A Bit of a Do (45 page)

‘Yes, but … I mean … look, OK, he’s not a freak. Fair enough. But.’

‘Again, I’m forced to ask “but what?”’

‘He’s a Liberal namby-pamby. Middle of the road. Always
sitting on fences.’

‘A minute ago he was pumping me full of fiery radical convictions. Now he’s sitting on fences. You can’t have it both ways. Unless you mean he’s sitting on fences around American air bases.’

‘Rita!’

Sandra returned towards the kitchen. She gave them a look. Rita didn’t see her. Ted gave Sandra a determinedly casual look. Rita looked round to see the object of his determinedly casual look, but she had gone.

‘I mean,’ said Ted. ‘I mean … do you? Know anything about him? He could be a con man.’

‘He’s been adopted by the Liberals.’

‘It’s been known, Rita. What do you personally know about him?’

‘He played rugby for Rosslyn Park. He’s a good cricketer. He loves opera. His father’s a headmaster. His mother’s a J.P. His brother’s a doctor. I’ve met them all. Gerry owns a small but successful micro-chip factory in Godalming.’

‘Good!’ said Ted after a pause. ‘Good! Well … good. I mean … he sounds all right. I’m glad, Rita.’ He paused, then resumed, as if he took her silence for disagreement. ‘I am! I mean … I am!’

‘Is there anybody in your life, Ted?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Yes, I’m glad to say there is. Very much so, in fact. Yes. Sexual and emotional fulfilment have crossed the Simcock threshold.’

‘I’m glad, Ted. Would you like to tell me about her?’

There was a crash of plates from the kitchen.

‘Not a lot, no.’

Ted didn’t like the look in Rita’s eye. Did she suspect about Sandra? Well, if she did, she did. What did it matter now? Why not admit it? Because he couldn’t. He found himself saying, ‘She’s … er … a bit of a public figure in this town. I mean … discretion, eh?’

‘I understand,’ said Rita. Did she? ‘Well, I’m glad there is somebody, Ted. You’ll be anxious to get the divorce through as quickly as I am, then.’

Rita moved off, leaving Ted flabbergasted. He pulled himself together and hurried over with the brandies and liqueurs. He gave
Liz a big smile as he handed Rodney and Betty Sillitoe their drinks.

Betty raised her glass to Rodney, but he didn’t respond.

‘It’s the skeleton at the feast,’ he said. ‘It’s the spectre in the cupboard.’

‘Pardon?’ said Betty, puzzled. ‘What is?’

‘My chickens. Can you reconcile your kindly husband with the cruel beast who keeps living creatures cooped up in misery?’

‘I must admit. Sometimes at night I dream I’m like that. Cooped up. Awful.’

‘We’ve had a good innings,’ said Rodney. ‘We’ve got a bit set by. What say we go off and do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘Set my chickens free.’

Betty had a vision of hundreds of chicken trussers, all built like Beverley Roberts, singing ‘Set My Chickens Free’ in marvellous, full-throated unison as they busily untrussed chickens. The vision faded in the face of Rodney’s intensity.

‘Are you serious?’ she said.

‘Never been less serious in my life.’

‘It would be rather nice.’

Rodney stood up. ‘Er … Betty and I have work to do,’ he announced, ‘back at work, where I work. So … er …’

Betty Sillitoe, who was over-emotional as usual, stood up, lurching only slightly. ‘Thank you very much for inviting us,’ she said. ‘Well, not inviting us exactly. Seeing us there and thinking “Oh Lord, have to …”’

‘Betty!’

‘“… have to invite them now,” but you did, that’s the point, and thank you.’

Rodney and Betty were swaying like poplars in a gale. Liz gave Neville an urgent stare, and he awoke to his responsibilities with a start.

‘You can’t drive like that,’ he said, hurrying over to them.

‘I won’t,’ said Rodney. ‘I’ll get a taxi. Here. My key cars.’ He handed his car keys to Neville Badger with great solemnity, as if fulfilling his part in some traditional ceremony. ‘There. Proof. Taxi. Work to do. Come on, Betty.’

Liz took Betty by the arm, Neville took Rodney, and they
steered the Sillitoes to the door as fast as they could without provoking resistance.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Rodney. ‘Betty didn’t mean …’ He turned to the other guests. ‘Goodbye, each,’ he said. ‘Where was I? Oh yes. I would like you to know that I do not agree with Betty.’

Liz felt it safer to make no reply. She rattled the door frantically, but it was locked.

‘Don’t agree with me what?’ said Betty.

‘I think Liz genuinely loves him.’

‘Rodney!’

‘No. Please. It’s got to be said. I do. I don’t think she’s calculated the whole caboosh down to the last thingummy.’

Monsieur Albert hurried into the restaurant, wreathed in Gallic charm. Liz asked him if he could order a taxi. He understood that this was not a theoretical question about his competence, but a concrete request. He intimated that he would comply with it, and asked why they didn’t wait for it in the restaurant. Neville answered with a discreet movement of his head towards the Sillitoes, and Monsieur Albert drove a tank through his discretion by saying, ‘Ah! Of course, sir!’ The Sillitoes gave each other meaningful looks, Monsieur Albert executed a few swift, flamboyant, continental gestures, and what had been locked was open.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Betty to Liz, as she lurched through the door.

‘Well, you shouldn’t have said it,’ said Rodney. ‘But then you’re drunk.’

‘I know,’ said Betty. ‘So am I.’

They snaked across Moor Street, which was one-way westwards, and stood in the sunshine, waiting for the taxi. The sunshine was painfully bright after the gloom of the north-facing restaurant. The Sillitoes blinked like owls caught in a car’s headlights. Wayne Oldroyd, Nigel Thick’s pasty-faced replacement at Marwoods, watched them with amusement. He would never change his name or become famous. A badly maintained bright yellow corporation bus howled smokily up the gentle hill that led from the Flannerly Roundabout and the placid autumnal Gadd towards the abbey church. The owner of the Chinese takeaway took himself away to the betting shop, and a young
despatch rider overtook the bus, thus taking the lead, in the seething excitement of his mind, in the Isle of Man TT. Neville Badger shook his head slowly, as if amazed that life outside Chez Albert was continuing at all.

At last the taxi came. Neville and Liz breathed a sigh of relief as it sped the big wheel and his overdressed wife off towards Cock-A-Doodle Chickens.

‘She was drunk,’ said Neville.

Liz felt that it would have been better if he’d said nothing.

The party broke up, stretched their legs, formed little groups. Andrew Denton took the opportunity to approach Simon Rodenhurst. ‘Excuse me?’ he said.

‘Why, what have you done?’ asked Simon, who was slightly drunk. ‘Joke.’

‘Are you the Mr Rodenhurst of whom my wife speaks so warmly?’ said Andrew Denton.

Simon suddenly felt slightly sober. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

‘Are you Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Simon cautiously.

‘You showed my wife Judy round a house in Swaledale Crescent the other week. She said you were most obliging.’

‘Well, I … tried.’

‘And succeeded, from the sound of it! Though I’m afraid the time you spent with her was utterly wasted.’

‘Not at all, I do assure you. I mean … it happens in business. You’ve found somewhere else, have you?’

‘We’ve decided to stay in Otley. We like the schools, you see.’

‘Ah!’

‘That’s why she can’t be here today. She’s having a bad day. After many years of trying, we’re expecting a happy event.’

‘Oh! Well … congratulations.’

‘Thank you. It’s a great relief for me, as the doctors suspected I might be sterile.’

‘Well … what do doctors know?’ Simon sat down abruptly.

‘Absolutely. You’re right there. Are you feeling all right?’

‘Fine,’ said Simon. ‘Yes, I … I just feel a little sick.’

‘You’ll make a fortune if
you’re
pregnant,’ said Andrew Denton. ‘Joke.’

Andrew Denton moved off. Slowly, Simon dared to hope that his comments had been innocent, and he didn’t suspect.

Elvis Simcock approached. He looked concerned.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I wish I’d never met you,’ said Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch.

The Geordie Monsieur Albert asked Ted to enter his little office. It was covered in bills and paper. It had a roll-top desk and a table with a green leather top. On the wall there was a calendar from Frodshams the Friendly Frozen Food Folk. It had a picture of a nude young lady. On the desk there was a calendar from the Gadd Valley Garage. It had a picture of the Gadd Valley Garage.

‘I’ve been watching you, Ted,’ said Monsieur Albert. ‘You’ve coped well under great personal pressure. Just as, when we’re busy, you’ve coped well under great professional pressure. Are you happy in your work?’

‘Well, I can’t exactly say being a head waiter was my burning ambition. Especially when I’ve only got one waitress under me.’

Ted thought about Sandra under him. Increasingly, as he grew older, his moments of greatest sexual feeling were ill timed. He felt a sharp spasm of desire for her. He longed to take a walk through the black forest of his beloved gâteau. Oh God! No more cake imagery, please! Oh God, he’d missed what Monsieur Albert was saying.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I missed that.’

‘I said, you have an impressive capacity for shutting out personal considerations and concentrating on your work,’ said the Geordie Monsieur Albert.

‘Ah.’

‘How would you like to go into partnership?’

Ted gawped.

‘I need a partner,’ said Monsieur Albert. ‘I want to expand. I’ve already found a site for
Chez Edouard.
’

‘Chez Edouard!
I’m not a restauranteur, Monsieur Albert. I don’t want to open a restaurant called
Chez Edouard.
I want to be a freelance designer of toasting forks, fire irons and assorted useful
household objects of similar ilk.’

‘Going well, is it?’

Ted didn’t reply. Monsieur Albert smiled and offered him a large cigar. He took it. Monsieur Albert lit it with a flourish. Ted coughed.

‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, between splutters.

‘I’m adequately funded.’

Ted had often wondered how Monsieur Albert had got his capital. He couldn’t miss this cue. ‘How did you manage to become “adequately funded”?’ he asked.

‘Simple. With tips. Tips from generous customers. Tips from financiers about where to invest those tips.’ Ted gawped. He couldn’t believe you could build a fortune out of tips. ‘I worked for eleven years in a fashionable Italian restaurant in London,’ explained Monsieur Albert. ‘Full of famous people. Terry Wogan. Des O’Connor. Dame Peggy Ashcroft. Ian Botham. Professor A. J. Ayer. General Dayan. Michael Heseltine. Frank Carson. Joan Sutherland. Good tippers. It’s surprising how much you can make if you aren’t strictly honest about sharing out. Why this imitation of a mentally retarded newt?’

‘Those photos in the Angel …’ Ted began.

‘The owner died. The restaurant was closed. Nobody seemed to want them. I got a very good price from the Angel.’

Cigar smoke eddied around the little office. Ted coughed. Monsieur Albert also coughed, but his was a social cough, a prelude to the broaching of a delicate subject.

‘Just one thing,’ he said. ‘Sandra.’

‘Sandra?’

‘Sandra. Are you … er …?’

‘That’s my business, isn’t it?’

‘Not if you join my business.’

‘Ah!’

‘Precisely. So … I repeat … are you … er …?’

‘Yes. We are … er …’

‘One thing we will be, Ted, is classy. We may not be good, that isn’t important, people are pig-ignorant about food, but we will be classy. Therefore, I’m afraid, if you’re my partner, no Sandra.’

Ted felt angry and insulted. He disliked Monsieur Albert intensely, both in his Geordie and his Gallic guise. He felt angry
for Sandra, too. Damn it, she was human. Flesh and blood. A little too much flesh but, if she could be weaned off the cake, who knew? But he also felt cautious enough not to show that he was feeling angry and insulted. And he felt ashamed of himself for feeling cautious. And he felt that he was feeling too much. It was getting stifling in the little office. He was sweating. He found himself looking at the nude girl in the Frodshams the Friendly Frozen Food Folk calendar. Cigar smoke wisped around her pubic hair. He turned hurriedly to the Gadd Valley Garage.

Monsieur Albert was smiling. ‘Think about it,’ he said.

It didn’t take Rita long, after the happy couple had returned, to negotiate a little private chat with Liz.

‘I’m sorry for what I said,’ she said. ‘I bear no grudge any more.’

‘Thank you, Rita,’ said Liz. ‘I hope you and Gerry’ll be very happy.’