The Steep Approach to Garbadale (12 page)

‘Every bit as well as he was fifteen minutes ago, when you last asked, one imagines, dear,’ Beryl told her crisply.

‘Really?’ Doris said, blinking behind her glasses. ‘And what did you say then, my love?’

‘I said I was well, thanks,’ Alban told her, smiling.

‘Jolly good,’ Doris said. ‘Well, perhaps now I’ve asked you a sufficient number of times, it’ll stick, d’you know what I mean? And I shall remember. Ha!’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ Beryl said.

‘I say,’ Doris said, looking serious, ‘is there any more of that peach schnapps?’

‘Here we are,’ Alban said, refreshing her glass.

Great-Aunt Doris made little cooing noises as he filled the thin glass, which was somewhere in size between a liqueur shot and a schooner.

‘And so,’ she said, when the glass was nearly full, ‘did you have to get a pink chit from, umm . . . from, umm . . . ?’

‘A pink chit?’ Alban asked.

‘You know - permission to . . .’ she waved one thin, vein-ribbed hand around, ‘from your other . . . I’ve forgotten her—’

‘Oh. No, I’m not currently with anybody, Doris.’ He raised his glass and smiled. ‘Not properly.’

‘What about that young mathematician girl?’ Beryl asked. ‘Verushka. She seems jolly nice.’

‘She is. But we’re not a couple.’

‘You aren’t?’ Beryl said, seemingly surprised.

‘No,’ he told her. ‘That’s not really what either of us is looking for.’

Doris tutted. ‘A handsome young man like you? You must have the girls falling at your feet, I should say. Wouldn’t you say, Beryl?’

‘I should say,’ Beryl affirmed.

Doris leaned a little closer over the table and lowered her voice. ‘Are we still sowing our wild oats?’ she asked, and winked.

‘While playing the field,’ Alban told her.

‘Ploughing the field?’ Doris looked a little nonplussed. She looked at Beryl. ‘Is that rude?’

Beryl ignored her and leaned to Alban. ‘And always trying to ensure there’s a crop failure, what?’ she snorted.

‘You’re not a gay, are you, dear boy?’ Doris asked.

‘Oh, Doris, really!’ said Beryl.

‘Fielding and you aren’t—?’ Doris went on, now looking thoroughly confused.

‘No, Doris. I’m pretty sure neither of us is remotely gay.’

‘Oh,’ Doris said, frowning. ‘Only I’m sure we could have given you a room together.’

Alban laughed. ‘I imagine if I find Fielding in my bed tonight, Doris, it’ll be because Boris has escaped again.’

‘What?’ Doris looked alarmed. ‘Boris has—?’

‘Boris is in his tank, dear,’ Beryl said loudly. ‘And Alban is not a gay!’

‘Oh,’ Doris said, looking hardly less bewildered. ‘Jolly good. Well, cheers!’ She drank from her schnapps glass, then dabbed lightly at her thin lips with her napkin.

 
Finally everything’s ready. He’d thought this was all going to go horribly wrong when he’d found the nearest socket and it was round pin - round pin! - but either the house had two separate circuits or the old sockets had been left in place when the building had been rewired, because there’s a normal double socket along the wall a bit.

‘Ladies and gentleman,’ Fielding says, clapping his hands as he opens the dining-room door, ‘presentation is served!’

‘Presentation?’ Alban asks as they escort the two old bats through to the drawing room. This all takes a while, as Beryl and Doris flutter and fuss and dither one way then the other, collecting shawls and handbags and pillboxes, glasses cases and whatever the hell else and wittering on about God knows what all the time, but finally - holding on to the arms of the men like children - they are led through to the drawing room, where Fielding has chairs set up and the laptop plus projector sitting on the table facing a white sheet slung across the window alcove.

Al looks at Fielding as they get the girls seated. ‘You’re doing a presentation?’ he asks, like it’s funny or something.

‘Well,
duh
,’ Fielding tells him.

‘Power Point.’

‘What else?’

‘Like, with bullet points?’ Al says, a big dumb grin on his face.

‘Of
course
!’

‘Fielding,’ Al says, shaking his head.

‘What?’ Fielding says, but now Al’s fussing about getting a table over so the old girls have somewhere to rest their drinks. Fielding turns off the main light so that the only illumination is coming from a standard lamp in one corner and the empty white light the projector is throwing at the sheet.

‘I say, Fielding,’ Beryl says, ‘what is this thing?’ She’s pointing at the projector.

‘That’s a projector, Great-Aunt Beryl. Now.’ Fielding claps his hands, standing before them, the projector acting like a soft spotlight on him. He’s taken off his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves and loosened his tie, so he’s looking pretty casual. Friendly, even. ‘First of all, I’d like to say thank you to Beryl and Doris for a wonderful meal and enchanting hospitality.’ This is a bit shameless, Fielding thinks, considering the embarrassment of having to eat a takeaway Chinese, even though the drink was almost tragically good. Never mind. Flatter to be received. They’re wined and dined and their bums are on the seats. ‘I don’t think it’s any secret that the family firm, Wopuld Limited - indeed, the whole Wopuld Group - has been approached—’

‘Are we going to see some slides?’ Doris asks nobody in particular.

‘Yes,’ Beryl says. ‘I think so, dear.’

‘Well, it’s a computer presentation, technically,’ Fielding tells them, taking his silver laser pointer from his shirt pocket and flourishing it. ‘Anyway, as I was saying. The Wopuld Company, Limited. The Wopuld Group. And Spraint. The Spraint Corporation. The Spraint Corporation of America.’ Fielding tightens his mouth, looks down and turns sideways to them, then starts to pace slowly, hands behind his back. Fielding thinks of this as his Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury dynamic. ‘I remember when I was—’

‘So, is there a computer?’ Beryl asks, looking under the table.

‘Yes, that’s the computer there, Great-Aunt.’

‘What, this?’

‘Yes, that.’

‘Ah. So this is a portable type of computer?’

‘Notebook laptop, Great-Aunt. Now—’

‘So, shouldn’t we be facing it, then? I mean, I can’t see the tube, the screen thing. Can you, Doris?’

‘What’s that, dear?’

‘See the screen. On this thing.’

‘I . . . well, it’s there.’

‘Yes, but can you see it?’

‘Well, sort of.’

‘But not properly?’

What the hell are they talking about? ‘I’m sorry, I don’t . . .’ Fielding starts to say, then realises. ‘Oh, I see what you mean! No, that’s the idea, you see. The computer tells the projector what to put on the big screen, here. The sheet, see? You don’t have to look at the screen on the computer. And I control it with this little remote. All very clever, but that’s just the tech.’

‘A remote control?’ Beryl says, squinting at the device Fielding has just produced from his back pocket.

‘Are we going to watch television?’ Doris asks.

‘Look, ladies, these are just the tools, you know? Not really the point of the whole exercise.’ Fielding glances at Alban but he’s not being any help at all, just sitting with legs and arms folded, grinning at his cousin.

‘I do hope that’s not off my bed!’ Doris says, staring at the sheet. ‘Ha ha ha!’

This
, Fielding thinks,
is ridiculous
. ‘Look, I’ll show you.’ He steps to the side and clicks up the company logo opening shot, showing a kind of stylised
Empire!
board with lots of pieces and cards scattered about, the camera swooping down on to the playing surface, banking and swerving around the pieces and over the various territories.

‘Oh, my!’

‘Good heavens!’

Fielding smiles. That’s got their attention. This is just a glorified screen saver really, but it shows how the system works.

‘I say, that is clever!’ Beryl says.

‘Is this a film?’ Doris looks confused again. ‘Are we going to watch a film?’ She leans over to Beryl. ‘I shall need to go, you know, if we’re going to watch a whole film.’

Fielding clicks on to an ancient sepia photo of Great-Grandfather, company founder Henry Wopuld, looking very grand and Victorian in his whiskers.

‘I remember when I was—’ Fielding begins again.

‘Look, Doris!’ Beryl exclaims. ‘It’s old Henry.’

‘Oh, it is slides,’ Doris says. ‘So what was that other thing?’

‘Is this all inside the projector what-do-you-call-it?’ Beryl asks.

‘No, it’s all in the computer,’ Fielding tells her, keeping calm. ‘The projector just puts what’s in the computer on to the screen. Do you understand? And I control it with my remote. It’s just the usual . . . It’s just the means to the end.’ Fielding clicks back to the company screen-saver sequence. ‘See?’

‘There it is again!’ Doris exclaims. She leans over to Al. ‘Alban - whatever is going on?’

‘Technical wizardry, Doris,’ he tells her.

‘And are you doing this?’ she asks.

‘No, Fielding is. I’m just the sidekick.’

‘You’re psychic?’

‘Sidekick, Doris,’ he says more loudly, laughing. ‘I’m just the assistant. ’

Not - in Fielding’s considered opinion - that Al’s assisting with anything whatso-fucking-ever, the smug asshole. He’s just sitting grinning. Meanwhile, Fielding is getting hot under the collar. ‘Look, everyone,’ he says, ‘I realise all this technology might seem quite—’

‘So, what else do you have in here?’ Beryl is asking, leaning over to look at the computer. She reaches out to touch the machine.

‘Beryl! Please don’t—!’ Fielding starts to say. She doesn’t touch it, but he must have clicked the remote because the movie of the game board clicks back to old Henry, then on to some shots of famous people playing
Empire!
as a board game - here’s Bing Crosby and Bob Hope looking slightly startled, playing the US version, here’s the famous still from that old TV film about the Royal Family with the game in the background at Balmoral, here’s another still from when they were playing it in
EastEnders
(they couldn’t name it but, again, you could just about make out the board, and one of the characters kept talking about ‘this game of world domination’). Then there’s a few seconds of action from the latest version of the electronic version, followed by an animated graph of past sales, with projected future sales zooming away into the top right. Basically this is ruining Fielding’s presentation. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Fielding lets go a sigh and clicks back through the images to old Henry.

‘Henry again!’ Doris says. ‘I think I’ve seen this bit.’

‘I think this is where we came in, dear,’ Beryl tells her. She smiles at Fielding, just as he makes the mistake of checking that the laser pointer’s working by shining it at the palm of his hand. ‘Oo! And what is that thing for? What does that do?’ she asks.

‘It’s a laser pointer,’ Fielding tells her, resigned. He points it at the corner of the sheet/screen.

‘What’s that?’ Doris asks.

From this point on Fielding kind of loses them. They’re far more interested in the pointer, the remote, and the idea that the laptop is pushing images through the connecting cable to the projector than they are about Spraint Corp’s takeover bid and Fielding’s carefully worked-up history of, and tribute to, the family’s long and successful struggle to bring high-quality board and electronic gaming to a waiting world.

Somehow they end up playing a game of the medieval action version of
Empire!
, hacking and slashing through vast battles and towering sieges and dodging cannonballs the size of basket balls, though without the proper controllers, just using the laptop’s configured buttons, it’s pretty messy. Being drunk probably doesn’t help, either. Doris and Beryl take turns using the laser pointer as either a pretend weapon or to highlight the crotches and codpieces of the various characters. Beryl in particular seems to love the gore, and shrieks regularly and loudly. Doris goes off to make coffee, refuses any help and reappears with tea. Irish tea, if there is such a thing - she’s put whisky in it. It tastes hideous.

Beryl advances to the rank of Margrave. Alban laughs a lot. Doris falls asleep. A mouse skitters across the floor from under the screen, heading for the door. They all chase it.

 
Alban lay in bed for a little while, drinking water and thinking back to the phone call he’d made earlier. He’d asked to use the phone shortly after they’d rounded up most of the mice and discovered Boris wrapped around the hot-water tank in the upstairs airing cupboard. He drank his water, and smiled into the darkness of the room. It was good to be in a proper bed again, a bed with sheets and pillows. This one was an ancient brass double bed, creaky and somewhat sagging, but comfortable enough. He had every hope of not being in this bed tomorrow night. He drank more water, grinning into the darkness, remembering.

‘Graef.’

‘Hello there.’

‘Ah, Mr McGill.’

‘How are you?’

‘Very well. And you?’

‘Well.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Glasgow.’

‘That’s good. Shall we meet?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Would be perfect. Though I could become free tonight.’

‘Won’t pretend I’m not tempted.’

‘As you should be.’ He could hear her smile. ‘And flattered. I’d never risk appearing this eager for anybody else.’

‘Wish I could. But there’s family stuff to be done.’

‘Your aunts? Beryl and Doris?’

‘Yes, them. And a cousin.’

‘Tomorrow, then. Say hello to the girls from me.’

‘Will do. Where do we meet?’

‘Come to the office. Any time after seven. I’ve been away conferencing so there’s piles of backlog.’

 
He’s not really there. He knows this but it makes no difference. He knows this but it is no help.