LITMIR.BIZ

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right,’ said Rita. ‘Who sent you?’

      At the very moment when Rita said, ‘Who sent you?’ Eva Blumenthal, in room 109, was gently rubbing unsalted Welsh butter over the genitals of her husband Fritz, in an effort to alleviate the com chandler’s pain. In the Garden Room, exactly below this touching scene, Jenny was telling her young husband that she felt sick.

      ‘I thought it was only in the mornings,’ said Paul.

      ‘It’s the tension,’ said Jenny. ‘We’ve let the baby down, pretending it doesn’t exist. Who knows what insecurities that may lead to? The science of the unborn baby is in its infancy.’

      ‘Love!’ said her husband of more than three hours. ‘Love!’

      ‘I think I might be going to be sick.’

      ‘Well, walk out calmly. Look natural.’

      ‘“What will they think?”’

      ‘What?’

      ‘They say as men get older they start to resemble their mothers.’

      ‘That’s a dreadful thing to say.’

      Paul walked off in a huff, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

      Neville Badger entered from the garden, with his plate of tuna fish vol-au-vents. He saw Jenny walking slowly away from the buffet, trying to look calm and natural while feeling sick. Suddenly it became absurdly important to him that he shouldn’t be entirely defeated in his efforts to get rid of the vol-au-vents. He hurried over to her.

      ‘Jenny!’ he said. ‘Have a tuna fish vol-au-vent.’

      She gasped, clasped her hand over her mouth, and rushed out.

      Neville Badger stared after her.

      Paul rushed past.

      ‘Paul! Have a …’

      ‘Sorry,’ said Paul, stopping briefly, out of politeness. ‘It was a dreadful thing to say, but it was dreadful of me to say that it was a dreadful thing to say. I mean, in her condition. I mean, on her wedding day. Well, our wedding day.’ Paul felt that this explanation discharged his social obligation to Neville Badger, and hurried off after Jenny.

      Neville stared after him.

      Ted approached. ‘Any luck with Rita?’ he enquired.

      ‘No,’ said Neville. ‘Sorry. Have a tuna fish vol-au-vent.’

      ‘Thanks.’ Ted took a vol-au-vent.

      ‘Tut tut!’ said Laurence, hurrying forward to snatch the pastry case out of Ted’s hand before he could put it in his mouth. ‘Tut tut! You mustn’t eat that. You’re allergic.’

      Laurence put the tired little delicacy back on Neville Badger’s plate, and his eyes met Ted’s.

      How much had Ted done?

      How much did Laurence know?

      ‘Lovely wedding,’ said Betty Sillitoe, who was over-powdered as usual, and she raised her almost empty glass in tribute.

      ‘Thank you,’ said Liz.

      ‘No, I mean it. Really lovely. Really really lovely.’

      ‘Well, they do these things well here.’

      ‘Yes, but the point I’m trying to get across is, it’s been a lovely wedding.’

      ‘The message is getting through, I do assure you,’ said Liz, her voice drier than the champagne, and she hurried on.

      ‘Terrible snobs, those Rodenhursts,’ announced Betty Sillitoe to nobody in particular.

      ‘We’ve made it, haven’t we?’ said her husband Rodney, the big wheel behind Cock-A-Doodle Chickens.

      ‘You what?’ said Ted, who would have been astounded if somebody had pointed out that he was saying ‘What?’ or ‘You what?’ to people who had been on their side of the church, and ‘Pardon?’ or ‘I beg your pardon?’ to the Rodenhursts and their friends and relations.

      ‘In life,’ explained Rodney Sillitoe. ‘We’ve made it in life. Who’d have thought it, a couple of dunces like us at school, and now I’m exporting frozen chicken drumsticks to Botswana and your door knockers in the shape of lions are gracing every front door on a neo-Georgian housing estate in Allwoodley. We’ve made it. Moderately prosperous. Happily married. Stayed the course. Survived. And remained friends. I’ve never told you this, Ted, but your friendship is one of the most important things in my life.’

      ‘Are you drunk?’

      ‘Ted! Do we have to be drunk before we can express affection?’

      ‘No. Sorry. Sorry, Rodney. No, what you said, it … it touched a chord … I mean … it hit a spot. I … sorry.’

      ‘Ted!’ Rodney was alarmed. ‘Is something wrong?’

      ‘No!’ said Ted overemphatically. ‘It’s an auspicious event. A right good do. A happy day. Nobody’s happier than Betty.’

      They looked across at Betty, who waved from the other side of a crush of mixed relations and friends, and gave an unmistakeably drunken lurch.

      ‘Oh Lord,’ said Rodney. ‘I’ll see if I can get her off the premises without a scene, bless her.’

      ‘I envy you,’ said Ted.

      Rita decided that she had summoned up enough reserves of strength to enter the fray. She entered the fray from the garden at exactly the same moment as the happy couple entered it from the hotel.

      Ted approached Rita, and the four of them met in the middle of the room.

      ‘Are you all right?’ asked Ted.

      He was speaking to Rita, but it was Paul who answered.

      ‘She’s been sick,’ he said.

      ‘Sick?’ said Rita.

      ‘Usually only in the mornings, but today in the afternoon,’ said Jenny.

      ‘Oh heck,’ said Ted.

      ‘Everybody! Please!’ shouted Jenny.

      ‘What?’ said Paul.

      ‘I’ve got to, Paul,’ said Jenny. ‘Everybody! Please! I have an announcement!’

      Paul and Jenny stood with their backs to the remains of the cake. The guests gathered from the comers of the room, they poured in from the garden, uncles and aunts, friends and colleagues, Simcocks and Rodenhursts, cousins once, twice and three times removed, people who were longing to go home, people who were hoping it would go on for hours because they never knew what to do after a wedding, you felt flat and not entirely sober and there was the whole evening still to go, and you wished it was the first night of your honeymoon. Even Percy and Clarrie Spragg, who had been nodding off peacefully in a comer, perked up and hobbled painfully over to join the throng.

      The only guests who were not gathered round to hear Jenny’s announcement were the Reverend and Mrs Thoroughgood, Rodney and Betty Sillitoe, Elvis Simcock, Simon Rodenhurst, and Neville Badger. The Reverend and Mrs Thoroughgood had gone to their dark, lonely home; Rodney Sillitoe had managed to get Betty out of the room, but was meeting problems in the lobby; Simon and Elvis were arguing in a far comer of the garden; and Neville Badger was walking in the grounds, tears streaming down his face, telling his dead Jane all about the day’s events while he waited for the moment when he could decently take his leave.

      Jenny looked grimly determined. Paul looked nervous.

      ‘I’m pregnant,’ said Jenny.

      There were some sharp intakes of breath, but nobody said anything.

      ‘We should have told you when we found out,’ she ploughed on doggedly. ‘But

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