JAMES
“I’ll see you out.” Richard accompanies Stanton to the front door.
As the door swings closed behind them, Charlotte murmurs to her father, “Did you arrange it?”
“Arrange?” He stands, works through the drinks tray, then helps himself to another brandy. “Arrange what?” He offers up the decanter. “Anyone else?”
“You know what.”
Klempner appears to address the wall. “I wouldn’t call it arranging. But I let it be known that Harkness is no friend of mine. And the nature of the injury he inflicted on your mother. And that I’d consider that I’d owe a favour to anyone who… took an interest. The natural inclinations of some of the hard-liners did the rest.”
“Natural inclinations,” snorts Mitch. “Natural justice, more like. ”
“Even better. Natural justice.” Klempner raises his glass, and this time it’s definitely a toast. “Harkness, destined for a life of soft food, soup and sodomisation. I’d say the glove fits. Wouldn’t you?” His eyes glint.
“Justice?” says Richard. “Or revenge?”
Klempner meets him, bland-faced, in the eye. “Sometimes, life offers the happy opportunity to combine the two.” His gaze skirts Mitch’s face again. He takes a large swallow of the brandy, smacks his lips. “Oldest principle of justice in the world. Leviticus. A tooth for a tooth.”
“If it gets too bad,” growls Richard, “the prison authorities will move him.”
“Perhaps his reputation will follow him,” says Charlotte.
“Perhaps it will,” agrees Klempner, blandly.
Charlotte winds a lock of hair around a finger, appearing to work through some internal conflict. Unwinds it. Winds it back. “Dad… Did you have that kind of problem when you were inside?”
Klempner arches brows, lips twitching. “No.” He rocks his hand. “Not beyond the first twenty or thirty minutes, anyway.”
“No one tried?”
He grins a shark-grin. “Oh, they tried.”
“Larry…” Mitch tucks her knitting into the Bag-of-Holding-All-Things. “I find I’m quite tired. I think I’d like an early night.”
*****
Beth looks to Richard. “They might have gotten the money from somewhere else.”
Charlotte rolls eyes skyward. “You think? I'd say my dad’s happy to put out a signal on what will happen to anyone who messes with his family.” She levels a finger at Beth. “That includes you.”
*****
MICHAEL
The air’s brisk and clear. Ice traces the edges of puddles. My woollen sweater, a thick cable-knit, Mitch’s hand-made contribution, is cosy and comfortable.
Extra nesting boxes constructed. An extension to the chicken run almost complete.
A good morning’s work…
And I can feel a coffee coming on…
Strolling into the kitchen, I’m not particularly intending to be quiet, but at the door, mid-stride, I halt…
And there it is. The sight that I, and the rest of the male family members, have learned means…
… Something…
Three red-topped heads, clustered together over the kitchen table. Mitch speaks rapidly and quietly, a mug of her mint tea cupped between palms. Beth holds another. Charlotte's mug drifts coffee-scented steam, but sits untouched beside her.
Decaf?
Three heads. Whispering and nodding.
Hmmm…
A voice rumbles low close by my ear. James. “Do I scent conspiracy in the female contingent?”
I murmur a reply. “I’d say so. Think we should interrupt and investigate?”
“Oh, I’d say so.” James clears his throat. Three faces, each a mask of innocence, pop up. He ambles to the hob, reaches for the coffee pot. His tone casual, “What were you talking about?”
Charlotte manifests a smile little short of cherubic: a suspicious act in its own right. Mitch paints on a matching guileless expression. Beth speaks up. “It's a lovely forecast for tomorrow. We might not get many more days like this before winter moves in. We thought we might take a day off and go for a picnic. All of us. ”
A picnic?
Sounds innocent enough…
James and I exchange glances…
“A picnic?” He probes at the word, as though with a tongue at a loose filling.
“Yes, to the City park. Adam and Cara would love it and Vicky would enjoy the fresh air. It would be good for her.”
Hmmm…
But it’s hard to read anything alarming into a picnic with the children.
“Your last picnic in the park was interrupted,” I comment.
“So it was,” agrees Mitch. “I'm sure Larry won't repeat his mistake.”
*****
“They want a picnic with the kids?” Klempner shrugs. “What could you possibly read into that? I don’t see the problem.”
“I think,” says Richard, “It’s implicit that we…” He winds a circle in the air around our group… “… should all attend and remain in attendance.”
Klempner sniffs and rubs his nose. “Yes, message received loud and clear on that point after the last time.”
*****
The forecast comes true in a blaze of autumn gold: that final gilded kiss of the sun you get when winter looms and you know there are only a few days before the last crisped leaves fall and the mornings turn silver.
In the kitchen, I assemble strollers, blankets, and a cheap kickabout ball. James chops and cuts at the counter. Klempner looms behind him. “I thought we were going for a picnic. Not setting out on a military campaign.”
James continues dicing fruit into a plastic container, nodding to where Mitch is packing sandwiches for an army into a carryall. “I suggest you discuss it with your wife.”
Klempner rocks on his heels. “I’ve learned better than that.”
James flicks eyes sidelong, his cheeks hollowing. “Wise man.”
He scrapes bread crusts into a bowl, fruit cores, peel and veggie stalks into the chicken bucket. Then, in response to the twin groans from beneath the counter, scraps of ham fat and cheese rind off the board and down. “Anything else, Mitch?”
Rummaging through the Bag-of-Holding-All-Things, she pops up, surveying the stack on the table; “Something dainty for Adam and Cara? Finger-rolls maybe?”
“Already packed.”
“In that case, it’s just Vicky’s bottle and I’m good to go.”
Beth tucks a rolled-up tartan blanket into the pack, filling gaps with tubes of sun cream in Factor-Block-The-Lot.
Klempner wears that baffled expression he gets. “Do we really need all this?”
“Autumn days can be hot,” I point out. “Small children can burn easily. And both Adam and Cara have fair skin. Vicky even more so.”
*****
The day is glorious. In the park, we’re not the only ones taking advantage, couples and families, cyclists and joggers and walkers, oldsters on benches watching youngsters playing on slides and swings.
My ball is an instant hit with Adam and Cara. I kick and they run after it, screaming. The rules of the game are unclear, becoming more so when Scruffy and Bear join the game. Since Scruffy's interpretation of the football rules consist of him getting the ball and keeping it as long as possible, the game grinds to a halt until I produce the second ball, kicking it off into the blue yonder for the dogs to retrieve.
Charlotte sits propped against a tree trunk, one hand cupping her stomach, the other holding a book. James reads too, his head in her lap. Elizabeth and Mitch sit by Vicky, playing with brightly painted wooden animals on the tartan rug. Flipping through glossy magazines, they sip chilled wine as they chat. Snatches of conversation drift by. “So, what do you think of the blue one?”
“It's a bit fussy don't you think? All that lace.”
“Maybe you're right… How about that one, in the green?”
“Much better. A bit too plain actually. Could do with accessorising…”
This was a great idea…
So, what was it all about yesterday?
It’s hard to see what could possibly have produced the conspiratorial red-headed huddle I saw the previous day.
Klempner and Richard share a nearby bench. Richard shakes open his paper and, one ankle cocked onto a knee, Hmmms satisfaction as he scans the financial pages. Briefly, he squints upward, then tugs his hat forward, shading his eyes.
Klempner simply sits and stares. Leaning back, arms outstretched left and right on the back rail, his vacant gaze alternates between Mitch and somewhere lost ‘out there’. But he doesn’t look unhappy. His eyes are soft, his breathing even.
Red-faced and panting, Cara flops down by Charlotte. Adam by Beth. Mitch murmurs to Beth, who in turn catches Charlotte's eye.
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