Free Black Swan Green by David Mitchell Page A

stamp of approval, Michael. Treated myself to a crate of the stuff. Comes from a vineyard near that charming cottage we rented in the lakes last year.’
    ‘Wine? The Lake District? Cumbria? Oh, I think you’ll find you’re mistaken there, Brian.’
    ‘No, no, Michael, not the English lakes, the Italian lakes. Lombardy.’ Uncle Brian whirlpooled his wine round his glass, snuftered it and glugged it back. ‘Nineteen seventy-three. Blackberryesque, melony, oaky. I concur with your expert judgement, though, Michael. Not a bad little vintage.’
    ‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘dig in, everyone!’
    After the first round of ‘ delicious! ’es Aunt Alice said, ‘It’s been all go at school this term, hasn’t it, boys? Nigel’s the captain of the chess club.’
    ‘President,’ said Nigel, ‘actually.’
    ‘Beg pudding! Nigel’s the president of the chess club. And Alex is doing incredible things with the school computer, aren’t you, Alex? I can’t even set the video recordery doo-dah, but—’
    ‘Alex’s streets ahead of his teachers,’ said Uncle Brian, ‘truth be told. What is it you’re doing with it, Alex?’
    ‘FORTRAN. BASIC.’ Alex spoke like it hurt him. ‘PASCAL. Z-80 Code.’
    ‘You must be ever so intelligent,’ said Julia, so brightly I couldn’t tell if she’d said it sarkily or not.
    ‘Oh, you bet Alex is intelligent,’ said Hugo. ‘The brain of Alexander Lamb is the final frontier of British science.’
    Alex glared at his brother.
    ‘There’s a real future in computering.’ Dad loaded his spoon with prawns. ‘Technology, design, electric cars. That ’s what schools should be teaching. Not all this “wandered lonely as a cloud” guff. Like I was telling Craig Salt – he’s our MD at Greenland – just the other—’
    ‘Couldn’t agree with you more, Michael,’ Uncle Brian made a face like an evil mastermind announcing his plan for world domination, ‘which is why Alex is getting a hot-off-the-press twenty-pound note for every grade A this year, and a ten-pound note for every B – to buy his very own IBM.’ (My jealousy throbbed like toothache. Dad says paying your kids to study is ‘derelict’.) ‘Nothing beats the profit motive, right?’
    Mum stepped in. ‘And how about you, Hugo?’
    At last I could study Hugo without pretending not to.
    ‘Mainly,’ Hugo took a sip of water, ‘I’ve had some lucky races in the canoeing team, Aunt Helena.’
    ‘Hugo,’ Uncle Brian burped, ‘has showered himself in glory! By rights he should be the head honcho oarsman chappie, but some stuffed fat-arsed governor – oops, pardon my French – who owns half of Lloyd’s Insurance threatened to kick up a stink if his own Little Lord Herbert Bonks wasn’t appointed. What’s that child’s name again, Hugo?’
    ‘You might mean Dominic Fitzsimmons, Dad.’
    ‘“ Dominic Fitzsimmons ”! Couldn’t make it up, could you?’
    I prayed the spotlight’d swivel its gaze towards Julia. I prayed Mum wouldn’t mention the poetry prize, not in front of Hugo.
    ‘Jason won the Hereford and Worcester County Libraries Poetry Prize,’ said Mum. ‘Didn’t you, Jason?’
    ‘I had to write it.’ Shame boiled my earlobes and there was nowhere to look but at my food. ‘In English. I didn’t’ (I tested the word know a couple of times but saw I was going to stammer spastically on it) ‘I didn’t realize Miss Lippetts was even going to enter it.’
    ‘Don’t hide your light under a bushel!’ cried Aunt Alice.
    ‘Jason won a splendid dictionary,’ said Mum, ‘didn’t you, Jason?’
    Alex the Git fired his sarcasm below adult radar. ‘ I ’d really like to hear your poem, Jason.’
    ‘Can’t. Don’t have my exercise book.’
    ‘What a pity.’
    ‘The Malvern Gazetteer printed the winning entries,’ said Mum. ‘Alongside Jason’s mug-shot, in fact! We can dig it out after dinner.’
    (Even the memory was a torture. They sent a photographer to school and made me pose in