away through the park-like grounds, dotted with oaks and chestnuts, to the narrow woods that screened the hotel from the Tadcaster Road. It made no nod to the existence of the Brontë sisters beyond taking their name. There were dark polished wood panels interspersed with dignified striped green wallpaper. The modern stainless steel lights didn’t go with the crystal chandelier. The three paintings – of Bolton Abbey, Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx Abbey – had known more apposite days, when it had been the Abbey Suite. But what they lacked in relevance, they also lacked in quality.

On trestle tables at one end of the room, beneath Rievaulx Abbey, as it chanced, there was a fine array of sandwiches – smoked salmon, cucumber, rare roast beef – and fancy cakes and biscuits. There was also a christening cake, with baby and cradle atop it, and this was widely held to be consistent with the standards expected of the Vale of York Bakery in Slaughterhouse Lane.

Eric Siddall, barman supreme, polka-dotted bow tie slightly askew, as if to suggest that he had a vaguely rakish past, stood by a table on which there were several bottles of champagne, two of them in ice-buckets. There were fluted champagne glasses and tea cups. Eric looked uncomfortable when Graham Wintergreen, manager of the golf club, entered. Graham Wintergreen looked uncomfortable when he saw Eric.

The guests were filing in from their cars. Many carried little presents, which they handed to Neville and Liz, who didn’t unwrap them.

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.