She was wearing an inappropriately virginal white satin embroidered three piece suit, with a small flowered headband. She was clutching a small posy of freesias, which she hadn’t had the heart to dump in a rubbish bin.
‘Hello,’ she said brightly.
She walked towards Gerry. The guests parted before her as if she were a line of police horses.
Gerry Lansdown, white-faced, grim-lipped, tried on several expressions without success. Anger. Self-pity. Stoic resignation. Manly dignity. All failed him. He ended up smiling stiffly, sardonically, with eyes that hid everything.
‘Oh, Gerry,’ said Rita. ‘I think this is the worst moment of my life.’
‘I’m not enjoying myself as much as I’d expected, either.’ Gerry whipped her with sarcasm. ‘I can’t quite work out why. Can’t seem to put my finger on it.’
‘Oh, Gerry.’
‘Am I to get some more eloquent explanation of your incredible behaviour?’ asked her jilted fiancé coldly. ‘Or am I to have to make do with “Oh, Gerry”?’
‘Oh, Gerry.’
Janet Hicks, the red-headed waitress, remembered that Rita had smiled at her at the wedding of Jenny and Paul. She hurried up now, to reward that smile with a glass of champagne. Rita nodded her thanks. Janet, a martyr to verrucas, hobbled off.
‘How can I explain?’ said Rita.
‘Try.’
‘Suddenly I just couldn’t.’ Ted had edged his way to the front of the listening throng, and was hanging on his ex-wife’s words. ‘Suddenly I realised that it was a case of “out of the frying pan into the fire”.’
‘I’m a frying pan now. Terrific,’ said Ted.
‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.
‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.
‘Ted!’ Rita was belatedly astounded. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to see you happily launched on your new life.’
‘Oh, Ted.’ Rita turned back from her ex-husband to her ex-fiancé. ‘Oh, Gerry’. What words could begin to explain? ‘For the best part of my adult life I’ve felt like a doormat.’
‘Terrific. Thank you, Rita,’ said Ted.
‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.
‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.
‘I’m a frying pan,’ grumbled Ted. ‘She’s a doormat. What are the boys? Garden gnomes?’
‘Shut up, Ted,’ said Rita.
‘Yes, shut up, Ted,’ echoed Gerry.
For the first time, through the mists of her emotions, Rita saw the rapt, staring faces of the guests. She was appalled.
‘Is everybody listening to us?’ she said. ‘For God’s sake! Please! I’m trying to have a private conversation with my fian … with my ex …’ She shook the freesias in frustration, ‘… with Gerry.’
There was a brief, stunned pause. Neville turned hurriedly to Rodney and said, ‘How were your roses last year, Rodney?’
‘Covered in greenfly,’ said Rodney.
‘Really? Ours weren’t. Isn’t that extraordinary, Liz? Rodney’s roses were covered in greenfly and ours weren’t.’
‘Good old Neville,’ said Liz. ‘First to the social rescue yet again.’
All over the room, trivial conversations were cranked into fragile life, and Rita turned back to face her jilted fiancé, in total privacy, in the middle of the crowd.
‘I’m dreadfully sorry, Gerry,’ she said. ‘And after you’ve paid for all this.’
‘That’s hardly the aspect that upsets me most, Rita.’
‘Oh, Gerry. I had no idea I wasn’t going to be able to go through with it, or I’d have broken it off earlier. I’d have done anything to spare you this humiliation.’
‘I think anybody considering how you and I have behaved today might think it’s your humiliation, not mine.’
‘Thank you, Gerry.’
‘What for?’
‘For making it easier for me by being nasty.’ Rita was shocked by Gerry’s hot, hostile eyes, and tried an altogether less combative approach. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I set out today to marry you. Probably I still love you.’
‘Unfortunately it doesn’t say that in the wedding service.’ There was a remorselessly thorough quality to Gerry’s sarcasm. ‘“Do you take this man probably to love, perhaps to cherish even, in minor illness and in health, maybe almost till death or a long holiday do you part?”’
‘Precisely. So I couldn’t marry you. Look, all this is entirely because of me and because of my life history and how I see my role as a woman.’
‘Ah! Aha!’
‘Well all right. “Ah! Aha!” away. Gerry, I’m afraid I realised that I just don’t want to be a politician’s wife. Your brother said … er …’
‘What did my brother say? Why did I let him give you away? Where is he?’
Rita had found it difficult to decide who should give her away. Her father was dead, she had no brothers, her sons were out of the question. If she chose any other relative, she would offend her remaining relatives. So she had chosen Gerry’s brother and offended them all.
People were trying not to seem interested in how things were going between Rita and Gerry. But they wished, even the most unselfish and thoughtful and well-mannered of them wished, even Neville wished, that they could hear every word.
‘I wanted to face you on your own,’ the lovely bride that wasn’t to be was saying. ‘We were driving along, we were more than half way there, I said, “I can’t go through with it, Nigel.” He took me for a drink.’
‘He didn’t even try to persuade you? The bastard!’
‘He did try to persuade me. It was no use. I had four large gins in the Three Tuns, where my appearance caused quite a sensation. Pool players stopped in mid-clunk. “Nigel,” I said, “I don’t want to be the little woman who fondles his constituents’ babies. I’ve played second fiddle too long. I don’t want to be an appendage. I don’t want to be a smile on his manifesto.”’
‘And what did he say, my wonderful brother?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Rita! You must.’
Yes. She must. In not turning up at the church she had exhausted her capacity for acting against Gerry’s
