Mark Haddon - A Spot Of Bother

“I want to play down here.”

“You can come down and play in a little while,” said Katie. “Why don’t you get your Playmobil truck out, eh?” She needed him to be helpful in the next five seconds or a gasket was going to pop.

“Don’t want to,” said Jacob. “It’s boring.”

“I’m serious. You go upstairs now. I’ll be up soon. Here, let me take your coat off.”

“Want my coat on. Want a monster drink.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jacob,” yelled Katie. “Get upstairs. Now.”

For a moment she thought Ray was going to do his famous manly diplomatic routine and persuade Jacob to go quietly upstairs by using mind power and she was going to go apoplectic at the sheer bloody hypocrisy of it all. But Jacob just stamped his feet and said, “I hate you,” and huffed off with the hood of his coat still up, like a very angry gnome.

She turned to Ray, “We were having a cup of coffee together. He’s the father of my child. I wanted a chat. And if you think I’m going to marry anyone who treats me the way you treated me today then you’ve got another think coming.”

Ray stared at her without saying a word. Then he stood up, walked sullenly into the hallway, picked up his jacket and slammed the front door behind him.

Jesus.

She went into the kitchen, gripped the edge of the sink and hung on to it very tightly for about five minutes so she didn’t scare Jacob by screaming or smashing something.

She took a swig of milk from the fridge and walked upstairs. Jacob was sitting on the side of his bed, still in his coat, hood up, looking tense, the way he did after parental arguments, waiting for that taxi to the orphanage.

She sat on the bed and pulled him onto her lap. “I’m sorry I got angry.” She felt him soften as his little arms reached around her. “You get angry sometimes, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, “I get angry with you.”

“But I still love you.”

“I love you, too, Mummy.”

They held each other for a few seconds.

“Where did Daddy Ray go?” asked Jacob.

“He went out. He doesn’t like arguments very much.”

“I don’t like arguments.”

“I know,” said Katie.

She slid the hood from his head, brushed a few flakes of cradle cap from his hair, then kissed him.

“I love you, little squirrel. I love you more than anything in the whole wide world.”

He squiddled free. “I want to play with my truck.”

George took a businto Peterborough and checked into the Cathedral Hotel.

He had never liked expensive hotels. On account of the tipping, mostly. Who did you tip, on what occasions, and how much? Rich people either knew instinctively or didn’t give a damn if they offended the lower orders. Ordinary people like George got it wrong and doubtless ended up with spit in their scrambled eggs.

This time, however, he felt none of that niggling anxiety. He was in shock. There was going to be unpleasantness later. He was in no doubt about that. But, for the moment, it was rather comforting to be in shock.

“Your credit card, sir.”

George took his card back and slid it into his wallet.

“And your room key.” The receptionist turned to a hovering porter. “John, can you show Mr. Hall to his room?”

“I think I can find my own way,” said George.

“Third floor. Turn left.”

Upstairs, he emptied his rucksack onto the bed. He hung the shirts, sweaters and trousers in the wardrobe and folded his underwear in the drawer below. He unpacked the smaller items and arranged them neatly on the table.

He relieved himself, washed his hands, dried them on a ridiculously fluffy towel then rehung it squarely on the heated rail.

He was coping really very well in the circumstances.

He removed a plastic tumbler from its sanitary covering and filled it with whiskey from a small bottle in the minibar. He removed a bag of KP peanuts and consumed both standing at the window looking across the jumbled gray roofscape.

It could not be simpler. A few days in a hotel. Then he would arrange to rent somewhere. A flat in the city, perhaps, or a small village property.

He finished the whiskey and put a further six peanuts into his mouth.

After that his life would be his own. He would be able to decide what to do, who to see, how to spend his time.

Looked at objectively, one could see it as a positive thing.

He crimped the top of the half-eaten peanuts and laid them on the table, then rinsed the tumbler, dried it using one of the complimentary tissues and replaced it beside the sink.

Twelve fifty-two.

A spot of lunch and then a constitutional.

When David had goneJean wandered down to the kitchen in her dressing gown.

Everything glowed a little. The flowers in the wallpaper. The clouds piled in the sky at the end of the garden like snowdrifts.

She made a coffee and a ham sandwich and took a couple of paracetamol for her knee.

And the glow began to fade a little.

Upstairs, when David was holding her, it seemed possible. Putting all of this behind her. Starting a new life. But now that he was gone it seemed preposterous. A wicked idea. Something people did on television.

She looked at the wall clock. She looked at the bills in the toast rack and the cheese plate with the ivy pattern.

She suddenly saw her whole life laid out, like pictures in a photo album. Her and George standing outside the church in Daventry, the wind blowing the leaves off the trees like orange confetti, the real celebration only starting when they left their families behind the following morning and drove to Devon in George’s bottle-green Austin.

Stuck in hospital for a month after Katie was born. George coming in every day with fish-and-chips. Jamie on his red tricycle. The house in Clarendon Lane. Ice on the windows that first winter and frozen flannels you had to crack. It all seemed so solid, so normal, so good.

You looked at someone’s life like that and you never saw what was missing.

She washed up her sandwich plate and stacked it in the rack. The house seemed suddenly rather drab. The scale round the base of the taps. The cracks in the soap. The sad cactus.

Perhaps she wanted too much. Perhaps everyone wanted too much these days. The washer-dryer. The bikini figure. The feelings you had when you were twenty-one.

She headed upstairs and, as she changed into her clothes, she could feel herself slipping back into her old self.

I want to go to bed with you at night and I want to wake up with you in the morning.

David didn’t understand. You could say no. But you couldn’t have that kind of conversation and pretend it never happened.

She missed George.

George read the PeterAckroyd book over a long lunch in a crowded and slightly substandard pizzeria on Westgate.

He had always thought of solitary diners as sad. But now that he was the solitary diner, he felt rather superior. On account of the book, mostly. Learning something while everyone else was wasting time. Like working at night.

After lunch he took a walk. The city center was not the best place for sauntering and it seemed a little absurd to hail a taxi in order to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere, so he began walking through Eastfield toward the ring road.

He would have to collect the car sometime. At night perhaps, to minimize the chance of bumping into Jean. But was it his car? The last thing he wanted was an unseemly argument. Or worse, to be accused of theft. Perhaps, all in all, it might be better to buy a new car.

He was walking in the wrong direction. He should have walked west. But walking west would have taken him toward Jean. And he did not want to be taken toward Jean, however picturesque the countryside in her vicinity.