Generally we were so busy tumble-drying PE kit, making sandwiches and driving Lucy to dance class or piano or Cecelia’s, there was no space left for feelings at all. We’d have strategy meetings about how best to get Lucy to Ramsgate for five, Lou to judo by five-fifteen and then Lucy back from Ramsgate to Cecelia’s by seven. Half of parenting, it turned out, was logistics.
There were wonderful moments too, like when Lucy danced for us toSwan Lakeor when Lou suddenly became geeky and wanted my help. He’d built a monorail out of Lego and wanted to know how to add an electric motor to make it run, something that, obviously, was right up my street.
I popped into work for components, and we stopped off on the way home for extra Lego. And by the end of that rainy weekend we’d built a working monorail capable of carrying an actual mug of tea from the kitchen to the lounge. I felt closer to my son than I had in years.
Holidays tended to be high points too, which reinforced my belief that Joss Bay was cursed. Surrounded by sand and sea, Dawn would stop looking pinched and start laughing again. The kids would forget themselves and have fun.
But the best holiday of all, the one that probably saved us as a family, was the summer of 2004. It was a holiday that was so good it made the whole family fall in love with each other again.
We’d been going to the Greek islands on and off ever since the takings at Havard Electronics had made foreign holidays possible.
We’d been to Milos and Paros, repeatedly, then Santorini (great, but not for kids) and Mykonos (a nightmare island-sized rave party). After Mykonos we thought that we were over Greece for life, but then Shelley recommended a place she’d been to on the island of Tinos. She raved about it so much, we thought we’d try again.
* * *
The journey to Tinos was complicated, apparently something Dawn hadn’t given much thought to. I’d assumed she’d booked plane tickets at the same time as reserving the house, but it turned out she’d left it to me. When I started to look into it, I understood why.
We had to fly to Athens and then from Athens to Mykonos before finally taking a ferry to Tinos. Every changeover had the potential, through the slightest of delays, to make the whole thing fall apart. But by running with shrieking children through airports, we made it, arriving about six in the evening.
Tinos was a particularly un-touristy island, which, having visited Mykonos, was sort of the point. Other than us, the only people who seemed to want to travel to Tinos were nuns and priests. The port was overrun with them.
‘They look like penguins,’ Lou, who loved penguins, said, making us laugh. And he was right, they really did.
A battered taxi drove us out of town, past a dusty lunar landscape, and on over a big hill or perhaps a small mountain, to the far end of the island where our one-horse village was situated. Dawn and Lucy got car-sick.
The town was almost non-existent. There was a wide arc of empty beach, a few tens of white houses clinging to the hillside, and one small, family hotel. That was it.
Our rental was even more minimal than the town it was in, consisting of two tiny buildings linked by a small, pretty courtyard. One downstairs building comprised a basic bedroom with two single beds, and the other a tiny kitchen-cum-lounge-cum-bathroom. The second bedroom – our bedroom – was in a simple flat-roofed cube that had been constructed on top of the kitchen: four white walls around a bed, a dresser and a table. And you had to climb an outdoor staircase to get to it.
‘How much did you pay for this?’ I asked Dawn, once the taxi had driven away and we’d found the keys hidden, predictably, beneath the doormat.
‘Not much,’ she said. ‘About twenty quid a night I think. I’m sorry, I should have realised it was going to be basic. I mean, I knew… but I didn’t realise it would be likethis.’
‘There’s nothing here,’ Lucy said, spinning on one foot to take in the 360-degree vista of the beach, the hills, the hotel. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘D’you want to get a taxi and go somewhere else?’ I asked Dawn. I instantly started praying she’d say no, because I hadn’t made a note of the number for the taxi. ‘Or we can think about it in the morning,’ I added hopefully. ‘This is probably OK for one night.’
‘I want to go somewhere else,’ Lucy said definitively.
‘So do I, I think,’ Lou agreed, sounding less certain.
‘Tomorrow,’ Dawn told them. ‘We’ll find somewhere better tomorrow.’ Then to me, she added, ‘I’m too tired to even think about it now.’
‘Look!’ Lucy said, ‘A cat!’
Peeping through the bushes on the far side of the courtyard was the face of a tiny cat, but as soon as Lucy ran towards it it vanished.
‘Can we buy some cat food tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘We’re going somewhere else tomorrow,’ Lou reminded her. ‘So there’s no point.’
That evening, we walked up to the hotel. They had a small restaurant set up beneath a pergola, overlooking the bay.
There was no menu because they didn’t need one. They had Greek salad and fish of the day or calamari served with rice or pasta. Dessert was ice cream or yoghurt; the wine ‘red’ or ‘white’. But as these limited options covered everyone’s needs – as Lou loved calamari and Lucy loved pasta; as everyone loved ice cream – it was fine. The waiter was friendly, calm and kind, and the food fresh, tasty and astoundingly cheap.
I woke up the next morning to the sound of the waves and sunlight creeping through the shutters. I checked my watch – it was after ten. I’d gone to sleep next to Lou, while Dawn had slept downstairs with Lucy. I hadn’t slept so well in years.
When I stepped out onto the roof I was shocked by the beauty of the place. It stunned me to the point where I think I actually gasped. I couldn’t believe that the previous night I’d been unimpressed: proof, if proof were needed, how tiredness can change your perceptions.
