Kate Atkinson - Case Histories

Quintus suddenly pulled his chair closer to Jackson as if he were going to tell him a secret and in a menacing voice said, "I know your game, Brodie." Jackson tried not to laugh, he had (with little enthusiasm) fitted two wars into his army career and it took more than guys like Quintus rattling their sabers to frighten him. By the look of him Quintus wouldn't last three rounds with a rabbit.

"And what game would that be exactly, Mr. Rain?" Jackson asked but never got to find out because at that moment a particularly manky torn decided it needed to spray its territory and favored Quintus's leg as one of its outposts.

Jackson walked down to the river and found some shade on the rank. He had a squashed sandwich in his pocket that he had bought in Pret a Manger and now he shared it with a group of eager ducks. There was a continual traffic of punts along the river, most of them containing tourists being chauffeured by students, or student types, dressed in straw boaters and striped blazers, the boys in flannels, the girls in unflattering skirts. The tourists were a mixed rag – Japanese, Americans (fewer than before), a lot of Europeans, some unidentifiable (a kind of generic East European), and northerners, who in the torpid air of Cambridge seemed more foreign than the Japs. They all appeared to be thrilled, as if they were having a genuine experience – as if this was how the natives spent their leisure hours – punting down the river and eating cream teas to the sound of the Grantchester clock chiming three. What a load of shite, to quote his father.

"Mr. Brodie! Yoo-hoo, Mr. Brodie!"

Oh, dear God, Jackson thought wearily, was there no escape from them? They were punting, for fuck's sake, or at least Julia was punting, while Amelia watched her from beneath a big floppy sun hat that looked as if it had last seen better days on her mother's head. She was also wearing sunglasses and gave the general impression of someone who'd just been discharged from the hospital after a particularly challenging face-lift.

"What a beautiful day!" Julia shouted to Jackson. "We're going to Grantchester for tea, hop in. You have to come with us, Mr. Brodie."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do," Julia said cheerfully. "Get in. Don't be so curmudgeonly." Jackson hauled himself up from the grass with a sigh and helped pull the punt into the bank. He climbed in awkwardly and Julia laughed and said, "Not a sailor, then, Mr. Brodie?" Why were they still in Cambridge? Were they ever going home? Amelia, at the other end of the vessel, gave him a vague acknowledgment without making eye contact. The last time he saw her she was distraught about the dog's death ("Please, Jackson, please come, I need you"). She'd looked rough, she'd looked like a dog actually, wearing an old dressing gown, and makeup – he'd never seen her in makeup before – it looked terrible, as if she'd applied it in the dark, and she hadn't put her hair up so that it hung in dry hanks around her face. All women come to an age when they're just too old to wear their hair down, even beautiful women with beautiful hair, and neither Amelia nor her hair had ever been beautiful.

Jackson thought it was best if he behaved as if nothing had happened the other night. What had happened the other night? ''I didn't know you were married, Mr. Brodie?" – what the hell was that all about? As if he was an adulterous lover who'd betrayed her. He had never given Amelia Land a single reason to think there was anything between them. Had she really developed a crush on him? (Please, God, no.) Stan Jessop had a crush on Laura Wyre. Were crushes dangerous things? They sounded so harmless.

"Crikey, what happened to you, Mr. Brodie?" Julia was peering at him in a shortsighted way. "You've been in a fight!" Amelia looked at him for the first time, but when he caught her eye she looked away. "How exciting," Julia said.

"It was nothing," Jackson said. (Just someone's trying to kill me. "What day is it today?"

"Tuesday," Julia said promptly.

Amelia grunted something that sounded like "Wednesday."

"Really?" Julia said to her. "Cor lummy, how the days fly, don't they?" (Cor lummy? Who said things like that? Apart from Julia? "I always think," Julia said, "that Wednesdays are violet." Julia seemed

in an exceptionally merry mood. "And Tuesdays are yellow, of course."

''No, they're not," Amelia said. "They're green."

"'Don't be silly," Julia said. "Anyway, today's violet and it's a jolly good day for the Orchard Tea Rooms. We used to go there a lot when we were children. Before Olivia. Didn't we, Milly?"

Amelia had lapsed back into silence and waved a hand vaguely in answer. For the first time since he'd met them they were dressed suitably for the weather. Amelia was wearing a baggy cotton dress and ugly hiking sandals. If she got a good haircut and some decent clothes she'd improve 100 percent. At least Julia wasn't hard on the eye, and she was pretty competent at the punting thing. She was wearing a skimpy top that belonged on a teenager but it revealed her neat, hard biceps (she definitely worked out) and at least she had triceps, unlike Amelia, who had the kind of swinging under-arm flesh that would have made it easy for her to glide among the treetops. Despite the sunshine Amelia had remained pale and uninteresting, whereas Julia had turned the color of toasted cashews. He looked at her, hauling on the pole, fag hanging out the corner of her lipsticked mouth, and thought that she was a good sport and was surprised to realize that he was growing genuinely fond of Julia . And that "good sport" was her language, not his.

"You're looking at my tits, Mr. Brodie."

'"I am not."

"You are so." Julia gave a sudden little yelp of surprise and Jackson swiveled round to see what she was looking at. A middle-aged man was climbing out of the river onto the bank – bollock-naked and skinny and tanned all over. A nudist? They called themselves naturalists now, didn't they? The man toweled himself off and then lay down on the riverbank, completely unselfconsciously, and started reading a book.

''Golly gosh," Julia laughed. "Did you see that? Did you see that, Milly? Is that legal, Mr. Brodie?"

"Not really."

"Wouldn't that be lovely," Julia said, "just to take off all your clothes and plunge into the water? The neo-pagans used to swim naked in Byron's Pool, couldn't you just do that, Mr. Brodie, strip off and dive in?" Julia licked her top lip with her pink cat's tongue and Amelia made an unattractive snorting sound. Jackson suddenly remembered Binky Rain saying that the Lands were "wild girls." It was hard to believe Amelia had ever been wild, but Julia, definitely Julia. He thought he might quite like to swim naked with Julia.

"What was he reading?" Julia asked, and Amelia, who had giver. no sign of having even looked at the naked man, said, "Principle Mathematica," and glared at Jackson.

"More tea, Mr. Brodie?" Julia asked, pouring the tea without waiting for an answer, "And is there honey still for tea? Yes, there most certainly is and we shall have it on our scones. Milly, do you want honey on your scones?"

At least the tea in the Orchard Tea Rooms was decent, unlike Binky's. Julia's little finger had a scar, like a thin silver ring, that ran all the way round it. She had it crooked, in a very ladylike way, as she drank her tea. She caught Jackson looking at it. "Chopped it off," she said breezily. Amelia snorted. "Accidentally," Julia added. Amelia snorted again. "You'll turn into a pig if you carry on like that, Milly," Julia said.

It struck Jackson that he'd asked Binky Rain about the Land girls but he'd never asked the Land girls about Binky Rain. "Binky Rain," Jackson said, "your neighbor, Victor's neighbor?" Julia looked vague. "Cats," Jackson said.