‘Primavera! When we saw the car, we hoped it was you!’ Mrs Phillips had a voice like a bell. It rang grandly around the room, and I thought for a second I could hear the glassware tremble. But it had a kind tone, and I knew at once that I was going to like her. Prim rushed across to the doorway and hugged her mother. Behind them, her Dad smiled awkwardly, as if taken aback by such a show of emotion. Then she turned to him, and pulled him to her also, kissing his cheek. I was surprised when his eyes glistened, and so, I think was he. I thought about shedding the odd tear myself, to spare the poor bloke’s embarrassment.
Eventually, they noticed that I was there. They couldn’t help it. I stood there in my jeans and tee-shirt, fidgeting and feeling as awkward as I ever had in my life. They didn’t stare at me, they just looked, as they’d probably look at a deer that wandered into their garden. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes, as long as it doesn’t eat the tulips!’ Prim took pity on the alien life-form whom she’d brought into the house. She came across and wrapped herself around me, holding me like a drunk holds a bus-stop, as if he’s taking it home to the wife.
‘Mum, Dad. This is Oz Blackstone. He’s crackers, but I think you’ll like him. I do.’
How do you respond to an introduction like that? I came out with, ‘Pleased to meet you, after all this time.’ The words sort of fell out of my mouth. It was as if they’d been generated by something other than my brain. Without breaking Prim’s bearhug, I reached out and shook hands with them both.
Mrs Phillips looked me up and down one more time. ‘Well, Oz,’ she said, slowly, weightily. ‘I’ve waited a long time to hear my older daughter say something like that, so I’m pleased to meet you too.’ She flicked a finger towards Dawn and added, archly. ‘That one, of course, says something like that every three months or so, and from the way she was talking on Wednesday, I think we’re about to hear it again.’
‘That’s not all we’re going to hear, I hope,’ said Mr Phillips, eyeballing his wife meaningfully. He’s a dry sort, Prim’s father. He looks as if he was made from the wood he carves himself, and he tends to say not much more than one of his toy soldiers. But when he does contribute, it hits the spot.
‘All in good time, David,’ said Mrs Phillips, ‘but first, lunch. Come on, girls.’
‘I’ll help too,’ I said at once, faced with the possibility of being left alone with the totem pole. But it wasn’t that easy. ‘Not at all, Oz,’ said Mother. ‘You sit down.’ Prim looked back at me, smiling, as she followed her towards the kitchen.
Dad Phillips and I stood there for a few moments, in an awkward silence. And then he coughed, and I realised that he was even less at ease than I was. ‘This must be very, er, sudden, for you,’ I ventured. ‘Both daughters at home more or less out of the blue, and one of them with a bloke in tow.’
He eyed me, checking for any sign that I was humouring him. Then, all at once, he nodded and the ice was broken. ‘Yes, you’re right. I haven’t had much practice at small talk in recent years, not since I sold my factory. Elanore and I each have our own interests, and they tend to be solitary. She writes, I carve wood into interesting shapes and paint it. We don’t have many visitors, apart from the occasional girl chums our daughters bring with them. As a matter of fact, you’re the first man friend that Primavera’s brought here since she was at college.’
I beamed, bursting with pride, until very gently, he pricked my balloon. ‘She’s always been an individual, has Primavera. Odd tastes in most things.
‘What’s Oz short for?’
I told him. He nodded, in sympathy, I thought.
‘What do you do?’
I told him. ‘No divorce work,’ I added hastily.
He shrugged. ‘No matter. Someone’s got to do it. Does it pay well?’
‘I’m self-employed. I expect thirty grand net in a reasonable year. Forty in a good one.’
‘Mmmm.’ There was something in his ‘Mmmm’ that told me I’d passed my first test.
‘D’you play chess?’ said Mr Phillips, suddenly.
‘I know how the men move,’ I said guardedly. One thing more do I know. If anyone over sixty ever offers to take you on at dominoes, darts, chess or squash, be carefuclass="underline" especially if it’s squash. There’s nothing worse than being humbled at a young person’s game by someone who puts his bus pass at the front of the court and adjusts his knee bandages before you begin. I know this from experience.
‘That’s enough,’ he said, a decision made. He walked over to a side window and returned carrying, carefully, a chessboard on a stand. The pieces were set up, ready for battle. They were unlike any I had ever seen. The kings, queens and their courts were all hand-carved, in forms dredged from a clearly remarkable imagination. They were delicately painted and sealed in hard varnish, but there was no doubt as to which side was which.
The black pawns were twisted, leering goblins; the castles were tall forbidding tower; the knights were dragon heads; the bishops were horned, hunched things; the royal pieces were cloaked, and oozed menace from under their twisted crowns. The whites, on the other hand were smooth wee beauties. The pawns were beautifully armoured; the castles were straight and topped with tiny, carved, hand-coloured banners; the knights were plumed; the bishops carried crooks, and had long beards; the Queen was a perfect, narrow-waisted lady, with a wimple, rather than a crown; the white King had long, flowing hair, wore a simple, gold-painted circlet and leaned on a great broadsword.
I picked up the menacing black King. It was surprisingly heavy, and I realised that there was a weight set in its base. I held it up, and gasped at the way its pinprick eyes seemed to follow me, glowering.
‘Did you make these?’ I asked. ‘They’re brilliant.’
He smiled, and I could see that he was the sort of bloke who’s embarrassed by his talent. ‘Thank you. They’re just a one-off, though. I couldn’t do them commercially. Take too much time. My model soldiers are easier.
‘Right, Oz, you’re black.’ The game didn’t last long. He marched his soldiers out methodically, as I pursued my usual tactic of going for a quick kill, crashing my main attacking pieces all around the board, looking for an opening. He took my offensive apart, pawn by pawn, knight after knight, until all but nine of the men were on his side of the board. Finally he zapped me with a Queen-rook move that I saw only when I was beyond redemption.
He nodded as I tipped over my King. ‘Excellent. You’ll do for my daughter all right. People approach chess in the same way they approach their lives. You, Oz, play with your heart, rather than your head. Exactly like Primavera; you couldn’t be better matched.’
Right on cue, my beloved appeared in the doorway. ‘Come on you two. Lunch.’ She led us through to a long dining room at the rear of the house, where a long table — more Corleone Family than Addams this time — was set for five.
‘It’s as if we were expected,’ I said to Prim; quietly, I thought, but her mother can hear a mouse break wind at the foot of the garden.
‘Sunday, Oz,’ she boomed. ‘We always cook a big bird on Sunday. It does us for a couple of days.’ The big bird turned out to have been a goose, but before we got that far we were faced with the sort of thick soup that my Granny Blackstone used to make. You know the kind; you can draw your initials in the middle and they won’t go away till you spoon them up. As I tackled and conquered the strong-flavoured goose, I looked out of the window. The Phillips’ back garden was of the market variety. On one side vegetables were set out in rows; potatoes, carrots, leeks, pea stalks, runner beans. On the other, there were lines of raspberry canes, with strawberry patches next to the house and rhubarb under the boundary wall.