A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [16]
Jamie went into the kitchen, retrieved one of the choc-ices from the bin, rinsed the ketchup from the wrapper and took it back through to the living room.
If his luck was in, Katie would throw a toaster at Ray before September and there wouldn’t be a wedding.
13
George spread a generous helping of steroid cream onto the eczema, changed into his building clothes, then went downstairs where he bumped into Jean returning laden from Sainsbury’s.
“How was the doctor?”
“Fine.”
“So…?” asked Jean.
George decided that it was simpler to lie. “Heat stroke, probably. Dehydration. Working out there in the sun without a hat. Not drinking enough water.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Indeed,” said George.
“I rang Jamie.”
“And?”
“Wasn’t in,” said Jean. “I left a message. Said we’d be sending him an invite. I told him he could bring someone if he wanted.”
“Excellent.”
Jean paused. “Are you all right, George?”
“I am, actually.” He kissed her and headed off to the garden.
He scraped the contents of the bucket into the miniskip, hosed it out, made some fresh mortar and began laying bricks. Another couple of courses and he could think about cementing the door frame into place.
He didn’t have a problem with homosexuality per se. Men having sex with men. One could imagine, if one was in the business of imagining such things, that there were situations where it might happen, situations in which chaps were denied the normal outlets. Military camps. Long sea voyages. One didn’t want to dwell on the plumbing but one could almost see it as a sporting activity. Letting off steam. High spirits. Handshake and a hot shower afterward.
It was the thought of men purchasing furniture together which disturbed him. Men snuggling. More disconcerting, somehow, than shenanigans in public toilets. It gave him the unpleasant feeling that there was a weakness in the very fabric of the world. Like seeing a man hit a woman in the street. Or suddenly not being able to remember the bedroom you had as a child.
Still, things changed. Mobile phones. Thai restaurants. You had to remain elastic or you turned into an angry fossil railing at litter. Besides, Jamie was a sensible young man and if he brought someone along he was bound to be another very sensible young man.
What Ray would make of it Lord only knew.
Interesting. That was what it would be.
He laid another brick.
“Unless I’m very much mistaken,” Dr. Barghoutian had said.
Just covering himself, no doubt.
14
Jean undressed while David was showering and slipped into the dressing gown he’d left out for her. She wandered over to the bay window and sat on the arm of the chair.
It made her feel attractive. Just being in this room. The cream walls. The wooden floor. The big fish print in the metal frame. It was like one of those rooms you saw in magazines which made you think about living a different life.
She gazed onto the oval lawn. Three shrubs in big stone pots on one side. Three on the other. A folding wooden lounger.
She enjoyed making love, but she enjoyed this too. The way she could think here, without the rest of her life rushing in and crowding her.
Jean rarely spoke about her parents. People simply didn’t understand. They were teenagers before it dawned on them that Auntie Mary from next door was their father’s girlfriend. Everyone pictured some kind of steamy soap opera. But there was no intrigue, no blazing rows. Her father worked in the same bank for forty years and made wooden birdhouses in the cellar. And whatever her mother felt about their bizarre domestic arrangement she never spoke about it, even after Jean’s father died.
Her guess was that she never spoke about it when he was alive either. It happened. Appearances were kept up. End of story.
Jean felt ashamed. As any sane person would. If you kept quiet about it you felt like a liar. If you told the story you felt like something from a circus.
No wonder the children all headed off so fast in such different directions. Eileen to her religion. Douglas to