A Bright Moon for Fools (15 page)

“This friend of yours, yes – is she pretty?”

“Yes, she is as a matter of fact. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Then she’ll be all right, won’t she.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you know, she’ll be all right.”

“To find another man, you mean.”

“That kind of thing.”

“So her happiness, her life, depends on whether a man will accept her – is that it?”

Whoops
, thought Christmas. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t realise you were a ...”

“A what?”

“You know. A squeezy lemon.”

“What?”

“A high-heeled farmer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look, I didn’t know – and neither does your mother, by the way.”

“What—”

“Sundown on the hairy prairie? Two seats by the window at the Oyster café?”

“Are you trying to say you think I am a lesbian?”

“If you want to put it crudely.”

“God!”

Judith appeared with the cake. “Everything all right? Oh bugger, I’ve forgotten the slicer.”

“I’ll get it,” offered Christmas cheerfully, sliding out from the table.

“Thanks,
amore
. So ...” she whispered, “... what do you think?”

“He’s a total shit.”

“Bridget!”

“What’s he doing here?”

“He is a famous writer and he’s just been through a terrible divorce and a vicious robbery and he’s got writer’s block and I’m helping him through it all.
He’s under a lot of pressure. He’s in a very pressurized environment.”

“Like a shit.”

“Bridget, please ...”

“He just told me he thought I was a lesbian.”

“Well, your hair is rather short.”

“Mother!”

“Oh, I know he hasn’t got much in the way of airs and graces but that’s why he’s rather fun.”

“Where did you find him?”

“Fate, darling, fate brought us together.”

“What
do
you sound like?”

“Oh please do try and make an effort. You know how I’ve been lately and he is making me, well, you know, happy ...”

“Urrgh, mother, please, I do not want to know. And that moustache ...”

“I know he looks eccentric.”

“He looks fat.”

“Bridget, don’t be horrid. Harry may be a pompous old sod but he’s got a good heart and I happen to like him, so if you wouldn’t mind, just this once – I mean here
I am, completely on my own, the only news I get is dear friends having strokes, and you—”

“OK, OK, I’m sorry.”

“—I mean, it’s not as if—”

“Mummy, don’t start, I said I’m—”

“OK, there,
amore
?” Christmas had reappeared on the lawn brandishing the cake slicer. He’d had a couple of vodka shots in the kitchen and was feeling—

“Rambunctious.”

“Now listen you two – I know you are both punchy characters, but I want you to promise to be nice to each other, right?” Christmas clacked his heels together and bowed his
head. Bridget sniffed.

D
inner was over. They sat in the dining room drinking coffee, surrounded by Harrods green and hunting scenes. There were candles on the table and a
blue insect killer in one corner that cast a strange blue shadow on the proceedings. It buzzed with short funerals.

“So, Mr Strong—”

“Please, Bridget,
Harry
.”

“—whereabouts in England are you from?”

“Oh, nowhere special. South-east corner. Back when there were still a few scraps of countryside left. It was what you might call a typical, old-fashioned rural community.”

“Cricket and the church spire,
amore
?”

“Inbreeding.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Absolutely rife. The spastics’ bus was a double-decker.”

“Oh, Harry!”

“Whole bloody village shared the same nose.” Bridget was shooting him a venomous look.

“You cannot say ‘spastics’ any more.”

“Well, that seems a bit cruel.” “Excuse me?”

“I mean the poor devils have got to eat.”

“I said ‘say’ not ‘pay’.”

“Harr-eee,” said Judith, trying to head off the impending scene with her daughter, “why don’t you tell us about the new book idea you were talking about the other
day?”

“Part of it’s set now, part of it four hundred years ago and part of it in a Victorian brothel with space aliens that have removable—”

“Not that one,
amore
. The other one. The other night. The other space aliens.”

“A UFO armada swoops over the earth and everyone feels put out because they’ve come for the whales.”

“Are you a science fiction writer?”

“No.” Silence fell on the room. Everyone sipped politely. The insect killer sparked.

“You used to work with whales, didn’t you Bridget, darling?”

“Turtles.”

“Oh yes. Turtles.” Several more moments passed.

“Well,” announced Judith, “It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks’ time.”

“Two weeks’ time? Really?” Christmas finished his coffee, then topped up his wine glass, still wincing from the shoulder injury. “And what is the traditional birthday
celebration in these parts?”

“Oh, just one of our little evenings. But this time, as we have a special guest,
amore
, I thought I might spread the net a bit wider, you know, a few more bums on seats. Perhaps
you’d give a talk or something.”

“A talk? About what?”

“Anything. Books. Writing. Something to peg the evening on. You wouldn’t mind would you?”

“Do you have to turn the house into a Rotary Club meeting every time I’m here?”

“It’s my birthday, Bridget, and I shall do whatsoever I like.”

“Here, here,” said Christmas, raising his glass.

“But who will you invite, mummy?”

“The Richardsons.”

“You hate the Richardsons.”

“That’s not the point. Then there’s that Italian chap with the nice wife from Merida who runs the
posada
. Alejandro Gomez, our neighbour from a couple of miles down the
road—”

“Gomez is a fascist.”

“Oh shush, Bridget. Then there’s Dr. Puig – Oh Bridget, stop looking at me like that! We are going to have a party – why don’t you organise it, darling? You know,
Harry, Bridget’s got terribly good organizational skills. She spent all last year on a reforestation project in Aragua. It was Aragua wasn’t it, Bridget?”

“What’s happened there can only be described as wholesale environmental slaughter. What with disaster just round the corner – I mean it’s just so
irresponsible.”

“Around the corner?” asked Christmas. “When is that exactly?”

“Well, of course no one knows for sure. The Mayans predicted the end of the world in December 2012.”

“Oh good. Just after the Olympics,” noted Christmas. “Nothing gets me in the mood for annihilation better than Gary Lineker and the long jump.”

“The point,” continued Bridget, ignoring him, “is that this sort of behaviour is no longer sustainable. The world needs to reinvent its approach. We need to change
ourselves.” She looked straight at Christmas. He met her stare with a quizzical look and a mouthful of Pinot Grigio. She continued, unfazed. “You should cut down all the flying you do,
mummy, for a start.”

“I’d love to travel by train if it weren’t for my back. Dr. Puig’s been an absolute tyrant – no sitting down for long periods at a time.”

“You could stand. You could walk up and down the train.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. I am not a ticket inspector. More coffee anyone?”

“Coffee is not going to solve it, mother. If we keep on at current impact levels, if we don’t modify our behaviour, then millions of people are going to die in floods, droughts and
wars over resources. Don’t you think so, Harry?”

“Sorry?” He was thinking of the previous night and Judith on top of him, singing like a porno Julie Andrews. “Come again?”

“We’re talking about the environmental movement. I said what do you think?”

“Well, I suppose it’s given the children of the wealthy something to do.”

“
What
?” Christmas didn’t reply. “Perhaps,” continued Bridget, “some of us here think they can ignore what’s happening to the world around them,
but climate change is not ...”

Christmas turned to the window and began to drift off.
Emily would have made short shrift of this girl. She would have got along fine with Judith, but it’d be scruff of the neck time
for Miss Bridget: ‘I’ll stop you right there, young madam. Being lectured at by a snotty little teenager who’s nicked all her ideas off the internet is not on the menu
tonight
!’ Suddenly Christmas felt a sharp pain in his chest. He inhaled. He looked about the table, but no one was watching. Judith was leaning her hand on her chin, pretending to listen
to her daughter. He gripped himself, then the table. It was as if someone was trying to strangle his heart.

“... like the banks and the arms industry,” Bridge was declaiming, “who get all sorts of subsidies and bail outs ...”

Was this a heart attack
? His mouth wouldn’t work. He tried to breath but it was agony. A patina of sweat appeared over his face.

“... Thatcher said the mines had to close because they were inefficient, but government expenditure remained the same, the money just went into arms to sell to Saddam Hussein instead
...”

Was he dying? Was this it
? He tried a breath and got a little further out. The pain began to ease.

“... and I’m sure we all agree that the Iraq war was a disaster ...”

He wasn’t going to die. He took long, exploratory breaths and massaged his chest.

“OK there,
amore
?” Christmas nodded vigorously. She had caught the scent of distress and he was anxious to prevent any fussing. “You’ve gone a dreadful
colour.” Bridget paused for a moment then rattled on a little louder, making sure the fat man in the corner didn’t derail her gospel. “... which is how the crisis is related to
the war machine. The economic road map follows the military road map. Even Gaza – and I don’t mean just securing the middle east oil reserves. There are massive natural gas reserves
just off the coast. The Palestinians own them and the Israelis want to ...” Christmas wiped his face then took a drink.

Death
. If only he could believe that he might meet Emily again, but he knew that was a lie. Emily and their raw baby girl were extinct. Trodden on like insects. Scraped off and slid into
the ground. That pain in his chest was the weight of the same awful foot, testing, pressing, readying for the stamp. “... they tried it first in Chile, then Thatcher did it with the
Falklands, then Iraq and Afghanistan, all so they could keep our minds on disaster while they deregulated the markets and robbed people’s savings, the ‘real’ economy ...”
Bridget mimed the grammar with the dreaded quote fingers.

“Oh, good God!” cursed Christmas.

“
Amore
?” They both stared at him. He wanted to lecture them about the quote fingers malaise, but he paused instead, and in that pause there was a flash of Slade running at him
with a knife. He willed the image away and forgot what he was talking about. When he remembered, the length of the intervening pause had somehow made such instruction unsuitable. He decided to
improvise. “It’s about ... whether ... God’s good. Don’t you think?” He did it rather badly.

“Oh, not religion,” groaned Bridget biting into a mango slice.

“You were talking about the environment?”

“Well, yes, kind of.”

“What I meant was ... if you believe that God is good ... then when it comes to an impending ecological apocalypse, then couldn’t you say, I mean, couldn’t you, you know,
saaaay
... that it was a good thing?”

“A good thing?” spluttered Bridget.
Bingo
. He was going to enjoy this. He was going to annoy her.

“I mean let’s face it – we could probably do with another ice age.”

“We?”

“The human project. The rascal multitude!”

“So you believe that a benevolent God would want to wipe us all out?”

“If he had his head screwed on.”

“Do you believe in God?”

“Not in the religious sense.”

“Then why bring him up?”

“Oh no, it’s very interesting,” said Judith, relieved that she could finally join in. “What do you believe in,
amore
? Life after death?”

“Well, if it does exist, I bet it’s like life: unfair. There’s no life after death for the elderly. Something like that. I think we can assume that death is more than a little
ageist.”

“No heaven, no hell?”

“Perhaps a hell, but only for people who believe in it. And perhaps the hellish bit would be the disappointment, you know, you’d fall through the hole or whatever and land expecting
to find adamantine chains, lakes of sulphur, harpies and so on, but actually you’d be on some boy scout’s field trip being bullied by an omnipotent Akela – an eternity of wet
socks and Kendal mint cake.”

“And no gin,
amore
. How will you cope?”

“So, are we to understand, Harry, that the famous writer’s position on the bleak future facing the world if we don’t take radical action and completely overhaul our paradigms
is, in fact, utter resignation. We could do with another ice age. My, how profound.”

“Well, everyone can see how keen you are on profundity, Bridget dearest, but look,” he said, shifting onto his elbows, “let’s say here it comes, ecological disaster and
floods and population displacement and the rise of tyranny and chaos and looting and rape and murder. Sounds like an average day on planet earth to me. Or let’s say it’s swifter than
that. Let’s say a chunk of the Greenland ice shelf slips into the ocean overnight, knocks out the Gulf Stream – bang – it’s woolly mammoths and spears before breakfast.
I’m afraid I can’t help driving along the travelator of South East England, repeating backdrop after repeating backdrop, and thinking that an ice age is exactly what’s
required.” Christmas took a drink. “Does not our hubristic nation deserve its Arctic punishment? Indeed if everything is going to go underwater, then the only sensible way to face
what’s coming is ... probably ... become a better swimmer. And get a gun.”