The Fall and Rise of Gordon Coppinger. David Nobbs

       The evening ended, as it had begun, in silence

      We’ve all seen them, those married couples in pubs and restaurants, sitting there in silence, not a word to say to each other. It’s easy to mock, feel a touch of contempt even, forget that maybe they no longer need to talk, know what the other is thinking without any necessity for words. It’s easy to forget that they know so much about each other that it’s almost impossible for them to think of any questions to ask each other. ‘What sort of music do you like?’ would be a devastating admission of lack of interest after twenty-nine years.

      And Sir Gordon and Lady Coppinger had been married now for twenty-nine years. It felt like forty-nine. Their silence was not companionable, not shared. Their silence was prickly, and loud with all the things that were not being said. Their silence was deafening.

      They were sitting at opposite ends of the oval table in the private room on the first floor of the Hoop and Two Colonels. It was a gastropub in these days when pubs in the country can no longer survive without being gastropubs. Sir Gordon liked it because it served largely good, plain, solid English food. Lady Coppinger disliked it for the same reason. If she ate there too often her legs would become even less slim than once they had been. There was nothing unusual about the place except its name. It was the only pub in the world called the Hoop and Two Colonels. Neither Sir Gordon nor Lady Coppinger was remotely interested in why it was so named. There was no money in knowing.

      It cost Sir Gordon quite a sum to book the private room just for the two of them. The restaurant was full of atmosphere, crazy with beams, crammed with dressers laden with old plates. The private room was spare and pale and almost corporate. But it was difficult for them to eat in public. You never knew who’d be watching, finger on the button, ready to Tweet. ‘Saw Sir Gordon and Lady Coppinger at dinner. Hardly spoke. Devoted? I don’t think so.’ Or to phone. ‘You know who those are? Just popping out, sweetest, to phone the papers. Might be a photo opportunity, might bung me a few quid, might be able to get that trellising fixed.’ People! Bastards!

      The private room could seat twenty, so by sitting at the ends they formed a little parody of the aristocracy at home. This evening that just irritated Sir Gordon. This evening he actually wanted to talk. But he couldn’t. He felt as if he was visiting a sick relative in hospital. Time dragged. Opening gambits died on his lips. After the ritual insincere ‘Happy birthday, darling’, the raising of his gin glass and her champagne flute – he hated flutes, he hated champagne – and her insincere ‘Thank you, Gordon’, she couldn’t even bring herself to say ‘darling’ there was an aching silence while they waited to order.

      If one is telling of a meeting in which nothing was said, what can one do but relate what was not said? Prominent in this category, from Sir Gordon, was ‘What sort of a day have you had?’, closely followed by ‘Anybody phoned?’, ‘Any further disasters reported from the care home?’, ‘Has Luke forgotten it’s your birthday again?’, ‘Was Joanna’s card as uninspired as ever?’, and, coming up strongly on the outside, ‘Bought any more shoes today?’

      From his wife there was no such profligacy. One silence strangled all others in their infancy. ‘Have you seen Mandy today?’

      They gave their orders. Lady Coppinger’s ‘I’ll have the coquilles St Jacques and the pork stroganoff’ was a simple statement of defiance against the patriotism on which her husband traded. Sir Gordon’s ‘I’ll have the hare terrine and the Lancashire hotpot’ was spoken with the slight uneasiness that comes with the knowledge that every word one utters in public may be dissected for hidden meaning. The chef might phone the business section of a paper, whose gossip columnist might write, ‘May we expect news of an investment in the north-west from the Sir Gordon Coppinger Group? Certainly on Monday evening at his wife’s birthday dinner Sir Gordon chose not only Lancashire hotpot, but also hare terrine with Cumberland sauce. Straws in the wind? Maybe. But the north-west is one of the few parts of Britain in which Sir Gordon has no business interests.’ And the hare terrine. Woe betide him if he ever came out against hunting. The waiter might remember that hare terrine and accuse him of hypocrisy on Facebook. Bastards, waiters.

      Sadly, people do not always realize how difficult and stressful the lives of the famous are.

      Once again, too, Sir Gordon had to order a bottle of wine that cost in excess of £200. If he didn’t, his wife might wonder about the state of his finances. She might also discover – oh, perish the thought – that he had spent more on a bottle for his brother Hugo than he had on her.

      Once the waiter had gone, Sir Gordon began to wish that he could end the silence, that they could talk, laugh, joke as once they had done. Christina was much more comfortable with the silence than he was. The silence put him at a disadvantage. And he was struck again by that sense of utter loneliness. This was awful. This was weak. He might be many things, but he was never weak. He must speak.

      But to speak would be weak. He mustn’t speak.

      But he couldn’t bear the silence any longer. He spoke.

      His question was hardly worth all the agony that had preceded it.

      ‘Do anything for lunch?’

      The question shrivelled in her gaze.

      ‘Of course not.’

      ‘Why “Of course not”?’

      ‘Gordon, I can’t eat twice in one day.’

      She’d read the article about her appearance in Baden-Baden! She’d seen the comment about her legs!

      The wine arrived and saved him further humiliation for a moment. He spent more than a minute swirling it round his mighty glass and sniffing it.

      When the waiter had gone, the silence was absolute. She crossed her no longer quite so slim legs and the rasping of tights on tights was deafening. It was awful