Man Of Few Words

Chapter 88

I'm glad the police broke down my front door. I guess what I needed was for the world to make a dramatic gesture to show that it still cared. And Dad was right too. I did feel better for going out for a bit. Not only did I treat myself to a cheese and ham toastie, I also had a real conversation with a member of my family. It wasn't horribly awkward, there was no drama and I felt, for once, that I was really being heard.

I was just finishing up my toastie when Hugo wandered over carrying a small toy truck in one hand. He plonked it on the table and started "driving" it back and forth next to my plate. I noticed on closer inspection that this was no ordinary truck. Instead of a regular truck body perched on top of its chassis, it had a dinosaur's head. As he pushed and pulled it to and fro he emitted a primeval mash-up of engine noises and mighty prehistoric squawks. Then he paused the noises, but continued concentrating on driving the dino-truck, and said,

"Uncle David..."

"Yes, Hugo."

"Are you poorly?"

"Yes."

"Oh..."

He resumed the noises briefly, and even threw in a tyre screech as the dino-truck skidded to avoid a collision with my glass of sparkling elderflower cordial. Then he stopped the truck but kept his hand on top of it as he turned to me with a squint,

"I hope you get better soon."

"Thank you, Hugo." I gave him a pat on the arm and tried to smile.

He continued his squinting stare, but said nothing more.

"Have you ever been poorly?" I asked.

He nodded slowly and deliberately in that way that kids do where their whole upper body gets involved.

"What was wrong?"

"Last w... I think it was last week, or maybe last month, or... I don't know but I got a bad tummy, and I was sick. And for two days I was doing runny poo. I think it was three days."

"Oh no!" I said. "I hate runny poo."

"Me too," he scrunched up his face even more than he had been already. "It's really smelly."

I smiled and nodded.

"Oh yeah..." I said, thinking about the disaster that had unfolded in my own bedroom not so long ago. You were already thinking about that too, weren't you dear reader?

"I had a runny nose and a cough as well," continued Hugo. "Not at the same time as the runny poo, but another time. Mummy blew my nose so much it got sore, but there was always more snot. And I had a cough for ages. I was like this..."

Then he started coughing in a scattershot manner in the general direction of me and my elderflower cordial. I just let it happen. I mean, what difference are a few more germs gonna make at this point?

"Hugo..."

This was a low-key warning from Harriet. He stopped his theatrical coughing but otherwise ignored her. I looked over at her to discover she was already looking at me and smiling. She looked momentarily at Hugo then back to me and raised her eyebrows. I smiled back.

"That's a really big cough," I told Hugo. "I'm surprised you didn't turn all the way inside out!"

"I nearly did," he informed me, adding some very serious nodding for emphasis.

I affected as austere a face as I could muster under the circumstances.

"When you get better," Hugo said, pursuing a new tangent, "You can come to our house. I've got Marble Genius. I've got two Marble Geniuseses..."

He paused for a moment because he had to really focus on stopping himself from saying "eseses..."

"I've got two and you can put them together and make one really big one. You can help me build it."

"Thanks for the invitation, Hugo. That sounds fun!"

"That's okay. Um... you're welcome." He looked awkwardly at the floor, then momentarily over at Harriet for the first time since he'd opened this conversation. Then suddenly, in a faux-American whisper-shout, he exclaimed,

"Oh ma Gahd! Over there! We gotta get to the..."

And with an epic engine squawk, he lifted the dino-truck into the air, making it soar past me, missing my face by mere inches. Then, before I knew it, Hugo and the truck had disappeared behind me in order to tend to some kind of dire emergency taking place under a vacant table.

I sipped at my elderflower cordial, and stared out into the reeds and long grass of the nature reserve.