Mum dropped her laser-guided bombshell over lunch that day. We were sitting in the kitchen, watching the war on television, dutifully listening to the same reports and watching the same sparse bits of footage time after time. I was already starting to get bored with the twin blue-pink glowing cones of RAF Tornadoes" afterburners as they took off into the night, and even the slo-mo footage of the exciting Brit-made JP-233 runway-cratering package scattering bomblets and mines with the demented glee of some Satanic Santa was already inducing feelings of weary familiarity.
On the other hand, such repetition left one free to appreciate the subtler points in these reports that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, such as the fact that the English could pronounce the soft ch sound, after all. The little rascals had only been teasing us all these years, saying «Lock» Lomond and «Lock» Ness! Why, it must be something genetic, we'd all thought. But no! Places like Bah'rain and Dah'ran were rolled confidently off the tongue by newsreader after newsreader and correspondent after correspondent as though they'd been using the technique for years.
Unfortunately, rather like a super-gun, there appeared to be a problem traversing such a sophisticated phonetic delivery system, and while the Arabian peninsula obviously lay in the favoured direction, nowhere unfortunate enough to be located to the north of London seemed able to benefit from this new-found facility.
"Oh," mum said, passing the milk across the kitchen table to me, "assuming we're all still alive next Friday, Fergus has asked me to the opera in Glasgow. Is it all right if we stay with you?"
I watched the lines of tracer climb above Baghdad, impotent spirals of light twisting to and fro. I felt frozen. Had I heard right? I looked at my mother.
She frowned. "Prentice, are you okay?"
"Wha —?" I said. I could feel the blood draining from my face. I put the jug down, feeling as white as the low-fat it contained. I tried to swallow. I couldn't talk, so I settled for clearing my throat and looking at mum with a interrogatory expression.
"Fergus," mum said tolerantly. "Invited me to the opera in Glasgow, next Friday. May we stay with you? I assume there's room… I do mean separate rooms, Prentice." She smiled. "Are you all right? You're not worried about the war, are you? You look white as a sheet."
"I'm fine," I waved one hand weakly. Actually I felt sick.
"You look sick," mum said.
I tried to swallow again. She shook her head. "Don't worry, Prentice. They won't conscript you; you're far too Bolshie. I really wouldn't worry."
"Hg," I said, almost gagging.
"Is that all right? Are we allowed to stay with you? Does your lease, or whatever, cover that?"
"Ah," I said at last. "Yeah." I nodded, finally swallowing successfully. "Yeah, I think so. I mean, of course. Yes. Why not? Loads of room. What opera? What are you going to see?"
"Macbeth."
Macbeth! "Oh," I said, trying to smile. "That's Verdi, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think so," mum said, still frowning. "Would you like to come? It's a box, so there should be room."
"Um, no thanks," I said. I didn't know what to do with my hands, which seemed to want to shake. Finally I shoved them in the pockets of my jeans.
"You sure you're all right, Prentice?"
"Of course!"
Mum tipped her head to one side. "You're not upset because I'm going out with Fergus, are you?"
"No!" I laughed. "Why, are you?"
"We've partnered each other at bridge a couple of times. He's a friend, Prentice, that's all." Mum looked puzzled.
"Right. Well," I said. "Yes, of course there's room. I'll… no problem."
"Good," mum said, and clicked a couple of sweeteners into her tea. She was still looking at me strangely. I turned and watched the war for a while. Jumping Jesus, now what?
I sat at dad's desk. It took longer to write down what I suspected than I'd thought it would. I started with pen and paper, but my writing looked funny and I kept having to dry my hand. Finally I used the computer and printed out what I'd typed. I put the sheet of paper in an envelope and left it lying in the top right drawer of the desk. I wished dad had had a gun, but he hadn't. I settled for the old Bowie knife I'd had since my Scouting days, sticking the leather sheath down the back of my jeans. I changed into a T-shirt and a shortish jumper so that 1 could get at the knife quickly, feeling frightened and embarrassed as I did so.
Mum was in what had been a spare bedroom, constructing the harpsichord. When I stuck my head round the door, the room stank of varnish and the sort of old-fashioned glue you'd rather not know the original source of. "I'm just going up to the castle, to see Uncle Fergus," I said. "You reminded me: there are some pieces of Lalique in the house I'm staying in. I thought I'd have a talk to Fergus about them, see if he fancied bidding for them when the contents are eventually auctioned."
Mum was standing at the work-bench, dressed in overalls, her hair tied back. She was polishing a piece of veneer with a cloth. "Pieces of what?" she said, blowing from the side of her mouth to dislodge a wisp of hair that had escaped the hair clasp.
"Lalique. René Lalique. Glass; you know."
"Oh, yes." She looked surprised. "Fergus'll see them on Friday, won't he?"
"Well, they're in storage in the cellar," I said. "I haven't actually seen them. They're in the inventory. I took a note of them. But I thought if he did want to look at them, maybe I could look them out in time for Friday."
"Oh." Mum shrugged, tipped oil from a bottle onto the brown-stained cloth. "Okay, then. Say hello from me."
"Yeah," I said. I closed the door.
I walked away thinking I should have said more, should have said… well, the conventional things you tell people when you're going in fear of your life. But I couldn't think of a way to say them that wouldn't sound ridiculous and melodramatic. I'd closed off the letter I'd left in the desk with quite enough of that sort of thing, I thought.
I took the Golf out of Lochgair, along the Gallanach road. The Bowie knife was an uncomfortable lump down and across the small of my back, its wood and brass handle cold on my back at first, then warming.
I stopped and made a phone call in Lochgilphead.
"Mr Blawke, sorry to trouble you at home —»
Ostensibly I was just checking out whether it was all right for me to mention the Lalique to Fergus, before the expensive French glass-ware was included in any auction, but really I was making sure the lawyer Blawke knew where I was going.
It wasn't until I was at the foot of the castle driveway that I realised all this time I'd just been assuming Fergus would be there. As I hesitated, hands shaking on the wheel, it occurred to me there was probably a good chance he wasn't. I hadn't checked, after all, and Fergus frequently went away for the weekend; maybe he wasn't at the castle. Relief coursed through me, along with an annoying current of shame that I felt so relieved.
I took the Golf up the drive.
The gravel circle in front of the castle held five cars, including Fergus's Range Rover. "Oh God," I said to myself.
I parked the Golf behind a Bristol Brigand which sat half on the gravel and half on the grass. I walked up to the doors and rang the bell.
"Prentice!" Mrs McSpadden roared. "Happy New Year to you."
"Happy New Year," I said, realising only then that I hadn't seen Mrs McS since the turn of the year. I was permitted to kiss the formidable ramparts of one of Mrs McS's cheeks. "Is Uncle Fergus in?" I asked. Say, No, I thought, Say, No!
"Aye, he is that," she said, letting me into the castle. "I think they're playing billiards. I'll take you up." She stood aside to let me into the entrance hall with its glassy-eyed audience of stags" heads.