Black Swan Green

by David Mitchell

  ‘Isn’t your camera,’ Julia wiped her mouth with her napkin, ‘a Nikon, Uncle Brian?’

  Hugo said, ‘Nothing wrong with Japanese hi-fi technology, either.’

  ‘Or computer chips,’ added Nigel.

  So I said, ‘Their motorbikes are pretty classic as well.’

  Uncle Brian did this disbelieving shrug. ‘Precisely my point, boys and girls! Japs’ll take everyone else’s technology, shrink it down to their own size, and then sell it back to the rest of the world, right, Mike? Mike? You’re with me on this one, at least? What do you expect from the only Axis power that never apologized for the war! They got away with it. Scot-free.’

  ‘Two hundred thousand civilians killed by atom bombs,’ said Julia, ‘and two million more, incinerated by fire-bombs, is hardly what I would call “scot-free”.’

  ‘But the fact of the matter is’ (Uncle Brian doesn’t hear what he doesn’t want to) ‘the Japs are still fighting the war. They own Wall Street. London’s next. Walking from the Barbican to my office, you’d need…twenty pairs of hands to count all the Fu Manchu look-alikes you pass by. Listen to this, Helena. My secretary bought herself one of those…whateverthehelltheycall’ems…y’know, those motorised rickshaws…a Honda Civic. That’s it. A turd-brown Honda Civic. She drove it out of the showroom and at the very first roundabout – I jest not – it’s exhaust dropped – clean – off. There’s your reason why they’re so competitive. They make tat. See? Can’t have it all in this life. Not without picking up a nasty fungal infection, anyway, eh, Mike?’

  ‘Pass me the condiments, please, Julia,’ Dad said to Julia.

  Hugo and I caught each other’s eye and for one moment we were alone in a roomful of waxworks.

  ‘My Datsun,’ Mum offered some braised celery to Aunt Alice who made a no thanks gesture, ‘passed its MOT with flying colours last week.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Uncle Brain sniffed, ‘you got it MOT-ed at the very same place that sold you your mobile pagoda in the first place?’

  ‘Why ever shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Ah, Helena.’ Uncle Brian shook his head.

  ‘I’m not quite seeing your point, Brian.’

  ‘Helena, Helena, Helena.’

  Hugo asked for ‘just a sliver’ of Baked Alaska, so Mum cut him a wodge as big as Dad’s. ‘You’re a growing lad, for heaven’s sakes!’ (I filed the tactic away for future use.) ‘Dig in, everyone, before the ice cream melts.’

  After the first spoonful, Aunt Alice said, ‘Out of this world!’

  Dad said, ‘Very nice, Helena.’

  ‘Mike,’ Uncle Brian said, ‘you’re not going to let this bottle languish here half drunk now, are you?’ He tipped a fat glug into Dad’s glass, then his own, then raised his glass to my sister. ‘“Here’s looking at you, kid!” But I’m still at a loss to understand why a young lady of your obvious talents shouldn’t be aiming for the Big Two. At Richmond Prep, I jest not, it’s Oxford this and Cambridge that, morning, noon and night, isn’t it, Alex?’

  Alex raised his head ten degrees for a quarter-second to say yes.

  ‘Morning, noon and night,’ said Hugo, dead seriously.

  ‘Our careers adviser,’ Julia spooned a dribble of ice cream before it got to the tablecloth, ‘Mr Williams, has a friend in the radical bar in London, who says that if I want to specialize in environmental law then Edinburgh or Durham are really the places to—’

  ‘Then I’m sorry,’ Uncle Brian judo-chopped the air, ‘sorry, sorry, sorry, but Mr Williams – a closet Welshman, doubtless – Mr Williams should be tarred, feathered, tied to a mule and sent back to Haverfordwest! It’s not what you learn at university, it’s’ Uncle Brian was steamy red now ‘it’s who you network with! Only at Oxbridge can you network with tomorrow’s elite! I jest not, with the right college tie I’d’ve got made partner ten years ago! Mike…Helena! Surely you’re not going to stand idly by while your first-born squanders herself at the University of Nowhereshire?’

  Annoyance darkened Julia’s face.

  (I usually retreat to somewhere safe at this point.)

  Mum said, ‘Edinburgh and Durham have good reputations.’

  ‘Doubtless, doubtless, but what you’ve got to remember is,’ Uncle Brian was now almost shrieking, ‘“Are they the best on the market?” and the answer is “Are they heck!” Blimey O’Riley, this, this, is precisely the problem with comprehensive schools. Fabulous for little Jack and Jill Mediocrity, but do they push the brightest and ablest? Do they heck! For those teaching unions, “brighter” and “abler” are dirty words.’

  Aunt Alice put her hand on Brian’s arm. ‘Brian, I think—’

  ‘I refuse to be “Brianned” when our only niece’s future is at stake! If my concern makes me a snob, then bugger it and ’scuse my French, I’ll be the bloodiest snob I know and wear that badge with pride! Why anyone with the brains for Oxbridge would set their sights on Jockland is simply beyond my understanding.’ Uncle Brian emptied his glass in one urgent swallow. ‘Unless perhaps—’ My uncle’s face turned from outraged to pervy in three seconds. ‘Ah, yes – unless there’s a young Scottish stallion with a hairy sporran you’re not confessing to anyone about, Julia, eh? Eh, Mike, eh? Eh, Helena? Thought of that, eh?’

  ‘Brian—’

  ‘Don’t worry, Aunt Alice.’ Julia smiled. ‘Uncle Brian knows I’d rather be involved in a multiple car crash than discuss my private life with him. I intend to study law in Edinburgh, and all the Brian Lambs of tomorrow will have to do their networking without me.’

  I’d’ve never got away with saying that, ever.

  Hugo raised his glass to her. ‘Well said, Julia!’

  ‘Ah,’ Uncle Brian did a sort of punctured laugh, ‘you’ll probably go far in the legal game, young lady, even if you do insist on a second-class university. You’ve got the art of the non-secateur off pat.’

  ‘Fabulous to earn your stamp of approval, Uncle Brian.’

  A cow of an awkward pause mooed.

  ‘Hurrah!’ Uncle Brian scoffed. ‘She insists on the last word.’

  ‘You’ve got a strand of celery stuck to your chin, Uncle Brian.’

  The coldest place in our house is the downstairs bog. In winter your bum freezes to the seat. Julia’d said goodbye to the Lambs and’d gone to Kate Alfrick’s to do some history revision. Uncle Brian had gone up to the spare room ‘to rest his eyes’. Alex’d gone to the bathroom for the third time since he’d arrived. Each time he took over twenty minutes. Don’t know what he was finding to do in there. Dad was showing Hugo and Nigel his new Minolta. Mum and Aunt Alice were having a stroll round the windy garden. In the mirror above the washbasin I was scanning my face for signs of Hugo. Could I turn myself into him by sheer will-power? Cell by cell. Ross Wilcox is doing it. At primary school he was a thicko nobody, but now he smokes with older kids like Gilbert Swinyard and Pete Redmarley and people’re calling him ‘Ross’ instead of ‘Wilcox’. So there must be a way.

  I’d sat down and done a good clean crap when I heard voices getting louder. Eavesdropping’s wrong, I know, but it was hardly my fault if Mum and Aunt Alice chose to natter right outside the ventilator flaps, was it?

  ‘You shouldn’t be apologizing, Helena. Brian was…God, I could shoot him!’

  ‘Michael brings the worst out in him.’

  ‘No, let’s just…Helena, your rosemary! It’s virtually a tree. I just can’t get my herbs to thrive. Apart from the mint. The mint’s going crazy.’

  A pause.

  ‘I wonder,’ Mum said, ‘what Daddy would make of them. If he could see them now, I mean.’

  ‘Brian and Michael?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, first he’d tell us, “Told you so!” Then, he’d roll up his sleeves, pick up whatever they were arguing the opposite of, and not leave the ring until both of them were battered into mute agreement.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh.’

  ‘Not as harsh as Daddy! Julia would give him a run fo
r his money, though.’

  ‘She can be rather…opinionated.’

  ‘At least it’s CND and Amnesty International she’s opinionated about, Helena, and not Meaty Loaf or the Deaf Leopards.’

  A pause.

  ‘Hugo’s turning into a real charmer.’

  ‘“Charmer” is one word.’

  ‘But look at how he insisted on doing the washing-up. Of course, I couldn’t let him.’

  ‘Yes, I know, it wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Jason’s still painfully quiet. How’s his speech therapy going?’

  (I didn’t want to hear this. But I couldn’t leave without flushing the bog. If I did, they’d know they’d been overheard. So I was stuck there.)

  ‘Snail’s pace. He sees this South African lady called Mrs de Roo. She tells us not to expect miracle cures. We don’t. She tells us to be patient with him. We are. Not much else to say.’

  A long pause.

  ‘You know, Alice, even after all these years, I still find it hard to believe Mummy and Daddy have gone for good. That they are actually…dead. Not just on a cruise liner in the Indian Ocean, out of reach for six months. Or…What’s funny?’

  ‘Being stuck with Daddy on a cruise liner! That would be purgatory.’

  Mum didn’t answer.

  A longer pause.

  ‘Helena, I’m not prying,’ Aunt Alice’s voice’d shifted, ‘but you haven’t mentioned any more of those phantom telephone calls since January.’

  A pause.

  ‘I’m sorry, Helena, I shouldn’t have stuck my beak into—’

  ‘No, no…I mean, God knows, who else can I discuss it with? No. There haven’t been any more. I feel a bit guilty for jumping to conclusions. It was just a storm in a teacup, I’m sure. A non-existent storm, I should say. If it hadn’t been for…you know, that “incident” of Michael’s five and a half years ago, or whenever it was, I wouldn’t’ve thought twice. Wrong numbers and crossed lines happen all the time. Don’t they?’

  (‘Incident’?)

  ‘Exactly,’ Aunt Alice answered. ‘Exactly. You haven’t…said…’

  ‘A “confrontation” with Michael’d be like digging up a grave.’

  (My goose bumps actually hurt.)

  ‘Of course it would,’ Aunt Alice answered.

  ‘The average Greenland trainee has a better idea of what goes on in the head of Michael Taylor than his own wife, half the time. Mind you, now I know why Mummy was so down, half the time.’

  (I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to. I wanted to. I don’t know.)

  ‘You’re getting morbid, big sister.’

  ‘You’re my morbid-mop, Alice. You’ve got glamour. You get to meet Chinese violinists and swarthy Aztec pan-pipe ensembles. Who’s at the theatre this week?’

  ‘The Basil Brush Boom-Boom Road Show.’

  ‘See?’

  ‘Their agent is notoriously prickly. You’d think Liberace was in town, not some down-on-his-luck TV actor with his hand up a fox’s bum.’

  ‘No business like show business.’

  A pause.

  ‘Helena, I know I’ve told you this twenty thousand times, but you need challenges bigger than Baked Alaskas. Julia’s flying the nest this year. Why don’t you think about going back to work?’

  Short pause. ‘One, there’s a recession on and people are firing, not hiring. Two, I’m a morbid housewife. Three, I don’t live near London, I live in darkest Worcestershire, and opportunities are thinner on the ground. Four, I haven’t worked since Jason was born.’

  ‘So what if your maternity leave went on for thirteen years longer than planned?’

  Mum did that single laugh people who don’t want to laugh do.

  ‘Even Daddy used to boast about your designs to his golf club cronies. All I ever heard was Helena this, Helena that.’

  ‘All I ever heard was Alice this, Alice that.’

  ‘Well, that was Daddy all over, wasn’t it? Come on. Show me where you’re thinking of putting that rockery…’

  I flushed the bog and sprayed the air freshener, holding my breath. Alpine Fresh Haze is a sicky smell.

  Dad’s Rover 3500 lives in one garage, but Mum usually parks her Datsun Cherry on the drive, so the second garage is spare. The bikes live along one wall. Dad’s tools live in neat racks above his workbench. Potatoes live in a bottomless sack. The spare garage is sheltered, even on blowy days like today. Dad smokes in there, so there’s often a whiff of cigarettes. I even like the oil stains on the concrete floor.

  The best thing’s the dart board, mind. Darts is ace. I love the thud as the spike sinks into the board. I love tugging the darts out. When I invited Hugo for a game, he said, ‘Sure.’ But then Nigel said he’d come too. Dad said, ‘Brilliant idea,’ so the three of us were in the garage playing Round-the-Clock. (Aim at 1 till you get a 1, then a 2 till you get a 2, then a 3, and so on. First to 20 wins.)

  We threw one dart each to see who’d go first.

  Hugo got 18, I got 10, Nigel got 4.

  ‘So,’ Nigel asked me as his brother got a 1 with his first dart, ‘have you read The Lord of the Rings?’

  ‘No,’ Maggot lied, so Hugo didn’t think I was being pally.

  Hugo missed 2 with his next dart, but got it with his third.

  Nigel told me, ‘It’s epic.’

  Hugo got the three darts and passed them to me. ‘Nigel, nobody says “epic” any more.’

  (I tried to remember if I’d said it since the Lambs came.)

  I missed 1 with my first two darts, but got it with my third.

  ‘Nice throw,’ said Hugo.

  ‘We had to do The Hobbit at school,’ Nigel got the darts, ‘but The Hobbit’s basically just a fairy tale.’

  ‘I tried The Lord of the Rings,’ Hugo said, ‘but it’s laughable. Everyone’s called Gondogorn or Sarulon and runs about saying, “These woods’ll be swarming with orcs by nightfall.” And as for that Sam, and his “Oh, Master Frodo, what a bootiful dagger you’ve got” – well! They shouldn’t let that sort of homo-erotic porn near children. Maybe that’s the appeal, Nigel?’

  Nigel missed the board and his dart bounced off the brick.

  Hugo sighed. ‘Do be careful, Nigel. You’re blunting Jace’s darts.’

  I should’ve said ‘It doesn’t matter’ to Nigel. Maggot didn’t.

  Nigel’s second dart hit the outside rim of the board. A miss.

  ‘Did you know, Jace,’ said Hugo, casually, ‘it’s a scientific fact that homosexuals can’t throw straight?’

  To my alarm, I realized Nigel was close to tears.

  Hugo has a way of affecting other people’s luck.

  Nigel’s third dart hit the rim of the board and pinged off. He snapped. ‘You’re always turning people against me!’ Red and furious. ‘I hate you, you bloody bastard!’

  ‘Not a nice word, Nigel. Do you know what a bastard is, or are you parroting your playmates in your chess club again?’

  ‘Yes I do, actually!’

  ‘Yes you know what a bastard is? Or yes you’re parroting your playmates?’

  ‘Yes I know what a bastard is and you’re one!’

  ‘So if I’m a bastard, you’re saying our mother shagged another man to conceive me, right? So you’re accusing her of playing away, are you?’

  Tears brimmed in Nigel’s eyes.

  This’d bring trouble crashing down, I knew it.

  Hugo did an amused tut. ‘Dad won’t be best pleased to hear your accusation either. Look, why don’t you just run along and fiddle with your Rubik’s cube in a quiet corner somewhere? Jason and I will do our best to forget the whole business.’

  ‘Sorry about Nigel.’ Hugo got 3, a miss and 4. ‘Such a space cadet. He has to learn how to detect hints, and act on them. One day he’ll thank me for my tutelage. Alex the Neandarthal dork is beyond help, I fear.’

  I did a sort of laugh, wondering how Hugo makes words like “tutelage” and “alas” sound powerful and not prattish. I threw a miss, then a 2
, a 3.

  ‘Ted Hughes came to our school last term,’ Hugo mentioned.

  Now I knew he didn’t hold my poetry prize against me. ‘Yeah?’

  Hugo threw a 5, a 6, a miss. ‘He signed my copy of The Hawk in the Rain.’

  ‘The Hawk in the Rain is brilliant.’ A 4, a miss, a miss.

  ‘I’m more into the First World War poets, myself.’ Hugo threw a 7, an 8, a miss. ‘Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and that lot.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I threw a 5, a miss, a 6. ‘I prefer them too, if I’m honest.’

  ‘But George Orwell’s the man.’ A 9, a miss, a miss. ‘I’ve got everything he ever wrote, including a first-edition Nineteen Eighty-Four.’

  A miss, a miss, a 7. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’s just incredible.’ (Actually I’d got bogged down in O’Brien’s long essay and never finished it.) ‘And Animal Farm.’ (We’d had to read that at school.)

  Hugo threw a 10. ‘If you don’t read his journalism,’ a near miss, ‘you can’t say you know Orwell.’ Another near-miss. ‘Damn. I’ll post you this collection of essays, Inside the Whale.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I fluked an 8, a 9, a 10, and acted like it was nothing special.

  ‘Brilliant throwing! Tell you what, Jace, let’s liven things up a bit. Got any money on you?’

  I had 50p.

  ‘Okay, I’ll match that. First to twenty wins fifty pence off the other.’

  Half my pocket money was a bit of a risk.

  ‘Go on, Jace.’ Hugo grinned like he really liked me. ‘Don’t be a Nigel. Tell you what, you can have your turn again, to start. Three free throws.’

  Saying yes’d make me more like Hugo. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good man. But best not mention it to’ Hugo nodded through the garage wall ‘the maters and the paters, or we’ll spend the rest of the afternoon playing ludo or the Game of Life under strict supervision.’

  ‘Sure.’ I missed, hit the wall, and missed.

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Hugo. He missed, got an 11, missed.

  ‘What’s rowing like, then?’ I got my 11, missed, got 12. ‘All I’ve been on are the pedalos at Malvern Winter Gardens.’