Written in Blood(2)

‘What about that idea you had at breakfast, dear?’ Sue Clapton smiled timidly across at her husband. She was as neat and smooth as he was untidy, with long stringy hair the colour of milk chocolate tucked behind her ears and large round glasses with multi-coloured frames. She wore a long wrapover skirt the colour of clover printed with tiny daisies and her feet, in unlovely leather clogs, were placed just so. ‘The one—’

‘Yes, yes.’ Brian flushed with annoyance. He had planned to introduce his suggestion coolly; absently, almost throw it away when the usual bickering had reached its nadir. ‘I do have a contact who might - repeat might - just come and talk to us.’

‘What does he write?’

‘He doesn’t.’ Brian gave Gerald an amused smile. ‘He’s a devisor.’ He chuckled and his ironic glance spread to include them all. Plainly no one knew what a devisor was. Typical. ‘Mike Leigh?’

‘Now that would be a coup,’ said Laura, crossing elegant silk-clad honey-coloured legs. The friction produced a whispery hiss that had an effect on all but the man it was meant for.

Sue wished she had legs like that. Brian wished Sue had legs like that. Honoria thought the movement extremely vulgar. Rex boldly fantasised a wisp of lace and a suspender. And Amy smiled at Laura in simple friendliness - paying for it later over the Horlicks.

‘I didn’t say it was Mike Leigh.’ The colour on Brian’s cheeks deepened. ‘I was merely making a comparison. Last week the school had a visit from Nuts N Bolts - theatre in education? - who gave this really brilliant account of a day in the life of a comprehensive—’

‘Bit coals to Newcastle, what?’ said Rex.

‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ Brian shook his head and laughed. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Bouncing their own experience back to these kids but in a new dynamic form gives their lives a thrilling authenticity.’

‘Pardon?’

‘They recognize the grammar of the narrative as being identical with their own.’

‘I see.’

‘Anyway,’ continued Brian, ‘I caught up with Zeb, the guy who runs it, while they were loading the van and asked if he’d come and give a talk. We’d have to pay—’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Honoria. ‘We never pay.’

‘Just expenses. Petrol and—’

‘Honoria’s right.’ Rex struggled to inject a note of regret into his voice. ‘Once we start doing that sort of thing . . .’ He tailed off, wondering, as he had often done, if such parsimony wasn’t perhaps counterproductive. Maybe if they’d offered John le Carré his expenses? Honoria was speaking again. Loudly.

‘Of course if you’d like to fund a visit from this person yourself?’

Honoria regarded Brian coldly. He really was an absolute mess of a man. Straggly hair, straggly beard, straggly clothes and, in her opinion, an extremely straggly political viewpoint.

Sue watched apprehensively as her husband retreated into a sulk, then started to play with her hair. Beginning at the scalp she lifted a narrow strand and ran her nails down it, pulling the hair taut before letting it go and starting on the next piece. She did this for the rest of the evening. It was only half an hour but all present felt by then that they had, at the very least, entered the next millennium.

And so, eventually, through many digressions and much argument, the conversation described a full circle and Max Jennings’ name came up again.

‘I really feel we might have a chance with him,’ said Amy, ‘living nearby. Also he’s not a hundred-percent famous.’

‘What on earth’s that supposed to mean?’ said Honoria.

‘I think,’ said Sue, ‘Amy means just quite well known.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ said Brian, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. Whilst having no time for the rich and famous he also had no time for the not really all that rich and only very slightly famous. Truth to tell, if you were not at the very bottom of society’s dung heap and being ground further into the primeval sludge by every passing jackboot, Brian would almost certainly be giving you the complete kiss off.

‘I heard an interview with him on the radio,’ said Amy. ‘He sounded really nice.’ Too late she remembered it should have been ‘wireless’ and waited for Honoria to click her tongue. ‘I’m sure it’s worth a try.’

‘I can’t stand these poncy nom de plumes. No doubt for Max we are meant to read Maximilian. Probably born Bert Bloggs.’

‘I read his first novel, Far Away Hills. He was brought up in absolute poverty in the Outer Hebrides. His father was a terribly cruel man and drove his mother to her death. She killed herself when he was still quite young.’