Mark Haddon - A Spot Of Bother

It all seemed rather different now that George had gone down the same route himself, and when he recalled John McLintock saying that David was never really “one of us” he could hear the sour grapes.

“Good to see you.” David squeezed George’s hand. “Even if the circumstances aren’t the cheeriest.”

“Susan didn’t seem good.”

“Oh, I think Susan will be all right.”

Today, for example, David was wearing a black suit and a gray roll-neck sweater. Other people might think it disrespectful, but George could see now that it was simply a different way of doing things. No longer being part of the crowd.

“Keeping busy?” asked George.

David laughed. “I thought the point of retiring was that we no longer had to be busy.”

George laughed. “I guess so.”

“Well, I suppose we’d better do our duty.” David turned toward the door of the village hall.

George rarely felt the desire to prolong a conversation with anyone, but David, he realized, was in the same boat as himself, and it was good to be chatting with someone in the same boat. Better certainly than eating sausage rolls and talking about death.

“Got through the World’s Hundred Best Novels?”

“You have a frighteningly good memory.” David laughed again. “Gave up at Proust. Too much like hard work. Doing Dickens instead. Seven down, eight to go.”

George talked about the studio. David talked about his recent walking holiday in the Pyrenees (“Three thousand meters above sea level and there’s butterflies everywhere”). They congratulated themselves on leaving Shepherds before Jim Bowman subcontracted the maintenance and that girl from Stevenage lost her foot.

“Come on,” said David, ushering George toward the double doors. “We’re going to be in trouble if we’re found enjoying ourselves out here.”

There were footsteps on the gravel and George turned to see Jean approaching.

“Forgot my handbag.”

George said, “I bumped into David.”

Jean seemed a little flustered. “David. Hello.”

“Jean,” said David, holding out his hand. “How nice to see you.”

“I was thinking,” said George, “it would be a nice idea to invite David round for dinner sometime.”

Jean and David looked a little startled and he realized that clapping his hands together and broaching the idea so gleefully was perhaps inappropriate on such a solemn occasion.

“Oh,” said David, “I don’t want Jean slaving over a hot stove on my account.”

“I’m sure Jean would enjoy some relief from my company.” George put his hands into his trouser pockets. “And if you’re willing to take your life in your hands I can run up a passable risotto myself.”

“Well…”

“How about the weekend after next? Saturday night?”

Jean threw George a glance which made him wonder briefly whether there was some important fact about David which he had overlooked in his enthusiasm, that he was vegetarian, for example, or had not flushed the toilet on a previous visit.

But she took a deep breath and smiled and said, “OK.”

“I’m not sure I’m free on Saturday,” said David. “It’s a lovely idea…”

“Sunday, then,” said George.

David pursed his lips and nodded. “Sunday it is, then.”

“Good. I’ll look forward to it.” George held open the double doors. “Let’s mingle.”

Katie dropped Jacob offwith Max and left the two of them playing swordfights with wooden spoons in June’s kitchen.

Then she and Ray headed into town and had a minor disagreement at the printers. Ray thought the number of gold twirls on an invitation was a measure of how much you loved someone, which was odd for a man who thought colored socks were for girls. Whereas the ones Katie preferred looked like invitations to accounting seminars apparently.

Ray held up his favorite design and Katie said it looked like an invite to Prince Charming’s coming-out party. At which point the man behind the counter said, “Well, I don’t want to be around when you two choose the menu.”

Things went more smoothly at the jeweler’s. Ray liked the idea of them both having the same ring and there was no way he was wearing anything more than a plain gold band. The jeweler asked if they wanted inscriptions and Katie was temporarily flummoxed. Did wedding rings have inscriptions?

“On the inside, usually,” said the man. “The date of the wedding. Or perhaps some kind of endearment.” He was clearly a man who ironed his underwear.

“Or a return address,” said Katie. “Like on a dog.”

Ray laughed, because the man looked uncomfortable and Ray didn’t like men who ironed their underwear. “We’ll take two.”

They had lunch in Covent Garden and drew up guest lists over pizza.

Ray’s was short. He didn’t really do friends. He’d talk to strangers on the bus and go for a pint with pretty much anyone. But he never hung on to people for the long haul. When he and Diana split up, he moved out of the flat, said goodbye to the mutual friends and applied for a new job in London. He hadn’t seen his best man in three years. An old rugby friend, apparently, which didn’t put her mind at ease.

“Got pulled over by police on the M5 once,” said Ray. “Wing walking on a Volvo roof rack.”

“Wing walking?”

“It’s OK,” said Ray. “He’s a dentist now.” Which was worrying in a different way.

Her own list was more complex, on account of far too many friends, all of whom had some inviolable claim to an invite (Mona was there when Jacob was born; Sandra put them up for a month when Graham left; Jenny had MS which meant you always felt crap if you didn’t invite her to things even though, in truth, she was bloody hard work…). Accommodating them all would need an aircraft hangar, and every time she added a name or crossed it out she pictured the coven getting together and comparing notes.

“Overshoot,” said Ray, “like airlines. Assume 15 percent won’t turn up. Hold a few seats back.”

“Fifteen percent?” asked Katie. “Is that, like, the standard drop-out rate for weddings?”

“No,” said Ray. “I just like to sound as if I know what I’m talking about.”

She gripped a little roll of flesh just above his belt. “At least there’s one person in your life who can spot when you’re talking bollocks.”

Ray stole an olive from her pizza. “That’s a compliment, right?”

They discussed stag and hen nights. Last time round he’d been thrown naked into the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, she’d been groped by a fireman in a posing pouch, and they’d both been sick in the toilet of an Indian restaurant. They decided to go out for a candlelit meal. Just the two of them.

It was getting late and their best man and woman were arriving for supper at eight. So they headed home, scooping up Jacob on the way. He had a cut on his forehead where Max had hit him with a garlic press. But Jacob had ripped Max’s tarantula T-shirt. They were clearly still friends so Katie decided not to probe.

Back at the ranch she arranged the chicken breasts in a baking tray and poured the sauce over them and wondered whether Sarah had been a wise choice. To be scrupulously honest she’d been picked as an act of retaliation. A gobby solicitor who could give rugby players a run for their money.

It was beginning to dawn on Katie that retaliation might not be the best motive for selecting a best woman.

But when Ed arrived he seemed nervous mostly. A large, ruddy-cheeked man, more farmer than dentist. He’d filled out since posing for the team photo in Ray’s office and it was difficult to imagine him getting onto the roof of a stationary Volvo let alone a moving one.