you very much.’ This time Rita almost managed not to sound coy.
Simon beamed at the whole group: Neville and Liz and Rita and Corinna and … Ted!
‘Ted!’ he said.
‘I think you’ve met my fiancée, Corinna,’ said Ted.
‘Yes, we’ve … er … fiancée? Good God!’ Simon gulped. ‘I mean, “Good God is certainly giving us something to celebrate today!” Congratulations!’
Simon was less than overjoyed to see, approaching at a fast lick, and smiling broadly, Andrew Denton, Neville’s nephew, who was in banking in Leeds and not doing as well as had been hoped. Simon was even less overjoyed to see, approaching at a slower lick, Andrew’s wife Judy, whom he had once shown round a house, and then round his flat, and then round his bedroom, and then round his body. He was even less overjoyed to see Judy’s stomach. From what Andrew had said at his mother’s wedding to Neville, Simon was certain that what was in there was the result of the one and only indiscretion in his unintentionally celibate young life.
‘Fiancée!’ said Andrew cheerfully. ‘I heard that! Congratulations! Hello, all. Mrs Simcock! I heard! Congratulations!’
‘Thank you very much.’
Simon tried hard to look at something other than Judy’s stomach.
‘Quite a warm day,’ said Andrew Denton. ‘We won’t need heating. That’s lucky.’
There was a mystified pause.
‘Because we don’t want it to be a baptism of fire,’ he explained. ‘Joke,’ he added.
‘You remember my nephew do you, Simon?’ said Neville.
Curls of grey cloud swirled in from the West. The sun fought feebly, and was gone. The lid came down again. The day pulsed with moist pressure. The greyness, to which they had earlier been reconciled, was terrible now.
‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘Yes, I … er … I … er … yes.’
‘And you know my wife Judy?’ said Andrew. ‘Heavily pregnant, but still lovely.’
‘Yes, I … er … yes, I … I showed her round a … er … a … er …’ Simon was a rabbit frozen before life’s full beam.
‘House,’ said Judy. ‘It was a house, Simon.’
‘Yes. Absolutely. A house.’
‘And here’s the godmother, even more pregnant, but also still lovely,’ said Liz.
Jenny was wheeling her son, Thomas, in an altogether more mundane pram. She did indeed look fairly enormous, being due any day now.
‘Hello, everybody,’ she said. ‘Congratulations, Rita. Fantastic! Fantastic! Ted!’
‘You know my fiancée, don’t you?’ said Ted.
‘Fiancée? Fantastic.’ Jenny tried to invest this ‘fantastic’ with the enthusiasm she had shown in her previous ones. It was a gallant failure. ‘Well … congratulations. What a happy day.’
‘Where’s Paul?’ said Rita nervously.
‘We had a terrible row this morning, and he’s refusing to speak to me, and he wouldn’t come. Oh Lord. I was going to say he has this mystery virus, but I couldn’t lie, but I should have lied, I shouldn’t have spoilt things, not today.’
The suave Doctor Spreckley glared at the Christening party, as if they had no right to be there. There were only thirty-six people gathered round the fifteenth-century font, and he had fifty-eight Belgians in tow. Doctor Spreckley, precise and delicate wielder of instruments at the General and, more frequently, the Nuffield, had thrown himself enthusiastically into the town’s twinning with Namur. He had visited that charming city twice and on each occasion had managed to wield his instrument precisely, if not delicately. Since his wife had left him, because of his unfaithfulness, he had thought of very little except sex and food, and nowhere did that combination seem more promising than in gallant little Belgium. These last few months had seen an incomprehensible falling-off of these appetites, and today he was in a thoroughly sour temper. He no longer felt attracted to his physiotherapist from Liège. His roast beef dinner at the Grand Universal Hotel had been vile – goodness knew what the Belgians must have thought. He was damned if he would deny them a tour of the church just because of some blasted service.
And so, the new young vicar took that small gathering through the service of baptism accompanied by a loud echoing whispered commentary, in vile French, on the charms of his church, and by the tip-toeing of fifty-eight Belgians, many of whom may have been gallant, but very few of whom were little.
The three godparents stood at the front of the gathering, with Jenny between Simon and Andrew. She was holding Thomas, and she was terrified that he would cry.
The congregation recited along with the vicar, temporarily drowning Doctor Spreckley.
‘Heavenly Father, in your love you have called us to know you, led us to trust you …’
Simon did something he hadn’t done since boarding school. He prayed, silently.
‘Oh Lord,’ he said, ‘I expect you know this, well you know everything, but in case you were looking the other way or something … I mean, you must sometimes, you’re only human, well no, you’re not … anyway, the thing is, the only time I’ve ever … you know … it was with the wife of the other godfather. She’s … you know … and I think it’s very probably mine. I’m very sorry and I’ll never … you know … again with anybody ever, but what am I to do? I should never have agreed to take on the moral welfare of this child. Should I back out now? Help me.’
He finished just in time to hear the vicar say, ‘Therefore I ask these questions which you must answer for yourselves and for this child. Do you turn to Christ?’ And the parents and Godparents responded, ‘I turn to Christ.’
What should he say? ‘Sorry, vicar. No can do’?
‘I turn to Christ,’ he said.
‘Do you repent of your sins?’
This time Simon joined the others. ‘I repent of my sins,’ he said, so intensely that Jenny turned to look at him.
‘Do you renounce evil?’
‘I renounce evil.’ Andrew Denton was also surprised by Simon’s intensity.
‘We will now sing …’ The vicar paused to glare at the Belgians. ‘… hymn number one hundred and sixteen, omitting verses four and five.’
The dimly-lit House of God thundered to the uninspired playing of Leslie Horton, water-bailiff and organist, who hated to be called Les.
‘All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,’ sang the congregation.
Rita glanced at Rodney. He looked rough. ‘Rodney’s on his own again,’ she thought.
