A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [143]
She turned to Ray. “For God’s sake, do something.”
Ray froze for a second, then got out of his seat and headed off after George.
He was too late.
Jean saw where George was going.
140
George stopped in front of David.
It was very, very quiet in the marquee.
George took aim and swung his fist at David’s head. Unfortunately David’s head moved at the last minute, George missed his target and he was forced to grab hold of someone’s shoulder to prevent himself falling over.
Luckily, when David stood up in order to make his escape, his feet became entangled in his chair and he fell clumsily backward, his arms circling wildly as if he was trying to backstroke out of George’s reach across the tablecloth.
This gave George a second opportunity to punch him. But punching someone was considerably harder than it looked in films, and George had had very little practice in this department. Consequently his second punch hit David in the chest, which was not satisfying.
The chair was in the way. That was the problem. George kicked it to one side. He leant down, grabbed the lapels of David’s jacket and head-butted him.
After this it was hard to know quite who was hitting whom. But there was a lot of blood and George was fairly sure it belonged to David, so that was good.
141
The image which stuck in Jamie’s mind was that of a tiramisu and its accompanying spoon tumbling in slow motion through the air at head height. His father and David Symmonds had fallen backward onto the table. The near side had collapsed and the far side had shot up like a seesaw, firing a variety of objects into the air (one of Katie’s friends was very proud of having caught a fork).
From this point on it felt more like a road accident. Everything very clear and detached and slow. No abdominal pain anymore. Just a series of tasks which had to be done to prevent further injury.
Ray bent down and began detaching Jamie’s father from David Symmonds. David Symmonds’s face was covered in blood. Jamie was rather impressed that a man of his father’s age was capable of doing that kind of damage.
Jamie and Tony looked at one another and made one of those instant, unspoken decisions and decided to go and help. They got to their feet and jumped across the table, which would have been rather Starsky and Hutch, except that Jamie got a buttered roll stuck to his trouser leg.
They reached the far side of the marquee together. Tony knelt down next to David because he’d done a first-aid course and because David seemed to have come off worst. Jamie went to talk to his father.
Just as he arrived Ray was saying, “What in God’s name did you do that for?” And his father was about to reply when Jamie’s brain shifted into warp speed and it dawned on him that no one knew why his father had done it. Only him and Katie, his mother and his father. And David, obviously. And Tony, because Jamie had been filling him in on all the gossip before lunch. And the reason his mother had run out of the marquee was because she thought everyone else was going to find out. Though if Jamie acted quickly they might be able to pass the incident off as drug-induced craziness. Because after that speech it was pretty clear to everyone that his father was not in his right mind.
So when his father said, “Because—” Jamie slapped a hand across his mouth to stop him saying anything else, and he might have done it a bit too hard because the smack sound was quite loud and Ray and his father both looked startled, but it stopped his father talking at least.
Jamie leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t say anything.”
His father said, “Nnnnn.”
Jamie turned to Ray and said, “Take him indoors. Upstairs. The bedroom. Just…just keep him there, all right?”
Ray said, “Right you are,” as if Jamie had asked him to shift a sack of potatoes. He got Jamie’s father to his feet and began walking him out of the marquee.
Jamie went over to Tony.
David