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“I know. But why should kids get all the fun?”
Turning back, Jonathan spears a bit of chicken, as if the poor thing hadn’t suffered enough. “I’m not playing dragons with you.”
Jonathan’s done such a good job of avoiding me recently that it’s a bit like I’m having to learn how to be around him all over again. Because he’s not the sort of man you think you’d enjoy spending time with.
Since he technically did the cooking, I do the washing up, and afterwards I find Jonathan on the sofa, with Gollum on his lap, both of them just gazing out the window, watching the setting sun sparkle off the frost-dusted grass. I sit down with them and watch it too. And it is sort of magic, in a way, if you don’t think too much about how hard it is on the lawn.
It gets slightly less magic when his family blunder in, crunching over the grass in ways that reallywillbe bad for the landscaping, and Barbara Jane’s first words when Jonathan opens the door are, “Fuck me, why is it so cold, who’s putting the kettle on?”
Jonathan greets her with a dry “good evening, BJ” that’sdrowned out by everybody else coming in after her and making their own hellos, comments, and demands.
“Johnny lad.” That’s Uncle Johnny, who I suppose is the only one in the family who can call Jonathan Johnny without confusion. “Can I stick a couple of crates in your garage?”
“They’ve been in our front room for a week,” adds Wendy, swanning in wearing a blouse with poppies on it under a rainbow-striped cardy that looks hand-knitted.
“And our living room,” adds Les.
Jonathan stares warily at the three of them. “That sounds like more than a couple.”
“Yeah, okay”—Uncle Johnny puts his hands up in thefair copgesture—“there’s probably closer to twelve.”
“And what’s in them exactly?” asks Jonathan, demonstrating the keen attention to detail that’s propelled him to the top of the bed and bathroom retailing world.
With more self-satisfaction than is probably appropriate for a man in his early sixties, Uncle Johnny grins. “Halloween shit.”
Now he’s got me wondering. “Halloween shit?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “You buy it up this time of year while it’s cheap, then flog it off in October.”
Les casts his brother a dark look. “Were you really planning on leaving that crap in our front room for ten months?”
Johnny shrugs. “I’d’ve worked something out.”
“When?”
“Now.” Uncle Johnny turns back to Jonathan with a expression that falls somewhere between expectant and hopeful. “What do you say?”
Jonathan’s eyes narrow beneath brows that, for once, seem appropriately heavy. “And all this stuff is currently in Mum and Dad’s house?”
Uncle Johnny nods.
“I’ll admit”—Jonathan’s sounding almost gentle, which is a new look on him—“it’s not a terrible plan. At least”—and now he’s sounding somewhat less gentle—“it’s not a terrible plan if you can avoid paying for storage.”
“Which I will,” says Uncle Johnny, “because I got connections.”
Barbara Jane, who long ago concluded that since nobody else was putting the kettle on she’d have to, waltzes back from the kitchen with a mug. “Byconnections,Uncle Johnny, you mean you know somebody with a garage who’s justslightlytoo polite to tell you to fuck right off.”
“Be fair, BJ.” Jonathan looks up from the sofa with a smirk. “Nobody haseveraccused me of being too polite.”
That much, at least, Barbara Jane has to agree with.
“You can have the garage until January,” Jonathan concludes. “After that you’re going to damned well get yourself a storage locker.”
Uncle Johnny looks crestfallen.
“If it’s as good a deal as you say, you’ll still make a profit. If it isn’t, thenmaybeyou should have picked a better investment.”
“On the subject of crates”—Wendy gets back up though she’s barely sat down and stretches her back out pointedly—“we should get our things moved in. Where’re you putting us, Jonathan?”
