Rick shrugged. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s nice to see the oldies all getting on so well but it does make me wonder what I’m doing with my life.’
‘Have you ever tried online dating?’ Sam was occupied with setting out the letters and didn’t look at Rick. ‘I was about to do that when I realised Luka was interested. I wasn’t sure if I should go for it, with him being younger than me, but I couldn’t resist him. How about you?’
‘I can definitely resist Luka,’ said Rick, grinning at his friend. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. No, I haven’t tried it. I’d be terrified, to be honest.’
‘Why? You’re a great-looking bloke. They’d be queueing up to meet you.’
Rick wasn’t so sure. If he was such a good catch, why had Stacey left him high and dry? Her new man hadn’t been tall, dark and handsome and he’d seemed incredibly dull to Rick but even so, she’d left without a backward glance. That relationship had since imploded but Stacey still hadn’t made a move to return to England, even though for a while Rick wished she would. Now he was reconciled to his life as a single man and had long ago realised that he didn’t want her back, but even so, it would’ve been nice to know she regretted her rash decision to go to Germany and set up home in Munich with the boys, even if only a little bit. His sons were now fully bilingual and loved their school. They’d made lots of friends, which was excellent, but Rick still hurt inside when he remembered tucking them up in bed and reading them his childhood stories, revisiting Paddington Bear and Thomas the Tank Engine and doing all the voices, just like his own father had done for him.
‘Online dating definitely isn’t for me,’ Rick said, as they began to play. ‘I like my independence these days.’
‘Oh, come on, mate. You’re not telling me that if the right woman came along, you wouldn’t pull out all the stops to get her to go on a date?’ Sam put down a row of tiles and punched the air. ‘I’ve still got the knack. That’s fifty-one scored for me. Write it on the list.’
Rick did as he was told, hoping that Sam would drop the subject now. The phrasethe right womanwas making him melancholy. It wasn’t as if he believed in such a person. He’d thought his marriage was forever and look what happened there. Even so, a vision of Venetia, barefoot and clad only in her fluffy dressing gown, popped into his tired mind. He wondered what she was doing now. She’d probably have had her toasties and be snuggling on the sofa in front of the television, or maybe she was exhausted by the work on the house and had got into bed to read and then to cuddle down to sleep.
‘How are you getting on with your lodger?’ asked Sam, as if he’d read Rick’s thoughts. ‘It must be strange having someone in the house after you’ve become used to living on your own. I’d be lost if I didn’t have Elsie to keep me company. She’s only eight but she’s such good fun to have around.’
Rick considered this question as he made his next move, causing Sam to mutter when he topped the last score. ‘I suppose Ihavegot used to being alone,’ he said. ‘But I think it’s going to be fine having Vee around for a while, and she really didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘Must’ve been strange for her coming back to Willowbrook after so long,’ said Sam. ‘You went to school around here, didn’t you? I’m surprised you don’t remember each other. Or… do you?’
The question hung in the air. Rick didn’t answer for a few moments, pretending to be absorbed in planning his next move. When Sam had played his tiles, he placed his own word down as he said, ‘It’s a long time ago, you know. Vee left when she was only fifteen.’
‘But I’m still in touch with some of my own mates from when I was a kid,’ said Sam. ‘And I haven’t forgotten the others. It’s an important time in your life, puberty, isn’t it? I was totally confused by it all; taken in by a girl when all I really wanted was to hang out with the boys and have my first proper kiss with one of them. Tough times. I can’t believe you don’t remember something about Vee. She must have been pretty unmemorable.’
That wasn’t a word that Rick would use to describe Venetia Prescott. The very opposite was true. He thought back to the time that was meant to be the best years of your life. What a joke. He’d never been so miserable, even when Stacey left him. The final camping trip was the worst part of it all. The previous ones had been only for weekends and much closer to home. They’d had such high hopes of the week-long school visit to North Wales, he and his sad little gang talked about it for weeks, taking in ten pounds at a time to the geography teacher and having it marked down on little cards the man kept in his desk. None of the four had parents who were well off enough to pay for the whole trip in one go. Shazzie was in foster care, Ginny was one of five with a single mum on benefits and Brad lived in a council care home with a group of other displaced teenagers. Rick’s dad had been made redundant about that time and money had been tight, but all of the Vipers, as they called themselves so misleadingly, were desperate to get away and have seven nights of fun and freedom in the mountains of Wales.
‘Talk to me, Rick,’ said Sam, putting down the Scrabble tiles he’d been about to play. ‘You look… I don’t know… kind of grim.’
Grim. Yes, that was a good word to describe the hideous memories from that fateful trip. Rick wondered how best to explain why he was struggling with recalling his first experience of camping.
‘We went on a school holiday,’ he said, and then stopped.
Sam waited. ‘And?’ he prompted eventually, when no more information was forthcoming.
Rick heaved a sigh. ‘And… well, for a start, it rained every bloody day. Then there was the fact that my three friends and me had a couple of ancient tents we’d borrowed that leaked, as it turned out, and our sleeping bags got soaked on day one.’
‘Oh. Yes, that does sound bad. Is there more?’
There was more. A lot more. Rick chose his words carefully. In the end, there wasn’t a nice way to put it. ‘There was a boy that nobody liked and everyone teased him unmercifully. To be fair, he was a bit of a drip. Not only that, he’d always gone out of his way to snitch on people whenever he could. It was kind of a hobby with him to get everyone into trouble.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sam. ‘Still, being teased is horrible.’
‘I know. We were mean. He’d never slept away from home before that week, and we found out that he’d been too scared to leave the tent to go to the loo in the night, so he’d wet himself. We never let him forget it. He cried a lot.’
‘Go on. That’s not all of it, is it?’
‘No. The boy was Patrick Summerfield.’
‘But isn’t that…?’
‘Yes. Beryl’s son, who died later, when he was at uni. How did you know his name?’
‘I heard Kate and Milo talking about him once when I was working in the café. So sad.’
‘Yes, and I’ve never stopped feeling guilty about how we were then. Anyway, a girl named Rhonda was the instigator of the teasing. We were all secretly terrified of her and her gang. She organised a practical joke. She drew a big picture of a baby doll with a nappy on and hung it outside Patrick’s tent. He got hysterical and…’
Sam waited. Rick took a large swig of his beer and tried to control the storm of emotion that was breaking in his heart. What a shit he’d been when he was a teenager. So proud of his graffiti but unable to share his work with anyone in case he got into trouble, and desperate to fit in with the cool kids.
