Mark Haddon - A Spot Of Bother

He was unsure what happened next, but it was not elegant, it involved damage to crockery and ended up with him exiting rapidly through the back door.

There was a clatterof plates and Jean turned to find that George had vanished.

After about five seconds of stunned silence Jacob looked up from his bus and said, “Where’s Grandpa?”

“In the garden,” said Ray.

“Right,” said Katie, her jaw hardening.

Jean tried to head her off. “Katie…”

But it was too late. Katie stood and marched out of the room to hunt her father down. There was a second short silence.

“Is Mummy in the garden as well?” asked Jacob.

Jean looked at Ray. “I’m sorry about this.”

Ray looked at Jacob. “Bit of a fiery lady, your old mum.”

“What’s fiery ?” asked Jacob.

“Gets cross, doesn’t she,” said Ray.

Jacob thought for a few moments. “Can we get the submarine out?”

“Come on, then, Captain.”

When Ray and Jacob reached the landing Jean went into the kitchen and stood by the fridge, from where she could see Katie without being seen.

“And water sprays out of the sprayer,” shouted Jacob from upstairs.

“I don’t care what you think, Dad.” Katie was marching up and down the patio waving her arms around like a mad person in a film. “It’s my life. I’m going to marry Ray whether you like it or not.”

Precisely where George was, or what he was doing, it was hard to tell.

“You have no idea. No idea. Ray is kind. Ray is sweet. And you’re entitled to your own opinions. But if you try and stop this we’ll just do it ourselves, OK?”

She seemed to be staring at the ground. Surely George wasn’t lying down?

When he ran out of the room, Jean assumed he’d spilled custard on his trousers or smelt gas and Katie had simply jumped to conclusions. Which was par for the course. But clearly something more serious was happening, and it worried her.

“Well?” asked Katie from the far side of the glass.

There was no answer that Jean could hear.

“Jesus. I give in.”

Katie vanished from the window and there were footsteps down the side of the house. Jean whipped open the fridge door and grabbed a carton of milk. Katie burst through the door, hissed, “What is wrong with that man?” and strode down the hallway.

Jean replaced the milk and waited for George to reappear. When he didn’t, she put the kettle on and went outside.

He was sitting on the patio with his back against the wall and his fingers pressed to his eyes, looking for all the world like that Scottish man who drank cider and slept on the grass outside the magistrates court.

“George?” She bent down in front of him.

He took his hands away from his face. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Jean.

“I just…I was finding it hard to talk,” said George. “And Katie was shouting a lot.”

“Are you OK?”

“I don’t feel terribly well, to be honest,” said George.

“In what way?” She wondered if he had been crying but this seemed ridiculous.

“Having a bit of trouble breathing. Had to get myself some fresh air. Sorry.”

“This wasn’t about Ray, then?”

“Ray?” asked George.

He seemed to have forgotten who Ray was, and this was worrying, too.

“No,” said George. “It wasn’t about Ray.”

She touched his knee. It felt odd. George didn’t like sympathy. He liked Lemsip and a blanket and the room to himself. “How are you feeling now?”

“A little better. Talking to you.”

“We’ll ring the doctor and get you an appointment tomorrow,” said Jean.

“No, not the doctor,” said George, rather insistently.

“Don’t be silly, George.”

She held out her hand. He took it and slowly got to his feet. He was shaking. “Let’s get you inside.”

She felt uneasy. They had reached the age when things went wrong and didn’t always get better. Bob Green’s heart attack. Moira Palmer’s kidney. But at least George was letting her look after him, which made a change. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d walked arm in arm like this.

They stepped through the door and found Katie standing in the middle of the kitchen eating crumble from a bowl.

Jean said, “Your father’s not feeling very well.”

Katie’s eyes narrowed.

Jean continued: “This has nothing to do with you getting married to Ray.”

Katie looked at George and spoke through a mouthful of crumble. “Well, why didn’t you bloody say?”

Jean ushered George into the hallway.

He let go of her hand. “I’ll go and lie down upstairs, I think.”

The two women stood waiting for the dull click of the bedroom door above their heads. Then Katie dumped her empty bowl in the sink. “Thanks for letting me make a complete prat of myself.”

“I don’t think you need any help from me on that score.”

Being alone ina darkened room was not as comforting as George had hoped. He lay on the bed and watched a fly turn randomly in the speckled gray air. To his surprise he missed being shouted at by Katie. Ideally he would like to have done some shouting himself. It seemed like a therapeutic thing to do. But he had never been very good at shouting. Being on the receiving end was probably as close as he was going to get.

The fly came to rest on the tassels of the lampshade.

It was going to be all right. Jean was not going to make him go to the doctor. No one could make him do anything.

He only had to say the word doctor inside his head and he could smell rubber tubing and see that ghost-glow from X-rays on light boxes, the dark mass, doctors in beige side-rooms holding clipboards on their knees and being diplomatic.

He had to distract himself.

The eight American states beginning with the letter M .

Maine. Missouri. Maryland. That was the one everyone forgot. Montana. Mississippi. Or was that just a river?

The door opened.

“Can I come into your cave, Grandpa?”

Without waiting for a reply Jacob raced across the room, climbed onto the bed and stuck his legs under the duvet. “Then the big…the big…the big yellow monster-eating monster can’t get us.”

“I think you’re safe,” said George. “We don’t get many yellow monsters round this way.”

“It’s the yellow monster-eating monster,” said Jacob firmly.

“The yellow monster-eating monster,” said George.

“What’s a Heffalump?” asked Jacob.

“Well, a Heffalump doesn’t actually exist.”

“Is it furry?” asked Jacob.

“It doesn’t exist so…no, it isn’t furry.”

“Does it have wings?”

George had always felt uncomfortable around small children. He knew they were not very clever. That was the point. That was why they went to school. But they could smell fear. They looked you in the eye and asked you to be a bus conductor and it was hard to shake the suspicion that you were being asked to pass some fiendish test.

It did not matter when Jamie and Katie were young. Fathers were not meant to play peepbo or put their hands up a sock and be Mr. Snakey-Snake (Jacob and Jean were inordinately fond of Mr. Snakey-Snake). You built a tree house, administered justice and took control of the kite in strong winds. And that was it.

“Does it have a jet engine or a peller?” asked Jacob.

“Does what have a jet engine or a propeller?” asked George.

“Does this plane have a jet engine or a peller?”

“Well, I think you’re going to have to tell me.”

“What do you think?” asked Jacob.

“I think it probably has a propeller.”