Precious Time (9 page)

With a queue of cars itching to overtake them, they trundled ever nearer, and just as the road began to level, narrow and guide them to the centre of the town and its one-way system, Ned bounced in his seat and let out a loud, excited cry. ‘Look, a mermaid! And there’s another. Over there! Mummy, there’s lots of them!’

Once Clara had squeezed Winnie into the pay-and-display car park - no mean feat, given how busy the small town was and the lack of space available - she could see that Ned was right: Deaconsbridge was awash with mermaids. Almost every shop front in the market square where they were parked had a sign depicting a mermaid, and each one was different. They ranged from shy lovelies coyly submerged in water, showing just a modest hint of scaly tail, to pert blonde bathing belles posing on rocks, and buxom Page Three beauties flaunting themselves shamelessly. But the sign Clara liked best was the one above the antiquarian bookshop, which portrayed a sylph-like creature reclining in an armchair reading - the spectacles were a nice touch, she thought.

Across the square, and opposite where they were parked, a sign showed a rosy-cheeked mermaid wearing an apron and holding a large wooden spoon. It was a convivial and inviting sight. ‘Welcome to Deaconsbridge, Ned,’ Clara said. ‘Ready for some lunch?’

The Mermaid cafe was busy and at first glance Clara thought they would have to try somewhere else. But in the furthest corner, and beneath a large mirror flanked by two prettily stencilled mermaids on the wall, she could see a waitress clearing a table that had just been vacated by a couple of intimidating-looking leather-clad bikers now queuing at the counter to pay their bill. One smiled at Ned, who stared at his pony-tail, earrings and the shiny studs on his fringed jacket, then smiled back, revealing two rows of perfect milk teeth.

The waitress continued to add dirty plates to a tray already stacked high with an assortment of crockery and metal teapots, and for a few moments Clara and Ned were forced to stand with the two bikers. The one who had smiled at Ned did so again, this time adding a wink. Then he turned to Clara. ‘He’s a cute-looking kid,’ he said.

‘A dead ringer for his mum, or his older sister, perhaps? If you want a worthwhile tip,’ he went on, ‘we can recommend the chef’s special.

You can’t go wrong with it.’

‘Insider knowledge,’ said his friend, tapping his long straight nose.

He reached into a small basket of lollipops for younger diners and gave one to Ned. ‘Here, have this on us.’

Ned’s face lit up. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘You’d better keep it for when you’ve had your lunch, though. We don’t want any trouble from your big sister.’

Clara was about to add her thanks to Ned’s when the waitress came over. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, dear,’ she said, ‘but these leather joy-boys make so much mess.’ She gave the two bikers a broad grin.

The one who had spoken first to Clara gave the waitress’s red cap a light flick. ‘Mum, I’ve told you before, keep the wisecracks for when we’re at home. Do you want me to take that tray through to the back for you?’

‘No, Robbie, I want you to pay your bill and sling your hook.

You’re cluttering the place up. Now, are you or are you not going to make a start on the spare room for me this evening? I’ve got the wallpaper and paste for you.’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Thanking the two young men for the lollipop, Clara shepherded Ned towards their table, and quickly, before anyone else nipped in ahead of them to claim it.

‘Those men were nice,’ said Ned, settling himself into his chair and placing his unexpected gift on the checked plastic tablecloth. He propped Mermy against a bowl of sugar.

‘They were, weren’t they?’ she replied, letting him get away, just this once, with pilfering a sugar cube. She could see that he was now wondering how to slip it into his mouth without her noticing so she bent down to her bag on the floor. She thought about the two young men, one of whom had treated her to some friendly flattery. He must have been at least ten years her junior. Big sister indeed!

Catching sight of herself in the mirror above Ned’s head, she supposed the new haircut made her look younger. She had gone for a radical change in Stratford, deciding that her shoulder-length hair would be a pain to take care of while they were away. In the salon, everyone had agreed that the new style took years off her, that her dark hair now framed her small oval face perfectly and accentuated her brown eyes.

She turned away from the mirror and, with the two bikers - who admittedly had not been her type - still on her mind, asked herself when had been the last time a man had paid her an unexpected compliment?

She couldn’t remember and wondered when she had become so

unaware of or immune to male charm.

Since Ned had been born, she had had little time, inclination, or opportunity to seek out a boyfriend, although there had been one or two skirmishes, in particular a disagreeable incident on an industrial relations course eighteen months ago. Then a pushy type with groping hands and gin-soaked breath had tried his luck with her in the bar one night. She had blown him clean away: ‘What makes you think an intelligent woman like me would be interested in a prat like you? Now, push off before I throw my drink in your face.’

It wasn’t that she didn’t feel comfortable with men, far from it, she usually preferred their company to that of a crowd of women, but she knew that to embark upon a series of going-nowhere relationships would do her no good. Also, she didn’t want to confuse Ned by bringing home a succession of men. And, perhaps more importantly, she had a very real fear of accidentally getting pregnant again.

Not that she had ever regretted having Ned. She loved him just as much as if she had planned his conception down to the last detail.

Through the cafe window she watched the pair of swaggering lads in their leathers cross the road to the car park where two powerful looking motorbikes were waiting for them, their well-polished chromework glinting in the afternoon sun. She watched them strap on their helmets, then heard the throaty roar of the engines and, though she had never before had any desire to sit astride anything more dangerous than a tricycle, she thought she could detect a change in her view now. Goodness, less than a week on the road and she was considering a wind-in-the-hair experience!

She plucked the menu from its wooden holder, and saw that the chef’s special they had recommended was not a body-building tough boy three-pounder burger but a vegetarian lasagne.

‘What are you smiling at, Mummy?’

She raised her eyes from the menu. ‘Myself, Ned. Now, what would you like to eat?’

They feasted on sausages, beans and chips, followed by the best Bakewell tart Clara had ever tasted. When she commented on this to their waitress - biker-Robbie’s mother - she was told, ‘I’ll tell my sister that, she’ll be well pleased. It’s an old family recipe.’

‘Is this a family business, then?’

‘No. It’s just a coincidence that we work together. Are you here for the day, or staying longer? The weather’s supposed to be breaking by the weekend, so you’d best do your walking sooner rather than later.’

‘Is that what everyone does round here - walk?’

‘That, and go down the cavern to see the mermaid. To be honest, there’s not a lot else to do.’

Ned leaned forward in his seat. ‘A mermaid? Is it real?’

The waitress’s eyes flickered over Mermy on the table. She sucked in her breath. ‘Well, now, it’s as real as you want it to be, I suppose.

But if you’ve come to see it, you’re too early. It doesn’t open for another week. The tourist season round here hasn’t got into full swing yet. You could always go across to Castleton or down to Buxton. Between them they’ve got more caverns than they know what to do with.’

‘Do they have mermaids?’

‘No, my fine little fella, it’s only us that can boast something as special as that.’

They left the cafe unsure what to do next. If the Mermaid Cavern wasn’t open for another week, should they move on somewhere else and come back, or stay put and use Deaconsbridge as a base for visiting the surrounding area?

Keeping her options open, Clara decided they would inspect the campsite Ron and Eileen had raved about and take it from there. She put this to Ned as she unlocked Winnie and stood back to let out the fuggy warmth that had built up inside the van while they had been having lunch. But now that Ned had heard about the Mermaid Cavern, he clearly didn’t want to move on. ‘If we don’t like the campsite,’ he said anxiously, climbing into his seat, ‘we could find another, couldn’t we?’

‘If that’s what you’d like to do, then yes.’

She started the engine, reached for the map, then regretted not having thought to ask their friendly waitress for directions to the Hollow Edge View campsite. It wasn’t mentioned in the Touring Parks magazine she had used so far on the trip, but Eileen had said it was somewhere off the Hollow Edge Moor road. The road, or what Clara thought was the right road, was marked on the map and, with hope rather than solid conviction, she manoeuvred Winnie out of the market-square car park and went in search of a pitch for the night.

Nearly an hour had passed before she gave up. ‘This is ridiculous,’

she said, exasperated, when they found themselves, yet again, on irritatingly familiar ground. ‘We’ve been up and down this road so many times we’re on first-name terms with all the sheep. I’m sure they’re laughing at us behind our backs.’

‘Sheep don’t laugh,’ Ned said seriously. ‘They go baa.’

‘And I’ll go baa-ing mad if I don’t find this wretched campsite. I could also do with going to the loo. I’ll just drive down this handy little track and park up.’

Ignoring the ‘Private - No Entry’ sign turned out to have been a mistake. The handy little track was longer and narrower than Clara had expected, and with drystone walls almost touching Winnie’s sides there was no space to turn round. She had no choice but to keep going until it either branched off into another road, or offered her the opportunity to do a ten-point turn - reversing was not a viable proposition: it was the only trick of driving a campervan that she hadn’t yet mastered.

However, as mistakes went, it presented them with some of the best views they had seen so far and confirmed what Clara had read in the guide book last night, that Deaconsbridge, sandwiched as it was between the Dark Peak of Derbyshire and its southern White Peak counterpart, was home to an interesting combination of the two.

Way off in the distance, and after checking the map, she could see the bleak windswept moor of Kinder Scout to the north. Referring to the map again, she could see that if she carried on along this road they would eventually come to a belt of trees and a dwelling called Mermaid House. It looked as though the road widened sufficiently by the trees to allow her to turn and drive back to join the main road once more.

Her guesswork proved right and in the shelter of the trees, she brought Winnie to a halt. ‘Time to stretch my legs,’ she said, smiling at Ned as she climbed out of her seat to go through to the toilet.

When she came out, Ned said, ‘Can we go for a paddle? I can see a bridge over a stream and there might be some fish we could catch for our tea.’

‘They’ll have to be very lazy fish, the type we can catch with our bare hands.’

He slipped out from his seat. ‘It’s easy. I saw it on the television.

This man had a stick and he watched until the fish came right up to him and then he—’

‘Yes, I get your drift,’ she interrupted, not wanting the gory details.

‘Couldn’t we just shake hands with them and invite them in for a fish supper?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Fish don’t have hands, Mummy.’

‘You sure about that? What about octopuses? I thought they had eight hands.’

‘Now you’re being silly. Everyone knows they’re called testicles.’

She laughed. ‘Tentacles, Ned. Come on, my little genius, let’s see if there’s a nice bit of smoked salmon just waiting to make our acquaintance. But it will have to be quick. I really do want to find that campsite before the light goes.’

Taking a rolled-up towel with them they approached the bridge and the length of river Ned had spied. It twisted along the lower edge of the screen of trees, tumbled down the slope under the bridge and, gaining speed, gushed on further down the hillside.

‘It’ll be cold in there,’ Clara said, looking doubtfully at the clear shallow water as it rushed over the stones. ‘Wouldn’t you rather play Pooh sticks?’

Beside her Ned was already sitting on the grassy bank and tugging at his laces. ‘We could play that after. Help me, please, Mummy.

This one’s in a knot.’

She untied the lace for him and rebuked herself for sounding so old and boring. Where was the spirit of adventure that had brought her here in the first place?

Despite the warmth of the spring sunshine, the water was icy cold, just as Clara had predicted; it made them both gasp and squeal as they dipped in their toes. They rolled up their jeans, and bravely went in deeper. Clara held Ned’s hand as they waded out, and now that she couldn’t feel her toes, she joined in the game of looking for their supper. ‘Do you think there are sharks here, Ned?’

‘Ssh!’ he whispered. ‘I can see something.’ He let go of her, bent down to the water, cupped his hands, and made a sudden scooping movement. ‘I’ve caught something!’ he cried. He peered through the gaps between his fingers.

Amazed, she lowered her head to see what he had.

He shrieked with delight and splashed her face. ‘Fooled you!’

‘Why, you little monkey! For that, you can have a taste of your own medicine.’

The water fight was noisy and spectacular, and left them both drenched. Shivering, but still laughing, they slipped on their shoes and went back to Winnie to change into some dry clothes. They were soon warm again, and just as Clara was about to make them a drink - tea for her and blackcurrant juice for Ned - they heard an engine.

Ned, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, stuck his head out of the window.

‘It’s a car,’ he said. ‘A green one. It’s got two men in it and it’s stopped behind us. They’re getting out.’