A Bit of a Do

The happy couple made a brave stab at a real sexy one, and Jenny blushed prettily.

‘Nice!’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Very nice.’ Nice was the least complimentary of all his adjectives. He only used it when he meant ‘Really awful!’ but the massed ranks of the guests didn’t seem to feel that it was awful. Another satisfied communal ‘Aaaah!’ drifted away across the town’s jumbled-up skyline towards the foetid River Gadd.

‘If our child grows up selfish and deceitful, it’ll be our fault,’ said Jenny. She didn’t need to whisper, as a police siren was blaring.

‘Jenny!’ said Paul.

‘OK,’ shouted Nigel Thick, in competition with the siren. ‘Let’s go for something a bit more informal. Right? OK.’

‘Is that all the man I’ve committed myself to for life can say – “Jenny!”?’ said Jenny.

‘Jenny!’

Jenny laughed and gave Paul a quick, spontaneous kiss. She had almost forgotten the watching throng.

‘Good,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Great. Terrific. Fantabulous.’

‘“Committed for life!”’ whispered Paul, as the siren faded into the western suburbs. ‘It sounds like a prison sentence.’

‘Oh Paul, you don’t think that, do you?’

‘No! Love! ’Course I don’t.’

They kissed.

‘Aaaah!’ went the crowd.

‘Ugh!’ went the cynical Elvis Simcock.

‘Very good!’ went the classless Nigel Thick. ‘Terrific! Nice one! Tremendous!’

Jenny and Paul disengaged in some confusion, as self-consciousness returned.

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Happy couple out. Four proud parents in.’ One day these people would have coffee-table books of his photographs. His mother still called them his ‘snaps’. He was sure she did it deliberately.

The four proud parents took up their positions, Simcocks together, Rodenhursts together.

‘Anything you ever want in the ironmongery line, Laurence,’ said Ted. ‘Custom-built door knockers, personalized coal scuttles, you name it, I’ll give it at cost price.’

‘Well well!’ said Laurence. ‘It seems that this union can be of great benefit to our family, Liz!’

Liz and Ted both gave Laurence sharp looks. Rita gave Ted a furious look. Laurence’s smooth face remained innocent of expression.

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Big smiles. Happiest day of your life.’

They all smiled, with varying degrees of artificiality and success.

‘Terrific,’ lied Nigel Thick.

‘In fact, Ted,’ said Liz, ‘we already have one of your companion sets in our drawing room.’

‘Oh! In your “drawing room”! Well well!’ said Ted. He added, somewhat archly: ‘I trust it’s giving satisfactory service.’

‘Actually the tongs have buckled,’ said Laurence.

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Nice dignified one. Nice and solemn. Four pillars of local society, linked by wedlock.’

They found being dignified and solemn easier than smiling.

‘Great! Tremendous! Magnificent!’

‘I’ll bring you a replacement,’ said Ted. ‘Gratis. Have no fear.’

‘Ted!’ hissed Rita. ‘Don’t talk business at functions. Mr Rodenhurst doesn’t talk about dental appointments at functions.’

‘OK,’ said the future Barry Precious classlessly. ‘Now change partners. Symbolize that you’re all one big happy family.’

The two couples changed places.

‘Actually, I think you’re both due for a check-up,’ said Laurence smoothly, his face a mask. ‘I’ll get my girl to send you one of our cards.’

‘OK,’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Arms round each other. Nice and friendly. No inhibitions.’

Liz’s arm went round Ted, and he felt his bottom being stroked. Had he imagined it? No! There it was again, and a quick playful nip. He was terrified. Of course his bottom, by its very nature, was round the back, out of sight of people he was facing, but still …! Liz’s arm was round his waist now. One finger stroked him very gently. It was too small a gesture to be seen by the assembled guests. But still …! He could feel the sweat running down his back.

Laurence put his arm round Rita with fastidious distaste. He looked like the leader of a nation embracing the wife of a hated rival at the end of a conference at which only a meaningless, bland communiqué had been issued.

‘Relax!’ said Nigel Thick. ‘Let it all hang out.’

Laurence regarded this phrase with extreme distaste. He found it impossible to comply but, for the sake of Jenny and social decorum, he did manage to make a bit of it almost hang out. Rita smiled like the Queen being offered sheeps’ eyes at a Bedouin banquet. Ted and Liz were more successful.

‘Great! Terrific! Fantabulous! Marvellous! OK. Happy couple back in, with the two brothers.’

A robin watched beadily from its vantage point on a nearby gravestone as the four proud parents moved away. Ted gave Liz a warning look. Laurence noticed it, but Rita didn’t. She was too busy indicating to Elvis that he was to smile. He made a wry face at her.

Elvis Simcock was twenty-four. He was taller, more self-possessed and wilder than his brother, and he was the only man at the wedding not wearing a suit, though he could have looked quite smart in his red cord jacket and tight brown trousers if he’d wanted to.

Simon Rodenhurst, Jenny’s older brother, who was twenty-three, was well dressed in a rather anonymous way, a provincial professional young man who had never felt any urge to rebel. He worked for the estate agents, Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. His face had an immature, unformed look, as if it were waiting for his personality to be delivered.

‘Elvis?’ said Jenny. ‘Have you met my brother Simon?’

‘No. That’s one of the many pleasures I’ve missed out on so far,’ said Elvis Simcock, and his ‘hello’ to Simon Rodenhurst was barely more than a grunt.

‘OK. Big smiles. Bags of brotherly love,’ said Nigel Thick.

Paul’s and Jenny’s smiles were a bit strained. Simon’s was perfectly judged. The cynical Elvis’s was grotesque, way over the top, a grinning fiend.

‘Amazing!’ said Nigel Thick, with more than his customary accuracy. He took pictures of the four proud parents with the happy couple, of the happy couple with the two bridesmaids, of the two bridesmaids together, of the very young bridesmaid on her own and therefore also inevitably of the very fat bridesmaid on her own, of the bride on her own and therefore also inevitably of the groom on his own, of the proud parents and the happy couple with Rita’s parents. Ted’s parents and Laurence’s parents were dead, and Liz’s widowed mother had remarried, lived in South Africa, and had been advised by her doctor not to travel.