Tilly didn’t see why she had to be there. Ben had got out of it because he had cricket practice. Usually she was just a disappointment. Martha always berated her afterwards. Why didn’t you use their names? Please look at someone when you speak to them. Stand up straight, you’re always hunching, you don’t want bad posture,
When Mr Buch arrived, Tilly stood up straight and said, ‘Hello, Mr Buch.’
Mr Buch said, ‘Call me Arnold. No one calls me Mr Buch.’
But she couldn’t call him Arnold. She didn’t call any adults by their real names. She would have to avoid calling him anything and her mother would be annoyed.
Mr Buch crossed his legs as he settled into the living-room chair. He was a tall grey-haired man, elegantly dressed but awkward in the chair, as if his limbs were not amenable to folding. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. Martha told Ada to get an ashtray. Ada was staring at him, wide-eyed. Because he was unknown and had arrived from their parents’ past—that exotic place that seemed to have happened in black and white on beaches and outside motels with names like Time and Tide Motor Inn. Arnold Buch looked like history, like someone you might meet on an overnight train. Tilly suspected he was an intellectual, because of his style, which was dignified and seemed impervious to trend, though his expression was similar to a baby’s, gazing about in wonder. How could her parents fit with this man? They were so unremarkable, so normal, so humdrum. What exoticness had her parents’ lives once touched? Martha had gone to a lot of trouble. She had vacuumed the house, puffed the couch cushions, and made cake with the blood plums. Then she put on a dress with a panel of black lace, which made her look like she had borrowed someone else’s glamour. She wore lipstick. Even this seemed extravagant.
‘Tilly plays the piano,’ Mike said to Mr Buch.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Tilly, appalled. She didn’t play. She’d never had a lesson. What she did on the piano was like finger painting.
‘Yes, you do,’ said Mike. ‘She doesn’t learn; she makes things up.’ Her father was doing his best to impress Mr Buch. ‘Arnold is a great pianist,’ Mike explained, crossing his feet. He didn’t know where to look. Martha blushed. Tilly began to crumple inwardly.
‘I can play chopsticks,’ Ada jumped in.
Mr Buch nodded, but he didn’t say anything to Ada. He looked at Tilly.
It was surprising he didn’t indulge Ada like adults usually did. Obviously he had no experience with kids. He leaned forward, as if about to tell her something important.
‘Would you like a drink, Arnold?’ Martha interrupted. ‘I’ve even made a plum cake for dessert. I never make cakes, so be warned.’
Mr Buch stared at Martha as if he had never seen her before. For a moment he didn’t answer her. Then he smiled and slipped his cigarette packet back in his coat.
‘So, what do you do now, Arnold? Do you have a family?’ Mike drew Ada onto his knee. Ada was curious enough about Mr Buch to oblige and stay.
‘Yes, I have a dog. Beefheart. A fine family we are. We often go out walking. Over the hills.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘In a small village in England, near Bath. I spend a lot of time walking in the woods, so to speak. Occasionally I come back here to see my mother and sister. I lead a fairly itinerant life, but that way I can cause as much trouble as I like: I’m always about to leave.’
‘What’s itinerant?’ said Ada, wriggling.
‘That just means he is always on the move,’ said Mike.
‘What sort of trouble do you cause?’ said Martha, arriving with a gin and tonic.
‘Oh, just the usual. Highway robbery. That sort of thing.’ ‘But what’s your line of work?’ pressed Mike.
Arthur Buch’s eyes showed a sort of faint amusement. He glanced down at the ice in his drink and swirled it around, as if he had found in the drink whatever it was he was looking for.
‘Well, I’m a futurist. Which means I look at what could happen in the future and, in some cases, what should happen in the future, in order to prevent what might otherwise happen in the more distant future.’
There was a silence. Martha frowned. She looked as if she was not even listening to Arnold Buch, even though she stared right at him. Ada jumped off Mike’s lap and helped herself to cheese and biscuit. Tilly watched her mother.
‘Jesus, Arnold, that sounds complicated,’ said Mike.
‘Not really. It’s like being a weatherman actually.’
Martha smoothed her dress over her knees.
‘What do you see, then, for the future, Arthur?’
‘Dark times, mainly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean as long as we continue to believe that prosperity depends on economic growth…I mean we pollute the ocean, the sky, the earth. We’ve forgotten what makes life liveable.’
The way he said this, with his eyes faintly closed, like a priest, as if this was a religion, was magic. Tilly stared. What he said had to be true.
‘That’s a bit dramatic,’ Mike said.
‘Have you forgotten too, Arnold?’ said Martha. Her voice was cold.
Arnold Buch faltered. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’ It was the first time he seemed uncertain. Tilly liked him better then. As if he felt it, he turned to her. ‘How old are you Tilly? Do you like the ocean?’
Tilly startled. It wasn’t that it was an odd question, but it was odd coming from Mr Buch—he looked as if he knew what she was thinking, as if he and she both knew something that no one else would understand.
‘I’m seventeen. I like the sea. But we never go there.’
Mr Buch didn’t reply. He didn’t even seem to take much interest in the answer after all. Perhaps she wasn’t any different from anyone else, after all.
‘We have a son, too. He’s fifteen, but he’s playing cricket right now. He’s very athletic. Like Mike,’ said Martha. She glanced at Mike.
Mr Buch smiled. He turned to Ada. ‘And what about you?’
Ada frowned as she considered this. ‘I just make things up to play.’
‘Oh, that’s the very best way to play, I think,’ said Mr Buch.
It was always Ada that people liked the best, thought Tilly. She didn’t care. She took a biscuit and left the room. Even if Martha would tell her off for it later.