Steel imploding…Everyone ordering ships from South bloody Korea, wherever that is, instead of the Tyne and the Clyde…Comrade Scargill threatening revolution…it’s difficult to see how it can’t have a knock-on effect on frozen crispy pancakes and fish fingers, in the long run. Alice and I do worry, you know.’
‘Well,’ Dad leant back, ‘it’s very good of you and Alice to worry, Brian, but the retailing sector is holding its own and Greenland is robust.’
‘Very glad to hear it, Michael. Very glad indeed.’
(So was I. Gavin Coley’s dad was laid off by Metalbox in Tewkesbury. His birthday at Alton Towers was cancelled, Gavin Coley’s eyes sunk into his skull a few millimetres and a year later his parents got divorced. Kelly Moran told me his dad’s still on the dole.)
Hugo wore a thin leather cord around his neck. I wanted one.
When the Lambs visit, salt and pepper magically turn into ‘the condiments’. Dinner was prawn cocktails in wine glasses for starters, lamb chops with chef’s hats with Duchesse potatoes and braised celery for main, and a Baked Alaska for ‘dessert’, not ‘afters’. We use the mother-of-pearl napkin rings. (Dad’s dad brought them back from Burma on the same voyage he got the Omega Seamaster I smashed in January.) Before starting the starters, Uncle Brian opened the wine he’d brought. Julia and Alex got a whole glass, Hugo and me just half, ‘and a whistle-wetter for you, Nigel.’
Aunt Alice did her usual toast, ‘To the Taylor and Lamb dynasties!’
Uncle Brian did his usual ‘Here’s looking at you, kid!’
Dad pretended to find that rather amusing.
We all clinked glasses (except Alex) and took a sip.
Dad is guaranteed to hold his wineglass up to the light and say, ‘Very easy to drink!’ He didn’t let us down today. Mum shot him a look, but Dad never notices. ‘I’ll say this much for you, Brian. You can’t half choose a decent plonk.’
‘Fabulous to earn your stamp of approval, Michael. Treated myself to a crate of the stuff. Comes from a vineyard near that charming cottage we rented in the lakes last year.’
‘Wine? The Lake District? Cumbria? Oh, I think you’ll find you’re mistaken there, Brian.’
‘No, no, Michael, not the English lakes, the Italian lakes. Lombardy.’ Uncle Brian whirlpooled his wine round his glass, snuftered it and glugged it back. ‘Nineteen seventy-three. Blackberryesque, melony, oaky. I concur with your expert judgement, though, Michael. Not a bad little vintage.’
‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘dig in, everyone!’
After the first round of ‘delicious!’es Aunt Alice said, ‘It’s been all go at school this term, hasn’t it, boys? Nigel’s the captain of the chess club.’
‘President,’ said Nigel, ‘actually.’
‘Beg pudding! Nigel’s the president of the chess club. And Alex is doing incredible things with the school computer, aren’t you, Alex? I can’t even set the video recordery doo-dah, but—’
‘Alex’s streets ahead of his teachers,’ said Uncle Brian, ‘truth be told. What is it you’re doing with it, Alex?’
‘FORTRAN. BASIC.’ Alex spoke like it hurt him. ‘PASCAL. Z-80 Code.’
‘You must be ever so intelligent,’ said Julia, so brightly I couldn’t tell if she’d said it sarkily or not.
‘Oh, you bet Alex is intelligent,’ said Hugo. ‘The brain of Alexander Lamb is the final frontier of British science.’
Alex glared at his brother.
‘There’s a real future in computering.’ Dad loaded his spoon with prawns. ‘Technology, design, electric cars. That’s what schools should be teaching. Not all this “wandered lonely as a cloud” guff. Like I was telling Craig Salt – he’s our MD at Greenland – just the other—’
‘Couldn’t agree with you more, Michael,’ Uncle Brian made a face like an evil mastermind announcing his plan for world domination, ‘which is why Alex is getting a hot-off-the-press twenty-pound note for every grade A this year, and a ten-pound note for every B – to buy his very own IBM.’ (My jealousy throbbed like toothache. Dad says paying your kids to study is ‘derelict’.) ‘Nothing beats the profit motive, right?’
Mum stepped in. ‘And how about you, Hugo?’
At last I could study Hugo without pretending not to.
‘Mainly,’ Hugo took a sip of water, ‘I’ve had some lucky races in the canoeing team, Aunt Helena.’
‘Hugo,’ Uncle Brian burped, ‘has showered himself in glory! By rights he should be the head honcho oarsman chappie, but some stuffed fat-arsed governor – oops, pardon my French – who owns half of Lloyd’s Insurance threatened to kick up a stink if his own Little Lord Herbert Bonks wasn’t appointed. What’s that child’s name again, Hugo?’