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Nick Harkaway

ANGELMAKER

I

The socks of the fathers;

mammalian supremacy;

visiting an old lady.

At seven fifteen a. m. , his bedroom slightly colder than the vacuum of space, Joshua Joseph Spork wears a longish leather coat and a pair of his father’s golfing socks. Papa Spork was not a natural golfer. Among other differences, natural golfers do not acquire their socks by hijacking a lorryload destined for St. Andrews. It isn’t done. Golf is a religion of patience. Socks come and socks go, and the wise golfer waits, sees the pair he wants, and buys it without fuss. The notion that he might put a Thompson sub-machine gun in the face of the burly Glaswegian driver, and tell him to quit the cab or adorn it… well. A man who does that is never going to get his handicap down below the teens.

The upside is that Joe doesn’t think of these socks as belonging to Papa Spork. They’re just one of two thousand pairs he inherited when his father passed on to the great bunker in the sky, contents of a lock-up off Brick Lane. He returned as much of the swag as he could—it was a weird, motley collection, very appropriate to Papa Spork’s somewhat eccentric life of crime—and found himself left with several suitcases of personal effects, family Bibles and albums, some bits and bobs his father apparently stole from his father, and a few pairs of socks the chairman of St. Andrews suggested he keep as a memento.

“I appreciate it can’t have been easy, doing this,” the chairman said over the phone. “Old wounds and so on. ”

“Really, I’m just embarrassed. ”

“Good Lord, don’t be. Bad enough that the sins of the fathers shall descend and all that, without feeling embarrassed about it. My father was in Bomber Command. Helped plan the firebombing of Dresden.

“I suppose so. ”

“Dresden was during the war, of course, so I suppose they thought it had to be done. Jolly heroic, no doubt. But I’ve seen photographs. Have you?”

“No. ”

“Try not to, I should. They’ll stay with you. But if ever you do, for some godforsaken reason, it might make you feel better to be wearing a pair of lurid Argyles. I’m putting a few in a parcel. If it will salve your guilt, I shall choose the absolute nastiest ones. ”

“Oh, yes, all right. Thank you. ”

“I fly myself, you know. Civilian. I used to love it, but recently I can’t help but see firebombs falling. So I’ve sort of given up. Rather a shame, really. ”

“Yes, it is. ”

There’s a pause while the chairman considers the possibility that he may have revealed rather more of himself than he had intended.

“Right then. It’ll be the chartreuse. I quite fancy a pair of those myself, to wear next time I visit the old bugger up at Hawley Churchyard. ‘Look here, you frightful old sod,’ I shall tell him, ‘where you persuaded yourself it was absolutely vital that we immolate a city full of civilians, other men’s fathers restricted themselves to stealing ugly socks. ’ That ought to show him, eh?”