Read Online Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson - Free Book Online Page B

with him, someone to rendezvous with in cafés and drink frothy coffee and eat toasted teacakes, and although a dog would probably be perfectly willing to undertake these duties I think it’s a girl, not a canine, that Charles wants. (‘Hmm,’ Carmen says, frowning, ‘that’s a bit more difficult.’) Why don’t girls want to go out with Charles – because he looks so odd? Because he has strange beliefs and obsessions? Yes. In a word.
    Mrs Baxter, unsure of the etiquette of something as novel as a barbecue, has brought a large Tupperware bowl with her which she proffers to Debbie. ‘I just made a wee bitty coleslaw,’ she says with a hopeful smile, ‘thought you might be able to use it.’
    ‘Or even eat it,’ Mr Baxter says with a sarcastic smile so that Mrs Baxter grows flustered.
    More neighbours begin to troop into the garden and Debbie grows increasingly edgy about her unglowing coals. The neighbours are suitably impressed by Debbie’s barbecue grill – ‘very new-fangled’ – but less impressed by their uncooked food.
    Mr and Mrs Primrose arrive with Eunice and Richard, Eunice’s unattractive brother. Mr Primrose and Debbie fall into an earnest conversation about The Lythe Players’ next production – A Midsummer Night’s Dream , which they’re going to perform (‘just for the heck of it,’ Mr Primrose laughs) on Midsummer’s Eve in the Lady Oak field. Why on Midsummer’s Eve? Why not on Midsummer’s Night? ‘As if it matters,’ Debbie says dismissively.
    Debbie has a speaking-part at last, playing Helena, and is constantly complaining about the number of words she has to learn, not to mention the awkwardness of those words, ‘He [meaning Shakespeare] could have made the whole thing a lot shorter in my opinion, and he uses twenty words when one would do, it’s ridiculous. Words, words, words.’
    I don’t bother entering into an argument with her, or explaining that Shakespeare is beyond all possible measure. (‘Unusual’, Miss Hallam the English teacher says, ‘in a girl of your age to find such enthusiasm for the Bard.’) The ‘Bard’! This is like calling Eliza ‘our mum’, bringing them down to the level of ordinary mortals. ‘If anyone came from another planet,’ I tell Charles, ‘then it was Shakespeare.’ Imagine meeting Shakespeare! But then what would you say to him? What would you do with him? You could hardly take him around the shops. (Or maybe you could.) ‘Have sex,’ Carmen says, sticking her tongue into a sherbet fountain in a vaguely obscene way. ‘Sex?’ I query doubtfully.
    ‘Well, you may as well,’ she shrugs, ‘if you’re going to go to all the bother of time-travel.’
    Assorted hungry guests turn to Mrs Baxter’s coleslaw and munch their way through it stoically. Gordon delivers a plateful of chops, black on the outside and a vivid Schiaperelli pink inside. People gnaw politely at the edges and Mr Baxter discovers a pressing engagement elsewhere. ‘Is this horsemeat?’ Vinny asks loudly.
    ‘I don’t suppose you’ve invited the Lovats?’ I ask Debbie hopefully.
    ‘The who?’
    ‘The Lovats. On Laurel Bank. He’s your gynaecologist.’
    Debbie gives a little shudder of horror. ‘Why on earth would I want to invite him? He’d be standing there, eating a steak, and knowing what I look like inside.’ An unsettling thought. But he’d be exceptional if he was eating a steak, no-one else is.
    Faced, as he is, with so much ‘women’s trouble’ (especially such ‘women’ as Debbie and Vinny), one might feel almost sorry for Mr Lovat – but he is not a particularly nice person – ‘a cold fish’ in Debbie’s estimation, a ‘queer fish’ in Vinny’s – so an unusual consensus there from the warring-parties, about the fish part anyway.
    Debbie has made dessert for the occasion – a sophisticated moulded concoction, Riz Imperial aux Peches . ‘Cold rice pudding?’ Mrs Primrose ventures doubtfully. ‘With tinned peaches?’
    Mr