She nodded. ‘All right, I swear. I’ll no’ do nothing embarrassing.’ Pausing for a second to dig those horrible Brazilian pants out of her undercarriage.
‘Good. Thank you.’ Susan smoothed down Roberta’s lapels. ‘Come on then.’ Took her arm and swept them both into the ballroom.
Very swanky. Well, if your idea of swanky was a large oak-panelled room lined with enough stuffed animals to start a very creepy zoo. There was even a bear in the corner, standing at full stretch, paws and claws out for the lads. More twee oil paintings, medieval weapons, and a big carved coat of arms. All the tables arranged around the outside of a wooden dance floor.
And, if that wasn’t swanky enough, a string quartet perched on a podium off to one side, played what sounded like ABBA covers as the assembled idiots meandered to their allotted seats.
Every table but one was decked out in blue. Blue table runners, blue streamers, blue balloons bobbing bluely above blue-themed floral centrepieces. Each with its table name on a sign mounted in the middle, surrounded by bottles of wine and party poppers.
The odd one out was decked in red, for some reason, banished to the opposite corner, by the door marked ‘TOILETS’.
Susan led the way across to one of the blue tables near the front, where a couple of oldies were already sitting and shaking hands with one another.
Roberta squinted up at the sign – nice big letters, which was a help. Gold on a blue background, like the rosettes. Now, what did it say...? Ah, yes: ‘MICHAELHESELTINE’.
Really?
Wait: why would anyone call a table ‘Michael Heseltine’?
Didn’t make any sense.
She fumbled her glasses from her jacket pocket and stuck them on. Turned to look around the room. Mouth falling open in disbelief. ‘Oh, you havegotto be kidding!’
The next table over was, ‘NIGELLAWSON’. ‘JOHNMAJOR’ squatted next to that, then ‘NORMANLAMONT’, on and on the horror went: ‘GEOFFREYHOWE’, ‘KENNETHCLARKE’, ‘NORMANTEBBIT’, ‘DOUGLASHURD’...
The only tablenotnamed after a member of Margaret Bloody Thatcher’s cabinet was the one draped in red: ‘TERRIBLETROTSKYITES’.
Roberta pulled off her glasses and stared at Susan. ‘You... It’s... We...’ Mouth working like a drowning goldfish.
‘Now, Robbie, youpromised!’
‘It’s... We’re...’
An older gent in a morning suit appeared from the other side of the table, bringing a matronly woman with him, the pair of them wearing far too much jewellery for people in theirmid-sixties. He grabbed Susan for a kiss on the cheek. ‘Susan, darling, don’t you scrub up well? I mean, it’s not like you’re abag ladyin the office, but—’
‘Honestly!’ The woman elbowed him. ‘Feet out of your mouth, Morty, while you’ve still got socks on.’
Roberta gawped up at ‘MICHAELHESELTINE’ again. ‘How could... It’s...’
‘Ha. Quite right, Agatha. Foot removal it is! Sorry, Susan. Senior partner having a senior moment, there.’
Susan beamed at the pair of them. ‘Mortimer, Agatha, wasn’t it a lovely ceremony?’
MichaelHeseltine? ‘I can’t...’
The Agatha woman gave Susan a mwah-mwah. ‘Oh, I was bawling my eyes out the whole way through. Love a good wedding, me.’ She turned a Steradent smile on Roberta. ‘Agatha Beresford. You must be the famous police hero we’ve heard so much about!’ She moved in for another mwah-mwah.
But Roberta finally got her gob working again: ‘It’s a Tory wedding! It’s all Tories! Everywhere!’ Spinning around, staring out at the bastards. ‘All of them!’
‘Ha, ha...’ Susan simpered at Agatha and Mortimer. ‘Robbie’s such a card, isn’t she? If you could excuse us forjusta second...’ She grabbed Roberta’s arm again and dragged her off to the middle of the dance floor. ‘Youpromised!’
What had that got to do with anything?
‘You took me to a Tory wedding! It’s wall-to-wall Tories in here! Tories!’
‘You promised on Mr Rumpole’s life!AndStalin’s!’
Roberta turned, pointing at the solitary table flying the red flag. ‘Why can’t we sit with the Terrible Trotskyists?’
