A Bit of Earth (7 page)

‘Tell me all the scary things that live in South America,' he'd implore them.

‘Where was Mummy born?'

‘Where do we live?'

‘Where does Uncle Jon live?'

‘Where is the highest mountain in the world? And in Europe? And in Africa? South America? Scotland?'

Felix knew all the answers.

The game had turned into ‘Where shall we go tomorrow?' They would spin the globe and Felix would close his eyes and point. They were usually going to end up in the ocean or in Indonesia.

Now, a year since Susannah had died, they hardly ever went anywhere. Their whole world had shrunk to the botanical garden, Guy's work, school and home. Their orbit was predictable and tiny. They shopped at the same shop and bought the same things week after week. They went nowhere. Once Felix was in bed Guy would work, or just sit in silence. He found that if he hummed on one note, almost constantly, it was comforting. He had never been much of a whistler. Felix picked up the humming habit too, so that they often couldn't tell which one of them was doing it.

Guy hardly ever fell asleep for the night in bed. He would doze off on the sofa, or at his desk, or on Felix's floor. One night he fell asleep sitting on his own bedroom floor in front of the wardrobe with its looking-glass door. He startled himself back to wide awake. There he was, sitting alone in his room. With his muddy trousers and crazy needing-a-cut hair, he looked like an intruder, or someone on the run from an institution. Behind him in the mirror was the blue, green and white patchwork bedspread made by Elfie and Susannah when Susannah had been a girl. Guy never bothered to make the bed now – it was perpetually rumpled, the sheets were soft with dust mites – a disgrace to the quilt's Scandinavian ancestry.

He saw too that he'd spent the day with his shirt buttoned up wrong. Dear God. He exchanged his clothes for another, equally crumpled set, pyjamas that Susannah had bought
him, it seemed ten thousand years ago. He got into bed. Of course he couldn't sleep.

Here I am, he thought, alone in my room. He got up again and padded through to see Felix. He had his duvet right over his head. Guy pulled it back. Felix's hair had been turned into hot damp feathers. Guy went back to bed with a glass of whisky. He turned on the World Service …

What good, he thought, is sitting alone in my room? He smiled grimly as he remembered the school production of
Cabaret.
He had played his oboe in the band. The girl who'd played Sally Bowles had been fearsome and stunning, in character and on the stage and on the athletics field. Strange, he thought, that a combination of fishnet stockings and shorts, plus a waistcoat and a bow tie worn without a collar, could ever be considered alluring. What was the girl's name? Oh yes, Sandra Johnson. A good all-rounder. Had she carried on being wholesome, but into amateur dramatics? Was she living in Berlin, or perhaps sharing some sordid rooms in Chelsea with a girlfriend known as Elsie?

Eventually he slept. He dreamt that he was searching for his oboe. He kept discovering its case in different places, but each time he opened it he found that the oboe was missing.

The next morning, the first thing Guy did was look for his oboe. He hadn't played it in ages. How could he have let it go that long? He took it out, cleaned it and pieced it together. The reed was dry and looked about to crack. It made his lip sore. It was just how it had been when he'd first been learning, and was sometimes too lazy to practise. His fingers were stiff. Oil can, he thought, oil can! He was like the Tin Man in
The Wizard of Oz,
all rusted up. What was it
the Tin Man said at the end? Oh yes. ‘Now I know I've got a heart because it's breaking.'

He'd been in the band for a production of
The Wizard of Oz
too. He played a few bars of ‘Over the Rainbow'. Much too maudlin. Back to
Cabaret.
Felix came in.

‘What' cha doing, Dad?'

‘Come hear the music play!' said Guy.

Felix sat on the bed and listened. Guy played ‘Yellow Submarine' (rather badly) for him, then ‘How Much is that Doggy in the Window?' Felix fetched a pile of music books. ‘My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean', no thanks. ‘Oh Susannah'. Oh hell, thought Guy. Why did everything, all his stupid thoughts, come back to this? If only he could stop having thoughts, if only they could get away. Get away! What a dolt, what a dunderhead, what a dunce not to have thought of it before!

Susannah had spent hours poring over brochures of holiday cottages, circling some in coloured felt pen and then making longlists and finally shortlists. She consulted Guy and would let him pick from the list she had drawn up. It was very strange that his first choice always turned out to have been booked already, and that the one she favoured always happened to be free. This time Guy would draw up the shortlist and let Felix decide on the first choice. There was still a pile of brochures behind the sofa, now several years out of date. Guy rang up for new ones. Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset. He wasn't sure which was best. Maybe North Wales was the place for a father and son holiday. He pictured them climbing mountains, placing a small rock
each on the cairn at every summit, maybe a bit of kayaking … or at least playing football or Frisbee on some almost empty golden beaches. Maybe they should borrow a dog to take along.

‘This one is in Wales, and Wales is the one with the dragon on the flag, right?' said Felix when Guy showed him the brochures and the shortlist.

‘Right,' said Guy.

‘I like this one,' said Felix. ‘It has a swing in the front garden.'

That settled it.

They crawled along the A5.

‘We would have got there quicker if we'd walked,' said Felix. He was feeling sick. At Little Chef they'd been told it was a three-quarters-of-an-hour wait for hot food. They'd ordered chocolate cake. It had been damp and heavy. And now that they were in Wales …

‘It doesn't always rain in Wales,' said Guy. It had the ring of ‘You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here …'

Oh, the A5, thought Guy. The A5. If only it were as small and neat as a piece of A5. How they would zip across that. If only the journey to the holiday house could be as smooth and frictionless as tearing along the diagonal folded valley of a sheet of A5. If only they could just zoom along the hypotenuse … but they were stuck in a long line of traffic. The Misselthwaites' old Golf, though reliable and fast enough, was woefully inadequate for this trip. It had no top box, no bikes on the back, and seats for just five people, only two of which were occupied. And their luggage! Well,
Guy had tried, but even with a football and a plastic cricket set it didn't amount to much, and the view through the rear window was hardly blocked at all.

This doesn't look anything like a holiday car, Guy thought. We are impostors in the land of holidays. They had been stuck behind the same car since somewhere around Oswestry. It was a big red SUV. The large, fair, healthy heads of at least six people, a brace of cycle helmets, and many rucksacks and body boards were visible from the Misselthwaites' position below and behind them. Some French loaves were also there in silhouette, ready to make a convenient but tasty supper for the first night of the holiday. Guy had forgotten to plan anything for supper, but had thought of the next day's breakfast. So that was OK, they could have cereal for dinner – it would make them feel at home.

‘Daddy, why do all the other cars have boats on top?'

‘Boats? They don't have boats.'

‘Those canoe things,' said Felix. ‘We're the only car without one of those.' He was pointing at the roof of the SUV ahead of them. He could never remember that Guy wouldn't be able to look at what he was pointing at.

‘Oh those,' said Guy, realising what he meant. ‘They're sort of roof-racks with lids.'

‘What's a roof-rack?'

‘In the olden days people had these metal bar things on the roofs of their cars for strapping stuff to, mattresses or bikes or bits of bedroom furniture or suitcases. Then they would cover it up with a tarpaulin thing which would flap in the wind as they drove along, and sometimes blow away altogether. Now they have those canoe things.'

‘But why haven't we got one? I wish we had one.'

‘They're just for extra stuff. I guess we don't need to take as much with us as other people.'

‘They look like those Egyptian things, but plain.'

‘Plastic sarcophaguses, sarcophagi. Well, they might be. There's no way of telling what all those families have inside them.' Could well be mummified remains, thought Guy. Perhaps the paterfamilias, instigator of outdoorsy holidays, or perhaps the bodies of the fallen. Perhaps friends or relatives who had perished in sandboarding accidents were being taken on holiday, transported aloft as though by giant wood ants. He smiled grimly.

‘What's funny, Dad?'

‘Nothing,' said Guy. ‘We're nearly there. We turn off soon. I have to concentrate now. It'll be after the next little town.'

It was easy to spot the turning because the red SUV slowed and took it first.

‘No escaping them,' said Guy. They followed them at the next junction and the next.

‘They must be going to the same place as us,' said Felix.

‘We're almost there,' said Guy. He had memorised the directions. ‘There should be a white house and a garage called Conwy Morgan Motors …'

‘White house!' shouted Felix. ‘Garage!'

‘Then it's the next turning on the right. With a post box.'

‘There, Dad!' yelled Felix.

The SUV had got there first and was through the five-bar gate and heading up the drive.

Oh, thought Guy, there must be a number of cottages on the farm. He had been hoping for complete isolation.

There was just one cottage with an annexe. He saw Mrs SUV jump out and beat them to the key, which he had been looking forward to telling Felix would be under the flowerpot beside the boot-scraper. The over-sized SUV children were switching off their in-car DVD players and piling out of their vehicle with what looked to Guy like exaggerated, self-indulgent stretches. How could they possibly feel cramped in that huge conveyance? Mrs SUV had the cottage door open.

‘Not damp!' she sang out.

Bikes were being unstrapped, rucksacks were flung across the yard. Then they noticed Guy.

‘Can we help you?' How skinny and baggy-kneed he felt next to them. The mummy stood with her arms crossed defensively over her pink and green stripy chest. She had travelled in shorts, getting in the holiday spirit back in Guildford, or St Albans or wherever. She probably thinks I'm the cleaner, thought Guy, or a mad axeman in an old Golf with a small boy. Felix might look like a hostage.

‘Um, there seems to have been a mix-up,' he said. ‘This is our cottage for the week. I booked it with Lleyn & District holidays.'

‘Well, we've got it for the fortnight!' she countered.

Oh dear, thought Guy, they might punch me.

‘Stay in the car,' he yelled to Felix.

Mr SUV and two of the sons came over.

‘Now look here. You were following us and we were here first.'

‘He probably tries this on all the time,' said one of the boys.

‘Well, we booked it, and I have the details right here,' said Mrs. ‘Now I'm sure we can sort this out in a civilised fashion.'

‘I've got my confirmation too,' said Guy.

He pulled it out of his wallet with a flourish. ‘There!'

‘Ha! You're twenty-seventh of the ninth! We're the ones who are twenty-ninth of the seventh, and for two weeks. Sorry, mate. Your mistake.'

‘What? Oh, sorry,' said Guy. ‘Sorry.'

‘No need to apologise,' said the mummy, with the most pleased-with-herself smile Guy had ever seen. The two big boys went sniggering back to the car to unload some more stuff. Guy looked forlornly after them. They were biffing each other, their shoulders shaking with laughter.

‘Well, I'll be off. Sorry about that.'

‘No need to apologise. No harm done,' said Mrs.

‘Sorry,' said Guy.

‘You're the one with a problem, mate,' said Mr.

‘Well, we'll be off then.'

‘Won't you stay for a cup of tea?' asked Mrs. One of the children was, at that moment, bringing in a flagon of Waitrose organic milk.

‘Um, no thanks. No. We'd better be off.'

‘Come a long way, did you?'

‘No. Not far,' said Guy, backing away. ‘Stupid of me, really stupid …'

He got back in the car.

‘Daddy, what are those people doing in our house?' Felix asked.

‘Well, there's been a mix-up and they've got it for the week.'

‘But it was our house. I chose it. I wanted to go on that swing.' Felix began to cry. Guy could have joined him.

‘Just a mistake. Oh, don't cry, Felix. We'll find somewhere else. Maybe we could stay in a hotel. Maybe right by the sea. Right opposite a beach. We'll find swings. Don't cry. Please, please don't cry…'

‘I hate those people,' said Felix.

‘So do I.'

Guy drove back down the drive and, he hoped, off into the distance. There would be no sunset. Another depression was racing in across the Irish Sea. How could he have been such a dunderhead? Why hadn't he checked it and checked it again. Why hadn't he been paying attention? He couldn't even organise a week in bloody North Wales without getting it wrong. No wonder, no wonder …

The dates on the booking confirmation were in his handwriting. It was all his fault.

But an hour later they were sitting on twin beds in the Gwesty Rhosyn, looking at a view of the sea.

‘I've always wanted to have a go on a balcony,' said Felix.

‘Now you can.'

They unpacked their few belongings.

‘Let's try to keep our room really neat all the time,' said Guy. He loved the empty perfection of hotel rooms, the uncluttered, anonymous and unsullied look of them when you arrived.