‘I told you. I met with tosspot partners who don't know their elbows from their arses.’
‘Oh. OK.’ Jed looked down at his dinner plate. Skunk pitied him sometimes: he wanted to be a solicitor when his professional football career was over, but it was obvious to Skunk he was too easily thrown from his subject. She took over his line of enquiry:
‘And why did you meet with tosspot partners, Daddy?’
‘Good question, Skunk. I'm still trying to work that one out for myself.’ Archie looked over at Cerys. ‘Can you believe it?’ he said in a tone that he tried to keep casual. ‘I'm a specialised criminal solicitor. David Jefferson's a specialised personal injury solicitor. Brent Phillips is a specialised probate solicitor. We're all in charge of departments that are working well and performing to target. So what does Simon Trewster want to do? Lay off two accounts clerks and get us doing our own invoicing. In six weeks' time, I'll be spending more time looking at spreadsheets than defending my clients.’
Cerys looked at Archie with an air of total boredom. He pretended not to notice.
‘Sometimes I despair of that place. I really do despair.’
‘Never mind,’ Cerys told him, and carried plates out to the kitchen.
‘Nice meal,’ Archie called after her. ‘Thank you.’ He looked sideways and watched as she bent to load the dishwasher, then hid behind the Daily Express. Across the square, Mrs Buckley did much the same with the telly: Coronation Street, EastEnders, The Bill, Inspector Morse, Inspector Wexford. Anything not to have to think. Mr Buckley sat beside her and stared at the sky through the window. When the evening was over they went up to their bedroom and lay in silence, not sleeping. The next day, Mr Buckley got up and faced sobbing mourners and ghost-white bodies and made phone calls to crematoriums and arranged the digging of graves. He sent drivers to hospital morgues and care homes and people's houses. He smiled. He shook hands. He was pleasant. And all the time, he thought Rick, oh Rick, oh Rick. And, as he thought Rick, oh Rick, oh Rick, Mrs Buckley pruned flowers and dusted and hoovered the house through on soft moist September mornings and all the time she thought Rick, oh Rick, oh Rick. How are you doing? How are you feeling? How did it all come to this? In the evenings they watched telly and made their phone calls and it was always Mrs Buckley who cracked and hung up and stood sobbing in the kitchen with her hands up to cover her face.
A world away, in Brighton, the Oswalds were having a great time. Bob had his fortnightly social security payments and a job down the seafront selling helium-filled balloons to gawping Asians and sulking Australian barmen who were out to impress dumb wispy English girls. The kids had an endless supply of stones to throw at the sea or distant tourists who posed no immediate threat. The weather was glorious and the days were careless. The only shadow was thrown by their landlords, a prim middle-class couple who reminded them of the Buckleys. Their names were Mr and Mrs Hateley: in their early fifties, neither of the Hateleys could understand the world that Bob and his daughters had come from. The laziness. The dirtiness. The endless tirade of foul language. The Oswalds were alien to them, and they wished they would go back to where they had come from.
Twice, Mr Hateley asked Bob Oswald to leave, but Bob Oswald was a hard man to boss around. Twice, Mr Hateley relented, and the Oswalds were allowed to stay. These reprieves, however, were fleeting. At the beginning of October, Bob's social security payments were stopped as he'd used up his holiday allowance. A trembling girl in Brighton's Mill Lane post office explained his options to him. He could find a permanent address in Brighton, make the 120-mile round trip to Hedge End's post office once every other week in order to pick up his benefits or, preferably, go home.
Bob Oswald, being a lazy bastard, took his family home.
Just over three weeks later, on a dismal, damp Wednesday morning towards the end of October, Skunk was pushed to the floor and punched in the small of her back. Her pockets were searched and eight pounds twenty was taken. Her face was rubbed in the dirt and her mobile phone was snatched from her satchel, placed on the floor and stamped on. A letter from social services had forced Susan and Sunrise back into school. The quiet start to the school year was over.
Mr Jeffries said, ‘Been dragged through a hedge backwards, Miss Cunningham?’
Skunk said, ‘I dropped my mobile, Mr Jeffries.’
Sunrise Oswald sniggered.
Mr Jeffries sighed but did nothing. Skunk didn't mind, though. Now he was her form teacher, her crush on him was stronger than ever. Cerys, on the other hand, hated him. When Skunk said, Mr Jeffries says hi, Cerys looked up from Archie's ironing and said, You can tell that prick to go fuck himself. Mr Jeffries gave Skunk a thousand lines: I must not swear in class. I must not swear in class. Cerys laughed. She said, I always knew that prick was an arsehole. But she wouldn't do Skunk's lines for her the way Bob Oswald had once done Sunrise's: Skunk had to write them out all on her own. She was just over halfway through when she heard a sudden commotion outside. She looked out the window and saw Sunrise and Saskia Oswald chucking eggs at Mr and Mrs Buckley's front door. Sunrise was doing most of the throwing. Saskia was giving directions.
‘Go for the bedroom window. Fucking ace shot. Now lob one at their front door. Get the cars. Get the cars.’
Sunrise was a good shot. Egg after egg cracked on the windscreens of Mr Buckley's beige Mondeo and Mrs Buckley's green VW Beetle. Broken's unused car was covered by an old green tarpaulin. Three eggs were smashed against that. Saskia howled with laughter. Sunrise laughed with delight. Mr Buckley came running out.
‘What the hell do you think you're doing?’ He half ran down the path, then turned and looked at the mess the two Oswalds had made of his house. ‘You …’ he shouted. ‘You …’ But he didn't seem able to think of a good enough word to call them. ‘You wait till I speak to your father. He'll sort you out about this.’
Saskia laughed and gave him the finger. ‘He'll kick your head in, like he did your mental son.’
‘Don't you talk about my son. Don't you dare.’
‘Oh fuck off, you old prick.’
‘What? What did you say?’
‘You heard,’ Saskia told him, and then, to Sunrise, ‘Come on. This is boring. Let's go home.’
The two Oswalds retreated across the street. Mr Buckley stared after them, then turned and stared at his house. He was still staring at his house when Skunk became aware there was someone standing behind her. She turned round. Archie was staring at her neatly written out lines.
‘Skunk, what have I told you about swearing?’
‘That it's like driving. Can I have a new mobile?’
‘No. You didn't look after the last one.’ He came and stood next to her at the window. Together, they watched in silence as Bob Oswald came out of his house, walked across the road, picked up one of the eggs Sunrise hadn't got round to throwing, and hurled it at Mr Buckley. Unlike Sunrise, Bob's aim was awful. The egg sailed over Mr Buckley's head and smashed against the Buckleys' lounge window. Mr Buckley ran inside.
Bob Oswald picked up the final egg and threw it at the Buckleys' front door. Then he, too, went inside. Archie shook his head sadly. ‘That man,’ he said. ‘That man.’
Skunk said, ‘Why can't I have a new mobile?’
‘Because you can't go around breaking your old phone and just expect me to buy you a new one.’
Skunk hadn't told Archie the Oswalds had broken her mobile: she was scared he would complain to Mr Oswald. As much as her father sometimes annoyed her, she had no desire to send him to war with the Oswalds, so she started a war of her own: Please can I have a new mobile? Please can I have a new mobile? Please can I have a new mobile? She followed him around the house: Please can I have a new mobile? Please can I have a new mobile? Please can I have a new mobile? On the second day it actually backfired. Archie sat at the breakfast table reading the paper and saying very loudly from behind it, no you can't