The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

– Yes. The photograph.

‘The photograph? You’ll have to be more specific. I’m not with you.’

– Proceed on the current road.

‘Which photograph did you have in mind?’

– The folded photograph.

‘Ah, you mean the one of Alison? In her bikini?’

– Why did he fold it?

‘Pardon?’

– Why did your father fold the photograph?

‘I thought we’d established that. Because he was turned on by the picture of Alison, and that was the only half he wanted to look at.’

– Are you sure?

‘Of course. What other explanation is there?’

– In one mile, right turn.

‘Come on, Emma, what are you getting at?’

– In half a mile, right turn.

‘No, that takes us back on the road to Aberdeen, and I’ve already told you, I’m not going to Aberdeen. Today or any other day.’

– You know.

‘I know? I know what? Do you mind not being so cryptic?’

– You know why your father folded the photograph.

‘Can we change the subject?’

– Right turn coming up.

‘Left turn, I think you’ll find.’

– You know.

‘Will you SHUT UP about that, Emma! Will you stop talking about it?’

– Say it, Max. Say it.

‘Fuck off.’

– Don’t cry. Don’t cry, Max. Just tell the truth.

‘I’m not crying.’

– You can say it.

‘Why are you DOING this to me? Why are you putting me through this?’

– Was it really Alison’s picture he wanted?

‘Of course it wasn’t. Oh, God. Oh, Dad! You miserable …You miserable man. Why didn’t I see? Why didn’t any of us see? It was Chris, wasn’t it? You had a thing for Chris. All those years. Your best friend’s son. Couldn’t take your eyes off him. Even now – even now you still think about him. Even in Australia you were asking after him all the time. And not just Chris, probably. Probably other people as well. Friends of mine? Friends of Mum’s? Who knows? You bottled it up, Dad. You bottled it up, all that time, for years and years. In fact I think you’re still bottling it up now. Your sad little secret. The thing you could never admit, to Mum or to me or to anybody else.’

– In two hundred yards, make a U-turn.

‘So sad. So very, very sad.’

– Make a U-turn. Then, proceed for about three miles on the current road.

‘Video diary, Day Four.

‘Well, doubtless you’ll want to know how I’ve been getting on.

‘I’m pleased to report that I’m well on my way to Shetland. Well on my way. Of course, it’s a bit too dark outside for you to see exactly where I am, but my guess would be … my guess would be somewhere off the West Coast of Africa. Yesterday we certainly passed by Madeira, on the starboard side, and today I can see, over on the port side, a looming mass of glowering rock and earth which I think must be one of the Canary Islands. Either that or, quite possibly, the Cairngorms, because, unless I’m very much mistaken, we are now on the B976, heading in a westerly direction, away from Aberdeen, and into the mountains. Let me just check that with my trusty navigator.’

– In three hundred yards, make a U-turn.

‘Ha, ha! Yes, she’s been saying that for some time. That’s Emma, there, my trusty – as I said – my trusty navigator, who has been disagreeing with me, today, over the route we should take. She seems to think that at this rate we have no possibility of rounding the Cape of Good Hope before Christmas, which means bad weather in the Roaring Forties, although I have to say the weather here is pretty bad already. Thick, spiralling snowflakes, as you can see outside the car, a howling wind – can you hear the wind? – all making it pretty difficult to steer a straight course at the moment, not helped by the fact that the driver – that is to say, the captain – has been drinking pretty steadily for the last … for the last fifteen hours or so. Nothing like a bit of ship’s rum, I always say, to cheer you up