“Are you wiped out?” asks Luke, smiling at me over his pint of shandy.
“Yeah,” I reply, “but in a good way. Is it always like this?”
“No,” he says, amused. “Nobody could keep this up for long! When I settle somewhere for a while, like I was when we met, I take it much more slowly. I know I have days or weeks to explore, so there’s no need for a list, or a hat... I set my own pace. And, before you ask, no, this isn’t an inconvenience. I’m enjoying it. I like my lifestyle, but it can be a bit melancholy—seeing amazing things with nobody there to share them with. So this is a bit of a holiday for me as well. If I’d been on my own, I wouldn’t have been able to laugh my arse off watching you dance around the moor to ‘Wuthering Heights,’ would I?”
“Fair point. I should have been a ballerina, really, not an office manager in a carpet company.”
Those words feel strange coming out of my mouth. Only a matter of days ago, that’s exactly what I was—and yet it already feels like a lifetime ago. A different me, in a different world.
“Can I ask you about money?” I say, needing to broach the subject.
“Well, money is a coin- and note-based form of currency, commonly used around the world in exchange for goods and services.”
“Thank you for that. You need to come up with some new material. And you know what I mean. I want to contribute—the cost of the gas, the food, things like this dinner.”
I am so used to counting every penny that a pub meal feels like a huge extravagance, even though I am probably the least poor I have been for years. I have a month’s worth of wages in the bank and no rent to pay, and the layoff settlement should arrive within the next six weeks. I am relatively rich, by my standards, and I don’t want to be a parasite.
“You can if you want to,” he replies slowly. “But it’s not necessary. Money isn’t really a problem for me.”
“Oh. Are you one of those eccentric millionaires then? I always wanted to be one of those when I grew up.”
“Something like that. It’s not an issue—do whatever makes you feel comfortable.”
He is an interesting man, Luke Henderson. An enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a really tricky cryptic crossword puzzle. Not exactly evasive, but definitely private. Kind, thoughtful, and maybe a tiny bit sad as well.
We are all guilty of making assumptions about people, aren’t we? Based on the way they look or live or talk. When you meet aman in his middle years living in a mobile home, you assume he hasn’t led what you might think of as a traditionally successful life—but Luke is blowing all of that out of the water. The part of my mind that likes to make up stories about people is going bananas.
Our food arrives, and Charlie immediately rouses himself as the aroma of sausage and mash nears his nostrils. By the time we finish up and head back to the motorhome, it is almost dark—that magical time in summer when the light seems to shimmer between day and night. We arrive at the site we have booked half an hour later. Luke shows me how to hook up the van to charge the leisure battery and advises us all to make the most of the facilities at the site. Taking a shower in a full-sized cubicle, using washing machines, and enjoying the luxury of a toilet you don’t have to empty yourself are all fantastic opportunities to be snapped up, he assures us.
Charlie ignores all this and lies on the grass next to the van instead. He is gazing up at the sky in some kind of exhausted trance, so I leave him to it while I visit the small camp shop and the facilities block.
The place is still lively, lots of families enjoying themselves, toddlers riding bikes around the lit pathways, couples sitting outside their motorhomes and caravans, drinking and chatting. I hear different types of music as I wander through, everything from Wham! to something classical with strings. It is lovely, flush with a sense of communal pleasure. There are tents pitched over in a nearby field, and I wonder if there is a hierarchy—massive motorhomes at the top and two-man pop-ups at the bottom, or maybe vice versa?
I take a nice long shower and get straight into my PJs and flip-flops, because I am a party animal like that. The changing roomshave hair dryers, which I use with a sense of wonder—mine was lost in the landslide, and I fear I have already gone feral. Somehow, wild and messy hair doesn’t seem at all inappropriate when you’re on the road. I have always dressed as smartly as I needed to for work, but I do feel a sense of relief at being able to abandon early-morning mascara disasters and tights and high heels.
I meet Luke back at our place, and he has set up the camping table and chairs. He has a can of his Wobbling Frog out and a glass of wine for me. I get my laptop from the motorhome, thinking I might do some research about tomorrow, and then sink down into the seat gratefully, taking a sip and sighing in contentment. “This is really nice, isn’t it?” I remark, gesturing around us. “Everyone seems really laid-back and happy and mellow.”
“Don’t let it fool you,” Luke replies, grinning, his teeth white against the evening darkness. “They can turn. If you’re driving up front in a motorhome, and you see another one on the road, you have to wave at each other. It’s a rule. If you don’t, they might actually hunt you down and kill you.”
“Oh. Right. Best to be polite, then. Did you luxuriate in the shower?”
“Not as much as I’d have liked. Got chatting to someone—occupational hazard at campsites. People can talk about their motorhomes for hours on end. But it was quite interesting; he has solar panels on his, which I’ve been thinking about for a while.”
“Wow. You really can get everything with them, can’t you?”
“Oh yes. Some have Jacuzzis and saunas and built-in champagne bars.”
“Really?”
“No. But you sounded hopeful.”
“I’m only flesh and blood, you know.”
We smile at each other, and I realize that he is not the only one who has been lonely. I can’t say that I have missed this—adult conversation, banter—because I have never really had it. I was still a child myself when I was with Rob, and since then it has only been me and Charlie. I find that I am enjoying it, a lot. Maybe too much.
Charlie stands up, stretches and groans, and says: “I’m off to bed. Gonna FaceTime Dad for a bit and then crash. Laters, old people. Don’t get too drunk.”
He disappears back into the motorhome, and Betty follows him. They are deeply in love with each other, those two.
