‘A hundred miles walking?’ Victoria says.
‘A hundred miles?’ Bertie repeats.
Penny, the only other person present who truly loves to walk, is suddenly wondering if there isn’t some way they could afford this holiday after all. ‘Where do you stay, then?’ she asks.
‘In the albergues,’ Martin says. ‘They’re like youth hostels.’
‘So they’re pretty cheap, then?’
‘Oh, absolutely. A fiver a night or something. Per person, of course. Some of them you actually pay whatever you want. You just make a donation.’
‘Hostels?’ Victoria says. ‘This is sounding less and less like my kind of holiday, dear.’
‘It’ll be fun,’ Martin insists. ‘You’ll see. And we’ll all come back as fit as fiddles.’
‘I don’t see why you have to choose the only holiday that I can’t come on,’ Marge says.
‘There are quite a few holidays you couldn’t go on, Gran,’ Max tells her. ‘Paragliding, mountain climbing . . .’
‘Bungee jumping,’ Bertie contributes. ‘Crossing a desert on a motorbike?’
‘Now you’re just being silly. What I mean is . . .’ Marge starts. But then, thankfully, the waitress arrives with the first of their meals, interrupting that thought.
After lunch, as they are walking home, Bertie, Max and Chloe detour via the amusement arcade – Martin has slipped them a tenner – and Victoria and Martin, complaining about the cold while looking like an advert for a romcom, stride ahead, leaving Penny and Sander to coax Marge homewards.
‘I wish we’d taken them somewhere nicer,’ Victoria says, once they’re out of earshot. ‘When Pen got all excited about eating out, it made me feel a bit stingy.’
‘I know,’ Martin says. ‘Me, too. Perhaps we could all go out again this evening?’
‘It’s difficult,’ Victoria says. ‘You have to be careful not to put Penny’s nose out of joint.’
‘I know,’ Martin says. ‘But it’ll be fine. Leave it to me.’
‘And I expect Penny’s got stuff in,’ Victoria adds. ‘The fridge looked pretty full, though most of it is probably past the sell-by date, knowing my sister.’
‘We’ll find somewhere nice,’ Martin says. ‘Treat them. It’ll be lovely.’
‘If only Sander would get a job,’ Victoria says, glancing back to check that they are a good distance away. ‘It’s really not fair on Pen.’
‘No,’ Martin agrees. ‘No, it’s tough for her, isn’t it? And what do you think about the holiday? Will they come? Sander seemed keen.’
‘You should have asked me first, is what I think.’
‘Because you’re not keen?’
‘Me? In a youth hostel? Come on.’
‘But . . .’
‘Plus, Penny and Sander will never go. Firstly, they can’t afford it and, secondly, they can’t organise a visit to the corner shop without drama, let alone a trip along some pilgrims’ path in Spain.’
‘I can organise it,’ Martin says. ‘It’ll be fun. And we’ll all come back fit and tanned.’
‘I don’t think you’re listening to me,’ Victoria says, squeezing Martin’s arm. ‘It’s not happening.’
Martin pulls a face.
‘You can go,’ Victoria says. ‘I’m not stopping you. I’m just speaking for myself.’
‘Maybe I’ll just go with Bertie, then,’ Martin says. ‘It might do us good to do something together. Just the two of us. He’s getting distant. And sulky. Like Chloe, really.’
‘Bertie’s not like Chloe at all!’
‘He barely gives me the time of day these days,’ Martin says.
‘I think it’s like Penny said, dear. He’s just that age.’
Almost half a mile behind them, Penny, Sander and Marge have had to pause to rest on a wooden bench. ‘You’re not really going on this silly holiday, are you?’ Marge, who doesn’t like to be left out, asks.
‘Unless there’s some kind of miracle or we win the lottery, we won’t be going anywhere,’ Penny says.
‘Winning the lottery would be a miracle,’ Sander comments, ‘seeing as we don’t play.’
‘You don’t want to be going on holiday with them, anyway,’ Marge says. ‘You two would fight like cat and dog on holiday, just the same as you did in Paris.’
‘That was years ago, Mum.’
‘But it’s still probably true,’ Sander agrees.
‘I thought it was insensitive,’ Marge comments. ‘I mean, they know that I can’t go on a walking holiday, and they know that you can’t afford it. So it’s a bit rude, really.’
‘I think Martin genuinely thinks it will be pretty cheap,’ Sander says. ‘I think he was just trying to be nice.’
‘Cheap?’ Marge sniffs. ‘They don’t even know what “cheap” means. They just like to rub everyone’s noses in it, is the truth of the matter. It’s like Martin dressing up as Cary Grant and your sister wearing that Agnès B thing. They just want everyone to know who’s top dog, that’s all.’
Penny wrinkles her nose. ‘You think?’
‘She always was a show-off, your sister,’ Marge says. ‘Still, forgive and forget, eh?’
‘I don’t think they’re like that,’ Sander insists. ‘They’re just lucky enough to make more money than we do, that’s all. You can’t begrudge them that.’
‘Really?’ Marge says doubtfully. ‘And luck, you say? Oh well . . . So, what about you, Sander? How’s your luck these days? Have you sold any work?’
Sander clears his throat. ‘Um . . . No, Marge,’ he stammers. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Well, I’d sub you if I could,’ Marge says. ‘For the holiday, I mean. But I’m afraid I’m probably even more broke than you are.’
When they eventually get back to the house – after having grabbed a passing mini-cab, so cold were they from shuffling along the seafront – Martin and Victoria are seated in the lounge.
Martin has loosened his tie and removed his jacket, but in his crisp white shirt, he still, Penny thinks, seems to ooze wealth and well-being.
As she makes everyone cups of tea, she remembers when she first met Sander. For he had not always been such a scruff either.
She had been invited to the private view by Sheena, the girl she shared her flat with. There would, Sheena had promised, be free Champagne, and who was Penny to refuse free Champagne?
On arriving at the gallery, she had been blown away by the beauty of Sander’s huge paintings, and had giggled at the incongruous faces of the blow-up dolls he had painted, situated in business meetings or dressed as waitresses or bus conductors.
When a short, Woody Allen-type guy came into the room, she had asked Sheena if this, finally, was the artist. ‘No, it’s that guy over there,’ Sheena had said, pointing to a man with long hair and big glasses wearing a grey heavy-check suit and a pink bow-tie.
‘I’ll introduce you,’ Sheena had offered, but there had been no need, because Sander, who had locked eyes with Penny already (he had the bluest eyes she had ever seen) was already making his excuses and heading their way.
The suit still hangs in the closet upstairs, but even if Sander could get into it, which he can’t, it would look horribly outdated nowadays. No one has been able to get away with lapels like that, or a pink bow-tie, for that matter, since the noughties, and even back then, you probably had to be an in-vogue Danish artist to do so. Sander later admitted that his publicist, who was gay, had chosen the suit for him. And that, Penny thought, sounded about right.
Still, men are so daft, Penny reckons. Because, just like women, all they really want is to be attractive, to be fancied, to catch the eye of the other sex. And there’s really no easier way for a man to achieve that end than to wear a nice suit and an ironed shirt. It’s the male equivalent of walking around in your lingerie, for God’s sake, and yet most men, like Sander, spend their entire lives attempting to dress down. It’s incomprehensible.
‘Can I help you with those?’ Martin asks from
the doorway, and Penny jumps and blushes as if he has perhaps stumbled into her thoughts.
‘Sure, you can carry two of these through,’ she says, taking two of the mugs of tea from the counter and holding them out. ‘Nice cufflinks,’ she comments as he takes the teas from her grasp.
‘Thanks,’ Martin says. ‘Vicky got them for me in Venice. They’re supposedly Venetian glass, but I reckon most of the stuff they sell there comes from China. Though don’t tell her that.’
As he turns and walks away, she glances at his buttocks, pert and hugged by the material of his suit trousers, and tells herself, Stop it, Penny, you love Sander. And it’s true. She does. It’s just that love isn’t incompatible with wishing he dressed better.
And then in her mind’s eye, or ear, she hears Martin saying, Vicky got them for me in Venice, and wonders whether her mother isn’t right about him, after all. ‘Ooh, Vicky got them for me in Venice,’ she repeats quietly, in a silly nasal voice.
As Penny joins the others in the lounge, Victoria is saying, ‘Apparently, they all come over here for the benefits, and that’s what’s really got to change if we don’t want them all coming over. Either that, or we need to get control of our borders back.’
‘Um,’ Martin says non-committally.
Despite Sander catching her eye and vaguely shaking his head, Penny asks, ‘So, who’s this, then?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Victoria replies in a mock-disinterested voice. ‘Oh, it was just something I read.’
‘Where’s Mum?’ Penny asks, looking around the room.
‘Gone for a kip,’ Sander replies, hoping that Marge’s absence has diverted Penny from the subject at hand.
‘Right,’ Penny says. ‘So, who exactly is supposed to be coming over here for our wonderful benefits system?’
‘You know full well,’ Victoria says. ‘The refugees. The Syrians and what-have-you.’
‘I know full well that they’re coming here because their country’s at war,’ Penny says.
‘Oh, come on. The whole place can’t be a war zone. Syria’s huge.’
‘Actually, it can,’ Penny tells her. ‘They’re being bombed by their own government, by the rebels, the Americans, Qatar, the Saudis, and the Iranians. In fact, it would be easier to list who isn’t currently bombing Syria.’
‘But—’
‘And when they’re not being bombed, they’re being decapitated or raped or thrown off buildings by ISIS. It’s not the £5 a day asylum seeker’s allowance that’s causing them to leave.’
‘So how come they’re all men?’ Victoria asks. ‘Answer me that.’
‘Penny . . .’ Sander whines, shaking his head, but she bats the intervention away with one hand.
‘Who are all men?’ Penny asks.
‘In the newsreels. They’re all men. You never see women or children, do you?’ Victoria says, glancing at Martin for support. He gives her a search me shrug as his only reply. It’s meant to convey You’re on your own here but Victoria misreads it as a far more complex You know I agree with you, but you also know that it’s against the rules to argue with my sister-in-law shrug. She decides she’s going to have to defend what she believes to be their shared point of view single-handedly.
‘That’s absolute rubbish,’ Penny says. ‘I’m dealing with a total of nine Syrian families at the moment and they’re nearly all women and children.’
‘Nine!’ Victoria says, sarcastically. ‘Wow!’
‘How dare you!’ Penny spits. ‘Plus, the United Nations – who collect actual data on these things instead of the gossipy hearsay you listen to – say that fifty-one per cent of them are female, and fifty-something per cent are children, so . . .’
‘That’s not what I read,’ Victoria insists.
‘This is kind of Penny’s job,’ Sander mutters, half-heartedly offering a smidgen of support to his wife.
‘Well, it is kind of the job of the journalist who wrote the article I read in the Telegraph, too, I expect,’ Victoria retorts.
‘Show me the article.’
‘I don’t have it here. Obviously.’
‘You’re impossible to argue with,’ Penny says. ‘I don’t know why I bother.’
‘I just think that if all these fit young men—’ Victoria says.
‘And women and children—’ Penny interjects.
‘—stayed at home and fought for their country instead of running away, then we wouldn’t have to risk British lives to save them, would we? I mean, why do we . . .’
‘Who would you like them to stay and fight?’ Penny interrupts. ‘Assad? Al-Qaeda. ISIS? The Saudis? All of them, maybe?’
‘Well, ISIS, obviously, to start with,’ Victoria says. ‘I don’t know what sort of country we’d have if all our boys had run away during the Second World War. We’d probably be living under Hitler or something.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Vicky,’ Penny says. ‘How can you be so bloody ignorant about everything? It’s a totally different situation.’
‘Ignorant?’ Victoria repeats, looking outraged. ‘Me?’
‘What you’re saying is ignorant. It’s a statement of fact, dear sister.’
‘Oh, you’ve always thought you’re so clever,’ Victoria says. ‘Ever since you got your bloody degree, you think you know everything. Well, I’ve a surprise for you, Penny. Going to college doesn’t actually make you better than everyone else, after all. And there are other sources of information out there beyond what your social-worker mates tell you.’
‘Oh, here we go!’ Penny says. ‘You’re the one who thinks you’re above everyone. You’re the one swanning around in your Agnès B trouser suit and quoting the Torygraph to everyone.’
‘How about you show me that studio of yours, eh?’ Martin says, addressing Sander in an exaggeratedly calm tone of voice. ‘Maybe show me what you’re working on at the moment?’
‘Great idea,’ Sander says, even though he’s not working on anything at the moment. He wonders if he can smoke a joint in front of Martin, or if he’d be shocked.
‘Sander!’ Penny protests. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘This is sister stuff, babe,’ Sander replies. ‘See ya.’
The two men carry their mugs of tea up to Sander’s studio. The sunshine is streaming in, falling across the armchair. ‘Have the magic seat,’ Sander offers, propping himself up on a pile of pillows against the wall and glancing in the direction of his dope box. ‘I’m fine down here.’
‘You’re sleeping in here tonight?’ Martin asks, looking around the room and noting the absence of a bed.
‘We’ve got one of those blow-up things,’ Sander says. ‘It’ll be fine – if I can find the pump. Do you mind if I smoke?’
Martin shrugs. ‘It is your studio. And your house.’
‘I mean . . . you know . . .’ Sander says, emphasising the word. ‘Smoke.’
‘Yeah, I guessed,’ Martin laughs. ‘I don’t, but please, knock yourself out.’
‘I certainly intend to try,’ Sander replies.
Downstairs, the argument rages on. But other than an occasional grimace when an intelligible shriek reaches their ears (generally Penny’s voice), and other than Sander’s comment, ‘I knew they’d argue,’ to which Martin replies, ‘Well, of course,’ the men manage to avoid even the vaguest of references to the war being waged below.
‘So, who do you reckon between Wigan and Salford?’ Martin asks.
‘Well, without McIlorum, Wigan are going to struggle,’ Sander replies.
When the children get home twenty minutes later, the argument is still ongoing.
‘What’s all that about?’ Max asks, peeping in through Sander’s door as he makes his way to the sanctuary of his own room.
‘Refugees, I think,’ Sander says.
‘Oh, I think we can safely say they’ve moved on to more personal issues by now,’ Martin says, winking at Sander. ‘Just lie low until teatime, mate,’ he tells Max. ‘It will all be over by then.’
The wo
rds ‘Bloody bitch’ rise up the stairwell, and Max says, ‘They’re not going to kill each other, are they?’
Sander shakes his head. ‘It’s just sibling stuff,’ he says. ‘It’s just like you and Chloe, really.’
‘We never argue like that, though,’ Max says.
‘You probably will,’ Martin tells him with a laugh. ‘One day. If you’re lucky.’
‘You have a brother, right?’ Max asks.
Martin nods. ‘And we argue just like that,’ he says. ‘But only at weddings. Weddings and funerals are best for that kind of thing. That’s what we reckon in our family, anyway.’
‘Right.’ Max laughs. ‘I’ll, um, remember that advice, Uncle Martin.’
By the time Marge comes downstairs at four, the house is in almost complete silence.
Max and Bertie are playing on the Xbox, and Chloe, in her own bedroom, is chatting to a friend via text message.
Martin and Sander are watching the football with the sound turned low, and Penny and Victoria are gliding around each other doing their best to avoid any further interaction.
Penny looks red and angry still, while Victoria looks puffy and stoned, which, having taken an extra Valium, she pretty much is.
‘Have you two stopped fighting?’ Marge asks as she enters the room. ‘Is it safe to come in?’
Victoria and Penny half-glance at each other. ‘I have,’ Penny says, which provokes a groan from Victoria.
‘I’ll make tea,’ Victoria says, standing. ‘Anyone want a cup?’ Everyone replies except Penny. ‘I’m assuming you don’t, then?’ Victoria asks, still not looking directly at her sister.
‘Assume what you want,’ Penny says. ‘You always do anyway. Why let facts get in the way?’
‘Ugh,’ Victoria groans, already leaving the room.
‘Look, there’s nothing wrong with a good fight to clear the air,’ Marge tells her youngest daughter, ‘but you’re a bit old for all this sulking business.’
‘I’m not sulking,’ Penny says. ‘I’m angry. She said some very hurtful things.’
‘And I’m sure you said some back.’
‘She called me a liar and a snob and a—’
The Bottle of Tears Page 5