CHAPTER 77
Year by year, both our business and our son grew, and Geeta got her wish to see Sydney when we opened another branch there. Kul running it as a manager until we had integrated some more employees. One of them turned out to be Betty, who took over from Kul after a very few months, allowing the Butts to return. Ish was now five years old and in proper preschool, which he would regularly complain about.

“The reading’s boring, Dad!”

“Not all people learn to read as quickly as you did, son. This something you have to be patient about”

My boy. Maz had been listening, of course, and smiled happily at some memory.

“What’s brightened you, love?”

“Oh, it was something Alan said, about his own dad. Apparently, HIS dad had Alan’s… This is silly. Alan’s grandfather had Alan’s dad reading before he was four, and used to show him off to his mates, usually after he’d had a few beers. Alan’s grandfather, that is, not his dad”

“Mum, who’s Alan?”

My lover’s face fell, and she looked at me with a slight grimace.

“Ish, love, it’s a long story, but before Mum and Dad met, we were each married to someone else”

“Why?”

“We didn’t know each other back then, love”

“Where’s Alan?”

Oh shit. Maz drew a deep breath, looked at me for reassurance, and then turned back to Ish.

“Darling, I was married to a very nice man, who was Alan, and Dad was married to a very nice woman called Carolyn. Some very bad things happened, and… and both Alan and Carolyn died”

“Died? Like when people get very old?”

“Sort of. Dad and me, we lost Alan and Carolyn, and that is why we are so very happy we have you”

“Why are you crying, Mum?”

“Because what happened still makes me sad, and Dad is the same. We love each other very much, and we love you, but sometimes bad things happen, and that is why being a family is so important. Now, we ant to make a deal with you”

“What’s a deal?”

“Where you promise to do something, and so do we, to do a different thing”

“What thing?”

“To be patient with your teachers and classmates. Can you do that?”

“What do you do?”

You mercenary little…. child. I leant over towards him.

“What would you like?”

His answer surprised me, as I was expecting something suitably venal and age-appropriate.

“Could I please have another Barsoom book?”

Not pizza, chocolate, bike or trip to Rotto, but a book. If I had ever had cause to doubt his parentage, that one request would have refuted those thoughts. Maz chuckled happily.

“Ish?”

“Yes Mum?”

“I have just had a thought, and I think your Dad will like it. What do you think about getting our boy an e-reader so we can put books on for him?”

It was a brilliant idea, with the added bonus that if Ish were ever to misbehave badly enough, it would be an excellent way of bringing him back to the paths of righteousness as well as for rewarding and reinforcing his netter behaviour.. The following weekend, we were off to the city centre, returning with a small electronic device along with a suitable sturdy case for the inevitable bounce-testing by our boy. A look on the internet brought up a full set of Burroughs’ Mars books for about a dollar, which delighted my inner martyr, and I realised that I not only held a tool of punishment and reward, but said rewards would be incredibly cheap.

Win-win!

In the end, we actually had to enforce non-use on a regular basis, as he was absolutely addicted to the thing. Trips to the climbing wall were about the only thing that would lift his head from the tiny screen, so we rapidly discovered the necessity of limiting ‘device time’. I really couldn’t complain, as other parents faced rather more urgent or difficult problems.

He was just about six when he asked a question that stumped me.

“Dad, what’s you cliding?”

“Sorry?”

“You cliding. And ruggosy and skwaw moose?”

“Could you write those down for me, son?”

The terms were ‘Euclidean’, ‘rugose’ and ‘squamous’. I called for my wife.

“Mum?”

She appeared at the back door, pen in hand as she was working on another State school project.

“What’s up?”

“Have you been getting our little boy books by H.P. Lovecraft?”

“He liked the cover art”

Oh dear.

“I’ll explain later, love. Now, Ish: those words are ‘Euclidean’, which is geometry. You will study that at big school. It’s about shapes. ‘Rugose’ just means ‘wrinkly’, and ‘squamous’ means ‘covered in scales’. That writer liked to use lots of big words. Some of his stories are a bit frightening, so be careful”

“He used a bad word, Dad”

I looked at Ish, wondering if he had picked up on some of Lovecraft’s horrendous racism, while wondering if he was encountering any of his own.

“Ish, son, was the bad word the name of a cat?”

“Yes, Dad”

“Then we both know what word it is, so we don’t need to say it, okay?”

“Okay”

“That story is a very scary one”

He just nodded, then added, “I couldn’t understand bits of it, just the bits about rats”

“Scary enough, son. Now: when are we going camping again?”

Safer ground at last, away from that odd, neurotic bigot. I still found myself wondering how Ish would take ‘The Dunwich Horror’, or, especially, ‘At the Mountains of Madness’, and I was almost jealous at the thought that he had so many classic tales awaiting him, all completely fresh.

I would avoid the Joe Simpson ones for a while, though. They carried a real punch for a climber.

His reply to the camping question was a reminder of his real age, as it involved jumping up and down and yelling “Now!” and, well, there was enough space for a small tent in our back garden, and Maz and I separated for a night so that Dad and Lad could brave the wild frontier of our neat little lawn.

I made him leave his little device in the house, however.

We lost Chad for a few months as we expanded yet again, this time in Melbourne, and home office were getting repetitive in their praise. Our biggest earner remained our arrangement with the State authorities in W.A., but Betty had used a certain cousin’s links to get a real network flourishing in Sydney, and when Bobby discovered we had sort of colonised two other States, he got a very thoughtful look on his face, the cheeky bastard. The two of us and Kul were in Soapy Joe’s for one of our regular meetings when Bobby played his hand, or rather showed us the hand he had already played. Colleen was clearly doing her best not to laugh as he spoke.

“You’ve been expanding, you lot. That big town we won’t name in New South Wales, and Melbourne. We have our sources”

He couldn’t keep his own face straight, and had to cover his mouth, putting down the posh hotdog he was eating. The three of us just looked at each other, and waited. Eventually, he brought sobriety back to himself.

“We have regular meetings Mr Butt, us educator folk, and not just at State level. My boss’s boss was off at one last week, and before he went, our spies told us you were setting up stall over in the East, so Mr Muir, well, he starts chatting to his oppos from those States, doing a hard sell of your package. He says they are very interested”

I started to say something about fees, but Bobby was already waving me down, grin in place.

“Nope, not us selling it to them, but your lot getting a similar deal to ours. Course, there’s a finder’s fee to pay us for the proposal”

Kul looked a lot more serious than normal.

“How much are you asking from us?”

“from you? Streuth, Kul! It’s those bastards over in Vic and New South Wales we’re bilking, silly buggers. We just, you know, sped up tour marketing and took a cut for it, and none of that’s from you. You can say thanks now”

Maz was shaking her head in amusement, and then pointed at Kul.

“Bobby, that one will never live that down. He always thought he was the sneaky one”

He roared again.

“How do you think someone could ever get to be my boss’s boss without being absolutely bloody sneaky as? Seriously, what we need here is for us to have a common, what’s that comic book thing? Origin story. We need an agreed set of lies to say we haven’t gone round the house and in through the back door. Make sure your people know to expect a State call about their own transport fleet, and act as if you’re already drafting a package. And make sure you insist it’s a licensing scheme like ours”

Maz looked at me and Kul before asking, “Is that from your boss’s boss, Bobby?”

He picked up his boerie roll and took a small bite, chewed, swallowed and then smiled.

“No, Maz. That’s from me, to mates. Nothing dishonest, but over here we believe in looking after our people”

Sheffield were ecstatic once we had successfully brought home Bobby’s plan, and once again there were serious bonuses for all of us, as Kul had refused a simple trio of them. His e-mail was typical of the man, reminding head office that all of us were involved, not just three people at a sausage restaurant.

If it means that our proposed bonus is reduced as it is spread wider, that is only fair. All of the team offer powerful input, and this was a team effort.

I was blessing my luck once again in the people I met. Those of us in Perth celebrated with another session in the cottages down by Margaret River, Ish in a folding bed in our room, the sunset gorgeous through the huge window, and when we got home, Maryam and I shared our photo albums with him, so that he would know where all three of us had come from.