Mark Haddon - A Spot Of Bother

“Nice day at the office?” asked Tony.

“It was, actually.”

“So why the Mr. Glum vibes?”

“What Mr. Glum vibes?” asked Jamie.

“The fish mouth, the crinkly forehead.”

Jamie slumped backward into the sofa and closed his eyes. “You remember Ray…”

“Ray…?”

“Katie’s boyfriend, Ray.”

“Yu-huh.”

“She’s marrying him.”

“OK.” Tony lit his cigarette. A little strand of burning tobacco fell onto his jeans and went out. “We bundle her into a car and take her to a safe house somewhere in Gloucestershire-”

“Tony…” said Jamie.

“What?”

“Let’s try it again, all right?”

Tony held his hands up in mock-surrender. “Sorry.”

“Katie is marrying Ray,” said Jamie.

“Which is not good.”

“No.”

“So you’re going to try and stop her,” said Tony.

“She’s not in love with him,” said Jamie. “She just wants someone with a steady job and a big house who can help look after Jacob.”

“There are worse reasons for marrying someone.”

“You’d hate him,” said Jamie.

“So?” asked Tony.

“She’s my sister.”

“And you’re going to…what?” asked Tony.

“God knows.”

“This is her life, Jamie. You can’t fight off Anne Bancroft with a crucifix and drag her onto the nearest bus.”

“I’m not trying to stop her.” Jamie was starting to regret this topic of conversation. Tony didn’t know Katie. He’d never met Ray. In truth, Jamie just wanted him to say, You’re absolutely right. But Tony had never said that, to anyone, about anything. Not even when drunk. Especially not when drunk. “It’s her business. Obviously. It’s just-”

“She’s an adult,” said Tony. “She has the right to screw things up.”

Neither of them said anything for a few moments.

“So, am I invited?” Tony blew a little plume of smoke toward the ceiling.

Jamie paused a fraction of a second too long before answering, and Tony did that suspicious thing with his eyebrows. So Jamie had to change tactics on the hoof. “I’m sincerely hoping it’s not going to happen.”

“But if it does?”

There was no point fighting over this. Not now. When Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on the door Tony invited them in for tea. Jamie took a deep breath. “Mum did mention bringing someone.”

“Someone?” said Tony. “Charming.”

“You don’t actually want to come, do you?”

“Why not?” asked Tony.

“Ray’s engineering colleagues, my mother fussing over you-”

“You’re not listening to what I’m saying, are you.” Tony took hold of Jamie’s chin and squished it, the way aunts did when you were a kid. “I would like. To come. To your sister’s wedding. With you.”

A police car tore past the end of the cul-de-sac with its siren going. Tony was still holding Jamie’s chin. Jamie said, “Let’s talk about it later, OK?”

Tony tightened his grip, pulled Jamie toward him and sniffed. “What have you been eating?”

“Choc-ice.”

“God. This thing really has depressed you, hasn’t it.”

“I threw the rest away,” said Jamie.

Tony stubbed out his cigarette. “Go and get me one. I haven’t had a choc-ice since…God, Brighton in about 1987.”

Jamie went into the kitchen, retrieved one of the choc-ices from the bin, rinsed the ketchup from the wrapper and took it back through to the living room.

If his luck was in, Katie would throw a toaster at Ray before September and there wouldn’t be a wedding.

George spread a generoushelping of steroid cream onto the eczema, changed into his building clothes, then went downstairs where he bumped into Jean returning laden from Sainsbury’s.

“How was the doctor?”

“Fine.”

“So…?” asked Jean.

George decided that it was simpler to lie. “Heat stroke, probably. Dehydration. Working out there in the sun without a hat. Not drinking enough water.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“Indeed,” said George.

“I rang Jamie.”

“And?”

“Wasn’t in,” said Jean. “I left a message. Said we’d be sending him an invite. I told him he could bring someone if he wanted.”

“Excellent.”

Jean paused. “Are you all right, George?”

“I am, actually.” He kissed her and headed off to the garden.

He scraped the contents of the bucket into the miniskip, hosed it out, made some fresh mortar and began laying bricks. Another couple of courses and he could think about cementing the door frame into place.

He didn’t have a problem with homosexuality per se. Men having sex with men. One could imagine, if one was in the business of imagining such things, that there were situations where it might happen, situations in which chaps were denied the normal outlets. Military camps. Long sea voyages. One didn’t want to dwell on the plumbing but one could almost see it as a sporting activity. Letting off steam. High spirits. Handshake and a hot shower afterward.

It was the thought of men purchasing furniture together which disturbed him. Men snuggling. More disconcerting, somehow, than shenanigans in public toilets. It gave him the unpleasant feeling that there was a weakness in the very fabric of the world. Like seeing a man hit a woman in the street. Or suddenly not being able to remember the bedroom you had as a child.

Still, things changed. Mobile phones. Thai restaurants. You had to remain elastic or you turned into an angry fossil railing at litter. Besides, Jamie was a sensible young man and if he brought someone along he was bound to be another very sensible young man.

What Ray would make of it Lord only knew.

Interesting. That was what it would be.

He laid another brick.

“Unless I’m very much mistaken,” Dr. Barghoutian had said.

Just covering himself, no doubt.

Jean undressed while Davidwas showering and slipped into the dressing gown he’d left out for her. She wandered over to the bay window and sat on the arm of the chair.

It made her feel attractive. Just being in this room. The cream walls. The wooden floor. The big fish print in the metal frame. It was like one of those rooms you saw in magazines which made you think about living a different life.

She gazed onto the oval lawn. Three shrubs in big stone pots on one side. Three on the other. A folding wooden lounger.

She enjoyed making love, but she enjoyed this too. The way she could think here, without the rest of her life rushing in and crowding her.

Jean rarely spoke about her parents. People simply didn’t understand. They were teenagers before it dawned on them that Auntie Mary from next door was their father’s girlfriend. Everyone pictured some kind of steamy soap opera. But there was no intrigue, no blazing rows. Her father worked in the same bank for forty years and made wooden birdhouses in the cellar. And whatever her mother felt about their bizarre domestic arrangement she never spoke about it, even after Jean’s father died.

Her guess was that she never spoke about it when he was alive either. It happened. Appearances were kept up. End of story.

Jean felt ashamed. As any sane person would. If you kept quiet about it you felt like a liar. If you told the story you felt like something from a circus.

No wonder the children all headed off so fast in such different directions. Eileen to her religion. Douglas to his articulated lorries. And Jean to George.

They met at Betty’s wedding.

There was something formal about him, almost military. Handsome in a way that young men no longer were these days.