A Rather English Marriage Read Free Page B

only teasing. Right-ho. Girls! Is one of you going to come along and make this easier for me? Flicky?’
    Poor old Uncle Reg was standing by himself, looking, his nephew thought with a pang, more than a little disconsolate. Maybe it
was
up to Susan to have checked that something had been arranged.
    Reginald hadn’t given the matter a thought. Had he done so, he would have assumed that Vivian or that tiresome second wife of his - never could remember the woman’s name, why did he have to marry again and confuse matters? – Susan, that was it: Susan would have organized something afterwards.
He
couldn’t be expected to do it - chap on his own. Woman’s job, all that – making out lists, ringing round, organizingvictuals. Might have given him a tinkle, swung into action, offered to take over.
    He looked up civilly as Vivian and his daughter approached, both entirely proper in deepest black. The two girls had blubbed like babies. Never cared that much about Mary while she was alive, surely?
    â€˜Uncle Reg,’ Vivian began. ‘Deepest sympathy. All went off splendidly, I thought - good service, lovely old church. Vicar spoke well, thoroughly decent chap, he seems. What have you got in mind now? Some sort of a gathering? Up at the house, a hotel, anything like that?’
    â€˜Hadn’t thought about it,’ Reginald said, biting back the automatic response: That kind of thing’s Mary’s department. He frowned at his nephew. No good looking at him like that. Too late now. ‘Afraid not.’
    â€˜Not to worry,’ Vivian reassured him. ‘Not a drama. Care to come back to London, join us for dinner tonight? Shouldn’t be left on your own, should he, Felicity?’
    â€˜I shouldn’t have thought so. Come on, Uncle Reggie, we’d really like it if you did,’ the girl urged, nicely enough.
    â€˜Not this evening, thanks all the same,’ Reginald said.
    They turned away, duty done. ‘Well, we tried,’ Vivian told Susan, as the chauffeur pulled away smoothly in the company Rolls. Reginald watched them go with resentment. Bloody cushy number, he thought. All the gubbins. He turned as a tremulous hand was laid on his arm.
    â€˜Dear,
dear
Mary …’ said Mrs Thing, Mary’s friend (bloody woman, what
was
her name? one of the Pennys), and the black flowers nodded tremulously in the brim of her hat.
    The last of the small group made its way past the tranquil pool and across the crazy-paving that surrounded the crematorium, back to where the cars were parked. Reginald would have liked to say ‘Care for a snifter?’ to old Harry, whom he hadn’t seen for - what? Must be a good ten years, more, probably; but Harry was in a wheelchair, and, after expressing the bare minimum of condolences, Harry’s hatchet-faced wife had steered him purposefully away.
    â€˜Decent of you to make it, old boy,’ Reggie called out after him, and Harry lifted a hand from the metal arm of the chair to parody a feeble salute, but without turning round.
    The hushed groan of recorded organ music inside the chapel was switched off and attendants moved about soft-footedly, preparing for the next service and avoiding his eye. Reggie, glancing in, realized there was still someone sitting there. Good God! It was that chap from the hospital - little bloke - what was his name?
    â€˜Care for a snifter?’ said Reggie Conynghame-Jervis.
    â€˜Best wife a chap ever had,’ Reginald was saying, for the third or fourth time that evening. This was a new audience.
    â€˜Never had a crossword. Cross word.’ The barmaid pulled a sentimental face at his companion, a man in a toupée accompanied by a blurred blonde.
Buried today
, she mouthed at them elaborately, not that Reginald would have noticed.
    â€˜Marriagizza wonderful instution,’ he went on. ‘Thoroughly recommend it. Man needs a wife. “Love an marriage love an marriage/Goto