A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [41]
The next thing she knew it was morning and Jacob was running in and out of the room in his Spider-Man outfit.
“Come on, love.” Ray pushed the hair away from her face. “There’s a fry-up waiting for you downstairs.”
After nursery she and Jacob got home late on account of having stopped to get the polar bear drink, and Ray was already back from the office.
“Graham rang,” he said.
“What about?”
“Didn’t tell me.”
“Anything important?” asked Katie.
“Didn’t ask. Said he’d try again later.”
One mysterious call from Graham a day was pretty much Ray’s limit. So, after putting Jacob to bed, she used the phone in the bedroom.
“It’s Katie.”
“Hey, you rang back.”
“So, what’s the big secret?”
“No big secret, I’m just worried about you. Which didn’t seem the kind of message to leave with Ray.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t in terribly good shape when you turned up the other evening, what with my back and everything.”
“Are you talking to anyone?” asked Graham.
“You mean, like, professionally?”
“No, I mean just talking.”
“Of course I’m talking,” said Katie.
“You know what I mean.”
“Graham. Look—”
“If you want me to butt out,” said Graham, “I’ll butt out. And I don’t want to cast any aspersions on Ray. I really don’t. I just wondered whether you wanted to meet up for a coffee and a chat. We’re still friends, right? OK, maybe we’re not friends. But you seemed like you might need to get stuff off your chest. And I don’t necessarily mean bad stuff.” He paused. “Also, I really enjoyed talking to you the other night.”
God knows what had happened to him. She hadn’t heard him sounding this solicitous in years. If it was jealousy it didn’t sound like jealousy. Perhaps the woman with the swimming cap had broken his heart.
She stopped herself. It was an unkind thought. People changed. He was being kind. And he was right. She wasn’t talking enough.
“I’m finishing early on Wednesday. I could see you for an hour before I pick Jacob up.”
“Brilliant.”
30
Toothbrush. Flannel. Shaver. Woolly jumper.
George started packing a suitcase, then decided that it was not quite outward bound enough. He dug Jamie’s old rucksack out of the roof space. It was a little scuffed, but rucksacks were meant to be scuffed.
Three pairs of underpants. Two vests. The Ackroyd. Gardening trousers.
This was his kind of holiday.
They had tried it once. Snowdonia in 1980. A desperate attempt on his part to remain earthbound after the horrors of the flight to Lyon the previous year. And perhaps if he had had stouter children or a wife less addicted to her creature comforts it might have worked. There was nothing wrong with rain. It was part and parcel of getting back in touch with nature. And it had let up most evenings so that they could sit on camping mats outside the tents cooking supper on the Primus stove. But any suggestion of his that they go to Skye or the Alps in subsequent years had been met with the rejoinder, “Why don’t we go camping in North Wales?” and gales of unsympathetic laughter.
Jean dropped him off in the town center just after nine and he went straight into Ottakar’s where he purchased the Ordnance Survey Land-ranger map number 204, Truro, Falmouth and Surrounding Area. He then popped into Smiths and bought himself a selection of pencils (2B, 4B and 6B), a sketchpad and a good rubber. He was going to get a pencil sharpener when he remembered that the outdoor shop was only a couple of streets away. He went in and treated himself to a Swiss Army knife. He could sharpen his pencils with that, and be prepared to whittle sticks and remove stones from horses’ hooves should the need arise.
He arrived at the station with fifteen minutes to spare, picked up his ticket and sat on the platform.
An hour to Kings Cross. Hammersmith and City line to Paddington. Four and a half hours to Truro. Twenty minutes to Falmouth. Then a taxi. Assuming the seat booking worked between Paddington and Truro and he didn’t find himself squatting on the rucksack outside