Each Way Bet, page 13
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emily
Race Two, 11.10 am
‘Ssss, ssss,’ hissed Jack excitedly, leaping to his feet and glaring intently at the horses thudding across the television screen.
‘Move it, you goddamn nag!’ Adam, with similar focus, clenched both fists and then pumped them up and down, much as if he were riding the horse himself. ‘Move it!’
‘Oh my god,’ Emily yelled excitedly, ‘he’s going to pass them. Look! Look! He’s passed them!’
‘He’s won!’ Jack punched a fist into the air and, turning, slapped Emily’s outstretched palm. ‘He’s won!’
‘We won, we won, we really won.’ Emily stood up and did a little butt-wiggle to accompany the words. ‘Hi ho, we really won.’
‘You bloody beauty! Ten bucks on the nose!’
‘And Daddy thaid bloody. Again.’
‘My word, Jack. Language, please,’ said his mother in a mild voice that carried no hint she expected to be taken notice of.
‘Hang on!’ Jack held up his hand for silence. ‘Here’s the dividends. Quick, someone, write this down. Seventeen dollars eighty the win and nine dollars twenty the place. You little beauty!’
‘Congratulations,’ purred Sybil silkily, patting the now empty seat next to her. ‘How exciting.’
‘Hell, Jack, what were you doing with such a long shot?’ Adam looked at the figures on the screen with disgust. ‘Throwing your money away!’
‘Yeah, mate, obviously.’ Jack grinned as he threw himself back down on the couch, an energetic action that caused Sybil to shoot an inch or so in the air before settling back down wide-eyed. Jack continued without even noticing: ‘Actually, it floated right out this morning. Probably a flood of money on yours.’
‘Huh.’
‘I’ll help you spend it, Dad.’
‘You do anyway, Matt.’
‘Hey, how much did I have on it?’ Emily dug into her pocket for the betting slips Jack had passed her earlier. ‘Five each way! Excellent!’
‘Huh!’ Adam repeated, sitting down on the couch armrest and glaring at them both. ‘I’m sure your nag nudged mine back at the turn. So how much did you win, anyhow?’
‘Let me work it out. Where’s my dividends?’ Jack asked of the room in general. ‘Who wrote them down?’
‘Think Kate did.’
‘I thought you did.’
‘No, I thought you did.’
‘Where’s Megan?’ Jack, looking around the room with a frown, noticed his eldest daughter’s absence for the first time, probably because writing the dividends down was the sort of thing she would have done without leaving it to someone else.
‘Look,’ said Adam sarcastically, pointing at the TV, ‘here comes my horse. He’s just found the finishing post.’
‘Mug’s game,’ muttered James Carstairs scornfully, folding his arms across his chest and sneering at a point on the far wall. ‘Mob of losers.’
‘What you say is what you are,’ said Emily’s mother in a singsong voice, without even looking up from her crocheting.
The immediate response to this statement was dead silence, broken only by Emily’s spluttering, which she turned quickly, and not very successfully, into a series of coughs. With her hand over her mouth, she glanced across at James to see how he had taken this slight on his character and was pleased to see his face was turning an interesting puce as his eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. He remained rigidly silent, though, his eyes still focused on the far wall.
‘Hey-ho,’ said Jack diplomatically, which was the signal for the conversation to resume. Sybil rested one of her well-manicured hands momentarily on his knee and then, when she had his rather surprised attention, smiled sympathetically before removing it. Emily coughed again.
‘Did I win?’ Cricket asked her brother, who was studying the form guide that they used for the younger tribe’s choices. ‘Mine woth the red horthy.’
‘No baby-talk, Cricket – enunciate,’ muttered her father as he frowned fiercely at the television, willing it to repeat the dividends.
‘Yours was Exotic Princess,’ replied Kate to Cricket, without even looking at the form guide, ‘and it was coming way back. Mine came second.’
‘And mine came totally last.’ Matt threw the folded paper back down on the coffee table. ‘So what’s the next game?’
‘I need my dividends!’ said Jack crossly. ‘I asked someone to write them down!’
‘Didn’t you say it was seventeen-eighty the win and nine-twenty the place?’ asked Kate with an air of boredom. ‘Well then, that’s a hundred and seventy-eight bucks for you and, if Aunt Emily had five each way, that’s a hundred and thirty-five bucks for her all up.’
‘Oh. Well done!’ Jack looked at his daughter with some astonishment before nodding happily. ‘Excellent start to the day!’
‘I’m impressed.’ Emily looked over at her niece, who shrugged dismissively and continued her examination of her short, black-lacquered fingernails. Emily had a sudden flash of insight and realised that Kate, despite her bored expression, actually thrived on showcasing her quick intelligence and was acutely aware of the responses around her. And that she would never, in a million years, admit it.
‘Hey, did you ring Jill?’ asked Jack casually, glancing at Emily as if it had just occurred to him but he wasn’t really fussed. ‘What’d she say?’
‘Mummy!’ shrieked Cricket excitedly. ‘Mummy!’
‘Couldn’t get on to her,’ replied Emily, narrowing her eyes with remembered irritation. ‘She’s not bothering to answer the phone.’
‘Who’s Jill?’ asked Sybil curiously.
‘Carpet bowls,’ announced Matt, reading from a schedule taped to the lounge-room wall. ‘Excellent.’
‘Set it up in the family room,’ instructed his father, ‘I’ll be there in a minute. Just want to watch the rundown for the next race. Oh, and Matt?’
‘Yeah?’
‘D’you reckon you could remember this time that it’s carpet bowls? That means the bowl runs along the carpet and/or floor. It’s not tossed overarm at the jack. Okay?’
‘Sure,’ said Matt, rolling his eyes as he left the room with two of his sisters in tow. All three strode crunchily through the remaining corn chips on the carpet without even glancing down. Emily looked over at the mustard-coloured crumbs and decided that it was definitely a vacuum job now. Which meant that it would have to wait.
‘Anyway,’ Jack said to Emily enquiringly, ‘how’s she going to get here if you’ve got her car?’
‘All under control. I’ve got a guy to pick her up.’
‘A guy! What guy?’
‘Just my boyfriend, twit,’ replied Emily fondly. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘Who’s worried?’ said Jack, affronted, as he leant back and stared at the television.
Emily grinned both at his profile and at the small frown that was wrinkling Sybil’s forehead. Then she reached over to grab a spare form guide from the coffee table and, as she did so, noticed that it was covered with empty coffee mugs. She grimaced as she realised that cleaning them up was probably part of the deal she had made. It would be much more pleasant simply to sit here, watch the television coverage and play the occasional game or two. Nevertheless, a deal was a deal and she didn’t need Jill turning up and having a sanctimonious attitude about the mess.
Emily hoisted herself up and started gathering together as many of the mugs as she could carry. She had just managed to fit four handles on her left index finger and was attempting to hook a second onto her right one when a huge crash accompanied by the sound of shattering glass came from the family room. Absolute silence followed as the occupants of the lounge-room stared towards the source of the sound with varying degrees of shock or, in James Carstairs’ case, malicious pleasure and, in Charlotte’s, evident interest. Then the trance, which had probably only lasted a second or two anyway, broke.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Jack leapt to his feet and ran towards the family room, closely followed by Adam and, in a more leisurely fashion, Sybil. Quickly levering the clutch of mugs off her fingers and back onto the coffee table, and ignoring the puddles of leftover coffee that dribbled out onto the form guides and magazines, Emily rushed after them. She came to a halt by the island bench and took in the scene before her.
The bottom half of one of the far family room windows was broken. Totally smashed, with only one large and jagged piece of glass, which was suspended from the left corner, remaining intact. In front of it was a lone white carpet bowl jack with Kate and Cricket standing on either side, both staring at their father and waiting for his reaction to this turn of events. Opposite them was Matt, his face white with guilt writ large, surrounded by several black bowls that were scattered at his feet. Margaret Carstairs stood to the left of the doorway, wringing her hands and blinking spasmodically. Adam and Sybil, who were both standing near Emily, glanced across at her as she came in, and grimaced. She returned the grimace but remained silent.
‘What happened?’ asked Jack in a low, deceptively controlled voice as he walked across to the window. Nobody answered. He looked at the window in silence and, as if it had waited for an audience, the singular remaining shard chose that moment to fall with a smash, shattering into several pieces as it hit the floor. Jack grabbed Cricket with one arm and, swinging her up and out of the way, used the other to push Kate roughly over towards the sliding door.
‘Ow!’ Kate bounced off the doorframe and glared at her father.
Jack put Cricket back down and spoke in a voice that brooked no argument: ‘Both of you, over by the island bench now. Now.’
The girls came over to join their aunt and she hoisted Cricket up onto one of the counter stools. Jack walked over to the window again and, with his back to everybody, stood staring at it.
‘Not you,’ he said without turning. ‘You, over here.’
Matt, who had just reached the island bench, made a face at Emily and ran his finger across his throat. Cricket giggled then clapped her hand over her mouth wide-eyed.
‘Start talking.’
‘Now, Jack dear,’ said Margaret Carstairs hesitatingly, ‘take a deep breath.’
‘Mum.’
‘It was an accident, Dad. Really. Wasn’t it, Kate?’ Matt turned to his sister for support and she nodded noncommittally, which, as their father still had his back to them, did nothing for her brother’s cause.
‘Leave them out of it.’
‘Okay, okay. See, I just rolled it towards the jack there –’ Matt gestured towards the lone white ball – ‘and it seemed to, like, hit the skirting and get airborne. Then it just shot through the window! But it was on the floor, I swear it was on the floor. I didn’t throw it.’
‘Then how hard did you damn well roll it?’
‘Oh, shoot, not that hard.’
‘I see.’ Jack looked across at his son for the first time since entering the room and took a deep breath. ‘Why, may I ask, did you put the jack in front of the window?’
‘Oh.’
‘You would have to be the single most –’ Jack’s voice rose as he spoke, and then he paused, looking over at the spectators. They gazed back, waiting patiently for him to continue. Jack took another deep breath and turned again to Matt. ‘We’ll talk about this later. For now, get a towel and help me get this cleaned up.’
‘Sure. Cool. No worries.’ Matt, obviously appreciative of the temporary postponement of judgement, hurried out of the room and returned a few seconds later with an armful of towels. He took them over to his father and they used them to pick up the large shards of glass, laying them on top of each other over to one side. Silently, Kate fetched a dustpan and brush and joined the clean-up team. And something about the efficient way they worked together told Emily that this had happened before.
‘What can I do?’ asked Margaret Carstairs, hovering over the workers ineffectually.
‘Ah, the joys of children,’ said Sybil in a low voice, catching Emily’s eye and winking. ‘And people wonder why I don’t want any!’
Emily had a sneaking sympathy for Sybil’s position.
‘There’s one missing.’ Adam, who had started replacing the bowls in their box, looked over towards Matt. ‘Did it actually go out the window, Matt?’
‘Probably.’ Matt stood up, peered out of the hole and did an immediate double-take. ‘Shoot! The dog!’
Jack and Kate both straightened and looked outside, whereupon Kate dropped the dustpan and brush with a clatter and turned to her brother, an expression of fury mixed with pure panic on her face. ‘You bastard! You’ve killed him!’
‘Christ almighty,’ said Jack wearily, still staring out the window.
‘Kate thaid –’
‘Shh . . .’ Emily clapped a hand in front of Cricket’s mouth as she watched Kate abruptly cease glaring at her brother and instead bolt for the sliding door, which she yanked open with such force that it bounced off its tracks. Without stopping to reset the door, she raced outside and around the corner. Jack took a step to his left, caught the door as it started to topple forward and leant it neatly against the nearest wall. Then, with a towel still dangling from one hand, he followed his daughter outside. Suddenly Emily was aware of a soggy feeling in her hand and, looking down, realised that Cricket had stuck her small pink tongue through a gap between Emily’s fingers and was waggling it around with considerable dexterity.
‘Cricket!’ Emily shrieked with disgust, removing her damp hand quickly and wiping it off on the back of Cricket’s blue skivvy. She looked at her niece with revulsion but was merely rewarded with a huge smile and another glimpse of the dextrous tongue.
‘I licked you!’
‘You certainly did.’ Emily regarded her levelly for a moment and then abandoned the staring contest in favour of following Adam over to the broken window to see what the commotion had been about. She approached with some trepidation and peered through. There, on the ground immediately below, was the missing carpet bowl and the dog, a furry (as opposed to fluffy), bedraggled specimen that looked like a cross between every type of terrier known to man and a few others that hadn’t been recorded yet. It was lying comatose on one side, surrounded by fragments of glass, with its mouth open and tongue lolling and a trickle of blood working its way down in front of one floppy, mangy looking ear. As they watched, Kate squatted down next to it, calling its name over and over as she stroked it. When it became increasingly obvious that it wasn’t going to answer, she paused to glance up at the window and send her brother a truly malevolent look.
‘Murderer!’
‘That’s enough.’ Jack walked carefully towards the dog, crunching through a few pieces of glass. ‘Kate, get your hand off the dog before you cut yourself.’
‘But, Dad –’
‘Just do it.’ Jack squatted down and, using his towel, removed the larger pieces of glass scattered over the comatose dog before brushing the remainder off. Then he picked up the black carpet bowl, which was nestled in the crook of the dog’s neck like a spherical pillow, and, with a brief but telling glance at his son, tossed it away. Next he leant forward, put his hand gently on the dog’s chest and concentrated for a few minutes. He sighed unhappily.
‘He’s still alive.’
‘He is?’ Matt took a deep, relieved breath and beamed around at those still in the family room. ‘He’s alive! He’s alive!’
‘Oh, my word!’ Margaret Carstairs put her hand to her throat and then, as if this was all a bit too much for her, tottered backwards until she reached the lounge-room doorway where she stayed, well out of the way.
‘But what’s wrong with him?’ Kate gazed up at her father, and suddenly looked about ten years younger. ‘Dad? You can fix him, can’t you?’
‘No, I think he’s a –’ Jack paused as he looked at his daughter, sighed again, and then put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I think he needs to go to the vet. Come on, Kate, grab a blanket and we’ll put him in the car.’
Kate jumped up and ran around the corner, through the now permanently open sliding door, and disappeared down the passage. Emily turned to check that Cricket was still keeping away from the broken glass and then jumped when she realised that Charlotte had materialised next to her elbow. The girl was peering through the hole with more animation on her face than Emily had seen her display thus far that day. Emily looked over at Adam, caught his eye and gestured towards Charlotte, raising her eyebrows tellingly. He nodded in agreement and then turned back to Jack, giving him a sympathetic look.
‘You’re doing the right thing.’
‘I know.’ He groaned and looked from the broken window to the still unconscious dog and then back again. ‘Christ, Christ, Christ!’
‘It’s a bugger, it is,’ commented Cricket conversationally.
‘Good grief.’ Adam looked fastidiously at one of his hands, one that had been resting on the windowsill. ‘These windowsills are filthy!’
‘I’ll go with them,’ announced Sybil, picking up her handbag from behind the dining-table. ‘They’ll need a level head.’
‘What’s going on?’
They all turned to Megan, who had just entered the room with a chemist’s paper bag dangling from one hand. Seeing Emily’s eye automatically fall to the bag, Megan flushed and put it behind her back. Then she looked at the pile of broken glass and at her younger sister, who chose that moment to rush back through the family room with a huge angora blanket flying behind her. As Kate hurried past the sideboard, the blanket caught the ugly china cow and knocked it into mid-air, where it hung suspended for a split second before crashing to the floor. The salmon pink udder went one way, the body went another, and a singular teat rolled across the floor and settled itself against one of Sybil’s high-heeled sandals. She grimaced at it and moved her foot.
