“Sounds good, thanks.” He took the can from the smiling youngster. “What’s the score?”
“Ah, we’re winning easy. Boys, eighteen. Girls, five, so far, and they’ve only got two bats left.”
Jeff had taken his turn batting earlier. It was decided he could get on with the cooking when it was the boys’ turn to field; one less on the team would even the odds, so the girls claimed.
Lorraine took a mighty swipe at the ball that Tim threw, and knocked it down to the far end of the garden. Philip watched it soar over his head in amazement, and belatedly gave chase. All the girls were running fast between the posts, shouting encouragement to one another. The boys directed a barrage of abuse at the hapless Philip.
“Go, you moron!” Colin yelled.
“We’ll still walk it,” Jeff said. He twisted the plastic tab on the top of his can, and gulped down an icy mouthful. It had been a great afternoon. None of the youngsters had minded him joining in when they were splashing around in the pool. That invitation was extended to the croquet game and then the rounders. Jeff hadn’t played croquet for twenty years. It was fun remembering all the dirty tricks. Anybody who believed that croquet was a civilized sport had clearly never played before. It was fun playing rounders, too. And sinking highballs of Pimms. Everyone was in their swimsuits. Having the girls bounding past, bodies barely contained in the thin fabric of their swimsuits and bikinis, was a blissful addition to the afternoon’s delight.
It just needed Annabelle to make it perfect. More than anything, he wanted here there, sharing in the exuberance of this lazy sunny afternoon. The youngsters were more her friends than his, after all. But this was Tim’s party, a farewell for all his friends. Jeff had actually seen the boy smiling as he lined up to pitch the ball, finally shaking off the terrible moods that had dominated his days since the summer ball. Balancing the happiness of three people was a profoundly difficult act. Jeff kept wondering how long it could be before he and Annabelle could actually tell Tim about them.
Quite a while, if I know Tim.
Boys won the rounders, eighteen to eight. A raggedy chorus of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” filled the garden.
“Two minutes,” Jeff called.
The youngsters went to find sweatshirts and cardigans now that the sun was sinking lower, then grabbed themselves plates and lined up by the barbeque. Jeff was kept busy dishing the meat out. There were so many burgers on the grill, he’d completely forgotten which ones had which sauce on them.
Jeff overhead one remark Martin made to Tim as the boys sat down together. “Anyone who has a whole fridge just for beer is okay by me.” Which made him smile. The manor had been built with exactly this kind of afternoon in mind; a big lawn and a swimming pool were essentials for Jeff. Although his parents had been comfortably-off professionals, they’d lived in a town house with a very small garden. He’d been envious of all his childhood friends out in the villages with their wide, open lawns to run around on.
Not that he’d ever expected to benefit from the manor; it had always been for Tim. Now though, twenty years late, he could enjoy it for himself, too, along with all the other things he’d never found time for before. The new car was a good example.
“Is there anything left you’d like to do, Jeff?” Simon asked. “I mean, this time around? Something you missed out on before?”
The talk had been about coming holidays and their futures after that, what they most wanted to achieve or see.
Jeff shoveled the last couple of burgers onto his plate, and went over to sit beside Tim. “Actually, there is one thing I’ve really wanted to do ever since I was six years old.”
All the youngsters fell silent, watching him closely.
He shrugged at them. “Sorry, it’s not particularly important, just something I fancy.”
“What?” Tim asked curiously.
“I’ve always wanted to go into space. Not those little semiballistic lobs they sell in America and the Caribbean. I want to see the Earth from orbit. Just look down and watch the whole planet roll past underneath me.”
There were a lot of sighs from around the patio. Several of the youngsters nodded sympathetic agreement.
“Comes from an astronaut fixation when I was a kid. That and the fact I grew up in the era of the Apollo program. I mean, I really did expect to be taking holidays on the moon by the year 2000. All the Sunday newspaper magazines around back in the early seventies were full of articles about how easy spaceflight would become right after the pioneering part was complete.”
“Were they really saying that?” Vanessa asked. She was sitting on the other side of Tim, peering around him to look at Jeff. It wasn’t the first time she and Tim had wound up next to each other that afternoon.
“Oh yes. All of us in those times had a lot of big expectations about how the world was going to turn out. You know, offhand I can’t think of one prediction that ever came true—apart from the datasphere sliding the whole videophone idea in at us from the side.”
“You can still make it into orbit, though,” Philip said. “Sir Mitch is going to be offering rides next year.”
“The Mojave team will beat him,” Simon said. “They’ve got access to Boeing’s scramjet technology. That’ll bring the price of spaceflight down to the same as it costs to fly across the Atlantic.”
Jeff laughed. “Now, that’s the definition I’ve been looking for ever since I came out of the suspension womb. I look young, almost as young as you lot; but the real difference between us is cynicism. You don’t have any, while I’ve got a ton of it.”
“I’m cynical,” Philip protested. “I don’t believe a word politicians say.”
“That’s not cynicism,” Sophie said. “That’s just common sense.”
Jeff smiled to himself as he tucked into the barbeque. The youngsters chattered avidly around him, losing just about every inhibition when it came to topics and comments. He was pleased about that. Teenage reticence in front of adults was a near absolute. But he’d obviously found a form of acceptance among them. Not, he admitted to himself, that he’d want to hang with them the whole time; their interests and conversation were too shallow for that.
When he thought about it, he wasn’t totally sure what kind of group he did want to be with on a permanent social basis. Late twenties, probably, or early thirties. Young enough not to be boring, old enough to have some wisdom.
Now that Sue had left, and Tim was on the verge of departing to university, he supposed he ought to make an effort to rebuild a social life. His slightly crazy existence since finishing the treatment had virtually precluded that. It had been a good time, though; not just because of Annabelle. Every consumer item he could want, he’d already got. Which is what youth should be about, no cares, no responsibilities, enjoying everything you do, and the decades stretching out invitingly ahead of you.
Jeff drank some more beer and ate his burgers, happy that not only was this evening one of the best, but that he could repeat it ad infinitum in the years to come.
HE TOOK THEM TO SEE THE CAR after they’d finished their strawberries and cream. It had been delivered only the day before, replacing his old Mercedes. A Jaguar I-type sportster, straight off the new production line at Birmingham, it was low-slung, with two seats, sculpted raw metal bodywork, broad flex-profile tires, computer stabilized suspension, laser proximity sensors, eight recombiner cells delivering power direct to the axle hub motors, limited to three hundred and twenty kilometers per hour but capable of a lot more (he’d already got the fix for that). The sight of it sitting in the garage, yellow light glimmering softly off the blue metal surface, was enough to draw several gasps of admiration from the eager youngsters. Jeff loved it. Most modern cars were big and sedate, giving the impression of quiet infallible power; while this looked seriously mean.