said Jenny. ‘I’m worried.’
‘He’s gone for a haircut,’ said Ted.
‘A haircut?? During his wedding reception??’
‘It’s probably my fault,’ said Rita. ‘He’d promised to get one, and I ticked him off about it.’
‘Are you thinking of coming on the honeymoon?’ said Jenny.
‘What?’ It was Rita’s tum to look thunderstruck and dismayed.
‘If he goes for a haircut during his reception because you tell him to, he may need you on the honeymoon to tell him what to do.’
Jenny blundered off in tears towards the door, and at that moment Paul entered, rather sheepishly. He hadn’t had a haircut.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘I went for a walk. I was nervous.’
‘That’s not much of a haircut,’ said Jenny. ‘Was it worth it, I ask myself.’ And she stormed out of the room.
‘Oh heck,’ said Paul.
Now it was a wonderful summer’s afternoon, cloudless, windless. The buzzing hour. Light aircraft. Distant mowers. Imminent wasps. Whatever could buzz, did buzz. How lucky they would have been with the weather, if such considerations had still been important.
The residents having tea on the glass-roofed terrace watched the frantic groom chase the tearful bride along the hotel drive. The families on the putting green flinched as Jenny let her superb train trail along the gravel.
‘Jenny! Come back!’ yelled Paul.
‘Why?’ shouted Jenny, still running at full pelt. She’d been quite an athlete at school. In fact she could have played hockey for the county, if she hadn’t found the atmosphere surrounding organized sport so reactionary.
‘Because it’s your wedding reception,’ gasped Paul through bursting lungs. ‘You’ll always regret it if you spoil it.’
‘That didn’t stop you,’ shouted Jenny. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t go to the pictures while you were out.’
She was fitter than him! He was making no impression on the gap between them. He felt that he was making no impression on the emotional gap either. ‘Jenny!’ he panted. ‘I did it to stop her thinking she could get me to do what she wants any more.’
‘By doing what she wanted? That’s a funny way of showing it,’ shouted Jenny over her shoulder, pounding on towards the Tadcaster Road.
She was drawing away from him! He felt a pang of sexist humiliation. He felt a pang of guilt at feeling a pang of sexist humiliation. He struggled on desperately. ‘I never intended to have my hair cut,’ he croaked. ‘I just wanted to frighten her. That’s all, love. Oh, Jenny, please! I love you! I love you!’
Paul’s shouted endearments caused a sentimental chemist to miss a two-foot putt on the seventh hole. It also caused Jenny to turn and wait for him. She held out her arms, and he buried himself in her loveliness. They clung to each other, motionless. Eva Blumenthal, a florist from Freiburg, watching their youthful embrace with delight and not a little envy, missed the teacup at which she was aiming and poured half a pot of scalding tea down the crotch of her husband Fritz, a com chandler from the same ancient city. They play little further part in this tale, and sympathetic readers should be assured that they are happily married, with two boys, one daughter, a labrador and a BMW, and that they enjoyed their holiday, except for the ruining of a pair of Italian trousers and a Saturday night.
Paul and Jenny set off slowly back towards their reception, blissfully unaware that they were the object of so much attention.
‘I don’t want to lie to you,’ said Paul. ‘I did intend to have my hair cut.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘There was a queue. Just as I got to the front a man barged in in front of me. Just because he had an appointment. I saw red and stormed out.’
‘What a stormy day.’
‘Well … I’m on edge. Weddings.’
‘I know.’
‘Come on,’ said Paul, increasing his pace sharply. ‘Everybody must be wondering where I am.’
‘Yes,’ said Jenny doubtfully.
‘Anyway, it all ended up all right. I’ve taught her a lesson, and I haven’t had the haircut she wanted.’
‘I wish you would have a haircut,’ said Jenny.
‘What chance have they got?’ said Rita, after the happy couple had returned and normality had been largely restored.
‘They’ll sort it out,’ said Ted. ‘You’ll see.’
There were distinct signs of impending speeches. The best man, the uncouth Neil Hodgson, was sorting the tele-messages and looking sick.
‘What does marriage mean these days?’ said Rita.
‘Love! Give them a chance.’
‘What does our marriage mean?’
‘Love! It means I love you, love.’
‘Do you?’
‘Love! I mean … really!’
‘I’m frightened for them. I mean … what chance have they got if they haven’t got any back-up?’
‘Back-up?’
‘Our two families making a real effort to be friendly to each other.’
‘I’m doing my bit,’ said Ted.
Laurence Rodenhurst made quite a good speech, which drew a few modest laughs from the guests. His Aunt Gladys from Oswestry described it as ‘very appropriate’. She employed understatement in her choice of adjectives almost as much as the classless Nigel Thick used overstatement, and Laurence, a boy again, as always in her presence, blushed with pleasure at this high praise. ‘At least the bridegroom was brief,’ was her comment on Paul, but she couldn’t bring this degree of enthusiasm to the uncouth Neil Hodgson’s reading of the telegrams. She refused to call them tele-messages. And if ‘Get Stuck In’ was considered a suitable message from a teacher, it was no wonder that the nation was full of vandals and hooligans and drug addicts and sex maniacs and anarchists and businessmen who couldn’t speak a word of Japanese.
Then there was the cutting of the cake. Soon that great three-tiered masterpiece, created by the Vale of York Bakery in Slaughterhouse Lane, would be travelling in tiny wedges in white boxes to distant, not-quite-forgotten relatives in Braemar, Vancouver and Alice Springs.
Now, as Laurence had arranged, the two waitresses took up permanent station at the champagne table, in the hope that this would deter all but the most unashamedly avid consumers of free booze. The waitresses couldn’t afford to buy champagne, on their wages, and yet the smiles of this good-natured duo were a great deal less tired than their feet, even with people who treated
