Читать книгу Before Your Very Eyes - Alex George - Страница 9

For the past three years, Simon had gone to his sister Arabella’s house one Sunday night a month.

Arabella was three years older than Simon. An early lack of affection for each other, due to the usual sibling jealousies, had subsequently been exacerbated by the on-set of prolonged adolescences. The tree of Arabella’s teenage years had borne a particularly fruitful crop of loathings and petty rebellions. For eighteen months she said almost nothing to either of her parents or to Simon. Most of that time was spent in her bedroom, where she listened to loud music, sat in front of her mirror applying make-up, and smoked out of her window. From time to time she would swish dramatically down the stairs in a shapeless black shawl, barely recognisable beneath an improbable kaleidoscope of lurid make-up. She would eye her family in silence for a few moments, and then slam the door behind her without saying a word, leaving the rest of the family looking at each other in a bemused way.

Then, a few weeks after her seventeenth birthday, Bella met a boy who played rugby. Overnight she became a picture of femininity, a vision of pastels and pearls.

Simon’s own adolescence was a less polished affair. He tried to cultivate an aura of affected loucheness, listening to Southern Death Cult records as he puffed on Sobranie Cocktails. He looked like the pimply love-child of Marc Bolan and Noel Coward.

After a while, though, Simon decided that another approach was needed. Realizing that adolescence was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he did some research, and read Catcher in the Rye. The whole point, he saw, was that in order to do the whole teenage angst thing properly, you were supposed to feel alienated. That was the key. You were meant to be different.

In an attempt to irritate his father and create some measure of distance between himself and his friends, Simon raided his father’s record collection to try and find something different to listen to. (Musical taste was, of course, the principal criterion by which Simon and his peers judged each other, with the possible exception of the pointiness of one’s winkle-pickers.) At random he picked out an old Sidney Bechet LP, the unpromising words Jazz Classics, Volume One emblazoned down one side of the sleeve in large letters. On the cover was a picture of an old black man, leaning out of a window smoking a cigarette with a contemplative look on his face. Simon took the record back to his room.

Simon did not leave his room for three hours. When he did, it was to go back to his father’s record collection to look for more Sidney Bechet. He had listened to the record four times over. Bechet’s scorching soprano saxophone cut loose through the old jazz standards of New Orleans’ hey-day, wailing and honking with a vibrant and fervent joy. Simon hardly moved except to spin the record from one side to the other. As he sat on his bed, transfixed by the music, he realized that something important was happening, something that would remain with him the rest of his life. As the ensemble floated through Muskrat Ramble for the third time, Simon Teller, dizzy with music, fell in love.

After that, everything changed. Simon gave his other records, festooned with skulls and inverted crosses, away. Instead he began to buy jazz records, and soon discovered the music’s broad spectrum of colours, textures, and feelings. He started with the brittle modal jazz of Miles Davis, and then spiralled in all directions from the soft, melodic beauty of Bill Evans to the eclectic free jazz of Don Cherry, and the edgy, sophisticated jump of Count Basie.

The music was spell-binding, but Simon’s fixation went further than that. He adored the stories, the legends, and the myths that surrounded the charismatic and enigmatic people who played jazz. Beguiled by the faded glamour, in his imagination he immersed himself in the smoky netherworld of jazz clubs, and the musicians who played there, men punctured by their own brilliance. Scenes played themselves out in Simon’s mind in the grainy black-and-white of the effortlessly cool photographs of the period. The world he inhabited in his head was unattainable, forty years old and an ocean away. It was a world of flawed genius, dashed hopes, and the cataclysmic ravagings of drugs and self-destruction. It was a world of iconoclasts, dreamers and idealists. And it was his to frolic in as he wished.

Once the heavy chains of teenagerdom had been shaken off, Arabella went to Cambridge to read English, Simon to Bristol to read History. They did not see each other often. Finally both had gravitated to London, like errant moths to the brightest lightbulb. Arabella began a promising career at a small, independent publishing house in North London. Simon, who did not feel that he was quite ready for the responsibility of a proper job, drifted aimlessly between various enjoyable but poorly paid and short-lived careers. Cautiously, bridges between brother and sister began to be rebuilt. Trips were shared to their parents’ home in Wiltshire. Invitations to dinner were issued, reciprocated, and enjoyed. After a year they discovered, to their surprise, that they liked each other.

Shortly afterwards, Arabella fell in love with a lawyer called Michael, and they were married the following spring.

Simon’s parents stoically did their best to find the good things in Michael, for Arabella’s sake, but there was little good to find. Family visits became tense affairs. Michael made no effort to be polite. He treated his new family with teeth-gritted disdain. Arabella and Michael’s visits became less frequent, especially after the birth of their daughter, Sophy. When family reunions were unavoidable, Michael could be hostile towards Simon all day, but when pressed to remember specific incidents, Simon couldn’t name one. It was the social equivalent of Chinese water torture. Any one individual act seemed innocuous, but cumulatively the effect was devastating. After a while it was decided by tacit agreement that it was easier to avoid each other completely than endure further unpleasantness.

As a result of Michael’s behaviour, Simon had not seen Arabella for several months when the telephone had rung one Monday evening in late November, three years previously. It was the North Wiltshire police. There had been an accident.

His parents had been driving home from their weekly bridge club along the narrow hedgerow-lined lanes which latticed the countryside surrounding their village. A car had come too quickly in the opposite direction round a tight corner. The car’s back wheels had lost traction. It had spun, and crashed into the side of his parents’ car. All three people had been killed instantly. At the inquest, a dour-faced policeman announced that the driver of the speeding car had a blood alcohol content four and a half times in excess of the legal limit.

One drunk driver. That was how tenuous his parents’ grip on life had been. His mother had taught English in a local school, and his father was an accountant who spent his spare time building model aeroplanes which he flew at displays on the weekends. They were kind, uncomplicated people. His father would always raise his six o’clock gin and tonic and seriously intone, ‘The Fish of God’ – his own translation of Carpe Diem, Seize the Day. He hadn’t finished seizing his days. It was unbearably sad.

To Simon’s surprise, his parents’ estate had been significant. Despite his professed belief in living for today, Simon’s father had been planning for tomorrow. Some prudent investments, a generous insurance policy, their large, mortgage-free family home – when the assets had been realized, there was enough for both Arabella and Simon to pay off their debts and live comfortably off the balance of capital.

The funeral had been terrible. The sympathetic and bewildered condolences of well-meaning friends and neighbours had had to be endured, the telling of interminable anecdotes borne with a polite smile. Throughout the sober-suited canapes after the service, Simon had fought the urge to escape. It was only when he returned to his empty flat at the end of the day that the accumulated grief of the past week finally burst forth. He stood in the middle of the flat that he had longed to escape to all afternoon, and suddenly saw that there was no escape. Your parents were not supposed to die. They were solidly dependable, a safety net of affection and reliability which had always hung reassuringly beneath Simon and his endeavours. Now the safety net was gone, and nothing was going to bring it back. Simon had wept long, hot tears that night.

Life, of course, went on, albeit in a faltering fashion. For weeks after the funeral, Simon’s waking hours were tinged with a despairing sense of unreality. Only slowly did he come to terms with what had happened, the hollow permanence of his parents’ absence. Then came the regrets, of the warm words left unspoken, the awkward emotions never expressed.

Finding themselves parentless so unexpectedly had thrown Simon and Arabella back together again. Bella of course had a family of her own, but she had welcomed him into it and slowly they had begun to reacquaint themselves. They established a comfortable ritual of Sunday night suppers; elbows on the table, homely food and warm talk. Their evenings together had become a source of deep comfort to them both.

Simon looked around his sitting room. The floor was strewn with old record covers, the colourful designs of the Blue Note and Columbia labels migrating in all directions from the record player. Simon had resolutely refused to succumb to the compact disc revolution. There was a magic about sliding the black slabs of vinyl from their musty cardboard sleeves which the clinical silver discs could never replicate. Jazz was about feeling, a sensuous experience which was more than just the sound coming out of the speakers. The cover art, the smell of old cardboard, the anticipatory crackle as the stylus settled into place before the music began – these were all integral parts of the experience. Simon’s collection of second-hand records was carefully arranged in alphabetical order, from Albert Ayler to Joe Zawinul. It was to the dust-covered comfort of these records that he retreated when he needed to escape.

The sitting room was dominated by a large sofa, which sat in front of a small television. There were two rattan wastepaper baskets, in opposite corners of the room. They were both overflowing. A Thelonious Monk poster hung on the wall behind the sofa. Over the television was a photograph of a young Chet Baker, his trumpet hanging disconsolately at his side as he moodily contemplated whatever story was unfolding behind the camera.

Usually Simon derived comfort from his flat’s messy homeliness (his expression), but that evening he felt a rising sense of claustrophobia as he surveyed the chaos (a more accurate description, possibly) surrounding him. Going to see Arabella in Battersea would be a pain on crutches, but it would be better than hobbling around the flat all evening until it was time to flop into bed.

Simon decided he couldn’t face the prospect of London Transport just yet. He pulled on his coat, gathered his crutches, and went back outside to find another taxi.

Half an hour later Simon stood outside the front door of Arabella’s house on one of the more fashionable streets running off the north side of Clapham Common. He pressed the doorbell. Immediately there was a chorus of shrieks and barking, the sound of things falling over and footsteps hurtling towards the door. Simon braced himself.

The door opened, and a flash of brown shot past Simon into the front garden.

‘Daniel!’ shouted Arabella. ‘Come back here, you little sod.’

‘Hello,’ said Simon.

‘Hello. What happened to you?’ asked Arabella, looking Simon up and down.

‘Long story,’ said Simon. He raised his bandaged hand a couple of inches. ‘I got this because a man farted in my face.’

Arabella regarded her brother evenly. ‘Must have been some fart,’ she said. ‘What about your foot?’

‘As for that…actually, I don’t know,’ Simon confessed. ‘Nobody at the hospital would tell me.’

Arabella sighed. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘You’d better come in. Does it hurt? How long are you going to have to use those things for? Did you know the guy who farted? Are you insured? I assume you went private. How much does it cost to get that sort of thing done on private health, anyway? Sophy, darling, go and get Daniel, would you, before he tears the whole garden up.’

Simon knew better than to try and answer any of his sister’s questions. If she actually wanted an answer to any of them she would ask again later. He kissed the cheek that Arabella offered, and then bent down towards the small girl who stood next to her.

‘Hi, pops,’ he said.

‘Hello Simon,’ said Sophy. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Bit sore, but apart from that I’m OK.’

‘Was it a really nasty one?’ asked Sophy.

‘What?’

‘The fart,’ said Sophy.

‘Oh. Yes, I suppose it was pretty nasty.’

Sophy thought for a moment. ‘Was it eggy?’ she asked.

‘Sophy,’ said Arabella sharply. ‘That’s quite enough, thank you.’

Sophy pulled a face. ‘Just asking,’ she said.

‘How are you, anyway?’ asked Simon. ‘Mum behaving herself?’

‘She’s been all right,’ replied Sophy.

‘Gee, thanks,’ said Arabella to her daughter. ‘Right, then. Sophy, you fetch Daniel. Simon, you come in and have a drink and talk to me while I check the moussaka.’

Sophy set off down the steps to look for the dog. Simon followed his sister into the house. In the kitchen Arabella opened the fridge and extracted a bottle of beer.

‘So when did this happen?’ asked Arabella as she rummaged through a drawer for a bottle opener.

‘Last night,’ replied Simon. ‘I went to a dinner party in the upstairs flat.’

‘And how did this man farting cause you to do that to your wrist? I’m intrigued.’

Simon explained what had happened the previous evening.

‘Twister,’ mused Arabella when he had finished. ‘Wow. Remind me how old you are again?’

Before Simon could respond Sophy ran into the kitchen, followed by a springer spaniel, who hurtled into the room and performed a quick tour of everyone’s ankles before settling down on a faded square of carpet in the corner of the room.

‘Everything all right?’ asked Arabella.

‘I think so,’ said Sophy.

‘Is Daniel still trying to escape?’ asked Simon.

Arabella was crouching down to inspect the contents of the oven. ‘Yes, the ungrateful beast. I can’t understand it. Anyone would think we never fed him.’

Daniel looked up and thumped his tail happily against the floor. Daniel the Spaniel. Possibly, thought Simon, the stupidest dog in London.

‘Where are the cats?’ he asked.

‘Oh, off tormenting some of the other dogs in the neighbourhood,’ replied Arabella. Her domestic menagerie also included Botticelli and Pissarro, two beautiful Persian cats of uncommon intelligence, elegant creatures who regarded the rest of the animal kingdom, humans included, with an aloof disdain. Whenever they were bored they would tease Daniel mercilessly. Daniel was too good-natured and too stupid to keep the cats amused for long, though, and so in the evenings they would go on forays to find other unsuspecting canine victims. When Sophy was younger she had been unable to pronounce the cats’ exotic foreign names, and these had gradually transmogrified into ‘Botty’ and ‘Pissy’ – names which were finally adopted by the whole family, to the cats’ obvious chagrin.

‘Can I go and practise?’ asked Sophy.

‘Of course,’ said her mother. ‘I’ll call you when supper’s ready.’ Sophy ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

‘Practise?’ asked Simon once Sophy had gone.

‘She’s got a new trick for you.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘She’s been working on it very hard,’ said Bella. ‘Keeps her occupied. That and looking after Thorald.’

Simon frowned. ‘Who’s Thorald?’

‘Her new pet. He’s a woodlouse.’ Seeing her brother’s blank look, Bella explained further. ‘Sophy wanted a pet of her own. So we got her a woodlouse. He lives in a jar in her bedroom.’

‘OK,’ said Simon uncertainly.

‘Problem is, these woodlouses – or is woodlice? – keep dying. Well, to be fair, Sophy killed the first one all by herself. She thought he might be thirsty, and so she tipped a cupful of water into the bottom of the jar. Result – one drowned woodlouse.’

‘Oops,’ said Simon.

‘Quite. So anyway, each time one dies we have to find another one and then we substitute the old dead Thorald for a new, alive version while she’s asleep.’

‘And she has no idea about this?’

‘Not a clue.’

Brother and sister sat in companionable silence for a few moments. Arabella poured herself a glass of wine from an open bottle that sat on the kitchen table.

Finally Simon said, ‘No Michael?’

‘No,’ said Arabella. ‘No Michael.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Working. As usual. He said he’d try and get back for eight, but didn’t sound too hopeful. So don’t hold your breath.’

Simon wouldn’t. He knew how much time Michael spent at the office. During the week, he rarely returned home much before nine or ten o’clock in the evening, and invariably had to work on one, if not both, days of the weekend. Simon knew that lawyers, particularly rich and successful ones, did work extremely long hours, but he couldn’t believe that Michael could possibly spend all that time at the office. He had a theory – partly engendered, he couldn’t deny, by the mutual antipathy that the two men had for each other – that Michael spent at least some of his time away from home not working, but having affairs.

Simon couldn’t point to anything that proved that his hypothesis might have even the remotest grounding in fact, but that of course had been no bar to its development from vague suspicion to entrenched and ardent belief. Simon was convinced that Michael was a slimy, low-life lothario. In such circumstances, the absence of evidence was irrelevant. Simon didn’t need evidence. He had the courage of his convictions.

Simon had never mentioned his suspicions to his sister. She seemed to have resigned herself to the fact that Michael was never there, and always working. Simon, though, was biding his time, waiting to uncover proof that he had been right all along.

‘So, anyway,’ said Bella, happily unaware of Simon’s dark thoughts. ‘Apart from your escapades playing Twister, what else have you been up to? What’s new in your world?’

Simon thought. ‘Very little to report, really,’ he said.

Bella looked at him thoughtfully. ‘As bad as that?’

Simon shrugged. ‘Afraid so. I actually met a beautiful girl at dinner last night, but got farted at before I had a chance to get her number.’ He thought about Joe’s theory that there was no shame in trying to chat people up at parties. It was an attractive theory, but Simon was not convinced. Even on those rare occasions in the past when he had succeeded in securing a telephone number or a promise of another rendezvous, there had always been another excuse made – the loan of a book, a professed shared interest in a particular playwright, the usual nonsense that gets peddled at parties. The idea of an honest approach – Look, can I see you again? I think you’re gorgeous – filled Simon with apprehension. He respected women, yes, but not to the extent of telling them the truth.

‘Well,’ said Bella. ‘I have a question for you. More of a favour, really.’

‘OK,’ said Simon, trying not to feel put out at the ease with which they had glossed over his romantic difficulties. ‘Fire away.’

‘It’s Sophy’s birthday soon.’

‘I know,’ said Simon. There was a pause. ‘Oh no,’ he said.

‘Please.’ Bella looked at him imploringly.

Simon shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Bella, but no way.’

‘Go on. Just this once.’

‘But you know I don’t. Ever. No exceptions.’

‘But it would make her day. She definitely wants a magician at the party, and it would be so much better if it were you. She adores you. She’ll never forget it.’

‘Look, I’d love to, really I would.’

Bella sat back in her chair. ‘Then do it.’

Simon’s shoulders slumped. ‘I can’t.’

Simon loved performing magic tricks. He relished the look of bewilderment on the watcher’s face as the miracle was revealed. Unfortunately, however, he turned into a petrified zombie if he had to perform in front of more than three people. Audiences terrified him.

Audience-phobic magicians were, for obvious reasons, unlikely to make much of an impact professionally. Magicians are performers, after all. They cannot operate in a vacuum. Taking the audience out of the equation was rather like being a doctor who hated being around sick people. You became somewhat redundant. This was why Simon worked in a magic shop: it gave him the opportunity to be paid for doing tricks all day without having to undergo the gruesome ordeal of standing up in front of a crowd of strangers.

Bella was asking him to perform in front of perhaps the most demanding audience of all – a crowd of over-excited children at a birthday party. Simon shuddered. He had customers who made a living out of it. They were embittered, ferocious men, whose cheery professional personae hid the fact that the last vestiges of sympathetic character had long ago been eradicated by over-exposure to squealing, fractious children. It was, without question, the hardest job in show business.

‘I’m sorry, Bella,’ said Simon. ‘I can’t. You know it’s not that I don’t want to. I just – can’t.’

‘What if I told you that I’d already told Sophy that you’ll do it?’

‘You’d never do that,’ said Simon sharply.

Bella shrugged. ‘Oops. Sorry.’

Simon sighed. ‘For Christ’s sake, Bella. That is so unworthy of you.’

‘I know,’ agreed Bella, without any apparent remorse.

‘God.’ Just when the weekend couldn’t get any worse, it suddenly did.

There was a pause.

‘So you’ll do it?’ asked Bella.

‘I’ll do it,’ sighed Simon. ‘I don’t see that I have very much choice, do I?’

‘Good boy,’ said Bella, stretching over the kitchen table and planting a kiss on the side of his head.

The oven pinged. Bella got up and went to the kitchen door. She shouted up the stairs, ‘Sophy! Come down, please, once you’ve washed your hands.’ There was an immediate rush of small footsteps, and a few moments later Sophy tore breathlessly into the kitchen.

‘How did the practice go?’ asked Simon, trying to forget about the weaselly trick Bella had just played.

‘Really well,’ said Sophy. ‘I can’t wait to show you.’

‘Well, I can’t wait to see it,’ replied Simon.

Sophy grinned at him. She turned to her mother. ‘Where’s Daddy?’

Arabella was pulling the moussaka out of the oven. ‘He said he was going to be a bit late tonight, darling,’ she said as she carried the dish to the table. ‘He’s very busy at work at the moment.’

‘He’s always busy at work,’ complained Sophy.

‘Well, you’ve got Simon instead,’ said her mother, as she began spooning the food on to plates.

Sophy looked at Simon. ‘Well Simon’s very nice, so that’s good,’ she said kindly. ‘You’re more interested in magic than Daddy, anyway,’ she added.

‘Well, not everyone understands the importance of magic,’ said Simon. ‘It’s a craft.’ As he said this he realized that with his hand in plaster eating was not going to be easy. He picked up his fork in his left hand, and carefully speared a slice of aubergine.

Arabella noticed the problem. ‘Are you going to be all right with that?’ she asked. ‘Do you want me to cut it up for you?’

Sophy giggled. ‘Like a baby,’ she observed.

‘Thank you, Sophy,’ said Arabella.

‘Or a very old person,’ said Sophy.

‘Sophy.’

‘Er, yes please,’ said Simon. ‘That would be great.’

‘Right.’ Arabella briskly took Simon’s plate away and began chopping the food into manageable, bite-sized pieces, ignoring Sophy’s sniggers.

Arabella’s chopping made it easier to execute the short journey from plate to mouth, but still a certain amount of moussaka flew off Simon’s fork. By the end of the meal a small pile of mince, cheese, and assorted vegetables had amassed in his lap.

While they ate the conversation centred around Sophy and what she had been doing at school, who her best friends were this week, and what she wanted to do during the forthcoming holidays, at the mention of which Arabella went slightly pale. She seemed distracted, half an ear turned to listen for the twist of Michael’s key in the lock. By the time they cleared away the dishes, Michael had still not appeared.

As Bella came back to the table with two coffee mugs and a cafetiere, Sophy looked at her expectantly.

‘Can I do it now?’ she whispered.

Bella sighed. ‘Go on, then.’

Sophy slithered off her chair and was gone in a lightning movement. Daniel the Spaniel lazily got up and padded off to see where she had gone. Simon and his sister were alone again.

‘Thanks for doing this,’ said Arabella. ‘You’re very patient with her.’

‘Not at all,’ shrugged Simon. ‘I enjoy it. She helps me sometimes, when my enthusiasm for the wonderful art of prestidigitation wanes a little.’

Bella poured the coffee. ‘Well, I still say you’re very kind.’

‘I would have said the same about you until you pulled that stunt about her party,’ said Simon.

Sophy ran back into the kitchen. She carried with her a glass and a pack of cards. She looked at her mother. ‘Can I use milk this time?’ she asked.

Bella nodded. ‘You can this time, as it’s Simon, as long as you promise to drink it afterwards.’

Sophy nodded.

‘All right, then. In the fridge.’

Sophy turned and went to the fridge, pulled a carton of milk from inside the door, and returned to the table.

‘This trick,’ she announced, ‘is magic.’

‘OK,’ said Simon. ‘Good start.’

Sophy picked up the pack of cards and tried to spread them into a fan as best as her tiny hands would allow. ‘First of all,’ she said, oddly formal, ‘please choose a completely ordinary playing card from this completely ordinary pack.’

Simon took a card.

‘Thank you,’ said Sophy. There was a pause.

‘Shall I look at it?’ prompted Simon.

‘If you like,’ replied Sophy.

‘I will, then,’ said Simon, and glanced at the card he had chosen. It was three of diamonds. He held the card to his chest.

‘Now give the card to me,’ said Sophy, who had put the rest of the pack back down on the table.

‘What,’ said Simon, ‘just like that? On its own?’

Sophy nodded. With a shrug, Simon handed it over. Sophy took the card and turned it over. Hang on, Simon wanted to say, that’s cheating. Instead he asked, rather petulantly, ‘Now what?’

‘And now, the miracle,’ announced Sophy. She opened the carton of milk and poured milk into the glass until it was full to the brim. Simon realized which trick she was going to do. He relaxed.

‘As you can see, I have poured this completely ordinary milk into this completely ordinary glass,’ explained Sophy.

‘Indeed,’ said Simon.

‘Now, I shall take this completely ordinary playing card that you have chosen and place it over the glass of milk.’ Sophy carefully slid the card over the rim of the glass so that it covered the mouth of the glass completely. As she did so her tongue stuck slightly out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. Simon waited. Sophy moved around the table next to where he sat. ‘Now watch very carefully,’ she said. She placed one hand over the playing card, and turned the glass upside down. The milk stayed in the glass, kept there by the pressure of the card which Sophy was still holding in place. Simon applauded as best as he could with one hand.

‘Amazing,’ he said.

‘Hang on,’ said Sophy, edging a little closer, her eyes fixed firmly on the glass. ‘Do you want to see something really amazing?’

‘More amazing than that?’ asked Simon, who knew what was coming next.

Sophy nodded.

‘Go on then,’ said Simon.

Very slowly, Sophy took her hand away from beneath the playing card. The card, and the milk, stayed where they were, apparently defying the laws of gravity.

Thank God, thought Simon, and said, ‘Wow.’

Sophy beamed. ‘Do you like it?’ she asked.

‘Like it?’ said Simon. ‘It’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen. You’re a genius. Superb.’

Sophy smiled and took a step towards him. ‘Thank –’ she began. Before she could go any further, her movement disrupted the finely-balanced principles of physics that the trick relied upon, and the card fell away from the mouth of the glass, swiftly followed by the milk itself, most of which landed on Simon’s lap.

‘Sophy!’ cried Arabella. She moved quickly to fetch a roll of kitchen paper. Seconds later the mopping up process had begun.

‘Sorry,’ said Sophy, who was still clutching the empty upside-down glass.

‘Are you all right, Simon?’ asked Arabella.

‘A bit wet, but I’ll live.’ The milk had begun to seep through the material of his trousers, which were now cold and clammy against his skin.

Arabella groaned. ‘I’m sorry. I should have made her be more careful. Sophy, say sorry to Simon.’

‘I just did,’ Sophy pointed out.

‘Then say it again.’

‘Sorry, Simon,’ said Sophy.

Simon smiled grimly. ‘That’s all right, Soph. It was still a good trick.’

Arabella was joined under the table by Daniel the Spaniel who began to lap up the remaining milk with his over-sized tongue. When he had finished he lifted his nose into the air, and, smelling more milk, unceremoniously put his snout into Simon’s groin and began licking again.

Simon pushed Daniel away as quickly as he could, and put his bandaged arm down to shield his groin from further canine investigation. Some weekend, he thought. It began with the promise of new social frontiers being conquered. It ended fending off offers of oral sex from a mentally retarded household pet.

Arabella sat back down at the table, the clean-up completed. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said.

Simon shrugged. ‘Don’t worry.’ He looked at his watch. He was feeling tired, and wanted to take his trousers off. ‘I’d better go,’ he said.

Arabella looked at him sadly. ‘All right,’ she said.

‘Thanks for dinner.’

‘You’re very welcome. Sorry Michael didn’t make it.’

‘Oh God, don’t worry,’ said Simon. Secretly, he was pleased. He stood up stiffly, leaning against the table.

Arabella handed him his crutches. ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘I’d offer to drive you home but Michael has the car today.’

Simon shrugged. ‘I can find a taxi. It’ll be quick at this time of night.’

‘Back soon?’ asked Arabella.

Simon nodded. ‘Yes please.’ He bent down to his niece. ‘See you then, sweet pea.’ He kissed the top of her head.

‘All right,’ said Sophy.

‘Bye then,’ said Simon. As he opened the door, Michael was walking up the steps.

‘Well,’ said Michael dryly. ‘It’s Merlin the Magician. What a nice surprise.’

‘Merlin was a wizard, actually,’ said Simon.

‘Merlin was a wizard, actually,’ minced Michael. ‘I do apologize. How ignorant of me.’

‘Hard day at the office?’ asked Simon pointedly.

Michael looked at him suspiciously. ‘Very,’ he replied. He pointed at Simon’s crutches. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Had an accident?’

‘Sort of,’ said Simon cautiously.

‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Michael, who didn’t sound sorry in the slightest. ‘Were you just going?’

‘I, er, yes,’ said Simon, resisting the urge to clobber Michael over the head with one of his crutches.

‘Excellent. Well, goodbye, then.’ Michael turned to go into the house. With an apologetic wave, Arabella followed him inside.

Simon stood on the porch, alone. For a few moments he remained there, staring unseeing at the darkening sky. He felt robbed, the intimacy and comfort of his Sunday evening violated by Michael’s brief but brutish intrusion.

Finally a blaring honk from an irate motorist further down the road woke Simon from his dream. He hobbled off to find a taxi.