by Imogen Clark
‘This is my holiday too, I’ll thank you to remember,’ his mother had said when Anna complained. ‘I want the food to be easy. And this is easy.’
Once Anna had stopped moaning and actually tried the potato mush, they had all decided that it tasted remarkably good for packet food. They washed up and stowed all the crockery back into the little cupboards. His father told them constantly how it was important to be tidy in such a small space but Sebastian noticed that it was always his mother who did the tidying.
Then the four of them sat down at the dining table to play cards before bed. His father had a can of beer and his mother a glass of sherry. Anna and he didn’t have a drink. Sebastian thought longingly of the remains of his paper bag but knew that they would have to wait until tomorrow.
‘Beggar My Neighbour?’ asked his mother.
‘Do we have to play that?’ asked Anna. ‘It’s boring.’
‘Well, it’s nice and straightforward for Sebastian but we could play something more complicated if you like.’
Sebastian was about to say that he was more than capable of playing a complicated game when there was a loud banging on the caravan door.
His parents looked at each other in confusion. Then, before anyone had had time to open it, the door burst open and there stood Clare. She had a suitcase in her hand, which she dropped at her side. It landed with a thud on the floor, making the caravan wobble just a little. She wasn’t wearing a coat. This was just the kind of rebellious act that Sebastian had come to expect from his sister.
‘Hi, Mum. Dad.’
Nobody spoke and then everyone spoke at once.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Clare, my angel. Are you all right?’
‘This should be good.’ This last was Anna, who put down her hand of cards and leaned back in her chair.
‘I thought you’d be here,’ Clare said. ‘I rang Miriam to check,’ she added. ‘We’re nothing if not creatures of habit, us Blisses.’
‘Clare. Come in. Sit down.’ His mother pushed Sebastian along the bench until he nearly fell off the other end. ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea? A glass of sherry, maybe?’
‘No, thanks. Well, maybe a cup of tea, actually. It’s freezing out there.’
‘Where’s your coat?’ his mother asked, and Sebastian felt pleased with himself that he had already noticed. ‘Anna, please would you make your sister a cup of tea.’
Anna was about to object but a look from their father closed her mouth. Instead she just tutted and slid her way out of her seat into the tiny kitchen area. Clare immediately sat down in the space that she’d vacated.
‘So? Have you had a nice day? What did you get up to?’ Clare asked. This wasn’t right, Sebastian knew. He hadn’t seen his sister since Christmas and now she had turned up at the caravan in the middle of the night with no coat. Something was most definitely up.
Nobody spoke. The kettle filled slowly, the sound of the running water getting higher. Anna plugged it in and flicked the switch.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘I’m sure Clare has plenty to tell us but let her have a cup of tea first,’ said his mother. Sebastian could hear a wobble in her voice that wasn’t normally there. ‘I think it’s time for bed, young man.’
Usually, he would have objected. It was not quite eight o clock and he was on holiday, but something told him that he should do as he was told with the minimum of fuss.
‘Okay,’ he said, proud of his grown-up attitude. ‘Will you come and kiss me goodnight?’
‘Of course. Don’t forget to do your teeth. You’ll need to be getting all those sticky sweeties out of them, so you will.’
How did she know about his little white paper bag? Was there anything she didn’t see?
When the family came to the caravan, he and Anna shared the double bed in the little room at the back. When all six of them had slept there they had needed to turn the benches at the table into a bed too but these days his parents slept on the bed that came out of the sofas. Sebastian pulled his clothes off quickly, bundled them into a pile of sorts and thrust them into the bottom of the tiny wardrobe. He hopped into his pyjamas and then went into the little shower room to clean his teeth. The rest of them were talking now but it was not the relaxed and easy kind of chat that he was used to at home. His mother was asking stiff questions about Clare’s journey. His father still hadn’t spoken.
He spat out the toothpaste, rinsed his toothbrush and then went back to the bedroom.
‘I’m ready,’ he said as he passed through the kitchen area.
He snuggled into his sleeping bag. It was dark blue but it had flowers on the inside because it had belonged to Anna originally. It was cold but he rubbed his feet backwards and forwards really quickly and soon he began to warm up. His mother stuck her head around the door.
‘Goodnight, sweetheart,’ she said, and leaned over the bed to kiss him. The room was so small that she couldn’t even walk up the side of the bed to reach him. As she backed out, she was replaced by his father.
‘Right then, my little soldier,’ he said. ‘Let’s get some good sleep, for tomorrow we go in hunt of the snark. You know what a snark is?’
‘Of course,’ replied Sebastian proudly. ‘Where will we hunt?’
‘Hither and thither,’ said his father. ‘Hither and thither.’
He reached out and ruffled Sebastian’s hair and then shuffled back out and closed the door firmly behind him. That was a shame. Sebastian had been hoping that they would leave the door ajar so that he could hear their conversation. He lay very still. At first he could hear nothing but as his ears began to tune in, he found he could make out what they were saying, more or less.
‘Well,’ came his father’s slow, muffled voice. ‘To what do we owe this honour?’
‘Oh, Frank,’ said his mother. ‘Can’t you see she’s exhausted? The main thing is that she’s all right. You are all right, aren’t you, Clare? Though it is a surprise, you turning up like this, out of the blue.’
There was a quiet moment. Sebastian could hear Anna saying something but he couldn’t make out her words.
‘Be quiet, Anna,’ said his mother sharply. ‘If you haven’t got anything constructive to say then you can go to bed.’
‘It’s eight o clock!’
‘Well, you’d better be quiet, then.’
There was no talking again for a bit and then someone began to cry. Sebastian listened hard to try to tell who it was. Crying didn’t happen often at home but he supposed this must be Clare.
‘Oh, darling,’ said his mother. ‘Come here. There, there. Let it all out and then you can tell us what’s happened.’
There was some muffled sobbing for a while. Sebastian turned himself round in bed so that his head was nearer the door. There was no keyhole for him to peep through but at least the words were clearer from there. He thought about climbing out of the window, sneaking round the outside of the van and looking in through the big window at the back, but then he remembered that they had already drawn the curtains. And anyway, that would mean he would be able to see but not hear. It was probably better to be in here where at least he could kind of follow the conversation.
Clare’s sobs seemed to be slowing down. Then there was a big sniff. His father would have offered Clare his big white handkerchief at that point, Sebastian felt sure. He was right. He could hear Clare, or someone, blowing their nose as if they were done with crying. More silence. He wished he could see their faces.
‘I’ve left him,’ said Clare.
‘Oh, Clare,’ said his mother.
‘You’ve done what?!’ said his father. He sounded more cross than concerned.
‘I’ve left him. I never want to see him again. I told him. I said, I’m packing my bags and I’m never coming back. And then he said I wouldn’t dare. And so I did.’ More crying.
‘Will you slow down, Clare,’ said his mother. ‘Have you had a little tiff? That happens all the time when you li
ve together. It’s only natural. It can’t be all hearts and romance every day.’
His father seemed to be making a choking kind of sound.
‘The hearts-and-romance stage normally lasts longer than a couple of months,’ he said.
‘Shhh, Frank! Well, whatever it is, I’m sure it can be sorted out.’
Sebastian thought he heard Anna snort but it could have been a sound coming from outside.
‘It can’t,’ said Clare. She sounded pretty sure. ‘It’s over. I have left him and I’m never going back.’
There was silence again.
‘If she’s coming back then she can’t have her room back. She’ll have to have the little one at the back that I used to have.’
‘Anna, I’m warning you,’ said his mother. She was starting to sound cross. ‘Clare, darling,’ she said more gently. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us what’s happened and then we can work out how to fix it.’
Sebastian thought that Clare would say that it couldn’t be fixed and that this conversation was going to go round in circles for ever, but luckily she began to move on.
‘It was fine to start with. We rented this little flat just off the North Circular. It was a bit scruffy but it was warm.’
‘Is that the address that you sent to me, then?’ asked his mother. She needs to stop interrupting, thought Sebastian, or Clare would give up.
‘Yes. Rodney was having to drive huge distances because all his customers were up north. So a lot of the time he would have to stay in motels and work said that they wouldn’t pay for that because it was up to him if he chose to work in Yorkshire and live in Watford.’
‘I’m not surprised. Damn fool idea,’ said his father, but he must have said it quietly because Sebastian had to strain to hear him and only really got the gist from his father’s tone of voice.
‘So you’ve been living down there in some grotty little bedsit all by yourself?’ asked his mother.
‘It wasn’t grotty and it’s a flat not a bedsit, but, basically, yes. Well, only during the week. Rodney was there at the weekend. I got a job in a café so I was working most of the time that he was at work.’
There was more mumbling from his father. Sebastian couldn’t quite catch what he said but he thought he heard ‘decent education’ in and amongst the words.
‘Frank. Please.’
‘Anyway, it was all going okay. I mean, it wasn’t great but it was okay. Then yesterday, I was turning out his pockets so that I could wash his trousers.’
Sebastian was certain he heard a snort that time but Clare continued.
‘I was turning out his pockets and I found a receipt from Da Mario’s on the High Street at home. It was for two pizzas, a bottle of red wine and a side of garlic bread.’
Clare paused so that the full significance of this discovery could sink in. It didn’t seem to be doing so.
‘I’m sorry, love. I don’t really understand . . .’
‘Well, don’t you see?! He’d taken her. Out for dinner. Just the two of them.’
‘Who?’ asked his father.
Yes, who? thought Sebastian.
‘Her, of course. Linda. His bloody wife.’
She’d be for it now – she’d sworn in front of their mother. But no one seemed to notice.
‘Oh, Clare,’ his mother said now. It sounded like someone had let all the air out of her.
‘Right. Let me see if I’ve got this straight,’ his father interrupted. ‘Rodney, the man who you as good as eloped with, the man who left his wife and two small children so that he could run away with you not four months ago, has met his wife and the mother of his children for a pizza and a bottle of wine.’
‘And garlic bread,’ said Anna. ‘Don’t forget the garlic bread.’
‘Anna!’ warned his mother.
‘And, no doubt,’ his father continued, ‘to discuss the arrangements for the upbringing of his children or some other important domestic detail. And on the basis of this, you pack your cases and hotfoot it back to Mummy and Daddy, disturbing their perfectly pleasant holiday to boot.’
Sebastian wasn’t sure he understood quite what his father was getting at but it felt like he should burst into applause at the end of this speech, so dramatic was it.
‘Frank!’ said his mother in that tone she used when she didn’t approve. ‘Honestly, Clare, don’t listen to him. We’re delighted to see you, so we are, and you can come home any time you need to. You know that, don’t you?’
‘As long as you don’t want your old room back.’
Sebastian heard a thudding sound which he thought was probably someone clattering Anna.
‘But, Dad, listen. That wasn’t it,’ continued Clare. It was getting easier and easier for Sebastian to hear as their voices got louder. ‘Obviously he has to see Linda and make arrangements for the children. It was the fact that he had done it without telling me that pissed me off.’
‘Clare! Language!’ This was Anna as well, he was pretty sure.
‘So you just upped sticks and walked out?’ asked his father.
‘No! Will you just listen. Mum. Tell him.’
‘Frank, can you not let the poor girl speak?’
‘So, I asked him about it when he got home. I showed him the receipt and told him that I’d found it in his trousers, not that I was snooping or anything.’
‘Although it sounds like you were right to snoop. Sneaky love-rat Rodney, eh?’
‘Anna! Be quiet.’
‘I wasn’t bloody snooping. I was expecting him to have a go at me for being unreasonable or something but he just stood there and burst into tears.’
Someone, Sebastian had to assume Anna, sniggered.
‘He did what?’
‘He cried, Dad, and then it all came out.’
At this point Sebastian was pretty sure that Clare had started to cry again because there was lots of sniffing and he heard his father’s handkerchief being employed again.
‘Take your time, Clare. What did he say?’
‘He said that he’d made a terrible mistake. That he should never have left Linda for me and that he’d made such a mess of things. And then he said’ – and here there was another huge trumpet into the handkerchief – ‘and then he said that he was really sorry but he was going to go back home . . . Home. He called it “home”. To me! That he was going back “home” and was going to try again with Linda. He said she was prepared to forgive him and would take him back for the sake of the children.’
‘Oh, Clare. My poor baby.’
More nose-blowing.
‘So that’s it, then?’ his father asked. He sounded cross now. ‘What were you? His midlife crisis? I’ve got a good mind to drive down there and give that jumped-up, forty-something waste of space a piece of my mind.’
‘And what good would that do?’ his mother asked. ‘The main thing is that Clare is here with us, safe and sound. She did exactly the right thing. You did exactly the right thing, love.’
‘Oh, Mum. I feel so stupid.’
‘I’m not surprised!’ chipped in Anna. Sebastian could not believe that she was still being allowed to sit there and hadn’t been sent to bed.
‘I thought it was love and that he would get a divorce and we would get married. And all the time . . .’ Here Clare dissolved into tears again. It sounded terribly sad, all this being an adult.
‘Well, it sounds like you’ve had a very narrow escape,’ said his father. ‘First thing Monday you can get in touch with your tutor and see if they’ll take you back. You might be able to catch up. How much have you missed – ten weeks, give or take? If not, they might let you defer a year and go back in September, although you got in by the skin of your teeth in the first place so they may not be that keen. Either way, it’s going to leave a yawning gap in your CV. There are going to be some difficult questions to answer . . .’
‘Frank. Can you just stop trying to fix everything? Please! All that can wait. The main thing is that Clare is
back and she’s safe. Why don’t you nip across to The Boater’s for a pint and I can settle Clare in?’
His father made a humph kind of noise.
‘In fact, why don’t you take Anna with you.’
‘I’m up for that,’ said Anna. ‘Will you buy me a drink?’
‘Okay,’ said his father. ‘But this isn’t finished. Not by a long chalk.’
Then there was the sound of shoes and coats being found and put on and finally Sebastian heard the caravan door bang shut. After that things went quiet and Sebastian felt his eyes getting heavier until pretty soon he didn’t hear anything else.
IV
Sebastian didn’t hear Anna climb on to their bed and zip up her sleeping bag but she must have done because when he opened his eyes the next morning, there she was. She was lying very close to him so that he could smell her slightly bitter breath. He drew his hand out from the depths of his sleeping back and started to flick at her eyelashes with his finger. Her eyes looked as if they might open but then she just turned her head and slept on.
Sebastian couldn’t understand how girls could sleep for so long. His sisters would sleep all day if his mother let them. This thought reminded him of what had happened the previous evening. Clare had just turned up out of the blue and cried. Sebastian hadn’t been entirely sure where Clare had been. He had gathered over the last few weeks that she was not where she should be but whenever he had asked questions his parents had changed the subject. And now it appeared that she was no longer where she had been and was back with them.
As well as a tendency to sleep for long periods of time, he had noticed that girls ran very complicated lives. He assumed, as he was a boy, that his life would be far more straightforward when he got to be a grown-up.
Because he could no longer reach Anna’s eyelashes, he tried tugging on her hair. Not all of it – that would be asking for trouble. Just a couple of strands. Enough to be irritating but not enough that she would automatically blame him. At first there was no response but after a while she groaned and rolled on to her back.