MALCOLM, RICHARD (1968 - ) A baleful influence on Spencer from childhood, my cousin, Richard, was at his most pernicious through his teens. Arriving in Drumfeld in a succession of ludicrous outfits, subsequently copied by Spencer, he would attend local discos, skulking in a corner, sipping from one of the foreign lagers he insisted on drinking while sneering at the locals. Occasionally, he'd dance like an idiot to one of the gloomy records nobody else enjoyed, his long black coat flapping as he pirouetted on the tips of his pixie boots. Several feet away, Spencer would attempt to imitate him until being chided for ‘cramping his style' on which he would sheepishly retreat to the periphery of the dance-floor and watch the conclusion of Richard's moronic exhibition from a distance.

For years, the Malcolms came to Drumfeld for Christmas lunch, another opportunity for Richard to assert his sense of superiority to everyone else in the vicinity. The inability, or refusal, to enjoy simple pleasures is the trademark of the smart alec and the boor. In my experience, a man's character can often be gauged by the enthusiasm with which he participates in carolling. If Richard sang at all, as the reader might anticipate, it was to sully proceedings with smuttily altered lyrics brayed in sepulchral tones of exaggerated dullness. As everyone else present attempted to enjoy themselves, exchanging jokes and pulling crackers, Richard rolled his eyes, scowled and angrily rebuffed any attempts to tousle his fringe with a paper hat. His appalling behaviour was encouraged by his mother, my Aunt Isobel who laboured under the delusion that her son was, indeed, cleverer than anyone else present. While his sarcastic remarks should have elicited cuffs, they were rewarded by her sycophantic laughter. Spencer was, if anything, worse, robotically repeating Richard's ridiculous opinions, going so far as to respond to Aunt Isobel's solemn announcement that Richard, then sixteen, loved men by embarking upon a gay phase of his own. A lack of opportunity in Drumfeld limited this to wearing eyeliner and smoking French cigarettes, traits he immediately abandoned when Richard turned up the next Christmas, dressed like a stevedore and with a girlfriend in tow.

 

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