Daylight Saving (2 page)

Dad held the plant pot above his head and studied the base. “We just needed to get away from things,” he said. “At home.”

“Oh,” said Chrissy. “I see.”

I felt the atmosphere become awkward.

“It’s for the tomatoes, really,” I said. “They haven’t had a holiday in ages.”

Both women laughed loudly, and Chrissy put her hand on my arm. “Bless you,” she said. “Listen, if you need anything or you fancy a game of doubles, do come over and give us a knock.”

“Thanks,” I said, because Dad wasn’t saying anything. “Do you know anywhere good for food?” I asked.

The sisters looked at each other. “There’s all the usual places, of course, but actually I like the Pancake House down by the beach,” said Chrissy.

“It’s not really a beach, Chrissy,” said Tash, laughing.

“OK,” said Chrissy. “There’s a resturant called the Pancake House on the bit of imported sand near the man-made lake. Or you could just come to our house to eat. We’re doing an autumn barbecue.”

Tash pointed to the tomato plant. “You guys could bring the salad.”

“The Pancake House sounds fine,” Dad said, taking the plant inside. I followed him in.

“Bye,” they said.

“Bye,” I replied.

Dad had started growing vegetables soon after Mum left, but the tomato plant was his pride and joy. It was the first plant he bought after she’d gone and was too precious to leave at home. “The taste of the Mediterranean,” he always said. This from a man who could only afford to take his holidays in Nottinghamshire.

He put the tomatoes by the kitchen window and placed a couple of shaving mirrors around the plant, to reflect the sun. Then he took out a baby bottle full of rainwater that he’d collected at home and began to squirt the ripe, full fruit. “You give love and attention to a plant like this,” he said, not for the first time, “and it gives you everything it’s got in return.”

He had driven all the way in Havaianas with socks underneath, and now that he’d taken off the flip-flops, there was a groove in his socks by his big toe that made his feet look like hooves.

“They seemed nice,” I said.

“Who?” he said.

“Those women. The neighbors.”

“Lesbians,” he said.

“Dad, they were sisters!”

He shrugged. “And by the way,” he said, “there’s no need to be making public wisecracks about the tomato plant, thank you very much. There’s such a thing as family loyalty, you know, although I don’t suppose . . .”

He trailed off, and I knew it was because he was about to say something about Mum or even about me. I wished he would. Anything was better than that fake smile. The smile said: “It wasn’t your fault, lad.” Which, of course, meant that it was.

I looked around the cabin — a lot of fake wood, a few stiff sofas with enough jazzy designs to hide the stains — while Dad got the rest of the stuff from the curb. I figured the TV was hidden in one of the cabinets. Leisure World guaranteed a soundproof sleep (everybody likes nature, but you don’t want it to wake you up), and so when Dad closed the door, the airtight seal made a sucking noise, and I felt my eyes pop out by a centimeter.

“Right,” he said, looking at his watch. “We’ll go and get our bikes, pop into the Tropical Dome for a quick dip, and then see if we can’t find this Pancake House, eh? Brilliant.”

So, you didn’t drive at Leisure World, but you didn’t walk either. You biked. If you were a little boy, you rode a BMX. If you were a full-grown man, you got a mountain bike. People of my size had to ride a “Shopper,” which is a woman’s bike — white and pink, with no crossbar and a basket on the front. To be honest, I had almost given up on looking like anything other than an idiot. “Can’t I have a BMX?” I asked.

“That’s a kid’s bike,” Dad said.

“Health and safety,” said the bike man.

“He needs all the health and safety he can get, this one,” Dad said to the bike man. “He’s a danger to himself and others.”

That was a quote from the incident report the school had sent. The bike man appraised me with a new respect.

We took the bikes and rode away like husband and wife.

Some part of the Dome was always in view, and now, as we rode, we saw the trees peeling back to reveal it. It loomed huge above us. The shell of the Dome was made from giant hexagons of reinforced plastic, and you could see inside. We stopped our bikes and watched kids deliriously throwing themselves down the water slide into the “rapids”— a stretch of moving water. I’d been out of school for the last two weeks, but it was midterm break now, so there were lots of other kids about. It was weird to be around people my own age again. Men moved along the rapids in a long line like a supermarket queue; they seemed serious and purposeful as the current carried them along. I looked at their faces and — of course — I looked at their bodies. Real palm trees hung over the fake rocks by the edge of the water. You could hear the dull sound of screams from inside.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

“Surely not,” Dad said. “It’s only six. Let’s get in there and work up a proper appetite. It looks great.”

“I don’t really feel like swimming.”

“You don’t have to swim. Look. There’s loungers.” Dad pointed to an area of wooden decking, where a group of boys in swimming shorts were talking to two girls in bikinis. The girls were drinking milk shakes through straws and trying not to laugh.

“You could just sunbathe,” Dad said.

“I can’t
sun
bathe,” I said. “Because the sun is
outside.
”

“It’s a constant summertime temperature in there.”

“It’s warm enough out here,” I said, although it was pretty cold.

“Is this how it’s going to be, Daniel? For the whole holiday?”

I looked away.

“Most kids would give their right arm to be here. God, it’s not like I’m asking you to take your shirt off.”

“Dad, Jesus,” I said. There were other families cycling by.

“Even if you did, nobody would look at you,” Dad said.

He stopped talking then. I stared down at the T-shirt stretching across my soft body. Thinking back, he probably meant it in a nice way. He was probably trying to say that people are too busy getting on with their lives to tease a kid with a bit of extra weight. But there were two problems with what he said: first, I knew from experience that he was wrong. People
do
look. They
do
notice. Second, what kind of a state was I in, where the best thing I could hope for was that people wouldn’t look at me?

“I’m going back to the cabin,” I said.

I turned the bike around and began to walk away, but I could feel the full weight of his sadness behind me. Even though it was
me
who should have been upset, I knew that something like this could set him off. He might cry for a week or — even worse — drink.

So, I turned back.

He had his head in his hands. His feet were rooted to the floor, and the bike leaned between his legs. “Dad,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Can we just go to the pancake place? Maybe I’ll feel like swimming tomorrow.”

I waited for a moment. Eventually he took his hands away from his face. There was that smile again. Sadder than anything I’d ever seen.

“Course we can, Daniel.”

The Pancake House was like one of those diners they have in American movies. It was a curved white building, with big windows that stretched all the way around, giving customers a good view of the lake. It stood on the fake beach, and I could feel the sand seeping into my sneakers as we walked the bikes over.

The sight of the lake was calming. I felt my temperature drop as I looked out across the water, and my heartbeat slowed. One. And. Two. And. Three. And.

There were only a few boats still out, and most of them were making their way into the little wooden harbor. I could almost feel the plummeting depths of the water in my stomach. The lake was surrounded by trees, and you could hardly see the other side, just a few lights coming on in the cabins out there. There was a sign on the beach:
STRICTLY NO SWIMMING
. Sounded like a TV program.

“Come on, then, if you’re coming,” Dad said, opening the door.

The Beach Boys were playing on the Pancake House stereo. “Everybody’s going surfing, eh, Daniel?” Dad said. “Everyone but us.” He gave me a little punch on the arm, which made a slapping noise. It was a little bit too hard to be playful.

I ordered a cheese and mushroom crepe, and a cherry and ice-cream pancake to follow. Dad asked for a burger and a maple-syrup pancake for dessert. “Do you serve beer?” he said to the waiter.

“We’ve got a fully licensed bar, sir,” the waiter said, gesturing to the spirits on the back shelf.

“Wow. It’s great in here. Those lezzers were right,” Dad said.

“Pardon, sir?” said the waiter.

“Nothing. I’ll have a bottle of your finest lager, if you please.”

I had mixed feelings about the bar. It meant that Dad might not force me to go to the Tropical Dome, but it also meant I might be carrying him back to the cabin at the end of the evening.
Maybe he won’t drink so much on holiday,
I thought.

Five beers later, he started going on about Mum again. “I’m not blaming anyone,” he said. “Least of all . . .” He pointed to me. “Not anyone.”

I looked at the leftover pancake on his plate. It was like a blotchy roll of fat. I picked it up and ate it in one go, just so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. Thankfully, Dad stopped talking for a second.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” he said.

“Don’t you?” I said, looking at his empty beer glass.

He followed my gaze. “Oh. I appear to be without a drink. Waiter! Another of your finest, if you please.”

He always used this ridiculous posh voice when he was on the ale. I could see why people might punch him in the nose.

It was getting dark now. I looked out the big windows at the lake, which held a little of the moonlight on its surface. The water was lapping over the sand. I followed the ripples out into the middle of the lake and thought I saw a disturbance there, a figure cutting the surface of the water, gliding toward the bank in the distance.

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I’d had hallucinations at school, just before I’d lost it. They’d given me a “little break” then. But now I was on holiday. Where did they send you when you flipped out on
holiday
?

Out on the lake, I was pleased to see that the water had stopped rippling, and there were no figures on the horizon.
Thank God
,
I thought.

The Pancake House was converting itself into a winter beach café. People were sitting outside at tables under big outdoor heaters, trying to pretend it was summer but smoking to keep warm. Inside, a group of men and women mingled at the bar. Dad looked over at them, nodding his head to the music, not quite getting the rhythm.

“Dad, I’ve got a headache,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” He looked pleased. “Well, you should go home, Daniel. I mean, to the cabin. You don’t want to be hanging around here with your old man. Not if you’ve got a headache.”

“Are you staying, then?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ll just stay for another of their finest. A little nightcap. You’ve got to, um, you know . . .”

“Cut loose?”

“Aye, that’s it. Cut loose.”

I stood up from the table, and so did Dad. We walked in opposite directions — him toward the bar, me toward the door.

“Oh, Dad,” I said.

“Yes, Daniel.” He turned, sipped from his drink.

“Don’t drown,” I said.

He laughed. “I shan’t be going in the lake,” he said.

I nodded to his beer. “I’m not talking about the lake,” I said.

Outside, the air was cool and crisp, autumnal. I unlocked my bike from the stand. None of the drinkers outside seemed to notice that it was a woman’s bike. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe nobody was looking.

I could see the bike path as I walked my Shopper along the beach. The bicycles had dynamos, which meant that when you pedaled, your light came on. The dynamos made a clicking sound, like grasshoppers. Each of the cabins had two little posts on the lawn, with a lamp inside. These were the only sources of light. With the clicking of the dynamos, the weird white lamps, and the cyclists sweeping their beams across the forest, it looked like an underwater planet.