A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [23]
An hour later, Katie and Ray lay next to each other in bed watching the ceiling spin slowly, listening to Ed wrestle incompetently with the sofa bed on the far side of the wall.
Ray took hold of her hand. “Sorry about that.”
“About what?”
“Downstairs.”
“I thought you were enjoying yourself,” said Katie.
“I was. Sort of.”
Neither of them said anything.
“I think he was a bit nervous,” said Ray. “I think we were all a bit nervous. Well, apart from Sarah. I don’t reckon she gets nervous.”
There was a little yelp from next door as Ed trapped some part of himself in the mechanism.
“I’ll have a word with Ed,” said Ray. “About the speech.”
“I’ll have a word with Sarah,” said Katie.
17
It blew up on Saturday morning.
Tony woke early and headed to the kitchen to make breakfast. When Jamie ambled down twenty minutes later Tony was sitting at the table emanating bad vibes.
Jamie had clearly done something wrong. “What’s up?”
Tony chewed his cheek and drummed the table with a teaspoon. “This wedding,” said Tony.
“Look,” said Jamie, “I don’t particularly want to go myself.” He glanced at the clock. Tony had to leave in twenty minutes. Jamie realized that he should have stayed in bed.
“But you’re going to go,” said Tony.
“I don’t really have much choice.”
“So, why don’t you want me to come with you?”
“Because you’ll have a shit time,” said Jamie, “and I’ll have a shit time. And it doesn’t matter that I’m having a shit time because they’re my family, for better or worse. So every now and then I have to grit my teeth and put up with having a shit time for the greater good. But I’d rather not be responsible for you having a shit time on top of everything else.”
“It’s only a fucking wedding,” said Tony. “It’s not transatlantic yachting. How shit can it be?”
“It’s not just a fucking wedding,” said Jamie. “It’s my sister marrying the wrong person. For the second time in her life. Except this time we know it in advance. It’s hardly a cause for celebration.”
“I don’t give a fuck who she’s marrying,” said Tony.
“Well, I do,” said Jamie.
“Who she’s marrying is not the point,” said Tony.
Jamie called Tony an unsympathetic shit. Tony called Jamie a self-centered cunt. Jamie refused to discuss the subject any further. Tony stormed out.
Jamie smoked three cigarettes and fried himself two slices of eggy bread and realized he wasn’t going to get anything constructive done so he might as well drive up to Peterborough and hear the wedding story firsthand from Mum and Dad.
18
George was fitting the window frames. There were six courses above the sill on either side. Enough brickwork to hold them firm. He spread the mortar and slotted the first one into place.
In truth it wasn’t just the flying. Holidays themselves were not much further up George’s list of favorite occupations. Visiting amphitheaters, walking the Pembrokeshire coast path, learning to ski. He could see the rationale behind these activities. One grim fortnight in Sicily had been made almost worthwhile by the mosaics at Piazza Armerina. What he failed to comprehend was packing oneself off to a foreign country to lounge by pools and eat plain food and cheap wine made somehow glorious by a view of a fountain and a waiter with a poor command of English.
They knew what they were doing in the Middle Ages. Holy days. Pilgrimages. Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela. Twenty hard miles a day, simple inns and something to aim for.
Norway might have been OK. Mountains, tundra, rugged shorelines. But it had to be Rhodes or Corsica. And in summer to boot, so that freckled Englishmen had to sit under awnings reading last week’s Sunday Times while the sweat ran down their backs.
Now that he thought about it, he had been suffering from heat stroke during the visit to Piazza Armerina and most of what he recalled about the mosaics was from the stack