A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [25]
Yet there were moments like this when he saw how alike he and Jamie were.
“Ray is, I confess, rather hard work,” said George. “In my long and sorry experience,” he dunked a biscuit, “trying to change your sister’s mind is a pointless exercise. I guess the game plan is to treat her like an adult. Keep a stiff upper lip. Be nice to Ray. If it all goes pear-shaped in two years’ time, well, we’ve had some practice in that department. The last thing I want to do is to let your sister know that we disapprove, then have Ray as a disgruntled son-in-law for the next thirty years.”
Jamie drank his tea. “I’m just…”
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re probably right. We should let her get on with it.”
Jean appeared in the doorway bearing a basket of dirty clothes. “Hello, Jamie. This is a nice surprise.”
“Hi, Mum.”
“Well, here’s your second opinion,” said George.
Jean put the basket on the washing machine. “About what?”
“Jamie was wondering whether we should save Katie from a reckless and inadvisable marriage.”
“Dad…” said Jamie tetchily.
And this was where Jamie and George parted company. Jamie couldn’t really do jokes, not at his own expense. He was, to be honest, a little delicate.
“George.” Jean glared at him accusingly. “What have you been saying?”
George refused to rise to the bait.
“I’m just worried about Katie,” said Jamie.
“We’re all worried about Katie,” said Jean, starting to fill the washing machine. “Ray wouldn’t be my first choice, either. But there you go. Your sister’s a woman who knows her own mind.”
Jamie stood up. “I’d better be going.”
Jean stopped filling the washing machine. “You’ve only just got here.”
“I know. I should have phoned, really. I just wanted to know what Katie had said. I’d better be heading off.”
And he was gone.
Jean turned to George. “Why do you always have to rub him up the wrong way?”
George bit his tongue. Again.
“Jamie?” Jean headed into the hallway.
George recalled only too well how much he had hated his own father. A friendly ogre who found coins in your ear and made origami squirrels and who shrank slowly over the years into an angry, drunken little man who thought praising children made them weak and never admitted that his own brother was schizophrenic, and who kept on shrinking so that by the time George and Judy and Brian were old enough to hold him to account he had performed the most impressive trick of all by turning into a self-pitying arthritic figure too insubstantial to be the butt of anyone’s anger.
Perhaps the best you could hope for was not to do the same thing to your own children.
Jamie was a good lad. Not the most robust of chaps. But they got on well enough.
Jean returned to the kitchen. “He’s gone. What was that all about?”
“Lord alone knows.” George stood up and dropped his empty mug into the sink. “The mystery of one’s children is never-ending.”
19
Jamie pulled into a layby at the edge of the village.
I think you should bring someone.
Christ. You avoided the subject for twenty years then it flashed past at eighty and vanished in a cloud of exhaust.
Had he been wrong about his father all along? Was it possible that he could’ve come out at sixteen and got no shit whatsoever? Totally understand. Chap at school. Keen on other chaps. Ended up playing cricket for Leicestershire.
Jamie was angry. Though it was hard to put a finger on precisely who he was angry with. Or why.
It was the same feeling he got every time he visited Peterborough. Every time he saw photographs of himself as a child. Every time he smelt plasticine or tasted fish fingers. He was nine again. Or twelve. Or fifteen. And it wasn’t about his feelings for Ivan Dunne. Or his lack of feelings for Charlie’s Angels. It was the sickening realization that he’d landed on the wrong planet. Or in the wrong family. Or in the wrong body. The realization that he had no choice but to bide his time until he could get