A Proper Family Holiday (13 page)

‘Ronnie, I – I really didn’t intend to – I’ve actually got some work to do. On my laptop. I’ve got to write a piece and mail it back to London as quickly as possible. Can’t he just sit in here with you and read a comic?’

‘He might get ill,’ said Ronnie.

‘I might,’ Jack echoed.

‘We’re really grateful to you, Chelsea,’ Mark interrupted. ‘You’ll have a good time together. Give you a chance to bond with each other, like.’

‘Please get my son out of here,’ Ronnie begged her. ‘You’ve got no idea what this bug is like.’

Chelsea had some idea that her sister was exaggerating how bad it was, but finally she accepted that she had no choice other than to take care of Jack until the rest of the family got better. She shuffled him out into the corridor.

‘Are you all right, Auntie Chelsea?’ Jack looked up at her, concern etched on his face.

‘I’m fine,’ said Chelsea. ‘Mummy and Daddy need their rest, but we’ll both have a lovely morning.’

‘Are you still looking after me?’

‘I am.’

Jack gave a little skip of delight.

Chelsea was aware that the whole family thought of her as something of a joke when it came to life’s practicalities. She had often been frustrated by their inability to grasp how well she had actually done since leaving university. At best, they seemed to picture her life as an extended episode of
Absolutely Fabulous
. They imagined she worked with people like Patsy and Bubble. They had no idea that Chelsea’s world was populated by women with the best degrees from the best universities, who could have run a PLC as easily as they ran a magazine. The world of magazine publishing was cut-throat and Chelsea had succeeded entirely on merit. She had hardly been able to rely on nepotism. She thought of her dad as she had seen him when she first saw him yesterday, lazing on a sunlounger with a copy of the
Mirror
draped over his face to keep the sun off his nose, his belly undulating with each snore. Chelsea had definitely not been able to tap up any of her father’s friends for useful work experience. More than half of them had been unemployed since the last recession. Or even the one before that.

Well, perhaps looking after Jack would give Chelsea a chance to put this bizarre notion that she couldn’t cut it in ‘normal life’ to rest at last. Really, how hard could it be to keep a six-year-old entertained for a morning? (Chelsea was sure her mother would have pulled herself together by lunchtime, even if Ronnie hadn’t.) At least there would be no nappy-changing. She was going to look after Jack for the morning, and she was going to do it well. Perhaps it would encourage Ronnie to drop the constant sniping about Chelsea’s lifestyle, her clothes and her love life as well.

‘What do you want to do first?’ she asked her nephew, accepting her fate.

‘I’d like to go in the pool. Will you come in with me?’ Jack asked. ‘Mummy won’t ever come in.’

‘I’ll dangle my feet over the edge,’ was Chelsea’s compromise.

Pool duty was not as much fun as the laughter and shrieking that came from the water suggested. Chelsea struggled to keep her hair dry with all the splashing that went on. She needed to keep it dry because she’d had it finished with a hideously expensive new Japanese blow-drying technique the previous week and she wanted to keep it looking perfect for as long as possible. None of the other punters in the Hotel Volcan pool seemed to appreciate the problem.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Jack decided that he was fed up with being in the pool if Chelsea wasn’t going to join him properly. And she wasn’t. She really did just dangle her feet over the edge. So Jack took up a position on the sunlounger next to the one Chelsea had draped with a Pucci towel. She hoped it would be easier to keep an eye on him on dry land.

Wracking her brains for the sort of thing a parent would think of at this point, Chelsea told Jack he had better put on some more suncream since any earlier application would have been washed off while he was swimming. She handed him the bottle of Ambre Solaire Factor 50. Jack just looked at it.

‘Auntie Chelsea,’ he said after a little while, ‘I don’t normally do this myself.’

‘What?’

‘Mummy does it for me.’

‘Oh, of course she does,’ said Chelsea.

She squirted cream over Jack’s skinny little back and rubbed it in. He sat still and patient while she covered his arms and legs and applied a white stripe of total block to his nose as the finishing touch.

‘Easy,’ she said when she’d finished. ‘You’re done.’

‘You missed a bit.’ He held out his arm.

‘Well, you can get that bit, can’t you?’

‘I might not do it right.’

‘It’s very easy.’ Chelsea squirted some more lotion onto Jack’s spindly little forearm, trying not to show her irritation when he told her, ‘You’ve got it.’

‘Now it’s reading time,’ she told him. ‘Don’t you think?’

Right then, Chelsea was still pretty sure that Ronnie had exaggerated the degree to which Jack required constant monitoring and attention. At least, when he was out of the pool and away from danger of drowning. She settled back down on her sunlounger with
From Booty Call to Bride
. She had decided that she could read all the self help she wanted at the Hotel Volcan. There was no one she needed to impress. Jack, lying adjacent, opened up a copy of the latest
Simpsons
comic. That was better. This wasn’t going to be so difficult. Chelsea was looking forward to getting stuck into her book.

No such luck. She had time to read just half a sentence before she was interrupted.

‘Auntie Chelsea?’ said Jack.

‘Yes, Jack,’ said Chelsea.

‘Which would you rather be, a rhino or an elephant?’

Remembering that she was being a good aunt that morning and for that morning only, God willing, Chelsea momentarily closed her paperback.

‘That’s a very good question,’ she said. ‘An elephant, I think.’

‘Wrong,’ said Jack, as though he were surprised she could be so stupid. ‘A rhino is way better.’ He declined to give his reasons why.

‘Oh,’ said Chelsea. ‘OK. Then I’d rather be a rhino. Of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.’

Jack nodded in satisfaction.

Chelsea reopened her book. She managed another half-sentence before Jack interrupted again.

‘Auntie Chelsea?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which is better, a rhino or a giraffe?’

‘I’d rather be a giraffe, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘I’m not asking that. It’s a rhino again. Why did the giraffe cross the road?’

‘I don’t know. Why did the giraffe cross the road?’

‘I don’t know. I thought you did.’

‘Riiiii-ght.’

Chelsea focused on her book again. One second, two seconds—

‘Auntie Chelsea?’

‘
What?
’

‘What if there was a fight between a rhino and a bear–’

‘The bear. The bear, definitely,’ Chelsea snapped.

‘No, the
rhino
. It’s
obvious
.’

‘OK. So it is.’

This was getting a bit Dada-esque. All Chelsea wanted to do was sit and read, but it was clear that simply wasn’t going to happen while Jack was around and awake.

‘Do you ever take a nap in the middle of the morning?’ she asked hopefully.

‘No,’ said Jack. ‘I’m not a
baby
.’ He seemed quite affronted.

‘Then don’t you want to play in the sandpit?’

Chelsea could see the sandpit from where she was lying. It didn’t look busy. Surely that would be safe.

‘Will you come with me?’ Jack asked eagerly.

‘No.’ Chelsea shook her head. ‘I don’t want to get sand all over me.’

‘Then I don’t want to either. I’ll just stay here with you.’

‘Well, I’m being really boring. You might find the sandpit more interesting. There are children there. Look. You could play with them. I’m just going to read my book.’

‘Read it to me,’ Jack suggested.

‘I don’t think you’d like it.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Is it like
Doctor Who
? I like
Doctor Who
.’

‘It’s not like
Doctor Who
at all.’

Jack titled his head to read the title. ‘What’s a booty call?’

‘Jack, this is a book for grown-ups.’

‘Is it scary? I won’t get frightened. I like scary things.’

‘You won’t like this,’ Chelsea insisted.

‘Then make up a story,’ Jack suggested. ‘That’s what Mummy does.’

‘Does she?’

Jack nodded.

Well, anything Ronnie could do … Chelsea didn’t have the faintest idea where to start. Jack looked at her expectantly.

‘Oh, all right. Er …’ Chelsea began. ‘Once upon a time, there was a princess.’

‘Not a
princess
.’

‘A prince, then.’

‘No, not a prince.’

‘A witch who lived in a castle?’

‘Witches don’t live in castles.’

‘Then where do they live?’

‘They live in caves. Or in cottages in the woods. Made of gingerbread.’

‘OK. There once was a witch who lived in a cottage in the woods. It was made of gingerbread—’

‘I don’t want a story about a witch.’

‘Fine. In that case, it seems to me you don’t really want a story at all.’

‘Not really. You’re right.’

Chelsea put her book down.

‘Jack, what do you actually want to do?’ she sighed.

Jack beamed his most winning smile at her. ‘We could always go to the Kidz Klub?’

As a child, Chelsea had been filled with horror at the idea of anything remotely resembling organised activity during the school holidays, and as an adult, she found her feelings hadn’t changed in the least. Jack, however, was delighted by the idea of the Kidz Klub, and assuming she would just be able to drop him off and get back to her reading, Chelsea decided she was happy to take him right to the door. And make sure it was firmly locked behind him. Genius. Why hadn’t she thought of using the hotel’s childcare facilities before? Why hadn’t Ronnie reminded her they existed? It was a win-win situation.

The location of the Kidz Klub was extremely easy to find. All you had to do was follow the noise. When Chelsea and Jack arrived at the picket-fenced enclosure, which contained a pretty large playground and another swimming pool, they found a gang of children racing around as though they had been fed nothing but additives for the past six months. In the middle of the chaos stood a young man and two young women wearing bright yellow T-shirts that announced they were the ‘Kidz Klub Ko-ordinatorz’. Chelsea was relieved to see that they hadn’t taken the ‘K’ theme right through their job titles. The male coordinator bounced over.

‘Hey there, little buddy,’ he said to Jack with the kind of creepily patronising friendliness that would have made a six-year-old Chelsea run and hide behind her mother’s legs. Jack, to his credit, looked equally dubious at this overly familiar approach. ‘And what’s your name?’

‘Jack Benson-Edwards,’ said Jack.

Chelsea snorted involuntarily. She hadn’t realised her sister had double-barrelled the children in lieu of actually getting married. And Ronnie thought Chelsea was a snob?

‘Are you coming to play with us, Jack Benson-Edwards?’ the coordinator asked.

‘I’m thinking about it.’

The coordinator feigned amusement. ‘We have a whole lot of fun here at the Kidz Klub, you know.’

Chelsea tried to place the man’s accent. Danish, perhaps? He looked as though he had been raised on state-sponsored coordinated fun.

‘We play games. We have competitions. Sometimes we go to the beach–’

‘That sounds good. So what do you think, Jack Benson-Edwards?’ Chelsea pushed her nephew for an answer. ‘Are you happy to stay here for the rest of the morning?’

Jack surveyed his fellow underage holidaymakers. For the time being, they looked quite nice. No one was indulging in especially feral behaviour. Jack turned back to his aunt and nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘Great,’ said Chelsea. ‘I’ll just find out what time it finishes so I can come back and collect you when you’re done.’

‘You’re not
going
, Auntie Chelsea?’

‘Well, of course I am. I’m not a kid. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here at the
Kidz
Klub,’ she added.

‘Parents are allowed to stay if they want to,’ said the coordinator. He helpfully pointed out a gaggle of bored-looking adults at the playground’s perimeter.

‘Ah, but I’m not a parent, you see,’ Chelsea tried.

‘She’s just my auntie,’ Jack concurred.

‘I won’t tell anybody,’ the coordinator promised with a wink. ‘I’m sure we can make an exception for an auntie.’

‘My favourite auntie,’ Jack added.

‘That’s great. But why do you want me to stay?’ Chelsea asked her nephew then. ‘You’ll be perfectly safe here. I’ll only cramp your style.’

‘Well, I think I’m going to like it,’ said Jack, ‘but I’m not completely sure. What happens if you go and I only like it for ten minutes?’

‘You’ll
love
it,’ said the coordinator.

‘I might not,’ Jack warned him.

‘Then I can come and fetch you earlier,’ said Chelsea. ‘Simple as.’

‘But how will I get hold of you? I don’t have a mobile like Sophie. It would be easier if you just stayed,’ Jack announced.

His logic was flawless. It
would
be easier if she just stayed.

‘How about I stay for fifteen minutes? Then, if you still think you’re having fun, I can go and get a cup of coffee and read my book by the pool,’ Chelsea bargained.

‘You can read your book there,’ said Jack, pointing towards a row of uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs. There wasn’t a single sunlounger. Or any shade.

‘You want me to sit there?’

‘Yes.’ Having sorted that out, Jack took off the sweatshirt he had been wearing tied round his waist and handed it to Chelsea. ‘Thank you. I’ll go and play now.’

As serious as he had been while negotiating the business of Chelsea’s staying to watch over him, he skittered off into the crowd without seeming in the least bit nervous at all.

‘Come on, Jack.’ The coordinator skittered after him. ‘Let’s pretend we’re aeroplanes!’