A Spot of Bother

by Mark Haddon

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest. I think it might be all in the mind.” She winced slightly when she said the words “all in the mind,” as if she had just opened a tub of something that had gone off.

  “So, he’s not actually ill?” asked Katie.

  “He has eczema.”

  “Can I watch my Bob the Builder video?” asked Jacob.

  “I’m sorry but Grandpa’s got the video player upstairs,” said Mum.

  “You don’t have to go to bed because you’ve got eczema,” said Katie. She had that feeling she often got with her parents, that something was being kept from her, a feeling which only got more sinister as they aged.

  “Can I watch my video with Grandpa?” asked Jacob, tugging at Katie’s trousers.

  “Let me finish talking to Granny,” said Katie.

  “He says he’s worried about dying,” said Mum, in a stage whisper.

  “But I want to watch it now,” said Jacob.

  “Two minutes,” said Katie.

  “You know what he’s like,” said Mum. “I have no idea what is going through that head of his.”

  “Is Grandpa dying?” asked Jacob.

  “Grandpa’s absolutely fine,” said Mum.

  “Except he’s not,” replied Katie.

  “I want a biscuit,” said Jacob.

  “Well, it just so happens that I bought some Jaffa Cakes this morning,” said Mum to Jacob. “Isn’t that a coincidence.”

  “Mum, you’re not listening to me,” said Katie.

  “Can I have two?” said Jacob.

  “You’re very cheeky this morning,” said Mum.

  “Please can I have two biscuits?” said Jacob turning to Katie.

  “Mum…” Katie caught herself. She didn’t want a row before she’d got her coat off. She wasn’t even sure precisely what she was angry about. “Look. You take Jacob off to the kitchen. Give him a biscuit. One biscuit. I’ll go up and talk to Dad.”

  “OK,” said Mum in a cheery sing-song. “Do you want some orange juicy with that biscuit?”

  “We went on a train,” said Jacob.

  “Did you, now?” said Mum. “What kind of train was it?”

  “It was a monster train.”

  “Now that sounds like a very interesting kind of train. Do you mean it looked like a monster, or do you mean there were monsters on it?”

  The two of them disappeared into the kitchen and Katie began walking upstairs.

  It felt wrong, going to Dad’s bedside. Dad didn’t do illness. His own or other people’s. He did soldiering on and taking one’s mind off things. Dad having a breakdown was in the same category as Dad taking up hairdressing.

  She knocked and went in.

  He was lying in the center of the bed with the duvet pulled to his chin, like a frightened old lady in a fairy tale. He turned the television off almost immediately, but from what she could see he appeared to be watching…Was it really Lethal Weapon?

  “Hullo, young lady.” He seemed smaller than she remembered. The pajamas didn’t help.

  “Mum said you weren’t feeling very well.” She couldn’t work out where to put herself. Sitting on the bed was too intimate, standing was too medical and using the armchair would mean touching his discarded vest.

  “Not very. No.”

  They were silent for a few moments, both of them staring into the slatey green oblong of the TV screen with its skewed little bar of reflected window.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” She couldn’t believe she was saying these words to Dad.

  “Not really.”

  She had never heard him sound so straightforward. She got the eerie sense that they were doing actual communication for the first time. It was like finding a new door in the living-room wall. It was not entirely pleasant.

  “I’m afraid your mother doesn’t really understand,” said Dad.

  Katie had no idea what to say.

  “Not really her kind of thing.”

  Christ. Parents were meant to sort this stuff out for themselves.

  She didn’t want this on her plate. Not now. But he needed someone to talk to, and Mum was clearly not keen on the job. “What isn’t her kind of thing?”

  He took a long, quiet breath. “I’m frightened.” He stared at the television.

  “What of?”

  “Of dying…I’m frightened of dying.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling Mum?” She could see a stack of videos beside the bed. Volcano, Independence Day, Godzilla, Conspiracy Theory…

  “I think…” He paused and pursed his lips. “I think I have cancer.”

  She felt giddy and a little faint. “Do you?”

  “Dr. Barghoutian says it’s eczema.”

  “And you don’t believe him.”

  “No,” he said. “Yes.” He thought hard. “No. Not really.”

  “Perhaps you should ask to see a specialist.”

  Dad frowned. “I couldn’t do that.”

  She nearly said, Let me have a look, but the idea was gross in too many ways. “Is this really about cancer? Or is it about something else?”

  Dad scrubbed ineffectually at a little jam stain on the duvet. “I think I might be going insane.”

  Downstairs Jacob was squealing as Mum chased him round the kitchen.

  “Perhaps you should talk to someone.”

  “Your mother thinks I’m being silly. Which I am of course.”

  “Some kind of counselor,” said Katie.

  Dad looked blank.

  “I’m sure Dr. Barghoutian could refer you.”

  Dad continued to look blank. She pictured him sitting in a little room with a box of tissues on the table and some bushy-tailed young man in a cardigan and she could see his point. But she didn’t want to be the only person on the receiving end of this. “You need help.”

  There was a bang from the kitchen. Then a wail. Dad didn’t react to either noise.

  Katie said, “I’ve got to go.”

  He didn’t react to this either. He said very quietly, “I’ve wasted my life.”

  She said, “You haven’t wasted your life,” in a voice she normally reserved for Jacob.

  “Your mother doesn’t love me. I spent thirty years doing a job that meant nothing to me. And now…” He was crying. “It hurts so much.”

  “Dad, please.”

  “There are these little red spots on my arm,” said Dad.

  “What?”

  “I can’t even bring myself to look at them.”

  “Dad, listen.” She put her hands to the side of her head to help her concentrate. “You’re anxious. You’re depressed. You’re…whatever. It’s got nothing to do with Mum. It’s got nothing to do with your job. It’s happening inside your head.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Dad. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Christ, Dad. You’ve got a nice house. You’ve got money. You’ve got a car. You’ve got someone to look after you…” She was angry. It was the anger she’d been saving for Ray. But she couldn’t really do anything about it, not now the lid was off. “You haven’t wasted your life. That’s bollocks.”

  She hadn’t said bollocks to Dad for ten years. She needed to get out of the room before things really started to go downhill.

  “Sometimes I can’t breathe.” He made no attempt to wipe the tears from his face. “I start sweating, and I know something dreadful is about to happen, but I have no idea what it is.”

  Then she remembered. That lunchtime. Him running out and sitting on the patio.

  Downstairs Jacob had stopped wailing.

  “It’s called a panic attack,” she said. “Everyone has them. OK, maybe not everyone. But lots of people. You’re not strange. Or special. Or different.” She was slightly alarmed by the tone of her own voice. “There are drugs. There are ways of sorting these things out. You have to go and see someone. This is not just about you. You have to do something. You have to stop being sel
fish.”

  She seemed to have veered off course somewhere in the middle there.

  He said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “There’s no maybe about it.” She waited for her pulse to slow a little. “I’ll talk to Mum. I’ll get her to sort something out.”

  “Right.”

  It was the patio all over again. It frightened her, the way he soaked it all up and didn’t answer back. It made her think of those old men shuffling round hospitals with five o’clock shadow and bags of urine on wheelie stands. She said, “I’m going downstairs now.”

  “OK.”

  For a brief moment she thought about hugging him. But they’d done enough new things for one morning. “Can I get you a coffee?”

  “It’s all right. I’ve got a flask up here.”

  She said, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” in a wholly inappropriate comedy Scots accent, out of relief mostly. Then she closed the door behind her.

  When she reached the kitchen, Jacob was sitting on Mum’s knee, being fed chocolate ice cream from the tub. As an anesthetic, no doubt. On top of the chocolate biscuit, presumably.

  Mum looked up and said, in a jaunty voice, “So, how did your father seem to you?”

  The ability of old people to utterly fail to communicate with one another never failed to astonish her. “He needs to see someone.”

  “Try telling that to him.”

  “I did,” said Katie.

  “I got a bump,” said Jacob.

  She bent down and cuddled him. There was ice cream in his eyebrows.

  “Well, as you doubtless found out,” said Mum, “trying to get your father to do anything is pointless.”

  Jacob wriggled free and began trawling through his Batman rucksack.

  “Don’t talk about it,” said Katie, “just do it. Talk to Dr. Barghoutian. Drive Dad to the surgery. Get Dr. Barghoutian to come here. Whatever.”

  She could see Mum bridling. She could also see Jacob marching toward the hallway with A Christmas to Remember in his sticky paws. “Where are you going, monkey nuts?”

  “I’m going to watch Bob the Builder with Grandpa.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  Jacob looked crestfallen.

  Perhaps she should let him go. Dad was depressed. He wasn’t eating lightbulbs. The distraction might even be welcome. “Go on then. But be nice to him. He’s feeling very tired.”

  “OK,” said Jacob.

  “And Jacob?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask him if he’s dying.”

  “Why not?” asked Jacob.

  “It’s rude.”

  “OK.” Jacob toddled off.

  She waited, then turned to Mum. “I’m serious. About Dad.” She waited for her to say Look here, young lady… but she didn’t. “He’s suffering from depression.”

  “I realized that,” said Mum, tartly.

  “I’m just saying…” Katie paused and lowered her voice. She needed to win this argument. “Please. Take him to the doctor. Or get the doctor to come here. Or go to the surgery yourself. This is not going to go away on its own. We’ve got the wedding coming up and…”

  Mum sighed and shook her head. “You’re right. We don’t want him making a fool of himself in front of everyone, do we.”

  51

  Mel Gibson was hanging from a chain in a rudimentary shower and an Oriental man was torturing him with a pair of jump leads.

  George was so engrossed that when he heard a knock on the door his first thought was that Katie had arranged an immediate visit from Dr. Barghoutian.

  When the door opened, however, it was Jacob.

  “I want to watch my video,” said Jacob.

  George fumbled for the remote. “And what’s your video?”

  Mel Gibson screamed, then vanished.

  “Bob the Builder,” said Jacob.

  “Right.” George suddenly remembered the last time Jacob had joined him in this room. “Is your daddy with you?”

  “Which daddy?” asked Jacob.

  George felt a little dizzy. “Is Graham here?” It seemed to be a day on which anything was possible.

  “No. And Daddy Ray isn’t here. He went…He went away and he didn’t come back.”

  “Right,” said George. He wondered what Jacob meant. It was probably best not to ask. “This video…”

  “Can I watch it?”

  “Yes. You can watch it,” said George.

  Jacob ejected Lethal Weapon, inserted Bob the Builder and rewound it with the casual skill of a technician at mission control.

  Which was how young people took over the world. All that fiddling with new technology. You woke up one day and realized your own skills were laughable. Woodwork. Mental arithmetic.

  Jacob fast-forwarded through the adverts, stopped the tape and climbed onto the bed next to George. He smelt better this time, biscuity and sweet.

  It occurred to George that Jacob wasn’t going to talk about panic attacks, or suggest counseling. And this was a reassuring thought.

  Did they ever go insane, children? Properly insane, not just handicapped like the Henderson girl? He was unsure. Perhaps there was not enough brain to malfunction till they reached university.

  Jacob was looking at him. “You have to press PLAY.”

  “Sorry.” George pressed PLAY.

  Cheery music began and the titles came up over a starlit model snowscape. Two plastic reindeer trotted off into the pine trees and a toy man roared into the shot on his motorized skidoo.

  The motorized skidoo had a face.

  Jacob stuck his thumb in his mouth and held on to George’s index finger with his free hand.

  Tom, the aforesaid toy man, went into his polar field station and picked up the ringing phone. The screen split to show his brother, Bob, at the other end of the line, calling from a builder’s yard in England.

  A steamroller, a digger and a crane were standing outside the office.

  The steamroller, the digger and the crane had faces, too.

  George cast his mind back to Dick Barton and the Goons, to Lord Snooty and Biffo the Bear. Over the intervening years everything seemed to have got louder and brighter and faster and simpler. In another fifty years children would have the attention spans of sparrows and no imagination whatsoever.

  Bob was dancing round the builder’s yard, singing, “Tom’s coming for Christmas! Tom’s coming for Christmas…!”

  Maybe George was fooling himself. Maybe old people always fooled themselves, pretending that the world was going to hell in a handcart because it was easier than admitting they were being left behind, that the future was pulling away from the beach, and they were standing on their little island bidding it good riddance, knowing in their hearts that there was nothing left for them to do but sit around on the shingle waiting for the big diseases to come out of the undergrowth.

  George concentrated on the screen.

  Lethal Weapon was rather trite, too, when one thought about it.

  Bob was helping prepare the town square for the annual Christmas Eve concert by Lenny and the Lasers.

  Jacob hotched a little closer and took hold of George’s hand.

  While Bob worked round the clock to make the concert go smoothly, Tom stopped to rescue a reindeer from a crevasse en route to the ferry and missed the boat. The Christmas reunion was off.

  Bob was very sad.

  Unaccountably, George was rather sad, too. Especially during the childhood flashback in which Tom got a toy elephant for Christmas and broke it and wept, and Bob mended it for him.

  A little while later Lenny (of the Lasers) heard about Bob’s plight and flew to the North Pole in his private jet to bring Tom back in time for Christmas Eve, and when Tom and Bob were reunited at the concert there were actual tears running down George’s face.

  “Are you sad, Grandpa?” asked Jacob.

  “Yes,” said George. “Yes, I am.”

  “Is that because you’re dying?”
asked Jacob.

  “Yes,” said George. “Yes, it is.” He put his arm round Jacob and pulled him close.

  After a couple of minutes Jacob squeezed free.

  “I need a poo.” He got off the bed and left the room.

  The tape ended and the screen was filled with white noise.

  52

  Katie pulled up a chair.

  “We’re going to hire the long marquee.” Mum put her glasses on and opened the catalog. “It’ll fit. Just. But the pegs will have to go in the flower border. Now…” She extracted an A4 sheet showing the floor plan of the tent. “For the top table we can go round or oblong. It’s eight per table and a maximum of twelve tables which makes—”

  “Ninety-six,” said Katie.

  “—including the top table. Did you bring your list of guests?”

  Katie hadn’t.

  “Honestly, Katie, I can’t do this all by myself.”

  “It’s been a little hectic recently.”

  She should have told Mum about Ray. But she couldn’t stand the idea of Mum being smug about it. Handling Dad was difficult enough. And by the time they were discussing rich chocolate mousse versus tiramisu it was too late.

  She wrote a guest list off the top of her head. If she missed an aunt, Ray could bloody well explain himself. Assuming the wedding happened. Oh well, she’d deal with that eventuality another time.

  “I told you Jamie might be bringing someone, didn’t I,” said Mum.

  “His name’s Tony, Mum.”

  “Sorry. I was just…You know, I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.”

  “They’ve been together for longer than me and Ray.”

  “And you’ve met him,” said Mum.

  “You mean, will Dad be able to cope?”

  “I mean, is he nice?”

  “I’ve only met him once.”

  “And…?” asked Mum.

  “Well, if the leather shorts and the blond fun wig are anything to goby…”

  “You are teasing me, aren’t you.”

  “I am.”

  Mum looked suddenly serious. “I just want you to be happy. Both of you. You’re still my children.”

  Katie took Mum’s hand. “Jamie is sensible. He’ll probably choose a better man than either of us.”

  Mum looked even more serious and Katie wondered whether she’d overstepped the mark a little.