A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [150]
She watched Jamie and Tony and all she could think was how much the world had changed. Her own father had slept with the woman next door for twenty years. Now her son was dancing with another man and she was the one whose life was falling apart.
She felt like the man in that ghost story on the television, the one who didn’t realize he was dead.
She went over and apologized to Katie and Ray. She thanked Jamie for his speech. She apologized to Jacob, who didn’t really understand why she was apologizing. She danced with Douglas. And she managed a quiet talk with Ursula on her own.
The pain subsided as the evening wore on and the alcohol did its work and shortly after midnight, as the guests were thinning out, she realized that George had disappeared. So she said her various good nights and made her way upstairs and found George fast asleep in bed.
She tried to talk to him but he was dead to the world. She wondered whether she was allowed to sleep in the same bed. But there was nowhere else to sleep. So she undressed and put on her nightie and cleaned her teeth and slipped into bed beside him.
She stared at the ceiling and cried a little, quietly so as not to wake George.
She lost track of time. The disco stopped. The voices died away. She heard footsteps coming and going on the stairs. Then silence.
She looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was half past one.
She got up, put on her slippers and dressing gown and went downstairs. The house was empty. It smelled of cigarette smoke and stale wine and beer and cooked fish. She unlocked the kitchen door and walked into the garden, thinking she would stand under the night sky and clear her head a little. But it was colder than she’d expected. It was starting to rain again and there were no stars.
She came back inside, went upstairs and got into bed and lay there until sleep finally found her.
144
George woke from a long, deep and dreamless sleep, feeling contented and relaxed. He lay for a few moments looking up at the ceiling. There was a faint crack in the plaster round the light fitting which looked like a little map of Italy. He needed to go to the toilet. He swung his legs out of bed, put on his slippers and left the room with a spring in his step.
Halfway down the landing, however, he remembered what had happened the day before. This made him feel sick, and he was forced to hang on to the banister for a few seconds while he recovered his composure.
He went back into the bedroom to talk to Jean. But she was still deeply asleep, with her face turned to the wall, snoring quietly. He realized that it was going to be a difficult day for her and it seemed best that she did not begin it by being forcibly woken. He returned to the corridor and closed the door quietly behind him.
He could smell toast and bacon and coffee and some other less pleasant odors. Several cigarette ends were floating in a half-full coffee cup on the windowsill. Now that he thought about it, he was a little punch-drunk. It might have been the aftereffects of the Valium and the alcohol.
He had to speak to Katie.
He went to the bathroom to relieve himself, then headed downstairs.
The first person he saw through the doorway of the kitchen, however, was not Katie but Tony. This threw him somewhat. He had forgotten about Tony.
Tony was constructing a rudimentary dog sculpture from pieces of toast for Jacob’s entertainment. Had he and Jamie spent the night in the house? It was not important right now, George realized that. And he was in no position to lecture anyone about morality. But his mind felt small and the question clogged it up somewhat.