A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [142]
He raised a glass. “I would like to propose a toast. To my wonderful daughter, Katie. And to her fine husband, Ray.”
The words, “To Katie and Ray,” were echoed back at him.
He went to sit down again, then paused. It struck him that he was making a kind of farewell performance, that he would never again have sixty or seventy people hanging on his every word. And not to seize this opportunity seemed an admission of defeat.
He straightened up again.
“We spend most of our time on the planet thinking we are going to live forever…”
136
Jean gripped the edge of the table.
If she’d been any nearer she could have reached across to grab George’s sleeve and force him back into his seat, but Katie and Ray were in the way and everyone was watching them and she could see no way of intervening without making matters worse.
“As some of you may know, I have not been well recently…”
God in heaven, he was going to talk about harming himself and going to hospital and seeing a psychiatrist, wasn’t he. And he was going to do it in front of pretty much every person they knew. It was going to make Jamie kissing Tony seem like very small beer indeed.
“We all look forward to retiring. Doing the garden properly. Reading those birthday and Christmas books we never got round to reading.” A couple of people laughed. Jean had no idea why. “Shortly after I retired I discovered a small tumor on my hip.”
Wendy Carpenter was in the middle of chemotherapy right now. And Kenneth had that lump taken out of his throat last August. Lord alone knows what they were thinking.
“I realized that I was going to die.”
Jean focused on the sugar bowl and tried to pretend she was in that nice hotel in Paris.
137
Jamie was watching his father weep in front of seventy people and experiencing something which felt very like appendicitis.
“Me. Jean. Alan. Barbara. Katie. Ray. We’re all going to die.” A glass rolled off a table and shattered somewhere toward the back of the marquee. “But we don’t want to admit it.”
Jamie glanced sideways. Tony was staring at his father. He looked as if he’d been electrocuted.
“We don’t realize how important it is. This…this place. Trees. People. Cakes. Then it’s taken away. And we realize our mistake. But it’s too late.”
In a nearby garden Eileen’s dog barked.
138
George had lost the thread somewhat.
The dessert wine had not sharpened his mind. He had been a good deal more emotional than he had intended. He had mentioned the cancer, which was not festive. Was it possible that he had made a fool of himself?
It seemed best to round off his speech as quickly and elegantly as he could.
He turned to Katie and took her hand. Jacob was dozing on her lap, so the gesture was a little clumsier than he had planned. It would have to do.
“My lovely daughter. My lovely, lovely daughter.” What was he trying to say, precisely? “You and Ray and Jacob. Never. Never take one another for granted.”
That was better.
He let go of Katie’s hand and glanced round the marquee for one final time before taking his seat and caught sight of David Symmonds sitting in the far corner. The man had been facing the other way during the meal. Consequently George had been spared the sight of him while he was eating.
It occurred to George not only that he might have made a fool of himself but that he might have done this while David Symmonds was watching.
“Dad?” said Katie, touching his arm.
George was frozen halfway between sitting and standing.
The man looked so self-satisfied, so healthy, so bloody dapper.
The images started to come back. The ones he had tried not to picture for so long. The man’s saggy buttocks going up and down in the half-light of the bedroom. The sinews in his legs. That chickeny scrotum.
“Dad?” asked Katie.
George could bear it no longer.
139
Jean screamed. Partly because George was climbing across the table. Partly because he’d knocked a pot of coffee over