The Emerald Casket by Richard Newsome

heads don’t get blown off? How about that new vampire movie?’
    Sam reached over and took some chips from his sister. ‘Oh sure, killing soldiers in a war zone is offensive. But sink your teeth into someone’s jugular and suck out their entire blood supply? That’s the height of romance and sophistication.’
    Gerald sipped on his drink and grinned. He loved it when Sam and Ruby got going.
    â€˜What do you think, Gerald?’ Sam said. ‘Gritty war movie or soppy love story? Gore-fest or bore-fest? Your choice.’
    â€˜How about a horror movie,’ Gerald said. ‘That way you get a bit of both.’
    Ruby snatched the remote from her brother. ‘You’re always compromising, Gerald. You need to be more assertive.’ She stabbed at the buttons and the screen flashed with a rapid series of movie images. ‘How did you get to be so indecisive anyway?’
    Ruby stopped flicking at an extreme close-up of a woman’s face. Every pore, pimple and facial hair stood out in massive high definition.
    â€˜Yow!’ Sam cried. ‘That’s hideous. What slasher movie is this?’
    Gerald’s eyes popped. ‘That’s my mother.’
    The face on the screen pulled back and Gerald’s mother Vi Wilkins settled into an armchair in a fashionably decorated lounge room.
    â€˜Your mother?’ Sam said. ‘Why’s she starring in a horror film?’
    Ruby leaned across and clipped her brother over the back of his head. ‘It’s a videophone, moron,’ she hissed.
    â€˜Hello, Gerald? Gerald? Can you hear me?’ Vi’s voice filled the cabin. ‘I can see you but I can’t hear you. Can you see me, my darling boy?’
    Gerald sat open-mouthed but mute. He’d spoken a few times to his parents on the phone since they’d abandoned him at the start of the summer. But he hadn’t seen them. The weeks spent cruising the Caribbean on the Archer yacht had turned his mother’s skin a glossy brown and her helmet of blonde hair had been coiffed into a creation from a fashion magazine. But there was something else. Gerald couldn’t pick it. Then it dawned on him.
    â€˜Mum. Have you had Botox?’
    Vi lifted her chin and pulled back the corners of her mouth in an attempt at a smile. Her face barely moved.
    â€˜It makes me look twenty years younger, don’t you think?’
    Gerald thought it made her head look like a waxed apple.
    â€˜Um, yeah. It looks…really natural,’ Gerald said, mortified. ‘Where are you?’
    â€˜We’re at the Archer compound on Martha’s Vineyard, darling. The heat in the Caribbean was a little too much for your father, even with the outdoor air conditioning. I thought he might be more comfortable here.’
    Sam leaned across and whispered in Gerald’s ear, ‘You wouldn’t want to risk melting.’ Gerald tried not to giggle.
    â€˜What’s at this Martha’s place?’ he asked.
    â€˜This Martha’s place?’ His mother rocked back and laughed. ‘Gerald, you are too too gauche, my darling. Martha’s Vineyard—all the right people come here. To be anywhere else in the summer would be terribly infra dig . There’s the Lodges and the Cabots, of course. And the Rockefellers and the Carnegies. Geraldine has a simply enormous place here, right on the water—but of course it’s your place now, sweetie. Everyone’s dying to meet you. We’ll come back next summer and stay a few months, I think. The weather here is much kinder to your father.’
    Vi took an almighty breath and beamed into the videophone. ‘Who are your friends, dear?’ she asked. ‘Introduce me.’
    Gerald was glad for the break in his mother’s monologue. ‘This is Sam and Ruby Valentine. They’re coming to India with me.’
    â€˜So glad you’re making friends and keeping busy. Hello there,’ Vi said,