‘Well?’ said Annabelle, placing the coffees down on the table and then looking directly at him. ‘That was pleasant.’
The lattes were served in what appeared to be skinny fluted vases and he stared at them and tried to work out whether to overlook this nonsense or demand a proper cup.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, no problem.’ He decided that there were bigger issues at stake than the coffee cups, but he made a mental note that he wouldn’t be coming back here. ‘I was just thinking, maybe we should take him out of that bloody school.’
‘And do what? He’s only got six months to go and you want to move him to prove what exactly? That you won’t be spoken down to?’
‘You really think Laurie is being helped by that kind of atmosphere? That guy’s a jerk.’
‘Keith, we’re not moving him, okay. We need to do something, but not that.’
‘Well then you’re right, he should spend some time with me. But a few days isn’t going to do anything. I should start looking for a bigger flat, and if he’s serious about not going to Barcelona then I will take him to the West Indies. Maybe over Christmas?’
‘You don’t have to do all of this, you know.’
‘I’d like to.’ He pauses. ‘Maybe this will give you time to get back together with Bruce.’
‘I beg your pardon? Is that meant to be funny? Because if it is, I have some news for you.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He paused. ‘I just don’t know how you could have been with a guy who seriously thinks that we need a set of citizenship rules, or whatever it was that he said. All that bullshit about reclaiming patriotism for the left. He comes over like a member of the BNP.’
‘You only met him once.’
‘And that was enough.’
‘Have you finished your rant?’ She stares at him. ‘Well?’
‘It’s not a rant.’
‘Good, then I’ll assume that you’ve finished. Do you think that we might talk about our son?’
‘That complete arse of a headmaster was trying to shift responsibility from his lazy, ignorant teachers and put it on to us, the parents.’
‘Well not all the parents are paragons of virtue. Hitting their children right outside the school gates, or not bothering to dress them properly for school, or not even caring if they go to school at all. And that time when I tried to say something at the PTA meeting they practically lynched me.’
‘You mean the black parents practically lynched you.’
‘I didn’t say anything about black or white.’
‘Well it didn’t help that you stood up and started talking about kids kissing their teeth and how you couldn’t understand their accents, or have you forgotten what you said? Maybe you’d prefer if the kids were all called Fergus or Becky, and their mothers spent all their time chasing between Sainsbury’s and the gym?’
She stares at him. ‘Why are you doing this? Turning it into something that it isn’t. All I’m trying to say is that some of the parents are pretty damn useless, and almost all of them are time-poor.’
‘“Time-poor”? What does that mean?’
‘It means they’re too busy to put their kids first. They’re not our type of people.’
‘There you go again! “Our type of people?” Are you deliberately trying to wind me up?’
‘I can’t put it any simpler than that, so if you don’t like it you’ll just have to take it on the chin. I don’t mean anything offensive, and I’m certainly not defending that idiot Mr Hughes, but it’s unfair to suggest that there are not a few good teachers who are trying. All kids need some kind of help at home, but some of the kids in that school have no bloody supervision, and no wonder Laurie finds himself having to mix with delinquents.’
‘You know, Annabelle, sometimes I wonder what that clown Bruce turned you into.’
‘How dare you be so condescending!’ She looked around and then lowered her voice. ‘He didn’t turn me into anything. I’m telling you what I feel and if you don’t like it I’d prefer if you would at least credit me with enough intelligence to be able to form my own opinions.’
‘And they’re really your opinions?’
‘Yes, they’re my opinions.’
He leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. ‘Look Annabelle, I’ve known red-faced tossers like Bruce all my life, in their pink and black hooped rugby shirts, sitting on barstools pontificating about how we’ve carried the jocks for years despite the fact that they’ve got oil, and how we need our traditional friends, meaning New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, not these fair-weather Johnnies in Brussels.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve said enough?’
‘No, I don’t actually. Why don’t you credit me with some intelligence? I don’t want my son around arseholes like Bruce.’
‘Well as long as our son is in my custody then he’ll be exposed to my judgements on people, not just yours.’ She paused, then snorted in disgust. ‘You can really be an arrogant bastard when you want to be, can’t you?’
‘You’re entitled to your opinion.’
‘Thank you.’ Annabelle shook her head. ‘Was he that much of a threat to you?’
‘Who?’
‘Listen to yourself. It’s pathetic. You know exactly who I mean. Bruce. Or do I have to spell it out for you?’
His phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He was about to answer it when he thought he should check first with Annabelle, for he had no desire to further antagonise her. He reached into his pocket and held up his still vibrating mobile.
‘I don’t know who it is.’
‘Well, then you’d better find out, hadn’t you?’
Baron sounded hesitant and slightly unfamiliar with the telephone.
‘Keith? It’s you? I get your number from your father.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Good, good, man. It’s all right, but I’m staying by your father’s place as he has some chest pains. I tell him that I will let you know, so that’s all. I’m just letting you know that I’m staying here tonight.’
He looked across at Annabelle, who was averting her eyes and making a clear effort not to listen.
‘I didn’t call you to make you take off time from work or anything. I know you is a big man in a big job.’
‘No, it’s no problem. I’ll come up in the morning. Just tell him that I’ll be up in the morning, okay?’
‘You didn’t hear me? I said I have it under control. You just go along with the work business.’
He waited until Baron hung up, then he switched off the phone and placed it on the table. Annabelle looked back in his direction. She glanced down at the mobile.
‘Are you expecting another call?’
‘I hope not. That was my Uncle Baron, one of my dad’s friends.’
‘Well? You never told me how it went up there.’
‘Well other things kind of got in the way, like picking up our son from a police station. But it was pretty much just as you might imagine it.’
‘A laugh a minute then.’
‘Exactly.’ He paused. ‘So what do you think we should do about the school? You’re happy for him to stay there with the hoodlum children of the time-poor parents?’
‘“Happy” might not be the best way of putting it.’
He tried hard to concentrate on his conversation with Annabelle, but he found it difficult not to worry about what exactly was behind Baron’s call. His father’s friend was saying all the right things, but for Baron to ask his father for his son’s number, and then take the trouble to actually pick up the phone and call, suggested to him that his father must be in some kind of trouble.