Fair Do’s

‘The other godfather’s wife was the woman in question.’

‘The pregnant one?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘Exactly.’

Elvis tried to hide his excitement at this revelation. He assumed a dignified, caring expression as he sought the words that he needed.

‘What exactly went through your mind,’ he enquired carefully, ‘when you realised that the woman you’d made pregnant on your one and only foray into the world-renowned delights of sexual intercourse was the wife of your fellow godfather?’

‘What do you think went through it, you steaming berk?’ countered Simon angrily. ‘I thought, “I am unfit to undertake the moral welfare of a mature garden slug with psychopathic tendencies, let alone an innocent infant boy. I must tell them I can’t do it.”’

‘But you didn’t tell them you couldn’t do it, did you?’

‘Because what could I say? “I can’t go through with this. I’m the twit who got Andrew’s wife preggers”?’ He changed the subject. ‘How’s things with Carol?’

‘Terrific. Great. Couldn’t be better.’

‘Hello,’ said Carol, as if she’d been waiting for her cue. ‘You’re Elvis Simcock, aren’t you?’ She held out her hand politely. ‘I’m Carol Fordingbridge, your fiancée. Remember me?’

‘Carol!’

Elvis was all the more furious because he knew that he had no right to be.

‘I’ve got to sit down,’ said Rodney Sillitoe, and, as though to prove that he hadn’t been lying, he sat down.

Betty looked round for another chair. Morris Wigmore leapt to his feet and handed her his chair, smiling. When Betty said that he shouldn’t have, he pooh-poohed the idea that he had made any sort of sacrifice. He smiled confidently, frankly at Betty, little knowing that she was thinking, ‘Why don’t I trust this man? Why does he send goose-pimples up my spine? If only his son hadn’t come to a sticky end in Brisbane, so that I could loathe him without feeing a heel.’

‘Last night I strayed,’ confessed Rodney in a near-whisper, when Betty had settled herself in her Restoration chair.

‘Strayed? How do you mean, “strayed”?’

‘What do you think I mean?’

‘Well, not a woman. You wouldn’t.’

‘Aaaah!’

‘So it must have been either alcohol or meat. The way you look, I’d say …’ Betty examined his rough, red, battered face lovingly, ‘… meat.’