Fair Do’s. David Nobbs

Liz seemed contrite. ‘But Mr and Mrs Frozen Drumstick selling nut cutlets!’

      ‘Why does everybody think vegetarian food is just funny laughable old nut cutlets?’ protested Betty.

      Liz’s dainty hand fluttered to her neck, to be impaled there, a dying butterfly. ‘My God! You’re serious converts,’ she said, and laughed again, a less elegant laugh, a magpie’s malicious cackle.

      ‘Liz!’ said Neville.

      ‘Oh Lord,’ said Liz. ‘I shouldn’t laugh at anything today, should I? Sorry, Neville. Social lapse over.’

      There was an uneasy pause. Neville, usually the first to fill uneasy pauses, leapt in. ‘Can I get you two a drink?’ he asked, before remembering that it wasn’t wise to offer the Sillitoes drinks.

      ‘Oh thank you,’ said Betty. ‘Grape juice, please.’

      ‘Apple juice, please,’ said Rodney.

      This time Liz’s laugh was an owl’s hoot.

      ‘Liz!’ said Neville.

      

      It would have been impossible for all the guests to have remained hushed all afternoon. It would have been unnatural if they had all continued to behave unnaturally all afternoon. So, as the sun dipped, as clouds bubbled up in the increasingly unstable air, as champagne flowed and sea trout slithered down throats, and an Egyptian cherry tomato with no respect for class squirted down the waistcoat of a merchant banker from Abinger Hammer, it was only natural that stories should be told, that laughter should be heard, that cautiously desirous looks should be exchanged between the head waiter at Chez Albert and the mysterious yellow lady whose blonde hair might have been natural.

      By the time Simon Rodenhurst, of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, approached the cynical Elvis Simcock and his long-haired fiancée, Carol Fordingbridge, a casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking that it was a happy occasion.

      ‘Hello,’ said Simon. ‘What an extraordinary … er … what can I say? What can one say? I’m … er … I’m …’

      ‘This is an unprecedented moment in our island’s history, Carol,’ said Elvis. ‘An estate agent lost for words.’

      ‘Here we go again,’ sighed Simon. ‘It’s bash an estate agent time. It’s mock an easy target time.’

      ‘You could say the situation leaves considerable scope for improvement,’ said Elvis. ‘Which is estate agent-ese for a ginormous cock-up.’

      ‘Except it isn’t,’ said Carol, who looked charming in an apricot crêpe, short-sleeved, belted dress.

      ‘What?’ said Elvis.

      ‘You never wanted your mum to marry him.’

      ‘No, but … I didn’t want her to do that to him.’

      ‘I believe you’re starting to like him now he isn’t going to be your new father.’

      ‘Well … he’s quite a nice bloke.’

      Carol was appalled. ‘He’s a faceless, ambitious, self-satisfied, crummy, crappy, yuppie smoothie prig,’ she said.

      ‘He’s quite a nice faceless, ambitious, self-satisfied, crummy, crappy, yuppie smoothie prig.’

      ‘Hey!’ said Simon. ‘When are you two love-birds going to name the day?’

      ‘Poor Simon. Thank God I’m not cursed with good manners,’ said Elvis.

      ‘What?’ said Simon.

      ‘Trying to change the subject so tactfully.’

      ‘Except it wasn’t tactful, was it?’ Both men were shocked by Carol’s vehemence. Vehemence wasn’t her stock-in-trade.

      ‘What?’ said the philosophy graduate feebly.

      ‘He won’t name the date, Simon, till I’ve passed my philosophy finals.’

      ‘What?’ said the bemused young estate agent.

      ‘Oh, bloody hell, stop saying “what” alternately, will yer?’ said this new vehement Carol. ‘I’ve yet to satisfy Elvis, Simon, that I’m a mentally worthy partner for his philosophic journey through life.’

      ‘What?’ said Elvis.

      Carol stormed off, leaving one rather surprised young man and one very surprised young man.

      ‘Women!’ said the very surprised young man.

      ‘I know,’ said the rather surprised young man. ‘They have an uncomfortable habit of hitting on the truth, don’t they?’

      ‘Simon! That was almost clever.’

      ‘I know. I have the occasional flash.’

      ‘How is your sex life?’

      ‘Non-existent.’ Simon dropped his voice. ‘I’ve given it up. That married woman I showed round one of our properties was the last woman I will ever have in my life.’

      ‘That’s funny,’ said Elvis. ‘I had the distinct impression she was the first woman you’d ever had in your life.’

      Simon’s concern for his image wrestled with his need to confess. The need to confess won.

      ‘She was the first woman and the last woman I’ll ever have in my life. I hate sex. It terrifies me,’ he said. ‘There! I’ve admitted it. I’m a happy man, Elvis.’

      

      Simon’s sister Jenny was staring at the fading day, trying to fight back tears as she thought about her own wedding day, only seventeen months ago.

      The sky was dotted with clouds now. Jenny watched their shadows. At her wedding, she had been real. Now she felt that she was a shadow.

      These dark shapes that floated across the neat rectangles of that over-careful garden, what could they be to a young woman so sensitive to the prospect of cosmic disaster but the shadows of strange flying creatures, birds and mammals rendered enormous and grotesque by nuclear radiation on a vast scale, huge deformed multi-breasted limbless freaks with pitted scaly skins? She shuddered and turned away from the horror of it, towards the horror of the pretended normality of the Garden Room. She walked instinctively towards Elvis, her husband’s brother, and he seemed to walk equally instinctively towards her, so that what he said became curiously important to her.

      On the whole, she wished that he hadn’t said, ‘Hello, Jenny. What on earth are you wearing?’

      ‘Thank you,’ she said bitterly. ‘It’s made out of llama wool by very poor Peruvian Indians who need our support.’

      ‘Several llamas died to make it possible,’ said Elvis. ‘And you a vegetarian.’

      ‘Nobody’s ever suggested that having a social conscience is easy, Elvis.’

      At last Elvis noticed that Jenny was close to tears. ‘I’m sorry, Jenny,’ he said, and he looked momentarily surprised at his own sincerity. ‘You look lovely.’ He kissed her, warmly, on her cold cheek. ‘Paul’s a lucky man.’

      ‘So are you.’

      ‘You what?’ Elvis was puzzled.

      ‘Carol’s lovely too.’

      ‘Oh. Yes. Right. Right. You don’t resent her for what she did with Paul, then?’

      ‘Not any more. That’s all over. Sorted out. Helped us to move on to a deeper and ever more satisfying plateau of shared feelings and emotions.’

      ‘So you’re happy?’

      ‘Happy!’ snorted Jenny. ‘I thought you were a philosopher. Happiness is unattainable.’

      Jenny left behind her a rather