Each Way Bet, page 19
Jill started to extricate the poncho again, carefully trying not to damage the roses. ‘I’ll fix this, you go and play, Margaret. Thanks.’
‘So – you did know, didn’t you,’ Sybil persisted, ‘that they were both gay?’
‘I’m a bit gay too,’ said Mary, thumping an ugh boot down into Emily’s square and beaming at her daughter happily. ‘Having a lovely time!’
‘My word,’ Margaret joined Sybil, ‘me too!’
‘Move over.’ James Carstairs frowned at Emily. ‘I have to fit in here too, you know.’
‘Matt! Matt! Have I missed a turn?’ Emily called desperately. ‘I must have!’
‘And you have, too.’ Matt came over and shoved the dice in her hands crossly. ‘Could you please keep up?’
Emily threw the dice energetically into the air and it bounced off the side of Cricket’s head and onto the rose bush, flattening back onto the bush the bit of poncho Jill had just painstakingly removed.
‘Emily!’
‘Bugger, bum!’ shrieked Cricket, a bit melodramatically as the dice was only made of foam. ‘That bloody hurted!’
‘Back to bed!’ Jack left his position, swept his daughter up forcefully and carted her inside. Jill nodded after him approvingly and then turned back to the job in hand.
Matt lifted the dice off the rose bush and gestured impatiently at Emily: ‘It’s a two, move it along.’
Emily took two steps forward and leant down to read the instructions on her square. Apparently, she had just been gelded and now needed to miss a turn to recover from the operation. Her luck today just didn’t seem to be getting any better. But a minor gelding didn’t compare with the shock of Sybil’s observation. Not that she hadn’t known that Adam was gay – for years now – but Tim? She narrowed her eyes as she thought back over their seven-week relationship and sought for clues. Apart, that is, from the fact that they hadn’t had sex and he hadn’t seemed to want to. Which, of course, might be a fairly large clue in itself.
‘Bloody hell, Emily.’ Jill glanced across from the rose bush with irritation. ‘You’ve made this one hundred times worse.’
‘Sorry!’ Emily called, a bit belatedly.
Jill sighed and then, bunching the poncho parts she had removed together so that they wouldn’t re-adhere themselves, left them there while she came over to Emily. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to say so, too. About before – I am so, so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
‘You’ll be even sorrier before the day’s out, trust me.’
‘Is that a threat?’ Jill asked with surprise.
‘No, unfortunately it’s a promise.’
‘Why? Do you know something I don’t?’
Emily suddenly registered that Megan was about the only person she hadn’t seen throwing the dice. And she didn’t seem to be anywhere around either. ‘Where’s Megan?’
‘She wasn’t feeling well,’ Jill explained, ‘so she’s gone to her room for a lie-down.’
‘Wonder why she’s not feeling well.’ Charlotte took a measured step into Emily’s square.
‘Ha, you’ve been gelded!’ Emily clapped happily, and then suspected that her enthusiasm was perhaps a trifle unbecoming, so she toned it down with an effort: ‘I mean, bad luck, Charlotte. Tough throw.’
‘I don’t mind,’ said the little girl equably, smoothing her skirt.
Jill met Emily’s eye and raised her eyebrows imperceptibly. ‘I better go and get that poncho off before it does any more damage to my roses. But I am sorry. Really, really –’
‘Shit!’ yelled Jack from halfway across the lawn, lifting up his foot and examining the bottom of his shoe. ‘Christ almighty!’
‘Hey –’ Jill looked around the backyard with a frown – ‘where is the dog, anyway?’
‘Go ask Adam,’ said Emily helpfully, ‘he knows all about it.’
‘We need to talk.’ Tim stepped into the square in front of Emily and Charlotte just as Jill, grabbing Adam by the elbow, steered him over towards the rose bush to help as he explained the whereabouts of Lassie.
‘First you need to read your square.’ Emily pointed to the instructions. ‘You need to stand on one hoof until your next turn because you’ve been badly shod.’
‘Story of my life,’ said Tim with a sigh, standing on one leg and putting a hand on Emily’s shoulder to steady himself. ‘Now, we need to talk.’
‘Quite right,’ agreed Emily, ‘but if you mean about the pregnancy thing, don’t worry. It’s not what you think. In fact, it’s all a misunderstanding.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Here we go,’ Jack, now wearing gumboots, called loudly as he walked across from the shed, obviously having paid it a visit. He was holding out a small pair of red-handled hedge-clippers.
‘No!’ said Jill, standing with her back to the rose bush and spreading her arms out.
‘Yes!’ said Jack. He pushed past and with one fell swoop cut the uppermost metre off the rose bush. Then he snibbed the hedge-clippers closed and slid them into a side pocket before gingerly picking up the massacred foliage, the poncho trailing from within and without, and holding it out towards Jill. ‘There! Solved all your problems.’
‘My god!’ Jill stared at it for a few seconds then raised her head, looking at her husband with a face like tightly controlled thunder: ‘You bastard. There was no need for that.’
‘Well, it’s done now.’ Jack had the grace to look slightly abashed, as if even he was surprised at what he’d just done. Certainly everybody else was.
‘Yes! It’s done, all right, isn’t it?’ Jill gestured angrily towards the half a metre of rose bush that was left sitting squatly in the ground, the amputated stem glistening with beads of lime-green sap. ‘So why don’t you just pull the rest out too? You might as well, tough guy, it looks pretty damn stupid now, doesn’t it?’
‘Fine!’ Jack threw the severed rose bush, complete with crocheted appendage, over to one side, where it narrowly missed Adam, and angrily stepped up to the remains. Then he bent over, wrapped his hands around a thornless part of the stem and started pulling with all his strength, the muscles in his back taut with fury and effort.
‘Oh my,’ said Sybil, approvingly.
‘My word!’ said his mother, not so approvingly.
‘Christ!’ said Tim, letting go of Emily’s shoulder and putting his leg down with a groan. He proceeded to do a few stretches and then jogged off. Emily rubbed her shoulder loosely and went back to watching Jack, who was still straining at the rose bush, which, naturally, was refusing to give any ground.
‘Listen, mate –’ Adam stepped forward and put his hand soothingly on his brother-in-law’s shoulder the instant before Jack’s hands, slippery with sweat, shot up the truncated stem and off the end, causing him to fly backwards at a great rate of knots up over the concrete. The sheer velocity with which he had taken off continued to send him staggering backwards, threatening to fall with each gumbooted step, until he finally careered into Tim and Matt, who, unbelievably, had started playing one-on-one basketball with the foam dice and the backboard hoop. Luckily, working together they caught Jack before he hit the concrete, and manoeuvred him upright. Adam had not been so fortunate. Having had his hand on Jack’s shoulder as he took off, he was knocked sideways and landed, with a thudding crack, butt-first on the concrete.
‘My word!’
‘Good god!’
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Is everyone all right?’ Emily finally left her square, taking a step first towards Jack, who was shaking his head in confusion, and then a step towards her brother, who was still sitting, pale-faced, on the concrete.
‘Christ, Jack!’ Jill looked at her husband with disgust. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you? You’re acting like a total idiot!’
‘You don’t like it?’ Jack suddenly glared across at her. ‘Fine! Just leave then. Go on – leave! You know you want to.’
‘My word!’
‘Daddy,’ Kate stepped forward and picked up her father’s hand, ‘you’re bleeding.’
‘It’s nothing,’ mumbled Jack heroically, looking at his hands and then rubbing them down his trousers, leaving bloody smears that showed up starkly against the bone-coloured material.
‘You okay, Adam?’ Emily opted to assist her brother, going over and squatting down beside him. Jill, having given up on her husband’s sanity, was on Adam’s other side.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Adam said, smiling shakily as he put a hand on each sister’s shoulder and, with their help, got back up. ‘I’ll be fine. It was only my butt.’
‘I’m sure it’s had worse,’ commented Tim equably.
‘Well, I’m disgusted – totally childish behaviour. And I’m not playing anymore. This game is dangerous.’ Emily’s mother, who had been forgotten in the course of the debacle, removed her tam-o’-shanter and used it to pick up the fallen rose bush top and the attached poncho. Then, carrying the foliage like an umbrella, she walked towards the house, the straightness of her speckled-brown back illustrating her level of dissatisfaction with proceedings.
‘I’m going too.’ Jack wiped his hands on his trousers again but, almost immediately, little beads of blood reappeared. Jack looked from them to the assorted company a bit shamefacedly. ‘Ah, enjoy the game.’
‘Okay, back to your squares!’ shouted Matt, as soon as his father started walking across the lawn. ‘Come on, come on! We’ll run out of time soon. Whose turn was it?’
‘Mine,’ said James Carstairs decisively, grabbing the dice as his grandson passed. He placed it on the ground between his legs, spat on his hands and rubbed them together, then picked up the dice and threw it with gusto. ‘Come to Momma! A six!’
Emily reached her square again and stood next to Charlotte, who didn’t seem to have moved at all. She looked around at the remaining players and reflected that, with the exception of James, the rest had now gone extraordinarily quiet and looked even less enthusiastic about the game than they had at the beginning. And Jill, judging by the expression on her face, was the worst affected.
‘So, what did you mean?’ Tim got back to his square and looked down at her with a frown. ‘About it all being a misunderstanding?’
‘Just what I said,’ replied Emily impatiently. ‘I’ll explain later. And you’ve got a bit of explaining to do, too. Now, get your hoof up.’
‘Do you mean you’re not pregnant?’ Tim obediently lifted one leg again and hopped a bit till he got his balance.
‘I said I’ll explain later!’
‘Just give me a clue.’
‘She’s not pregnant,’ interjected Charlotte, straightening out her pleats methodically. ‘Megan is.’
‘What?’ said Tim, dropping his leg back down.
‘What?’ said Emily, staring at the child in shock. How did she know? Charlotte finished her clothing ministrations and then returned her aunt’s gaze evenly. And, as they stared at each other, Emily started to pull herself together – because the very steadiness of the girl’s gaze spoke volumes about the havoc she was capable of wreaking with this little piece of information.
‘But why –’
‘Listen here,’ Emily interrupted Tim without even looking at him, keeping her concentration instead on Charlotte and speaking in a low but non-negotiable tone:‘I don’t know how you knew that and I don’t much care. But if I hear of you breathing a word of it, to anybody, before Megan tells her parents, then I shall hunt you down and make you wish you’d never been born. Do not underestimate me. Now, do we understand each other?’
Charlotte returned her aunt’s gaze without blinking. ‘I understand you perfectly. By the way, do you know how long I spent looking for that piano?’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes.’
‘Your turn!’ Matt threw the dice towards Emily and she caught it deftly, finally turning away from Charlotte as she rolled it along the ground. ‘A five! Get moving!’
‘But aren’t you supposed to be missing a turn?’ enquired Charlotte of Emily.
‘Are you?’ Matt looked at her accusingly. ‘Aunt Emily, that’s cheating!’
‘Hey, I just forgot! I didn’t –’
‘So who’s next?’ Matt snatched the dice up and tossed it to Tim. ‘Must be you. Come on, move it along.’
Tim threw the dice and, with a last, confused look at Emily, moved off five squares. Emily watched him go and, shaking her head, decided that he couldn’t possibly be gay. Could he? Suddenly she noticed that he was standing at the rear of most of the players, and realised that at some point she had lost her good start and had been overtaken by everybody except Charlotte. And Emily couldn’t think of one member of the present company who she would less have enjoyed being stuck with in castration-imposed exile than this particular niece, whose self-possession, Emily was beginning to suspect, bordered on actual possession. She probably sacrificed small creatures in her spare time.
‘I won’t tell, though,’ said Charlotte evenly, ‘not because you threatened me but because it’s Megan, and she’s always been very nice to me.’
‘Oh – good. But –’ Emily looked at Charlotte curiously – ‘how did you know about it, anyway?’
‘I like knowing things.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘Well,’ Charlotte stared at her aunt with her head to one side, ‘I also like puzzles. And looking at people’s body language is sort of like solving a puzzle. Do you understand what I mean?’
‘I think I do.’
‘Do you?’ Charlotte looked impressed. ‘Mummy doesn’t. She calls it being a stickybeak. But I think it’s more investigative. I’m going to be a forensic scientist when I grow up.’
‘Really?’ Emily wracked her brain for some information regarding forensic scientists. ‘Isn’t that autopsies and that sort of thing?’
‘Yes!’ Charlotte looked even more impressed, and considerably livelier than Emily had seen her thus far. ‘And you have to work out how they died. Or were murdered. By finding clues in their tissues and organs and stuff.’
‘O-kay,’ Emily said slowly, wondering what to say next. ‘That sounds really, um, interesting.’
‘Oh, it is! And you get to do totally cool stuff like –’
‘Aunt Emily, your turn!’ Matt shoved the dice back in her hands and Emily took it gratefully, having been saved from discovering what totally cool stuff Charlotte was planning on doing with the dead bodies in her charge. She threw a four and paced out the appropriate number of steps, only to discover that she was still a good few squares behind the closest person. In fact, everybody else had turned the corner at the top of the concrete area and most were more than halfway back on the other side. Emily estimated that there would be a winner within the next round or two.
Fortunately, Charlotte only threw a one in her turn, which left her far enough behind her aunt to dissuade her from continuing her macabre conversation, which in turn left Emily free simply to observe the other contestants. And they all seemed considerably brighter now that the end was in sight. There was more chatting, more laughter, more general merriment. And if it weren’t for everything else going on, Emily had to admit, the game itself would probably have been a lot more fun than usual. Certainly Matt and Kate had put a great deal of work into it, and some of the instructions written on the squares were nothing short of ingenious. Obviously, they had taken Corinne’s guidelines and added a healthy dose of imagination.
‘I’ve been shot!’ Sybil pointed down to the square she had just stepped onto and laughed. ‘See? It says, “You broke your leg in a steeplechase and were shot on the spot. You are now out of the game”. Well, that looks like it for me. Thanks, guys. I’ll head back inside now.’
Not looking in the least disturbed by her misfortune, Sybil strolled across the lawn in the direction of the house with her heels sinking deeply into the lawn at each step. Emily glanced across at Jill and noted that she, on the other hand, did seem a trifle put out, if the thunderous expression on her face was anything to go by. The game progressed steadily without Sybil, although it was beginning to look like the winner was a forgone conclusion. Tim and Kate were only just past the curve, with Margaret Carstairs slightly ahead and Jill a square in front of her. Adam, while three squares ahead of Jill, was still a good way behind the outright leader, a very smug-looking James Carstairs. And within a few minutes it was all over. Emily had just one more turn, succeeding only in twisting a fetlock to add to her castration woes, before James threw the dice triumphantly and galloped past the winning post.
‘Well done, Jimmy!’ Margaret beamed at her husband.
‘Congratulations, Grandpa!’ Matt collected the dice and grinned at his grandfather. ‘What prize are you going to pick?’
‘Bugger me dead,’ James said, looking around at the losers proudly.
‘Don’t look at me,’ muttered Adam.
After congratulations had been offered all around, and accepted fairly graciously, everybody started to wander away from the playing-board. Matt went back to throwing the foam dice through the basketball hoop, and Tim and Kate stood and watched, deep in discussion. Adam walked stiffly back inside, one hand massaging his lower spine as he went. He was followed by James and Margaret, albeit slightly more steadily, and Jill and Emily brought up the rear.
‘Did you tell Jack?’
‘Tell him what?’ Emily asked innocently.
‘About me being unhappy, thinking of leaving and that. Come on, be honest.’
‘Why would I tell him that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jill chewed her lip worriedly. ‘I just thought it might explain the way he’s acting. I mean, he’s barely said a word to me since I got back, and then that thing with the rose bush. I don’t know what’s going on.’
‘Maybe he’s guessed. Maybe you going away like that yesterday confirmed what he’s already suspected. Maybe he thought . . . all right – I told him! Are you happy now?’
‘You told him!’ Jill stopped stock-still and stared at her sister. ‘Why would you tell him? Why would you do that?’
‘It was an accident,’ Emily wailed, stopping also. ‘I was trying to do the right thing, give him some pointers and everything, and it just slipped out! I’m so sorry!’
