“The unfortunate biological reality of homosexual sex makes fatherhood by way of cock something of a non-starter for me, Joplin.”
“No. The shagging won’t put a baby in you. Thank god for that! You’d be a moody pregnant bitch. But it’s a start towards settling down with someone you can have a family with, Rix. Don’t be obtuse.”
He looked at her over the rim of his mug. Joplin had Hunter’s eyes, pale grey, and much too piercing, and she had been using them on him for intimidation purposes since they were children. She reached across and patted his knee twice.
“Go have another look at Trevor Greaves, Rix, if you don’t want to die alone in a grace-and-favour flat with just your cardigan and slipover collection for company.”
“Joplin, I swear to God.”
“Whoever it was that put that face on you, I hope they’re hurting too.”
“Nobody put this face on me. This is my perfectly normal face.”
“That’s your tragic face. I’ve known it since you were eight and Dad sent you to school with that haircut that looked like the clippers had got away from him.”
Across the room, his father had picked up the goat off the sofa and was holding it against his shoulder like a baby, swaying it, as he approached. “Jop, let your brother be. He’s had a tough go these last few months.”
The goat landed in Beauchamp’s lap before he had registered Hunter letting go of it. “There. Hold Bertie.”
“Dad — ”
“Hold Bertie the goat, Hendrix. Now, shove up.”
The goat bleated softly against his chest, an indignant little tremor that travelled up Beauchamp’s sternum and settled at the base of his throat. It smelled of warm hay and something faintly milky underneath. Its fur, when his fingers settled tentatively against its flank, was much softer than he had been braced for. He began to stroke it.
Hunter wedged himself sideways into the armchair beside him. The chair had not, in any meaningful sense, been built for two grown men. Beauchamp’s left shoulder was crushed against the wing. The goat was now braced between his thigh and his father’s.
“Dad. There’s a sofa.”
“There’s no room on the sofa. Len’s coat is on it.”
“Thenmovethe coat.”
“I’m not moving Lennon’s coat, Hendrix, don’t be ridiculous.” Hunter looped an arm around his shoulders, drew him in tight against his velvet jacket, and pressed a kiss into his hair. “Have you eaten? You haven’t, have you? Helen, darling, has our boy eaten?”
His mother, from somewhere across the kitchen, said something Beauchamp couldn’t make out. He was thirty-six, Beauchamp reminded himself. He had been to Sandhurst, and on active tours. He had been entrusted with the close protection of a royal foreign principal. There was no need for him to be held against a velvet lapel by his father in front of his older sister. The goat shifted in his lap and laid its bony head against the inside of his wrist.
“That man he was working for, Jop.” Hunter’s free hand was now resting on the crown of the goat’s head, scratching behind one of its ears. “A nightmare! He was an actual, certifiable nightmare. You know the type.”
“Type, Dad?”
“All over him, darling. Wouldn’t give the boy a moment to himself. I had lunch with the pair of them at Fischer’s, and I’m telling you now, Jop, I have never in my life seen a young man so thoroughlyhoovered upby his own employer. It was like watching one of those films where the alien drops down on your spaceship and proceeds to eat everyone on board.”
“Sounds dreadful.”
“Itwasdreadful. And the noise of him, Joplin — ”
“Sounds, in fact, rather familiar.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Dad. It’s just that you’re describing yourself, really.”
Hunter drew back an inch to give Joplin a wounded look across Beauchamp’s shoulder. “I am nothing of the sort.”
“You’re where Hendrix gets his coping mechanism for these ‘types’, Dad.”
“Joplin Morrow!”
