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Authors: Jonathan Coe
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had stopped talking, it seemed to Philip that a new silence had descended, even colder and deathlier than before, and quite irrevocable. After what felt like aeons, she repeated:
‘What is the name of my goldfish?’
Philip stared back, and swallowed hard. He had misjudged the situation; he had misheard; something, anyway, had gone terribly wrong. In a few moments Lois had turned away, with a contemptuous toss of her head, and he was left to contemplate, once again, the pallid gorgeousness of her breasts, in the now absolute certainty that this was as close as he would ever get to them.
(Typically, Paul had witnessed the whole incident, and would later inform Philip with demonic glee that the word he had mistaken for ‘goldfish’ was in fact ‘Colditz’, since Sam and Lois had been discussing the popular TV series of that name. This explanation, by the time he heard it, was somewhat beside the point as far as Philip was concerned. Lois clearly regarded him as some kind of simpleton, and they were to exchange no more words, not only for the rest of that evening, but for the next twenty-nine years, as it happened.)
Lois excused herself and disappeared up to her room after dinner, which eased Philip’s tension slightly. He began at last to be infected by the grown-ups’ high spirits. Sheila and Colin in particular were on sparkling form, fired by the success of the meal which had, they quietly admitted to themselves, been a gastronomic triumph. After hors d’oeuvres of salt and vinegar and cheese and onion crisps, served in tupperware bowls, they had moved on to a course of melon slices, topped with glacé cherries and washed down with generous glassfuls of Blue Nun. It was followed by sirloin steak – each portion charred, with exquisite calculation, almost but not quite to the point of unrecognizability – served with chips, mushrooms, salad and unlimited dollops of salad cream, while the Blue Nun, needless to stay, continued to flow in a Bacchanalian torrent. Finally, fat wedges of Black Forest gâteau, doused remorselessly with double cream, were thrust before the swollen bellies and glazed eyes of the satisfied diners, and the Blue Nun began to flow faster and more freely even than before, if that could be considered possible. Places were swapped so that Sam and Colin moved next to each other, and soon they began to supplement their wine with what was indisputably the Trotter household’s alcoholic pièce de résistance: Colin’s homemade light ale, which he brewed in a forty-pint plastic keg in the cupboard under the stairs, using a kit from Boots the Chemist. The cost, as he was always ready to point out, worked out at a little under 2p per pint: an astonishing price to pay for a drink which differed hardly at all from the commercially manufactured beers, except that this one tended to come out of the keg looking cloudy and green, with a head that took up at least two-thirds of the glass and an afterburn like fermented WD 40. Stoked up by a couple of glasses of this lethal concoction, the men fell to discussing the Irish question, dividing their contempt equally between the supine Northern Ireland Secretary, Francis Pym, and the ‘bloody Catholic killers’ who had caused all the trouble in the first place. Their voices began to take on a vengeful, exasperated edge. Naturally enough, the women ignored this discussion. They had more pressing, more personal things to talk about.
‘You know your art teacher,’ said Sheila, leaning confidentially towards her elder son. ‘The one with the moustache?’
‘Mr Plumb?’
‘Is there anything… Is there anything strange about him at all?’
‘We call him Sugar Plum Fairy,’ Philip volunteered. ‘That’s his nickname.’
Barbara’s face fell. ‘What, you mean he’s… one of them?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Benjamin, laughing. ‘We only call him that ’cause he’s such a pansy. He’s randy as an old goat, actually.’
‘He’s having an
‘What is the name of my goldfish?’
Philip stared back, and swallowed hard. He had misjudged the situation; he had misheard; something, anyway, had gone terribly wrong. In a few moments Lois had turned away, with a contemptuous toss of her head, and he was left to contemplate, once again, the pallid gorgeousness of her breasts, in the now absolute certainty that this was as close as he would ever get to them.
(Typically, Paul had witnessed the whole incident, and would later inform Philip with demonic glee that the word he had mistaken for ‘goldfish’ was in fact ‘Colditz’, since Sam and Lois had been discussing the popular TV series of that name. This explanation, by the time he heard it, was somewhat beside the point as far as Philip was concerned. Lois clearly regarded him as some kind of simpleton, and they were to exchange no more words, not only for the rest of that evening, but for the next twenty-nine years, as it happened.)
Lois excused herself and disappeared up to her room after dinner, which eased Philip’s tension slightly. He began at last to be infected by the grown-ups’ high spirits. Sheila and Colin in particular were on sparkling form, fired by the success of the meal which had, they quietly admitted to themselves, been a gastronomic triumph. After hors d’oeuvres of salt and vinegar and cheese and onion crisps, served in tupperware bowls, they had moved on to a course of melon slices, topped with glacé cherries and washed down with generous glassfuls of Blue Nun. It was followed by sirloin steak – each portion charred, with exquisite calculation, almost but not quite to the point of unrecognizability – served with chips, mushrooms, salad and unlimited dollops of salad cream, while the Blue Nun, needless to stay, continued to flow in a Bacchanalian torrent. Finally, fat wedges of Black Forest gâteau, doused remorselessly with double cream, were thrust before the swollen bellies and glazed eyes of the satisfied diners, and the Blue Nun began to flow faster and more freely even than before, if that could be considered possible. Places were swapped so that Sam and Colin moved next to each other, and soon they began to supplement their wine with what was indisputably the Trotter household’s alcoholic pièce de résistance: Colin’s homemade light ale, which he brewed in a forty-pint plastic keg in the cupboard under the stairs, using a kit from Boots the Chemist. The cost, as he was always ready to point out, worked out at a little under 2p per pint: an astonishing price to pay for a drink which differed hardly at all from the commercially manufactured beers, except that this one tended to come out of the keg looking cloudy and green, with a head that took up at least two-thirds of the glass and an afterburn like fermented WD 40. Stoked up by a couple of glasses of this lethal concoction, the men fell to discussing the Irish question, dividing their contempt equally between the supine Northern Ireland Secretary, Francis Pym, and the ‘bloody Catholic killers’ who had caused all the trouble in the first place. Their voices began to take on a vengeful, exasperated edge. Naturally enough, the women ignored this discussion. They had more pressing, more personal things to talk about.
‘You know your art teacher,’ said Sheila, leaning confidentially towards her elder son. ‘The one with the moustache?’
‘Mr Plumb?’
‘Is there anything… Is there anything strange about him at all?’
‘We call him Sugar Plum Fairy,’ Philip volunteered. ‘That’s his nickname.’
Barbara’s face fell. ‘What, you mean he’s… one of them?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Benjamin, laughing. ‘We only call him that ’cause he’s such a pansy. He’s randy as an old goat, actually.’
‘He’s having an
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