Plymouth and Portsmouth three weeks ago it was obvious, Great Britain was going to thrash them. Brass bands on the quayside and women waving and a hundred thousand yachts and honkers and arcs of water from the fire-ships. We had the HMS Hermes, HMS Invincible, HMS Illustrious, the SAS, the SBS. Pumas, Rapiers, Sidewinders, Lynxes, Sea Skuas, Tigerfish torpedoes, Admiral Sandy Woodward. The Argie ships are tubs named after Spanish generals with stupid moustaches. Alexander Haig couldn’t admit it in public in case the Soviet Union sided with Argentina, but even Ronald Reagan was on our side.
But now, we might actually lose.
Our Foreign Office’ve been trying to restart negotiations, but the junta are telling us to get stuffed. We’ll run out of ships before they run out of Exocets. That’s what they’re gambling on. Who’s to say they’re wrong? Outside Leopoldo Galtieri’s palace in Buenos Aires, thousands of people are chanting, ‘We feel your greatness!’ over and over. The noise is stopping me sleeping. Galtieri stands on the balcony and breathes it in. Some young men jeered at our cameras. ‘Give up! Go home! England is sick! England is dying! History says the Malvinas are Argentina’s!’
‘Pack of hyenas,’ Dad remarked. ‘The British’d show a bit of decorum. People have been killed, for heaven’s sake! That’s the difference between us. Will you just look at them!’
Dad went to bed. He’s sleeping in the spare room at the moment, ’cause of his back, though Mum told me it’s ’cause he tosses and turns so much. It’s probably both. They had a right barney this evening, actually over the dinner table. With me and Julia both there.
‘I’ve been thinking—’ Mum began.
‘Steady now,’ Dad interrupted, jokily, like he used to.
‘—now’s rather a good time to build that rockery.’
‘That whattery?’
‘The rockery, Michael.’
‘You’ve already got your shiny new Lorenzo Hussingtree kitchen.’ Dad used his Be reasonable voice. ‘Why do you need a mound of dirt with rocks on?’
‘Nobody’s talking about a mound of dirt. Rockeries are made of rocks. And a water feature, I was thinking of.’
‘What,’ Dad did a fake laugh, ‘is a “water feature” when it’s at home?’
‘An ornamental pond. A fountain or miniature cascade, perhaps.’
‘Oh.’ Dad made a Fancy that noise.
‘We’ve been talking about doing something with that scrap of ground by the roses for years, Michael.’
‘You might have. I haven’t.’
‘No, we discussed it before Christmas. You said, “Next year maybe.” Like the year before, and the year before. Besides, you said yourself how nice Brian’s rockery looks.’
‘When?’
‘Last autumn. And Alice said, “A rockery would look enchanting in your back garden,” and you agreed.’
‘Your mother,’ Dad said to Julia, ‘is a human Dictaphone.’
Julia refused to be enlisted.
Dad took a gulp of water. ‘Whatever I said to Alice, I didn’t mean it. I was being polite.’
‘Pity you can’t extend the same courtesy to your wife.’
Julia and me looked at each other.
‘What sort of scale,’ Dad piled peas on his fork, wearily, ‘do we have in mind? A life-sized model of the Lake District?’
Mum reached for a magazine on the dresser. ‘Something like this…’
‘Oh, I get it. Harper’s Bazaar do a special on rockeries so of course we have to have one too.’
‘Kate’s got a nice rockery,’ Julia said, neutrally. ‘With heathers.’
‘Lucky old Kate.’ Dad put his glasses on to study the magazine. ‘Very nice, Helena, but they’ve used real Italian marble here.’
Mum’s ‘That’s right’ meant And I’m having marble too.
‘Do you have any inkling of how much marble costs?’
‘More than an inkling. I called a landscape gardener in Kidderminster.’
‘Why should I shell out money,’ Dad tossed the magazine on the floor, ‘for a pile of rocks?’
Mum normally backs down at this point, but not today. ‘So it’s all right for you to spend six hundred pounds on a golf-club membership you hardly ever use, but it isn’t all right for me to improve our property?’
‘The golf course,’ Dad tried not to shout, ‘as I’ve tried to tell you, over and over and over and over, is where deals get cut. Including key promotions. I may not like it, you may not like it, but there it is. And Craig Salt does not play his golf on public links.’
‘Don’t wave your fork at me, Michael.’
Dad didn’t put his fork down. ‘I am the breadwinner in this family, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to spend at least a portion of my salary however the hell I see fit.’
My mashed potatoes’d gone cold.
‘So in effect,’ Mum folded her napkin, ‘you’re telling me to stick