J. Gregson: Brothers

They were serving the desserts now. He took a spoonful of his bombe surprise and raised it with a smile towards his daughter a few yards away. She didn’t see him; he was left waving the spoon awkwardly in front of his face and feeling ridiculous. He put the ice cream and meringue hastily into his mouth and looked again at his notes. He was going to welcome them all here, explain that it was twenty years since he had come to the Lancashire town of Brunton and founded his business. He’d picture himself to them as the naive young man he had certainly not been, so as to imply how far he’d come since then. He’d emphasize how good Brunton had been to him, then say modestly how he hoped that what he had brought to the town had also been good for Brunton.

There would be calls of ‘hear hear!’ and applause then. But he’d hold his hands up modestly and sit down a few seconds later, when he’d told them all to enjoy themselves in this wonderful place. He didn’t need to announce his other speaker, because the toastmaster would do that.

Jim O’Connor finished his dessert, took a final look at his watch, then tapped his glass with the fork he hadn’t used. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a comfort break of no more than ten minutes. Please be back in your seats by then for coffee and petit fours. Oh, and the odd speech. I promise you they’ll be very short!’ There was a little laughter, then a shifting back of chairs, a swift and grateful exit by the men who had been drinking beer earlier in the evening. The noise level rose as people took the opportunity to move round the room and chat to people on other tables.

The toastmaster leaned over the man who’d paid for his services, as for everything else in the evening, and said resentfully, ‘I could have made that announcement for you, sir.’

‘Spur of the moment!’ said Jim, waving an arm vaguely towards the noisy room, as if the gesture could explain things. ‘You’ll get your fee, never fear.’

The man bristled at this coarse reference to money. He shuffled back to his position, standing upright against the wall and staring unseeingly ahead, looking like a small, ageing and rather ridiculous version of a soldier on guard outside Buckingham Palace. O’Connor was already regretting his impulse. The comfort break had been a mistake. He had merely postponed his ordeal, when he could have had it over and done with. He was suddenly desperate to relax. He was getting things out of proportion, a thing he never did in his business life. Sarah was in earnest conversation with the man next to her. Jim whispered in her ear, ‘I’m just slipping out for a breath of air,’ and was gone before she could reply.

The night air was cool and welcoming. He stood for a moment at the top of the steps beneath the house’s high, rounded entrance, looking down the long, very straight drive to the lights of the gatehouse which were all he could discern in the darkness. The family who owned this place had been here since the Norman Conquest, they said. Almost a thousand years. But things had changed — and had changed fastest of all in the last century. They needed to open the place to visitors now. They were glad of people like him to hire the banqueting hall and bring in the money. They were glad to entertain people who would never have been allowed past the gatehouse at one time.

The world belonged to people like him now. To Irish peasants who might once have come to the estate as casual workers in the haymaking season. Move over, Sir Cuthbert or Sir Jasper or whoever you were. Make way for Jim O’Connor and his raft of ways of making a quick buck. This is the twenty-first century, mate. And that stuff about the past was a romantic notion: he’d never been an Irish peasant. He’d had a good education and he’d used that and his rugby to get himself started.

Jim turned and wandered back through the house, taking care not to catch the eye of any of his guests he might meet. He didn’t want to talk now. And least of all did he want to hear the sycophantic small talk which the people he’d invited here might think compulsory if they met their host. He tried the handle of another door, a tall, wide affair, probably oak, he thought. To his surprise, it turned easily and he slipped out into some sort of garden. There was fallen cherry blossom at his feet, thick, pink, almost luminous as his eyes grew used to the pale light from the stars in the clear night sky. He moved around the building, glancing up beyond the high stone wall beside him. There was a wrought-iron gate, not quite closed and latched. He pushed it and walked through to the open area beyond it.

He recognised where he was now. This was the edge of the car park. He could see the rows of neatly parked vehicles, their roofs shining almost white where they caught the light from the crescent moon which was visible in this more open area. Even as he thought how still it was on this early May night, the slightest of breezes swept through the car park, ruffling the dark outlines of the trees away to his right, sighing a little in the tops of their canopies as it passed through them. It was cool and unthreatening out here. Jim O’Connor breathed deeply of the clear, clean air, knowing that soon he would be back in that warm and crowded room and facing the ordeal of his speech. He glanced down to check the time on his wrist before he turned back towards the house and duty.

It was his last conscious action. But he felt the steel of the pistol against his temple, heard the sudden roar of the weapon as the swift and final violence of the bullet ended his life.

‘You heard the news this morning?’

It was a small hotel, allowing a friendly relationship between owner and client, and the proprietor was eager to drop his little bombshell and then talk about it. Murder was better than politics for a conversation — better than most things, better even than sport. You could get into trouble with politics: it was surprising what strong views some people had, whatever the evidence you cited. Sport was pretty safe, but even there you had to be careful; people had their favourite teams and they could be very blinkered. Even worse, the guests could sometimes be totally uninterested in sport. And then you were left at the end of the diving board, without anything to do except tumble into the pool and look silly.

But a good juicy murder was pretty safe. Everyone enjoyed talking about death; everyone enjoyed wondering what the world was coming to. They thought the crime was terrible, but they usually wanted all the details of it with their breakfasts. The older ones often wanted to bring back hanging; he’d got used to that. And he had his reaction ready: you shook your head gravely and retreated into the illusions of how much safer a now long-departed world had been.

These two were young. The woman was quite a looker, with that striking red-brown hair and those bright blue eyes which seemed to be taking in everything and smiling at it, not to mention that healthily curving body beneath. When you wore your white chef’s hat and asked whether they’d enjoyed the food, people thought you didn’t notice how they looked, but you did. He wondered for a few seconds how that little bald-headed bloke with the moustache had got himself a girl like that, but he’d long since ceased to give much time to such speculation. You saw all sorts of couples here, some married, some not. These two were married, he was sure of that. They were easy with each other; they had the air of amused tolerance which he saw only in long-term couples.

They must surely have heard his question, but they gave no sign of it, seeming to be immersed in their choice of cereals from the wide range provided at the side table. The proprietor repeated a little less certainly, ‘I expect you’ve heard the news this morning, Mr Peach?’