Chapter Text
Mrs. Finch asked him to leave, of course. There was only so much excitement and intrigue an old woman’s nerves could take, and after the whole sordid business with Barnaby and Allan and Sakharine, Tintin could hardly fault her. She’d been more than generous with him, really. Most landladies, he was fairly certain, started eviction proceedings after the first doorstep shooting.
Captain Haddock was full of opinions on the matter.
“It’s an outrage!” he said, not for the first time that morning. “It’s a crime, the way she’s fobbed you off.”
“She’s well within her legal rights, Captain, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” said Tintin.
“To what? Turn you out to the street like some…some”—he fumbled, fishing for an appropriately bombastic word—“some heartless bashi-bazouk?”
Tintin cracked a smile. He’d known sailors to have colourful vocabularies, but Haddock put even the most inventive of them to shame. He might need to start carrying around a pocket thesaurus if he wanted to keep up. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
A look of thunder crossed Haddock’s face, but he stopped attacking Mrs. Finch for a moment to start attacking his plate of beans and toast. With renovations at Marlinspike Hall in full swing, they’d taken to sitting together in the conservatory, away from the hammers and drills and sawdust. The sun was bright through the unwashed glass, and it was warm enough that Tintin had shed his trench coat and rolled up the sleeves of his jumper. Snowy was happily gnawing on a bone beneath the table. Professor Calculus had his face buried in a copy of Le Petit Vingtième, still dressed in his pyjamas and utterly lost in Tintin’s latest article on Bagghar and Omar Ben Salaad and the opium trade.
A peaceful morning, by all accounts. Or, it would have been, if it weren’t for a certain captain and his temper.
Haddock washed down his breakfast with a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. And with that, he was set to fire off again. “It’s not right, by thunder!” he said. “It wasn’t your fault, what happened with Barnaby.”
“My fault or not, either way, poor Mrs. Finch still ended up with half a dozen bullet holes in her front door,” said Tintin. “It was kind enough of her not to charge me for the repairs.”
Haddock grumbled something disagreeable-sounding under his breath. “How long do you have?”
“She’s given me two weeks’ notice.”
Haddock’s face reddened. Any more indignant, Tintin thought, biting back laughter, and there might have been plumes of smoke billowing out of his ears. “Two weeks!” he said. “The miserable bat. I ought to march over there myself and give her a piece of my mind!”
At the word mind, he made an animated gesture with his fist, like wringing the neck of a chicken. The force of it knocked his teacup aside and rattled his cutlery into the air.
None the wiser, Calculus chuckled to himself and turned the page.
Tintin used his napkin to mop up the puddle of tea creeping across the table. “Keep giving out pieces of your mind like that, Captain,” he said politely, “and someday you won’t have much of it left.”
Haddock sank back into his seat. His embarrassment seemed to be the only thing keeping him from launching into another tirade about landladies, or Interpol, or Sakharine. “I don’t know that I had much of one to begin with,” he muttered, and stuck his pipe between his teeth.
Tintin took a sip of his coffee. Bracing, which was just what you needed for a conversation with the captain. “I’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this before,” he said. “It’s not so bad.”
And it wasn’t, really. It was hard to call it a proper home, that little flat on Labrador Road, when he fell asleep most nights curled up on train benches and stowed away in ship cabins. More often than not these days, he opened his front door to find the place ransacked, wiretapped, or covered in a fine patina of dust. A change of scenery couldn’t do him any harm. The neighbours would have thanked him for it, at least.
Haddock exhaled with a strong-smelling puff of smoke. “Right, then,” he said, as if readying himself for a long voyage at sea. “What’s the next step for you?”
“The same as anyone else, I imagine,” said Tintin. “I’ll have to pack my things and start looking for a new flat.”
“Have you no family to stay with?”
“Er—no, actually.”
Haddock furrowed his brow. “No aunts? Uncles? Estranged cousins?”
Before Tintin could respond, the phone gave an impertinent ring somewhere down the hall, drawing their attention to the doorway. There was Nestor—always lurking wherever there was conversation—who gave a little jolt in surprise at being seen. He started, turning on his heel, but Haddock was already on his feet to intercept him, sidestepping piles of old cinder blocks and empty plant pots.
“I’ll get it, Nestor,” he said imperiously.
“Right you are, sir,” said Nestor, and skirted off.
Calculus looked up from his newspaper at last. “My dear boy,” he said to Tintin, with a daft, avuncular smile, “you never told me that you’d flown an aeroplane before.”
Tintin raised his eyebrows. He wasn't sure it could technically have been described as flying, that fiasco of an adventure over the Sahara. A controlled crash, if he was being generous. Afterwards, as they trudged through the desert, squinting against the sandblast, leaning against each other for strength, and still stinking of petrol from the wreckage, Haddock had crossed himself and sworn on his mother’s grave and the name of every saint he knew that he would never again set foot in an aircraft for as long as he lived.
The editor of Le Petit Vingtième had rather forcefully insisted he leave that part out.
“Only very briefly, Professor,” Tintin said. “And only because it was an emergency. I don’t have my pilot’s licence, you see.”
Haddock’s voice could be heard from the parlour. “Hello? Hello? Madam? Lamb chops? No—er, this is Marlinspike Hall, Madam, not Mr. Cutts the butcher. Good day, Madam.”
“Yes, there certainly is a science to it,” said Calculus, adjusting his glasses. “Physics and aerodynamics and such…but what I cannot wrap my mind around is how someone of your age could be trained as a pilot!”
Tintin hesitated. He couldn’t exactly fault Calculus his own deafness, but the man did himself no favours in denying it altogether. He’d have to buy him an ear trumpet one of these days. “That’s what I’m telling you, Professor. I’m not actually trained in aviation.”
“No, Madam. You have the wrong number. The extension for Mr. Cutts is four-three-one. This is Marlinspike, four-two-one.”
“Yes, planes, I know,” said Calculus, quite cross now. “Are you listening to me at all, young man?”
“For the last time, Madam, I am not Mr. Cutts the butcher! Good day!”
There was a loud clang, presumably as the handset was slammed back into the receiver, followed by a string of muffled Gaelic swears. Haddock came stomping back into the room, dusting off his hands.
“They’ve wired up the blasted phone lines wrong,” he groused.
“‘Fines’?” said Calculus. “You never told me we had any fines to pay—”
At that moment, Snowy gave a sharp yelp, and Haddock shouted at the top of his lungs. Tintin jolted in alarm; a slosh of coffee leapt from his cup and onto the unfolded cover of Le Petit Vingtième. He turned his head just in time to see Snowy pelting across the room to cower behind his legs.
“What happened, Snowy?” said Tintin.
Haddock looked stricken. “Blistering barnacles,” he muttered. “I wasn’t looking and I…I must’ve trod on his tail, the poor thing.”
Tintin sighed and leaned down to give Snowy a conciliatory scratch between the ears. Snowy whimpered. Milking it, really, but what could you do?
In apology, Haddock scraped the rest of his bacon onto a plate and set it on the floor beneath the table. Tintin thought again of how short he’d been with the captain back in Morocco. He’d deserved it, mostly—goodness knew he’d nearly gotten them killed enough times—but Tintin couldn't help but wonder sometimes if he’d been a bit too cutting, a little too quick to anger. It was hard to sustain annoyance when Haddock was like this: no kinder than just after he’d put his foot in the wrong place.
Haddock eased himself back into his seat, lacking some of his earlier bravado. “Where were we?”
Tintin offered, “I believe you were about to lecture me on the incompetence of electricians.”
Haddock laughed and re-lit his pipe. He took a long, slow drag from it, then said, in the tone of voice that tended to lead to a lecture, “So you’re out on the streets now.”
“I—er, in a manner of speaking, yes—”
“And you’ve no relations to take you in.”
“No, I don’t suppose I do.”
Haddock cleared his throat. “What do you say to moving here?”
“To Marlinspike?” Tintin said.
“You like it here, don’t you?”
Well, Tintin thought, with a pause. It certainly was an idea. The estate was beautiful, with its grand baroque façade and sweeping staircases, and would be even more beautiful once all the dust and cobwebs had been swept away. There was a train that ran to Brussels every morning, sprawling unmanicured grounds for Snowy to potter about, and more rooms than a person could live in in a lifetime. He’d already become quite familiar with the guest bedchamber in the east wing, where he’d been staying since their return from Barbados. It was all very nice, of course, but it was only ever meant to be temporary. And it was all so much.
“I’m afraid I can’t afford anything that extravagant,” he said.
Calculus blushed violently and held a hand over his mouth. “Have a mint?” he said. “Well, I—I apologise, I hadn’t realised…”
“Nonsense!” Haddock said to Tintin, banishing the thought with a great sweep of his hand. He missed the creamer by about a hair’s breadth. “I won’t take a single red cent from you. The house is just as much mine as it is yours.”
Tintin stared, taken aback—if such a thing were still possible. Haddock didn’t need the money; he had more money than sense. Even so, it was an awfully generous gesture for a man he’d known less than a month. Too generous, some might have said.
Perhaps the captain was only acting out of guilt. After the events of this month, that much was to be expected.
“Captain,” he began.
Haddock held up his palm to silence him. “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” he said, taking another draw from his pipe. “You’re thinking that you don’t want to accept any charity. That you don’t want to be a burden, or some claptrap like that. And to that, I say it’s only because of you we’re sitting here in this house at all.”
It was true enough, Tintin supposed. And it wasn't that the idea didn’t hold its fair share of appeal. But the thought of being owed sat with him uneasily, like a stomach-ache, or a bad taste in the back of his throat. Life hadn’t been kind to Haddock, not the way it had to him; between the Karaboudjan and his vice for Loch Lomond, the poor fellow had enough on his plate without drawing the attention of every gangster and drug kingpin Tintin managed to piss off. Besides, getting to put his name on that article had been a reward in and of itself.
“It’s just that I’d hate to impose,” he said.
“Thundering typhoons, lad, it’s not imposing if you’ve been invited.”
“And I’m sure Professor Calculus—”
“Wouldn’t mind a bit.” Haddock lightly elbowed Calculus in the ribs. “Would you, eh, Cuthbert?”
Calculus blinked up from his newspaper. “Hm?”
“You see?”
“That’s very kind of you, Captain,” said Tintin. “But it’s really not necessary.”
Haddock faltered. There were at least a dozen questions stewing inside that drunken, bearded head of his, but he’d never been one to pry. It was just as well, because Tintin had never been one to share.
“Well,” Haddock said, letting that thought strain off into the air with a curl of smoke. “The offer’s there. If ever you need it.”
Tintin smiled and thanked him. If there was any discomfort in the silence that followed, it was only short-lived. The smell of Haddock’s pipe wafted thickly through the room, bitter but familiar by now. Snowy gave a whine and a yawn and stretched his haunches—he’d licked the plate clean, greedy little thing. Tintin sat back in his seat and began to thumb through his copy of Le Soir to the crossword puzzles, thinking only of how nice a morning it had been, and what a shame it was he was expected back in the office on Monday.
Suddenly Calculus piped up, “Tintin! How very extraordinary. You never mentioned that you’d seen Bianca Castafiore in the flesh!”