10

  The women’s clothes had started relatively innocuously.

  Humphrey’s adolescence had been in full swing at the time, and his bedroom walls had been covered with dozens and dozens of Bananarama posters; just to give him something suitable to ‘focus’ on during those intense, one-handed, moments.

  A Banana-man poster would have done though really.

  At the time.

  Sex.

  Suddenly – overnight – that seemed to be all he ever thought of.

  His whole appreciation of life had changed. He could, no longer, enjoy a beautiful sunset or a fine piece of music without feeling an overwhelming need to go and discuss the matter – urgently – under the lifeless multiple gazes of Sara, Keren and Siobhan.

  They were quite reproachful gazes actually, some of them.

  Very similar, in fact, to the one that was usually to be found on the face of his ex-wife, after most of their own bedroom encounters, some years later.

  She didn’t appreciate his urgency in such matters, any more than Bananarama had, it seemed.

  The somewhat disproportionate amount of time Humphrey had been forced to spend, confined to his bedroom – coping with his life, almost literally single-handed – had, he reasoned later, been playing right into Michael’s own hands.

  If he was not around, or at least visible, he could be put completely out of the great man’s mind. He was able to come in from whichever legally challenging or alcohol-laden location it was that had been lucky enough to have him, to relax, go to bed and then do the same thing, all over again, the next day.

  Everything was on his terms.

  Whether Humphrey’s leisure activities would’ve been considered normal amongst his peers was a matter of mystery, since his father had never found the time to have that, all-important, ‘Chat’ with him. And the boys at school had all been as clueless as he was. What Humphrey had managed to establish was that, like him, quite a number of the young men in his class could scarcely have had time in their lives for anything else.

  These were boys he was very, very careful about accepting any rulers, sweets or digital calculators from.

  Was he normal though?

  Only one man in the world would be able to reassure him on that subject: one way or the other.

  It would just be a question of getting his attention.

  Humphrey had identified the occasion of his fifteenth birthday as the perfect opportunity to try to attract a good bit of that attention.

  Friday the 20th of September, 1985.

  The day before this – most momentous – event, he’d lingered awhile, after school, in one of Brentwood’s newsagents, leafing through the pop magazines for pictures of Sara, Siobhan and Keren.

  Or, failing that, for pictures of anyone who looked even vaguely feminine.

  He was just debating to himself whether a pull-out poster of Boy George may – or may not – qualify on that score when he was struck by a – retrospectively – ridiculous idea.

  It was half past four, so not all that early.

  Was it possible that Michael was home?

  True enough, he hadn’t seen him all week, thanks to the man’s legal preoccupation with some crook who had actually managed to get his attention: albeit very much the hard way.

  ‘Alleged’ crook, innocent until proven guilty.

  Which he presumably never would be, not with Michael Lovewell, QC, to fight his corner. But then maybe the case had ended? Maybe – just maybe – Michael had negotiated some time away from it for the express purpose of celebrating his son’s birthday with him. Of course, his birthday wasn’t actually until tomorrow. But tomorrow was a school day so he wouldn’t see him then. And by tomorrow night, the birthday would practically be over!

  Could he be at home now, planning some kind of two-day extravaganza? That was an exhilarating thought.

  Crazy, perhaps – but exhilarating.

  And if it was possible, then the celebrations could not kick off in earnest until the arrival of the star attraction!

  Hurriedly, he paid for his magazines – Boy George had indeed made it through to the next round of ‘auditions’ – and then began the long walk home.

  The house was set on something of a hill and the approach to its grounds and the view through the trees already told Humphrey his father’s car was not there long before he’d reached the wrought iron gates.

  That didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  He could still have been on his way.

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  Perhaps he was stuck in traffic or something?

  The charwoman’s car was there though.

  Mrs Milton.

  He didn’t much care for her. For one thing, her presence in the house was a constant reminder that his mother had left. She wasn’t much of a cleaner either, although the same might equally have been said about his mother.

  She’d always told him that a certain amount of dust in the house was vital for the immune system.

  She must’ve been making stuff like that up as she went along.

  Humphrey rather suspected that Mrs Milton was his father’s paid informant.

  In other words, a grass, to use ‘Sweeney’ vernacular.

  It was quite touching really, in a way. The great man himself was never there but at least he was, vaguely, interested in his son’s day-to day-existence. He could simply have spent more time with him and found out all he wanted to know that way but, obviously, he was far too busy and important for that. So that old bag had been plucked from the small ads to do it for him.

  The only thing was, informants could be very useful double-agents, too.

  Especially if they weren’t even aware of it.

  Mrs Milton had reported a number of Humphrey’s ‘crimes’ to Michael, during the six months she’d worked there. Rudeness; bullying; under-age boozing… the sort of behaviour that might have been construed as a plea for a father’s attention, were anybody of a particular mind to be interested. Yet, her ‘betrayal’ of Humphrey had achieved almost nothing of any use to him.

  Michael’s morality compass had clearly spent too long next to a lump of magnetised iron or something.

  Rudeness had been encouraged, albeit in moderation. Apparently it showed ‘character’ or some such rubbish. Meanwhile, bullying had been positively mentored, with devious inside tips being dispatched, remotely, from the heart of his father’s chambers to a wholly disbelieving and thoroughly disinterested Humphrey.

  Empty bottles of vodka – discovered, ‘by accident’, in the fourteen year old’s wardrobe – had brought nothing more by way of attention than a brief telephoned remark from Michael about ‘finding a more masculine tipple’. Which was a waste of breath in any case because Humphrey hadn’t even touched the stuff. He’d found the bottles outside in the street one day and brought them into the house in order to test his father’s reaction.

  And what a thorough disappointment it had been.

  He pushed the front door open and was greeted by Mrs Milton herself: cigarette in gob; rubbish bag in hand.

  He was right, she really wasn’t a very good cleaner, certainly not if that filthy look on her face was anything to go by.

  He decided to fight fire with something suitably volatile and smiled back at her, charmingly.

  ‘When’s he going to be home?’

  He should have added a ‘please’ really, it would have been more polite. Then again, things you might find on the sole of your shoe don’t tend to be known for their manners, and that was clearly what she was equating him to, judging by that rather disgusted look her face had – evidently – decided to upgrade to.

  ‘Your father’s staying in town tonight, working on that case of his. He asked me to leave you… that.’

  She nodded towards a large envelope sitting, ominously, on the hallway table.

  ‘Money?’

  She nodded again, depositing cigarette ash liberally, all over the carpet.

  ‘What about my birthday?’

  Mrs Milton looked at him with complete and utter disdain.

  She was actually giving him a valuable little sneak peek into what it was going to be like to be married, if only he’d realised it at the time.

  ‘You are an ungrateful little boy, Humphrey. Your father works exceptionally hard for you.’

  She was nearly right.

  He worked exceptionally hard: for himself.

  Oh well, it was probably for the best that the sod had managed to find himself an excuse for not giving him the bumps or buying him an ‘A-Team’ birthday cake.

  All of that sounded like far too much fun for a boring old git like his father anyway.

  ‘Whatever happens, he’s going to call you tomorrow evening, sometime between seven and eight, to wish you a “Happy Birthday”.’

  The vindictive old sod!

  ‘Between seven and eight’? If he were to hang around waiting for that whole hour then he wouldn’t be able to do anything else.

  His birthday really would be a complete load of rubbish.

  Mrs Milton peered at him, menacingly.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be here to talk to him, won’t you? I will be.’

  She wasn’t going to give him the bumps instead was she?

  That settled it.

  If she was going to be there, to answer the damn phone anyway, then there was absolutely no reason whatsoever why he should have to be there as well.

  His father could go and whistle himself into a running jump.   Well and bleedin’ truly.

  That had been his attitude for the rest of that afternoon and well into the early evening.

  A closer inspection of the envelope had uncovered two crisp twenty pound notes. No other note though; no mention of his birthday, for instance. His father hadn’t even bothered to ask her to write Humphrey’s name on the front of it. Money, as always, was just supposed to make everything OK.

  Well, not this time.

  No way.

  Having consumed the absolutely revolting processed cheese sandwich that had been left for his supper by Mrs Milton, Humphrey sat for some time, studying the two banknotes. William Shakespeare mocked him from one of them while no less a personage than the monarch herself waved a metaphorical two fingers at him from the other.

  Money never solved anything, he was convinced of that.

  But maybe, just maybe, it could change the nature of the problem.

  What was it that he wanted more than anything in the world?

  Apart from an extra two inches where it mattered, that is.

  Hey, hang on a minute!

  Hell, if anyone influential was going to intercept that particular wish he might as well make it spectacular.

  An extra six inches, in those aforementioned places.

  He reflected on his calculations for a moment.

  Even with that, he’d only just about be achieving parity with the majority of the male population. If he were to believe the majority of the articles in his recently-procured copy of ‘Cosmopolitan’, that was.

  No.

  He wanted his father’s attention.

  How pathetic.

  This was really starting to get boring and it was definitely becoming predictable.

  And speaking of predictable, Michael really expected him to be sat there, for an hour, the following evening.

  He really did!

  It was supposed to be Humphrey’s birthday, for heaven’s sake, yet he was actually expected to spend his whole day waiting – desperately – for a fifteen second inclusion into the great man’s day.

  And what was even more pathetic than that, was that Humphrey would, in all likelihood, be sat there, between seven and eight, doing just as he had been commanded.

  Pitiful.

  He picked up the bank notes and studied them again.

  He could buy an awful lot with forty quid.

  That wasn’t quite the point though. There would be nothing for him to open in the morning and he would have to wait until after school now to spend it in any case. Even then, how much freedom did he really have to spend it? His father probably wouldn’t be on the telephone long enough to interrogate him directly about his purchases, but Mrs Milton would, no doubt, do the honours on his behalf.

  There was nothing whatsoever to look forward to.

  He stared at the notes again, looking for some kind of inspiration. His father probably expected him to go and open a boring old bank account with them or something. If so, he’d be horribly disappointed if Humphrey went and blew most of it on a three-year subscription to ‘Smash Hits’.

  He thought about that.

  Perhaps if Michael was disappointed in him, he might actually pay him a bit more attention.

  He would surely find it difficult to pay him any less.

  ‘Pay’.

  Yes.

  Forty quid. That was all he was worth.

  Shakespeare, eh?

  More specifically, the balcony scene from ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Both parts played by boys too, originally.

  So, in one hand, he had a boy pretending to be a girl for an audience…

  … and in the other he was looking at an old queen.

  That was the nucleus of an idea, right there.