Archer’s Goon

“Then he can make himself useful,” Catriona said. She gave the Goon the kind, firm, unavoidable look that seemed to work so well on him. “Take this music up to the landing for me, and then come down and help me get supper. Oh, and do you play the piano?”

The Goon shook his head earnestly. He looked really alarmed.

“What a pity,” said Catriona. “Everyone should learn the piano. I wanted you to help Awful practise. Howard, why aren’t you doing your violin practice? Hurry up, both of you.”

As Howard and the Goon both leaped to their feet, Quentin said, “You’ve forgotten me. You haven’t asked why I’m not doing anything.”

“I know about you,” Catriona said. “I can see that you’re refusing to write another two thousand words. You should have done that thirteen years ago. Hurry up, Howard!”

Howard went gloomily to look for his violin. That was the bother with Mum not being tired. He and Awful both had to practise. Dad always politely allowed them to forget. He opened the cupboard under the stairs where his violin probably was and found the Goon tiptoeing gigantically after him, looking woebegone.

“Don’t know how to cook,” the Goon said.

“She’ll tell you how,” Howard said heartlessly. “She’s in her good mood.”

The Goon’s round eyes popped. “Good mood?”

Howard nodded. “Good mood.” The Goon’s way of talking was catching. He dragged his violin out from under a heap of Wellington boots and took it away upstairs, feeling really hopeful. An hour or so of Mum in her good mood might persuade even the Goon to leave.

Howard was not much good at playing the violin, but he was good at getting practice done. He set his alarm clock for twenty minutes later and spent four of the minutes sort of tuning strings. Then he put the violin under his chin and disconnected his mind. He let the bow rasp and wail, while he designed a totally new spaceship for carrying heavy goods, articulated so that it could thread its way among asteroids and powered by a revolutionary FTL drive.

That did not take long, so he spent another few minutes looking at himself in the mirror as he played, trying to see himself as the pilot of that spaceship. Although he was so tall, his face was annoyingly round and boyish. But the violin at least gave him several manly chins – though not as many as Dad had – and he thought that now that he had grown his straight tawnyish hair into a long fringe, his eyes stared out keenly beneath it. He could almost imagine those eyes playing over banks of instruments and dials or gazing out on hitherto unknown suns.

After ten minutes he was able to stop playing. Mum had told Awful to do her piano practice. Howard knew from experience that the resulting screams drowned everything else. He listened and from time to time drew the bow across the strings – so that he could truthfully say he had been playing the whole time – and felt more hopeful than ever. The Goon had proved sensitive to noise from Awful. Surely he would not be able to stand much more?

Finally, Awful’s screams died away to a sultry sobbing. Howard scribbled the bow about for another half minute. Then his alarm went off and he was able to go downstairs. He passed Fifi dialling Miss Potter again in the hall. In the kitchen Quentin was still sitting, still looking obstinate. Awful was lying on the floor, gulping, “Shan’t practise. Won’t practise. Want television. I shall die and then you’ll be sorry!” And the Goon, far from being driven away, was at the sink, laboriously carving potatoes down to the size of marbles and sweating with the effort.

“Very good!” Catriona told the Goon kindly.

“Now just peel the peel, and we might have enough to eat,” Howard said. The Goon gave him a wondering stare.

“Don’t tax his mind, Howard. He’s on overload already,” Quentin said.

“Want television!” bawled Awful.

Howard went away into the hall. It was funny, he thought, that Mum could control the Goon perfectly, yet she could never make Awful do anything at all. “Any luck?” he asked Fifi as she put down the phone.

“No,” Fifi said despairingly. “I’ll have to wait and try to catch her after the lecture tomorrow. Oh, Howard! I do feel so guilty!”

“She’s probably just forgotten you asked her to do it,” Howard said.

“She never forgets anything – not Maisie Potter!” said Fifi. “That’s why I asked her to do it. Howard, I’m afraid the Goon might stick his knife into your dad!”

“Not while Mum’s here,” said Howard. “Anyway, I don’t think Dad’s frightened of the Goon. He’s just annoyed.”

By the time supper was ready Awful had sobbed herself into the state where you feel ill. When she got like that, she could often make herself sick. She crawled under the table and made hopeful vomiting noises. She knew that would put everyone off supper anyway.

“Stop it, Awful!” everyone shouted. “Stop her, Howard!”

Howard got down on to his knees and looked into Awful’s angry, swollen face. “Do stop it,” he said. “You can have my coloured pencils if you stop.”

“Don’t want them,” said Awful. “I want to be disgustingly sick.”

The table above them lifted and sloped sharply. Howard found the Goon had got down on his knees too, half under the table. Fifi was catching knives and glasses as they slid off. “Bet you can’t be sick,” the Goon said to Awful. “Go on. Interested.”

Awful glowered at him.

“Let me try?” suggested the Goon. “Both do it. Bet I win.”

Awful’s swollen face began to look interested. She shrugged crossly. The Goon stuck his head out from under the table and looked at Quentin.

“Mind if we use the bathroom? Competition.”

The little head staring across the table looked rather as if it were on a plate. Quentin shut his eyes. “Do what you like. I don’t deserve any of this!”

“Come on,” the Goon said to Awful.

Awful scrambled out willingly. “I’m going to win,” she announced as they left.

Five minutes later they came back. Awful looked smug, and the Goon looked green. “Who won?” asked Howard.

“She did,” said the Goon. He seemed subdued and not very hungry. Awful, on the other hand, was thoroughly pleased and amiable and ate a great deal.

Howard was exasperated. If even Awful at her very worst could not send the Goon away, what would? The Goon ate the small amount he seemed able to manage with painstaking good manners and kept his feet wrapped dutifully around the back of his chair, so as not to lift the table.

And as if this were not enough, Catriona was grateful to the Goon for putting Awful in a good mood again. She began thinking of him as a proper visitor and wondering where he should sleep. “I wish we had a spare room,” she said. “But we haven’t, with Fifi here.”

Fifi and Howard were not the only ones who found this a bit much. “Get this quite clear,” Quentin said. “If he decides to stay, it’s his bad luck. He can sleep on the kitchen floor for all I care!”

“Quentin! That’s unfeeling!” said Catriona.

Howard made haste to get away again upstairs, where he barricaded himself into his room. He knew what would happen if he did not. His mother would give the Goon Howard’s room and make Howard share with Awful. And Howard was not making that sacrifice – not for the Goon! All the same, he was surprised to find, while he was wedging a chair under his doorknob, that he felt a little guilty. The Goon had helped him find Mountjoy and had made Mountjoy answer his questions. He seemed to want Howard to like him. “But I don’t like him this much!” Howard said, and made sure the chair was quite firm. Then he designed several more spaceships to take his mind off the Goon.

When he came down in the morning, he found the problem solved.

The Goon was doubled into the sofa in the front room, wrapped in the blankets that had been over the drums. The Goon had really settled in. He had moved the sofa round so that he could watch breakfast television and was basking there with a big grin on his face and a mug of tea in his hand as he watched. As Howard came in, however, the picture fizzed and vanished. Howard just caught the words ARCHER IS WATCHING YOU before the Goon’s long arm shot out and turned the television off.

“Keeps doing that,” the Goon said in an injured way.

“Perhaps Archer doesn’t trust you,” Howard said.

“Doing my best,” the Goon protested. “Staying here till your dad does the words.”

“You’re going the wrong way about it,” Howard explained. “I know Dad. You’ve got his back up by hanging around trying to bully him like this. The way to do it is to pretend to be very nice and say it doesn’t matter. Then Dad would get a bad conscience and do the words like a shot.”

“Got to do it my way,” the Goon said.

“Then don’t blame me if you’re still here next Christmas,” said Howard. The Goon grinned at that, as if he thought it was a good idea, annoying Howard considerably.