Read Online A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mark Haddon
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going to go,” said Tony.
“I don’t really have much choice.”
“So, why don’t you want me to come with you?”
“Because you’ll have a shit time,” said Jamie, “and I’ll have a shit time. And it doesn’t matter that I’m having a shit time because they’re my family, for better or worse. So every now and then I have to grit my teeth and put up with having a shit time for the greater good. But I’d rather not be responsible for you having a shit time on top of everything else.”
“It’s only a fucking wedding,” said Tony. “It’s not transatlantic yachting. How shit can it be?”
“It’s not just a fucking wedding,” said Jamie. “It’s my sister marrying the wrong person. For the second time in her life. Except this time we know it in advance. It’s hardly a cause for celebration.”
“I don’t give a fuck who she’s marrying,” said Tony.
“Well, I do,” said Jamie.
“Who she’s marrying is not the point,” said Tony.
Jamie called Tony an unsympathetic shit. Tony called Jamie a self-centered cunt. Jamie refused to discuss the subject any further. Tony stormed out.
Jamie smoked three cigarettes and fried himself two slices of eggy bread and realized he wasn’t going to get anything constructive done so he might as well drive up to Peterborough and hear the wedding story firsthand from Mum and Dad.
18
George was fitting the window frames. There were six courses above the sill on either side. Enough brickwork to hold them firm. He spread the mortar and slotted the first one into place.
In truth it wasn’t just the flying. Holidays themselves were not much further up George’s list of favorite occupations. Visiting amphitheaters, walking the Pembrokeshire coast path, learning to ski. He could see the rationale behind these activities. One grim fortnight in Sicily had been made almost worthwhile by the mosaics at Piazza Armerina. What he failed to comprehend was packing oneself off to a foreign country to lounge by pools and eat plain food and cheap wine made somehow glorious by a view of a fountain and a waiter with a poor command of English.
They knew what they were doing in the Middle Ages. Holy days. Pilgrimages. Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela. Twenty hard miles a day, simple inns and something to aim for.
Norway might have been OK. Mountains, tundra, rugged shorelines. But it had to be Rhodes or Corsica. And in summer to boot, so that freckled Englishmen had to sit under awnings reading last week’s
Sunday Times
while the sweat ran down their backs.
Now that he thought about it, he had been suffering from heat stroke during the visit to Piazza Armerina and most of what he recalled about the mosaics was from the stack of postcards he’d bought in the shop before retiring to the hire car with a bottle of water and a pack of ibuprofen.
The human mind was not designed for sunbathing and light novels. Not on consecutive days at any rate. The human mind was designed for doing stuff. Making spears, hunting antelope…
The Dordogne in 1984 was the nadir. Diarrhea, moths like flying hamsters, the blowtorch heat. Awake at three in the morning on a damp and lumpy mattress. Then the storm. Like someone hammering sheets of tin. Lightning so bright it came through the pillow. In the morning sixty, seventy dead frogs turning slowly in the pool. And at the far end something larger and furrier, a cat perhaps, or the Franzettis’ dog, which Katie was poking with a snorkel.
He needed a drink. He walked back across the lawn and was removing his dirty boots when he saw Jamie in the kitchen, dumping his bag and putting the kettle on.
He stopped and watched, the way he might stop and watch if there was a deer in the garden, which there was occasionally.
Jamie was a bit of a secretive creature himself. Not that he hid things. But he was reserved. Rather old-fashioned now that George came to think about it. Different clothes and hairstyle and you could see him lighting a
“I don’t really have much choice.”
“So, why don’t you want me to come with you?”
“Because you’ll have a shit time,” said Jamie, “and I’ll have a shit time. And it doesn’t matter that I’m having a shit time because they’re my family, for better or worse. So every now and then I have to grit my teeth and put up with having a shit time for the greater good. But I’d rather not be responsible for you having a shit time on top of everything else.”
“It’s only a fucking wedding,” said Tony. “It’s not transatlantic yachting. How shit can it be?”
“It’s not just a fucking wedding,” said Jamie. “It’s my sister marrying the wrong person. For the second time in her life. Except this time we know it in advance. It’s hardly a cause for celebration.”
“I don’t give a fuck who she’s marrying,” said Tony.
“Well, I do,” said Jamie.
“Who she’s marrying is not the point,” said Tony.
Jamie called Tony an unsympathetic shit. Tony called Jamie a self-centered cunt. Jamie refused to discuss the subject any further. Tony stormed out.
Jamie smoked three cigarettes and fried himself two slices of eggy bread and realized he wasn’t going to get anything constructive done so he might as well drive up to Peterborough and hear the wedding story firsthand from Mum and Dad.
18
George was fitting the window frames. There were six courses above the sill on either side. Enough brickwork to hold them firm. He spread the mortar and slotted the first one into place.
In truth it wasn’t just the flying. Holidays themselves were not much further up George’s list of favorite occupations. Visiting amphitheaters, walking the Pembrokeshire coast path, learning to ski. He could see the rationale behind these activities. One grim fortnight in Sicily had been made almost worthwhile by the mosaics at Piazza Armerina. What he failed to comprehend was packing oneself off to a foreign country to lounge by pools and eat plain food and cheap wine made somehow glorious by a view of a fountain and a waiter with a poor command of English.
They knew what they were doing in the Middle Ages. Holy days. Pilgrimages. Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela. Twenty hard miles a day, simple inns and something to aim for.
Norway might have been OK. Mountains, tundra, rugged shorelines. But it had to be Rhodes or Corsica. And in summer to boot, so that freckled Englishmen had to sit under awnings reading last week’s
Sunday Times
while the sweat ran down their backs.
Now that he thought about it, he had been suffering from heat stroke during the visit to Piazza Armerina and most of what he recalled about the mosaics was from the stack of postcards he’d bought in the shop before retiring to the hire car with a bottle of water and a pack of ibuprofen.
The human mind was not designed for sunbathing and light novels. Not on consecutive days at any rate. The human mind was designed for doing stuff. Making spears, hunting antelope…
The Dordogne in 1984 was the nadir. Diarrhea, moths like flying hamsters, the blowtorch heat. Awake at three in the morning on a damp and lumpy mattress. Then the storm. Like someone hammering sheets of tin. Lightning so bright it came through the pillow. In the morning sixty, seventy dead frogs turning slowly in the pool. And at the far end something larger and furrier, a cat perhaps, or the Franzettis’ dog, which Katie was poking with a snorkel.
He needed a drink. He walked back across the lawn and was removing his dirty boots when he saw Jamie in the kitchen, dumping his bag and putting the kettle on.
He stopped and watched, the way he might stop and watch if there was a deer in the garden, which there was occasionally.
Jamie was a bit of a secretive creature himself. Not that he hid things. But he was reserved. Rather old-fashioned now that George came to think about it. Different clothes and hairstyle and you could see him lighting a
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