Snowflake

by Heide Goody

“These myths,” I said. “Are they age-appropriate?”

  “How so?” said James.

  “I mean there’s a lot of sex and stuff in them.”

  “We can learn about every aspect of human interaction from the myths,” said James. “They lay out the toughest areas so that we can examine them.”

  “Like soap operas,” I said.

  “Yes, exactly. Take that issue there of the sex dolls. It’s going to become one of the biggest ethical questions that we face in the coming years. Is it a good and healthy thing to provide a robot that enables someone to have what looks like a sex slave? Or a Lego slave,” he added with a sideways glance at his son.

  “Surely the market is fairly limited,” I said, more ruffled than disbelieving.

  “I’m not so sure,” said James. “I read about this German survey which found that forty percent of the men asked could imagine themselves buying a sex robot for themselves. We need the next generation to be prepared to look at these issues and make sensible decisions.”

  A quick note: Willing to discuss difficult subjects.

  “You are super smart,” I said.

  “I do try,” said James.

  It was true. This guy was cultured, well-travelled, intelligent and seemed to have a pretty decent handle on raising his son right.

  “Although I should warn you, my knowledge of contemporary music is staggeringly poor,” said James. “In case we were thinking of forming a pub quiz team.”

  I saw an opportunity to add to my list.

  “But how did you get to be so clever?” I asked.

  “Flattering me now?”

  “I mean…” I shrugged. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Eat your crumpets,” he said, “and I will bore you to sleep again.”

  I blushed and ate crumpets.

  “I’ll get the ear plugs,” said Theo.

  “Heard your dad’s stories too often?” said James.

  “No, but I’ve heard Lori’s snoring.”

  “Cheeky,” I said.

  “So, what do you want to know?” said James.

  “How you know all this Greek stuff, for one.”

  “My first degree was in archaeology.”

  “Like Indiana Jones.”

  “Yes, although I don’t think he went to Lampeter University. And I don’t think he spent his summers doing digs in the Scottish wilderness.”

  “You camped out in the wilderness?” I asked and made a surreptitious note.

  “Camped, yes. Climbed the cliffs around Skara Brae looking for evidence of Neolithic settlements.” He smiled to himself. “In truth, I think we spent more time hiding out in local pubs and sampling the local whiskey. Do you know Scotland?”

  “Cookie and I went to a Radio One weekend festival in Dundee once.”

  “Nice,” he said politely. “The Scotland I love is a bit further north.” He glanced over at his tweed jacket on a chair back. “It’s rubbed off on me a little. Not that Harris tweed and a love of the strong stuff is all there is to Scotland. Anyway, I must have got sick of rain and midges because my passion kind of slid sideways into Greek archaeology. Perhaps you might agree that Crete is a mite more enticing than Dundee?”

  I nodded in firm agreement. “I got punched in the face in a nightclub and then Cookie ate a dodgy kebab and threw up all over my shoes. I had puke between my toes on the train home.”

  “Not necessarily Dundee’s fault,” James said thoughtfully. “I was still a young and carefree man then so I just set off for Greece and explored – Crete eventually, yes, but also Rhodes and then across into Turkey to Ephesus and Hisarlik. I financed myself by working as an usher at the opera amphitheatre in Athens, a barman and, for two awful months, as a water-skiing instructor.”

  “That doesn’t sound awful,” I said.

  “Really? I had to sleep on the beach and check my shoes for scorpions in the morning. And you try spending all day trying to get fat, drunken tourists to stay upright. I can now say, ‘keep your knees bent and feet apart’ in German, Russian and French. I can also swear in five languages.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Useful at international conferences. But I was happy in Greece. I started work on my master’s; a life of academic study beckoned. I was in my early twenties and, for the first time, I could actually see where my life was going.”

  I grunted softly. I was no longer in my early twenties, not really. Could I say the same about my life?

  “Of course,” said James, “that was when I ruined everything by falling in love.”

  “Bleurgh!” said Theo and stuck his tongue out, disgusted.

  “Falling in love is wonderful,” I told him.

  “Love sucks,” he said.

  “Don’t you have a school to go to?”

  “It’s the holidays,” he said, tutting. “Don’t you have work to go to?”

  “No, I –” I stopped. Shift rotas flashed in front of my mind. “Oh, crap.”

  I jumped up. James deftly caught a crumpet as it flew from my lap.

  “Gotta go,” I said.

  “I’m sure you’ll make it with seconds to spare,” said James.

  “Doubt it. My shift started half an hour ago.”

  Chapter 23

  Rex noted my lateness and gave me a mini-lecture on the virtues of punctuality, a lecture which for some reason encompassed the film Brief Encounter, his failed marriage and the D-Day Normandy landings. Confused, I did my shift and headed home together with the bin bag containing my paint-ruined clothes from last night.

  When I got home, Ashbert was in the kitchen. It looked as though he’d used every bowl, pan and utensil he could find, but something smelled good.

  “What are you cooking?” I asked.

  “Cassoulet,” he said. “A French classic. You’re going to love it.”

  “Great,” I said and then stopped myself. “Aren’t you… aren’t you angry?”

  “Angry?” he said. “I mean the recipe is a little tricky but nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I mean, angry with me.”

  “What for?”

  “Where do you think I was last night?” I said.

  “You were babysitting.”

  “Yes, but then I didn’t come home and I didn’t call and you were probably worried.”

  He gestured helplessly with a wooden spoon. “You told me to stop following you. What could I do?”

  I gave an exasperated huff. “Ashbert, there’s being a creepy and possessive stalker and then there’s being an indifferent doormat and there’s a whole range of things in between. You should be angry with me for being out and not keeping you informed.”

  “I should?”

  “You should.”

  I stomped off, angry. Was I angry with Ashbert for his lack of passion or with myself for treating him so shoddily in the first place? I couldn’t tell.

  I added my bin bag of fox-ruined clothes to the pile of paint-spattered clothes I had created after my redecorating efforts. I suspected some of these were beyond saving. I picked up a t-shirt that was caked with congealed paint. It wouldn’t even open out flat. The jeans were the same. They were never going to be clean again. I divided all the clothes into two piles: those that might be salvageable and those that weren’t.

  I put the first pile in the washing machine. I briefly considered stuffing the second pile into the bin, but that was never going to work with Bernadette the bin police patrolling the building. I decided to purge them from my life in the most decisive way possible. I gathered up the clothes and grabbed matches and barbecue lighter fluid from under Adam’s sink.

  “Back in a minute,” I told Ashbert.

  “Wait up,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’ve got to say, I’m very, very angry with you, Lori.”

  “Are you?”

  He waggled his spoon at me. “Very angry.” He didn’t sound very angry.

  “What about?”

  “You went out last nigh
t and didn’t come back and I was left here worrying where you’d gone with strict instructions not to follow you.”

  I sighed. “Are you actually angry or are you pretending to be angry because that’s what you think I want you to be?”

  He stared at me and frowned. Sauce dribbled from the end of the spoon.

  “Can you repeat the question?” he said.

  I growled and hurried out. I went down to the communal garden and put the clothes onto the barbecue. Ashbert had told me that all residents were permitted to use the barbecue (he’d read it in the handbook). It was one of those half oil drums mounted on legs, so it was perfect for an impromptu clothes bonfire. I doused them thoroughly in lighter fluid and threw on a match. It was such fun watching them being completely consumed by the flames that I wondered if anything else needed burning. My mind went to the ruined rug that I’d put in Adam’s spare room, but I decided that it was probably too big to burn in the barbecue, however, I had another idea. As I made my way back upstairs I called Terence and booked another driving lesson.

  “Tomorrow at ten,” I confirmed as I re-entered the flat. “Looking forward to it.”

  “What are you looking forward to?” asked Ashbert.

  “This,” I said, sniffing deeply at his cooking. I gave him a suspicious look. “Has it got sausages in it?”

  “Well, yes,” he said, “but so much more as well.”

  That was why it smelled so familiar. I wasn’t getting through about the sausages, was I? “Just because it takes you all afternoon, doesn’t mean it’s not still sausages in a different form,” I said.

  “Oh, I haven’t been doing this all afternoon,” he said eagerly. “I’ve been practising my moves, so that I can be the man of your dreams.”

  “Practising…?” My mind immediately swivelled to Sizzling Sex Positions for Adventurous Lovers. Wasn’t that just playing with yourself?

  “You know, like James Bond,” he said.

  “Oh. Oh, right.” Poker. He meant poker. It was still playing with yourself but in an entirely different way. “That’s great,” I said. “Was it easy to pick up the basics?”

  “Yeah, it was. I mastered the passement, the saut de bras and the roulade.”

  “Did you?” I knew there was a lot of fancy terminology. I had no idea what any of it meant but it sounded good.

  “Apparently, I’m a natural,” he said.

  “Says who?”

  “The guys in the park.”

  “What guys in the park?”

  “Mickey, Trepid, the Jones boys. Great lads.”

  My heart lurched in my chest. My stupid, stupid naïve Ashbert.

  “You’ve been playing in the park?” I gasped.

  “Yeah. They showed me what to do. They’re the best fun.”

  “What? Are you mad?” He was scaring me now. I could picture it: cards in one filthy, scabby hand, bottle of meths or Liquid Lightning cider in the other. “You know those kinds of guys are dangerous.”

  “They take precautions,” said Ashbert and then grinned. “Although one of the Jones boys got his fingers snapped.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “It’s okay. It’s one of those things where you’re gonna expect to get hurt. Trepid says I should expect to suffer a broken arm or leg before I’m ready for the big leagues.”

  I felt faint.

  “Do you owe them any money?” I asked, fearing limb-breaking debt collectors coming to the door.

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” he said. “They’re my friends.”

  I could have kicked myself. I’d forgotten that Ashbert was no more worldly-wise than a toddler.

  “Aw come here,” I said and hugged my stupid, naïve puppy. “Maybe I’ll come with you and meet them at some point. I worry about you, that’s all.”

  “That’s nice,” he said. “I was trying to be the man you want me to be.”

  “Now I’ve been thinking today about some other things we’ll put on the list of skills you might like to learn. Do you want to see?”

  “Definitely.”

  I fetched some sketch paper and fastened it to the fridge door with Adam’s magnets. I copied out the list I’d typed on my phone. I embellished it but only a little with some ideas from James Bond.

  Teamwork

  Modesty

  Knows wise and ancient sayings

  Always has the right tool to hand

  Knows foreign and exotic locations

  Willing to discuss difficult subjects

  Camping in the wilderness / survival skills

  Climbing

  Knows a lot about whiskey

  Tweed (wears classic British clothes)

  Cultured – opera / theatre

  Bar skills – can mix a perfect martini

  Water-skiing

  Can speak several languages

  Can handle scorpions

  “What do you think?” I asked him.

  “Most of them look fine,” he said, “but could we maybe drop the scorpions?”

  I put a line through that one. “There. I’m not even sure where we’d get hold of a scorpion anyway, although I saw some big spiders outside in the storage area. So, where do you want to start?”

  He considered the list for a few moments. “How about whiskey and culture?”

  “Good call,” I said. “How about I book us in to see a show at the Hippodrome? We’ll go for whatever we can get into in the next day or two. Lexi, can you tell us what’s on at the Hippodrome?”

  “There is a performance of Stiff Upper Lip tomorrow evening,” said Lexi. “Tickets are available. Would you like to buy some?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Will you need some card details?”

  “I can use the saved card details if you would like me to?” she replied.

  This was excellent news! I could add it onto the list of things I’d need to pay Adam back for. “Yes please, Lexi. Two tickets.”

  I turned to Ashbert and smiled. “Sorted! It sounds really classy, doesn’t it? Maybe one of those comedies from the olden days. That just leaves the whiskey. You might need to find a book and learn some basics before hitting the actual hard stuff.”

  “I can’t wait,” he said.

  “That’s the spirit!” I said, then fell about laughing at my own joke while he gazed at me in mild confusion. I think the fumes from paint-sodden clothes had got to my brain a little.

  Chapter 24

  In the morning, I hauled the ruined rug down to the street in time for my next driving lesson. Predictably, Bernadette Brampton, head of the residents’ association, was beside me in a matter of seconds.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving it here,” I said.

  “I didn’t say you were,” said the snide little so-and-so.

  “I’m waiting for a lift so I can dispose of it properly,” I added.

  “I’m glad to see that you’re taking responsibility for your rubbish,” she said and made a big show of heading back into the building but I could see her loitering in the communal lobby area, eyeballing me.

  When driving instructor Terence turned up a couple of minutes later, she was still there. Terence parked beside me and came round to sit in the passenger side.

  “Someone dumped that there? Shocking!” he said, indicating the rubbish.

  “No, I brought it down,” I said. “Can we put it in the car and take it to the tip on my lesson?”

  He put his hands on his hips and gave me a look. “Miss Belkin. I don’t know where you got the idea that by booking a driving lesson you would also get a man-in-a-van service, but I’m afraid I must tell you that it simply doesn’t work that way. We will not be taking that rubbish in Arabella, no. Why’s that woman spying on us through that door?”

  “Oh, that? That’s Bernadette. She’s one of my neighbours. I told her I was going to put my rubbish in your car boot and she said that I’d never fit it into a car this size.”

  “Did she now?” he said, affronted.

  “She did. Said she w
ould wager a fiver on it.” I looked at the rubbish and then at the tiny boot of the car. “I’m starting to think she might have been right.”

  “Hold your horses,” said Terence. “I’ll not have Arabella’s honour impugned.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impugn,” I insisted. “Impugning is not my thing.”

  “Watch and learn. One thing I’ll say about Arabella, she’s a lot more flexible than people give her credit for. A good girl. Flexible and, if you treat her right, quite accommodating.”

  While I tried not to picture Terence’s idea of a flexible and accommodating girl, he leaned across the back seat, did something with head rests and levers and folded down the seats. The back of the car was instantly transformed into a sizeable space.

  “Oh. Interesting,” I said peering in. “It almost looks as if it would fit.”

  “Of course, it would fit,” said Terence with a small huff.

  He loaded the bagged rubbish into the back of the car and slammed the boot down.

  “That’s great, does that mean we can go to the tip?” I asked.

  Terence was giving a knowing and superior look to Bernadette. “Well, yes, I suppose so,” he said.

  We got to the tip without incident but I should have realised that Terence would switch up a gear with his crazy-ass analysis of society’s ills.

  “Look at them all,” he hissed. “Typical ancient Volvo driver over there. Bought an estate to take the kids up to uni and now he’s justifying it by using it to take Aunt Maud’s old piano to the dump.”

  “I think he’s recycling his orange juice cartons, actually,” I said, but Terence wasn’t listening. I left him ranting about cars with a towing ball and how they were all caravaners, not happy unless they could drag their own personal bubble of space around with them. I dragged the bag from the back and hauled it out. I had to ask which was the correct skip for horrible paint-covered rugs as it wasn’t very clear. When I got back, I saw Terence sliding something into the back of the car.

  “What’s that?” I asked. It was a ruined swan, some sort of ancient garden ornament that suffered the double indignity of being incredibly ugly and also having lost most of its paint, exposing whatever it was made from in ugly dark patches.