‘Oh, I get it. Harper’s Bazaar do a special on rockeries so of course we have to have one too.’
‘Kate’s got a nice rockery,’ Julia said, neutrally. ‘With heathers.’
‘Lucky old Kate.’ Dad put his glasses on to study the magazine. ‘Very nice, Helena, but they’ve used real Italian marble here.’
Mum’s ‘That’s right’ meant And I’m having marble too.
‘Do you have any inkling of how much marble costs?’
‘More than an inkling. I called a landscape gardener in Kidderminster.’
‘Why should I shell out money,’ Dad tossed the magazine on the floor, ‘for a pile of rocks?’
Mum normally backs down at this point, but not today. ‘So it’s all right for you to spend six hundred pounds on a golf-club membership you hardly ever use, but it isn’t all right for me to improve our property?’
‘The golf course,’ Dad tried not to shout, ‘as I’ve tried to tell you, over and over and over and over, is where deals get cut. Including key promotions. I may not like it, you may not like it, but there it is. And Craig Salt does not play his golf on public links.’
‘Don’t wave your fork at me, Michael.’
Dad didn’t put his fork down. ‘I am the breadwinner in this family, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to spend at least a portion of my salary however the hell I see fit.’
My mashed potatoes’d gone cold.
‘So in effect,’ Mum folded her napkin, ‘you’re telling me to stick to jam-making and leave the grown-up decisions to the one in the trousers?’
Dad rolled his eyes. (I’d get killed for doing that.) ‘Save the female libber stuff for your Women’s Institute friends, Helena. I’m asking you nicely. I’ve had a very long day.’
‘Patronize your underlings in your supermarkets as much as you want, Michael.’ Mum noisily stacked the plates and took them to the kitchen hatch. ‘But don’t try it at home. I’m asking you nicely. I’ve had a very long day.’ She went into the kitchen.
Dad stared at her empty chair. ‘So, Jason, how was school?’
My stomach granny-knotted up. Hangman blocked ‘Not so bad’.
‘Jason?’ Dad’s voice went hot and red. ‘I asked you how school was.’
‘Fine, thanks.’ (Today’d been crap. Mr Kempsey bollocked me for cake crumbs in my music book and Mr Carver’d told me I was as ‘useful as a spastic’ at hockey.)
We heard Mum scrape plates into the kitchen bin.
Knife on china, a whooshy thud.
‘Excellent,’ said Dad. ‘How about you, Julia?’
Before my sister could say a word a plate smashed on the kitchen floor. Dad jumped out of his seat. ‘Helena?’ His breeziness’d gone.
Mum’s answer was to slam the back door.
Dad jumped up and went after her.
Rooks crawked round St Gabriel’s steeple.
Julia blew out her cheeks. ‘Three stars?’
Miserably, I held up four fingers.
‘Just a rocky patch, Jace.’ Julia’s got this brave smile. ‘That’s all. Most marriages have them. Really. Don’t worry.’
Mrs Thatcher frazzled this twerpy prat in a bow tie on BBC1 this evening. He was saying sinking the General Belgrano outside the Total Exclusion Zone was morally and legally wrong. (Actually we sank the Belgrano some days ago but the papers’ve just got hold of the pictures and since the Sheffield we’ve got zero sympathy for the Argie bastards.) Mrs Thatcher fixed her stained-glass blue eyes on that pillock and pointed out that the enemy cruiser’d been zigzagging in and out of the zone all day. She said something like, ‘The fathers and mothers of our country did not elect me the Prime Minister of this country to gamble with the lives of their sons over questions of legal niceties. Must I remind you that we are a country at war?’ The whole studio cheered and the whole country cheered too, I reckon, ’cept for Michael Foot and Red Ken Livingstone and Anthony Wedgwood Benn and all those Loony Lefties. Mrs Thatcher’s bloody ace. She’s so strong, so calm, so sure. Loads more use than the Queen, who hasn’t said a dickie-bird since the war began. Some countries like Spain are saying we shouldn’t’ve fired on the Belgrano, but the only reason so many Argies drowned was that the other ships in its convoy scarpered off instead of saving their own men. Our Royal Navy’d never ever ever leave Britons to drown like that. And anyway, when you join the army or navy in any country, you’re paid to risk your life. Like Tom Yew. Now Galtieri is trying to get us back to the negotiating table, but Maggie’s told him the only thing she’ll discuss is the United Nations’ Resolution 502. Argentina’s unconditional withdrawal from British soil. Some Argie diplomat in New York, still harping on about the Belgrano being outside the zone, said Britain no longer rules the waves, it just waives the rules. The Daily Mail says it’s typical of a tinpot Latin paper-pusher to make stupid quips about life and death. The Daily Mail says the Argies should’ve thought about the consequences before they stuck their poxy blue-and-white flag on our sovereign colony. The Daily Mail’s dead right. The Daily Mail says that Leopoldo Galtieri only invaded the Falklands to distract attention from all his own people he’s tortured, murdered and pushed out of helicopters over the sea. The Daily Mail’s dead right again. The Daily Mail says Galtieri’s brand of patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. The Daily Mail’s as right as Margaret Thatcher. All England’s turned into a dynamo. People are queuing up outside hospitals to donate blood. Mr Whitlock spent most of our biology lesson saying how certain patriotic young men cycled to Worcester hospital to give blood. (Everyone knows he was talking about Gilbert Swinyard and Pete Redmarley.) They were told by a nurse that they’re too young. So Mr Whitlock’s writing to Michael Spicer, our Member of Parliament, to complain that the children of England are being denied the right to contribute to the war effort. His letter’s already in the Malvern Gazetteer.
Nick Yew is a school hero ’cause of Tom. Nick said the Sheffield was just an unlucky fluke. Our anti-missile systems’ll be modified to knock out the Exocets from now on. So we should be getting our islands back pretty soon. The Sun’s paying £100 for the best anti-Argie joke. I can’t do jokes, but I’m keeping a scrapbook about the war. I’m cutting out stuff from the newspapers and magazines. Neal Brose is keeping one too. He reckons it’ll be worth a fortune twenty or thirty years from now when the Falklands War has turned into history. But all this excitement’ll never turn dusty and brown in archives and libraries. No way. People’ll remember everything about the Falklands till the end of the world.
Mum was at the dining-room table surrounded by bank papers when I got back from school. Dad’s fireproof document box was out and open. Through the kitchen hatch I asked if she’d had a good day.
‘Not a “good day” exactly,’ Mum didn’t take her eyes off her calculator, ‘but it’s certainly been a real revelation.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, doubting it. I got a couple of Digestives and a glass of Ribena. Julia’d snaffled all the Jaffa Cakes ’cause she’s at home all day revising for her A-levels. Greedy moo. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘Skateboarding.’
I should’ve just gone upstairs. ‘What’s for dinner?’
‘Toad.’
One unsarky answer to one simple question, that’s all I wanted. ‘Doesn’t Dad usually do all the bank statements and stuff?’
‘Yes.’ Mum finally looked at me. ‘Isn’t your lucky old father in for a pleasant surprise when he comes home?’ Something vicious’d got into her voice. It pulled the knot in my guts so tight I still can’t loosen it.
Wish it had been toad for dinner, not tinned carrots, baked beans and Heinz meatballs in gravy. A plate of browny orange. Mum can cook real food, when relatives visit, say. She’s on a work-to-rule till she gets her rockery, I reckon. Dad said it was ‘utterly delicious’. His sarcasm didn’t bother with camoflauge. Neither did Mum’s. ‘I am glad you think so.’ (What Mum and Dad say to each other’s half a world away from what they mean, these da
ys. Ordinary polite words shouldn’t be so toxic but they can be.) That was all they said, just about, for the entire meal. Pudding was apple sponge. The syrup trail from my spoon was the path of our marines. To forget the atmosphere, I bravely led our lads yomping over custard snow to ultimate victory in Port Stanley.
It was Julia’s turn to do the dishes but we’ve become sort of allies in the last couple of weeks so I dried for her. My sister’s not totally revolting all the time. She even spoke a bit about her boyfriend Ewan while we did the dishes. His mum’s in the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She’s the percussionist and gets to crash the cymbals and play the thundery kettle drums, which sounds an ace laugh. But Hangman’s been giving me a hard time since Mum and Dad’s last barney when Mum smashed the plate. So I let Julia do most of the talking. The war’s become the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing at night, so it’s nice to hear about something else. Evening sunshine flooded the valley floor between our garden and the Malverns.
The tulips are black plum, emulsion white and yolky gold.
Mum and Dad must’ve called a weird peacefire while we’d been in the kitchen ’cause after the washing-up they sat at the table and seemed to be talking normally about the day and stuff. Julia’d asked if they’d like a cup of coffee and Dad’d said, ‘That’d be lovely, darling’ and Mum said, ‘Thank you, sweetheart.’ I told myself I’d misread the signs completely when I got back from school, and my gut-knot unworried itself a bit looser. Dad was telling Mum a funny story about how his boss Craig Salt’d let Dad’s trainee Danny Lawlor drive Craig Salt’s DeLorean sports car round a go-karting track on a team-building weekend. So instead of sloping off upstairs I went into the living room to watch Tomorrow’s World on TV.
That’s how I heard Mum launch her ambush. ‘By the way, Michael. Why did you take out a second mortgage with NatWest for five thousand pounds in January?’
Five thousand pounds! Our house only cost twenty-two!
In the future, according to Tomorrow’s World, cars will drive themselves along strips implanted in roads. We’ll just punch in our destination. There’ll never be another traffic accident again.
‘Been sifting through my accounts, have we?’
‘If I hadn’t looked at the finances, I’d still be in a state of pristine ignorance, wouldn’t I?’
‘So. You just went into my office and helped yourself.’
Dad, I thought, Dad! Don’t say that to her.
‘Are you honestly,’ Mum’s voice turned quivery, ‘telling me – me, Michael, me – that I’m not allowed into your office? That your filing cabinets are out of bounds for me as well as the children? Are you?’
Dad said nothing.
‘Call me old fashioned, but I think a wife who discovers her husband is in hock to the tune of five thousand pounds is entitled to some pretty bloody straight answers.’
I felt sick, cold and old.
‘And where,’ Dad finally said, ‘did this sudden interest in accountancy spring from?’
‘Why have you remortgaged our house?’
The Tomorrow’s World presenter was gluing himself to the ceiling of the studio. ‘British brains dream up a chemical bond stronger than gravity!’ The presenter grinned. ‘You can bet your life on it!’
‘Right. Then I’ll tell you why, shall I?’
‘I do wish you would.’
‘Rescheduling.’
‘Are you trying,’ Mum did a half-laugh, ‘to dazzle me with jargon?’
‘It’s not jargon. It’s rescheduling. Please don’t go all hysterical on me because—’
‘How am I supposed to respond, Michael? Using our house as security! Then the money gets paid out in tidy parcels to God knows where. Or is it to God knows who?’
‘What,’ Dad went quiet as death, ‘do you mean by that?’
‘I politely ask you what is going on,’ Mum’d backed off from some sort of brink, ‘and all I get is evasion. Can you tell me what I’m supposed to think? Please? Because I don’t understand what’s—’
‘Exactly, Helena! Thank you! You just put your finger on it! You don’t understand! I took out the loan because there was a shortfall! I know money is for the little people to sort out, but as you may have noticed while you did your Sherlock Holmes act this afternoon, we’ve got thumping great ruddy mortgage payments to keep up on the first mortgage! Insurance premiums on all this junk you insist on buying! Utility bills! Your blessed kitchen and your new Royal ruddy Doulton dinner service – that we’ll use to impress your sister and Brian twice a year at most – to pay for! Your car to be replaced whenever its ashtray’s gone out of fashion! And now, now, you’ve decided life isn’t worth living without…new adventures in landscape gardening!’
‘Voice, Michael. The kids’ll hear.’
‘That never seems to worry you.’
‘Now you’re getting hysterical.’
‘Right. “Hysterical”. Fine. You asked for a suggestion, Helena, so here we go. I suggest that you spend your waking life in meetings, more bloody meetings, get blamed for staff shortages, for stock leakages, for disappointing balance sheets. I suggest you bugger up your back clocking up twenty, twenty-five, thirty thousand road miles per year! Then, then, you are welcome to call me hysterical. Until then, I’d be grateful if you didn’t give me the third bloody degree on how I choose to juggle your bills. That’s my suggestion.’
Dad stomped upstairs.
He’s slamming his filing-cabinet drawers.
Mum hasn’t left the dining room. I hope to God she isn’t crying.
Wish Tomorrow’s World would open up and swallow me.
War’s an auction where whoever can pay most in damage and still be standing wins. The news is bad. Brian Hanrahan said the landing at San Carlos Bay was the bloodiest day for the Royal Navy since the Second World War. The hills blocked our radar so we didn’t see the warplanes coming till they were right on top of us. The clear morning was a gift to the Argentinians. They attacked the main ships, not the troop transporters, ’cause once the task force is sunk, our land forces’ll be easy to pick off. HMS Ardent was sunk. HMS Brilliant is crippled. HMS Antrim and HMS Argonaut are out of the war for good. TV’s been showing the same pictures, all day. An enemy Mirage III-E sharks through a skyful of Sea Cats and Sea Wolfs and Sea Slugs. Water spouts kerboom in the bay. Black smoke pours from the hull of the Ardent. For the first time we saw the Falkland Islands themselves. Treeless, houseless, hedgeless, no colours bar greys and greens. Julia said it’s like the Hebrides and she’s right. (We went to Mull three years ago for the rainiest holiday in Taylor history, but the best one. Me and Dad played Subbuteo the entire week. I was Liverpool, he was Nottingham Forest.) Brian Hanrahan reported that only our Sea Harriers’ counter-attack prevented an outright catastrophe. He described an enemy plane downed by a Harrier, cartwheeling right over his head till it crashed into the sea.
HMS Coventry wasn’t in the report.
God knows who’s winning and who’s losing now. There’s a rumour the Soviet Union’s feeding the Argentinians satellite pictures of our fleet, which is why they always know where to find us. (Brezhnev’s dying or dead so nobody knows what’s going on in the Kremlin.) Neal Brose said if that’s true then Ronald Reagan’ll have to get involved ’cause of the NATO alliance. Then World War Three might start.
The Daily Mail listed all the lies the junta are telling their people. It made me livid. John Nott, our Minister of Defence, would never lie to us. Julia asked how I knew we weren’t being lied to? ‘We’re British,’ I told her. ‘Why would the government lie?’ Julia replied that it was to assure us that our wonderful war is going swimmingly when in fact it’s going down the toilet. ‘But,’ went my answer, ‘we’re not being lied to.’ Julia said that’s exactly what Argentinian people’ll be saying right now.
Right now. That’s what freaks me. I dip my fountain pen into a pot of ink, and a Wessex helicopter crashes into a glacier on South Georgia. I line up my protractor
on an angle in my maths book and a Sidewinder missile locks on to a Mirage III. I draw a circle with my compass and a Welsh Guard stands up in a patch of burning gorse and gets a bullet through his eye.
How can the world just go on, as if none of this is happening?
I was changing out of my school uniform when this dream of a silver MG cruised down Kingfisher Meadows. Into our driveway it swung, and parked under my bedroom window. Rain’d been spitting all afternoon so the hood was up. My first view of my sister’s boyfriend, then, was via aerial surveillance. I’d expected Ewan to look sort of Prince Edwardish, but he’s got exploding red hair, sooty freckles and a bouncy walk. He wore a peach shirt under a baggy indigo jumper, black drainpipes, one of those studded belts that sags loose off your hips, and winkle-pickers with white tube socks, which everyone’s wearing recently. I yelled up to Julia’s attic that Ewan was here. Thumps thumped, a bottle was knocked over and Julia muttered, ‘Bugger.’ (What is it that girls do before they go out? Julia takes aeons to get ready. Dean Moran says his’re just the same.) Then she yelled, ‘MUM! Will you get it?’ Mum was already hurrying down the hall. I took up my sniper’s-nest position on the landing.
‘Ewan, I presume!’ Mum used the voice she uses to put nervous people at ease. ‘A pleasure to meet you, at long last.’
Ewan didn’t look at all nervous. ‘Real pleasure to meet you too, Mrs Taylor.’ His voice was poshish but not as posh as Mum’s put-on posh.
‘Julia’s told us oodles about you.’
‘Oh dear.’ Ewan has a froggy smile. ‘That’s torn it.’
‘Oh, no no no,’ Mum laughed like confetti, ‘it’s all good.’
‘She’s told me “oodles” about you, too.’
‘Good, good. Well. Jolly good. Won’t you step inside while milady’s finishing her…well, while she’s finishing.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So,’ Mum closed the door, ‘Julia tells us you’re at the Cathedral School? Upper sixth?’