The Swap by Antony Moore Page A

death? He shuddered bodily.
    'Eat your breakfast, dear. It'll do you good and get you ready for the party. Now, tell us about Charles Odd. What did you talk about at the reunion?'
    Harvey filled his mouth with black pudding. It seemed the easiest way to stop himself from crying out loud.

Chapter Twelve
    The worst aspect of growing older was when habits became traditions. The lunch party had become another one: after every reunion they went to Steve's and stood around in his sitting room, drinking too early and feeling uncomfortable. This unease was usually added to for Harvey by the fact that Steve had two children, now risen to three, and he had no gift with children. Even though his interests were, by his own admission, almost exclusively juvenile, he did not enjoy sharing them with, well . . . juveniles. And he hated fucking Pokemon and that always created a clash. Today, however, he hardly gave the kids a thought. Indeed, he felt quite ready to pretend to be a train, or build something out of toilet rolls or even watch Japanese pocket animals if it was required of him. He was feeling a powerful and passionate desire for normality. He wanted to be bored.
    Looking back on the party afterwards, Harvey found it very hard to fix his emotional reactions. He had arrived with so much to think about, more really than he had ever had before, but he spent much of the early period talking about sex with men less knowledgeable in that area than himself – and such men are not easily found. How this happened was not altogether clear. He had arrived seeking boredom and the absence of incident and at first had found it in abundance. But then someone had mentioned the murder. A discussion of Bleeder and his mother had begun and Harvey had suddenly felt a desperate need to stop it, as if between them the reunionists were about to solve the crime and point the finger at him. So he had mentioned, pretty much at random, that it might be a sex killing: that perhaps the local press was being delicate to spare Bleeder's feelings. This led to a general expression of doubt that anyone would wish to seek sexual congress with old Mrs Odd. And Harvey, whether through the desire to move the conversation into other areas or through some obscure gallantry, felt compelled to defend the old as potential sex targets. This had led to the suggestion, from Steve, that perhaps Harvey liked 'a bit of scrag-end'. From here the conversation had taken a personal turn and Harvey had found himself becoming red in the face and defensive. 'I do not have any interest in screwing old ladies, you fucking arsehole' were the exact words he was speaking into a silent room populated by, among others, two children aged six and three and a babe-in-arms, when Maisie Cooper arrived. There was a long silence penetrated by sniggering from the men grouped around Harvey.
    'Well, that's good to know Harvey.' Jeff Cooper had also arrived. 'But your mother must be devastated.'
    Many smokers feel angry about the bans and prohibitions around their habit. But Harvey had always rather welcomed them. Being part of a segregated minority, being oppressed, was something he had quietly dreamed of through most of his adult life. Nothing too harsh, of course, not racism or lack of human rights, but the minor grievances of being a smoker in a non-smoking world suited him rather well. And for this reason he felt an unfair but real animus against Steve for being liberal and open-minded enough to have ashtrays all around his sitting room. What was the matter with him? Didn't he care about his children? No one in London would dream of behaving in such a decadent manner. What Harvey craved was to get out into the peace of the garden, turn his jacket up against the cold, perhaps moan a little, certainly do the sigh, and have a long miserable smoke. Instead, he was cornered by a bunch of men discussing sexual fetishism. 'And what about vacuum cleaners?' Rob was saying. 'Who discovered that one, that's