station.’
‘Why didn’t you drive him?’
‘I don’t know. There wasn’t time. You’re asking a lot of questions, sweetheart.’
She fell silent and he was afraid she was upset until she turned to sprinkle the air with a flutter of soap bubbles. Laughing, Byron caught them in his fingers and she slipped another, like a white button, on the end of his nose. Without his father, the house felt soft again.
The Christmas party had been Seymour’s idea. It came several months after the incident with the pond. It was time to show those school parents a thing or two, he said. There were special invitations on white card. Diana had bought a tree so tall it touched the plaster ceiling of the hallway. She strung up paper chains, polished the wood panelling, piped fillings into vol-au-vent cases, and skewered maraschino cherries with cocktail sticks. Everyone had come, even Andrea Lowe and her QC husband.
He was a taciturn man in a velvet jacket and a dicky bow who trailed his wife with her glass and her canapé in a paper napkin.
Diana had handed out glasses from her hostess trolley and all the guests admired the new under-floor heating, the kitchen units, the avocado bathroom suites, the fitted bedroom cupboards, the electric fireplaces and the double-glazed windows. It had been Byron’s job to take coats.
‘New money,’ he heard a mother say. And Byron supposed that was a good thing now there was decimal coinage. His father was passing as the woman made her remark and Byron wondered if he would be happy too, only he seemed to discover something unpleasant in his mushroom vol au vent. Seymour’s face collapsed; but he had never liked vegetables without meat.
Later in the evening, Deirdre Watkins had suggested a party game; Byron remembered this too, although his witnessing of the event was nowrestricted to a vantage point at the top of the stairs. ‘Oh yes, a party game,’ his mother had laughed. She was kind like that. And despite the fact that Byron’s father was not a gamey sort of person, not unless you counted solitaire or a very difficult crossword, the guests had agreed a party game would be tremendous fun and he had been forced to concur. He was the host after all.
His father had blindfolded Diana a little roughly, Byron felt, but she didn’t complain. The game was, his father said, that she should find him. ‘My wife likes games. Don’t you, Diana?’ Sometimes Byron felt his father overshot being a jolly person. You had a better sense of him if he were giving his views about the Common Market or the Channel Tunnel. (He was against both.) But by now the drawing room was heaving with grownups, all laughing and drinking and calling to his mother as she groped and flapped and tripped her way after them.
‘Seymour?’ she kept calling. ‘Where are you?’
She touched the cheeks and hair and shoulders of men who were not her husband. ‘Oh no,’ she’d say. ‘Goodness, you’re not Seymour.’ And the crowd would laugh. Even Andrea Lowe managed a smile.
Shaking his head as if tired, or hurt, or maybe even bored, it was hard to tell which, his father had left. No one saw, only Byron. But still Diana kept searching, sometimes crushed against the crowd, sometimes passed from one to another by it, like a ball, or a doll, everyone laughing and jeering, almost knocking her into the Christmas tree once, while she kept looking for Byron’s father with her fluttering, outstretched hands.
It was the last party his parents had held. His father said if there was ever another, it would be over his dead body. This did not seem to Byron an altogether inviting place to hold a party. But remembering it, and the feeling of sickness, of confusion, that had swamped him as he watched his mother carried like driftwood, he wished again she had kept quiet about the new Jaguar.
On Sunday night, Byron moved his sheet and quilt on to the floor. He set his torch and magnifying glass at his side, in case of emergencies. He
‘Why didn’t you drive him?’
‘I don’t know. There wasn’t time. You’re asking a lot of questions, sweetheart.’
She fell silent and he was afraid she was upset until she turned to sprinkle the air with a flutter of soap bubbles. Laughing, Byron caught them in his fingers and she slipped another, like a white button, on the end of his nose. Without his father, the house felt soft again.
The Christmas party had been Seymour’s idea. It came several months after the incident with the pond. It was time to show those school parents a thing or two, he said. There were special invitations on white card. Diana had bought a tree so tall it touched the plaster ceiling of the hallway. She strung up paper chains, polished the wood panelling, piped fillings into vol-au-vent cases, and skewered maraschino cherries with cocktail sticks. Everyone had come, even Andrea Lowe and her QC husband.
He was a taciturn man in a velvet jacket and a dicky bow who trailed his wife with her glass and her canapé in a paper napkin.
Diana had handed out glasses from her hostess trolley and all the guests admired the new under-floor heating, the kitchen units, the avocado bathroom suites, the fitted bedroom cupboards, the electric fireplaces and the double-glazed windows. It had been Byron’s job to take coats.
‘New money,’ he heard a mother say. And Byron supposed that was a good thing now there was decimal coinage. His father was passing as the woman made her remark and Byron wondered if he would be happy too, only he seemed to discover something unpleasant in his mushroom vol au vent. Seymour’s face collapsed; but he had never liked vegetables without meat.
Later in the evening, Deirdre Watkins had suggested a party game; Byron remembered this too, although his witnessing of the event was nowrestricted to a vantage point at the top of the stairs. ‘Oh yes, a party game,’ his mother had laughed. She was kind like that. And despite the fact that Byron’s father was not a gamey sort of person, not unless you counted solitaire or a very difficult crossword, the guests had agreed a party game would be tremendous fun and he had been forced to concur. He was the host after all.
His father had blindfolded Diana a little roughly, Byron felt, but she didn’t complain. The game was, his father said, that she should find him. ‘My wife likes games. Don’t you, Diana?’ Sometimes Byron felt his father overshot being a jolly person. You had a better sense of him if he were giving his views about the Common Market or the Channel Tunnel. (He was against both.) But by now the drawing room was heaving with grownups, all laughing and drinking and calling to his mother as she groped and flapped and tripped her way after them.
‘Seymour?’ she kept calling. ‘Where are you?’
She touched the cheeks and hair and shoulders of men who were not her husband. ‘Oh no,’ she’d say. ‘Goodness, you’re not Seymour.’ And the crowd would laugh. Even Andrea Lowe managed a smile.
Shaking his head as if tired, or hurt, or maybe even bored, it was hard to tell which, his father had left. No one saw, only Byron. But still Diana kept searching, sometimes crushed against the crowd, sometimes passed from one to another by it, like a ball, or a doll, everyone laughing and jeering, almost knocking her into the Christmas tree once, while she kept looking for Byron’s father with her fluttering, outstretched hands.
It was the last party his parents had held. His father said if there was ever another, it would be over his dead body. This did not seem to Byron an altogether inviting place to hold a party. But remembering it, and the feeling of sickness, of confusion, that had swamped him as he watched his mother carried like driftwood, he wished again she had kept quiet about the new Jaguar.
On Sunday night, Byron moved his sheet and quilt on to the floor. He set his torch and magnifying glass at his side, in case of emergencies. He
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