The Family Holiday

by Elizabeth Noble

  57

  Nick took a coffee out into the garden and reread Fran’s text from the day before. He should have replied yesterday. It was selfish of him. He hadn’t called Carrie’s parents either, and he’d do that now. If it was selfish, he felt entitled to it. He hadn’t had the room, yesterday, for other people’s grief. He barely had the capacity to absorb it today. But yesterday had been for him and the children. Carrie’s parents were out, or not answering the telephone. He left a stilted and awkward message – it wasn’t the subject matter for an answerphone, and he hadn’t prepared anything. He knew yesterday would have been wretched for them.

  He dialled Fran. She answered on the third ring.

  ‘Fran? It’s me?’

  ‘I know. Caller ID.’ She sounded glad that he’d called, and he was a bit relieved.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t reply yesterday.’

  ‘No need. I didn’t expect you to. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you all. And about Carrie.’

  ‘And I appreciate that. I appreciated it, I mean. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, we’re fine.’ She sighed.

  ‘Having fun?’

  ‘Well, the novelty of camping has well and truly worn off, I can tell you that. I’d be dreaming of my own bed, if I could sleep deeply enough to dream.’

  ‘Not comfy?’

  ‘Not comfy enough. The walk to the shower block has become slightly longer every day. So now it’s like setting off to climb the north face of the Eiger in your dressing-gown with a sponge-bag.’

  Nick laughed. She always made him laugh.

  ‘And I’m never eating sausage and beans again. Particularly if the sausages are carcinogenically charred. Which they have been. And I’ve sworn off wine boxes. And Uno. Fucking Uno. Excuse my language.’

  He was so with her on Uno. He’d often wondered when they’d be old enough to be taught proper card games. ‘Weather’s been good, though, right?’

  ‘Don’t try to console me. If it had rained, I’d have been less hot and sweaty and rash-y, and I’d probably have had a legitimate excuse to throw the kids and the crap into the back of the car and head home.’

  ‘It’s nearly over, though, isn’t it? Your glamping ordeal?’

  She harrumphed. ‘Glamping, my arse. That, my friend, is Alastair Campbell-worthy spin.’ She famously, vocally, viscerally hated Alastair Campbell, for reasons she could happily explain at length after three glasses of anything. ‘But, yes, tonight. I’d go earlier, but the kids have welded themselves to some poor unsuspecting family from Nottingham, and are refusing to leave until tonight.’

  ‘You’ll beat rush-hour traffic at least.’

  ‘Will you stop with the consolation, Mr Silver Linings?’

  Nick laughed. ‘Okay, okay.’

  Her voice was serious now. ‘And how are you? Really? How was it?’

  ‘It was okay. I was dreading it, to be honest. Not sure why, really. It’s just another day without her.’

  ‘It’s a milestone, that’s why.’

  ‘I suppose. I’ve done every date without her now.’

  ‘Exactly. I get why it loomed large. It did for me too.’

  ‘But everyone was great. Got it right. Didn’t ignore it. Didn’t let me wallow. It was nice to be with them.’

  ‘I bet your dad engineered it that way.’

  Nick hadn’t thought of that. His mother definitely would have done so. He hadn’t thought of his dad planning the holiday to cover the day. Perhaps he had. Nick felt a sudden rush of affection for his father. Not just for Charlie the father, but for Charlie the husband, and for the new bond their histories had bound around them.

  ‘The kids? How were they?’

  ‘Not bad. Bea was obviously sad. Lila was sort of taking her cue from Bea. If that makes sense. Arthur … oblivious, more or less. We did a little ceremony. It was my sister-in-law’s idea.’

  ‘The new one?’

  ‘The new one. The only one. My actual sister’s been a bit busy – and a bit AWOL.’

  ‘How can you be AWOL on a family holiday?’

  ‘Not easy, but she’s managing it. Anyway, it was Heather’s idea. It was thoughtful of her … and it was nice.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ Fran paused, but Nick had nothing more to say on the subject and she didn’t push. ‘I got a bit maudlin, in my tent prison. I’ve never deleted our chat, the one Carrie and I had. You know, WhatsApp. On my phone. I went back and read all our messages.’

  ‘Aw, Fran.’

  ‘Daft, really. It took bloomin’ ages. It’s no wonder I’ve got RSI in my thumbs. There were millions. Arrangements, in-jokes, pictures, gossip, bitching. All of it’s there. It made me incredibly sad. It made me remember how in each other’s pockets we were … the enormity of the hole she’s left in my life …’

  ‘I do know.’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. Listen to me.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘It’s not. I shouldn’t –’

  ‘It’s not a competition, Fran. I loved her, you loved her. We’ve both lost something precious.’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth.’

  After that there wasn’t much more to say. It was what it was. Nick wanted to get off the phone. As he’d suspected, the weight of Fran’s grief was too heavy, even down a telephone line, without her face in front of him. He didn’t want it.

  As if she sensed it, Fran spoke, her voice brighter. ‘Well, I can hear one of my precious darlings calling me. Better go.’

  He hadn’t heard anyone. ‘So we’ll get together, once you’re back, right?’

  ‘Sure. We’ll fix a thing.’

  ‘Okay. Definitely.’ He didn’t know what.

  And she was gone.

  58

  Charlie was at a tea party. He was, in fact, guest of honour at a very exclusive tea party. Bea was maître d’, Delilah acting as waitress, and Arthur a somewhat disruptive fellow guest who kept running across the picnic blanket, sending everything flying. The tea was terrible, weak and watery, but he’d never have said so. The fairy cakes were better, but then Heather had baked them. He wouldn’t normally have chosen to wear a gem-studded tiara so early in the afternoon, and he wasn’t at all sure that Essie’s Watermelon, borrowed from Heather, was quite his manicure shade. But it was a five-star Trip Advisor review from him.

  This, to him, was what being a grandfather was all about. He only wished he could do more of it. And that their granny was here too.

  When Ethan was born, Daphne had been ecstatic to become a grandmother. She had a friend in the village who refused to be called ‘Granny’ or ‘Grandma’ or ‘Nanny’ – it made her feel old, she said. Daphne thought she was ridiculous. She couldn’t wait.

  When Laura had gone into labour, just a day or two before the due date, she’d called them, even though it was one a.m. Daphne had answered, sleeping lightly in anticipation. He’d heard, next to Daphne in the bed, the edge of panic in Laura’s voice, higher and louder than normal. Daphne spoke to her calmly and soothingly, firm at the same time. It was the alchemy of her parenting, the balance only she could achieve. He’d observed it, failed to emulate it, envied it. Now he was just grateful she knew how to do it. For a moment, she just breathed in and out, slowly, in time with her daughter.

  Laura hadn’t known how she’d feel, whom she’d want to be with her, until her waters burst dramatically on the bathroom floor, and the first strong contraction tightened ominously across her belly, but she knew then that she wanted her mother. Please could they come? Please? Alex had taken the phone from her at that point, but he didn’t sound any less keen.

  It was all the encouragement Daphne needed. Charlie knew that for weeks she’d been half waiting for such a call. They were up and dressed and in the car within fifteen minutes. At the hospital within an hour. By the time they arrived, Laura had been admitted, and the contractions, which had obviously been rumbling all evening, were coming faster and more fiercely.

  Alex was almost pitifully
grateful they were there. Charlie remembered feeling an unfamiliar surge of affection for his son-in-law, grey with worry, so out of place in the ward. He hadn’t been at the birth of any of his own three children, and he was glad. It hadn’t been at all the thing in his day, thank God. Alex, it seemed, a modern father, had no choice. But he let himself be taken for a cup of tea, and a walk around the grounds of the hospital, relieved and grateful to leave Laura, her mess and her pain with her mother.

  Laura had been fully dilated in a fairly swift three and a half hours. She had relaxed once her mother had arrived. They’d even been joking, the low, conspiratorial laugh he’d been hearing since Laura was a teenager.

  And then things had deviated from the smooth path they’d all thought they were on. Second stage deep transverse arrest. Charlie had never forgotten the medical term. The baby was stuck. By now, he and Alex were back from their walk. Alex came in and out of the room, ostensibly to give Charlie updates where he sat on a row of interlocked plastic chairs. Charlie could see that he needed to move.

  Things got frightening quickly. People who had been relaxed and even quite slow started to move at speed, and that in itself felt alarming. The foetal monitor taped to Laura’s bump registered that the baby was distressed. His heart rate was too fast. The midwife called for an obstetrician, and the handsome young houseman advised that they needed to take Laura to theatre. Alex was taken away to be changed into scrubs. Father only in the theatre.

  Charlie and Daphne had sat on the hard chairs in the corridor outside the double doors Laura had been wheeled through. Charlie had tried to take Daphne’s clenched hand, and she had unfurled her fingers to reveal Laura’s narrow white gold wedding band.

  ‘They’ll be all right, won’t they?’

  ‘She’ll be all right. I don’t know about the baby. I don’t know.’ Her confidence had deserted her. She didn’t want to promise him something she couldn’t, and she was too frightened to protect him. He had come to rely completely on her certainty. He felt lost without it.

  It had all been all right. Mother and baby safe. Groggy from a general anaesthetic, sore from an incision, Laura was exhausted and relieved. Ethan was six pounds nine ounces of red, blotchy, bawling baby, with a shock of dark hair. And Daphne was in love. The intensity of her feeling for her grandson had surprised even Charlie, who knew more than most about the ferocity of her love for her own children.

  How she would have adored these other little people, the ones she’d never got to meet.

  Lucy came round the corner, stopped short when she saw them. ‘I’m so sorry … I knocked at the front but no one answered.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Charlie chuckled.

  ‘I didn’t mean to disturb your tea!’

  ‘You can have some,’ Bea announced.

  ‘Well that’s very kind of you,’ Lucy crouched to Bea’s level, ‘but I’m rather late for my own tea. It’s waiting for me at home. I just came to say hello to your granddad.’ Over Bea’s head, she whispered, ‘Just to make sure all was good – you’re off the day after tomorrow, I know.’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s been wonderful. Let me …’ Charlie made as if to stand up.

  Lucy put her hand up. ‘No. You stay there! Please! It can wait. I’ll catch up with you in the morning.’

  ‘Granddad, you haven’t finished!’ Delilah was indignant, hands on tiny hips.

  Lucy backed away, smiling. ‘Quite right, Granddad. Finish your tea! Just adorable …’

  ‘Please have a cup.’

  Lucy smiled. ‘Well, okay, then, you’ve persuaded me. Can I have tea with two sugars please?’

  ‘Sugar is bad for your teeth.’

  ‘You’re quite right.’

  ‘So just one.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘One. Thank you.’

  Charlie mouthed, ‘Thank you’, over Delilah’s head.

  ‘A pleasure.’

  ‘Let’s go and find a real biscuit for Lucy.’ Bea grabbed her sister’s hand and they skipped off towards the kitchen.

  Charlie cleared his throat. ‘It really has been wonderful.’

  ‘I’m so glad. Have you been able to …’ Lucy paused.

  ‘Fix everyone? That’s more or less what I said I wanted to do, isn’t it? In your garden?’

  ‘Well, you obviously wanted to spend time with them.’ She was being tactful.

  ‘I think you felt everyone needed to spend some time together.’

  ‘And I really didn’t know how it would go. But it’s been great. I should have known you can’t fix people. Only time and themselves can do that.’

  She nodded, understanding.

  ‘But family matters. Family reminds you of who you are. Where you’ve come from. Family always loves you, even when you don’t love yourself. Even when it doesn’t like what you’re doing or how you’re being … Families aren’t perfect. But they’re what you’ve got. Whatever.’

  ‘Wise words.’

  ‘I think, I hope, we’ve all remembered that.’

  ‘Something to build on.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘They’re lucky to have you.’

  She’d said that before. In the garden. He’d replied that they’d been lucky to have their mum. This time he answered differently: ‘And I’m lucky to have them.’

  59

  Laura woke up in Joe’s bed. She’d left the house early, before anyone, even Heather, was up. She was in her running kit as an alibi, in case.

  She’d woken him, of course. He’d answered the door, tousled, rubbing his eyes, topless, with a pair of track pants worn low on his hips.

  She loved that he didn’t make any small-talk. He just smiled his slow, sexy smile, accepting her presence without question, and pulled her into his arms to kiss her. The novelty of being desired was almost overwhelming. It made her feel weak, grateful, tearful. And sexy as all hell.

  Inside, the door closed against the world, he took in her get-up. ‘Are we going running?’

  She laughed self-consciously. ‘A disguise.’

  ‘Thank God for that. I can think of far better ways to work up a sweat.’ He’d pulled her to him again, his hands sliding inside the Lycra.

  ‘What a line!’

  ‘Is it working?’

  ‘It’s working.’

  And then they’d drifted off, back to sleep. When she woke up, it was after nine. Joe lay on his stomach beside her, still asleep. She studied his still face for a few moments, taking in the morning stubble across his cheeks, the fine lines at his eyes, the arch of his brows. Then rolled onto her back, and stretched. The sun was streaming in now, through open windows without curtains, and she luxuriated in being there, in the birdsong, in the sun, in his bed.

  Beside her, Joe stirred. ‘Good morning. Again.’

  ‘Mmm. Morning.’

  They rolled together, so that they lay facing each other.

  Joe rubbed his nose against hers. ‘This is becoming a habit.’

  Laura smiled. ‘It takes two weeks to form a new habit.’

  ‘Oh, it does, does it?’

  ‘It does. I read it somewhere. And I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.’

  He put one arm across her hip possessively. ‘I might not let you.’

  Laura felt a shadow of sadness pass across the light mood. She rolled onto her back, and breathed out slowly.

  Joe sat up, and leant over her. ‘Can I make you breakfast?’

  ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘Meal eaten at the start of the day. Breakfast. Avocado on toast? Maybe with a poached egg. Some roasted tomatoes. Coffee? I know what you city types like.’

  ‘Sounds like a restaurant. You’re full of surprises.’

  ‘I hope so …’

  She was grateful to him for ignoring the question of the day after tomorrow for now. This, this here, was like a bubble. A bright, warm, safe, sexy bubble. It would have to burst. Life was like that. She didn’t want to burst it yet.

  ‘You can have it in bed, if you like.’r />
  ‘Well, in that case …’ Laura laughed delightedly and pulled herself up to sit against the headboard, sheet tucked decorously under each arm.

  Joe stood up and pulled on his track pants. He had a truly great arse. She resisted the urge to lurch forward and kiss it. What the hell was happening to her?

  Eventually, unwillingly, Joe took her back from his place to the house, through the field, down the track and up through the vegetable garden. It was only a seven- or eight-minute walk, but it took longer: they stopped often to kiss like kids with nowhere to go, her back against a tree.

  Insatiable. She rolled the word around her brain silently. Insatiable. She could have done this all day. She wanted to do it all day. It had never been like this with Alex. Never with anyone. How truly sad to get to her age before she’d felt it. How inexplicably wonderful to feel like this right now.

  She didn’t want to go straight into the house, so she sat for a while in a sort of reverie to the side of the tennis court. She half expected to be discovered there by Heather, out to bang balls around, but it was Ethan, his appearance in the garden unexpected, who found her first.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hi.’ He sat down next to her. ‘All right?’

  ‘Yes, love. I’m very all right.’

  ‘You’ve been with that guy again, haven’t you?’ His tone was not accusatory. ‘The guy who does the gardening. The one you went out with the other day.’

  She was shocked, and didn’t answer him straight away.

  ‘The one you thought we didn’t know about, except we all do.’

  ‘All of you?’

  Ethan laughed. ‘Well, I don’t think Bea, Lila and Arthur are really tuned in, but everyone else, yep.’ He was evidently enjoying the moment. ‘It’s okay, by the way. No one minds. Not that it’s anyone else’s business. But they don’t.’

  ‘And you?’

  Ethan shrugged shyly. ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy.’

  ‘That’s my line.’

  ‘Well, it works both ways. Are you? Happy?’

  She sighed. ‘I feel a bit daft. It’s just a bit of a holiday romance. I’m acting like a kid.’