More Than Us

by Dawn Barker

  ‘Paul,’ I whispered, wanting him to look up at me. He did, his eyes glistening. And then he put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards him, and surprising myself, I leaned into him.

  He spoke quietly. ‘Let’s all go away, go camping like I promised Cameron. All of us.’

  If I said yes, was I some battered wife going back again for more punches? His hand trembled on my arm as I considered how to reply.

  The only other option I had was to cleave our family in two, force the children to choose between us and get back on that plane. Cameron was old enough to decide, but Tilly was still a child and maybe we’d have to get lawyers, go to court. I’d seen so many friends go through that, and it tore them and their children to pieces. Cameron and Tilly were suffering already. If we had to go down that path, I needed to satisfy myself that I’d done everything I could to save us. He wasn’t a bad man. He hadn’t cheated on me. He hadn’t hit me, or been unkind. He loved me, he loved Cameron and Tilly. The thought of a life alone seemed bleak, and I didn’t know which side my children would fall on if they were forced to pick teams.

  I looked up at him.

  ‘Give me one more chance,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  I nodded.

  Forty

  Paul

  The warmth of the central heating hit me as I opened the kitchen door and stepped in, then bent down to take off my muddy shoes. Emily was behind me, doing the same.

  ‘Kids,’ I shouted into the house.

  ‘What?’ they shouted in unison from the living room, where I could hear the inane sounds of breakfast TV. I walked through and stood in the doorway to the living room. They were both lying on the couch, heads resting on Mum’s red furry cushions on either end, just like I used to when I was a kid. I saw Tilly glance at Cameron, then Mum, and reach for the remote.

  It didn’t matter about the TV, not now. I smiled. ‘So, Cameron, you’re not going to a movie today after all.’

  Mum got up from her chair. ‘I think I’ll go and have a shower.’ She walked out of the room.

  Cameron sat up and glared at me. ‘What? Mum said—’

  I laughed. ‘Okay, you can go to a movie but then you’ll miss out…’ I said in a sing-song voice.

  ‘Miss out on what?’ Tilly said as she too sat up, smiling at me.

  ‘We have to get ready for a trip.’

  ‘A trip?’ Cameron frowned.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Tilly said.

  ‘Well, you know how I promised that we would go on a bit of an adventure, Cammie? Now that Mum and Tilly have arrived, it’s time for us to do that. So today, we have to go and get the gear we need and some supplies, start packing.’

  ‘We’re going camping?’ Cameron grinned.

  ‘Ugh,’ Tilly groaned. ‘I hate camping.’

  ‘You’ve never been camping, Tilly,’ Emily said, as she came up behind me and stood next to me in the doorway to the living room. Emily was physically closer to me than she had been for weeks, and I was grateful she was making the effort to at least show the kids that we were giving this a try. I missed the days when we were at ease with each other; they felt like so long ago. But so much had happened that filled the space between us. While part of me would love to lean into her, I just couldn’t. If I slipped back into intimacy so easily with her, then I could just as quickly slip back into my past too. But I was grateful that Emily was willing to give my way of life a chance; it gave me hope that maybe we could salvage something of our marriage. But if she still couldn’t admit that she’s been wrong, then I didn’t think that we had a future.

  ‘I have been camping,’ Tilly said to Emily. ‘Remember, the Year Six camp?’

  ‘That was two nights at the river, you could practically see our house!’ Emily teased.

  Tilly’s eyes widened. ‘How long are we going for?’

  Emily paused and glanced at me. ‘We still have to work out the details. Your dad and I have only just decided.’

  ‘We’ll see how we go,’ I said, my voice bright. ‘It’s fun sometimes to just see how things turn out and not know all the answers.’ I didn’t want to put a timeframe on it. It would take as long as it would take to show them that there was a different way to live, and that we could be happy away from all the temptations of our life in Sydney. I didn’t want them to see this as a brief holiday, a weekend of roughing it before we went back to the way things were. This could be life-changing.

  ‘Well, where are we going? You must know that at least?’

  ‘Well, when I was a kid, your grandma and granddad once took me, Aunt Fiona and Uncle Alasdair on holiday to a bothy on the West Coast. I’ve been thinking about it since we got here. I’ve even looked it up, and it’s still there. So that’s where we’re going.’

  I sensed Emily looking at me.

  ‘What’s a bothy?’ Cameron said.

  ‘It’s like a hut,’ I said. ‘A small cottage. But it’s basic: no power, no running water. We’ll have to catch fish for dinner and cook over a fire that we make ourselves. Just like people used to, in fact, just like many people in the world still do. How does that sound?’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘Sounds terrible.’

  I tensed. ‘Tilly! Give it a chance. You’ve never had to do anything hard in your life. I’m just saying that I’m taking you on a family adventure, and you’re being rude.’

  Emily touched me gently on the arm. ‘Paul,’ she said quietly.

  I took a deep breath and focused on my memories of the stone cottage, surrounded by mountains, green fields, and the sensation of icy cold water as I paddled barefoot in streams until my toes were white and numb. Tilly may think it sounded terrible now, but she’d change her mind when we got there. To me, it sounded perfect.

  Damian had emailed me overnight, asking how Cameron’s treatment was going. I had replied briefly this morning, saying that he was going well. He would find out that wasn’t true, of course, but he wouldn’t be able to contact me once we’d gone and I would finally have some space to do things my own way. This is the only way I could show Emily and the children that I wasn’t crazy for wanting to keep my family away from the internet and TV and advertising and music videos and pressure at school and medication. If Tilly isn’t bombarded with images of stick thin women with puffed up chests and lips, she will realise that she is perfect and she will eat when she is hungry. If Cameron doesn’t have to deal with all those entitled boys teasing him about being a little different, or worry about completing exams in a set time and get a perfect score, then he will relax. If Emily can get away from the internet forums, from the parents at school competing about who has the best children or cars or hair or Botox, she will stop comparing our life and our children to everyone else, and let them be who they are. And if I can get away from the constant temptation to gamble, and the need to prove myself to Damian and Phoenix, to be at work earlier and later than everyone else because they remind me every day that I owe them, then I will finally be happy.

  ‘Everyone get dressed,’ I said. ‘We’ve got some shopping to do.’

  Forty-One

  Emily

  Paul drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as we drove along a winding road next to the rushing river. We were only twenty minutes or so from the city, but the granite buildings had quickly been left behind for cottages, farmland, and glimpses of turrets from stately homes. I turned my head to try to read the words on a small handmade cross by the side of the road with an Aberdeen football top laid out beneath it, a dried bunch of flowers and a big rock holding it down. In winter, this road could be treacherous. The window was open, and the air seemed to chill a little as we drove higher into the hills.

  I turned briefly to look at Cameron; he was staring out of the window behind me. Tilly had her knees tucked up and was resting her head on them, her eyes closed. She wore a baggy hooded top and jeans. Despite Paul’s protests, I had packed the backpack with food for her, high calorie drinks and powders, rice, tins of tuna. I had mad
e her stand on Marjorie’s scales before we left: her weight was only a couple of hundred grams less than it had been when we left Australia. At least she hadn’t lost anything significant. While the GP in Australia before we left had said she was medically well, I knew she couldn’t afford to lose any more weight. I still wondered if I had done the right thing in bringing her here, away from her home but, as Paul had said, that’s where the problems had begun. Somehow, despite my best intentions there was where she had stopped eating. We were all together now and she had nowhere to hide. And if she didn’t eat, we would leave. This was her last chance. This was the last chance for all of us.

  * * *

  As we neared Fort William, Paul called out cheerfully, ‘Almost there!’

  I had been drifting off; the jet lag had still not fully passed. I looked out of the window and saw two red Highland cattle contemplating us through a wooden fence and some squat Shetland ponies wandering in a field behind them. And beyond that, a mountain dominated the sky, its peak white with snow.

  ‘Ben Nevis,’ Paul said. ‘The highest mountain in the UK, kids.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I mumbled, then opened the window a little more to try and wake myself up. The air was freezing. I gasped with the sensation, then laughed.

  ‘You okay? Paul said.

  I kept laughing and didn’t know why I was until I was in tears. And when Paul started smiling and laughing too, and the kids laughed uneasily, and then with hilarity, I told myself that maybe this is what we needed after all, and after this, everything could go back to normal.

  * * *

  ‘Can we have some lunch?’ Cameron said.

  ‘I’d love a pub lunch,’ I said, looking at Paul.

  He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. ‘We’ve got time.’

  ‘Are you hungry, Tilly?’ I said, trying to keep my voice light.

  ‘Not really,’ she said.

  I pushed down the swell of frustration in my chest. ‘Well, we’d better eat as many chips as we can because once your dad takes us to this top-secret location, who knows what we’ll be getting to eat.’

  ‘If you catch it, you can eat it,’ he said, grinning. I saw a look pass between Cameron and Tilly. They were not impressed.

  It wasn’t hard to find the local hotel; every town and village in Scotland had at least one. I ate a basket of scampi and chips, the taste reminding me of a hundred pub lunches I’d had like this as a child. Paul had lentil soup and crusty bread, the only vegetarian thing on the menu. I don’t think he dared ask if it was vegan, though he didn’t spread the butter on his bread. While I really wanted to order a white wine, I had a diet coke. Cameron wolfed down his meal and I smiled; it was so satisfying to see your child eating. Tilly nibbled on some chips, peeled the crumb off a chicken goujon, and had a few small bites of the meat. Before we’d even finished eating, she went off to the toilet. I nudged Paul as she stood up and nodded my head in her direction. He ignored me. I didn’t chase after her.

  ‘Right,’ Paul said when we’d all finished eating. ‘We’ve got one more short drive then we’d better go and get everything unpacked from the car.’

  Cameron frowned. ‘Where’s the campsite?’

  ‘We’re not there yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

  * * *

  I couldn’t help but squeal along with the kids when we parked at the train station and I saw the shiny black engine of a steam train, a guard shovelling coal onto it.

  ‘Oh. My. God!’ Tilly screamed. ‘The Hogwart’s Express. Is it? Is it, Dad?’

  Paul laughed. ‘Sure is. Well, the Jacobite. We’re going on it, onto our next stop.’

  It was impossible not to laugh along with Tilly; even Cameron looked impressed.

  ‘I wish I had my iPad, Mum, my friends are going to be so jealous. Have you got your phone? I need a photo.’

  We took photos, after waiting for a few people dressed in Harry Potter costumes to finish posing at the front of the train. While the kids were looking at the photos to check they were good enough, I leaned into Paul. ‘What a great surprise, thank you.’

  He smiled back at me.

  After we lugged our rucksacks onto the train and showed our tickets, we settled into the cabin. The kids chattered about scenes from the movies that might have been filmed where we sat, and the train slowly chugged off. The scenery was beautiful and the kids were convinced that they knew exactly where we were as they’d seen it in the films, especially when we crossed the arches of the Glenfinnan viaduct.

  ‘You like it?’ Paul said. I could sense his need for me to agree.

  ‘Love it,’ I said.

  When we alighted at a small village on the edge of a bay, we stood with our bags at our feet in a huddle.

  ‘Now,’ said Paul. ‘I’ve booked a B&B tonight. Enjoy being in a bed. Because tomorrow, we’re going there.’

  He pointed into the hills behind us. There was nothing to see beyond the stone buildings of the village. The children looked concerned, but I felt a thrum of hope in my bones.

  Forty-Two

  Paul

  My knee ached as we tramped parallel to the fence of a field. We had been walking for about an hour, I guessed. Were we going in the right direction? I glanced round at Emily and the kids, heads down, trudging in single file behind me. They’d stopped asking me how long it would take to get there. I was hungry. The kids must have been hungry. I felt we should stop but I didn’t want to stop until we got there. It couldn’t be far now. I pulled my water bottle from the side pocket of my backpack and drank some more, then kept walking.

  I lost track of time. Maybe half an hour had passed, maybe an hour, when I heard Cameron shout, ‘Dad! Look!’

  I raised my head, the top of my back tight from being hunched forward with the weight of my pack, then grinned. We had just come out of the cool of a glade of trees, dark green moss making the rocks slick underfoot, into the late morning sun which was finally warming up the air from the night-time chill. I punched my fist in the air as I saw the glint of the edge of the silver water of the glassy river, and in front of it, the shadow of a small building.

  ‘That’s it,’ I called back to them. ‘Come on, that’s the bothy! That’s where we’re staying.’

  We walked faster and as we came closer, I was relieved to see that there was no sign of anyone staying there. It wasn’t the right season for the hillwalkers trying to tackle the Munroes; it was autumn now and the snowline on the mountains was descending, and this old farmer’s croft was far enough away from a village that few tourists would venture here. Above us, I saw gulls circling; we weren’t too far from the shore, from the islands of the Hebrides.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Emily said, stopping beside me.

  I put my arm around her shoulders and hugged her.

  ‘Are we staying there?’ Tilly said.

  I grinned. ‘Yes, we are.’

  I saw her looking around with a frown on her face.

  ‘That’s right, Tilly. There’s no one else here,’ I said. ‘No shops, no TV, no phones.’ I took my phone out of my pocket and held it up. One bar of signal flicked up, then disappeared. I switched it off.

  ‘What are we going to eat?’ Cameron said.

  ‘We have hand lines for fishing, Cam, and the reason our bags are so heavy is that we have some basics. There are rabbits out there, heaps of them.’ A bird of prey, maybe a buzzard, hovered above purple heather at the foot of the hillside.

  ‘I thought you were vegan,’ Tilly said.

  I ignored her. That would be impossible here. ‘Let’s go and have a look inside, get unpacked.’ I looked at Emily, and she was smiling. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled, and strands of her hair had fallen out of her ponytail and blew around her face. Could this work after all? I let her lead the way down to the bothy.

  Inside, there were two rooms, each with bunk bed frames, but no mattresses, off a main room with a wooden table and four chairs. There was an open fireplace
in the main room, with a small pile of branches beside it. Someone had left a battered book on the table, its pages swollen and rippled: the complete works of Shakespeare. I smiled. A shelf on one wall had a dusty bottle of vegetable oil, a plastic tub of sugar, and a jar of pal, solidified instant coffee. There was no sink, no bathroom. I swallowed down a small flare of anxiety as I thought about all the things we should have brought. No, this was why we were here: this was my way to prove to Emily that we could be happy without everything we had come to depend upon.

  ‘Who’s coming to collect heather to make ourselves a mattress to put under our sleeping bags?’ I said.

  ‘Me!’ the children shouted in unison and the three of us headed out while Emily stayed behind to find the makings of lunch.

  Forty-Three

  Emily

  It had been well over a week since we’d arrived. While we had solid walls around us and more room than a tent, we were dirty, often cold, and I was starting to worry about food. Tilly and I had tried to beautify the bothy. We had picked purple heather and hung it around the roof, but it soon lost its colour. We’d pulled logs inside for chairs. But Tilly, in the last few days, had started to pace around the perimeter of the building like a prisoner; Cameron sat on a rock for hours on end throwing pebbles into the river. We had some rice, biscuits, and some tins of tuna, but our potatoes had been used up and we’d eaten the apples before they spoiled.

  I could see Paul was concerned too, as he came back one day with berries that we all refused to eat in case they were poisonous. After a lunch of some rice and baked beans heated over our little camping stove, washed down with water collected from the stream that ran down the hillside, and purified with iodine tablets that we’d brought, Paul spoke with a strained cheer.