Fair Do's (22 page)

‘You know Liz?' said Rita.

‘I'm her brother.'

‘Oh!' Rita's hand went to her mouth, as if to hide the beginning of a smile.

Liz fainted. Nobody moved as she crashed to the ground.

‘Oh my God!' said Ted and Corinna together.

Neville Badger turned away from the bar, with their drinks in his hand, a good-natured smile relaxing his sometimes anxious face. The smile gave way to puzzlement, and then to consternation as he saw his wife lying unconscious on the floor.

‘Oh Lord!' he said.

‘Oh heavens,' said Rodney and Betty Sillitoe, and they collapsed into great chortling, trilling peals of tipsy laughter.

All heads in the restaurant turned towards the bar. Even the Griddlers wavered momentarily in their griddling.

The midsummer wind howled in frustration as it hurled itself impotently against the rain-dribbled concrete of the Grand Universal Hotel. Its fury grew as it failed to batter down the wide, treble-glazed windows of the gleaming, patriotic Royalty Suite.

Ted Simcock surveyed the empty, air-conditioned suite. All was calm and quiet, order and confidence. The elements were derided. Mankind was king here. ‘You futile wind, all you're doing is making us feel smug,' purred the man-made Royalty Suite. ‘My day will come,' wailed the wild and wicked wind.

If mankind was king here, Ted Simcock was emperor. He seemed confident, excited, even cocky. And he was dressed as Napoleon.

To his right, as he admired his kingdom, was the bar. To his left stretched the flexible multi-purpose function room. The rooms were joined by a panelled wall, which was set half open, allowing the bar a separate identity, but within an integrated whole.

The walls were white, the carpets red, the wide square armchairs blue, with chrome arms. The chrome ashtrays revolved when pressed and could mash cigars into small pieces. In the flexible, multi-purpose function room the chairs and tables were set round the walls, affording a spacious dance floor in the centre. At the far end, on a platform reached by two inappropriately pretty curved little stairways, sat four musical instruments. On the big drum, in large letters, were the words ‘The Dale Monsal Quartet'. Below the platform a long table smirked with food. Beside the buffet there were bottles of champagne, two of them in ice buckets.

Ted examined all this, and saw that it was good. He struck a Napoleonic pose and said grandly, ‘Not tonight, Josephine.'

He didn't see the approach of the head barman, and jumped out of his imperial skin when that worthy thrust a plate under his nose and said, ‘Olive, sir?'

Ted returned slowly to reality. Josephine disappeared. His army vanished. He found himself gazing at the dark, intense Alec Skiddaw, thirty-seven and still beset by boils. Alec was dressed as a Bavarian peasant, with green hat and braces, and
Lederhosen
shorts. He had spindly, prematurely varicosed legs. The costume was chafing the boil on his scarred neck.

‘Would you like some stuffed olives before the rush?' he asked.

‘No thanks, Alec,' said Ted. ‘Look at that buffet, Alec. Smoked salmon, fresh salmon, wild asparagus, caviare.' Alec Skiddaw examined the buffet table without interest. Food wasn't his province. Drink, women, boils and the narration of interminable family anecdotes were his provinces. ‘Not that I rate caviare, me. In my book, it's just like fish roe.'

‘I'm
writing a book,' said Alec Skiddaw. ‘An autobiography. It'll be about me and my life.'

‘It's going to be a right classy do,' continued Ted. ‘Some folk are going to have to revise their opinion of Ted Simcock, posthumously.'

‘All the biographies you get are about famous people. You know about them buggers already. I'm writing about me and my family, what nobody knows owt about. That's more interesting. It's forced to be.'

‘Well, not posthumously, but you know what I mean. When I've gone.'

Ted marched off to inspect the bar.

‘That's right,' grumbled Alec Skiddaw. ‘Don't listen to a word I say. Ignorant pig.'

The wind howled, and his boil throbbed. He began to distribute his olives.

‘Elvis! It's fancy dress!'

Ted's elder son examined the patriotic decor cynically, thinking back to the last time he'd been here, when Carol Fordingbridge, now his ex-fiancée, had failed to be elected Miss Frozen Chicken (UK). He was wearing his usual grey-green suit.

‘Yes, well, I'm afraid it just isn't me, Dad, isn't fancy dress,' he said.

‘Oh heck,' said his father. ‘It's my glittering, sophisticated farewell. So what do my sons do? One only says he
may
be able to get here, the other doesn't even bother to dress up. I mean! Really! Elvis!'

‘Yes, well,' said Elvis. ‘I just can't see Jean-Paul Sartre making a berk of himself by going to a party dressed as Napoleon.'

A nun walked through from the bar, cradling a pint of bitter in her gnarled fist. She smiled at Ted.

‘Love it,' he said.

The nun moved on towards the buffet. She was followed by a frogman, taking long, absurd steps with his great webbed feet.

‘Good. Well done,' said Ted.

Next came a penguin, which waved its flippers, spilling half its beer.

‘Well done. Terrific,' said Napoleon, inspecting this absurd march past. ‘Look at that,' he said to Elvis. ‘If the lads from the Halifax Building Society aren't too proud to let their hair down, what's so special about Jean-Paul ruddy Sartre?' He scurried over to the new arrivals. ‘Lads! Welcome to my humble party.'

‘Champagne, sir?'

‘I'd prefer a pint of bitter.'

‘Certainly, sir.'

They set off towards the bar. The dark, intense Alec Skiddaw lowered his voice. ‘I wish I'd got the courage to come dressed like you.'

Elvis glanced at Alec Skiddaw's Bavarian costume.

‘I wish I'd got the courage to come dressed like you,' he said.

Three leggy waitresses took up their positions. They were dressed as French maids, with short black skirts and fishnet stockings.

From Ted and Corinna's new local, the Stag and Garter, there came an arab, Sherlock Holmes, and a nurse. From his bank, the listening bank, there came, appropriately, Big Ears, accompanied by Noddy and Alice-in-Wonderland.

The ravishing Liz Badger made a bold, sweeping entrance. She
was magnificently dressed as Queen Elizabeth the First, with wide ruff and flaming red wig.

Ted scuttled towards her, making absurdly short steps in his stiff, painful boots. His spurs tinkled. He expected to see, in Liz's regal wake, an immaculate Sir Walter Raleigh. Imagine his surprise when Neville, who had come to Ted's Angling Club Christmas Party as Henry the Eighth, drifted in dressed as a police officer, his round, good-natured, eager-to-please face looking utterly incongruous under a helmet.

‘Hello, hello, hello,' Neville began, in a funny policeman voice, bending his incipiently arthritic knees, ‘I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you a few questions, sir.'

‘Yes, yes. Amazingly amusing. Incredibly inventive,' said Ted. ‘They aren't exactly integrated costumes, though, are they? I mean … what's wrong with Raleigh?'

The immaculate Neville Badger, of Badger, Badger, Fox and Badger, looked as if he might be going to burst into tears. He excused himself and hurried off.

‘Neville and Jane were Elizabeth and Raleigh,' explained Liz. ‘They were Antony and Cleopatra. They were every romantic pair in history. “Jane loved fancy dress.” It brings it all back. His perfect first marriage. I feel about two feet high, Ted.'

‘You? Never!'

‘Never before. A painful experience. Are you pleased? Liz's come-uppance?'

‘Liz! ‘Course I'm not! Really! You look grand, anyroad. You look right regal.' Liz accepted the compliment as her due. ‘Liz?' Ted's tone changed abruptly, became confidential. ‘Tonight may be the last time you and I see each other before I go to Nairobi. That means – well, it might be, mightn't it? – the last time we ever see each other again ever. Liz?' His face was close to his former lover's as he made his appeal. ‘Will you do something really special for me tonight?'

‘Ted!'

‘Not that! How could you think that? And how could you of all people be outraged even if you did think it? No, what it is is … will you suspend your feud with Rita, for tonight at any rate? For Corinna and me? As a personal favour?'

‘Rita is deliberately humiliating me, Ted. Lopping a lump off
our garden with her ring road. Destroying my magnolia and eighteen roses.'

Ted abandoned his request in the face of Liz's white-hot tirade. ‘Enough said,' he said. ‘Now come and meet the lads from the Halifax Building Society.'

Napoleon led Queen Elizabeth over to the nun, the frogman and the penguin. ‘Lads,' he announced. ‘This is Liz Badger.'

He left her to it and hurried over to Neville. Behind him, a party from Allied Dunbar entered, dressed as a Viking, a polar bear, Carmen Miranda and a French onion seller.

The wide windows of the Royalty Suite, being on the first floor of the hotel, afforded an excellent view over the ring road to a twee, red-brick executive housing estate, which appeared to have been built for very small executives with dwarf families and vast cars. Outside the hotel, facing the ring road, the flags of the major nations were the gale's playthings. The road was busy with French and German juggernauts and sad, defeated caravans returning early from wrecked holidays, swinging alarmingly in the wind. Later, the Meteorological Office would announce that this was the windiest June day since 1886. That day, in fact, Northallerton was windier than Cape Horn.

What did Neville see, as he gazed at this inspiring view? His dead wife, in her six handicap hey-day? The scene when this road, which would be known as the outer ring road when the outer inner relief ring road was built, was itself built, and beautiful women who were now in old people's homes had complained about the destruction of their magnolias? We will never know. Neville's eyes were faithful watch dogs, guarding his emotions.

‘Neville!' said Ted.

Neville dragged himself away from the window. ‘I know,' he said. ‘I love Liz, Ted, but my love can't erase all memory of Jane. Every now and then something brings it back. And my heart and stomach burst.'

‘I know,' said Ted. ‘And in your time you and Jane dressed up as every pair in history.'

‘Every pair except Joseph and Mary. But there are people in this town who'd be very offended if Liz came as the Virgin Mary.'

‘I see their point. Neville? I've sown the seed. In Liz. Will you water that seed?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I've asked her to end her feud with Rita, at least for … oh no!'

Rita stood in the doorway. She was magnificently dressed as Queen Elizabeth the First, with wide ruff and flaming red wig. Beside her stood Sir Walter Raleigh. Geoffrey Ellsworth-Smythe, Liz's brother, looking every inch the discoverer of tobacco, laid his cloak on the floor of the multi-purpose function room. Rita stepped regally across it. Geoffrey swung the cloak back onto his shoulders. And Rita saw Liz.

The two Queen Elizabeths stared at each other in horror. A transvestite who had hoped to create a sensation entered quite unnoticed.

Liz flounced across to Neville.

‘Take me home,' she commanded.

‘No, no. Look … Liz … oh Lord … let's … er … in the bar, quick.'

Neville hurried Liz into the bar.

Napoleon scuttled over to Rita and Geoffrey.

‘Rita!' he said. ‘Hello, Geoffrey. Rita! What on earth possessed you to come as Queen Elizabeth?'

‘How like a man to blame his ex-wife rather than his ex-mistress for the unfortunate coincidence.'

‘No, but … I mean … it isn't you, is it, isn't absolute monarchy? It isn't. Is it? I mean, you're a socialist councillor.'

‘I'm also a woman.'

‘And how!' said Geoffrey Ellsworth-Smythe. ‘Oh sorry, Ted. I didn't mean to embarrass you.'

‘Oh no,' said Ted. ‘No, no, Rita and I are …'

‘Yesterday's cold potatoes?' said Rita.

‘Yes. No! Well, yes, in a … I mean, we're both in … well, I'm in love again, anyroad, and you … I mean …' Ted abandoned this un-Napoleonic floundering.

‘Where is Corinna?' asked Rita.

‘Taking an age to get into her costume. It's her athlete's heel, is time. But, Rita, why not somebody more suitable? Florence Nightingale? Mrs Pankhurst? Germaine Greer? Why Elizabeth?'

‘Because I thought I'd look magnificent.'

A monk and a spotty schoolgirl, both from Ted and Corinna's new local, waved their greeting. Ted nodded back.

‘I rather hoped you might say I do,' said Rita drily.

‘What? Oh, you do. You do. Magnificent.'

‘Too late. And also we were lent our costumes by the Operatic. They've just done
Merrie England
. I'm sorry, Ted. I didn't mean to upset Liz tonight.'

‘No, well, it can't be helped. You're very quiet, Geoffrey.'

‘I think you rather lose the art of small talk, Ted, when you've spent twenty-two years among primitive tribes who don't speak a word of English.' Geoffrey's soft, luxuriant, greying beard lent authenticity to his Raleigh. Facial hair grows now much as it did then. His soft voice seemed gentle and courteous, yet it clearly riled Ted.

‘You won't annoy me, Geoffrey,' said the former king of the boot scrapers. ‘The great anthropologist won't get under my skin with his “I've seen the world” routine.'