Mark Haddon - A Spot Of Bother

He’d sleep on the sofa at his parents’ house tonight. Or in the marquee.

He packed his bags, checked the coast was clear, then tiptoed down the stairs. He was opening the door when the portly man-woman loomed out of the kitchen doorway, saying, “Would you like some breakfast?” and Jamie just ran.

Katie was lyingin a deck chair on the roof terrace. She was looking down over Barcelona. But the terrace was the terrace outside their room in that hotel in San Gimignano. And she could see the ocean which you couldn’t in San Gimignano. The air smelt of something halfway between sun lotion and really good vanilla custard. Jacob was asleep, or staying with Mum and Dad in England, or just generally absent in a way that didn’t make her anxious. And actually it was a hammock not a deck chair.

Then Ray trod on the Playmobil knight and yelled, and Jacob yelled because Ray had broken the Playmobil knight and Katie was awake and she was getting married today and it was probably a moment you had to stop and savor, but savoring wasn’t really possible because by the time she’d brushed her teeth and washed her face the caterers were downstairs wondering how much of the kitchen they could colonize, so she had to jump-start Mum, and then Jacob was upset because Ronnie had finished the Bran Flakes and instead of apologizing or offering to go out and get some more from the village shop he was giving Jacob a sermonette on not always being able to have what you want, though the problem had been caused by Ronnie doing precisely that. Then Ed turned up and trod in the monumental pile of crap their bloody dog had left in the middle of the path and it was clearly going to carry on in this fashion pretty much till the end of the day.

Jamie drove awayso fast he produced a tire squeal exiting the cul-de-sac.

He carried on feeling embarrassed by his behavior till he reached the main road when he slowed down and reminded himself that it was a genuinely crap bed-and-breakfast, that the owner was rude as well as strange (female to male transsexual was Jamie’s bet, but it wouldn’t be a very big bet), and Jamie was only staying there because he’d been ignominiously turfed out of his own bedroom (he had forgotten to pay, hadn’t he; sod it, he’d sort that out later). So he stopped feeling ashamed and felt indignant, which was healthier.

Then he imagined telling Katie the whole story (complete with the knitted loo roll covers and tire squeals) and wondering aloud precisely which guidebooks his mother had consulted in the library, and the indignation turned into amusement, which was healthier still.

By the time he pulled up outside his parents’ house he was feeling rather pleased with himself. Running away was not something he did. He tidied hotel rooms and sat through bad films and occasionally pretended to other people that Tony was just a very good friend. Which wasn’t good for the soul.

He used to hate it when Tony complained in restaurants or held Jamie’s hand ostentatiously in public places. But now Tony wasn’t around Jamie could see how important it was. And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss about what other people thought. Sending stale naan bread back to the kitchen. Kissing with tongues on Blackfriars Bridge.

A train of thought which came to a crescendo as he entered the kitchen where, fittingly, Eileen and Ronnie were eating breakfast. At which point he felt Tony beside him, in spirit if not in body, and Jamie realized that whatever Eileen and Ronnie might think (that he needed saving, or castrating, or putting behind bars), deep down they were petrified of him. Which made him feel a bit like Batman, who looked evil, though he was actually good.

So he said, “Hullo, Eileen. Hullo, Ronnie,” and gave them a broad smile. “I hope you slept well.”

Then he patted them both on the shoulder and spun round, and the air in the kitchen filled with his black cloak and he swept majestically across the dining room in his matching leather boots and codpiece, through the hallway into the downstairs loo.

Which seemed to act like a short-range time machine because when he flushed the toilet and stepped back out into the hallway it was like the concourse at Euston, Eileen going one way, his sister and mother going the other, Jacob being a fighter plane, the Christian hound yowling and two startlingly redheaded women he didn’t recognize standing in the kitchen doorway wearing white uniforms.

Katie said, “Hi, Jamie,” and vanished.

Ray walked downstairs and came over and whispered, “Not a peep out of your dad last night.”

“Thanks,” said Jamie. “I’ll pop up and say hello.”

“How was the bed-and-breakfast?” asked Ray.

“Not good,” said Jamie.

“Katie told me about your room being nicked by the happy clappers,” said Ray. “I think they might have been exorcising it.”

Jamie got to the landing and realized he’d been a bit distracted and hadn’t responded to Ray’s joke, which probably came over as rude. Never mind. His father was more important right now.

He knocked on the bedroom door.

“Come in,” said his father. He sounded reassuringly buoyant.

Jamie went in and found him sitting fully dressed on the side of the bed.

“You’re here,” said his father. “Good.” He slapped his hands onto his knees in a ready-for-action kind of way.

“How are you?” asked Jamie.

“Changed my mind,” said his father.

“About what?”

“Really can’t come to the wedding.”

“Hang on a minute,” said Jamie.

“Now, I could go to a hotel,” said his father. “But, to be honest with you, I’ve had my fill of hotels recently.”

Jamie was not sure how to respond to this. His father looked and sounded completely sane. Except that he was clearly not.

“Obviously I can’t take the car because your mother is going to need that to get to the register office. And if I simply start walking from here I’m bound to be seen by someone who recognizes me.” His father slipped an Ordnance Survey map out from under the mattress. “But you have a car.” He unfolded the map and pointed to Folksworth. “If you were able to drop me somewhere round about here I could walk on footpaths for ten, fifteen miles without crossing a major road.”

“Right,” said Jamie.

“If you could put my big waterproof and a thermos of tea in the boot, that would be helpful.” His father refolded the Ordnance Survey map and slipped it back under the mattress. “Some biscuits would be good, too, if that were possible.”

“Some biscuits,” said Jamie.

“Something plain. Digestives. That kind of thing. Nothing too chocolatey.”

“Digestives.”

His father took hold of Jamie’s hand and held it. “Thank you. This makes me feel a lot better.”

“Good,” said Jamie.

“You’d better get downstairs and mingle,” said his father. “Don’t want anyone else getting wind of this, do we.”

“No,” said Jamie.

He stood up and went over to the door. He turned round briefly. His father was staring out of the window, rocking from one foot to the other.

Jamie went out onto the landing, closed the door behind him, ran downstairs, grabbed his mobile, shut himself in the toilet for a second time and rang the doctor’s surgery. He was put through to some kind of central weekend control room. He explained that his father was losing his mind. He explained about the scissors and the wedding and the escape plan and the weeping. They said a doctor would be at the house in the next forty-five minutes.