“Do you want us to push your arse?” Jack asks. “Give you an arse boost?”
“No!”
But they do anyway, and then I’ve got Jack, Mum and then Dad all “arse-boosting” me up, as I scramble and pull myself on to the roof. “Jesus,” I gasp.
Jack’s looking up at me. “I forgot, there’s a set of steps in the garage, I’ll just get them.”
I glare at him as he nips off to get the ladder, returns, ascends the steps and hops on to the roof next to me. “That would be an easier method,” he tells me.
“No shit.”
“OK, Mrs Nate?” Jack calls down. “Are you good with a camera?”
“I won a photography competition in secondary school,” Mum replies. You would think this was the proudest moment of her life, the amount she goes on about it. I think a big part is that her sister Karen came second, and this is Mum’s one major achievement over her. She gets her phone out and starts tapping at the screen, trying to find the camera function – a process that could potentially take five hours.
Jack turns to me. “What is that artefact in your mother’s hands?”
“It’s a Nokia.”
Jack’s eyes widen.
“Mrs Nate!” Jack hands his iPhone to my mum. “Use mine. It’ll be easier for me to upload after. It’s ready to go, you just have to press the button.” Jack turns back to me. “Happy, big smiles, Nate! And we’ll stretch our arms out wide, like, ‘Hello, world, here we come!’ type of thing.”
I shake my head. “Is that a thing?”
“Ready, Mrs Nate?”
“I think your phone’s gone off…”
“Passcode is 6969,” Jack tells her.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“What?”
“6969?” I say. I have no problem with Jack’s lewd and attention-seeking passcode, I might normally even crack a smile, if he wasn’t chatting to my mum! But embarrassing me in front of my folks is something Jack always used to love doing (example: the time, aged twelve, he “innocently” asked my mother what “boner” meant), and one of the many reasons why him coming on this trip still fills me with dread.
Jack squints at me. “My mum’s birthday? Sixth September, 1969?”
“Oh.”
“OK, ready!” Mum says, aiming the phone like it’s a piece of alien technology.
“Plus, mutual oral sex!” Jack grins, flinging his arms out, his left one smack into my chest, knocking me off balance.
“Argh!” I squeal as I fall back, then slide off the roof, topple over the edge, crash down, but snag the leg of my shorts on the wing mirror, so I’m sort of hanging off the van, upside down, head on the ground, legs in the air, my balls all caught up somewhere in this complicated wing mirror in my shorts nightmare.
“Oh, that’s a brilliant shot!” Mum says, looking at the screen. “I got the exact moment you hit Nate with your arm, and there’s this look of surprise on his face, and one of joy on yours, and he’s falling back, so there’s this real energy about it—”
“Mum? Dad? Anyone?” I mutter.
“So vibrant!” Mum continues. “And so funny!”
Jack has hopped off the roof and is looking too. “Oh, yeah, that’s the one. That’s the shot! I can see why you won that contest, Mrs Nate!”
“Still got it!” Mum says.
“Still here!” I shout out.
Mum, Dad, Jack and Rose gather around me.
“I’ll help you down,” Jack says.
“Are you Nate’s BOYFRIEND?” Rose asks.
“Ha!” Jack laughs. “Just friend.”
“Do you love him?”
I close my eyes because, really?
“Rose, I adore him. What’s not to love about a boy so awkward he’s literally hanging off a camper van by his PE shorts.”
“They’re not PE shorts,” I mutter. “What do you think I am?”
“Whatever you are, we can remedy it,” Jack replies.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was meant to dress up for a five-hour drive on the motorways of England.”
“Dress to impress!” Rose announces.
“A girl after my own heart,” Jack says.
Rose smiles, a demonic twinkle in her eyes. “I think you should marry my brother.”
“WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME DOWN, FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET JESUS?!”
“He’s very grumpy,” Rose says to Jack in the voice that six-year-olds think is a whisper but is actually like a foghorn.
“Well, that’s puberty for you,” Mum says.
I groan.
Jack laughs. “Come on, you grumpy pubescent mess, let’s get you down from there.” He grabs me around the waist, lifts me up to detangle the legs of my shorts and helps me to my feet. I brush myself down, stomp back round to the other side of the camper van and plonk myself back in the seat.
“And uploaded!” Jack trills from outside, looking up from his phone. “The games have commenced!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JACK
I offer this information entirely without comment, but we pull up at what I can only describe as a “checkpoint” at the entrance to the campsite (complete with barrier and guard booth) at the exact moment a stricken figure is being loaded into an ambulance and a rabid woman is being carted off by two police officers into a van screaming, “That’s what yer get for bein’ a cheatin’ bastard! Wendy said I should never ’ave married yer!”
Actually, I will comment: this place is very clearly hell on earth. I’m pretty sure Mr Nate described our first stop as “wild camping” – getting back to nature, spending the night under the stars – it sounded very enriching, and incredibly Instagrammable. And this is not.
The guard hands Mr Nate some paperwork. “Sector D5,” the guard says, like this is some sort of dystopian thriller. “Right next to the toilet block.”
I turn to Nate. “Bliss!”
He just looks at me and doesn’t respond. I think he might have become brain-dead during the five-hour journey here.
“The canteen does food between five fifteen p.m. and six…”
“An oddly specific and narrow window,” I mutter.
“Here’s a voucher for a free plastic beaker of wine, beer or soft drink at the bar. Children must be supervised at all times…”
I glance across as two feral twelve-year-old boys, who look like bulldogs in vest tops, kick the shit out of each other on the yellowing
