No Place Like Home by Jane Renshaw (the best electronic book reader .TXT) 📗

Laddies and none of them were obscene or anything, that I could see… But maybe there was a double meaning?’

‘No no, it was fine.’

‘So why –?’

‘There’s a bit of sensitivity, maybe, about English people… mocking the Scots language.’

‘But I wasn’t mocking it!’ Bram gaped at her in consternation. ‘No! No! I love it, I love all the different dialects and the history behind the Scots language and–’

‘I know that, but they don’t, necessarily.’

He jumped up. ‘I have to explain.’

‘No. Bram, just leave it–’

But this was terrible! He cannoned back down the stairs and made his way to the middle of the Walton Room, clapping his hands to silence the chatter, to get everyone’s attention.

‘People, I just have a few words to say.’ God, what was he going to say? ‘About that bothy ballad I just sang. Kirsty has pointed out to me that it might have been taken the wrong way? That maybe you might have thought I was having a go, having a laugh at it? At the Scots accent, the Scots language? Which I absolutely wasn’t!’

‘Dad, no,’ groaned Max.

‘I love the way you all talk!’ Oh Christ. That had sounded so patronising.

‘And waaee love the waaee yaaaooo tooook, Braayyyiiiim!’ Fraser mimicked, and there was general laughter.

Not with him.

At him.

And he didn’t know what to say. He just stood there staring around him, and they all stared back, as if wondering what outrage he would perpetrate next.

‘I know I messed it up,’ he said lamely.

And he felt Kirsty’s arms snake around his chest from behind. ‘Oh, Bram, what are you like?’ she said brightly. ‘You’re your own worst critic.’

Silence. A few perfunctory smiles.

‘Absolutely,’ said Amy stoutly.

‘D’you want a bet?’ David roared from the back of the room, which erupted in laughter.

Bram slunk off again, through the kitchen and through the Room with a View – he was coming to hate this room – and out onto the terrace, from which the smell of charring meat was drifting in through the sliding doors, drawing a bit of a crowd. Fraser was manning the barbecue, bottle of beer in hand. There seemed to be about a dozen of each item on the massive grill – burgers and chicken and kebabs and corn on the cob and sausages. Bram dropped onto one of the seats just outside the doors, bile rising as he thought of that huge raw heart, seeping blood into the risotto.

There was a group of teenagers on the other side of the terrace, some sitting on the low wall, some standing. Max approached them, holding a platter of the hors d’oeuvres he’d made – ricotta, avocado and pine nut toasts, tomato tartlets and crispy kale with a chilli yoghurt dip. As Bram watched, one of the girls picked up a piece of crispy kale and shoved it at a boy’s mouth. The boy backed off, laughing, and the girl threw the kale at him.

‘That’s not food, that’s what you’d scrape off the floor after a fire in a rabbit hutch,’ she said. ‘Did you make this crap?’

‘Yep.’

‘Man, you need to get a life,’ said Finn Taylor. ‘Although I guess you needed an excuse to get out of the room while your dad was practising his “singing”? He sometimes makes you do it, yeah?’

‘He doesn’t make me do it.’

‘Can you imagine two of them giving it fal-de-diddly-dee?’ giggled the girl.

‘Actually,’ said Max, ‘a lot of folk songs are used in contemporary music. Modern-day songwriters derive inspiration from them.’

Finn whooped. ‘Modern-day songwriters derive inspiration? Oh, I say, old chap, how spiffing!’

‘Such as who?’ Cara Taylor spoke for the first time. ‘What songwriters are you thinking of, Max?’

‘Doja Cat,’ laughed Finn.

‘Kendrick Lamar,’ suggested another boy. ‘You reckon he’d derive inspiration from folk songs?’

Max shrugged.

‘Name a Kendrick Lamar track, Max,’ demanded Finn.

As Max looked blank, the others all laughed.

Apart from Cara. ‘Shut up, idiots. I genuinely want to know. Which songwriters, Max?’

‘The Beach Boys? Paul Simon?’

‘Who?’

‘As in Simon and Garfunkel.’

The teenagers looked at each other.

‘Oh my God, you are my dad,’ the loud girl cackled. ‘Are you actually like fifty but you use a lot of moisturiser?’

Bram hadn’t wanted to intervene and embarrass Max all the more, but this had gone far enough. He got up and walked over to the group, patting Max on the back. ‘I think these particular delicacies are wasted on an immature palate.’ He smiled round the group of kids.

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Finn, looking Bram right in the eye. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any chicken nuggets and chips, Mr Hendriksen?’

‘We’ll see what we can do. Max, could I have your assistance in the kitchen for a minute?’

The kitchen had emptied out a bit as people gravitated towards the barbecue. Max opened the freezer. ‘The only battered stuff we’ve got is vegetable tempura, and I don’t think that’s going to cut it.’

‘I think Finn was joking. And anyway, it’s not as if there’s any shortage of rubbish for them to eat, with Fraser manning the barbecue.’

Max shut the freezer door with a sigh. ‘This party sucks.’

Bram spluttered a laugh. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’ He put a hand on Max’s shoulder. ‘You know, there’s no shame in not wanting to buy into mainstream teenage culture. It’s okay to have different interests; not to know about the rappers and so on. You’re more into folk music and there’s nothing wrong with that.’

Max, squirming in embarrassment, shrugged.

‘It’s a strength, Max, not a weakness, to be an individual rather than trying desperately to be like everyone else, like a silly sheep.’

‘Maybe in London,’ Max sighed. ‘But we’re not in Kansas anymore, Dad.’

12

When Bram had refilled another couple of pails from the stream, he sat down on the bank and took a moment. There was music booming from the house now, a high-energy dance track he was sure none of the Hendriksens possessed. One of those appalling kids must have brought an iPod and put it in the docking station.

He’d rather stay out here and be jumped by