Future Tense (3 page)

And with that, he gave me a curt bow, turned smartly on his heels and marched back to rejoin Emma. I picked up the card. There was just his name printed on it.

“Yeah, and up yours!” I said. “I'll be having my satisfaction and all, mate!”

The Duck stuck his head out of the door to see what all the shouting was about.

“What's up, man?”

“That guy's right up his own arse,” I said. “One dark night he's going to hear something go bump—right on the back of his head.”

“What you got there?”

“His card.” I tore it up and threw the pieces down on the ground. “I am going to so enjoy punching his lights out.”

“What did he give you his card for?” said the Duck, pulling a face.

“I don't know. The ponce. But I do know he's going to come to a sticky end the way he's carrying on,” I said.

“What did you say to him?”

“Oh, I let him know I was onto him all right. And he says: I shall have my sateesfaxsheon, seur—who does he think he is—Mick bloody Jagger!”

“Oh—no!” cried the Duck.

“What?”

“He's only gone and challenged you to a duel.”

I laughed—a bit nervously. “You what?”

“With shooters—pistols at dawn, mate,” said the Duck.

“Yeah, well, bring it on—that's what I say, I'm not afraid of him.”

“Well, you should be, mate. They say he's one of the finest shots in all France,” said the Duck.

“Now he tells me!”

“Don't worry,” grinned the Duck, “I'll give you some coaching.”

“Oh great!” I said. “First I get dumped, now I'm going to get shot. You've done it to me again!”

“Believe me, man,” said the Duck, hand on heart. “I had nothing to do with any of this. Honest.”

Reader, I hit him.

Chapter 2

“What month is it?” I said, as my father's old butler vigorously brushed down the mourning suit I had been loaned. It was a snazzy little black velvet number.

“March. St Paddy's Day, as it happens. Why?” said the Duck.

“I always wondered what month I'd die in. I mean, it's strange to think, innit? Every year we pass over the exact day, the exact hour—moment of our death, and we don't even know it. It's just waiting there for us. Waiting for the right year. I wonder if it gives us a sign. You know, a shiver up the spine or a sudden flash of light. I wonder if there'll be something to mark my death day…”

“Yeah, a tombstone—the way you're going on. Shape up—you're a Duckworth!”

“I don't wanna die. I'm not ready.”

“You're not gonna die. Stand up straight. Be a man.”

“I could be a corpse by tomorrow morning. This could be the suit they lay me out in.”

“Steady, Bentley,” said the Duck, “that frock coat set me back three guineas.”

The butler dug a little less deeply into the nap.

“I don't see why I have to wear it anyway,” I said, but rather admiring myself in it, in the full-length mirror.

“As I've already told you,” sighed my father, who was sitting on a Hepplewhite chair, looking me up and down with a critical eye. “It's in the Duelling Code of Honour: the challenger and challenged shall wear similar apparel and be equipped with matching pistols, so that neither shall gain unfair advantage. And don't get any holes in it.”

I shot him a sour look. “This is bloody stupid,” I said. “I don't know how to shoot a pistol. I've got no chance.”

“Leave us, please, would you, Bentley,” said the Duck, looking rather ruffled.

Bentley gave my back one last stroke with the hog bristles and bowed out.

The Duck stood up, tugged his waistcoat tightly down over the top of his breeches, from where it had ridden up, and started strutting. I watched him in the cheval mirror. I hated it when he strutted, with his hands stuck behind his back, flicking his tails up as he talked, like a duck preening its feathers.

“Stephen, I make no secret of the fact that you are not the son I had hoped for—” he began, in a grave tone.

“And you're not the father I'd hoped for,” I said, fiddling with my silk cravat. “I thought you'd be taller.”

“You will hear me out, sir!” he quacked. “I will brook no defeatist talk in front of the servants.”

“Oh, shut up, Shorty.”

“Sir, I will not stand for your damn impertinence!” he insisted.

“Siddown then,” I said.

“Remember,” he said, puffing out his chest, sticking out his chin and gazing off into his own little dream world, “you are a Duckworth, sir. Need I remind you, the family honour rests on your shoulders in this matter?” And then his voice became almost Churchillian: “And never, nay, never, forget the Duckworth family motto: ego amo adversa.”

“Yeah, well, let's hope I don't run out of ammo. How many bullets do I get?”

“Ammo? Bullets? I'm talking about honour, sir. We Duckworths thrive on adversity,” said the Duck.

“You might, mate. I just want to thrive on,” I said.

“It's in our blood,” said the Duck, drifting off into that dream realm of honour and noblesse oblige again.

“Just as long as I don't get any lead in mine, I'll be happy,” I said.

“Do your duty, sir—that is all I ask,” said the Duck.

“I'll do a runner if you don't put a sock in it,” I said. “And how come I'm always the one who has to defend the family honour? Why don't you get stuck in for a change?”

“She's your bird!” he cried. “You're the one he challenged!”

“You could have warned me he was the Clint-bloody-Eastwood of Versailles!”

“I tried! You wouldn't listen!”

“Yeah. Right. You're loving every minute of this. If I should die in a corner of some farmer's field, think only this of me: it's all your bloody fault!” I said.

“How the hell is it my fault?”

“It's always your fault.”

“Not this time, mate—you got yourself into this one—don't go blaming me.”

“Who brought us here then? Who drugged me and stole three weeks of my life?”

“I never told you to insult a bloody French aristocrat, did I?”

“Who invited him here?”

“He invited himself! I told you—he needs my help.”

“He must be desperate if he needs your help! What are you up to this time—treason?”

Suddenly there was a rap on the door.

We both stopped arguing and looked at the door and then back at each other. There was another sharp knock. I nodded towards the door and the Duck marched across to answer it.

It was De Quipp's second, a fat French army lower rank, sporting a huge walrus moustache, who had mysteriously appeared at Duckworth Hall that very afternoon, in full Napoleonic uniform, completely out of the blue. He reminded me of someone, but I could not for the life of me think who it was.

I heard the gruff-voiced Frenchman whispering and then the Duck whispering something back. And then the Duck exclaimed:

“Vous plaisantez! You have got to be kidding! Il est un aristocrate!”

More urgent whispers ensued and then their business seemed to be concluded with a curt bow apiece. The French soldier shot me a cursory glance, clicked his heels, and disappeared. The Duck slammed the door.

“Bloody cheek!”

“What?” I said.

“He was only going to call it off!”

“Was?” I said. “You mean you called it on again?”

“What choice did I have?”

“You re-challenged me?”

“I had to! Do you know why he wanted to call it off?”

“Never mind that. Let me get this straight. This guy was going to blow my brains out and then he changed his mind, and then you changed it back again? Is that what you're telling me?”

“You don't understand—”

“I don't understand? Pretty soon I won't be able to breathe, walk, talk, pump blood around my body, or change my socks. What did I miss?”

“Listen. He said De Quipp said he couldn't take to the field of honour with you, because after talking to Emma he realized you were not his social equal.”

“Yeah. So?”

“That's an insult. He's thinks you're not good enough to shoot.”

“Yeah. So?”

“He's calling you his social inferior.”

“Yeah. And?”

“And you're not.”

“Yes I am.”

“No you're not. You're my son.”

“Don't remind me. Look. I don't mind being called his social inferior—I like being his social inferior! Now, go and call Captain Walrus back and tell him I accept De Quipp's withdrawal.”

“That will not be necessary,” blinked the Duck.

I could see he was about to make some startling new revelation. He tugged the lapels of his frock coat straight.

“Oh, I see,” I said. “You've volunteered to fight him.”

The Duck closed his eyes and shook his head, patiently.

“Just tell me what you've done,” I said.

“You, my son, are his social superior,” he announced.

“I work in advertising. I make up jingles for breakfast cereals and haiku about cars. I was brought up in a semi in suburbia. How am I superior to a senior officer in Napoleon's Imperial Army?”

“Because I bought you a baronetcy for your eighteenth birthday—that's how! You even outrank me, mate!”

I was dumbfounded. Now, I would be lying if I said a certain warm wave of good old-fashioned snobbery didn't wash over me in that first instant of my investiture. I believe my spine actually straightened a few notches.

“I'm a baron?” I said.

“Net,” corrected my father. “A baronet: lower than a baron, higher than a knight.”

“You bought me a title? But—why?”

“Is that all you've got to say, Sir? And that's sir with a capital ‘S,' by the way,” blinked the Duck, with what I thought I detected as a hint of deference.

My hands automatically clasped together, in a rather Prince Charlesesque manner, as I struggled to find the appropriate words and tried to look humble. “Well, of course, one is always terribly, terribly humbled on these occasions. One doesn't know what to say. One means, one is overwhelmed by one's generosity—but it's not going to do one much good if one is six feet under by tomorrow morning, is it!”

The Duck spread his hands out like a film director, interpreting a scene for his cameraman. “Imagine the gravestone: ‘Sir Stephen Gilmour Sloane of Duckworth, Bart.'”

“It might as well say ‘fart'—I'll be dead, you moron!”

“You are not going to lose this duel. Trust me.”

“Me—trust you?” I laughed. “Satan will be doing the school run in a troika first.”

“Listen to me. No way would I let that Parisian peacock take you down.”

“Yeah, right. Anyway, I thought I was supposed to be immortal,” I said.

“Only if you don't die,” said the Duck.

“Duh.”

“No, what I mean is: you're not Superman—the bullets won't bounce off your chest—but the gene string I implanted in your foetus will prevent you from ageing beyond normal adulthood. You'll be ever young. Just like me.”

“A beautiful corpse, you mean.” I gripped my father's arm, suddenly seized by mortal fear. “Don't let me die, Dad.”

“You're not going to die. I'll sort it.”

“Oh God, I just had a premonition of the cold earth closing over me.” I shivered. “The darkness…oh, the darkness…the never-ending nothingness—I can't face it—I'm not ready. I've got a kid on the way I'll never even see. I can't go through with this! Everything's black, black, black—”

The Duck prised my fingers off his arm. “You're sounding like a Morrissey lyric! Snap out of it. Let's roll one and chill.”

“Don't say that word!”

“What—Morrissey?”

“No—chill.” I grabbed his arm again. “I just felt Death's icy hand feeling my collar!”

He shrugged me off. “Get off! It was just a draught from the door.”

“What was that?”

“What?”

“Every noise appals me. I thought I heard something.” I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “Up there.”

“It's just the wind in the chimney.”

“It came from… the attic.”

“Er, there's nothing up there, mate.”

“How do you know? Something could be lurking in the shadows, something evil…”

“Because I turned it into a bowling alley. Now, pull yourself together.”

“A bowling alley?”

“Yeah, it's all sound-proofed. I've got the lot up there—jukebox, beer cooler, automatic set-up and return—”

“You built a bowling alley in your attic?”

“Fancy a couple of Buds and a few strikes?”

“You expect me to go bowling, when all I can think about is death?”

“Have a little faith,” sighed the Duck. “De Quipp has agreed to use my boxed set of genuine Robert Wogdon duelling pistols—Robbo let me have 'em cheap—they're a really lovely brace, muzzle-loaders, walnut grips, brown octagonal barrelling—”

“I do not want to hear this!”

“Listen, I'm going to nobble his gun, so it blows up in his face.”

“Okay. Let's go bowling,” I said.

“Hey?”

“Bowling, a few beers, you said.”

“Is that all you've got to say?”

“Don't get the guns mixed up,” I said.

“Don't you even want to know how I'm going to do it?”

“No. Less I know, the better. Then I can act surprised. Come on, let's go.”

“You've perked up.”

“I prefer bowling to death.”

“Oh, um, I forgot the pin set-up gear's playing up. Gotta get it fixed. I use a blacksmith in the village—he thinks it's a top secret cannonball loading machine I invented.”

“So, we can't go bowling? You promised me bowling. Have a little faith, you said. How can I trust you to fix De Quipp's gun, if you're the kind of father who promises his son bowling and then reneges?”

“Look, I'll get it fixed. I'm still staunch, mate. We can go bowling another time.”

“That's what all fathers say,” I said. “Don't promise your kid things you can't deliver.”

“Yeah, all right. Point taken,” said the Duck. “We could do something else.”

“Like what?”

“Um, shooting—er, no, not that. Um. Happy Families? No, maybe not. I know, let's do some drawing—”

Suddenly, there was another knock at the door.

My skin goosebumped. The Duck and I looked at each other and both shrugged. There was another knock. Only this time, it was louder.

“Are you expecting anyone?” whispered the Duck.

“Yeah, a hooded guy in a long black cloak, carrying a scythe,” I said. “Tell him I already gave.”

I scrambled under my bed, while the Duck went to answer the door. I held my breath. I think I actually managed to stop my heart from beating. And then I thought I might give myself brain damage, so I allowed myself a few shallow breaths. I heard Emma's voice and then the Duck's inviting her in. I squeezed myself right under the bed, meaning to come out the other side and pretend I was tying up my shoelace or something. But I got stuck midway.

“Steve? Steve?” I heard Emma calling, close by.

I craned my neck round and saw the bottom of her pretty blue and white floral print dress, and the Duck's yellow-stockinged legs and black patent leather house shoes.

“He's not here,” said Emma.

“Well, he was,” said the Duck. “Stephen? Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

I knew the Duck knew where I was, and that he knew I knew he knew. But there was nothing I could do.