Then a man had arrived on a golf cart, pulling a whole trolley of food from Ellie.
Ham, beef, chicken. Burgers for me and Teddy. Chocolate milkshakes and ice cream. Apart from some Ritz crackers, all I’d had was an egg at Uncle Tony’s farm and I suddenly realized how hungry I was.
Everything was sort of… perfect.
‘This was kind of the lady,’ says Teddy.
‘It’s good to be kind,’ I tell him, ‘isn’t it, Ted?’
And now we’re sitting round the fire on this warm summer night and the stars are starting to poke through the sky. Teddy’s in a fluffy white dressing gown, and it’s just us – just the family, with the dry grass under our feet – and I can’t help but remind Dad of a few things.
‘So, did you prefer getting sprayed by mud or being chased into a pond by a pig?’
Dad starts to laugh. A big surprising laugh. Like he’d been waiting to laugh about so many things for so long, but he’d had to get being annoyed out of the way first.
And we all laugh, until it slows and we sit in silence, watching the logs burn.
‘Dad,’ I say. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Anything, Stels,’ says Dad.
‘Did you fall out with Grandma the way Uncle Tony fell out with his sons?’
Mum raises her eyebrows, like she was not expecting that. But she doesn’t deny it. She looks to Dad.
‘I just mean because it seems like, even though you guys are busy with work and all that, and Grandma lives so far away, I just mean maybe it’s weird we never, ever go there? And, like, it takes something mad like this screens thing to make you actually put us in a car and drive us there…’
Dad thinks for a bit and then nods.
And he says, ‘I can barely even remember what it was about.’
I woke up the next morning when the cockerels started crowing.
Believe me, I know I made that sound properly magical because who doesn’t want to be woken up by a massive shouting bird, right? But have you ever heard one of them up close? One second everything is beautiful and peaceful and sleepy and the next it’s like nature’s held an airhorn up to your ear.
But the sun… the sun was magical. It streamed into the tent. We’d left it open in the night.
It must have rained while we were asleep too because I could smell that amazing smell. You know the one? The one that just smells of earth and the ground and the water feeding the grass. The one that smells of the planet.
There were other smells too. Bacon was sizzling on a pan by the firepit. And there was the smell of aftershave or something drifting through the tent. Dad had got up early to have a shave with all the free toiletries.
I know she’d been a bit annoying at first, but finding Ellie was like striking gold. It gave us that one night we needed.
Teddy knew it too. I felt sorry for him. His routine was all out of whack. But a burger and a long sleep had been good for him.
‘What time are we leaving, Dad?’ I ask, as he hands out the bacon sandwiches.
‘Whatever time you want,’ he says. ‘Because I don’t know what time is or what time even means any more. Everything is meaningless and yet meaningful. And those are my thoughts on this beautiful but weird morning.’
Dad doesn’t usually have a second coffee and now I see why. But I know what he means. Everything felt so urgent at first. So confusing. Since we got to Ellie’s, it’s sort of felt like a Sunday.
‘Do I have time to play with Teddy?’ I ask.
I knew Ellie was watching us from the window as we ran around. She had a stern face and crossed arms, so I was worried she didn’t want us running about the place, but she didn’t stop us, so we just kept going.
It’s when we’re exploring the blackberry patches that she turns up right behind us, surrounded by eight dogs. Big ones. Tiny ones. Woofing and yapping.
I start petting them all straight away. I can’t stop smiling. Which one would I choose, if one day I’m actually allowed one? A tiny dog leaps up at Teddy and licks him and Teddy screams with delight.
I think Ellie is pretending that she has work to do because she’s carrying a pitchfork. I think she brought all her dogs out because she knew we’d like them. I think she just wants to talk.
‘So where are you from?’ she says, not quite looking at us.
‘Mousehole,’ I say. ‘It’s in Cornwall. Down by the sea.’
‘I know Mousehole,’ she says. ‘Sacked by the Spaniards in 1595! Whole village burned down apart from one house!’
‘It’s still there,’ I tell her.
‘We always overcome!’ says Ellie, looking into the distance. ‘So, you will see your grandmother today. That’s nice for you.’
‘Do you have grandchildren?’ I say.
‘Yes, two,’ she says. ‘But they’re in Australia.’
‘What about your husband?’ I say, and I immediately regret it.
Ellie says she had one a very, very long time ago, but that he had died. They had flown all over the world together. He used to be a pilot. He even flew Spitfires. Immediately, Teddy’s fascinated because he knows all about Spitfires. Ellie says her husband had been one of the youngest ever pilots and had flown in the Second World War when he was just eighteen and he lived to be eighty-eight, so that taught Hitler a lesson, eh?
Ellie’s face completely changes when she talks about him. She looks us in the eye the whole time. It’s like we’re just normal friends.
And then Dad gets here.
‘Morning, Ellie. I was just wondering about petrol…’
‘Do I look like someone who would have petrol?’ she snaps. ‘Gin, yes. Sherry,
