A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [91]
Ray looked at Jamie, and clearly thought Jamie was trying to arrange some man-on-man touching if his frown was anything to go by. Then it clicked, and he smiled, a proper smile this time, and said, “Let’s give it ago.”
Ray put the coin theatrically between his thumb and forefinger.
“I have to do the sprinkle,” said Jacob, clearly terrified that someone else might do the sprinkle first.
“Go on, then,” said Ray.
Jacob sprinkled invisible magic dust over the coin.
Ray did a little flourish with his free hand, lowered it over the coin like a handkerchief, squeezed it into a fist and whipped it away. The coin had vanished.
“The hand,” said Jacob. “Show me the magic hand.”
Ray opened his fist slowly.
No coin.
Jacob’s eyes were wide with wonder.
“And now,” said Jamie, holding up his fist, “bzzang!”
He was just about to open his hand and reveal the coin when Ray said, “Katie…?” and the look on his face was not good. And Jamie turned round and saw Katie marching toward him, and the look on her face was not good, either.
He said, “Katie. Hi,” and she punched him in the side of the head so that he was knocked off his seat onto the floor and found himself looking, in close-up, at Jacob’s shoes.
He heard a slightly deranged person cheering approvingly from the other side of the room, and Ray saying, “Katie…What the bloody hell…?” and Jacob saying, “You hit Uncle Jamie,” in a puzzled voice, and the sound of footsteps running.
By the time he’d levered himself into a sitting position there was a security guard approaching them saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s calm it down a bit here, people.”
Katie said to Jamie, “What the fuck did you tell Mum?”
Jamie said, to the security guard, “It’s OK, she’s my sister.”
Ray said to Jacob, “I think you and I are going to go and see Granny and Grandpa.”
The security guard said, “Any more funny business and I’ll have the lot of you out of here,” but no one was really listening to him.
72
Five minutes later Jean heard a second set of footsteps, heavier than Katie’s. She thought, at first, that it was another doctor. She braced herself.
But when the curtains opened it was Ray, with Jacob on his shoulders.
She realized, instantly, what had happened. Katie had told Ray. About her and George having doubts. About Ray not being good enough for their daughter.
Ray put Jacob down.
Jacob said, “Hello, Grandma. I had…I got…some…some chocolate buttons. For Grandpa.”
Jean had no idea what a man like Ray might do when he was angry.
She got off her chair and said, “Ray. I’m really sorry. It’s not that we don’t like you. Far from it. We just…I’m so, so sorry.”
She wanted the ground to swallow her up, but it didn’t, so she ducked between the curtains and ran.
73
Katie watched Jamie get to his feet and three things then occurred to her in rapid succession.
Firstly, she was going to have to do some serious explaining to Jacob. Secondly, she’d lost her final shred of moral superiority over Ray. Thirdly, it was the first time she’d punched someone properly since that argument over the red sandals with Zoë Canter in junior school, and it felt bloody brilliant.
She sat down next to her brother. Neither of them spoke for a few moments.
“I’m sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t. Not really. “I’ve been having a crap few weeks.”
“Snap,” said Jamie.
“Meaning?”
“Tony chucked me.”
“Shit. I’m sorry,” said Katie, and over Jamie’s shoulder she saw a woman who looked very like Mum running toward the main corridor of the hospital as if she was being chased by an invisible dog.
“And it wasn’t a chisel,” said Jamie, “he was ‘cutting the cancer off,’ apparently. With scissors.”
“Well, that makes a bit more sense,” said Katie.
Jamie looked a little disappointed. “I thought I’d get a better reaction than that.”
So Katie explained, about the visit home and the panic attacks and Lethal Weapon.
“Oh, I forgot,” said Jamie. “He was here.”
“Who?