“Alright, Mum,” Dad says patiently. “Let’s have a look, Jake.” He lifts the photograph towards his face and concentrates. “Yep, that’s him alright. Bloody hell, he’s just like you, isn’t he? Mum, have you seen this? Jake’s the spit of Dad. The spit!”
I can’t stop grinning, and my knee’s bouncing away under the table. I want to run about the room, and throw my arms round Dad, and blow raspberries at Gran, and wrestle with Andy, but I don’t, I just sit there grinning like an idiot.
“Was he short, like me?” I ask Gran.
She looks like she’s thinking twice about answering me. “When he was a nipper, so his mum used to say. But when I met him, he was sixteen and sprouting like a bean shoot. His mum used to say he slept in manure, to grow that fast.”
Dad’s smiling at me. Andy’s staring at the photo, with his gormless mouth hanging open.
“That’s weird, Jake,” he’s saying. “That’s weird.”
When we go to leave, Gran lets me borrow the photo, and she wraps it in a used envelope and tells me to look after it carefully. “Don’t you make me regret it,” she says.
“Can I borrow that one of Dad?” asks Andy.
“No you can’t!” snaps Gran. “Is that what you all came here for? To clean me out of photos and eat my cake?”
Andy looks wounded. Dad scowls at Gran, and puts his hand on Andy’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Andy,” he says, “I’ll ask one of your uncles if they’ve got one we can borrow. Don’t want to ruin Gran’s pictures that she looks at all the time.” He snaps shut the leather suitcase and runs his finger through the dust on the lid.
Andy’s face changes. “Thanks, Dad,” he says, smiling at Gran and folding his arms high across his chest. Then he says, “Can we go now, Dad? It’s just Ronny’s gran said I could call round for tea. Nanny, Ronny calls her. She bakes the best cakes ever. Her grandchildren are round her house all the time. And she said to me that I could be her extra grandson if I wanted. You know, she’s knitting me a hat for next winter.” He keeps smiling at me and Dad, avoiding Gran.
“Alright, boys, it’s time to go.” Dad is shoving Andy towards the door.
“She’s got photos up all over her living room, of all her grandchildren.” Andy looks around the bare wallpapered walls of Gran’s room.
Gran doesn’t speak. She just keeps clearing her throat and wrapping her cardie tighter.
“See you soon, Mum,” Dad says as he kisses Gran goodbye.
Me and Andy clamber into the car before Dad gets a chance to make us kiss her again. Gran doesn’t look at us.
“Bitch,” whispers Andy, before Dad gets in.
“Shut up, you idiot,” I hiss at him. As Dad slams the car door shut, Gran turns her eyes on us again. They’re full of water and regret.
“Why can’t she be nice to us, Dad?” I ask after a few minutes’ driving.
“She just doesn’t know how to, son,” he says, and he frowns the rest of the way home.
Mary, October 1984
I sit in Billy’s armchair in the dark of the night. The boys are sleeping. The plates from our sandwich supper are still scattered across the coffee table, surrounded by crumbs and tea rings. I have Rachel’s letter in my hand, its folds scored deep where I’ve carried it round with me all week. I pour another gin, and close my eyes. I think of lying in my childhood bed, with Rachel just a foot away. Her gentle breathing, the air that we shared. The secrets we swore to keep. The belly laughter of our friendship. Then I weep for the fourteen years we’ve been apart, and the memories we can never have.
The bottle’s empty. The cupboard above the cooker is empty. Nothing there. I close it, then open it again to double check. Click-clack. The washing up is stacked high, and it’s starting to smell bad. I’ll do it in the morning. Tomorrow, I’ll get up and have a shower, and get this place straight again. I don’t want Billy coming round here, sneering at me, as if I can’t keep a hold on things. He’ll miss us when he sees how well we’re all coping without him.
In the lounge, I plump up the cushions and arrange them neatly across the sofa. The letter feels clammy in my hand, but I can’t put it down. I pull a chair up next to the telephone stand and read the letter again, in the light cast from the kitchen doorway. “Robert passed away in July, and it made me think, Mary. That life’s too short. I miss you.”
I dial Rachel’s new number. It rings five times, and she answers, sounding fuzzy from sleep.
“Rachel, it’s me,” I whisper, my hand cupped over the receiver. “It’s Mary.”
The silence echoes down the wire. “Mary!” she says eventually. “But – it’s nearly two in the morning!”
There’s another pause, as I wonder if it was a mistake, calling at this time.
“But it’s so good to hear your voice, Mary. It’s so good …” Her voice cracks. “I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Rachel,” I say, my voice trembling.
“I love you too, Mary. I’m so sorry I stayed away. It’s all my fault. I should have kept in touch.”
“I could have made more of an effort too,” I answer weakly.
I hear footsteps in the street outside, and put my hand over the mouthpiece, half expecting to hear Billy’s keys in the door. The footsteps pass.
“I was so sad to hear about Robert, Rach. I had no idea. He was so young. What happened?”
“It was his heart. The stupid thing is, that’s why we moved over here in the first place. To give him a healthier lifestyle. He had one before, you know. A heart attack. Anyway, the doctor says it was probably just a ticking bomb, waiting to go off.”
Neither of us speaks for a moment.
Then she says, “So, how are you and Billy doing these days?”
I laugh, more harshly than I like. “He’s gone. He walked out four weeks ago, just before the boys went back to school. He said he still loves me, but he couldn’t live with me any more. Or some similar cliché.”
“Oh,” says Rachel. “How do you feel about it? Are you OK?”
“We’re OK.”
Rachel clears her throat, and I hear her shifting in her bed. I try to imagine the room she’s sleeping in. Just across the water in the Isle of Wight.
“So, you had another baby after Matthew?” she asks.
“Two. I’ve got Jake, who’s thirteen, and Andy who’s ten. And Matthew’s seventeen now.”
“Good Lord. I’ve got two. George’s thirteen, and then there’s Katy. She’s nearly ten.”
“I’m an auntie,” we say together, and we laugh.
“So we’ve both got a thirteen year old. Fancy that. All this time, and we never knew. When was George born?”
“May,” Rachel replies.
“No! Jake’s May the seventeenth!”
“Now you’re pulling my leg,” she says, sounding like the old Rachel. “George is May the seventeenth too!”
We chatter away, like old times, excited by one another’s news. To think, we were pregnant at the same time, giving birth at the same time. And we never knew.
“I can’t wait to tell Jake,” I laugh. “They’ll have to meet. They’re practically brothers!”
Rachel sighs, and I can feel her smiling. “Send me a letter, Mary. Tell me everything that’s happened to you in the last fourteen years. Will you do that?”
“I’ll do it. I’ll start tomorrow. But only if you promise to write back and do the same.”
“We can close the gap, Mary. If we really want to. It could be like before.”
I’m crying now, hot tears that pour down my face, and I want so much to hold her close, to feel her warm embrace.
“I love you,” I say, and I hang up the receiver.
In the morning, I get up at eleven. I watch the digital number rise, digit by digit, from 10.29 onwards, until 11.00 won’t allow me to stay in my warm, safe sheets any longer. It’s Saturday, and the boys are all up in front of the TV. Matthew gets out of his chair as soon as I enter the room. He takes his leath
er jacket from the coat rack and slams the front door behind him.
“Want a cup of tea, Mum?” Jake asks, putting his empty cereal bowl down on the coffee table.
“Not dressed yet, you lazy boys?” I smile from the doorway.
Andy gives me his how-dare-you look and smiles back. The TV is blaring out and my eyeballs feel sore in my cottony head. Must be all that crying. They’re watching Roger Ramjet, and the screechy American accents grate through my eardrums.
“Turn it down, Jakey,” I say as he hands me a mug of tea. “And do you have to sit so close? Push the sofa back where it belongs.”
Jake picks up one corner of the sofa and starts to heave it backwards. “Is Dad coming round today?” he asks as I settle against the cushions.
“Don’t know,” I answer. And I don’t. He won’t answer my calls to him at work, and he hasn’t given me the phone number for his new flat. “Maybe he’ll call you later to arrange something,” I add, watching Andy’s disappointed face.
“Yeah. I expect ’e’ll do that,” says Jake.
“He’ll, Jake. He’ll do that.”
“Yeah. He’ll do that.” He blinks at me with his strange green eyes. “I only do it to wind you up.”
“I wish that was true. At least then you could stop it!” I rub the bridge of my nose between my fingers.
“What’s up, Mum? You got a headache again?” Jake asks.
“Just a little one.”
He disappears into the kitchen and returns with a tub of aspirins.
“There you go. Take a couple of those and I’ll make you some toast. You shouldn’t have them on an empty stomach.”
I watch him from the sofa, his little body silhouetted against the kitchen window, as he carefully butters the toast and hums the theme tune from Roger Ramjet. His ankles are bony, and his pyjamas are an inch too short. My heart could burst.
Jake, August 1985
When we arrive in Caen, it’s around teatime and the sun is still beating down, hot and dry. We sit in the queue of cars snailing off the ferry, with our windows wound down as far as they’ll go. Inside the car we’re crammed in next to all our luggage, with our knees pushed up by the pillows and bags in the footwell. Andy and me sit on top of the four sleeping bags, which have been laid out one on top of each other across the back seat. The nylon fabric sticks to the back of my bare legs, creating little wet patches that I have to shift and move about on. I wish I’d worn trousers instead of shorts. In between us is a picnic bag containing the leftovers of today’s lunch. Dad got Mum to make up sandwiches for the ferry trip so that we didn’t waste our money on the expensive canteen food, which is a rip-off. Andy pokes about in the bag, trying to see what’s left.
“How long till we stop?” I ask, once we get through Customs and out on to the main road.
“Dunno,” says Dad. “We’ll see. When we spot a good campsite, we’ll stop.”
One of the straps on the roof rack has come loose, and it begins to flap over the side of the car, whipping in next to my face every now and then. Dad pulls over in a lay-by, opens my door and steps up on the edge of the car to fix the strap. His face is sweaty, and he’s frowning with concentration.
“That should do it,” he says, and he shuts my door and gets back in the driver’s seat.
“I think we should stop before too long,” says Mum, as we pull away again. “So that we can settle in before it gets dark.”
“We’ve got ages before then,” says Dad. “It’s a long way down to the Dordogne, so we might as well get a good start today. Right, boys! Look out for signs along the way: Camping à la ferme. If we see a good one, we can camp up there.”
But we seem to be driving through town after town, little grey places with bent-over pensioners and the odd stray dog. No sign of any farms or campsites around here.
“Will Aunt Rachel be at the house when we get to the Dordogne?” I ask.
“Yes, they’ll have been there a week when we arrive. Rachel said they’ll stay on for a few days after we get there, then we’ll have another week by ourselves.” Mum smiles back at me from the passenger seat.
“Will I get to share a room with George?”
“Well, Rachel says the inside of the place is tiny – it’s only half converted. But there’s loads of space outside, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t camp out together if you want.”
“Brilliant,” I say, feeling the hot breeze battering my cheeks. “Brilliant!”
“Can I?” asks Andy.
“No way!” I growl at him. He’s not butting in on me and George.
“We’ll see,” says Mum.
Andy gives me one of his smug little smiles and I shake my fist at him to let him know there’s no chance. “Git,” I whisper at him through gritted teeth.
“Wanker,” he mouths at me so Mum can’t hear.
“Later,” I whisper back at him, quietly bringing my fist down into the palm of my other hand. “Later, geek-boy.”
Andy tuts and turns to look out of his window. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Knob.”
Eventually, as the sun begins to set, we find a Camping à la ferme site, and decide to stop there, whatever it’s like. Turns out it’s really shit, with lumpy, hard ground, pre-war style loos, and a weird old witch of a farmer’s wife who can’t keep her gnarled hands off Andy’s white cheeks. But we get the tent up before it’s dark, and cook baked beans over the Calor gas. Mum and Dad open a bottle of wine they picked up in one of the little villages we drove through, and we eat baked beans and baguette and nectarines by the light of a gas lamp. The damp cold comes down quickly, and soon we’re stuffed into our sleeping bags with the tent zipped up.
“Love you,” I hear Dad tell Mum.
The further south we drive, the brighter the sunflowers, and the wider the fields. The plastic smell of the vinyl car seats hangs heavy in the air, and even the breeze blasting through the four open windows seems unable to shift the suffocating heat. We’ve been on the road for the best part of two days now, and when we start to pick up the local directions that Rachel wrote out for us, we can hardly believe we’re nearly there. The car winds uphill alongside a steep drop that looks down on to jagged rocks below, and I can tell that Mum’s nervous by the way she grips at the steering wheel, leaning further forward as if to urge the car on. From time to time we pass little bunches of flowers, laid down carefully on the dry grassy bank.
“So,” says Dad, who’s navigating, “it says, ‘Take the turning on the left marked Ferme Fourniers, and follow the road all the way down, even when it starts to look like it’s no longer a road.’ There should be some deserted barns on the right along here. There! There they are. OK, we’re on the right track. Now, Rachel’s place is called La Font de Paul.”
The road is rough and bumpy, hardly a road at all, and thick hay-like grass grows across it in heavy clumps. As we pass the deserted buildings, the road disappears altogether, and the grass grows long. It just looks like a dried up old field.
“What now?” asks Mum, pulling a disbelieving face.
“Like it says, carry on anyway.”
Mum drives on a few yards then brakes to a halt. “We can’t just drive up there. We could get stuck in a rut or something. We don’t even know it’s the right way.”
Dad huffs, and gets out of the car, clutching the directions in a rolled up bundle. He’s wearing his faded denim shorts that he’s had for years, and a tight stripy T-shirt. I wonder if the shorts are too short as he stretches his arms and legs at the side of the car.
“Won’t be a tick,” he says, and he marches off through the long grass, and disappears through a haze of heat into the opening of a heavily wooded area. Mum turns off the engine, and the three of us sit in the car listening to the chorus of insects around us. After a few minutes, we all get out, hoping it’ll be cooler on the outside of the car, but it’s not. The heat is stronger than any I ever remember before, and the sweat pours from my head freely. I run my fingers through my hair, feeling the dam
pness spread across my scalp.
“Jake! Jake!” shouts Andy, as he scrabbles about in the dusty grass. “Look at the size of it.”
He’s got a grasshopper in his cupped hand, and he takes it over to the car and releases it. “Skill!”
The grasshopper is light and bright, and it hops about on the hot white bonnet with noisy little taps, until eventually it manages to leap off into the grass and escape.
“Get me a drink, Jakey,” says Mum. She’s leaning over one of the open doors, fanning herself with the map of France.
I grab the bottle of water from the picnic bag. It’s half full, and warm to the touch. Mum throws her head back and gulps it down, chucking the empty bottle on to the front seat when she’s done with it.
“Run up and see if you can spot your dad, Jake,” she says, “but don’t go any further than the opening to the trees up there.”
I break into a run, and as I get halfway to the trees, Dad appears, waving his arms in the air, beckoning us to follow him. Andy and Mum get back into the car and drive slowly through the long grass until they reach the spot where I’m now standing with Dad. We both take our seats back in the car, and Mum carries on at about a mile an hour through the trees and across the uneven track.
“It’s definitely up here,” says Dad, looking excited. “All the signs match up with Rachel’s directions.”
The path through the wood is so narrow that the bushes and branches on either side drag along the doors of the old Austin, making a screechy, scrapy noise, like they’re trying to hold us back.
“It’s a good job it’s not an Aston Martin,” says Dad. “I’ll have to get the car polish out when we get back home.”
On and on we drive, slowly, slowly, with the mounting pressure of anticipation growing inside the car. Andy and me are both up on our knees, craning forward to see if we can spot La Font in the distance. Gradually, the track opens up and we’re driving through the cool, dim woods towards the bright sunlight beyond the trees. We emerge on the other side of the wood, and the car slows to a halt. There it is: La Font de Paul, a crumbling old barn made of ancient stone, surrounded by wide, singed grasslands, nestled against a backdrop of magnificent fields and valleys. In all its solitude, La Font could be the last place on earth, and we could be the last people.
Glasshopper Page 23