'Quite suitable for the occasion.'
'I was thinking really of stains, you know, custard, chocolate, that kind of thing. There's not much else I can do anything about at this stage.'
'No, all clear. Tie could be tighter.'
Tightening it, he looked her over summarily and said, 'Much better without the hat, no doubt about it.'
They got into the car and drove towards town. He considered their exchange in the hall and some bits, at any rate, of the one in the bedroom just before. They had talked like that a good deal in past weeks, with studious normality, like an English couple in a socialist country, fearful of being eavesdropped upon, conspiring to be dull together. But there was a lot underneath that. When she asked him about the hats she had not looked at him, not really, not properly, any more than he had looked at her when he answered. His enjoyment of pans of the charade was r~ enough but had something hysterical in it. Time to play safe now.
'They couldn't have wished for a better day,' said Muriel.
'No rain forecast before tomorrow.'
'I think it's warm enough to sit out.'
'We'll have to see how it goes.'
And this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee all the way home. A run-through, thought Peter suddenly. A series of rehearsals for being parents-in-law, the very image or images of a decent, comfortable and above all ordinary old couple rather unexpectedly turned back into part of a family some time after anything of that sort had perceptibly lapsed. And of course merely to put on an in-law style when it seemed called for would be very slipshod and insecure; something more fundamental was required. To adapt the concept of the couple in Eastern Europe, this was the period of pre-drop training. On his mind's television screen Peter could see an MI6 man, one of the fashionable aloof but hot-eyed sort, saying he would have them thinking, feeling, dreaming like Darby and loan before they were through. And yes, the new style of talk, which was really only new in quantity, in proportion, had begun to be noticeable just about when or after William had told them he and Rosemary were going to get married.
'Well, now the day's here at last the whole thing seems to have happened rather suddenly,' said Muriel.
'Yes, I suppose it does in a way.'
'And isn't it extraordinary, we've hardly discussed it at all.'
'No, there wasn't a hell of a lot to discuss, really, was there?'
'And now it's too late, whatever conclusion we might come to.'
. For Peter, that exactly defined a signal superiority of this day over its predecessors. He said nevertheless, and not in pursuance of any intention of playing safe, 'Oh, I wouldn't be too sure of that. You'll agree we're still in Wales.'
'What are you talking about?'
'There were some people called Ungoed-Thomas over in Caerhays, related to a cousin of my father's I think. Anyway, there was a daughter there called Gladys, a couple of years older than me. Now Gladys had got hold of an American, can't think how she managed that in Caerhays in those days, but she had - this would have been 1937 or so. Well, it got to the point where Gladys was going to marry her American, and indeed it was all fixed up, ready to go. Haven't told you this story before, have I? No, so the night before the wedding a call comes from Gladys and my parents nip on the train for Caerhays - you could do that in those days. I wish I'd gone too. Would they use their influence to stop Gladys's mam stopping the wedding.'
'And did they?'
'Yes. Marvellous, those two being on the progressive - '
'What could she have done anyway, the old girl? How could she have stopped it?'
'I agree she couldn't have stopped it indefinitely, even in Caerhays in 1937, 'but she could have caused a large upset instead of just a small one. What was interesting was her reason for being against the American. He was an American.'
'I heard you.'
'No, I mean that was the reason. Why the old girl was against him, according to her anyway. Not that it isn't a pretty serious charge in general, but in fact this one was hilariously proper. Name of Foster, Ralph Foster. Funny how you remember things that are nothing to do with you. Professor of physics at Yale University he was. God knows what he'd find to do in Caerhays in 1987, let alone 1937. He was so proper he fell down dead of excitement at a baseball game not many years later, but Gladys was well settled in the States by then.'
After saying she heard him, Muriel had begun wriggling her torso over the back of her seat, arm extended from the shoulder towards a blue-and-white box of tissues on the rear shelf. Having captured it she pushed herself forwards again by degrees, almost rolling over laterally when the car took a fair-sized curve, and twisted round into her original position just as he finished with the baseball game. 'I'm listening,' she said.
'That's it.'
'What?' She pulled down the shade over the top part of the windscreen in front of her and stared at her reflection in the oblong of mirror there while she picked repeatedly. at the tissues. 'What, what's interesting about that?'
'Well. Scene from Welsh life. I thought you liked them. Caption, in Wales you never know.'
'You mean if I could think of something like that I'd try to put a stop to William marrying, what's-her-name, Rosemary, if there was just something I could come up with. Otherwise what's the point?'
'Oh, no. No, no. Of course you're as pleased as I am. Still, she was born in London, and I've noticed you've been getting really quite noticeably Welsh in your old age. I was staggered, quite frankly, when you said just now it was a good thing to be seen in your place on time. You couldn't hope for anything more Welsh than that, not off the cuff. Chapel you'd think we was going to.'
