Put like that, he did seem to have a point.
‘But you’ve got to stay warm,’ I argued. ‘It’s chilly work.’
‘You’re all prepared to suffer for your beliefs,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen you. Today was without a doubt the most tedious and boring and uncomfortable Sunday I’ve spent in years. It’s just a matter of trading off one miserable discomfort against another. You’d be a little less protected against the weather, but you’d be more protected against the sneers.’ He shook his fork at me (which wasn’t like him). ‘If you all dressed like lawyers and doctors and solicitors, you’d find yourself treated with a whole lot more respect. Besides,’ he added, ‘you could always use some of your campaign funds to buy collective thermal underwear.’
I shuddered. The idea of sharing a Damart vest and longjohns with some of the people who come on our demonstrations was pretty revolting.
‘Another thing,’ he said, reaching out to correct Jude who was holding her fork wrong. ‘Why go to out of the way holes where only the sheep can see you? It’s mad. You ought to be outside government offices on weekdays, or in shopping centres on Saturday mornings. At least then a few people would get to read what it says on your banners before you’re carted off to the nearest police station.’
I didn’t answer that one. I didn’t know how. I’ve often thought myself that the sheep on the west of Scotland must be the most politically informed sheep in the world.
‘And if you must go out to the middle of nowhere, why waste time singing silly songs? You should get organized. Someone should bring stamps, and someone paper, and you should spend your journey writing letters to your member of parliament, and the prime minister, and all the local papers, explaining exactly what you’re all doing, and why.’
There’s no denying it. He was quite right.
‘“Oh, Little Town of Sellafield”!’ He snorted with contempt again, just as he had on the bus ride. ‘Pure, self-indulgent rubbish! The time spent singing would have been far better employed writing to the Director of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate expressing your concern at the rising incidence of childhood leukaemia around the plant!’
‘You ought to be on our side,’ I told him.
‘Certainly not!’ He shuddered. ‘I don’t approve at all!’
‘Then why pass out these handy hints?’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t help it,’ he told me. ‘I’m a small businessman. I can’t bear inefficiency. Wherever I see it, I want to root it out.’ He glowered suddenly. ‘And I can’t bear rudeness, either. I shall be writing to the Commander of that submarine base complaining about the mischievous behaviour of men supposedly under his command.’ The glower deepened to a thorough scowl. ‘My suit is ruined.’
He did sound a bit like Simon, I must admit. But, still, it wasn’t tactful of Jude to giggle.
‘Finished?’ he asked, noticing her empty plate. And then he laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. ‘You must be tired out. I think you’d better go straight up to bed just as soon as you’ve finished helping with the dishes.’
‘You must be joking,’ I said. ‘Jude never helps with the dishes.’
(I couldn’t help it. It’s a very sore point.)
His hand slid off her shoulder. ‘Never helps? Why not?’ He looked at her enquiringly, saying to me: ‘She’s got arms, hasn’t she? She can reach in the sink.’
Jude began edging off towards the door, making the most of her silent furry slippers.
I shrugged.
‘I suppose it’s just because she’s so much younger,’ I told him.
Gerald stared.
‘That is the silliest thing I ever heard,’ he said. ‘By that reasoning, the youngest child in every family in Scotland would reach adulthood without the faintest notion of how to make with the mop and the Fairy Liquid.’
It’s no more than the truth. I’ve said the same often enough myself. It’s just that, at this point, Jude always puts on her pathetic little waif face, and Mum goes all riddled with guilt and says something like: ‘Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow. But I’ll take a turn for her tonight since she’s not very good at it.’
Gerald was obviously immune to the pathetic little waif face. But, with him clearly taking up the part I usually played with such enthusiasm, for some extraordinary reason I took up Mum’s part.
‘She could do the breakfast things instead,’ I suggested. ‘She won’t be quite so tired then.’
Like someone playing grandmother’s footsteps, Jude stopped her shuffling towards the door.
‘She’s not so tired now,’ Gerald insisted. ‘She’s not as tired as I am, for example. I cooked the meal. And she’s not as tired as you are. You peeled the potatoes. And she slept for two whole hours on the bus.’
He turned to Jude. During this speech, she’d shuffled the last few feet towards the door, but she hadn’t quite summoned up enough courage to disappear through it. I think she sensed that, unlike Mum, he’d just come after her and fetch her back.
‘Would you like a stool to stand on?’ he asked her politely. ‘Or can you reach?’
I was still nervous, I don’t know why. Maybe it was the outraged look on Jude’s face.
‘Can’t we just leave the dishes till the morning?’ I asked. (Another of Mum’s great standby lines.)
‘No,’ Gerald said. ‘No, we can not. Only sluts and drunks leave the dishes till morning.’
(I made a mental note to tell Mum this.)
‘Anyway,’ he added. ‘You’re only trying to protect your sister. You are as bad as your mother in that respect. And Judith doesn’t need your help, you know. Everyone round here treats her as if she were still a baby, but in fact she is perfectly capable.’
Now that was definitely my line. If I’ve said that once, I’ve said it well over a thousand times. I had my mouth wide open when he turned to Jude.
‘Aren’t you?’ he demanded.
Jude narrowed her eyes. It was a toss-up, I reckoned, between heart-rending sobs and roof-raising temper. But I was wrong. The fact is that, for some reason or another best known to herself, our Jude simply adores old Goggle-eyes, and in her book the man can do no wrong. If he says she’s not tired, then she’s not tired. If he says she can wash up, then she can.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘And I don’t need a stool. I can reach.’
‘There’s my girl,’ Gerald said. ‘I knew you could do it!’
I was left speechless, honestly I was. When someone else steals your lines, what can you say?
She did the whole lot by herself. He told her how – glasses first; cutlery next; then dishes; last, the greasy pans. She toiled away, having a bit of trouble with the stacking, but Gerald kept his nerve and in the end she got through without any accidents at all. She looked really chuffed when she hung up the apron.
After she’d finished, he inspected it. (I’m not kidding. He actually came across and picked up a couple of forks and peered between the tines, then held up one or two glasses to the light.)
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘From now on you can wash up every other night. Is that all right with you?’
‘Fine,’ she said, grinning proudly. I nearly fainted. I must have been trying to wangle a deal halfway as fair as that for five whole years.
‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘That’s settled. And now, as a reward, I shall come upstairs with you and read you a story.’
He may, or may not, have read her the story first, I don’t know. It was at least ten minutes before I went up there. But when I walked past, on my way to the bathroom, it wasn’t a story he was reading to her, that was for sure. I heard the soothing rumble of his voice right from the top of the stairs.