of eggs and Fairy Liquid, but Moran didn’t know what to say. Moran said Nick’s face was dead.
Last week the Malvern Gazetteer had Tom Yew on its front page. He was smiling and saluting at the camera in his ensign’s uniform. I pasted it in my scrapbook. I’m running out of pages.
When I got home on Monday there were about ten lumps of granite blocking the driveway, plus five sacks labelled CRUSHED SHELL FILLER. Plus a giant turtle shell that turned out to be a pre-cast fibreglass pond lining. Mr Castle was on a pair of stepladders clipping his hedge, which divides his front garden from ours. ‘Dad’s recreating the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, is he?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I hope he’s got a JCB stashed away in his garage.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Over a ton of rock you’ve got there. Nobody’s going to be shifting that little lot on a wheelbarrow. Cracked the tarmac something chronic, too, they have.’ Mr Castle smiled and winced at the same time. ‘I was here, watching the men dump it.’
Mum got home twenty minutes later, absolutely apeshit. I was watching the war on TV, so across the hallway I heard her phone up the landscapers. ‘You were supposed to bring the rocks tomorrow! You were supposed to lay them in the garden! Not just dump the things in the middle of our drive! A “mix-up”? A “mix-up”? No. I’m calling it criminal stupidity! Where are we supposed to park?’ The call ended with Mum shrieking the words ‘instructing my solicitors!’ and hanging up.
When Dad came home at gone seven o’clock he didn’t mention the rocks on the driveway. Not a word. But the way he said nothing was masterly. Mum didn’t mention the rocks either, so we had a stand-off. You could hear the strain in the room, like the squeak of cables. Mum boasts to visitors and relatives how, no matter what, we sit round as a family to share an evening meal. She’d’ve done us all a favour if she’d given this tradition a night off. Julia did her best to spin out a story about today’s World Affairs A-level paper (she’d got all the questions she’d revised for) and Mum and Dad paid polite attention, but I sort of felt the rocks outside, waiting to be referred to.
Mum served up the treacle tart and vanilla ice cream.
‘I don’t want to be accused of nagging, Helena,’ Dad began, ‘but I was wondering when I might be able to park my car in my garage?’
‘The workmen will be putting the rockery in place tomorrow. There was a misunderstanding about delivery times. They’ll be finished by tomorrow evening.’
‘Ah, good. It’s just our insurance policy clearly states we’re covered for off-road parking only, so if—’
‘Tomorrow, Michael.’
‘That’s fantastic. This is a lovely treacle tart, by the way. Is it from Greenland?’
‘Sainsbury’s.’
Our spoons scraped on our dishes.
‘I don’t want to be accused of interfering, Helena—’
(Mum’s nostrils actually went stiff, like a cartoon bull.)
‘—but I hope you haven’t actually paid these people, yet?’
‘No. I’ve paid a deposit.’
‘A deposit. I see. I only ask because you do hear horror stories about people handing over quite large sums of money to cowboys in these fly-by-night businesses. Then before you can even phone a lawyer, the director’s done a Ronnie Biggs off to Costa del Chips or wherever. And the poor old customer never gets to see a single penny of his hard-earned money again. Distressing, how these con-men can swindle the gullible.’
‘You said you’d “washed your hands of the whole affair”, Michael.’
‘I did, yes,’ Dad can’t hide satisfaction to save his life, ‘but I didn’t count on not being able to park my own car on my own drive. That’s all I wanted to say.’
Something silent smashed without being dropped.
Mum left the table. Not angry, and not tearful, but worse. Like none of us were there.
Dad just stared at where she’d been sitting.
‘In my exam today,’ Julia twisted a strand of her hair, ‘this term I’m not totally sure about, “pyrrhic victory”, came up. Do you know what a “pyrrhic victory” is, Dad?’
Dad gave Julia a very complicated stare.
Julia didn’t flinch.
Dad got up and went to the garage, for a smoke, most like.
The wreckage of dessert lay between me and Julia.
We watched it for a bit. ‘A what victory?’
‘“Pyrrhic”. Ancient Greece. A pyrrhic victory is one where you win, but the cost of winning is so high that it would’ve been better if you’d never bothered with the war in the first place. Useful word,