Thick and Fast Page 3

the crumbling perimeter wall on its way to the grounds at the back of the house, and eventually on to Walcott Way. When he reached the agreed point he stooped to retie his boot laces, quickly made sure he was unseen, then neatly leapt up on to the wall. He was up and over in a second under the protection of a fully clothed willow tree.

  It was difficult to say when his parents had first noticed that something was amiss with young Ambrose. He had started off fine, learning to walk before his first birthday, cutting teeth with apparent ease. He had been healthy and strong, and the doctors had praised them for their good fortune. His appetite was legendary. While Petunia picked at her food with disdain, as if it were out of date medicine, Ambrose ate whatever was put before him without complaint. Mr. George Ork was sure that at this rate his son would gobble up the whole world by the time he was ten. A giant of finance had been born! That would have fulfilled George Ork's wildest dreams, for Ambrose's father longed more than anything to be rich, preferably indecently rich, because like most of his contemporaries he confused security and comfort with happiness. But by the time he was two, two and a half, the child had still not learnt to speak above a dozen words. They were told not to worry, but they did. They thought of taking him to specialists, but friends, family, everybody they knew agreed there was nothing wrong with the boy – he would learn soon enough.

  And so he did, slowly.

  He sat under the protection of the willow and waited. It was unlikely that he had been spotted, but if he had, or if new cameras had been installed, then he would know soon enough. The dogs, if they still had any, would have been taken to Kenton Beach too, or put into one of those dog hotels, but again, better safe than sorry. If somehow they had been left behind to guard the place then they would pick up his scent and come investigating before ten minutes was up. He checked his watch again and felt a glow of adventure, as if he were a commando on a daring raid. Synchronise watches. He had even done that with Spotty, to practice, and it had filled him with pride. He would give it ten, no twelve, minutes. Time for a cigarette? he had asked. Only if you are extremely careful and don't blow smoke everywhere or leave the butt lying around. Think of DNA samples. Think of snipers. Ambrose hadn't understood that final remark, but was too embarrassed to say so.

  School had unmasked him. Until then he had only been compared to his elder sister Petunia, not destined for the intellectual life herself, but far more able, awake and alert than her little brother. Naturally, argued their parents; she was a year and half older. However it soon became apparent that Ambrose belonged in the slow lane. Most of his classmates seemed to have crystal clear minds made up of a fascinating transparent liquid. Ambrose waded through thick sludge. Some of his best friends had prisms in their eyes through which they saw an incredible, cinemascopic reality. Ambrose couldn't see past the end of his nose, as his mother often reminded him. The alphabet was like a never ending slope, eventually leading you upwards to a summit from where you could discern a swollen sea of unspellable words, thousands upon thousands of them all waiting to be memorised. Once a number of words had been correctly assimilated, they suddenly required new, confusing definitions, had to be categorised into adjectives and adverbs, thereby throwing everything once more into disarray. So reading made him feel dizzy, as if he were about to fall into that ocean of sentences and paragraphs, where he would thrash around uselessly until he drowned.

  He fared no better at maths. Sums teased you at first with their innocent simplicity, filled you with false confidence, only to get harder and harder until they became deliberately unfriendly, malicious even. The torture was incessant. Addition and subtraction gave way to multiplication and division, to fractions and decimals, and from there relentlessly onwards into the unknown. Only the most intrepid dared to follow, only the naturally gifted could manage to keep up. Petunia flagged a little, but did not lose sight of the main group that cut through the undergrowth always a few hundred yards ahead of her. But Ambrose soon got lost, and decided he was better off back in base camp where everything was safe and familiar.

  His ten minutes were up; so far so good. He strolled across the lawn as if he had every right to be there, as Spotty had told him that was the best way to go unnoticed, and made his way up to the porch. He could see his sister Petunia, stuffed into her best Sunday dress, still sweating and puffing from the slight climb up the hill to the magnificent Victorian, or Edwardian, or some other style house. Today our luck is going to change, she had said. It had certainly seemed that way at the time.

  Señora Luz had opened the door. She was a small, dark woman with an air of seriousness verging on pain. Dressed in a maid's uniform, her black hair slicked back into a tight pony tail, she had tried not to let them see that she was sizing them up and evaluating their worth, as if she herself were the employer. Petunia had started to introduce herself, but she'd got no further than 'good day' when Señora Luz had cut her short with a monotone 'follow me'.

  That had been their first lesson. Instead of leading them through the main doors, the middle aged maid, all in black except for her beautifully made white apron, had led them round the side of the mansion to the service area. It was something they had not expected, and it had struck them both as extremely rude. Ambrose had made little signs to his sister as if to ask what was going on, but Petunia had begged him with her eyes to behave himself and say nothing. So they had scurried behind the maid as best they could, trying their best to look calm and dignified. Later, back in the bedsit, she would try to explain it all to herself by pretending to be explaining it to Ambrose, a handy habit she had picked up during her childhood.

  ‘Some people think they’re superior, Bro. They think that just ‘cause they've got money they are better than you. Others think that they’re a better class of person, the high and mighty, just because they was born in the right place at the right time. They're the sort of person that won't show you in through the main hall, but take you round the back, as if you was a servant, because they think you’re not worthy or something.’

  She flashed him a smile, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘If we suddenly win the lottery they'll want to know us alright, they’d throw open the doors and throw us a banquet.’

  Then, frowning.

  ‘That's the way they are, Bro.’

  Señora Luz had hurried past the conservatory and garages in the noonday heat to a side door, Petunia and Ambrose trotting behind her as composedly as possible in their awkward clothes, along a narrow corridor, and had eventually shown them into a small office. Wait here.

  It had been so hot in there! But Petunia had insisted that he keep his jacket on – appearances were so important to this type of person. That morning she had dressed him as if he were her only son about to begin his first day at a new college. She had ironed and brushed and fussed over his clothes until she was resignedly as happy as could be expected at the outcome, given the circumstances and the raw materials at hand. Then she had turned her attention to his hair, his thick, dark brown hair, with its tufts and crinks that, if not exactly rebellious, was at least disobedient. Finally she had declared him fit for human consumption. Then he'd had to wait until she had completed the same ritual with herself. The result had been slightly comical.

  ‘You look like you're going to a wedding, Pet.’

  ‘And you look like you're about to be brought before the judge.’

  The ‘office’ was really no more than a small storage room which had been decorated with a desk, a leather swivel chair, and a computer. A poorly painted window gave out onto a brick wall, and Pet was a little surprised to see that the walls were totally bare – not even a calendar. She was unsure if that was a good sign or not. First they had been interviewed by Mr. Stein, a clean, well-groomed, short man in his fifties, like the office itself without a trace of humour or humanity, with sharp eyes that scrutinised them from behind metal framed glasses. Mr. Stein didn't clip the hairs that grew out of his ears, Petunia couldn't help noticing, and that seemed incongruen
t. Perhaps, she had thought at the time, it was also a sign, an omen. They would not get the jobs. But no, there were other, more potent signals, of that she was sure, so she should not worry. He read through their references as if he had already caught them out and was about to call the police. Like a detective he went over the main points again and again, firing questions at Petunia, then turning to watch Ambrose's face while she answered. They had laughed about it all later, but at the time he had come across as a stern prosecuting lawyer and had scared the wits out of both of them. Then Stein had disappeared without a word, and left them to sweat it out.

  The porch was exactly as he had remembered it; elegant, imposing, but just a little bit too old world, too aged, too rancid. It smacked of butlers and hunting parties, of inherited money and unearned social status. The woodwork was in a poor state of repair, much worse than when he had been in charge of its conservation, and the ironwork needed priming or it would just rust away. He climbed up the marble steps and turned to take in the view. He imagined his father putting his arm round his shoulders and saying, in the mocking tone he had so often adopted