The Bagthorpe Saga: Ordinary Jack. Helen Cresswell

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      “I don’t particularly want to go to the moon, thank you,” Jack said. “Any fool could go there.”

      “Anonymous from Grimsby reckons there’s an alien intelligence out there,” William told them. “Says he keeps picking up signals from outer space.”

      “What do they say?” demanded Jack, interested.

      William stood up.

      “Sorry. I told you – a veil of secrecy must be preserved. I think I’ll go and see if he’s there now, actually. Might’ve got something new.”

      Jack watched him go.

      One day I will punch him when he says that, he thought.

      “Better get back myself.” Tess stood up now. “I want to finish my Voltaire. And you’d better finish that Birthday Portrait of Grandma –” this to Rosie. (Rosie’s second string was portraits.)

      When they had all gone Jack lay back on the warm grass and shut his eyes. He decided to try to go into a trance and get some inspiration that way, since ordinary straightforward thinking never got him anywhere. Uncle Parker, however, evidently misinterpreted this action.

      “No good just lying back and giving up, you know.”

      “I haven’t given up. I’m trying to go into a trance.”

      “Hmmmmmm.”

      There was silence for a while. Jack became conscious of the nearby humming of bees and flies, and the effect was hypnotic and he really did begin to think he was on the verge of a trance when Uncle Parker shouted, “I’ve got it!”

      Jack shot up as if stung. His head went fizzy and black.

      “You have?” He was still half hypnotised.

      “I most certainly have.”

      “Jack! Russell! Tea!”

      He turned. His mother was standing by the rose arch, waving.

      “Damn,” he said. “How long was I in a trance?”

      “In a trance? You, young Jack, were in a trance my elbow,” said Uncle Parker severely. “Asleep, that’s what you were. There’s got to be a bit of diligence and application if we’re going to do anything with you, I can see that. Coming, Laura!”

      He unfolded himself from the deckchair, all six foot four of him, and looked down at Jack.

      “You may as well come and have some tea,” he said. “Get some energy up. You’re going to need it.”

      Jack scrambled up and hurried to keep pace with him.

      “It’s nothing sporting, is it?” he asked. “I said not sporting.”

      “It’s not sport. How old did we say the old lady was?”

      “Seventy-five,” Jack told him. “And Grandpa’s eighty-five. Not today, though. I hope I don’t get as deaf as that when I’m old.”

      “Your grandfather,” said Uncle Parker, “is not as deaf as you all fear. He’s what I call SD – and you can be that at any age.”

      “What’s SD? Stone Deaf?”

      “Selectively Deaf. You hear, in effect, just as much as you wish to hear. And I am bound to say that if I were married to a lady who talks like your grandmother does, I should be SD – very much so.”

      “I don’t think you ought to say that, on her birthday,” said Jack. “I mean, I know what you mean, but it’s not very kind to say it. Not on her birthday.”

      “Sorry. No offence.”

      They trudged companionably up the terrace steps and went through the French windows and into the Birthday Party.

      Grandma was sitting at the far end of the table, though all that was visible was the odd wisp of white hair, because she was behind a large cake on a high stand. The cake was forested with candles. Jack had no intention of counting them. He knew for a fact that there would be seventy-five. His mother did not believe in doing things by halves. She would light the candles when the time came, and the icing would start melting while she was halfway through and by the time all the candles were lit the icing would be hopelessly larded with multicoloured grease and the whole top slice of the cake would have to be cut off and thrown to the birds. It happened every year. Mr Bagthorpe thought the practice dangerous and unnecessary, and said so, but was ignored. He even said that the birds ought to be protected, but no one took any notice of that either – least of all the birds, who sorted the crumbs with lightning dexterity and left the greased icing to seep, in the course of time and nature, into the lawn, with no apparent detriment to the daisies.

      “Hello, Grandma,” said Jack. “Happy Birthday.”

      He went down the table past the bristling cake and kissed her. Her skin was very soft and powdery and smelled unaccountably of warm pear drops.

      “You are a good boy,” said Grandma.

      “What about me?” enquired Uncle Parker, delivering his own peck.

      “I know perfectly well who you are,” said Grandma. “You are that good-for-nothing young man who married Celia and ran Thomas over.” (Thomas was an ill-favoured and cantankerous ginger tom who had unfortunately got in the way of Uncle Parker’s car some five years previously, and whom Grandma had martyred to the point where one always half expected her to refer to him as “St Thomas”.)

      “That’s me,” said Uncle Parker mildly. “Sorry about that, Grandma. Nice old cat that was. Just not very nippy on his feet.”

      “He was a jewel,” said Grandma. “He was given me on my fourth birthday, and I was devoted to him.”

      No one contradicted her. Clearly, no ginger tom in history had ever survived sixty odd years, with or without the intervention of Uncle Parker’s deplorable driving. But today was Grandma’s birthday and she was not to be contradicted. (She was rarely contradicted anyway. It was a whole lot of trouble to contradict Grandma. If Grandma said seven sixes were fifty-two, you agreed with her, as a rule. The odds against convincing her otherwise were practically a million to one anyway, and life was too short.)

      “He was a jewel.” Grandma repeated her observation a trifle argumentatively. Grandma liked arguments and got disappointed when nobody else wanted them.

      “You’re a jewel,” said Mr Bagthorpe diplomatically. He dropped a kiss on her head and pulled out a chair for his wife and the danger was temporarily averted.

      Jack, seated between Uncle Parker and Rosie, cast a speculative eye over the table. All the customary Bagthorpe birthday trimmings were present, he noted with satisfaction. The sausage rolls (hot), salmon and cucumber sandwiches, asparagus rolls, stuffed eggs, cream meringues, chocolate truffle cake and Mrs Fosdyke’s Special Trifle – all were there, and the eyes of all Bagthorpes present were riveted upon them. There was a pause. Jack’s eyes moved to the СКАЧАТЬ