Mark Haddon - The Red House

♦

Machine guns. Popguns. Potato guns. Cap guns. Bows and arrows. Axes. Tomahawks. Brooms. Dusters. J-Cloths. Nail brushes. Dog chews made of dried pigs’ ears. Kendal Mint Cake. Butter dishes. Lovespoons. Skipping ropes. Golf balls. Tennis balls. Squishy cow keyrings that moo and light up when you squeeze them. Squishy duck keyrings that quack and light up when you squeeze them. Little forks for indoor gardening. Rubber knee mats for outdoor gardening. Creosote. Weedkiller. Hanging baskets. Brillo pads. Orthopaedic pangrips and tin openers. Stanley 15-mm heavy-duty nails. Clout nails, galvanised, in ten sizes. Baby Bio. Itching powder. Whoopee cushions. Vampire teeth. Hoover bags. Alarm clocks with bells on top. Plastic farm animals. Videos of Mall Cop, Hannah Montana, Transformers . Fish food. Cafetières. Musical birthday cards. Peanuts in lard for overwintering birds. Wooden chocks to hold doors open. Ashtrays in the shape of tiny toilets. Sports whistles. Firedogs. Bootscrapers. Laces of assorted length. Postcards of hills. Postcards of sheep.

♦

Cally picked up the phone at the far end. Melissa .

What the fuck is going on?

You are not going to believe this .

Just tell me, all right ?

Megan the genius. She texted Michelle .

Saying what?

Oh, something along the lines of, ‘You’re a bitch and a liar.’ Like, we’re being accused of bullying her, so she bullies her. Sends actual proof to Michelle’s phone. How fucking moronic is that?

Think, think. Over the road a fat man was stooping to pick up a piece of dogshit using a little pink plastic bag as a glove. Her brain wouldn’t work. I’ll be back tomorrow, right? We’ll have, like, a war cabinet . It was starting to rain, dark spots on the tarmac. What if they blamed everything on Megan? Megan the loose cannon, Megan the bully. A blue umbrella popping open on the far pavement. She wanted to lie down and curl up and sleep, she wanted someone to come along and pick her up and look after her. She wanted someone to be kind to her for once.

♦

Alex and Benjy were sitting on the bench at the side of the market square, just off the main drag so Mum and Dad didn’t catch Benjy eating the ice cream Alex had bought him. What’s up, kid?

Nothing .

This is a holiday and you’re meant to be having a good time .

I don’t want to say .

Was Dad horrible to you this morning?

No . But he had to tell someone and if he was going to tell anyone it was best to tell Alex. I found a message .

A message? It sounded like a rolled-up treasure map in a bottle on a beach.

It was on Dad’s phone . He felt silly now for getting so panicked. I went downstairs in the night, and there was a beep .

What did it say?

It said , ‘ Call me’. And it said, ‘I can’t bear this ’. He could still see it blocking out the picture of them at Blakeney.

And who was it from?

It was from someone called Amy .

Alex let it sink in. A kind of satisfaction almost, as if he’d been waiting all along for Dad to fuck up properly and justify his disdain.

Who’s Amy? asked Benjy.

Amy… He had to take this slowly, he had to get this right. Amy works at Waterstone’s with Dad. She was stealing books . Yes, that was it. Dad caught her stealing books .

Will she go to prison?

Poor Benjy. He looked so sad on this woman’s behalf. She wants Dad to keep it a secret .

But he has to tell the truth .

Yeh, he has to tell the truth .

Benjy hated thinking of Dad being put in a difficult position like this, but he was flattered, too, by this brief view through the closed door of the adult world.

Spatters of rain out of a darkening sky. You’re wasting your ice cream, mate .

Benjy changed hands and stuck all four creamy fingers into his mouth. Alex leant back against the wall. What an arsehole, what a fucking amateur. It’s a secret, by the way. So don’t tell anyone, even Mum .

It’s OK. You can trust me .

Good man .

Can we go to the shop?

Which shop?

The Shop of Crap. I didn’t want to buy anything before, but I do now .

♦

What? Melissa guessed instantly but she was going to make Mum work for this.

That was your headmaster on the phone. Michelle tried to kill herself. After you, Cally and Megan bullied her .

We had an argument . Melissa tried to sound as if she were discussing a group of people in whom she had merely a passing interest. Michelle can get a bit over-dramatic sometimes .

Avison wants us to come in .

It’ll be fine. Trust me .

Trust you? Are you serious, Melissa? You knew all about this and you didn’t even think to tell me .

Because I didn’t want to mess up your holiday .

Tell me about the photograph .

I think you’re better off not knowing, frankly .

Stop patronising me .

OK, OK. Michelle was drunk. Possibly she’d taken a couple of her mum’s diazepam, to which she is, like, a bit partial . She described the blow job with mild disgust. So Megan grabs my phone and takes a picture .

You’re lying .

Hey. Chill out. We’re, like, standing in the rain in the middle of a road here .

Don’t treat me like a moron .

I’m bloody telling the truth .

I know you, Melissa. You’re a little operator. If someone else took that photo you’d have covered your back by telling me a week ago .

I’ll sort everything out when we get back .

You think you’re charmed. You think you’re a princess. You think it will just keep on coming, the money, the clothes, the friends, the easy life. My parents had nothing, your father’s parents had nothing. It can vanish like that . She clicked her fingers. No, be quiet. I’m having the last word for once. You are not going to blame anyone else. Give me your phone .

♦

The rain had stopped. Dominic stood on the raised pavement outside The Granary not knowing where to go or what to do. A need for something more central, cathedral, theatre, train station, but this was it, wasn’t it, the Seven Stars and Jigsaw World. He would kill himself after a month here. Ageing hippies and inbred farmers and geography teachers with their bloody hiking sticks, eating their bloody scones. He took out his iPod, put the headphones in and scrolled. Steve Reich. Variations for Wind, Strings and Keyboards . He let music wash over him. That little green sports car, the fat woman with her arm in a sling. The way music turned the world into television.

Benjy decided to buy a catapult. £7.99. Alex was pretty sure Mum and Dad would have vetoed it on account of it being a Weapon of Mass Destruction but he couldn’t give a fuck right now. Benjy could have it as a present from his big brother. They took it to the bottom of the car park and fired stones into the field.

Louisa held the earring against her cheek. Sunflowers, she supposed, alternating leaves of bronze and silver, hammered and cut. Different. But different good ? She didn’t want to make the same mistake she made with those ridiculous china puffins.

Richard was leafing through second-hand CDs, Bernstein, Perahia, some unpronounceable Czech playing Debussy on Naxos. Just showing willing, really, because he wouldn’t actually purchase a second-hand CD. Also he was steering clear of books. The Complete SAS Fitness Training Handbook in a knotted bag at the bottom of the bin in the shed. Ah, but this… Hommage à Kathleen Ferrier . Looked rather good, 1950/51 recording, on Tahra, distributed by Harmonia Mundi, bit of Handel, bit of Purcell, Parry, Stanford, extracts from a Matthew Passion under Karajan.