Fair Do's (23 page)

The insulted emperor stalked off.

‘I wasn't meaning anything like that,' said Geoffrey.

‘I know. You wouldn't,' said Rita.

‘I've never been anywhere where you have to be as careful what you say as you do here. When you've spent twenty-two years among … oh Lord. There I go again. The great anthropologist'll be upsetting you next.'

‘I don't believe you could ever upset me, Geoffrey.'

‘You're an extraordinary woman, Rita.'

‘It's beginning to look that way. Odd, isn't it?'

‘If you go home, everyone'll remember it as the time you both came as Queen Elizabeth and she stayed and you ran away.'

Liz contemplated the inevitable disdainfully.

‘I haven't much choice, have I?' she said at last.

‘I don't think so. Brazen it out. Show a bit of style.'

‘It's a deliberate campaign to ridicule me.'

‘If it is, and I don't say that I agree that it is, then by rising above it you'll make her look ridiculous.'

They were talking in low voices, even though they were quite a way from the bar counter, where Alec Skiddaw was serving a vampire and a pearly king and queen. The pearly king and queen were George and Iris Spooner, Ted's new neighbours in the flats. The vampire was a representative from the Bridlington Mercantile Credit Company.

Neville tried to shift his square, blue, aggressively modern chair closer to Liz. But it was fixed. It was intimacy-proof as well as fire-proof. He leant across, as best he could, and said, ‘Darling? Do you remember what happened last time we came to this hotel?'

‘We got engaged.'

‘Yes. I love you … Liz.'

It was only for a split second that the panic-stricken doyen of the town's lawyers stumbled for his wife's name, but it was too long.

‘You almost called me Jane, then.' Liz stood up, looking every inch a Queen of England. ‘I wonder how many times you'll call me Jane before the evening's out.'

‘No! I didn't. I couldn't. There's no …'

Liz finished it for him. ‘No comparison?' And she swept out.

In the flexible, multi-purpose function room, the Dale Monsal Quartet were tuning up excruciatingly. They comprised piano, drums, saxophone and clarinet. The eponymous Dale Monsal, on sax, was a gloomy, withdrawn man with a long, sad face. The pianist was male, black, wiry, and all smiles. The drummer was male, white, huge and fierce. The clarinettist was female, white and mature. Normally she wore her hair in a severe bun which contrasted dramatically with her low-cut evening dresses. Today, she had sacrificed her bun and her bosom. The musicians were dressed as a barber's shop quartet, with striped jackets, bow ties and straw boaters.

Liz strode regally across the room, noticing nothing, not even seeing Geoffrey and Rita until, as she passed their table, Geoffrey called out, ‘Liz!'

‘Tell her how you used to pull my hair, Geoffrey.' Liz threw the words over her shoulder, barely checking her queenly stride.

‘Did you?' said Rita.

‘Not every day. I
was
pretty horrid to her. But then she was
extremely
horrid to me. She cut the squeak out of my favourite teddy. This'll be the final straw.'

‘What will?'

‘My loving you.'

‘Ladies and gentlemen.' Dale Monsal intruded on their conversation. His slow, world-weary voice was as dry as a desert, as flat as a prairie. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Dale Monsal, and this is my quartet.' He gestured limply towards his colleagues. ‘Music is our business, and delight is our aim. Let us therefore plunge headlong, metaphorically speaking, into that mythically blue river which watered the fertile fields of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.' He half-turned towards his musicians. ‘One, two, three.'

The Dale Monsal Quartet plunged headlong, metaphorically speaking, into something
very
similar to the familiar strains of ‘The Blue Danube'.

‘Is that why you love me?' Rita took up the conversation as if the interruption hadn't occurred. ‘Because it'll be the final straw for Liz?'

‘Of course not,' protested Geoffrey. ‘It does add a twist of pepper to the stew, though.'

‘The stew! What a romantic image. Not even a casserole.'

‘I can't promise you romantic images, Rita. When you've been twenty-two years … oh my God! I must stop saying that!' Geoffrey's voice took on a gentle intensity. ‘What I can promise you, my darling, is that I really will try never to say anything remotely hurtful to you. Good Lord! Who are those idiots?'

The much-travelled anthropologist was staring towards the door, as if he had seen something more extraordinary than anything his tribal rituals had ever afforded. Perhaps he had. Rodney and Betty and Jenny, dressed as huge peppers, stood side by side in the doorway.

‘My two best friends and my daughter-in-law,' said Rita.

‘Sorry!' said Geoffrey Ellsworth-Smythe.

Ted clanked across the dance floor towards the new arrivals. Rodney, Betty and Jenny had come, respectively, as red, green and yellow peppers. Their costumes were huge, brightly coloured, pepper-shaped bags with padded, ribbed, peppery shoulders. Their hands and lower arms protruded from holes. On their heads they wore flat hats, red, yellow
and green, with upturned, incipiently drooping stalks. The hats were shaped like the bits that you cut out of peppers before you remove the pith and seeds. Careful thought had gone into these costumes. The three peppers smiled with modest self-satisfaction, awaiting Ted's compliments. They were somewhat disappointed to hear him say, ‘What are you – a set of traffic lights?'

‘Peppers,' said Rodney with as much dignity as he could muster.

‘You what?'

‘Symbolic of our vegetarian restaurant,' said Betty.

‘Advertising your business, even at our farewell do?'

‘There's no room for shrinking violets in business, Ted,' said Rodney.

‘Rodney! Look!' Betty gave an un-pepperlike whoop. ‘Rita and Liz have both come as Queen Elizabeth!'

‘Betty! Dignity! As befits joint managing directors of Sillitoe's.' But Rodney's eyes followed Betty's. ‘Oooh! Yes! They look identical!'

‘Oh Lord,' said Jenny. ‘I must go to … whichever of them I decide I feel sorriest for most.'

Jenny edged past Betty. So large were their costumes that both women had to turn sideways before she could get through. She hurried round the side of the dance floor, where the onion seller was getting on very well with Alice-in-Wonderland, Dick Whittington was waltzing sedately with his cat, and Punch, alias Larry Benson, of fitted kitchen fame, was tripping round with Judy, alias his lady wife, who was actually no lady.

Jenny found herself on collision course with the cynical Elvis, her brother-in-law, her lover. His expression owed more to his cynicism than his love.

‘I know,' said Jenny. ‘Simone de Beauvoir wouldn't have been seen dead dressed as a green pepper.'

‘I didn't say anything.'

‘Haven't you come as anything?'

‘Can't. I might get bleeped.'

‘What?'

‘The news desk has given us bleepers. I mean, I couldn't go on a big story dressed as a parsnip, could I?'

‘You wouldn't go during Ted's farewell party, would you?'

‘I might have to. Your true radio reporter's never off duty. I mean, it might be a big ecological disaster – every fish in the Gadd poisoned by leaking drums of cyanide. Couldn't stuff myself on smoked salmon while those poor silver-bellied fish are gasping for life, could I?'

‘Of course you couldn't. I shouldn't have … oh, Elvis.' Jenny kissed him. Her eyes filled with tears. In the pools of her eyes, fish thrashed in frenzy before sinking lifeless beneath the rancorous, foamy waters. ‘Oh Lord. Those poor fish. I think I'm going to cry.'

She rushed off as fast as her costume allowed, to the sound of muted applause from the oddly-garbed dancers. She fought back her tears. The dark, intense Alec Skiddaw, smiling darkly, intensely, offered her champagne. She accepted. One glass wouldn't upset her milk too much.

‘How's that husband of yours?' enquired Alec Skiddaw solicitously.

‘Fine. Great.' She gave a watery smile.

‘I'll never forget how worried you both were because you felt you hadn't treated me as a social equal.'

‘Oh … well … yes … silly.' Please change the subject, Alec.

‘I said to myself, they may have problems but they'll pull through. I know,' said Alec Skiddaw with ghastly encouragement. ‘Well, I have this slight psychic gift inherited from a great aunt who married a chiropodist in Skegness.'

‘Oh, stuff your …' Jenny's green stalk wobbled with her distress. ‘Oh, I'm sorry, Alec. Oh, Alec.'

‘Never mind, madam. It's all in a day's work,' said Alec Skiddaw. He sounded calm and resigned, but his boil pulsated with hurt fury. Pity not Alec Skiddaw for his boils, gentle reader. They were the device whereby the poison of his dark intensity escaped.

Ted hadn't yet offered the Sillitoes a drink. It was a delicate subject, after their behaviour at the grand opening.

‘Er … champagne?' he said. ‘Or are you still …?'

‘You may not have noticed,' said Rodney, ‘but –'

‘At the grand opening of Sillitoes,' interrupted Betty.

‘We both got –'

‘Slightly inebriated.'

‘It showed us the error of our ways.'

‘You've given up drink for good.' Ted nodded his simulated approval.

‘No!' said Betty. ‘We've got a full licence.'

‘You don't have to be miserable to be a vegetarian,' said Rodney.

Behind them, the dance floor was steadily filling. Arab danced with squaw, teddy boy with drum majorette, vicar with belly dancer. A can-can girl waltzed sedately to the Dale Monsal Quartet's unintentionally original rendition of Strauss's ‘Rose from the South'. Ted Simcock, secure in the success of his glittering party, felt that it was time to take a magnanimous interest in the Sillitoes' business.

‘How's business?' he asked.

‘Good,' said Rodney.

‘Very good,' said Betty.

‘Well … good. No, I mean that … that's good.'

‘Good,' said Rodney. ‘I'm glad you mean it, Ted.'

‘No, I do,' said Ted. ‘I really do mean it.'

‘Well, yes, we believe you,' said Rodney.

‘Good. Because I mean it. No, I really do. Our prospects are good, too. Corinna has made a flying visit to Nairobi. She's already negotiated for four prime sites for our restaurants. She says the prospects are very good.'

‘Good.'

‘Very good.'

Betty looked round the dance floor. She searched the tables. She glanced towards the bar.

‘Where
is
Corinna?' she asked.

‘Where indeed?' Ted sighed. He straightened his great Napoleonic hat nervously. ‘It's the rift in the diamond. The flaw in the lute.'

‘What is?' Rodney was puzzled.

‘Corinna's timekeeping. Excuse me. That penguin's eating all the salmon.'

Rodney and Betty watched Ted as he scampered towards the laden tables.

‘I do hope nothing's wrong,' said Betty thoughtfully.

‘Oh, so do I,' agreed Rodney fervently. ‘So do I. No, I really do.'

‘Good.'

Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, arrived arm-in-arm with his girl-friend, the short-sighted Lucinda Snellmarsh, of Peacock, Tester and Devine. Simon was wearing a long dressing gown, and carried a cigarette holder. His hair was smoothed back. Lucinda wore a low-cut black dress with a silver stole. She also carried a cigarette holder.

‘Hello, Simon. Hello, Lucinda.' Bathing in his triumph, Ted welcomed them like old friends.

‘I'm Noël Coward,' said Simon.

‘Of course you are.'

‘I'm Mae West.'

Ted cast an unflattering, chauvinistic glance towards Lucinda's bosom.

There was an awkward pause.

‘Quite a few people already,' said Simon.

‘You'll have to do a bit better than that,' said Ted.

‘Sorry?'

‘As Noël Coward. Be a bit more sparkling.'

‘Oh. Yes. Right. Absolutely.'

There was another awkward pause.

‘Well come on, Lucinda,' said Ted, abandoning Simon as a dead loss. ‘Say something outrageously provocative and sexy.'

Lucinda thought hard. ‘Oh lorks!' she said. ‘I don't think I can.'

The two young estate agents moved on into the swirling party. The cynical Elvis Simcock slouched towards them.