learn to be serious without being pompous. Champagne, please.’
Eric Siddall, barman supreme, sidled up as if on castors. ‘There you go, madam,’ he said, handing Rita a glass. ‘Just the job. Tickety-boo.’
‘Thank you, Eric,’ said Rita. ‘Eric! Are you working here now?’
‘As of last Monday fortnight, madam,’ said Eric. ‘There was … let’s say there was a clash of personalities at the golf club.’ He flung a hostile glance towards the bluff, egg-shaped Graham Wintergreen.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Eric,’ said Neville. ‘I noticed you’d gone of course.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Eric excused himself, leaving them regretting that they hadn’t asked him to elaborate.
‘So …’ said Neville, ‘… how are you faring, Rita?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well … in life. At home. The evenings. The nights. Without …’
‘Neville!’ said Liz.
‘Without what?’ asked Rita. ‘Gerry? Any man? Sex?’
‘No! Well, yes.’
‘Neville!’
‘I’m faring well. I’m not the sort of woman who feels incomplete without a man.’
‘Is that a dig at me?’ said Liz.
‘No,’ said Rita. ‘Good heavens, no, Liz. We’re friends now.’
‘Ah.’
‘Subject closed. Feminist speeches over.’ Rita did try to leave it at that. ‘I just hate the idea that without marriage men are fine but women aren’t. Men seem to have managed to project the idea that bachelors are admirable and spinsters are pathetic. As if marriage was an institution for the benefit of women, when it’s clearly almost entirely for the benefit of men.’
‘I see corduroy’s staging a revival,’ said Neville.
‘What?’ Rita and Liz were as united in their bemusement as they had ever been in their lives.
‘I read somewhere that corduroy is making a comeback. I was steering us towards safer waters,’ explained Neville. ‘Sorry.’
‘No. You’re absolutely right,’ said Rita. ‘Let’s try and avoid ructions of any kind, just this once.’
Sandra entered hurriedly and inelegantly with a large pot of tea and a large jug of hot water.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said to the Badgers, ‘but he’s a right dozy ha’p’orth, him.’
‘Sandra!’ Rita sounded appalled.
‘Oh Lord.’ So did Neville.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sandra plonked the tea and water down and picked up the milk jug.
‘You’ll see,’ said Liz.
Ted entered with Corinna.
Sandra dropped the milk jug onto the cups.
‘She’s seen,’ said Liz.
Ted also looked thunderstruck. ‘Oh heck. That’s torn it,’ he said. ‘Come on, Corinna. Let’s leave. It’s best. I mean, it is. Isn’t it?’
But his vision in orange was made of sterner stuff. ‘I don’t want to leave, Ted,’ she said. ‘I enjoy champagne. And I’m not frightened of a waitress. My father’s a bishop.’
Corinna Price-Rodgerson marched forward resolutely. Ted had no option but to follow.
‘Ted! Corinna!’ Neville’s enthusiasm for welcoming new arrivals was a bottomless well. ‘Tea or champagne?’
‘Champagne for me, please,’ said Corinna.
‘There you go, madam,’ said Eric Siddall, barman supreme. ‘No problem. Just the job. They can’t touch you for it.’
‘I think I’ll start with tea,’ said Ted. ‘I’ve got a mouth like an elephant’s …’ he glanced at Corinna, ‘… mouth.’
Ted’s choice of tea involved an encounter with Sandra, lover of cake and, until recently, lover of Ted. Well, so be it. It was unavoidable.
Sandra, who had made a creditable job of clearing up the worst of the mess that she had made, gave Ted a cup of tea and enquired, with suspect solicitude, ‘Do you take sugar, sir?’
Ted was uneasily aware that people were listening.
‘You know I … yes. Two, please,’ he said.
‘Nice to see you again, sir. We haven’t seen you around lately,’ said Sandra.
‘No, I … er … I … er … I’ve been … er …’
‘Tied up? I know how these things happen, sir.’
Jenny came in, carrying an electronic baby link.
‘They’ve put the babies in room 108,’ she announced.
‘They’ve what?’ said Ted.
‘That’s hardly appropriate,’ said Liz. ‘That’s the room he was … put in last time.’
‘Well they say they use that room as a kind of spare because it’s next to the boiler so it’s noisy at ni … What last time?’ said Jenny.
‘I didn’t realise it had ever really gone away,’ said Rita.
They all gave her blank looks.
‘Corduroy,’ she explained.
‘You’re religious,’ Ted told Corinna. ‘Come and have a look at our great Yorkshire abbeys.’
He led Corinna off to admire the paintings.
Rita slipped off without explanation.
‘What last time?’ insisted Jenny.
Neville excused himself without explanation.
‘Mum,’ said Jenny, suddenly alone with Liz. ‘He’s never been to the hotel before. Were you going to say “That’s the room he was conceived in”? Was he conceived during my wedding reception?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ admitted her mother. ‘I was so overjoyed at your marrying your road sweeper that I got carried away.’
‘Oh my God,’ wailed Jenny. ‘No wonder our marriage is going wrong. Oh Lord. I shouldn’t have said that. Not today.’
She
