He shakes his head and then laughs again, but this time it’s a full-bodied belly laugh. My insides warm, despite the internal freak-out that’s also going on.
‘I don’t know how I’ve lived this long, saying the first thing that comes into my head,’ I mumble. ‘I’ll just get the rest of my clothes.’
I continue to walk April around while Charlie changes the tyre. My back does begin to hurt from stooping, but luckily April gets bored and wants to explore my so-called living room. I gather all my clothes together for what feels like the fiftieth time and relocate them to the grass; and, while she coasts along the edge of the bench seat playing with the freshly washed plastic dishes, I stand just outside and begin separating clean clothes from dirty. I fold up the former and place them in a neat pile on the camping chair. I really should do some washing today. I fear the Lost Gardens of Heligan will have to wait until next weekend, at the rate I’m going.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ I think to ask Charlie after a while.
‘That’d be great. I’m pretty much done.’
I enter the now relatively clear space and fire up the gas, unwittingly creating a health and safety risk.This is exhausting, I think as I return April to the great outdoors.
‘You’ve still got a bit of a lean going on,’ Charlie comments a little while later, peering into the van as he sips his tea.
‘Have I?’
‘Yeah, can’t you see? The back end is sloping down.’
‘That’s nothing compared to the poor bastards in those tents on the hill.’
He smiles past me, looking at the field. ‘Nicki and I camped up there a couple of years ago when we were doing building works to the house. It was a wreck when we bought it.’
‘It looks great now,’ I say.
‘Thanks. We thought camping would be more fun than living in a shithole,’ he says with a smirk, adding with a glance my way, ‘It wasn’t.’ He nods atHermie. ‘Is this your dad’s?’
‘How did you know?’ I ask with surprise.
‘The first time we met you mentioned he’d stayed at this campsite.’
‘Oh, that’s right. Yeah,’ I say. ‘He loves it. Hasn’t used it much since he broke up with his last girlfriend. They toured all around Europe together.’
‘When did your parents split up?’
‘They divorced when I was ten. It was amicable.’
But not amicable enough for Dad to continue to want to spend his every holiday on a boat with his ex-wife. My aunt Wendy – Mum’s sister – took me after that. That arrangement lasted for a good few years until Mum screwed it all up by having an affair with a married cruise-ship captain. Wendy was so incensed that she refused to take me the following summer out of principle.
Every cloud has its silver lining: that was the year I met Elliot.
‘So your mum worked on a cruise ship.’
‘She still does. That was how my parents met,’ I tell him. ‘Mum was a dancer and Dad was a bartender.’
They fell in love after a whirlwind romance, but when Mum got pregnant with me, her contract was promptly terminated. Dad quit too. They cheerfully tied the knot and moved to north London, where Dad worked in a pub and Mum retrained as a beauty therapist in her sister’s salon.
But, as time passed, Mum’s feet got itchy and no amount of Scholl foot spray was going to cure her.
Dad supported her decision to return to work on a cruise liner, this time as a beauty therapist in the on-board spa.
I was less pleased about it.
I was only six years old when my mum became mostly absent from my life. The only time I’d see her would be when Dad and I visited her on a boat or she was between jobs, when she’d come home for long stints at a time. During these weeks – sometimes months – she’d become so bored that she was never very easy to be around.
But, when she was working, she seemed happy.
Every summer holiday, and most Easters and Christmases, Dad and I would visit whichever cruise liner she was currently contracted to.
I grew used to her not being around much, and, eventually, so did Dad. He was the one who asked for a divorce.
