This Was a Man Read online

  Giles turned away, not wishing to embarrass the boy.

  “And once you’ve done that, what next?” asked Harry, when he saw his oldest friend close to tears.

  “A double century, Sir Harry,” said Freddie without hesitation.

  “It won’t be difficult to work out what you’ll want the following year, once you’ve achieved that,” said Grace.

  Everyone laughed.

  “Now it’s your turn, Karin,” said Emma.

  “I’ve decided to run the London Marathon, and to raise money for immigrants who want to go to university.”

  “How far is a marathon?” asked Samantha.

  “Just over twenty-six miles.”

  “Rather you than me. But put me down for five pounds a mile.”

  “That’s very generous, Sam,” said Karin.

  “Me too,” said Sebastian.

  “And me,” added Giles.

  “Thank you, but no thank you,” said Karin, taking a notebook from her pocket. “I already had Samantha down for five pounds a mile, and the rest of you will be expected to give the same proportion of your income.”

  “Help,” said Sebastian.

  “I’ll be coming to you last,” said Karin, smiling at Seb before consulting her list. “Grace is down for twenty-five pounds a mile, Emma and Harry fifty pounds each, and Giles one hundred. And Sebastian, as you’re chairman of the bank, I’ve got you down for a thousand pounds a mile. That adds up to—” she once again consulted her notebook—“thirty-one thousand, nine hundred and eighty pounds.”

  “Can I put in a plea on behalf of an immigrant art student from the new world, who isn’t at all sure who her parents are, and has unfortunately lost her scholarship?” Everyone laughed. “And what’s more, Freddie, Jake, and I would each like to give ten pounds a mile.”

  “But that would cost you seven hundred and eighty pounds,” said her father. “So I have to ask, how do you intend to pay?”

  “The bank will be requiring a portrait of its chairman to hang in the boardroom,” said Jessica. “Guess who they’re about to commission, and what her fee will be?”

  Harry smiled, delighted that his granddaughter had regained her irreverent streak, along with her acerbic sense of humor.

  “Do I have any say in this?” asked Seb.

  “Certainly not,” said Jessica. “Otherwise what’s the point of being a father?”

  “Bravo, Karin,” said Grace, “we all applaud you.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said Seb. “There will be a sub-clause attached to the contract. Not a penny will be paid if Karin fails to finish.”

  “Fair enough,” said Karin, “and my thanks to you all.”

  “Who’s left?” asked Emma.

  Everyone turned their attention to Harry, who couldn’t resist making them all wait for a few more moments.

  “Once upon a time there was a remarkable old lady, who, just before she died, wrote a letter to her son suggesting that perhaps the time had come for him to write that novel he had so often told her about.” He paused. “Well, Mother,” he said, looking toward the heavens, “that time has come. I no longer have any excuse not to fulfill your wish, as I’ve just completed the final book in the William Warwick series.”

  “Unless of course your wicked publisher,” suggested Emma, warming to the theme, “were to offer his susceptible author an even larger advance that he found impossible to resist.”

  “I’m happy to tell you that won’t be possible,” said Harry.

  “How come?” asked Seb.

  “I’ve just sent the final draft to Aaron Guinzburg, and he’s about to discover that I’ve killed off William Warwick.”

  Everyone was stunned into silence, except Giles, who said, “That didn’t stop Sir Arthur Conan Doyle bringing Sherlock Holmes back to life after his loyal readers thought Moriarty had thrown him off a clifftop.”

  “The same thought did cross my mind,” said Harry, “so I ended the book with William Warwick’s funeral, and his wife and children standing by the graveside watching his coffin being lowered into the ground. As far as I can recall, only one person has ever risen from the dead.”

  That silenced even Giles.

  “Are you able to tell us anything about the next novel?” asked Karin, who, like everyone else, was hearing about the death of William Warwick for the first time.

  Once again Harry waited until he had everyone’s attention, even Jake’s.

  “It will be set in one of the Russian satellites, probably Ukraine. The first chapter will open in a suburb of Kiev, where a family, mother, father, and child, will be having supper together.”

  “A boy or a girl?” asked Jessica.

  “Boy.”

  “Age?”

  “Haven’t decided yet. Fifteen, possibly sixteen. All I know for certain is that the family are celebrating the boy’s birthday, and during the meal, not exactly a feast, the reader will learn about the problems they face living under an oppressive regime when the father, a trade union leader, is considered to be a troublemaker, a dissident, someone who dares to challenge the state’s authority.”

  “If he’d been born in this country,” said Giles, “he would have been the leader of the opposition.”

  “But in his own country,” continued Harry, “he’s treated like an outlaw, a common criminal.”

  “What happens next?” asked Jessica.

  “The boy is about to open his only present, when an army truck comes to a screeching halt outside the house, and a dozen soldiers break down the door, drag the father out onto the street, and shoot him in front of his wife and child.”

  “You kill the hero in the first chapter?” said Emma in disbelief.

  “This is going to be a story about the child,” said Grace, “not the father.”

  “And the mother,” said Harry, “because she’s an intelligent, resourceful woman, who’s already worked out that if they don’t escape from the country, it won’t be long before her rebellious son will seek revenge, and inevitably end up suffering the same fate as his father.”

  “So where do they escape to?” demanded Jessica.

  “The mother can’t decide between America and England.”

  “How do they decide?” asked Karin.

  “On the toss of a coin.”

  The rest of the family continued to stare at the storyteller.

  “And what’s the twist?” asked Seb.

  “We follow what happens to the mother and child, chapter by chapter. In chapter one, they escape to America. In chapter two, England. So you have two parallel and very different stories taking place at the same time.”

  “Wow,” said Jessica. “Then what happens?”

  “I wish I knew,” said Harry. “But it’s my New Year’s resolution to find out.”

  29

  “TEN MINUTES TO GO,” said a voice over the loudspeaker. Karin kept jogging on the spot, attempting to get into what the seasoned runners called “the zone.” She’d put in hours of training, even run a half marathon, but suddenly she felt very alone on the starting line.

  “Five minutes,” said the voice of doom.

  Karin checked her stopwatch, a recent gift from Giles. 0:00. Get as close to the front as you can, Freddie had told her. Why add unnecessary time or distance to the race? Karin had never considered the marathon to be a race, she just hoped to finish in under four hours. Right now, she just hoped to finish.

  “One minute,” boomed the starter’s voice.

  Karin was about eleven rows back, but as there were over eight thousand runners, she considered that was near enough to the front.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!” the runners all shouted in unison, before a klaxon blared ominously. Karin pressed the button on her stopwatch and set off, swept along by an enthusiastic tide of runners.

  Each mile was marked with a thick blue line stretching across the road, and Karin completed the first mile in under eight minutes. As she settled into a st