Fair Do’s

David Nobbs

Fair Do’s

Contents

Cover

Title Page

First Do

January: The Church Wedding

Second Do

February: The Christening

Third Do

April: The Grand Opening of Sillitoe’s

Fourth Do

June: The Farewell Party

Fifth Do

August: The Inauguration of the Outer Inner Relief Ring Road

Sixth Do

September: The Funeral

Seventh Do

October: The Civil Wedding

About the Author

Other Works

Copyright

About the Publisher

First Do

January: The Church Wedding

A scruffy pigeon, a hopeless straggler in a race from Leek to Gateshead, shuffled across the hard blue sky as if embarrassed to come between the Social Liberal Democratic candidate for Hindhead and his Maker. Gerry Lansdown didn’t see the pigeon. His eyes were closed. He was praying.

‘Oh God,’ he prayed silently, gripping his top hat with tight, tense fingers, ‘thank you for what I am about to receive. Thank you for Rita Simcock.’

He opened his eyes and gazed up towards the God whose existence he had never doubted, although he had never thought of Him as a being so overwhelmingly superior to himself that it was necessary to worship Him, except during election campaigns.

The sun was astonishingly powerful for January, as if there were a hole in the ozone layer directly above Gerry’s head. The pigeon had gone. There was no sign of God either.

The ravishing Liz Badger bore down upon Gerry, arm-in-arm with her second husband, the immaculate Neville Badger, of Badger, Badger, Fox and Badger.

‘Hello, Gerry. You look wonderful,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’ Gerry tried to look as if the compliment was undeserved. He smiled cautiously at the woman who had once run off with his fiancée’s first husband. He kissed her, carefully, so as not to disturb her make-up.

‘Doesn’t he, Neville?’ said Liz.

But Neville Badger, immaculate in his morning dress, was months and years away, attending other services at this massive Norman abbey: his marriage to Jane, Jane’s funeral, and the marriage of Liz’s daughter Jenny to Paul, younger son of today’s bride.

‘Neville!’ Liz sounded as if she were summoning a recalcitrant Pekinese.

Her husband of four months sailed gently through time and made a soft landing beside her.

‘What?’ he improvised.

‘I was saying, Gerry looks wonderful.’

Neville gave Gerry a brief, unseeing glance.

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Absolutely. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.’

‘Isn’t Rita lucky?’

‘Oh yes. Absolutely. Lucky old Rita.’

‘I mean … isn’t he a simply gorgeous man?’

‘Yes, he … er … I mean, gorgeous isn’t a word I … you’re looking very handsome, Gerry.’

The rising star in the Social Liberal Democratic firmament simpered. ‘Well …’ he said. ‘So are both of you. I mean, you’re handsome and Liz is gorgeous.’

‘Thank you …’ said Neville.

‘Very much,’ said Liz.

The Badgers walked slowly towards the West Door. The path ran between old, neglected graves. Beyond the graveyard, blackened stone and brick and rusting concrete buildings jostled in narrow, untidy streets.

At the porch Neville stopped. ‘Liz?’ he said. ‘I don’t query the basic truth of what was said, but wasn’t that rather too much of a mutual admiration society?’

‘Oh, Neville,’ she said. ‘I was trying to make you jealous.’

‘What?’

‘By praising Gerry.’

‘Why should I be jealous?’ Neville was struggling to understand, knowing from experience that his puzzlement would irritate her.

‘I wanted you to think I find him attractive.’

‘Maybe you do. He is attractive … I imagine … to a woman … which you are.’

The wedding guests were strolling slowly into the church. Two glorious hats bobbed past, wide-brimmed navy to the left of the stationary Badgers, bowl-shaped orange to their right.

‘I’m trying to get you to show me how fiercely possessive you can be when aroused,’ explained Liz.

‘Oh, I see,’ said the doyen of the town’s lawyers. ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh, Neville, you’re hopeless.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No. It’s why I love you, I suppose.’

‘Because I’m hopeless?’ Neville was aroused now that Liz no longer wanted him to be. ‘I see!’

‘No, you don’t. You see nothing.’

‘I see Jenny.’

Liz’s daughter Jenny was smiling broadly but nervously. Her hair was cropped shorter than her mother would have liked. She was almost eight months pregnant. She would soon become the first person ever to enter this most English of churches wearing a dress which illustrated the life cycle of the llama.

‘Hello, Mum,’ she said, knowing that Liz preferred to be called ‘Mother’. ‘Hello …’ she hesitated, as if making a serious attempt to call Neville ‘Dad’ for the first time. ‘Neville.’ She kissed her mother and almost kissed Neville.

‘Where’s Paul?’ said Liz.

‘He wouldn’t come. He says he’d find it impossible to dredge up a smile.’ Neither of Rita’s boys had welcomed their mother’s engagement to a man more than ten years younger than herself.

‘Oh dear,’ said Liz. ‘Honesty can be so socially inconvenient.’ She made the remark sound as though it might just possibly be witty.

Neville had dredged up a faint smile which appeared to be set in concrete as he listened to the conversation between his second wife and her daughter.

‘I think Paul’s trying to be ultra-honest in order to try to make me forget the time he was dishonest over Carol Fordingbridge,’ said Jenny.

‘How sophisticated his feelings are,’ said Liz. ‘No wonder he’s doing so well with his road sweeping.’

‘Oh Mum.’ Jenny began to cry, big drops out of clear eyes like a summer shower. ‘Oh Lord. Now look what you’ve made me do.’

She hurried off, blowing her nose angrily.

Liz clutched Neville’s arm. ‘Oh Lord,’ she said. ‘I didn’t … why do I always …? Darling, say something very nice, very quickly.’

As people drifted almost reluctantly into the great church, Neville Badger stood at his wife’s side, his baggy face creased with mental effort.

‘Those scrambled eggs we had this morning were really delicious,’ he said at last.

‘Oh, Neville, you’re hopeless.’

Liz swirled into the church, the sun glinting on her large silver three-leafed clover earrings. Neville scurried immaculately in her wake.

As soon as Gerry Lansdown saw Jenny blowing her nose, he extricated himself without reluctance from a discussion on the ethics of High Street credit with a loss adjustor from Camberley, and hurried over to favour her with one of his most winning smiles and eliminate this blip of sorrow from the great joy of his wedding day.

‘Jenny!’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Fine. Great.’ She gave him a brave but watery smile. ‘Terrific.’

‘Good. Good.’ He kissed her. He liked her. He felt that she might make a good Liberal one day, when she had learnt to accept the compromises necessary for the conduct of civilised life. ‘Is Paul all right?’

‘No, he’s got a touch of … er …’ To her fury, Jenny felt herself blushing. ‘A touch of … er … a slight … I can’t lie. Paul and I promised. No more lies. He’s refused to come.’

‘I see.’ Gerry frowned. He didn’t really care whether Paul came or not, but Rita would be very upset, and that would upset him. Blast the ghastly youth. ‘I see. But you did.’

‘Oh yes. I think one has to accept what happens in life, and try to make the best of it.’

‘Terrific.’

‘Oh Lord,’ said Jenny. A stylised llama on her chest heaved with embarrassment, looking as if it might be about to give stylised birth. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’ A distant siren put her agony into context. Somebody might be dying out there. She rallied. ‘Amazing day,’ she said.

It was indeed. Later, the Meteorological Office would announce that this had been the hottest January day since 1783. That day, in fact, Pontefract was hotter than Algiers.

Paul’s elder brother, the cynical Elvis Simcock, strolled semi-insolently towards them, running a hand through his hair to make sure that it was ruffled. At his side was his fiancée, the long-haired Carol Fordingbridge, whose one night stand with Paul was ignored but not forgotten. At Jenny’s wedding to Paul, when all the men had worn suits, Elvis had worn a sports jacket. Now, when the men were in morning dress, he was wearing a suit, a grey chalk-stripe, single-breasted suit, which matched his insolence, but not his ruffled hair.

‘Well Elvis has come anyway,’ said Gerry. ‘In a suit, not morning dress. How carefully calculated his little acts of rebellion are.’

‘You see, Gerry. You laugh at us,’ said Jenny.

Gerry ignored this remark, as he ignored all suggestions that he was less than perfect.

‘Couldn’t bring myself to wear morning dress, I’m afraid,’ said Elvis.

‘Why should you?’ said Gerry, smiling warmly, as if grateful to Elvis for giving him the opportunity to show his broad-mindedness. ‘What do appearances matter? Good for you, say I.’

Two low-flying jets from the American base at Frissingfold hurled themselves against the elegance of the scene, banked steeply over the sturdy Norman tower and were gone, leaving behind them a crying baby, several barking dogs, two shattered greenhouses and a group of Social Liberal Democrats staring at the ruthless blue of the winter sky with a range of emotions, from fury to reassurance, which reflected the unbridgeable gulfs between their various views on defence.

Carol Fordingbridge was the first to drag her eyes down from the ruptured sky. She was therefore the first to see Ted. Ted Simcock, first husband of Gerry’s bride-to-be, former owner of the Jupiter Foundry, was approaching in a hired grey morning suit that almost fitted.

‘Ted!’ said Carol.

‘Dad!’ said Elvis.

‘Hello.’ Ted smiled, well pleased with the effect that he had created. Gerry couldn’t have looked sicker if he’d come fourth behind the Green Party. ‘I … er … I just happened to be passing and I thought, “Good Lord! There’s Gerry in morning dress. It must be Rita’s wedding today. I’ll just pop in and …” Hello, Jenny.’ He broke off to kiss his daughter-in-law, frowning only briefly at the llamas. ‘Hello, Carol.’ There was a kiss for Carol too. ‘Hello, Elvis. “… just pop in and see the woman I was married to for twenty-five years launched on her new idyll of bliss.” As it were.’

‘You just happened to be passing, in full morning dress,’ said Gerry drily, his poise swiftly recovered.

‘Ah. Yes. I’m … er …’ Ted couldn’t help glancing down towards the pale stain on his hired, striped trousers, which he’d only noticed as he was putting them on. ‘I’m on my way to another wedding, funnily enough. Quite a coincidence. The wedding of …’ Ted’s attempt foundered ignominiously on the rocks of their disbelief. ‘Am I hell as like? I wanted to bury the hatchet. Give my blessing to Rita, who still means a lot to me, on what is after all the second happiest day of her life. It’s unconventional behaviour, I know, but then Ted Simcock has never given a fig for convention. I mean, I’m not coming to the reception, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Quite. I mean, that’s invitation only.’

‘Quite.’

‘Obviously. But churches are public. I have the right, if I read our unwritten constitution correctly. So, I thought, I’ll come to the church. In morning dress.’ Ted glowered at his elder son. ‘As befits.’

‘I thought you didn’t give a fig for convention,’ said Elvis, smiling with a self-satisfaction that he couldn’t quite conceal, even though he knew that his hero, Jean-Paul Sartre, would not have regarded such a tiny conversational triumph as worthy of self-satisfaction. But then Jean Paul Sartre hadn’t got a bad third at Keele University.

‘You have to know which figs you give for which conventions,’ said Ted. ‘That’s known as maturity of judgment in my book.’

Jenny’s brother Simon Rodenhurst approached, splendid in his wedding attire. He saw Elvis and Ted, tried not to look like an estate agent, and failed.

‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Ted! You here? Good Lord.’

They gave him looks which said, ‘Shut up, Simon. We’ve just been through all that.’

‘Hello, little sister,’ he said. ‘Where’s Paul?’

They gave him looks which said, ‘That’s another can of worms best not opened.’

‘What have I said?’ he said.

They gave him looks which said that it would have been better if he hadn’t said ‘What have I said?’

‘Come on, Simon,’ said Jenny. ‘Let’s get inside.’

‘We all better had,’ said Carol. ‘It’s nearly five to.’

Jenny approached the porch with Simon. Carol followed with Elvis.

Elvis called out, ‘You’re looking very spacious today, Simon.’

‘Oh belt up.’ Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, tossed his reply over his shoulder. A gust of wind caught his ‘Oh belt up’ and sent this example of his repartee swirling over the jumbled roofs of the town, over the turgid brown waters of the River Gadd, over the central Yorkshire plain, up and up through the weakening ozone layer into the blue beyond, to become a whisper around the planets long after this earth has been destroyed.

Rita’s fiancé and her ex-husband stood alone together, as the last of the guests made their way into the church, along with the funny little man with the big ears who went to all the weddings.

‘I hope my presence isn’t unwelcome, Gerry,’ said Ted.

‘Do you really want Rita to be happy?’ said Gerry.

‘Course I do, Gerry.’ Ted met Gerry’s piercing gaze firmly. ‘Course I do. I mean, what do you take me for?’

‘In that case you’re very welcome indeed, Ted.’

They shook hands.

‘Is there … er …?’

‘Somebody in my life? Yes, I’m glad to say my recent amour still flourishes.’ Ted had taken to using the occasional French word now that he was in catering.

A tall, attractive woman who had taken great pains to be of indeterminate age walked elegantly past them. Ted caught a whiff of expensive scent. She was wearing a bright yellow fitted top, yellow skirt, yellow pill-box hat, with a yellow bag and yellow shoes. The general effect was … yellow. On a summer’s evening it might have proved irresistible to moths and midges. On an early winter’s afternoon it proved irresistible to Ted. She turned and gave him a look which was unmistakeably meaningful although he felt that he must be mistaken over the meaning. Then she entered the church.

‘I’m … er …’ Ted tried to sound as if he hadn’t even noticed her. ‘I’m a very lucky man.’

He hurried into the church. Gerry Lansdown looked at his watch, and followed at a much more leisurely pace.

Ted Simcock, once the town’s premier maker of fire irons, now living in a furnished flat off the wrong end of Commercial Street with a waitress called Sandra, whom he had met at the DHSS when she was an unemployed bakery assistant, hesitated briefly on entering the church. He was about to sit on Rita’s side … after all, he hardly knew Gerry but had been married to Rita for a quarter of a century … but then he realised that this might not be entirely tactful, so he settled himself down near the back, on Gerry’s side, behind the thinning hair of moderate politicians, the carefully tasteful hats of their moderate wives, and the more arrogant hats of the wives of the microchip men.

Facing the massed ranks of Gerry’s friends and relations were the somewhat less massed ranks of Rita’s friends and relations, spiky aunts, uncouth uncles, spotty cousins, several of them not in morning dress. Less than two years ago, when she had been Liz Rodenhurst, Liz Badger had sat opposite them, and had tried to ignore them. She felt strange now, sitting among them, though still trying to ignore them.

Three rows behind her sat Rodney and Betty Sillitoe.

‘She’s late,’ whispered Betty, who was over-dressed as usual.

‘She’s exercising her prerogative,’ whispered Rodney.

‘You make it sound like a breed of dog,’ whispered Betty.

They shared a whispered laugh.

Ted Simcock, former provider of quality boot scrapers, now head waiter at Chez Albert in Bridge Street, looked round at exactly the same moment as Liz. They looked at each other with horror. At that other wedding eighteen months ago their exchanged glances had led to events which had broken up and reordered their world. Neville Badger, beside Liz, smiled blandly at Ted. Ted and Liz shied away hastily from the possibility that history might repeat itself. Ted craned his head to examine the great hammer roof. This was generally regarded as a magnificent example of early church architecture and a triumph for modern woodworm techniques, but Ted had no eyes for the vast pale beams, the carved angels, the faded red and gilt of the medieval paintwork. His head swivelled on, down again, towards the back of the church, where he met the gaze of the gleaming yellow lady. He looked away, she looked away, then they both looked back to see if they really had been giving each other meaningful looks. She smiled. He tried a smile that would make him look like a cool international sophisticate. It was a failure. He looked like a randy cocker spaniel.

The church clock proclaimed the quarter. Several people on Gerry’s side frowned. While a bride was expected to be late, a politician’s wife was expected to be punctual enough to be only slightly late.

Leslie Horton, water-bailiff and organist, who hated to be called Les, thundered through his limited repertoire without subtlety.

The best man, a drainage engineer from Dundee, who had been Gerry’s best friend at school, though more perhaps in retrospect than at the time, glanced at his watch and sighed.

Gerry smiled serenely at the new young vicar, who had not yet won the hearts of his congregation.

The long-haired Carol Fordingbridge was the first to mouth the possibility that had begun to form in a hundred barely credulous minds.

‘Wouldn’t it be awful if she didn’t turn up?’ she whispered.

‘Carol! She wouldn’t,’ whispered her fiancé with less than his usual cynicism. ‘She couldn’t. That’d be … awful.’

‘I know,’ breathed the former Miss Cock-A-Doodle Chickens excitedly. ‘Awful.’

They considered the awesome prospect in awful silence.

‘It’d be rather wonderful, though, wouldn’t it?’ she whispered.

The moment Leslie Horton had dreaded arrived. He had exhausted his programme of suitable pieces. The buzz of speculation in the congregation was growing steadily louder. Hats bobbed in horrified excitement. The new young vicar looked at Leslie Horton and shrugged with his eyes. Leslie Horton sighed with his shoulders and returned to the beginning of his repertoire.

The huge ribbed radiators had to fight valiantly against the stony chill of the abbey, even on this unseasonal day. With no joyous emotion to warm them, the ladies began to shiver. One of Rita’s uncles had a sneezing fit.

The vicar advanced upon Gerry, who tried to smile confidently. His smile curled at the edges like a slice of tongue approaching its ‘sell-by’ date. The eyes of the congregation were upon them.

‘If she isn’t here soon,’ whispered the vicar, ‘I’ll have to truncate the ceremony.’

‘Truncate the ceremony?’ hissed Gerry Lansdown. ‘I don’t want a truncated ceremony. I haven’t paid a truncated licence fee.’

‘I don’t approve of divorcees marrying in church, even though I understand your fiancée was not the guilty party,’ whispered the vicar, who was still referred to by his congregation as ‘the new vicar’, as if he would have to prove himself before earning the dignity of a name. ‘My predecessor was less strict. I’ve inherited you as a fait accompli. I do not intend you to be a fait accompli worse than death.’ He laughed briefly, with more self-congratulation than humour. ‘I have another wedding later, the groom is a councillor, and I do not intend to have to delay an important wedding in my very first week here.’

Gerry Lansdown’s hackles rose. His back arched. He was an insulted cat, ready for battle. But the vicar had gone.

‘She’s not coming, Rodney,’ whispered Betty Sillitoe, over-excited as usual. ‘She’s jilted him. How awful!’

‘She may have had an accident,’ whispered Rodney.

‘No. I know it. I feel it.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know whether to feel glad or sad.’

‘I never do these days,’ whispered Rodney. Affection softened his florid face as he added hurriedly, ‘Except about you.’

‘Aaaah,’ said Betty, so loudly that several heads craned to identify the source. They heard her, oblivious to them, saying, ‘I’d kiss you if we weren’t in church.’

In front of them, the ravishing Liz Badger whispered into the immaculate right ear of her husband, ‘Maybe Gerry isn’t getting married after all. Maybe you’ll still have cause to feel jealous.’

‘Liz!’ Neville’s protest was too heartfelt to be contained in a whisper. ‘I respect you far too much to feel that I need ever feel jealous.’

‘Oh, Neville,’ whispered Liz. ‘You’re hopeless.’

The clock struck the half hour.

‘Five more minutes,’ whispered the vicar.

Gerry’s lips twitched. ‘Your precious councillor will have to wait, vicar,’ he hissed. ‘I think you should know that I just happen to be the prospective Social Liberal Democratic parliamentary candidate for Hindhead.’

The vicar smiled thinly. ‘He’s a serving councillor, not prospective. And he’s chairman of the Tower Appeal Fund Committee. Five minutes.’

The hum of conversation grew louder still. Leslie Horton’s playing grew slower. The sun lit up the garish battle scenes in the modern stained-glass window, dedicated to the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

Ted’s eyes were drawn to Liz’s again and he realised that he was smiling. Hurriedly he tried to look horrified.

The new young vicar made a signal to Gerry.

Gerry nodded resignedly. A crescent of blue, reflected from a stained-glass window, was falling across his face.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the vicar. ‘It looks as if something has happened. I’m afraid we have no alternative, for the moment, as we have further nuptials pending on a tight schedule at this ever-popular venue, but to respectfully suspend the wedding for the moment. Mr Horton, would you please play us out?’

Leslie Horton, water-bailiff and organist, who hated to be called Les, would wonder to the end of his days why he played ‘The Wedding March ’ at that moment.

The vicar raised his eyes to heaven, but received no immediate help.

In the town the traffic moved slowly. A police horse, en route to football duty, crapped hugely outside the Abbey National Building Society. Four overweight railway enthusiasts, sitting on the top deck of a bright yellow corporation bus, with engine numbers in their notebooks and no rings on their fingers, peered at the hats and morning dresses without envy, so far removed from any of their remaining hopes was the glittering scene. A six-year-old girl with an empty water pistol said, ‘There’s no bride. Mam, there’s no bride.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said her mam, giving her a whack for her accuracy.

The wedding guests stood uneasily in the tactless sunshine. The women had to hold onto their hats as another gust announced the fragility of the fine weather. The men found no opportunity to wear their top hats and wondered why they had hired them. The funny little man with big ears who turned up unbidden at all the weddings walked slowly away, shaking his head.