One Step Closer to You (17 page)

It’s Friday afternoon and Ben is driving us to the camping festival in the New Forest. Nellie is being looked after by one of Ben’s friends who lives in Cambridge. He’s staying in Ben’s flat and enjoying a weekend in London.

‘Can we listen to something else?’ I suggest, turning off the soundtrack to
Mary Poppins
. Next Louis and Emily are singing along to Little Mix, ‘Wings’. Ben and I join in, and the sad thing is we know most of the words. ‘I mean, who doesn’t love Little Mix,’ Ben says. ‘But it’s our turn next.’

I look out of the window, wondering if Ben has had any doubts about the weekend. Up until last week I was looking forward to it, but now we’re actually on our way …

‘Camping?’ Janey had repeated, still open-mouthed after telling me that this was
such
a big deal. ‘And you don’t fancy each other
at all
?’

‘I can see why women find him attractive.’

‘But not you?’ She was like a terrier with a bone.

No one gets that we want to protect our friendship. Both of us have had chequered pasts and this is the one thing we don’t want to jeopardise; sex would make it complicated. Janey has met Ben a few times. She and her now not-so-new boyfriend, Paul the bald photographer, met up with us one weekend for a pizza. ‘We’re like a couple, but without the sex,’ I’d explained to them both when Ben was outside smoking. ‘It works well. I suggest you two try it.’

‘No chance,’ Paul had replied.

In the last few days uncertainty turned into major anxiety. I noticed that creeping feeling inside, grabbing hold of me. It was a feeling I wanted to numb with drink. Immediately I called my sponsor, Neve. She said my nerves were understandable, that it was good to acknowledge them and that I can’t go wrong if I’m always honest with Ben and myself. ‘Don’t drink, don’t worry, take one day at a time and have fun.’

‘In one hundred yards, take the next left,’ instructs Ben’s satnav.

We turn left, down an even narrower winding road and hit traffic. Surprised, I turn the map upside down. ‘Hang on,’ I mutter, ‘we’re still at least three miles away.’

In front of us is a Volvo Estate with lots of luggage on the roof rack and a colourful sticker on the back windscreen that says, ‘New Forest Festival Rocks!’ Ben and I glance at one another, realising that in front of us are all the other merry campers.

*

Excitement builds. At last we can see the castle, tents and marquees. Ben parks the car in a field. The family parked in the four-by-four next to us, get out in their waterproofs, wellies and matching rain hats. Ben and I watch the father unclip from the roof rack a contraption that unfolds and turns into a trolley. With the help of his wife, they assemble their luggage on to this light trolley and off they zoom, in high spirits.

‘Can we go?’ Louis asks when Ben heads off to find a trolley.

I’m rummaging around in the boot trying to find the children’s raincoats. We have so much kit. Keep calm, I tell myself. This is a new experience. Let’s unload and then off we go! Finally Ben and I push the trolley across the field at tortoise pace, me ordering the children not to leave our side.

When we approach the check-in area, a second queue snakes its way in front of us. After half an hour we present our tickets and a guard begins to open our cases. What’s he looking for? Booze? Drugs? I lean towards him. ‘We’re both clean,’ I say quietly, winking at him. ‘I mean
squeaky
clean, sir.’

Unimpressed, the guard tells me to stand back as he rifles through my underwear and make-up bag while seeming to take great pride in mentioning that we won’t be in need of any suncream.

Ahead of us are acres of land laid out in different zones. There’s a glamping area that I walk past, trying not to covet
the luxury. Next there are the pre-erected tents squished together like sardines. Finally, there’s a zone for the likes of us.

Ben is reading out the instructions. The first tip is to practise putting up the tent in the garden. ‘Never mind,’ I say, as it begins to rain.

Ben continues, ‘Lay the flysheet …’

‘Flat sheet?’ I glance at the family closest to us, Mr Speedy Gonzalez putting up his tent at lightning speed.

‘The flysheet, Polly.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The tent!’

I laugh. ‘Right. The tent. I knew that. Well, lay it out then.’

Louis and Emily giggle. ‘Now what do we do?’ I watch this flimsy piece of material on the ground flapping furiously around in the wind and am unable to imagine how it’s going to remain upright for longer than two seconds.

Slowly Ben assembles the poles together. I nudge Louis. ‘Go ask Speedy Gonzalez if he can do ours.’

‘I heard that.’ Ben hands me a pole. ‘Thread it through this sleeve. We’re doing this ourselves even if it kills us.’

*

Ben and I do a high five. My socks are drenched, but we’ve put up a tent!

‘Bagsy this one,’ says Louis, charging into one of the pods. Emily takes the other, leaving only one compartment left.

‘Ben?’ I prod him.

‘Let’s blow up the mattresses,’ he says, an awkwardness
lingering in the air as we continue to stare at the three pods.

By the time we’ve unpacked and blown up mattresses it’s late Friday afternoon and we’re sitting in our family tent, the rain lashing against it.

‘I need the loo,’ Louis says.

‘Where are the loos?’ I ask Ben.

‘Good question.’ He hops up.

‘It’s filthy out there,’ I say.

‘Mum, I need to do a poo.’

Ben whacks on his hood and says he won’t be a sec.

‘Right,’ he says when he returns ten minutes later, looking like a drowned rat. ‘The loos are pit loos.’

I stare at him. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘They’re holes with a loo seat.’

‘There aren’t bathrooms?’

‘Polly, we’re
camping
.’

Camping. Right. But where is the fun in this?

Ben composes himself. ‘Once you’ve done your you know what …’

‘Poo!’ says Louis and Emily, both of them laughing madly.

‘You have to lay it with compost,’ Ben explains.

Toughen up, Polly. This is a treat. The great outdoors! ‘Fine, but you did bring some loo paper, didn’t you?’

‘I thought you did?’

‘Uh-oh,’ says Louis.

*

After we have bought some loo paper from the family in the next-door tent and Louis has done his business, Ben suggests we head out. It’s some two miles to the main arena and we find ourselves amongst stampedes of families wrapped up in a million waterproof layers, hats and boots, trudging in the same direction, like little refugees.

Pop music is blasting and everywhere I look, people are drinking. Someone holds a can of Pimm’s, another drinks beer. We come across a puppet theatre, art and craft tents, science and travel marquees, a kids’ disco. Louis and Emily want to go into the dressing-up tent. Ben and I watch Emily transform herself into Cinderella and Louis emerges as Robin Hood. Next we’re in the face-painting tent. Watching them having so much fun makes me happy.

‘I’m beginning to love her,’ Ben says, clapping when Emily shows off her butterfly cheeks. ‘She grows more and more like Grace, every day.’

*

Later that night, after heading off to the communal food tent to buy ourselves some burgers and sausages in baps for supper, we head back to our base. It was decided that Louis and Emily share a pod to give the grown-ups their space. Louis thanks me for the day as I tuck him up in bed.

When the children are finally asleep, Ben and I sit down together in my compartment. It’s only eight o’clock. We can’t go to sleep yet.

‘I’m sorry, Polly.’

‘What for?’

‘I didn’t realise there were only three sections.’

‘Don’t worry. The children are fine sharing.’

‘I wasn’t trying to have my wicked way.’

‘Ah, shame.’ Ben smiles back at me. I hug my knees to my chest. ‘I could do with a drink right now, couldn’t you?’

‘It’s funny. I don’t really miss it. The moment I went into rehab the desire went.’

‘Tell me more, about rehab.’ I now cross my legs, making myself more comfortable.

‘I shared a room with a guy called Ed. He snored. He was addicted to prescription drugs, sweated a lot. He needed much more medical attention than I did. Nice bloke. I often wonder what’s happened to him.’

‘What was South Africa like? I’ve never been.’

‘Beautiful. It was a world away from London. I remember feeling so relieved to be there, Polly. It wasn’t like some prison, we weren’t strip-searched when we arrived.’

‘Not like this camp.’

He grins. ‘I saw a psychotherapist three times a week. We had lectures on lifestyle and diet. We had craft mornings. I remember painting a picture of a tree and turtle for Grace. My sister loved turtles. There were tea and biscuits at four.’ He stares ahead. ‘I liked the structure. You see, as a child I’d never had a routine, but I didn’t think our family life was any different to how other people lived, didn’t think it was odd hearing my stepfather shouting across the table
at my mum or throwing food at me. During the holidays he’d stick a wodge of twenty-pound notes in my pocket and tell me to sling my hook. Maybe that’s every child’s dream, but …’

‘No,’ I say gently, ‘it’s not.’

‘I learned a lot about myself in rehab. I felt a fraud in many ways.’

Ben tells me about the people he met. ‘There was this one woman, a model with an enhanced chest, who loved to strut around in ripped jeans and a bubblegum-pink bikini. Turns out she was raped by her grandfather when she was eleven, repeatedly, and couldn’t tell anyone because her parents were drunks. Then there was this lovely mother whose son had died of cancer. He’d been brainwashed by some kind of cult not to take medicine and that the power of prayer would heal. He died. There were heroin addicts, a different beast altogether, and I was surprised by how many eating disorders there were too. Then there was me. What did I have to complain about?’

‘Your father dying when you were little and being scared of your stepdad,’ I volunteer.

‘The thing is, Polly, I wasn’t angry when I was a child. Anger is reactive to something and I knew no different,’ he stresses again. ‘The anger came out when I was older. It flooded out in rehab,’ he admits. ‘Grace felt it, but in a different way. She was determined not to let our childhood ruin her life. She used to say it was a miracle that we were
so close, that we should hold on to that. One of the things I learned in our lectures is we live our lives by our intentions,’ he continues. ‘When drink and drugs get in the way, you lose enthusiasm for what you want to do, it drains your ambition. That was definitely true for me. I had everything on a plate: a swanky flat, the flash car, beautiful women, a well-paid job, but I was stuck in this rut. I wasn’t treating life with any respect.’ He stops. ‘Sorry, Polly, I’m talking too much, I must be boring you.’

‘No,’ I say sincerely, ‘carry on.’

‘Giving up drink was the simple part. I know people have this idea that you’re left in a room shivering and sweating, but it wasn’t like that for me. I was apprehensive leaving rehab because I had to change my lifestyle and find a new job. I spent a lot of time living with Grace …’

‘That was when she was pregnant with Emily, right?’

‘Exactly. I lived with her for about six months, helped her through her break-up and pregnancy, we worked on her business. I enjoyed it. It helped being busy, but I’m not saying it was easy. The hardest part was leaving Grace. In a way we’d become security blankets for one another. I felt foolish. Here was a thirty-something man terrified of the future. I still see my shrink once a week, I can’t do it all alone …’

‘I wish you’d come to AA.’

‘I go to the odd one, but you and me, Polly, we’re not the same. I know it saves lives, but for me I just need to keep on telling myself to stay away from the drink because it
goes hand in hand with that destructive empty lifestyle I was leading.’

‘In this life we need three things,’ I reflect, ‘something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to.’

‘What are you looking forward to?’

‘Watching Louis grow older, get his first girlfriend …’

‘What about love? Someone to love?’

‘I have Louis.’

‘Yes, but you can’t marry him.’

‘Would you like to meet someone, Ben?’

‘Definitely.’ He turns to me. ‘You?’

I nod.

Just as Ben is about to say something, my mobile rings. I hunt for it in my handbag, don’t reach it in time.

‘It was Janey,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll ring her back tomorrow.’

‘By the way, have you had any more of those strange calls?’

I shake my head. Thankfully I haven’t, not since the day of Hugo’s concert, but I still can’t quite shake off this feeling … ‘Ben, can I ask you something?’

‘Go on.’

‘No, forget it.’

‘Forget what?’

‘You didn’t. No, of course you wouldn’t have.’

‘Polly, what are you on about?’

I compose myself. ‘You didn’t send me, as a joke,’ I add, ‘a Valentine’s card this year?’

‘No. I’m terribly sorry, but I didn’t.’

I laugh nervously. ‘I’m so stupid, of course you didn’t. Ignore me.’

‘It was probably Jim. I think he still does have a little crush on you.’

‘No, he doesn’t. I’m such an idiot,’ I say, wishing I’d never opened my big mouth. ‘Forget I mentioned it.’

‘I can send you a card next year if you like?’ Ben nudges me. ‘As long as you send me one back. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

There’s a long silence until I say, ‘Well I’m pretty tired,’ wondering when we’re going to get into our pyjamas.

It’s only nine o’clock.

‘One of these days, Polly, we should go out dancing, remember we’re still young.’

‘Why wait?’ I grab his hand and lead him out of the tent. ‘What are you doing?’ He’s smiling at me.

‘Dancing,’ I say, ‘with you.’

*

‘Polly?’ Ben rubs my shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

I sit up, disorientated. Where am I? I see his face. ‘Ben?’ He tells me that I was shouting in my sleep.

I recover my breath, slowly remembering I’m in a tent. ‘Bad dream.’

‘Here.’ He hands me a glass of water.