A Family Holiday (16 page)

There had been no response from Ruth and the flights were tomorrow, so Charlie left a casual message on Ruth’s voicemail to say that she was off with the children for four weeks and she doubted that there would be much in the way of telephone reception. She hoped that Ruth would make the same assumption that Camille had done, that it was a UK-based trip. She also subtly slipped in the fact that she still had the recording, just in case there were any problems. As she put the phone down she wasn’t sure if it would have been better to have spoken to Ruth. This way she would be leaving without having a strong sense of whether or not Ruth was going to make trouble.

School pick-up on the last day of term was utter chaos as each child had a mountain of work and projects and rank PE kits to bring home. Eleanor was thrilled to have received a certificate for English, for her poem about someone killing a fly. George was complaining that he didn’t have a mobile phone and had been forced to write down lots of phone numbers so that he could meet up with people in the holidays. Ted was quiet.

Charlie’s idea of having a barbecue was scuppered by the persistent rain. So an indoor grill-up was the best she could do. She had mulled over in her mind how best to tell the children about the holiday and had worried about how they might react. They were now all sitting at the table eating in relative quiet, so she seized her opportunity.

‘Guys, I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said, her brow furrowed. All faces turned her way, apart from Millie, who was having a serious talk to her hot-dog sausage.

Ted gave her an encouraging nod, as he knew what was coming next.

‘We’re going on holiday tomorrow. All of us.’

‘How long for? I’ve got cricket on Wednesday,’ said George, looking concerned.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Eleanor, looking more positive than the others, before she added, ‘Can Wriggly come?’

‘It’s four weeks in Antigua,’ said Charlie. For the first time she was grateful for the sound of the rain lashing against the windows to break the silence. ‘Your mum and dad booked it before…’ She didn’t need to finish the sentence, so they all listened to the rain for a moment.

‘Do you think they would have wanted us to go without them?’ asked Eleanor, her small perfect face so serious.

‘I think so, sweetie.’

‘Antigua?’ asked Ted, looking bewildered. ‘You hadn’t said it was long-haul.’

Charlie shook her head. ‘Does it make a difference?’

Ted pondered for a moment. ‘Guess not. I’ll get the cases down,’ and he left the table. It wasn’t the response she had hoped for, but it was probably best that they didn’t see it as the hugely significant event that Charlie did.

Fleur came to collect Wriggly and, much to Eleanor’s disappointment, he merrily trotted off with her for his own holiday. Fleur had been over-dramatic in her farewell embraces and her parting shot had been to check that Charlie had Jonathan’s phone number with her as it was likely she would be needing a good solicitor on her return. This all helped to pique Charlie’s paranoia. All she had to do now was finish packing and check the passports and tickets again. She took a deep breath; she really was going to do this.

Charlie kept giving the taxi driver her best apologetic look when he glanced at her. Millie was singing at the top of her voice ‘Juicy pineapple, juicy pineapple!’ to the tune of ‘Bermuda Triangle’ and Eleanor was struggling to contain her bladder contents as she was laughing so hard. The children had wanted to know a song about Antigua and that was the closest thing Charlie could come up with under pressure and Millie had made it her own. It was all starting to feel a bit real and Charlie felt the panic try to take hold. She took deep breaths and tried to slow her heart rate.

‘You all right? You a bad traveller?’ asked the taxi driver, looking a bit worried.

‘No, I’m fine, I’m not going to be sick.’

‘I’m scared of flying too. You won’t get me up in one of those things. On average there are over one hundred and fifty plane crashes every year!’ he said, looking very pleased with his random fact. Charlie couldn’t help but look alarmed and she prayed that Millie hadn’t heard what he’d said, but the sudden silence from the back seats meant that all the children were now very quiet and listening intently.

‘How about we play a travel game?’ she suggested.

‘Guess the road kill?’ offered George, leaning forward in his seat.

‘No!’ said Charlie and Ted together.

They spent the rest of the journey in virtual silence, for which Charlie was thankful. The windscreen wipers beat a soothing rhythm as they neared the airport; there was always an element of schadenfreude about going somewhere warm when it was raining at home.

There wasn’t a long queue at check-in, there never was for Premium Economy, but it still seemed to take too long and Charlie was getting twitchy. She was resisting the urge to keep checking over her shoulder. It wasn’t going to be the stress-free break she’d hoped for if this was the level of paranoia she could conjure up. Millie had been causing a bit of an upset in the queue, thanks to George’s sick sense of humour. It appeared that the phrase ‘One hundred and fifty plane crashes every year!’ was a little alarming to quite a few people. Millie had thankfully now been distracted by the challenge of undoing the combination lock on her Disney case. Eleanor was very fidgety, so Charlie gave her the children’s passports to hold; she felt that a little responsibility under supervision was good for her.

‘Can I have your passport too please, Charlie?’ asked Eleanor.

‘Er, no, it’s okay. I’ll keep hold of it. Thanks.’

‘Ooh, someone has a dodgy passport photo,’ said Ted, making a grab for the passport and missing. ‘Come on, it can’t be that bad. You aren’t meant to look good in your passport photo and they fine you, or something, if you do. Even Millie looks rough on hers and she’s super-cute,’ he said, ruffling Millie’s hair. As Charlie was trying to think up a good excuse not to hand it over and wishing the queue would hurry up, she felt the passport leave her hand. She was too slow to retrieve it from George, who was prancing around the luggage and waving his trophy aloft.

‘Got it! Ha, Ha,’ he laughed, ‘Bad photo. Miss… Chardonnay Paige French!’ he blurted.

‘Chardonnay?’ said Ted, looking from George to Charlie to see who was going to explain, ‘I thought Charlie was short for Charlotte?’

‘It can be, but not in my case,’ she said, swiping back the passport from George, who was grinning so hard he looked unhinged.

‘Chardonnay?’ repeated Eleanor, ‘Didn’t we go skiing there last year?’ she asked.

‘No, that was Chamonix,’ said George, ‘Chardonnay is like a proper chav name,’ he said, still grinning until he caught sight of the look Charlie was giving him and his grin disappeared.

‘Well, I like it,’ said Eleanor emphatically as she gave Charlie’s hand a squeeze.

‘Shar-don-yay,’ said Millie slowly, trying out the sounds, but as it was getting no reaction she went back to trying to undo her combination lock.

When the pretty cloned young woman with the red uniform, red lipstick and high ponytail hair beckoned her forward, Charlie’s feet were difficult to move. Millie ran forward, dragging her Disney princess trolley bag and ran over Charlie’s toes as she did so. Charlie realised her hands were shaking as she went to hand over the documents, so she quickly placed the passports, tickets and Toby’s letter on the high counter and shoved her hands into the safety of her hoody pockets.

‘Two of our party are unable to travel,’ said Charlie, almost in a whisper.

‘Not a problem, they’ll be ‘no shows’.’ The smartly dressed woman opened the scruffy letter. It had been at the bottom of Charlie’s rucksack for months. Charlie held her breath. The woman checked the details on the letter to Charlie’s passport and tapped away on the keyboard as she asked the usual questions about items in hand luggage. Charlie waited for a question about her travelling alone with the children but it didn’t come, the recycled letter had done its job.

Ted hauled the largest case onto the scales, which surprised Charlie because he didn’t seem to struggle with its weight like she had. The woman confirmed their seat numbers and handed back the documents, along with the boarding cards. ‘Enjoy your flight,’ she said, without looking up. Charlie waited for something else to happen.

‘Sorry, was there anything else?’ asked the woman, with a forced smile.

Charlie shook her head and shooed the children away from the desk. The next hurdle was getting through security. If anyone was going to stop her, she felt that someone who worked in security would likely fit the bill. The queue was moving quickly and by the time she had helped Eleanor get the glittery belt off her jeans without losing too many sparkles and convinced Millie to put Pooh Bear in a tray, they were being ushered through the scanner. The children all went through and Ted started supervising the return of their items as the beeping went off around Charlie. The sense of panic that shot up her spine almost took her breath away. A uniformed lady with a stern face beckoned Charlie over.

‘Arms out, please,’ she asked, but if she’d asked her to put her hands together so that she could cuff them it wouldn’t have been a surprise. The lady waved a handheld device over her and smiled.

‘It’s probably an underwired bra,’ she said conspiratorially.

Charlie was stunned for a moment, ‘Yes, sorry, I am wearing one.’

‘That’ll do it every time. Have a good flight,’ she said as she moved on to the next beeper, who was coming through wearing the more usual resigned expression.

As Charlie re-joined the others, Ted greeted her with a warm smile.

‘Home and dry. You can relax now,’ he said. Charlie thought she would most likely never be able to relax again.

The children were regular flyers so the aeroplane experience was a normal one for them. There was always the excitement of take-off and for Eleanor and George the delights of what the films would be. Millie loved having her own headphones but always forgot about the cable and would regularly start wandering about and be bungeed back to her seat by the headphone cord.

Ted made an impassioned speech about why he should be able to have a beer on the flight, especially if Charlie was turning the alcohol away, which she was. Hostess after hostess kept trying to offer her something. With the choice of five seats, they were struggling to make a final decision on where they should each sit and moves in seating were akin to musical chairs without the tuneful accompaniment. The frequent shifting around of seats was starting to annoy the poor random person that had been allocated the last seat in the third pair they were occupying, so Charlie took the seat next to the ‘Rando’ as Ted had christened her. Ted sat with Millie whilst George and Eleanor implemented a complicated system they had invented that revolved around how much time each of them could spend in the window seat.

Eventually, one by one, they began to fall asleep and Charlie started to feel the ache of tiredness and stress take over her own body. The cabin lights were dimmed and she reluctantly drifted off to sleep too.

Fleur had had a difficult day, what with saying good-bye to Charlie and not knowing if the next time she saw her would be on a news flash. Wriggly had been well behaved until she’d let him off the lead and he’d gone careering down to the stables. It had taken her a good half hour to recapture him as he was too engrossed in yapping at Ralph’s heels. It made a change to see Ralph on the receiving end of being harassed and he was not impressed. He had kicked out a couple of times and narrowly missed the little dog. Fleur couldn’t bear the thought of what Eleanor would do if anything happened to Wriggly. She had gone through the instructions of his routine with Fleur about a dozen times. So she persevered and eventually tempted Wriggly away from the stables with a sausage roll – the WI wouldn’t miss one. Fleur was pretty sure that she saw a smile on Clyde’s face as she carried Wriggly back up to the house.

That evening she was sitting at the kitchen table sipping a glass of white wine and jotting down key points she wanted to cover in her business plan. She’d found some helpful sites on the internet and now had a day-by-day list of what she needed to do. The familiar sound of car on gravel and key in door made her put down her pen and clutch her glass.

‘Hello love, you still up. Oh, are you working?’ he said, scanning the paper in front of his daughter.

‘Only to fill the time until you came home,’ she said, her voice formal.

‘Let me get a drink and I’m all yours,’ he said with a smile.

‘Is that what you say to her?’ said Fleur, her eyes narrowing.

‘What?’ he laughed, not getting the joke.

‘I wasn’t sure if you would be home or if you’d be staying at the Marriott,’ said Fleur, banging the receipts onto the table. Her father stared at her, ran his fingers through his grey speckled hair and sighed deeply.

‘It’s not what you think, Fleur.’

‘That’s a bit of a cliché. Can’t you think of something more original, like… like…’ she was so cross she couldn’t actually think of something more original and that annoyed her all the more. She didn’t want to shout as she didn’t want to wake her mother and this was not the way for her to find out that her husband was a lying, cheating scumbag. Fleur felt the warm tears trickle down her face. ‘How could you? How could you do this to Ma? To me and Poppy?

‘Fleur, love…’

‘Was the flat not good enough for her? The sofa-bed not glamorous enough?’

‘Fleur. Please let me explain.’

‘Don’t go fobbing me off with a long list of excuses. I’m not a child. I know how it works. You get bored, find some young floozy and dump us.’ She was starting to sob in between words, which wasn’t what she’d planned when she’d rehearsed her speech.

‘Sweetheart. There isn’t anyone else.’ Fleur went to interrupt and he stopped her by putting both his hands firmly on her shoulders and gently pushing her back into her seat. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on hers. She could see that it hurt him to see her cry like this. ‘Fleur, please listen to what I’m going to tell you. But you must promise not to say anything to your mother.’

Charlie was woken by distant screaming and the sensation of being rocked, which was more than a little confusing.

‘She’s okay, she has bad dreams. She’s had a lot to deal with lately,’ Ted explained as Charlie came to. She found she was staring at something very floral and was working it out when she realised that she was lying with her head on the Rando’s lap. She jerked upright, which instantly gave her a headache.

‘I’m sorry,’ offered Charlie, as she hastily wiped her mouth in case she was dribbling and gave a quick check that the woman’s dress didn’t have a wet patch. It was difficult to tell due to the wild pattern, which was handy.

‘You had me worried there, I thought you were having some sort of fit,’ said the Rando with a strangled laugh that said she wasn’t joking. Ted returned to his seat and redid Millie’s seat belt for the umpteenth time.

‘Sorry about the whole falling-asleep-on-you thing,’ said Charlie, tucking her hair behind her ear and realising that the embarrassed flush had reached that far.

‘Don’t worry, dear. You’ve got your hands full there. I had two and that was bad enough…’ and the woman went on to recall in detail the highlights of her child-rearing years. Charlie reluctantly listened for the rest of the flight. She felt it was the least she could do.

Nobody boarded the plane to arrest her when they landed and there was nobody waiting at security either. They collected their luggage and drifted out of the ‘Nothing to Declare’ doors. George started jumping up and down until he remembered how uncool that was and pointed instead. ‘Look,’ he said. There was a hand-written sign being held up that said ‘Wild Cane Villa’. The man holding it was grinning at them, having seen George’s reaction. He was quite short and had his Afro-Caribbean hair braided into many strands with a variety of coloured beads dotted about them.

‘Hi, I’m Tigi. Welcome to Antigua!’ he said it with too much energy for anyone not high on something quite strong, thought Charlie. ‘I thought there were seven of you?’ he asked, giving a cursory glance behind them.

‘Er, no, sorry only five now,’ said Charlie, hoping that the children didn’t react. The tiredness must have been taking over as they all remained silent and Tigi carried on smiling.

Their ride was a slightly battered mini bus but it had air conditioning and plenty of seats. Tigi was very attentive and insisted on taking virtually every bag, even managing to prise Millie away from her Disney trolley case with a smile.

‘You wanna go up front, my man?’ Tigi asked Ted as he was about to try to fold himself into a seat at the very back.

‘Thanks,’ said Ted, jumping in the passenger seat and grinning at George, who stuck his tongue out. Eleanor and Millie both snuggled close to Charlie as if they were going to try to catch a few minutes’ sleep on the journey to the villa. However, there was no possibility of sleep. As soon as Tigi swung the van out of the airport they were onto Antiguan roads, which had obviously not seen any maintenance for some time. Tigi swerved the van violently and everyone gasped and sat up straight. George was gripping his seat. Tigi looked at Charlie through the rear-view mirror.