Wiggins, who drove a lorry for Jewson’s, and after-wards … well, it would be nice to get the weight off that verruca. She smiled deep in her eyes and got a rather startled look from Ted Simcock.
Ted sighed with instinctive envy of Janet’s Saturday night, as he took his champagne out into the walled garden and approached his wife. There were quite a lot of people in the garden now, but Rita was just sitting there in a far, hidden comer, on a wrought-iron bench all on her own, not looking at anything. All was not well. In front of her there were two urns, in which geraniums, lobelia and begonias were flowering. Beside her there was a hydrangea. Rita had once said that, if she had been born a shrub, she would have been a hydrangea.
‘Rita! What on earth are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Exactly. Come on, love. Please! Mingle!’
‘Why? Nobody wants to talk to me. I see it in their eyes when I approach. “Oh God, here she comes.”’
‘Rita! Love! That’s rubbish. I mean … it is. Absolute rubbish. Now come on! Make an effort, for Paul’s sake. You can do it.’
‘Just give me a minute.’
‘Right.’ He kissed’her. ‘Love!’
He entered the Garden Room, looking back to give her an encouraging ‘see how easy it is’ smile.
Ted’s aim in entering the Garden Room was to summon up reinforcements to deal with Rita. It was family rally-round time. They must show her how much they loved her. Meeting Laurence was a nuisance.
‘Reinforcements for Liz,’ said Laurence, who was carrying two glasses of champagne.
‘Ah.’
‘I’m a lucky man, aren’t I?’
‘Pardon?’
‘My wife’s a very attractive woman.’
‘Yes, I …’ Ted looked briefly into Laurence’s eyes, searching his intentions, wondering how much he knew. He found nothing, just two blue eyes searching his brown eyes. He hoped that Laurence was finding nothing except a pair of brown eyes searching his blue eyes. ‘Yes, I … I suppose she is. I mean … I hadn’t really … well, I mean, I had noticed, you couldn’t not, it sticks out a … but … I mean … it hadn’t exactly … if you see what I … Yes. Yes, I suppose she is. Yes, I suppose you are. Very. Yes.’
‘I thought Paul made a good speech, considering.’
Ted wanted to say, ‘What the hell do you mean – “considering”?’ but actually said, ‘Thank you. I thought he did very well.’
He approached Paul, who was talking with a group of his friends in front of the wrecked cake. ‘Paul?’ he said, and his tone made Paul move away from his friends. ‘Paul? Your mother’s in the garden on her own. She looks lost.’
‘Oh heck. I shouldn’t have gone off like that.’
‘You’re a good lad.’
At the other end of the buffet, the cynical Elvis Simcock was talking to Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch. Replenishments had ceased, and the buffet was now a pretty sad display. There were a few sausage rolls and slices of wet ham wrapped round cubes of pineapple, and quite a mound of tuna fish vol-au-vents, but many of the more popular plates were bare except for a few wisps of cress. Simon was shovelling sausage rolls into his mouth at a speed of which only nurses and people who have been to boarding schools are capable. ‘Give up, Simon,’ Elvis was saying. ‘We’ve tried politics, religion, the royal family, the class system, sex, the nuclear holocaust, the meaning of life, estate agents’ fees, blood sports, cars and Belgian beer, and we haven’t found anything we agree about yet.’
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Ted.
‘Please do,’ mumbled Simon Rodenhurst, sending a thin spray of soggy pastry and suspiciously pink sausage meat over Ted’s suit. ‘Oh Lord,’ he apologized, and his cheeks briefly matched the sausage meat.
Ted asked Elvis to go to the rescue of his mother. The great philosopher looked for a moment as if such a task were beneath him, then did a brief mime of the US cavalry. Ted didn’t understand it, but assumed that it meant that he agreed.
‘Hello, Mum,’ said Paul. ‘Are you all right?’
Rita tried a cheery smile. ‘Fine,’ she said.
High cloud was beginning to move in from the west, and the sun was more watery now. They’d been so lucky, considering.
‘Mum?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I went off like that.’
‘I thought you were going to miss the cutting of the cake. What would they have thought?’
Elvis approached.
‘Oh hello,’ he said, with unwonted heartiness. ‘I wondered where you were, our Mum.’
‘Who sent you?’ said Rita.
‘What?’
‘You’ve both come out to cheer me up. I thought for a moment it was spontaneous.’
‘Surprisingly good speech, I thought, Paul,’ said Elvis, ignoring this, ‘but your friend Neil Hodgson was the worst best man I’ve ever come across. I couldn’t make out whether he was drunk or dyslexic.’
‘Dyslexia’s a very serious condition, Elvis. You shouldn’t make light of it.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Elvis was genuinely contrite. ‘He is dyslexic, is he?’
‘No, he’s drunk, but he could have been.’ Paul grinned triumphantly, then turned serious. ‘It’s yet another proof that this is not a caring society. I mean, fancy calling the condition of not being able to spell by a word nobody can spell.’
‘All this caring about things, Paul,’ said Rita, and Paul turned guiltily towards her. He had almost forgotten she was there. ‘It worries me. You never used to care about things.’
Elvis looked up at a glider drifting peacefully towards Scummock Edge. He wondered how small they looked to the pilot. He wondered how small they really were.
‘You never used to turn a hair about dyslexia among Bolivian tin miners,’ said Rita, unheard by Elvis.
‘They don’t have that problem,’ said Paul.
‘Oh good.’
‘They’re illiterate.’
‘She’s changed you.’
‘Yes. Until I met Jenny I was a great wet slob.’
‘I loved that great wet slob. He was my son.’ Rita burst into tears.
‘Mum!’ said Paul. ‘Mum! What’s wrong?’
‘I’ve worn myself to a frazzle trying to lead a good life. A
