Car Games

Robert has the front passenger seat for the drive home from church. It’s something he’s allowed on account of his recent growth spurt, and Mummy has said there is no need to make fuss. Which leaves Elizabeth with the women in the back, with the itch and torment of their autumn tweeds and talk of sleepless nights.

‘Dr MacPherson says I’ve the worst case of it,’ pronounces Mummy to end all conversation, and Nana Boyd points her nose towards the drizzle.

It’s a thing they often do. The women. Go silent over invisible things; a forgotten condolence, a missing thank you, a knitting pattern not returned. It’s the same at school with Susan Blair, who is sometimes Elizabeth’s friend and sometimes not. Though Mummy says Elizabeth should be thankful not to have a mother in the hospice like Susan does, with a trolley of wires and tubes that follow her to the lavatory.

At the first set of traffic lights a giant leaf slaps against the windscreen, flash dances, squealing between the wipers, and it seems so long ago, their summer trip to Millport, when Robert had held Elizabeth high above the icy waves and buried her in sand. When they had sat together in the back playing Yellow car and I-spy, singing One Man Went to Mo.

But that was the other Robert. Not the Robert in the front passenger seat, the Robert who blanks her at the dinner table, who tells her to buzz off when Peter Taylor comes to tea. Peter who used to be Elizabeth’s friend as well, who gave her his best Emerald Shooter for keeps, who once beat Robert at Battleships three times in a row.

It's a game of wits, Peter had explained to her kindly when she’d watched him do it from Robert’s bedroom doorway. Deduction and surmising.

Elizabeth inspects the yellow-headed spots on the back of her brother’s neck, his great translucent his ears, the way he clenches Daddy’s umbrella like a musket between his knees.

‘Robert, shall we have a game of something after lunch?’ she says, shuffling her feet on the brake hump. ‘How about Go-Fish? Best of five?’

Robert doesn’t bother to reply because they are approaching the monument at Battlefield Rest, and beyond it the newspaper kiosk looming squat and glossy in the rain.

Daddy turns the wheel sharply, sluicing the kerb with a silver-brown splash.

Bruce! Mummy winces, gripping at her roof handle.

Robert reaches into the glove box for the coin purse, flings open the front passenger door, Daddy’s umbrella unfurling above his head like a giant bat as he dashes for the kiosk.

Can I not go with him today to choose myself a different comic? begs Elizabeth. The stories in Bunty have started to bore her lately. Especially Lisa, the Lonely Ballerina who should just give up ballet and try another sport.

I’ll not have you skipping and skedaddling in along a busy road, say Mummy has to say. Which comes as no surprise, given that Sunday is her headache day, her heartburn day, the day-she-agrees-to-nothing day. Elizabeth slumps back into her seat, remembering how earlier in church she saw Mummy very nearly smile when Mr Moray leaned across the pews to whisper in her ear.

Looking fresh as a fruit salad, if I may say so, Mrs Boyd, Elizabeth swears she heard him say.

Although now, with the trials of lunch ahead of her, Mummy has more the pinched and waxen look of something over-ripe.

Damp-faced, Robert returns with their magazines and papers clamped firmly to his chest.

Top notch, says Daddy, as he sets the engine purring and pulls out onto the carriageway, pleased with Ford Cortina, its advanced suspension technology, the economy of its 1.3 litre engine.

Susan’s sister will be having driving lessons as soon as she turns seventeen! says Elizabeth.

But Robert chips in with a question about fuel injection that Daddy is keen to answer.

Elizabeth breathes in the smell of leatherette and Nana’s violet water, feels the lurch of hunger in her belly, the shame of being a girl, the prospect of later, after lunch, when the chewing is over, when Robert has polished off the meat and gravy and she has scraped the last of the jelly.

Will you not play a little of the old euphonium for us, lad? Daddy will say, leaning forward in his chair.

Mummy will serve coffee for the grown-ups from the long silver pot, cream will be poured, and slowly, Robert will rise from the table to open out his music stand and steady his book of tunes. Dazzling the room, he will lift the great brass beast from its leathery tomb. Nana Boyd will wrap her tiny mouth around a shortbread finger, eyelids flickering like moths as Robert ruptures the air with one mournful blast and his dreary tune unfolds. It used to have Elizabeth off her chair and marching on her toes, imagining the silver trumpet of her own that she intends to have some day. It used to be the high point of the week. best moment of the week. That and the board game afterwards with Robert by the fire. Though these days he is far happier left alone with his book of Scottish Kings. That and the torn-out pictures of lady parts that he keeps between the pages.

They are crawling brick by brick along the front of the old infirmary, where on brighter days patients come like ghosts to the window to wave at the Sunday traffic. It makes Elizabeth think of needles and blood, of snapped bones and phlegm, of motherless Susan Blair helping Daphne with the lunch. Daphne, her big- bosomed sister, who has started her time of the month.

Daddy swings left off Maryhill Parade at last, then turns right onto the Crescent, reversing slickly onto the driveway. And already Robert is unfastening his seat belt, scooping the papers from his lap.

I bet you Robert got himself something extra from the kiosk, blurts Elizabeth, You know, one of those magazines he likes with naked ladies on the cover.’

Not a wince from the women as Daddy wrenches up the handbrake. Just Robert flinging open the front passenger door, his great ears burning red.

Play you a game Boggle later! calls Elizabeth up the pathway. Or how about a round of Battleships, best of three. Promise not to tell Peter if you lose.