Holiday

Chapter 1

"Oh, MUM!"

"What, dear? I thought you'd be pleased we're going to get a holiday this year, and back to Amberdale, too. I thought you liked it there?"

"But I've put my name down for school camp. We're going to the new activity centre down near Southampton somewhere."

"But you never told us about it."

"But you'd not said anything about a holiday. Dad can never get the time off work to go away. He said so. So I've put my name down."

"You'd not said anything to us about it, or asked for any money."

"You'd not said anything about going away!"

"Well, your father decided we could afford a fortnight off at this time of year, even if everywhere is more expensive in the school holidays. And anyway, we've paid for Amberdale now, for three people. And although you father's business is taking off at last we can't afford to lose the deposit, which is what would happen if you don't go."

"But Mum…"

"It's no good, darling. We can't afford to lose the deposit and to pay for school camp. And we can't leave you at home, before you ask. It's not right. So I'm afraid you're going to have to come with us. It'll be fun — you enjoyed it last time, didn't you?"

"Yes, but all my friends are going to camp. I'm going to share a tent with Alex and Nick, and Charlie's going to be there, too."

"Well, I'm sorry, but you're not. So they'll have to manage without you."

And that was that. I tried bringing up the argument from time to time, but I knew my parents and once they had made a decision that was it, especially when there was the possibility of wasting money. We'd spent so many years scraping by while my father qualified as a solicitor that it had become almost a religion. And now he had started his own firm we had a reasonable income, I assumed, but things never eased up on the money front. But I had to break the news to my three best school friends, and inevitably got the comments about being a mummy's boy and having to behave myself on holiday with them. It was even suggested that I'd be sharing their room, and that I'd have to wear a blindfold and earplugs at my age, so I wouldn't see them when they had 'you know, nookey'. When I told them my parents didn't do that sort of thing they asked my how I came to be here, then?

I couldn't think of a response. We went on holiday.

 

When we arrived at the hotel I was still seething, as much because of the boredom of the long journey and the overcast weather as with not going to camp. Although it was good to see the place as I remembered it I still wouldn't let my mood lighten: obstinacy had set in. I was known for it. But the thought that I wouldn't be with the three people in my school whose presence made it bearable was still depressing me. And it wasn't just that I liked them as friends, they were easy on the eye, too.

But still, there was the hotel, that big, rambling Victorian house which looked both well kept and ramshackle at the same time. It was probably the way the windows were on half a dozen different levels, few were the same size and many were different styles. Inside, there were changes in level every few feet, it seemed. I had become certain its architect had been drunk. As a place from my past, at that moment I didn't know whether I loved it for being familiar or hated it for not having my friends in it. A thought struck me: why hadn't I told them they'd have to come with me? Surely their parents would have paid? We could share a room, anyway, and then perhaps I'd be able to see a bit more of them than the little extra skin visible as we changed for PE. I almost brightened at the thought. But then, they weren't here, were they?

We learnt which room my parents were in, and I was relieved that I wasn't included in their double (to which might have been added a single bed as it had been until I was eleven, the last time we had come. But I didn't let on about that at school). I bore with fortitude the 'my goodness, hasn't he grown' from the owner, who smiled at me thinking he was being complimentary. In fact, I hadn't much. But I never admitted that to anyone, not really even myself. I was small for my age, what they call a late developer, although I had begun to notice that the almost daily measurements I was taking of my erection were slowly increasing, and the bits underneath it had started to get a life of their own too, so to speak. The rest of me was fairly average. You know — hair (fairish to brown), eyes (never look at them so I don't know what colour), nose (yes, one: rather like my father's), mouth (wide, at other times usually cheerful) and so on, mounted on top of a 5'2" body. By which I mean the whole thing was 5'2" — oh, you know. Fortunately my parents always thought of me as being sensible, rather than a fly-by-night, and therefore able to be trusted far more than most of my friends seemed to be.

I had accepted the room key off the owner and looked at it in some puzzlement. It was old, different completely from the key he'd given my parents. I'd followed them all upstairs, carrying a suitcase I'd inherited from my mother's youth, and wishing I could have something a bit more masculine and modern. Like a rucksack. The owner had stopped at my parents' door and showed them inside: as old clients they had a good sized room, looking out to the bay and its islands.

Oh yes, the bay. The islands. The sailing. The swimming. The fishing (not that I ever did. Well, just the twice, because everybody else was that year). But the main thing was that I'd been told that if we ever came back again I could have my own little dinghy for the week, and go off on my own within the inner ring of islands. I had learnt so quickly and well how to sail…I started to feel better, and thought I'd perhaps have something to tell my friends when I got back, after all.

But what was this? The owner was telling me that I had a bit of a walk before I got to my room, and would Mr and Mrs Finch like to see where I was? They would, they decided.

Now, their room was at the south side of the hotel. We walked away from it, along corridors, up steps, along, down, up again, along…and eventually came to a door in what looked like a large hexagonal pillar. Suddenly my downward mood vanished: they'd finally opened up the old tower, and my bedroom must be in it!

From previous visits I knew that the old tower was one of the old building's main features. It was quite wide, and had a another, smaller, hexagonal tower stuck to one side. That, we had been told, housed the spiral staircase which gave access to two rooms, one on the topmost floor and the second below it. The first few years it had been derelict, nearly, but now…wow! I dropped my suitcase and scurried like a startled rabbit right up the stairs, beating the owner and my parents to it. Surely they'd have given me the room at the top? I reached it and tried the handle. Locked. Voices called me downstairs, and with a little disappointment I realised that mine was the downstairs one. Still, it was nice: a fair size, if a bit low, windows to east and west, and, oh yeah! A double bed! Now I knew I'd grown up. For no particular reason I felt a swelling in my Y-fronts at the thought. Against the east wall where the rest of the hotel joined on there was even a shower room, with a toilet! The staircase was at the north side.

I thought I'd try my luck. "I suppose the room upstairs is taken?" I asked.

"Yes," said the owner. "It's been booked specifically for ages. The son of some other regular clients of ours has it. You'll probably meet him soon."

I hoped not. Not if he had what should be my room. But this room was great, anyway. And it was a long way from my parents. Not that I didn't get on with them, but it'd be nice to have my own private place. I brightened up a bit. The adults left. I remembered my suitcase and retrieved it. As I climbed up to my room I thought I heard a scrambling sound ahead of me and hurried to see what it was. I almost thought I saw a shadow flit across a wall on the stairs above my room, but I couldn't be sure. I put it down to imagination or hunger.

The next half hour was spent unpacking, and I just lay on the bed, daydreaming, probably enjoying myself, but still not really admitting it. I wondered whether to have a shower — we only had a bath at home — but thought my parents would get suspicious if I washed voluntarily. I went to the controls, though, and found out how they worked — carefully, because things sometimes have a tendency to come to bits in my hands. I'm sure they're not built robustly enough. But this one didn't. I fiddled with the taps and looked at the shower rose, and was just thinking how like an old fashioned microphone it looked when the water finally bubbled through it and hit me full in the face.

That was enough experimenting for the moment, but I'd sorted the shower. I dried off both myself and the wall behind me with my recently unpacked towel and looked round the room again. Not bad. Then I heard the door slam above me. Huh! My room thief. Should I go outside and wait for him on the stairs and confront him? Or do I just wander nonchalantly out and pretend it was an accident? What if he was 18 and built like a brick outhouse? What if he was my age? What if he was somebody who I'd like to get to know?

My dithering coincided with the sound of scampering feet down the spiral staircase. I knew from their speed and lightness that this was no 18 year old, and I think my own footfalls would have been heavier. It must be a little kid. My heart sank. Was I going to have a brat as a neighbour for the next fortnight? Did I want to see him now? No, not really. I couldn't be bothered. I went back and lay on the bed.

I listened from my prone position for the footsteps to recede. They didn't. If it had been a cartoon there would have been a question mark hanging over my head. My brow wrinkled. Had I missed hearing him as I lay down? Had he fallen? Struck with this possibility I pushed myself back onto my feet and crossed, ever more anxiously, to the door. As I reached it I heard a noise outside. As I turned the lock I heard an indrawn breath, and the footsteps started their pattering again. The lock stuck. I struggled. All the time the steps receded and by the time I wrestled open the door their owner was well out of sight. The door leading to the rest of the hotel banged shut. He had gone. Cheeky sod, I thought, listening at my door like that. I'll have him.

Hunger soon overtook me and I revisited my parents' room to find it empty. Tea? Perhaps. It wasn't dinner time. I went downstairs and into the hotel's amazing lounge. I say amazing because it was furnished with a bewildering variety of armchairs and tables, all of different styles, and even to my inexperienced eye it looked more like a tidy secondhand furniture shop than a hotel lounge. My parents were sitting in a mixture of armchairs, and as I appeared in the door a slight figure got up from a seat opposite and vanished, hurriedly, I thought, through the French windows. Before I could follow I was collared and introduced to the couple, and forced to have that sort of edwardian afternoon tea that my parents had been brought up with. It was extremely boring, but I was hungry and thirsty, and my full mouth avoided too much polite conversation. It was only when I had stuffed myself that the subject of the son was brought up.

"He's got the room in the tower, you know. Didn't I hear you were up there too?"

"Yes, sir, I am. It's a nice room."

"Yes, very nice indeed, and private, too, well away from everyone else. Have you seen James yet?"

"Not quite, no. I think I came out of my room just after he had passed, but I didn't see him."

"He's a bit shy. I think he has rather a hard time of it at school with the older boys. He's quick, and good in class, and that doesn't always make for easy relationships."

Oh, no, I thought. Not a swot as well. Probably fat and ugly.

"…But I'm sure you'll look out for him, Martin, won't you?"

"Well…"

"Of course he will. He's very good like that."

Damn them. Why couldn't they just ignore me like other parents did their kids?

The conversation turned to schools and how well James was doing, and what I was doing, and how well they expected me to do in the exams…you know, the sort of talk that makes you sound more like a half trained dog than a boy. I almost expected to be told to sit up and beg like I'd been taught…well, not really, but you know what I mean…when suddenly, just below the armrest of Mr Evans's armchair I saw the most evil looking, widest grin I'd ever seen in my life. It was set on a face that was unremarkable in most other respects except for the eyes, which were set far apart, and this amazingly wide expanse of mouth. When the owner saw that I'd spotted him, he quickly shuffled back and slid out of sight. I thought he'd gone behind the chair. Then I saw a shadow on the window as he scurried outside again.

This was just too much. I broke into the scholastic conversation about me and as politely as I could excused myself. I went out of the room's main door as if to visit the toilet, but doubled back to the main garden door where I peered round the frame, trying to locate my quarry.

Along by the French windows there were bushes. They were close enough, in windy conditions, to scratch at the glass alarmingly. Now they provided cover for a diminutive figure on all fours, watching the windows avidly. I wondered if he'd see me if I sauntered out into the garden, and decided he would. But just then an elderly couple excused themselves past me: I saw the face look up and then back. As they left the building, I slipped out after them, keeping them between me and my quarry, taking a different course. Once the bush hid him from my sight I doubled back and crossed as quietly as I could to the opposite side of it.

Why was I, at the age of fourteen, taking so much trouble to encounter, on my terms, a kid who was about half my age? I didn't have the faintest idea. Probably because he had got the room that I would have coveted, run away as I came upstairs with my suitcase, listened outside my door and run away as I opened it; but most certainly because he had made cheeky contact with me by grinning at me in my discomfiture. I was going to get even.

Behind the bush I lowered myself to the ground so I could see under its roots. There was a pair of feet sticking backwards towards me.

Do I grab them? Do I kick them? I couldn't bring myself to do either — after all, I didn't know him. How do I go from here?

I cleared my throat loudly, just behind him.

He jumped, tried to sit up, and hit his head on the sheltering twigs above him. His thrashings around succeeded in lodging him further in the foliage, and he eventually sat there, jammed by his impatience, glaring at me.

"Hallo," I said, as if I'd just discovered his existence. "Is anything wrong?"

Half a minute more of struggling and thrashing around freed him from the bush's clutches, and a small boy stood looking at me furiously. He was about 18" shorter than me, slim to the point of thinness, mousy and ordinary looking, apart from the amazingly wide set eyes and wide mouth, the more noticeable because his face wasn't fat to compensate. He was currently modelling the 'hedge backwards' look. Very aptly, as it happened.

"You startled me." It was a very treble voice, but firm and articulate sounding.

"Well, you were laughing at me in there."

"No I wasn't."

"You were."

"Well, you looked like you were going to explode."

"I would if I'd stayed there."

"How'd you get away?"

I put my finger to my lips and jerked my head away from the French window. He followed me a safe distance away where we could talk.

"Said I had to go for a pee."

"You never."

"Well, sort of. Have you got the top room in the tower?"

"Yes."

"I'm underneath you."

"I know."

"Why did you run off when I came to the door?"

"I didn't know you."

"I wondered who it was, listening."

He had the grace to blush at this, then countered with: "well, you rattled my door handle!"

"I thought I'd got the top room. I tried it, but it was locked."

"Yes. I was in it."

"I know that now. Is it the same as mine?"

"Don't know. 'Spose so."

"Double bed? Toilet? Shower?"

"What's a double bed?"

"You know, a wide one, like mums and dads have."

"No, it's the same as mine at home. You've got a shower?"

"Yes."

"I haven't. I have to go down to the hotel and use the one along the corridor."

I was glad I'd got the downstairs room.

"James!" A voice called from the French windows. My companion looked up.

"Ah, there you are, and you've found Martin. Good. But don't bore him, dear, I'm sure he's got better things to do than play with you."

His face dropped. I don't know why, but I called back. "It's all right, Mrs… um…Evans. I'm not bored. To my annoyance my voice failed to reach the slightly lower register that it had achieved only recently, and which I was trying to cultivate. I sounded as treble as her son. Damn.

"That's kind of you, Martin, but anyway we're going to walk round the town now. He'll see you later, no doubt. Come on, James."

He looked back at me. The face that had been so serious as we got the important bits out of the way suddenly livened up again, and the extraordinarily wide, cheeky grin appeared at full brilliance. I swear that if he laughed out loud it'd meet at the back.

"Bye," he said, and was gone.

 

I rejoined my parents, and was soon wheedling the promised sailing dinghy out of Dad. He was a bit cautious, and we had what they call a meaningful discussion about it. I think I'd won him over, but to make certain I reminded him once again that he had promised me that I should have one to myself next time we came. "You always tell me I have to keep my promises," I finished off.

He looked at me in exasperation. "That was two years ago. You've not sailed since. How do I know how much you've forgotten?"

How could I explain to him the nights — and days — dreaming, of feeling the tiller kick in one hand while the sheet pulled the other; of feeling the wind on my cheek to tell me its direction; of that rare and wonderful sense of freedom and independence that I'd learnt from being in control of my own boat?

"But Dad, I'm fourteen now. I know what I'm doing, and anyway you promised."

They looked at teach other. Then Mum's eyes lifted resignedly and I knew the battle was won.

"All right," said the keeper of the purse strings, "but I'm going to spend an hour out with you first so I can make sure you're safe."

I was fairly happy to accept that, although it would have been nicer if they'd trusted my judgement of my own ability and common sense. I dragged them down to the village, to the waterfront where I knew we had hired sailing dinghies before. Half an hour and the exchange of a cheque for a piece of paper later, I had my own boat for a fortnight. Nothing flash, just an old fashioned, conventional little dinghy, two sails — which I knew I could handle - and strict instructions not to go outside the outer ring of islands. I asked if I could try her then and there, but was told I had to wait until the morning. Dad wouldn't be so tired then, and could take me out for my trial.

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