Our Picnics in the Sun

by Morag Joss

  Now the vegetable plots we’d dug and redug stretched away from the far side of the house and down the hill, and with every year they retrenched a little, as more of the moor’s thorn and reeds crept across their broken borders and rooted themselves where once we’d planted lines of brassicas, beans, and chard. Sheep and deer and ponies still tried to trample the fences, and rabbits and moles colonized the soil. I’d sown some lettuce seed this year and put in a few tomatoes, but I would forget about them for days on end and come across them parched and wilting or gone to seed or eaten by invaders. The outside painting of the house never had been finished and the walls were strangely brindled where the newer patches of white were daubed against the old, unpainted pebbledash.

  I walked on and over the ridge to the far side of the hill, and picked the heather quickly, tearing it up because I’d forgotten to bring cutters. The flowering season on the moor was ending early because of the drought; I pulled out the scorched and dead brown sprigs from the rest of the bunch, and threw them away.

  When I got back to the ridge from where I could see the house again, I caught the glint of a silver car down on the narrow road. It slowed, then turned up our track. From there to the house took several minutes along nearly a mile of rough stones and ruts; even so, Adam would be at the house before I was. Though I knew it was pointless I waved and shouted, and I tried to hurry, but the ground was boggy and bumpy with tussocks and I kept looking up to see the progress of the car, and of course I fell, dropping all the heather in my hands and soaking myself in the oily, peaty water that lay in the deep cups molded in the mud by the hooves of sheep and ponies. I didn’t care. Stained, stumbling all the way, not bothering to dodge the mud anymore, I got down the hill as fast as I could. Laughing and crying and terribly out of breath, I ran into the house by the front door.

  In the sudden dark of the hall I could see only his silhouette, the head bowed and haloed against the half-glazed door at the back that led through to the kitchen. He was leafing through the bookings diary.

  “Adam! Oh, Adam, darling, you’re here! I’m so sorry, I was up on the moor! Look at me, I’m filthy, never mind, oh, Adam, give me a hug!”

  The stranger stepped back. I pulled my hair away from my eyes, and my vision adjusted to the dimness. He wasn’t and never could have been Adam, even in silhouette. He was shorter and probably around Howard’s age. I saw that he looked antiseptically fastidious; his skin was taut and pink, the steely hair corrugated and obedient. He wore a cravat inside a standing-up shirt collar under a sweater with buttons along one shoulder.

  “I’m sorry? Excuse me?” he said. He removed his glasses and stared at me. His lips twitched, then tilted into a smile that suddenly showed me to myself: a large middle-aged woman, ludicrously inelegant, panting and unkempt in a mud-spattered homemade dress.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve and tried to stare back. “I’m sorry, I was expecting my son,” I said. “For a minute I thought you were him.” I raised my hands to tidy my hair into a twist at the back of my head and a rank smell from my underarms escaped into the hall.

  “I’m sorry, but the door was open. And I did call out, you know, a number of times, but I’m afraid nobody came.” The man’s voice was precise, the accent deliberately exquisite. He was smirking. His enlarged, capped teeth were a little yellow, but polished to a carnivorous sheen. “I’d like a room, please,” he said. “Plus dinner, supper, whatever you call it. Anything as long as I don’t have to get back in the car. I really cannot face any more driving today.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m expecting my son.”

  “Yes, yes—understood. No need to apologize. I hope you’ve got a double but a twin would do. I’m assuming it’s en suite?”

  “No, the thing is, I’m expecting my son. And you haven’t got a booking, have you?”

  He was surprised. “No, I haven’t got a booking,” he said. “But I only want one room. And you’re not full.” He nodded at the diary, open on the table.

  “I’m expecting my son. We’re closed.”

  The man looked down at his feet—he was wearing highly polished loafers—and pulled in a quiet, dramatic breath. “Madam,” he said, looking up and straight at me, “the sign at the bottom of your drive says bed, breakfast, evening meal, and vacancies. It doesn’t say closed, it says vacancies, and your book here is empty. It’s nearly seven o’clock, and you are my last hope. I’ve driven the entire length of the coast from Minehead to Bideford and in circles over most of Exmoor, and everywhere else is full.”

  “Well, you’d expect that,” I said. “It’s the Bank Holiday weekend. It’s always busy on Bank Holidays.”

  He raised his palms defensively. “I realize it’s the Bank Holiday. I realize now I should’ve booked somewhere in advance. But I didn’t. I had no idea it was going to be this difficult. And I cannot—I cannot—drive back to London tonight. My companion’s going to—”

  “There’s two of you?”

  “He’s in the car. Didn’t you see him?” I shook my head. He rolled his eyes. “Yet another cigarette. I suppose I should be glad he doesn’t smoke in the car. He’s in a foul mood.”

  He wiped a hand across his eyes and smiled a small smile that I sensed was supposed to make me complicit in some not very pleasant truth. I said, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Madam, forgive me,” he said with the same unfriendly smile, “but there is something you can do. You can please take pity, and let me have a room for one night.” He tapped the open page of the booking diary. “Which you are able to do, aren’t you? Oh. Wait. Oh—oh! Oh, I see.” Suddenly he was gazing at me with open distaste, nodding his head. “I see. So that’s it. Good God. Of course.”

  “I’m sorry, what do you mean?”

  “Of course.” He took a step toward the door. “Amazing, how it can still take one by surprise. One forgets, in London. Still plenty of it around, though, obviously, in the sticks.”

  “Plenty of what? What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, come on.” His pompous manners failed him for a moment and his voice turned harsh and shaky, as if he were speaking to someone who’d threatened to hit him. “Homophobia, that’s what I’m talking about. I should’ve known. Good to see that rampant bigotry is still alive and well.” He recovered himself. “Well, thank you. And good day.”

  “It’s not bigotry!” I said. “It’s not that at all! Look, I’m sorry—”

  He shrugged. “It was only for one night.” He looked around at the antlers overhead with their festoons of spider threads, the carpet dotted with mismatched rugs. “Still, clearly business is booming. Obviously you’re in a position to turn away undesirables.”

  “Look, you’re completely wrong. Please,” I said. “We’re not like that. It’s only because my son’s expected today. That’s all it is, honestly. Please don’t think we’re like that here.”

  He paused. “Really? So what is your usual rate? Oh, no, don’t tell me, you don’t take one-night bookings on Bank Holiday weekends? All right, I’ll pay for two. Come on, what do you charge?”

  “The double’s seventy-five pounds a night,” I blurted. I’d added ten pounds to put him off but out loud it sounded so outrageously high that I added, “Of course that includes breakfast.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “I’ll pay you for two. A hundred and fifty. All right?” I couldn’t reply. The man sighed, pressed a thumb and forefinger against his closed lids and rubbed his eyes, then looked hard at me. “Please, just help me out? I’m exhausted. My companion’s upset—so I’m upset. Please.”

  I still wanted to say no. He was still being condescending, and I didn’t want him here, so dapper and looking down on everything, never mind his invisible, bad-tempered companion. But a hundred and fifty pounds. And Adam would help me with everything; with Adam here, it would even be fun. I’d spent a lot on the joint of pork, and the picnic, and a sweater for his birthday present and all the rest of it, it had added up. A hundred and
fifty would set me straight for the month, with a little over.

  “And you’ll charge for dinner on top, of course,” he said.

  “Dinner would be eighteen pounds. Per person,” I said. I never charged more than twelve. “And I could only do table d’hôte, I’m afraid. I’m not geared up for much, not tonight.”

  “Table d’hôte will be fine,” the man said. He smiled genuinely for the first time. “Something smells delicious, anyway.”

  The scent of the roasting pork was filling the hall, and for a moment I wondered if, actually, our place could seem quite welcoming in a shabby, out-of-date, misleading way. I could hear this man, back in London, saying in his clippy voice, Oh, and we ended up in a hilarious little place—complete time warp, run by some mad middle-aged hippie in a purple dress!

  “I’m afraid that’s not on the table d’hôte,” I said quickly. “That’s for something else. And we’re not licensed.”

  “Then I’ll expect to pay corkage,” the man said. “We have some wine with us. I’m in the trade, actually. I’ll get the bags.”

  While the man was out fetching his luggage I checked the answering machine for a message from Adam: nothing. I hurried upstairs and changed out of my muddy dress, and when I came back the man was in the hall with a small suitcase and a backpack. There was still no sign of the companion. I showed him up to the double room at the front with the bay window. He tested the mattress, pressing his fingers into it a couple of times, and he raised an eyebrow when I showed him that the bathroom was next door and not en suite, but he didn’t comment. He must have been pleased with the view from the window. I told him that dinner would be served at a quarter to eight.

  I took the pork out of the oven. It was the largest piece of meat I’d cooked for years and it spat and gleamed in its tin, filling the kitchen like a personality, some exciting, extrovert guest of honor. It was almost done and smelled wonderful. Howard had got himself up and was watching television with the sound down, and even though he didn’t take much interest in food anymore he craned round in his chair and gazed through to the kitchen, so he must have been hungry. But the connection between his stomach and brain didn’t always work properly and he could be hungry without being fully aware of it, and I was glad about that because he was going to have to wait. It was just after a quarter past seven and in another hour the meat would be perfect, by which time Adam would be here. I turned the oven down as low as possible, covered the joint with foil, and put it back in. What I had to do next was get the two guests fed and out of the way. I loaded a tray with a paper cloth and cutlery and glasses, and took it to the dining room.

  I opened the door to silence. They were both there, sitting at the big table in the middle. Our table. The man’s companion had his back to me. A bottle of wine stood open, and already they were using the glasses. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t your table. I’m afraid I’ll have to move you.”

  I dragged one of the small tables from the stack at the far end and set it on its legs in a corner of the room, and started laying it. Before I had finished, the older man got up, took the wine bottle and both glasses, and seated himself at the new table. His companion didn’t budge.

  “Our hostess prefers us to sit here,” the man called over to him. “So perhaps you would be good enough to move, and thereby oblige her. I realize that obliging me is out of the question.”

  The young man pulled himself to his feet, crossed the floor, and threw himself into the other chair without looking at either of us. He was tall and rangy, and might have been rather strongly built but it was difficult to tell from his baggy clothes. His straight dark hair fell forward and across his face; all I could really see was a jutting chin and a grim, unhappy mouth. He took a long swig from his wineglass, sat back with his eyes closed, and began an exaggerated, regular nodding of his head; I saw the white strings of his iPod snaking down from his ears. He was behaving like a teenager but could have been any age between twenty and thirty.

  The older man reached across and lifted the wine bottle. “A Tempranillo and Tinto Fino blend,” he announced, “from the Toro region of Spain. Pintia 2006.” There was no reply. “This is a pretty good wine. You might take some interest.”

  The young man opened his eyes. “What does it matter where it’s from?” he said. He drank again from his glass. “I’m not that bothered about wine,” he added, unnecessarily.

  The man sighed, poured the last drops into his own glass, and handed me the empty bottle with a half-smile that showed his big teeth and the inner edges of his lips, stained dark. From a carrier bag on the floor he drew another identical bottle and a corkscrew. As I finished laying the table he pulled the cork and passed it slowly under his nose.

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope this could be decanted,” he said to me. “But it should at least breathe for twenty minutes. Perhaps you would set the bottle on the sideboard?”

  Before I could take it from him his companion grabbed it, filled his glass fast, and thumped the bottle back on the table. He took three or four hard gulps.

  “There you are,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I’m taking some interest.”

  I didn’t dare look at either of them. I hated them both; what were they doing here at all? I carried the new bottle to the sideboard and took the empty one back to the kitchen.

  I opened a tin of sardines and a jar of cockles in brine, and sliced a couple of tomatoes, then arranged everything on two plates with some lettuce and slices of lemon. I sprinkled on some dried marjoram; there were chives and a woody bit of parsley in the garden but I hadn’t time to go picking herbs. I couldn’t have taken more than fifteen minutes over it, but when I took the plates to the dining room the bottle from the sideboard was on the table and had been started. Both men were slumped back in their chairs, but at least they weren’t arguing.

  “Marine medley,” I said, setting down the plates. Neither of them spoke. Just as I reached the door, the older man called, “Oh, bread! May we have some bread?”

  But when I went back to the kitchen, Howard was on his feet. He needed to pee and wouldn’t go by himself, so I had to attend to him first. When I got back to the dining room with the bread, the second bottle was nearly empty. The food had barely been touched.

  By now Howard was getting confused and restless. Usually I fed him around six o’clock, in front of the television, and he had got up again and was trying with one hand to pull his tray table across in front of his chair. I tried to reassure him that Adam would be here soon; I told him that he’d have to be patient a little longer, that I was busy with some last minute B & B guests, but he just shrugged my hand off his shoulder and refused to let me help him settle back in his chair. He lurched and lowered himself into it and sat glaring. I put our potatoes in the oven to roast and made him a banana sandwich to keep him going. He flicked it around on the plate and looked at me as if I were trying to poison him.

  I’d been going through in my mind what on earth I could produce for the guests’ dinner. It was a long time since we’d had much passing trade and I didn’t keep big stocks of food. There was plenty of pork, but it was out of the question that I should give them that and so present Adam with the joint already carved into, in less than its full splendor. I defrosted some chicken joints in boiling water and put some rice on. I found peas in the freezer, too, so I cooked those while I sautéed the chicken in a frying pan with a shake of Worcestershire sauce, for color. There was a can of condensed mushroom soup that would do for sauce, with a knob of butter. When it was ready I served it all up as nicely as I could and told them it was chicken fricassee. There had been a long wait, but most of the marine medley was still on their plates. The room reeked of alcohol; one of them had knocked over a glass and their twisted napkins lay sodden in a pool of wine where the paper cloth had disintegrated. I didn’t comment, nor did they. For dessert I sliced two bananas and stirred them into custard out of a tin, and sprinkled some crushed biscuits over the top. When I took it i
n, they were still sitting in front of their plates of chicken, so I set it on the sideboard. It was a quarter to nine and I didn’t have time to waste attending to them any longer. Just as I was telling them to help themselves to dessert when they were ready, the telephone rang. It would be Adam, needing a lift from Taunton station. I rushed out to the hall and picked up.

  Adam was in Barcelona.

  “Mum, I just got your email. Look, I’m really sorry. You obviously took it the wrong way about me getting the time off, it doesn’t work like that. I’ve got no choice in the matter. I’m sorry but I thought you knew the score.”

  I couldn’t speak, except to say, “Barcelona? Barcelona?”

  Oh, hadn’t he said he might go? He was sure he had, maybe some time ago. It was never really on the cards he’d get a whole week off, he certainly had told me that. They would only give him four days in the end, he went on, so he’d grabbed the chance and gone off to Barcelona with a couple of guys from the Marseilles office. They were staying at this cool place just off the Ramblas. One of them knew someone with a yacht.

  “Barcelona’s amazing. You ever been? You really should go,” he said.

  “Adam, we’re expecting you here. I thought you’d be ringing from the station. We’ve been waiting all day. Everything’s ready.”

  “Oh God, Mum, look, I’m sorry! I really am. But I don’t understand how you got the idea it was ever definite.”

  “You never said it wasn’t definite.”

  “Sorry, Mum, but yes I did. I did say I wasn’t sure I could make it.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Mum, I’ve had site meetings back to back for three weeks, I’m going from one place to the other, I’m on five planes every three days, I couldn’t ring before, okay? Plus the backlog in the office is worse now, they very nearly didn’t even give me the four days. Four days isn’t worth the hassle of getting to the UK, is it?”