In turn, he tells me about Ryan and Liv, and how fiercely competitive they were at games; the stakes sky-high, even with seemingly innocent KerPlunk. ‘How are things now?’ There – I’ve dared to ask. ‘I mean, how d’you manage things with Paula and your kids?’
He glances towards the café window, although it’s opaque with steam. ‘We’ve managed okay, I think. She has a new partner now and their lives are pretty full…’ He trails off. ‘You know what kids are like with their hectic schedules.’
‘I do,’ I say, detecting the stoicism in his voice. He misses them, is what he means.
‘D’you have any pictures?’ I ask.
‘Sure.’ He opens his photos and hands me his phone across the table. ‘That’s a recent one of Liv,’ he adds. ‘Her eighteenth birthday.’
‘Oh, she’s gorgeous!’
‘And also appalled that her brother’s shoved his way in,’ he adds. I chuckle, noticing the side-eye directed at her goofily grinning brother. Both Liv and Ryan are a merger of Shane and Paula: her dark auburn hair, high cheekbones and aquiline nose; his soft greenish eyes and full, expressive mouth.
‘Can I see some more?’ I ask.
‘’Course you can. Scroll away.’ And so I do, through all the sports days and holidays and Liv playing an acoustic guitar, perched on a stool in a garden. Big smiles, wistful gazes and don’t-you-dare-take-a-photo-Dad glares. Then a picture of Paula and the kids, all three attractively tousled by the wind on a boat somewhere.
While Shane is up at the counter, perusing the cakes on display, I study Paula more closely. She was easily the best-looking girl in our school year. A giant photo of her was displayed in the window of Headlines, the hottest hair salon in town. As their model, she had her hair cut for free; to me and Ravi, this seemed on a par with being a minor celebrity. She is still a beauty, but in a more polished way. Her bouncy auburn mane is slicked back now, and her teeth appear to be bright white and neatly aligned, rather than being the normal, everyday teeth that she – in fact, everyone – used to have.
I’d been surprised when I’d heard that Shane and Paula had got together. Not because he wasn’t good-looking, or a lovely person; just that normally, she’d gone for slightly older guys in their mid-twenties, with cars and well-paying jobs and even mortgages, which seemed unthinkable. But then, what did I know? Having convinced myself that Dale was the love of my life, I’d already moved to London. It felt good to be away from all that; the gossip and constant reminders that I’d messed up. Anyway, if Paula loved him, then I’d never have stood a chance. That’s what I told myself because she – the hair model! – was queen.
I look up as Shane reappears at our table and hand him his phone. ‘Your kids are lovely,’ I say.
‘Thanks.’ He smiles warmly and cuts the last remaining brownie in two, so we can share it. Having shown him a photo of Cora – ‘She’s the image of you,’ he insists – I rub a patch of condensation from the window and see that the rain has eased.
‘Fancy a walk along the coastal path?’ I suggest.
‘Sure,’ he says, so we head out, grateful for the cool freshness after the downpour. Fuelled only by sweet hot chocolate and that tiny brownie, we are relieved to finally spot a pizza place. It’s really nothing special. Yet somehow, as we devour hot dough and lashings of cheese, I sense this faded restaurant imprinting itself indelibly on my mind.
‘So, after tonight,’ I remark as we stroll back to the campsite, ‘there’s just Pontefract and Huddersfield, and then we’re done.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘God, we’re over halfway through.’
‘Are you pleased?’ I prompt him.
He shoots me a quick glance. ‘Actually, not really,’ he admits.
I blink at him in surprise. ‘You mean you’re not keen to get home?’
We’ve reached the campsite and pass an ebullient family gathered around a table on the grass, and realise it’s the group from earlier in the café. After a brief exchange about the break in the rain, we cross the site towards Doris. ‘There’s just a bit of a situation in my flat,’ Shane explains, as he opens up the back door. ‘The, erm… the woman I’m living with?—’
‘Elaine,’ I cut in without thinking.
He looks at me curiously as we clamber in. ‘That’s right, Elaine.’
‘You said something to her, that time we spoke? When I called to say I was up for doing the trip…’ Obviously, it’s totally normal behaviour for me to have lodged her name in my head all this time. I will my cheeks to stop burning as I pull my pyjamas from my rucksack.
‘Oh, did I?’ he says.
‘Yes, I just wondered, I?—’
‘Well, um… it’s a kind of housemate situation,’ he explains.
‘Really?’
He smiles grimly. ‘Yeah, I know that sounds ridiculous at this age.’
‘You mean she’s your lodger?’ I ask.
