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Gregory Norminton

To Claire and Sebastiaan

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Bad folks

Late flowers

Waxwings

Houghton triads

The return from exile of P. Ovidius Naso

Horse burial

Unforgetting

Goody goody

The carpenter’s tale

The panic room in Eden

Gifts

The monumental achievement of Jose Rodrigues do Cabo

Pileup

The acid reef

From a dictionary of slang, circa 2050

The panic room in Eden

Stills from the Anthropocene Era

Visitors Book

All my little ones

Tete de veau

Singer

The kingdom upstairs

Intervention

The overnighters

Dormeue

Wild things

Bog man

Orpheus’s lot

Orpheus’s lot

Gorgon

Narcissus & the pool of mirrors

Preliminary report on the economics of unicorns

Cut is the branch

Glass slippers are a health hazard

The siren of May

Pearly Gates tick box survey

What gets lost

Bunking off

Cryptozoology

Sepiatone

One finger exercise

The runner

Time & the janitor

The Dirty Realist Choose Your Own Adventure Book

What gets lost

Bookends

Bibliophagy

Essential words of the Empress Shōtoku

A pillow book

The bard’s last words

The translation of Archie Gloag

Flow

At prayer in the madhouse with Kit Smart

Endnotes

Copyright

Bad folks

Late flowers

You should watch that one; she has ears like a hawk.

Arthur had come in to see me. She was in her armchair by the television. A man was on, showing things to do with parsley. Arthur parked his frame. His trusty steed, he calls it. Never mind her, I said. She’s daft, there’s nothing going on upstairs. Arthur’s a gentleman. I noticed it the day we met. He likes to be proper. But I was sure we were safe and so we carried on.

Of course things would have been easier if we had rooms to ourselves. We do our best, screening our beds with photographs and rows of familiar trinkets, but it’s not the same. Arthur had it worse than me. He shared with the Major. Poor circulation, bound to the settee. Made elephant noises in his sleep. I couldn’t abide those unequal eyes, one shrivelled and one huge, like Ralph Richardson.

For a few weeks we were happy in mine. Always with Flora plumped in front of the box. Arthur got used to it and we came to forget all about her. When the Major died it took them a fortnight to replace him and then it was Mr Gads, who was quick on his feet. Arthur bribed him with whisky to make himself scarce.

So we left Flora to her cookery shows. And suddenly the game was up.

We were allowed special friendships. They were encouraged. But there have to be boundaries. Arthur’s kids and mine heard about us from the Gorgon and had to interfere. They didn’t want us tampering with our wills at this late stage.

What a fuss they made! I half expected the gentlemen from the press to appear with their flashbulbs. Barbara took me out to the garden. The camellias were in bloom. I said to her, look, they’re lovely. Never mind about them, she said. It’s not decent at your age. Not decent? I said. Just you wait, you’ll be glad of the attention. The things she said. You don’t like to think of your child’s mind sprawling in the gutter.

From that point on we were under guard. Mr Gads was discouraged from going walkabout after lunch. He used to so enjoy his tour of the flowerbeds.

Our intimacy came to an end. They had tired Arthur out. We only hold hands now.

I wondered who it was gave the game away. There weren’t many suspects. I had words with Flora about it. She smiled and patted my hand. I could have sworn I detected a glint in her eye.

It just goes to show about appearances. Who would have thought the old girl still had it in her?

Waxwings

The boy rubbed his cheek where it still throbbed. From the pinewoods he could hear the farting engines of dirt bikes.

After a time he found himself at the rear of the supermarket. There was a tree beside the bins. The boy heard the twittering but thought nothing of it until he saw the man.

Hallo, the man said. He held binoculars. The boy did not run away because he wondered what the man was doing and the man said to him, "You are a lucky boy.

Do you see those birds? It’s a treat, you know; they hardly ever come to England. The man said they were waxwings on account of the red feathers like drops of sealing wax on the wings. Great flocks this winter had come across the North Sea. They came here for the berries: cotoneaster and rosehip and sloe. The tree pulsed with the birds and their chatter.

The boy felt the man’s fingers when he showed him how to adjust the binoculars. Sorting through branches, the boy saw the little sharp birds and their raised crests but not their waxy feathers. The lens misted over and he handed the binoculars back. The bird man was smiling at the tree with the chattering birds in it.

The bikers came roaring, shitting mud, from the woods. They circled the tree with the birds and the bird man and the boy. In the diesel stink they left behind the man said, People don’t know the things they’re given.

The boy took the knowledge home as a secret. It was something only he owned.

The next day he found the bird man and they went in search of the waxwings. The man pointed out other birds. The boy didn’t know that the flickering ones are pied wagtails or that starlings do impressions like comedians off the telly.

Children surrounded him later with their bikes. Who was that man, they asked, but the boy kept his secret.

Someone must have spoken to mum. Has he tried to touch you, she asked, down there? The boy felt his face burn. He set her straight but kept his secret.

The next day after school it wasn’t mum stroking his hair but his stepdad who spoke to him. The boy’s face burned for a different reason.

"You don’t know anything. I like him better than you. Mum came in at the screaming. Better than mum," he added.

Gossip spread among the houses. The man was divorced, he had recently moved to the estate. Nobody knew his business.

His step-dad came to fetch him from school but the boy got away.

The bird man wasn’t home so the boy went birdwatching on his own.

He wandered far from the estate, along the main road, until Craig found him and drove him home.

After the assault the bird man was relocated by the council. For his own safety, the paper said.

Mum ironed the newspaper with her hand. Well, she said, if they took him away, there must have been something in it.

Houghton triads

Three desirable qualities in a Houghton male: a genial manner, a trustworthy face, stock options.

Three accomplishments acquired over time by Houghton women: social grace, an implacable smile, strategic incuriosity.

Three games played by Houghton children: I-spy, It, For God’s Sake Go Outside.

Three hiding places: Mummy’s walk-in wardrobe, the utility room, euphemism.

Three physical qualities to be desired of Houghton nannies: plainness, adaptability, a blind eye.

Three places of commerce: the organic farm shop, Harrods, Dubai.

Three places of leisure: Glyndebourne, Guards Polo Club, wherever she wants to go this week.

Three charities worth supporting: Shooting and Conservation, the Royal Lifeboats, the boys’ future school.

Three places of business: the boardroom, the country house hotel, the strip club.

Three golfing skills required of a Houghton male: a carrying drive, a nifty pitch, the readiness to fluff a putt when politic.

Three avenues of escape from the Houghton lifestyle: retiring on the mother of all deals, downsizing to the country, a heart-attack at fifty.

Three elements of a sales pitch: technical language, flattery, acronyms. Three words never to be used in a professional negotiation: bribe, minister, casualties.

Three items to bring home from a business trip: toys for the children, perfume for the wife, a plausible narrative.

Three indispensable brand names: Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Botox.

Three preconditions for seduction: sleeping kids, a fine meal, demarcated exclusion zones in the conversation.

Three reasons to lie awake in the early hours: indigestion, fear of death, yesterday’s news story.

Three items in the Houghton arsenal for dealing with journalists: assurance, silence, an aggressive lawyer.

Three stock words with which to dismiss the allegations: bosh, froth, piffle.

Three distractions from bosh, froth, piffle: a week in Klosters, a month in the Cotswolds, a night with an escort.