Mark Haddon - The Pier Falls - And Other Stories

He took legal advice about what the overexcitable young man at Dagmar-Prestell unhelpfully referred to as “the kidnap” but decided, ultimately, that he did not want to run the risk of a settlement which saw him having his son actually living with him for significant chunks of the year. The separation did not cause him the pain and distress it might have caused someone without his geological self-confidence, but there was a part of his memory which he simply did not visit, and of whose existence other people could only guess, like a locked cellar in a large house from which inexplicable noises might occasionally be heard during the quieter parts of the night, the precise nature of which were irrelevant because the door was bolted fast and only a fool would go down that narrow, mildewed staircase.

His new wife, Emmy, is an actress, and a very good one (the National, the Donmar, some TV, a little film, but still mainly, and passionately, stage), who possesses precisely what he lacks, a commitment to a project larger than herself, and who lacks precisely what he possesses, that solid sense of self whose absence leaves her feeling lost between the job of being one imaginary person and the job of being another imaginary person. He likes her arresting good looks—“Bond Villain’s Assistant” is Sarah’s less than generous description — and the reflected glory therefrom, but in truth it is the mutual absences which have kept their two hearts fond over these last three years. Indeed, thanks to Henrik Ibsen and Gavin’s work schedule this is only the fourth evening they have spent together since early November.

They are sitting now in his parents’ kitchen drinking mugs of tea and wearing makeshift skirts of clean towels while their sodden jeans tumble like acrobats in the dryer. Gavin is feeling jovial. He enjoys a bit of adventure (he is in the process of trying to sell the BBC a documentary series in which he walks the Silk Road) and would happily have trudged five times the distance through snow twice as deep. And if Emmy is not feeling jovial she is warm at last and greatly relieved to have survived Gavin’s overconfident driving.

The good mood continues into and throughout the meal, helped partly by the exceptional quality of the quiche and the pavlova, partly by Gavin’s good humour and partly by the fact that Emmy recently had a very small role in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and is therefore possessed of scandalous gossip about a group of famous actors, some of whom are refusing to age gracefully, and everyone, including Martin who professes to float at some Olympian height above such vulgar tittle-tattle, is agog.

At the end of the meal Sarah insists that her mother stays seated while she clears the table with help from Emmy and Sofie. It is an unspoken tradition that they comply with old-fashioned gender stereotypes while they are here, making a little pantomime of it to show that this is, of course, not how they act at home. They put the kettle on, scrape the leftovers from plates into the green bin below the sink, fill the dishwasher, set it going and return to the dining room with a pot of coffee and two peppermint teas, a small box of which Sofie has brought with her from Durham. They leave the cheese plate in the centre of the table in case the men want to continue grazing.

They take the second set of smaller wineglasses from the cabinet and hand them round. There is brandy, there is Sauternes, a ninety-pound bottle of Château Suduiraut courtesy of Gavin who gets a perverse pleasure from the knowing that no one apart from his father appreciates the extent of his largesse. There is also a three-quid box of After Eights brought by Sarah so as to deliberately undercut the grander gesture she knows her brother was guaranteed to make.

Martin would like some entertainment. It has become a regular thing, a regular thing in which everyone takes part under various levels of duress, a ceremony which dramatises Martin’s dominion over this little court. Reading from a book is acceptable but generally considered a poor effort. Reciting from memory is better. Performing something of one’s own creation beats both if one’s own creation passes muster. Only Sofie is exempted on condition that she does pencil sketches of other family members performing, some of which have been framed and now hang in the hallway beside the downstairs toilet. Emmy never acts because she is too good an actor and no one is allowed to steal Martin’s show. Instead she does low-rent magic tricks, a skill she picked up while performing in an experimental production of The Tempest at the Edinburgh Fringe many years ago (David and Anya still talk about the twenty-pound note which vanished and reappeared inside a mince pie Grandpa was eating). At a low point in diplomatic relations some years back Sarah recited a poem by Sharon Olds which contained the word “cunt,” but her father caught the ball and belted it straight down the pitch into the back of her net by saying he thought it was fantastic and whose turn was it next?

This year marks a period of détente in that department and tonight’s event promises to pass off smoothly. Anya has brought her violin and is planning to play an unaccompanied piece by Leclair which she is learning for her grade 4 exam while her grandfather is planning to play the allegretto con moto from Frank Bridge’s first set of “Miniature Pastorals.” There will be some Tennyson and some Carol Ann Duffy. Emmy will do some mind-reading.

“So,” says Martin, “who is going to get the evening rolling?”

And Sarah says, “Christing shit!” which are very much not words anyone is allowed to say in this room.

In unison they follow her eyes to the French windows, outside which the intruder light has snapped on to reveal a tall black man in a black woolly hat, sporting a big salt-and-pepper beard and wearing a long black coat over camouflage trousers and big black boots. He is looking in at them all as if they are exhibits in a zoo. Or perhaps it is the other way round.

“Who in God’s name is that?” says Gavin.

“I have absolutely no idea,” says Martin, sounding more intrigued than startled.

“Is he a neighbour?” asks Sofie.

“Of course he’s not a bloody neighbour,” says Gavin.

“Why is that a stupid question?” asks Sofie.

Leo puts a consoling hand on Sofie’s back. He has tried to stand up for his wife in the face of his brother’s rudeness before and it has never turned out well. “Is someone planning to let him in?” he asks.

Madeleine says, “He does not look like the kind of man I want inside the house.”

The stranger knocks twice on the glass, slowly and deliberately.

“Nor,” says Martin, “does he look like someone you’d want to leave standing in your garden.” He does not recognise the man. He has dealt with a good number of eccentric, difficult and unpredictable people in his time, some of them patients, some of them family members of patients. He has on a small number of occasions been threatened. Brain surgery is a risky business and desperate people do not handle statistics well.

“I’m actually quite scared?” says Anya. The question thing is something she has been doing for the last few months, not wanting to be assertive or seem needy.

“It’s all right.” Sofie strokes her hair. “He’s probably just cold and hungry.”

“Grandad is going to kill him,” says David, as if this is obvious and unremarkable. It is precisely this kind of comment that makes his father worry that his son will spend a significant part of his adult life in mental institutions.