that lad hasn’t kissed the Blarney Stone, he’s bitten off chunks of it. Talk about the gift of the gab! Craig Salt dropped by while I was there to instil some God-fearing discipline into the troops, but Danny had him eating out of his hand in five minutes flat. Executive material, is that young man. When Craig Salt gives me nationwide sales next year, I’m fast-tracking Danny Lawlor and frankly I don’t care whose nose I put out of joint.’
‘The Irish’ve always had to live by their wits,’ said Mum.
Dad didn’t remember it was Speech Therapy Day till Mum’d mentioned she’d written a ‘plumpish’ cheque for Lorenzo Hussingtree in Malvern Link. Dad asked what Mrs de Roo’d thought about his diary idea. Her comment that it was ‘most informative’ fuelled his good mood. ‘“Informative”? Indispensable, more like! Smart-think Management Principles are applicable across the board. Like I told Danny Lawlor, any operator is only as good as his data. Without data, you’re the Titanic, crossing an Atlantic chock full of icebergs without radar. Result? Collision, disaster, goodnight.’
‘Wasn’t radar invented in the Second World War?’ Julia forked a lump of steak. ‘And didn’t the Titanic sink before the First?’
‘The principle, o daughter of mine, is a universal constant. If you don’t keep records, you can’t make progress assessments. True for retailers, true for educators, true for the military, true for any systems operator. One bright day in your brilliant career at the Old Bailey you’ll learn this the hard way and think, If only I’d listened to my dear wise father. How right he was.’
Julia snorted horsily, which she gets away with ’cause she’s Julia. I can never tell Dad what I really think like that. I can feel the stuff I don’t say rotting inside me like mildewy spuds in a sack. Stammerers can’t win arguments ’cause once you stammer, H-h-hey p-p-presto, you’ve l-l-lost, S-s-st-st-utterboy! If I stammer with Dad, he gets that face he had when he got his Black and Decker Workmate home and found it was minus a crucial packet of screws. Hangman just loves that face.
After Julia and I’d done the washing up Mum and Dad sat in front of the telly watching a glittery new quiz show called Blankety Blank presented by Terry Wogan. Contestants have to guess a missing word from a sentence and if they guess the same as the panel of celebrities they win crap prizes like a mug tree with mugs.
Up in my room I started my homework on the feudal system for Mrs Coscombe. But then I got sucked in by a poem about a skater on a frozen lake who wants to know what it’s like to be dead so much, he’s persuaded himself that a drowned kid’s talking to him. I typed it out on my Silver Reed Elan 20 Manual Typewriter. I love how it’s got no number 1 so you use the letter ‘l’.
My Silver Reed’s probably what I’d save if our house ever caught fire, now my granddad’s Omega Seamaster’s busted. The worst thing in a locked house in a bad dream, that was.
So anyway, my alarm-radio suddenly said 21:15. I had less than twelve hours. Rain drummed on my window. The rhythms of Metro Gnomes’re in rain and poems too, and breathing, not just tocks of clocks.
Julia’s footsteps crossed my ceiling and went downstairs. She opened the living-room door and asked if she could phone Kate Alfrick about some economics homework. Dad said okay. Our phone’s in the hallway to make it uncomfortable to use, so if I creep over the landing to my surveillance position I can catch just about everything.
‘Yeah, yeah, I did get your Valentine’s card, and very sweet it is too, but listen, you know why I’m calling! Did you pass?’
Pause.
‘Just tell me, Ewan! Did you pass?’
Pause. (Who’s Ewan?)
‘Excellent! Brilliant! Fantastic! I was going to chuck you if you’d failed, of course. Can’t have a boyfriend who can’t drive.’
(‘Boyfriend’? ‘Chuck’?) Muffled laughter plus pause.
‘No! No! He’s never!’
Pause.
Julia did the ohhh! moany noise she does when she’s mega-jealous. ‘God, why can’t I have a filthy-rich uncle who gives me sports cars? Can’t I have one of yours? Go on, you’ve got more than you need…’
Pause.
‘You bet. How about Saturday? Oh, you’ve got classes all morning, I keep forgetting…’
Saturday morning classes? This Ewan must be a Worcester Cathedral School kid. Posh.
‘…Russell and Dorrell’s café, then. One thirty. Kate’ll drive me in.’