just have a feeling, Dad.’
‘Luke gets these feelings, Sir Gordon.’
‘Oh, does he? I wouldn’t know, Emma. I don’t know him as well as you.’
‘Dad!’
‘Well, I don’t.’
‘Whose fault is that?’
‘Oh look, Luke, not today.’
‘OK. Right. No, I think I must have – or we must have because you were mentioned as well – offended the Welsh in some way.’
‘Well, that isn’t difficult. So, Emma, are there a Mr and Mrs Slate?’
‘No, I was produced by artificial insemination.’
‘Emma!’
‘I’m sorry, Luke, but I just hate telling people. It’s such a conversation stopper. No, there isn’t a Mr Slate or a Mrs Slate. Both my parents are dead, Sir Gordon. They drowned in Tenerife.’
Emma was right. It was a conversation stopper.
Now, as the buzz grew louder, the crowd thicker, he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, two people, the sight of whom demanded instant attention – his daughter Joanna, and a Greek Orthodox priest. It was no contest. He approached the priest with determination in his step.
‘Excuse me … I don’t know you … I’m … I’m Sir Gordon. Your host.’
‘Lovely party.’
‘Thank you. I … um … I have no wish to be in any way offensive, and I … I have no idea of how one is supposed to address a Greek Orthodox priest.’
‘A Greek Orthodox archbishop.’
‘Oh my goodness. Then perhaps I ought to call you “Your Beatitude”.’
‘That will do splendidly.’
‘Good. I have to ask you, Your Beatitude, who invited you?’
‘You did.’
‘Me?’
‘Well, not personally, but the invitation was from you.’
‘You received an invitation?’
‘I received an invitation and both as a Greek citizen and as a senior representative of Our Lord here on earth I find your attitude to me somewhat offensive.’
‘I have to say that I am not thrilled by your attitude, Your Beatitude.’
‘I will show you the invitation but I do so under protest.’
‘There’s really no need. I accept your word.’
‘I insist.’
‘Very well.’
The invitation looked exactly like the design that Siobhan and he had devised, and the words too were as they had agreed. If it was a forgery, it was a good one. He would need to phone Siobhan.
But could he? The image returned, Ryan’s breathing now faint, Liam holding Siobhan’s hand, a doctor and two nurses staring at the graph of the wee mite’s heart; it was terrible, compassion flooded into Sir Gordon, and he had no defence against it, having hardly felt any for as long as he could remember.
He took his mind off it by wondering what it would be like to have sex with a nun, in her cell, right next to the Mother Superior’s. It didn’t work very well.
And then he realized that he had the perfect antidote to compassion right there standing in front of the east fire. His daughter Joanna.
It was the sagging of the shoulders that did it, he decided. The whole body might look better if she stood up straight. Even the clothes, which looked as if they’d been bought in a charity shop the day it closed down, might look better if she stood up straight. And the hair. He’d a good mind to send her a voucher for six free visits to Hair Hunters of Hackney.
Oh, Joanna, the day you were born … our hopes.
‘So, darling, how are you?’
‘Oh, you know, Dad. So-so.’
Never ill. Never well.
‘Well, it’s the time of year.’
Gordon, you can do better than that.
‘Yes, I hate this time of year.’
You hate every time of year. Too hot. Too cold. Too wet. Too dry. Too average.
‘Looking forward to Christmas?’
Oh, come on, Gordon, sparkle. It’s Guy Fawkes Night.
‘Not really, Dad. I don’t much like Christmas actually.’
Not even positive enough to hate it.
‘And it all starts ridiculously early these days.’
I entirely agree, in fact I’d go further, it’s ludicrous, it’s greedy, it’s self-destructive, but can’t we try to be positive tonight? It is a party. Abandon Christmas. Change the subject.
‘How’s the job?’
‘Oh, you know.’
‘Well, you could have worked for me.’
‘Oh, Dad, don’t. You know I don’t want favours. You know I want to make my own way in the world.’
But you haven’t.
‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I haven’t made much of a way, but it’s my way.’
And you can’t sing like Frank Sinatra either.
Suddenly, the banging of a gong broke through the rising chatter. More bangs, cries of ‘Shh’, and silence fell in the great triple-glazed, triple-gabled house specially designed for a soap magnate who needed two swimming pools and so amusingly called his mansion a cottage, ha, ha.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ intoned Farringdon. ‘Your host, Sir Gordon Coppinger, wishes to say a few words. If you would make your way, as many of you as can squeeze in, to the drawing room.’
Sir Gordon hurried through to get to the front while he still could. Farringdon passed the microphone over to him. He tried not to look at the throng. He didn’t want to see the sheikh, the nun or the archbishop. They sounded like a bad joke, but in fact their presence alarmed him. He didn’t want to see his frightened dad, his listless daughter, his inept son, his insincere wife. He wanted to forget his unhappy life. What?? Unhappy?? No!!
He’d paused too long. He must begin. But to have had these thoughts at this very moment … how could he cope?
Of
