A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [85]
She could see now. The dustbin-throwing wasn’t the problem. It was the not winning.
She liked the fact that she was more intelligent than Ray. She liked the fact that she could speak French and he couldn’t. She liked the fact that she had opinions about factory farming and he didn’t.
But it counted for nothing. He was a better person than she was. In every way that mattered. Except the dustbin-throwing. And, in truth, she might have thrown a few dustbins in her time if she’d been a little stronger.
Ten minutes later they were sitting on the big slope looking back down into the vast space of the turbine hall.
Ray said, “I know you’re trying really hard, love.”
Katie said nothing.
Ray said, “You don’t have to do this.” He paused. “You don’t have to marry me because of Jacob and the house and money and everything. I’m not going to throw you out onto the street. Whatever you want to do, I’ll try and make it work.”
66
Jamie was crossing the waiting room when a dapper man in his late sixties sprung off one of the orange plastic chairs and blocked Jamie’s path in a slightly disturbing manner.
“Jamie?”
“Yes?”
The man was wearing a linen jacket and a charcoal roll-neck sweater. He did not look like a doctor.
“David Symmonds. I’m a friend of your mother’s. I know her from the bookshop where she works. In town.”
“OK.”
“I drove her here,” the man explained. “She rang me.”
Jamie wasn’t sure what he was meant to do. Thank the man? Pay him? “I think I should go and find my mother.” There was something disconcertingly familiar about the man. He looked like a newsreader, or someone from a TV advert.
The man said, “Your mother got home and found that your father had been taken to hospital. We think someone broke into the house.”
Jamie wasn’t listening. After his panicked phone calls standing in front of the locked house back at the village he wasn’t in the mood for interruptions.
The man continued: “And we think your father disturbed them. But it’s OK…Sorry. That’s a ridiculous word. He’s alive at any rate.”
Jamie felt suddenly very weak.
“There was a great deal of blood,” said the man.
“What?”
“In the kitchen. In the cellar. In the bathroom.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jamie.
The man took a step backward. “They’re in cubicle 4. Look…it’s probably best if I slipped away. Now that you’re here to look after your mother.” The man was clasping his hands together like a vicar. There were ironed creases down the front of his canvas trousers.
Someone had tried to murder Jamie’s father.
The man continued: “Send her my very best wishes. And tell her I’m thinking of her.”
“OK.”
The man stood to one side and Jamie walked to cubicle 4. He paused outside the curtain and braced himself for what he was about to see.
When he pushed the curtain aside, however, his parents were laughing. Well, his mother was laughing and his father was looking amused. It was something he hadn’t seen in a long time.
His father had no visible wounds and when the two of them turned to look at Jamie he got the surreal impression that he was intruding on a rare romantic moment.
“Dad?” said Jamie.
“Hello, Jamie,” said his father.
“I’m sorry about the phone message,” said his mother. “Your father had an accident.”
“With a chisel,” his father explained.
“A chisel?” asked Jamie. Was the man in the waiting room a lunatic?
His father laughed gingerly. “I’m afraid I made rather a mess at home. Trying to clean up.”
“But everything’s all right now,” said his mother.
Jamie got the impression that he could apologize for intruding and walk away and no one would be offended or puzzled in the slightest. He asked his father how he was feeling.
“A little sore,” said his father.
Jamie couldn’t think of any reply to this, so he turned to his mother and said, “There was some guy in the waiting area. Told me he drove you here.”
He was going to explain about the best wishes but his mother shot to her feet with a startled look on her face and said, “Oh. Is he still there?”
“He was heading off. Now you didn’t need him anymore.”
“I’ll see if I