‘What do you mean, you’ve sworn off men?’ asked Elizabeth, turning to her mother with a frown on her face. ‘You’re married!’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Beverley, rolling her eyes. ‘And just look how much trouble your father is causing.’
‘Oh, that’s just Dad. He’ll sort himself out.’
‘I might not,’ grunted George. ‘Where are the boys anyway?’ he asked, reaching for a bowl of olives that he studied for a moment before pushing away in distaste.
‘Achilles is out,’ said Beverley. ‘And I don’t know where Nelson is. Do you, Elizabeth?’
‘No, but I did receive a strange text from him earlier to say that he’d quit his job and had taken a lover, but I assumed that was some sort of auto-correct mistake.’
‘Nelson? Taken a lover?’ asked George. ‘Have we slipped into an alternate universe?’
‘I’ll call him tomorrow and see what’s going on,’ said Beverley. ‘Make sure he hasn’t got himself into any trouble. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, after all,’ she added, glaring at her husband.
‘Ah. Back to me. Wonderful.’
‘Will all of this blow over in time, do you think?’ asked Elizabeth, trying her best to look concerned.
‘Who knows? Right now, my popularity level’s on a par with Laurence Fox’s. I’m pretty sure my cards are marked.’
‘You think you’ll end up getting fired?’ asked Beverley, sitting upright.
‘I think there’s an excellent chance of that happening, yes.’
‘But what will we do? For money, I mean,’ asked Elizabeth.
‘That’s hardly an issue. We own the house. And the other houses. We’re financially secure. And I daresay I’ll be able to sell my memoirs. I’ll be in the doghouse for a year or so, then I’ll do an interview with one of the Sundays saying how much I’ve listened, and grown, and learned—’
‘Do you plan on listening, growing and learning?’
‘Not a chance. But I’ll be happy to say so if it shuts the POOTs up. And after that, I might get an offer from ITV.’
‘Oh, George!’ cried Beverley, putting her glass down. ‘It hasn’t come to that, surely?’
‘You could go into the jungle,’ suggested Elizabeth. ‘Or the Celebrity Big Brother house. They like nothing more than someone who’s publicly disgraced himself. It’s a chance for redemption.’
‘Yes to the former. No to the latter.’
‘Well, you have always loved Australia,’ said Beverley. ‘And they say you lose about ten kilos if you make it to the end. It could be the making of you. I’d be happy to come along. I believe they put the spouses up in a luxury hotel. You don’t think I’d have to socialize with Ant and Dec, though, do you? There are limits.’
George looked down at his protruding belly, which had expanded noticeably in recent years. ‘It would be cheaper than a gym, I suppose,’ he said. ‘In fact, they’d probably pay me a small fortune. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, and I’ll decide then.’
The door opened again and Achilles threw himself energetically into the room, as if he’d been despatched from a cannon, looking around at his parents and sister cheerfully.
‘Good to see you’re all keeping your blood alcohol levels up,’ he said, nodding towards their glasses.
‘Oh, shut up,’ they all replied in unison.
‘And at least it doesn’t make you cranky,’ he replied. ‘What’s everyone talking about in here anyway? You all look so gloomy.’
‘I’ve broken up with Wilkes,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Catweazle? Oh no,’ he said. ‘How awful. He was like the brother I never wanted. I hope he stays in touch.’
‘And I’m probably going to be fired,’ said George.
‘Will that affect my allowance?’
‘It’s conceivable, yes.’ And then, realizing the word he had just used, he felt a stab of pain in his stomach.
‘And what about you, Mother darling?’ asked Achilles. ‘What has you so blue?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘I’ve been let down by someone I trusted.’
‘The ghost?’
‘No, I never trusted the ghost to begin with. There’s something in the way she speaks to me that makes me think she doesn’t respect my writing.’
‘Her writing, you mean.’
‘MY WRITING! THEY’RE MY IDEAS!’
‘So who has let you down, then? Tell Achilles. He’s wiser than he looks.’
‘You’re a very annoying boy,’ she replied, pouring another glass of wine and handing it to her son before tousling his hair. ‘I don’t know how you’re related to any of us, I really don’t.’
From behind them, a faint scraping came at the half-open door and they all turned to look in its direction. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the door began to open wider. But, to their astonishment, there was no one there.
‘It’s the ghost!’ cried Achilles, delighted with himself.
‘No, it’s the fucking turtle,’ said George, pointing down at the ground. ‘What’s wrong with him anyway?’
‘He’s a tortoise, not a turtle,’ said Beverley as all eyes turned to the reptile, who appeared exhausted by his long journey down the hallway and all the effort that had gone into pushing the door open with his tiny head. Having secured the attention of eighty per cent of the Cleverley family, however, he pulled himself upright, or as upright as a tortoise can, before opening his mouth and despatching a stream of green-and-white tortoise vomit across the floor.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ said George.
‘Poor baby, he’s sick,’ said Beverley, standing up to help him, then thinking better of it and resuming her seat. ‘It must be something he ate.’ She sniffed the air. The stream of puke was moving in her direction at the same glacial rate that its former host generally employed. ‘Why does it smell so minty?’ she asked.
‘It’s the After Eights,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He’s addicted.’
‘Has that little bastard been eating my After Eights?’ asked George, sitting up in annoyance. ‘As if things aren’t bad enough. You know I look forward to them of an evening.’
Ustym Karmaliuk gathered all his energy and began to make his way towards the pool of sick with the clear intention of ingesting the constituents for a second time, but as he trudged along, he suddenly froze in the most dramatic fashion, looked around at each member of the family in turn, before narrowing his eyes in an attitude of accusation and allowing his head to slump forward.
‘What just happened?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘I think he might have died,’ said Achilles, reaching down and picking the tortoise up. He felt a momentary pang of remorse for having prophesied the tortoise’s death in this exact way earlier in the evening, although he had no intention of using Jeremy’s remuneration to return him to his ancestral home for a hero’s funeral. ‘Where do you find a tortoise’s pulse?’
‘In his neck,’ said Beverley. ‘It always throbbed in a rather erotic fashion, I thought.’