Michael had moved the croquet hoops off the side lawn, which he would mow later on, and had set them out ready for a game on the stretch of grass between the back of the house and the pool pavilion. He was fetching the mallets and balls and carrying them round when he heard the sound of the car. Jean appeared at the kitchen door. Together, exchanging a look, they made their way quickly round the side of the house to the front. Steph had stepped out of the car and was hurrying towards them with an appeasing but doubtful smile. Jean stopped and was wiping her hands on her apron and Michael stood some distance behind her, tossing two croquet balls up and down in one hand. They tried to smile back.
‘It’s okay!’ she said breathlessly, as she reached them, ‘honest, it’s okay. I couldn’t help it. It’s only Charlie’s granddad.’ Jean and Michael looked past her to the back of the figure bending into the rear of the car, fiddling with the straps of the car seat. Michael stopped his half-hearted juggling with the croquet balls. ‘Only I couldn’t help it. He just turned up at Sally’s, and then he wouldn’t let me bring Charlie along the road in the pushchair. He’s okay, though. He never sees Charlie and he wants to stay a minute. Just act ordinary.’
‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ Michael said slowly. He was staring at the man, who was now smiling broadly and walking towards them with Charlie in his arms. ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ He stepped back a few paces, but it was too late to disappear. He had been seen. ‘Jean, go on and say hello.’
Mr Brookes pulled off his hat and called out, ‘How do you do! Forgive my descending on you out of the blue, did Stephanie explain? Bit of communication breakdown, I’m afraid! Here we go, young man!’ He shifted one arm under Charlie’s bottom and handed him over to Steph. Then he extended a hand towards Jean. I’m Charlie’s grandfather. Gordon Brookes. And you’re…?’
‘Er, Jean,’ she said, in a voice that sounded out of practice. ‘I’m Jean. Hello.’ Steph bit her lip. Jean looked rather wild, standing there in a strawberry smeared apron, her hair wandering. She sounded rather out of it, too.
‘What a marvellous house!’ the man was saying, taking Jean’s hand and pumping it while he looked past her at the faзade. ‘Have you lived here long?’
‘Quite long,’ she managed to say, suspiciously.
‘What’s the period? The usual hotchpotch? Tudor origins, later additions? Glorious stone!’ The man was turning his full charm and attention equally on Jean and the house, and Jean seemed about to collapse under it. Steph shot Michael a darting look. Michael must see what was happening. Why was he simply staring, and not doing something to rescue her?
And why was Charlie’s grandfather now staring so hard at Michael? The smile had gone, and his mouth was opening and closing. ‘You? My God. You. I- I’m going to- My God, it is you, you’re the- the-’ Gordon Brookes’s face was reddening.
‘Steph,’ Michael said quietly, ‘Steph, take Jean and Charlie indoors. Please, go now. Now. Right now.’ He took a step backwards.
Gordon Brookes was advancing, and growing agitated. He gasped, ‘It’s not, is it? It is! It’s you! You little, you…! My figures, my St John and St Catharine. Oh good God… you-’
Being a man capable of fury yet unused to physical contact of any kind, least of all fighting, Gordon Brookes did not move smoothly, but his hands flew up and one fist caught Michael on the shoulder, half pushing, half punching. The blow seemed to take him almost as much by surprise as it did Michael, but he followed it with another before Michael could raise his arms to protect his head. Gordon Brookes had long ago been civilised into churchy mental habits, so it was a shock to him to realise that hitting somebody could feel, while unfamiliar, the only natural and appropriate thing to be doing. His outrage was overtaking all his beliefs about the pointlessness of violence; he was instead almost dancing, animated by an angry energy that he would never, ever have imagined he could expend on any response as ‘mindless’ as punching someone about the face. He landed a hard kick on Michael’s leg. Michael’s whimpering stopped him for a moment. He raised a shaking hand. ‘That curate… that poor man. You… have you any idea what you did? We know you did it, you know! I’m getting the police down here, right now! Good God, you’re- you won’t get away with this-!’
‘Steph, take Jean and Charlie away, now. Do it.’ Michael’s voice was wavering, and when he lowered his arms from his head, his eyes and lips fluttered with fear. Yet he did not move from the spot where he stood, nor take his eyes away from Gordon Brookes. Brookes moved in again, this time kicking wildly.
‘Steph, go! Go, for Christ’s sake!’
Steph, still holding Charlie, managed to pull at Jean’s arm and she, now dumbly bewildered, allowed herself to be led. They hurried in the direction of the house. And Steph even managed to prevent them both from looking back when, a moment later, they heard the hard crack of a croquet ball against the side of Gordon Brookes’s head and the first of his long, despairing cries.
Michael got him helpless on the ground, though not completely unconscious, after seven or eight blows. But he would not be quiet. Michael dropped the croquet balls, raced down into the walled garden and returned with the wheelbarrow to find Gordon Brookes attempting to crawl in the direction of his car, shrieking in disbelief and pain. Sweating and weeping with the massive effort, Michael dragged him up by the shoulders. He began to resist, and succeeded in scratching Michael’s face. He would not go in the wheelbarrow, but after another blow on the side of the head with a croquet ball he gave a squealing kind of scream and Michael hauled him over and left him draped across it. He heaved the barrow up and pushed it slowly and windingly round to the back. Setting down the barrow on the grass at one side, out of sight of the kitchen windows, he stood up and took several deep breaths. Gordon Brookes lay quiet at last, and limp, facing downwards, his clothes more off than on. Michael wiped his eyes and looked round.
There were roses still blooming against the wall. Was it only yesterday he had wondered about the best time to prune them? He looked down at the wheelbarrow. That would be just the kind of thing Gordon Brookes would know, and now here he was, bleeding from the side of his head that was beginning to look like a cut aubergine. Michael looked away, shaking with pity for the man and with fear for himself. For it was terrifying, how quickly it was possible to go from one to the other, from considering the pruning of roses and setting out croquet hoops, to this moment, looking at a bleeding man heaped in a wheelbarrow and facing the inevitability of the next step. More terrifying still was how much further Michael now had to go. From not far off, birds were singing above the snuffling sounds coming from the man’s slack mouth. But when Michael breathed in he could smell roses and warm grass. He grew still, and then quiet, and then he wiped his hands over his eyes again, crossed the lawn and entered the kitchen. Steph and Jean were standing in silence, waiting. Charlie waved and jiggled in Steph’s arms when Michael appeared in the doorway.
‘Right,’ he said, still breathless, ‘don’t worry. Stay here for a bit. I want you to stay here, okay? Make some tea.’
But neither of them could reply. Steph opened her mouth first. ‘l don’t know what I did, I don’t understand. Why-’
‘Never mind, I’ll explain. It’ll be all right,’ Michael said, tightly. ‘It’ll be all right. I’ll make it all right. I’ve got to-’ And then he began to feel that strange thing at work again, that way he actually could begin to believe himself when he had other people to convince. ‘It’s okay. It’s just that, well, I know him. I mean he knows me, he knows about this thing I did. He’d bring the police here and we’d all, well- think about it. See? I’d end up in jail. We all might.’ He smiled grimly. ‘You see? What with everything. The stuff I did, the fines, us, the things here. It’d finish everything. I mean, we’ve got to- you see? Look, just stay in here for a while. I’ll deal with it. We’ve got to be normal.’