Really cunning, right? He doesn’t actually ask if it’s me, and then he can’t look silly if I don’t answer.
Just then Floss padded in through the front door, and started rubbing up against his trouser legs as if she’d known and loved him all her life. He stopped to pet her. ‘Puss, puss, puss.’ I thought now he’d be bound to try and get me to speak. It’s hard to fondle someone else’s cat in front of them, and not ask its name. But Gerald Faulkner’s made of sterner stuff than that.
‘Up you come, Buster,’ he said, scooping Floss up in his arms. ‘Who’s a nice Kitty?’
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, either. I was still trying to work it out (and Floss was still purring shamelessly) when Jude came thundering downstairs.
‘Mum says to help yourself to a drink, and she’ll be down in a minute.’
‘Right-ho.’
He tipped the enraptured Floss into Jude’s arms, and ambled past me with a nod. I realized that he must have been in our house at least once before. How else would he know which door led into the kitchen? Jude padded after him like a pet dog, and I was forced to lean back against the door frame so I didn’t look ridiculous, standing there doggedly staring the other way.
He stood at one end of the cabinets and opened the first two doors, looked in, then closed them. He moved along and did the same again, and again. I said nothing, just leaned against the door frame and watched. But Jude caught on before he’d gone very much further.
‘Do you want glasses? They’re in here.’
And she rushed about, finding him the only sharp knife, and a lemon, and groping about on the floor for a couple of ice-cubes that slithered off the table. The two of them kept up a steady chat about nothing at all – how quickly bottled drinks lose their fizz, how long it takes for water to freeze in an ice tray. I was astonished. Jude’s not a talker, on the whole. It’s like the business of the telephone. She can go hours without bothering. But here she was, burbling away merrily to this perfect stranger.
He only spoke to me directly once. He’d just pushed my school bag further along the table to keep it safe from a small puddle of melted ice. The bag was open and my books were showing – not just France Aujourd’hui and Modern Mathematics, but also the things I’m reading on the bus and at bedtime: A Thousand Worst Jokes and that thriller Coma, about a hospital where the anaesthesia goes haywire.
He tapped the jacket of Coma with his knuckle.
‘Is this a book about punctuation?’ he asked me. ‘Because, if it is, the author can’t spell.’
I couldn’t resist.
‘A pity the other book isn’t A Thousand and One Worst Jokes,’ I snapped. ‘You could have offered them yours.’
There. I had spoken to him. I had done my bit. So I turned on my heel and walked out of the kitchen.
Mum was halfway down the stairs, wearing a frilly blouse and smart velvet trousers. I glowered at her and, misunderstanding, she said:
‘Listen, I’m really sorry about missing the meeting tonight.’
‘Missing the meeting?’
This was him. He had sneaked up behind me with the tray. On it four glasses fizzed, tinkling with ice, and I could smell the tang of lemons.
Mum took the glass he offered her, and smiled at him.
‘Kitty and I always go together on Thursdays,’ she explained. ‘She’s a bit cross because, now I’m not coming, she’ll have to take the bus.’
I hate it when people just assume they know the reasons for everything. I don’t mind taking the bus. I never have. I like Mum to come because our car ride together to the meeting is about the only time – the only time – I’m sure I’ve got her on my own. That’s one of the worst things about Dad moving away to Berwick upon Tweed. Jude and I hardly ever get to be alone with him or with Mum. We’re either both with the one or we’re both with the other. And they can’t split themselves in two, so one of us can have a private chat down the back garden while the other is pouring out her heart on the sofa.
I was about to say ‘I am not cross’ when Gerald Faulkner touched my elbow with his, proffering his tray.
‘Here,’ he said, nodding at the closest glass. ‘That one’s yours.’
Without thinking, I lifted the drink off the tray. I could have kicked myself. In spite of all the effort he’d put in to making them, I had intended to refuse mine. But at least I could still refuse to say thank you. Unfortunately, just as Mum opened her mouth to prompt me, he waved his hand as if to cut off all the profuse and gracious thanks on which he was sure I was going to embark any second, and said, as if I were eighteen, or something:
‘I didn’t put any alcohol in yours because I didn’t know if you liked the taste.’
That threw Mum. She doesn’t like anyone even to suggest within ten miles of my hearing that, one day, I might be old enough to go to a pub without being sent home to bed by the landlord. For someone to imply, even if only out of tact and politeness, that I might be on the verge of growing out of fizzy lemonade, well, that was more than she could handle. Changing the subject as fast as she could, she plucked at the frilly blouse and the velvet trousers, and asked us both:
‘Are these all right?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They’re all right.’ (I was still mad.)
She turned to him.
‘Gerald?’
He put his head on one side. ‘They’re lovely,’ he said. ‘Absolutely smashing. You look tremendous. But won’t you spoil me a little? Wear the blue suit with those tiny wooden toggle fasteners, the black diamond stockings and the shiny bow shoes.’
I stared. I absolutely stared. Was he some wardrobe pervert, or something? Dad lived with her for years, and he could no more have described any of her clothes like that than flown up in the air. In fact, I don’t think Dad even noticed what Mum wore. Obviously if she came down the stairs all tarted up to go out somewhere special, he’d say, ‘Oh, you look very nice.’ But ask her to go back up and change into something he liked even better? You have to be joking.
And her? Blush and shrug, and turn round to trot obediently back upstairs to change, holding her glass high? Was this my mum?
‘Lucky for you this is Request Night,’ she chirruped down from the landing.
No. This was not my mum. I was still staring after the apparition in horror when Gerald Faulkner slid one arm round Jude and one round me, and steered us both into the living room.
I shook him off. He moved away and sat on the sofa. Jude made one of her nests in the beanbag. I stood and scowled.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You’re all mixed up in it as well.’
Though I had no idea what he was talking about, I got the feeling he was speaking to me.
‘Mixed up in what?’
‘You know,’ he said, grinning. ‘The Woolly Hat Brigade. Close Down the Power Stations. Ban the Bomb.’
Fine, I thought. Lovely. Jolly nice for me. My mum’s busy upstairs turning herself into some simpering Barbie-doll for the sort of man she’d usually take a ten-mile hike to avoid, and I’m stuck downstairs with the political Neanderthal.
‘I’m in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, yes.’
Tones of voice don’t come much more frosty than mine was, I can tell you. But he didn’t even seem to notice. He was bent on telling me what he thought.
‘Nuclear power’s been invented now,’ he said. ‘You can’t just pretend that it hasn’t. You can’t disinvent it.’
‘You can’t disinvent thumb screws either,’ I snapped. ‘Or gas chambers. But you can dismantle them. And you should.’