A Proper Family Holiday (21 page)

‘Why can’t we swim in it?’ Jack asked a third time.

‘In case the water’s dirty,’ Chelsea told him.

‘It’s not dirty. It’s completely clean. You can see right to the bottom.’

‘OK. In case we make the water dirty. We might kill the rare shellfish with our human germs.’

‘Shellfish are boring.’ Jack echoed Lily. ‘Why don’t they take the shellfish out and make it into a swimming pool?’

‘Because the shellfish in that pool are an endangered species. They’re unique. They exist nowhere else in the world and this is their exclusive habitat.’ Chelsea tried to make it sound exciting.

‘What’s a habitat?’

‘It’s the place where they live. Coventry is your habitat. London is mine.’

‘Oh.’ Jack sighed. ‘I’m tired.’ He hung from Chelsea’s elbow and twirled listlessly, as though her arm were a ribbon on a maypole. He pulled his T-shirt up to expose his comical little belly in an attempt to cool down. Then he pulled his hat right down over his eyes and asked her to lead him as though he couldn’t see at all.

‘OK, OK,’ said Chelsea eventually. ‘How about we get you an ice cream?’

Jack did a little dance of excitement and they headed for the kiosk, which was situated on a platform that would have made the perfect spot for an enchanted evening spent drinking champagne and watching the water. As it was, Chelsea would have to content herself with an instant coffee that smelt as though it had been made from ground-up dung. Chelsea immediately regretted having ordered it, though she could use the caffeine hit. The heat and the stress of looking after her nephew were making her long for her bed.

Jack deliberated for some time before he picked an ice cream, and when he did make his selection, Chelsea was quite surprised by its sophistication.

‘I would like one of those,’ he said, pointing at a very grown-up-looking Cornetto-style affair.

‘It’s Black Forest Gateau flavour,’ said Chelsea. ‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’

‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘Mummy has them in the freezer at home.’

‘Really? It’s got cherries in it, soaked in something horrible.’

‘I know. I like them.’

‘Very well,’ said Chelsea. ‘Perhaps I’ll have one too.’

‘This is actually the last one,’ said the girl behind the counter as she handed Jack the cone.

‘OK,’ said Chelsea. ‘I’ll have one of those instead.’ She picked out a plain orange ice lolly. It was probably a better idea than the Cornetto in any case. It would certainly contain fewer calories.

‘Orange lollies are boring,’ said Jack.

‘Thanks. Then perhaps you’ll share your
not
-boring ice cream with me?’

‘No way.’

Chelsea helped Jack to unwrap his very grown-up Cornetto. He seemed delighted by the cone in his hand, filled as it was with soft white ice cream topped with chocolate and a dark cherry sauce.

‘That does look good.’ Chelsea agreed with him. ‘Shall we find somewhere to sit? It’ll be easier to eat sitting down. You might get a bit less of it down your T-shirt.’

Chelsea was getting the hang of at least one aspect of this parenting lark. If she could get Jack back to the hotel without needing to change his clothes the minute they arrived, she was sure she would get some kudos. Jack agreed that it would be a good idea if they could stay clean because ‘Mummy hates ironing.’

‘She ironed that?’ Chelsea thought out loud. Chelsea had previously wondered if the one excuse for sending your kids out dressed in nylon was that it saved on ironing.

Jack made a start on his ice cream with exaggerated care. He held it so far away from himself that he had to poke his tongue out to its full length to lick it.

‘Watch that drip on the other side, Jack,’ Chelsea warned him.

‘I’ve got everything under control,’ he said. It was a phrase he had picked up from his father.

Adam, on the other hand, seemed to be struggling to maintain control in his world.

Like Chelsea, Adam had given up on trying to interest his charge in the wonders of evolution in isolation. No albino shellfish on earth was ever going to be as interesting to a six-year-old child as the prospect of a nice big hit of sugar and additives. In the queue for the kiosk, Lily was shouting at the top of her voice, ‘I want an ice cream!’

‘I would never shout like that,’ said Jack.

‘I know you wouldn’t,’ said Chelsea, ‘because you have been brought up properly. And because we have both been brought up properly, we’re definitely not going to stare while Lily has a tantrum.’ For a tantrum was definitely brewing, Chelsea decided. Both Chelsea and Jack pretended not to be watching while both, independent of the other, were actually keeping a very close eye on proceedings.

‘I want an ice cream like that one,’ said Lily.

Jack froze as he realised that Lily was pointing at his Black Forest Cornetto.

‘She’s looking at my ice cream,’ Jack whispered to Chelsea.

‘It’s OK,’ said Chelsea. ‘Just keep eating.’

‘I don’t think you’d like an ice cream like that one,’ said Adam. ‘It’s got alcohol flavouring in it. I wouldn’t say it’s suitable for children at all.’

Chelsea winced as she considered Adam’s point. Still, a little bit of booze wouldn’t do Jack too much harm, would it? He probably got a bigger hit of alcohol fumes each time Mark kissed him goodnight.

‘I would say it
is
suitable,’ said Lily. ‘It’s exactly what I’d like.’

‘It’s got cherries in it, and dark chocolate.’

‘I like dark chocolate,’ said Lily.

‘No you don’t.’

‘I do. And I love cherries. Get me one of those.’

‘A Black Forest Gateau Cornetto, please.’ Adam caved in.

‘That was the last one,’ said the girl behind the counter, nodding her head towards Jack.

‘Lily,’ said Adam, ‘you’re going to have to choose something else.’

‘But that’s the one I want,’ said Lily, as though her intransigence would simply manifest another Black Forest ice cream.

‘The lady says she hasn’t got any more.’

‘He’s got one.’ Lily whirled and pointed straight at Jack. Jack shuddered in response.

‘He had the last one,’ said Adam. He shrugged at Chelsea and mouthed, ‘Sorry’.

Chelsea mouthed back, ‘It’s OK.’

‘I wanted the last one!’ Lily continued.

‘We didn’t get to the kiosk in time.’

‘Why didn’t we get here in time? Why did he get here first?’

‘Lily, you can have something else. You can have anything you like. Look at all these lovely different flavours.’

Lily, however, was not to be placated, not even with a mint-choc-chip version of the cone Jack was now almost too frightened to finish. While Adam peered at the list of available ice creams in search of something, anything, that might please his daughter and yet be relatively free of additives, Lily marched in Jack’s direction.

‘I want to taste it,’ she said. She almost, almost looked sweet as she asked him.

‘She didn’t say please,’ Jack appealed to Chelsea. ‘I don’t want to let her have a taste of it.’

‘That’s all right, Jack.’ Chelsea put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You don’t have to. I’m sure her daddy’s buying her an ice cream of her own.’

‘Please,’ Lily said sharply.

‘No,’ Jack snapped right back.

Lily stared at the ice cream. Chelsea didn’t know what to do. She looked to Adam desperately, but he was still studying the ice-creams that
were
available. Chelsea would not have been in the least bit surprised if Lily suddenly shot two laser beams from her eyes and melted the Cornetto into a puddle. Lily stood her ground. Jack stood his. Why should he let Lily try his ice cream? Perhaps subconsciously, Jack’s free hand went to the hardening scab on his knee, the scab caused when he tripped over while pushing the roundabout.

Having recited the entire list of available ice creams for Lily’s convenience, Adam finally noticed his daughter was no longer standing next to him. He reacted at once, turning to look for her, seeing her standing in front of Jack and moving in her direction as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, though, not quickly enough to stop Lily bringing her hand up beneath the hand in which Jack held his ice cream so that the Cornetto briefly collided with his face before sliding all the way down the front of his clean T-shirt.

‘Oh my God,’ said Adam. ‘Lily, you …’

Jack, Lily and Chelsea all stared at the spot where Jack’s ice cream lay. Now nobody was going to get to taste it.

Jack sat very still, but even Chelsea, with her limited experience of children, knew something was going on inside him. Something was building, something that would make the eruption of Timanfaya seem like a wisp of steam from the spout of a kettle. She had to react quickly. What would Ronnie do? Jack was clenching his fists. His face was twisting.

‘Come on, Jack. Quick march.’

Chelsea put her arm round Jack’s shoulders and whisked him in the direction of the loos.

‘I’m sorry,’ Adam called after them. ‘I’m so sorry. She’s just hot and tired and …’

Chelsea didn’t turn round. She exhaled hard. She didn’t know what to say to him.

‘Jack, count to ten, Jack. Count to ten.’ Chelsea needed to count to ten too.

‘Mummy will be angry.’ Jack was starting to cry. ‘I’ve got ice cream on my clean T-shirt.’

‘I’ll tell her what happened. You won’t get into trouble.’

‘Why did she do it?’

‘Lily? I don’t know. I guess she must have been angry about yesterday, about the roundabout.’

‘But I was angry about the slide.’

‘I know. This is what happens, Jack. Anger spreads from one person to another. It’s how wars begin.’

‘Are we in a war?’ Jack asked.

‘No, no, of course we’re not,’ said Chelsea. ‘We’re going to take the moral high ground.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘You mean, what’s that. It’s a turn of phrase. It means we keep calm and carry on. Or something like that.’

‘Carry on fighting?’

‘Carry on being calm. Definitely not fighting.’

Chelsea glanced back towards Adam, who was crouching down with his hands on Lily’s shoulders. She could only imagine the conversation they were having now.

Chelsea had to clean Jack up before they got back on the bus. His T-shirt was covered in ice cream. Absolutely covered. Chelsea rinsed the worst of it out in a basin, but there was no way he could put it back on. Though it would dry soon enough outside, on an air-conditioned coach it would remain uncomfortably wet and cold. So Chelsea, who fortunately was wearing a pair of T-shirts layered, stripped off the outermost one and offered it to her nephew.

‘It’s orange! That’s a girl’s colour,’ Jack protested.

‘Nonsense,’ said Chelsea as she wrestled him into it. The T-shirt almost reached Jack’s knees. She tried to tuck the excess into his shorts. ‘Orange was all over the catwalks at the men’s Paris shows. Give us a twirl.’

Jack was unconvinced. He followed Chelsea to the coach with his head down.

‘He could borrow one of Lily’s T-shirts,’ Adam suggested when they were back in the car park. ‘I’ve got two spares in my bag.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Chelsea. She knew there was no way Jack would be any happier in the pink T-shirt Adam was offering than the midi-length orange top he was already wearing.

‘I’m very sorry. Lily knows what she did was wrong.’

‘Does she?’ Chelsea hoped her look said everything. Lily was standing by the coach. Her face was red, as though she had been crying, but she didn’t seem especially contrite.

‘She does. We had a conversation and she is sorry. Believe me.’

‘Then shouldn’t she say it herself? She doesn’t need a conversation. She needs a telling-off.’

‘Look, don’t go judging me about disciplining children. Your nephew is hardly a paragon of virtue. After what I saw on the roundabout yesterday …’

‘You’re bringing up yesterday? The roundabout? After what Lily did on the slide? Jack could have fallen off sideways and cracked his head open, and you tried to pretend that was an
accident
?
What kind of thug are you bringing up?’

‘Don’t you dare call my daughter a thug.’

‘What else do you expect me to call her? She deliberately and spitefully pushed Jack’s ice cream into his face.’

‘She was hot and tired and she wanted to try the ice cream he had.’

‘And that makes it right?’

‘Of course it doesn’t make it right, but … for goodness’ sake. She’s only a kid. She knows she did wrong. I’ve apologised on her behalf and I’ll deal with it from here without any help from you. Look … just buy him a new T-shirt.’ Adam thrust a twenty-euro note in Chelsea’s direction.

‘Spend it on some lessons in manners,’ Chelsea suggested, as she thrust it right back.

‘Why don’t you spend it on a self-help book?’ said Adam. ‘So you can be even more sure you’re right about everything. No wonder you’re single.’

‘Oh!’ Chelsea let the note drop to the floor.

Unfortunately for Chelsea, Jack, Lily and Adam, the holidaymakers on the coach trip had all chosen to travel back to the resort in the same seats as on the journey out to the caves. The driver need not have bothered to turn on the air-conditioning. The back two rows of the coach were arctic, as the two adults and two children ignored each other even more emphatically than before. When the coach arrived back at the Hotel Volcan, Adam dispensed with etiquette, leaping to his feet and shuffling his daughter into the aisle before Chelsea even registered that the coach had stopped. She flicked the Vs at his retreating back, imbuing the gesture with all the anger that had been bubbling inside for the past few days. Adam got Colin and Davina and Ronnie’s share of the Vs as well.

‘That’s rude,’ Jack breathed in awe.

‘And you didn’t see me do it.’

‘Auntie Chelsea,’ said Jack, as she helped him down from the coach, ‘you are awesome.’

‘Really?’ Chelsea couldn’t help preening.

‘Yes. You’re better than Captain Jack.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ she said. But the good feeling didn’t last. As she helped Jack down from the coach, she watched Adam heading into the hotel lobby. He glanced back in her direction. His expression was furious. That had to be the end of any chance of friendship now.