One Moment

by Linda Green

And then I remember that I was sick last night. I can’t smell it, only taste it a little in my mouth.

  ‘Have I been sick again?’

  ‘No. We’re going camping.’

  I frown at her. Usually, when we are going camping, I know about it and we pack everything the day before.

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Yes. Come on, I want to make an early start. It’s a beautiful day out there.’

  I sit up in bed and squint towards the window. Bits of sunlight are coming through the gap where the curtains Mum made don’t quite meet.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s gone out on his bike,’ says Mum.

  ‘Is he going to pack when he gets back?’

  Mum looks down at her hands.

  ‘Let’s not worry about that now,’ she says, ‘we need to get packed.’

  I get up and pull my dressing gown on and go to the bathroom for a wee. My pyjamas that were covered in sick have gone from the bath, but I still think I can smell them. When I get back to my room, Mum is making a pile of my clothes on my bed.

  ‘I don’t need all that,’ I say. ‘You usually tell me to make one T-shirt last two days.’

  ‘I know,’ she replies. ‘But I’m packing a few more in case. You get yourself dressed and let me sort it out.’

  Mum’s voice is a bit snappy. She is normally excited when we are going camping, not snappy. She puts some separate clothes out on the bed for me to wear and picks up the other pile.

  ‘Are you going to put them in the big rucksack?’

  ‘Yes Finn. And I’ll sort your toiletries. You get your bee rucksack packed with things you want to take.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. I still don’t understand why we are doing this in a rush, but I get dressed and start to gather my things anyway. I put two Alan Titchmarsh books in and my wind-up torch, bug-collector, magnifying glass and compass. It doesn’t fill up much of the rucksack but that is all I usually take.

  Mum pops her head round the door.

  ‘Maybe put in a couple of extra books and things to keep you occupied,’ she says.

  I’m not sure why because Mum usually says that nature provides everything you need when you go camping, but I get one of my bee-keeping books and my school pencil case and a wordsearch book and put them in too.

  I take my rucksack downstairs. Dad’s rucksack is in the hall. Our tent and sleeping bags are strapped to it and it looks very heavy. I am glad I don’t have to carry it. I go into the kitchen to have my breakfast. The washing machine is on but Mum isn’t there. I go back upstairs to the landing and call out: ‘Mum, I’m ready.’

  She comes out of the bathroom clutching a toiletry bag and looking a bit flustered.

  ‘That’s great,’ she says, ‘let’s get our boots on.’

  ‘But we haven’t had our breakfast yet,’ I point out.

  ‘I’ve packed some breakfast. We’ll have it when we get there.’

  ‘And Dad’s not back from his bike ride yet.’

  Mum crouches down next to me. Her face is serious.

  ‘Dad’s not coming with us this time.’

  ‘So why have you packed his rucksack?’

  ‘I’m borrowing it. It’s bigger than mine.’

  ‘Have you asked him?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Have you asked him if you can borrow it because it’s rude not to ask and he gets very cross when you don’t ask him about things.’

  ‘It’ll be fine, Finn. It’s only a rucksack.’

  ‘Yeah but he won’t see it like that, will he? His solicitor might send you another letter.’

  Mum shuts her eyes and sighs.

  ‘Just trust me on this one, Finn. We need to get going.’

  She goes past me and hurries downstairs. I follow her and watch her put the toiletry bag in one of the side pockets of Dad’s rucksack.

  ‘Didn’t Dad want to come with us?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s busy. He’s always got lots to do at weekends, hasn’t he?’

  ‘But he doesn’t mind us going?’

  Mum hands me my walking boots without answering. I suddenly realise that this is Mum’s plan.

  ‘He doesn’t know we’re going, does he?’

  ‘I’ve left him a note,’ she says, nodding towards the narrow windowsill next to the front door, where there is an envelope with ‘Martin’ written on it. ‘Now put them on quickly.’

  I sit down on the bottom step of the stairs and pull my boots on. Dad sometimes helps me with my boots. He is good at tying them not too tight and not too loose. There aren’t many other things he is good at, apart from being a solicitor and cycling, but he is good at shoelaces.

  ‘How is this going to help because he’s going to be even crosser than he is already,’ I say as I stand up.

  Mum turns to me as she opens the front door and swings the rucksack onto her back.

  ‘It’ll do us all good,’ she says. ‘We need some time away to think things through. He could do with some time on his own thinking things through too.’

  ‘There’ll be a big argument when we come back tomorrow, though.’

  ‘Let’s not worry about that now, shall we?’ says Mum. Her voice is wobbly, and her bottom lip is too. I put my bee rucksack on, hoping that I don’t see any of the kids from school on the way.

  ‘Are we going to the same campsite as usual?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘We’re going somewhere new.’

  I follow her out of the house and watch as she pulls the front door hard behind us.

  ‘Have you got your car keys?’ I ask.

  ‘We’re not going by car.’

  I frown at her. ‘How are we going to get there, then?’

  ‘By bus,’ she replies, with a little smile.

  I am still frowning at her, but she has set off down the road, all the things tied on to her rucksack bumping into each other and against her.

  I hurry after her. I am going to say something but when I look up at her I see she is crying again, so I decide not to say anything. One of Mum’s favourite things in the world is camping so the best thing is probably to get to the campsite as quickly as possible, because that will stop her crying and make her smile again.

  ‘Can I carry anything for you?’ I ask. Mum looks down and does a little smile.

  ‘I love you, Finn Rook-Carter,’ she replies, which is kind of a funny thing to say because there are no other Finns here, so she didn’t have to use my surname.

  ‘I love you too,’ I reply, deciding not to add ‘Hannah Rook’ because there are definitely no other Hannahs or Rooks here and I’m absolutely certain she’ll know I’m speaking to her.

  Mum wipes her nose with her shirtsleeve (even though you’re not supposed to) and carries on walking and crying a bit at the same time. She stops when she gets to the bus stop at the end of the road.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘Not too far.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Two bus rides.’

  ‘Will we still be in West Yorkshire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK,’ I reply. I do not really want to leave West Yorkshire as we’ll be coming home tomorrow so it would be silly to spend all our time getting there and back and not much time camping.

  I have been camping just with Mum once before when I was little, and Dad had to go to a work thing, so Mum took me away for the weekend. I remember it was fun and we did some singing and there was more room in the tent, and she brought lots of food, including things I wasn’t usually allowed to have.

  ‘Have you packed nice food?’ I ask.

  ‘Just what we had in. I didn’t have much time to prepare.’

  ‘Why didn’t you know we were going camping?’

  ‘It was kind of a l
ast-minute decision.’

  ‘But you must have known when you booked the campsite?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Finn,’ she says with a smile. ‘Sometimes it’s nice to be impulsive. This is a chance for you to leave all your cares behind and have some fun.’

  I nod and don’t say anything because I don’t think Mum is in the mood for arguing. I start thinking about how big my pile of cares would be if I really had left them all behind. I think they would fill my room and most of the landing too. Some of them might even have to go in the loft. Maybe they could help to insulate it. I feel a bit better thinking that my cares could help to save the environment. I always knew they had to be good for something.

  The bus comes and we get on and pay. Mum heaves her rucksack off and puts it in the luggage area. We sit down in the seats behind it.

  ‘These are the priority seats,’ I say to Mum.

  ‘I know, love. It doesn’t matter today though, does it? There’s only one other person on the bus.’

  I look around. She’s right. There’s just a man with earphones in sitting on the back seat looking at his phone. I turn back to Mum.

  ‘When will Dad get home?’ I ask.

  Mum sighs.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ she says. ‘Just look forward to our camping trip, OK?’

  I nod. But all I can think about is what Dad will say when he reads Mum’s note and how long it will be before he phones her and there’s another big argument. Though not as big as the argument that will happen when we get home tomorrow.

  I start to get a tummy ache like I have on school days. I try to think about the campsite and whether I’ll be able to stay up late enough to see the stars, which is one of my favourite things. I start to imagine star constellations in the sky but then I remember Dad pointing out Ursa Major to me for the first time and I feel bad because Dad taught me all the stars and he isn’t going to see them with us.

  Mum rings the bell and stands up as we go past the big Tesco. She hauls the rucksack back on and turns to look at me.

  ‘OK,’ she says, ‘this is our stop.’

  I follow her off the bus and we walk down the road and round the corner to another bus stop.

  ‘Will Dad be home yet?’ I ask.

  ‘Finn, please don’t.’

  ‘Did you say that you’d taken his rucksack in the note? Only he might think that we’ve been burgled, and it’s been stolen. The house was a bit of a mess when we left.’

  Mum shakes her head and looks up at the sky.

  ‘Please try to stop worrying,’ she says.

  ‘I didn’t have time to unpack my worries from my head before we left.’

  Mum manages a little smile.

  ‘You are a funny one, Finn.’

  ‘Where are we going next?’

  ‘Triangle.’

  I nod. For the first time this morning, I am smiling. Triangle is the best place name I have ever heard. The first time Mum took me there when I was little, I was expecting it to be an actual triangle and I cried when I got there and discovered it looked just like other places. I asked once if there were any other places that had the same names as shapes. Dad showed me a photo of the Pentagon on his computer, but it doesn’t really count because it is a government building in America and not a town. I have decided to collect towns with the same names as shapes. So far, I have only got one but if I ever hear of a town called Rectangle or Rhombus, I will save up all my pocket money until I can afford to go there and I will take a photo of me in front of the name sign and add it to my collection.

  The bus for Triangle arrives. It is a bit busier than the last one and we sit a few seats back from the front. I look out of the window as we go through Sowerby Bridge, which I still call Strawberry Bridge in my head because Lottie used to call it that when she was little and couldn’t pronounce ‘Sowerby’.

  Mum lets me press the bell when we get to Triangle and it’s time to get off. You can see the woods from the main road. Mum seems a bit happier now that we are here. I decide not to mention Dad again.

  I follow Mum into the woods. We have been here several times to have picnics and go for walks, but we have never camped here before. I didn’t even know you could.

  ‘Where’s the campsite?’ I ask.

  ‘Quite a way in. I’ve got a map if I need it. Don’t worry.’

  Her voice is lighter than it has been for a long time. But all I can think is that if Dad was here, he would ruffle my hair at this point.

  We carry on for another fifteen minutes or so. Mum gets a piece of paper out of her pocket and looks at it for a moment.

  ‘Why don’t you look it up on your phone?’ I ask.

  Mum ignores me. ‘It’s this way,’ she says, heading off to the right. I follow her for another ten minutes or so until we get to a clearing. I can only see one other tent up but there is a tepee by the entrance and when Mum calls out hello, a man with grey hair comes out.

  ‘Hello, we’d like a pitch, please,’ she says. The man nods and smiles and beckons her to come inside the tepee.

  ‘Just wait here a minute, Finn,’ she says.

  She hadn’t even booked in advance. I start to fiddle with the cord on my rucksack.

  ‘All sorted,’ she says, coming out of the tepee a few minutes later.

  ‘Where do we have to go?’ I ask.

  ‘Anywhere we like,’ she replies. ‘That’s the beauty of making an early start. You get to choose.’

  I lead the way over to a spot at the far edge of the clearing. Mum takes off her rucksack. There are red marks on her shoulders where the straps have rubbed but she doesn’t say anything about them. She starts humming as she unpacks the tent. I can’t remember when I last heard her hum. I wonder if maybe it will all be OK and Dad won’t be as mad as I think and will miss us while we’re away and actually, this is a really good plan on her part.

  I help Mum with the tent. She is quite good at putting it up but she never follows instructions and that usually makes Dad cross, but he isn’t here today, so I suppose it doesn’t matter and I just fetch her the next bit she needs when she asks me to.

  The sun has come out now, so I ask Mum for some sun cream. She rummages around in her rucksack for a bit and I start to worry that she has forgotten it, but she pulls out a tube and my legionnaire’s hat. It doesn’t really suit me, but no one is going to see me here, so I put it on and squirt some cream on my arms and rub it in.

  ‘Ta-dah,’ says Mum, eventually, turning round and smiling at me. The tent is up. It is a bit wonky, but it doesn’t matter.

  ‘Great,’ I say.

  ‘Let’s try it out and cool down for a bit,’ says Mum, who looks hot. I crouch down and follow her inside. It is a three-man tent. I don’t know why they call it that because I have never seen three men sharing a tent but maybe they do if they are in the army or something.

  Mum lies down and pats the ground sheet next to her and I join her for a cuddle. Mum’s cuddles are pretty much the best things in the world, although I can’t really tell anyone that because I am supposedly a bit old for cuddles now. It’s OK here, though, because none of the idiots from school are here so I can do anything I want and not have to worry about what they will say.

  ‘Sometimes, I wish it could be like this forever, just you and me in a tent.’ At first, I think I have said what I was thinking out loud but then I realise it was Mum who said it.

  ‘Me too.’

  She smiles and brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes.

  ‘We could just go for walks and sit round a campfire at night and we wouldn’t have to worry about anything else.’

  ‘Why don’t we do it then?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know, Finn. The trouble with being an adult is that you end up doing what is expected of you, not what you want to do.’

  ‘I don’t
think I want to be an adult then.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ she says. ‘It’s massively overrated. It’s daft really, you spend the first eighteen years of your life wishing you were a grown-up and the rest of it wishing you were a kid again.’

  ‘But we can be who we like here, can’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, hugging me a bit tighter. ‘We can be exactly who we are. That’s why I wanted to come.’

  ‘Have you got our breakfast?’ I ask. ‘Only I’m hungry now.’ Mum smiles and sits up and starts rummaging through her rucksack again. She pulls out two chewy cereal bars and a banana each.

  ‘Here,’ she says, handing one to me. ‘I’ve done us pack-ups for lunch too. Carrot and hummus sandwiches and cheese and tomato. You get first choice.’

  I smile at her even though I know they will both have been made with brown bread with bits in. I prefer white bread, but I only get that when I go to other children’s parties, which is not very often, as most of them don’t invite me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, trying not to show that I was hoping she’d only been pretending she hadn’t brought any special food with her. We sit and eat our breakfast together. Mum has rolled up the end of the tent so we can look out on the trees beyond. It feels like we are the only people in the world right now and I like that. But I also know that Dad must be home from his bike ride by now and will have found out we have gone camping without him.

  ‘What did you tell Dad in the note?’ I ask.

  Mum sighs before answering.

  ‘Just that we had gone camping because we both needed a break.’

  ‘A break from what?’

  ‘Everything,’ she replies.

  ‘Did you tell him where we were going?’

  ‘No,’ she says, looking down at the ground.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Sometimes, Finn, it’s good for people to have some time to themselves to try to sort everything out in their head.’

  ‘You thought he’d follow us and try to bring me back, didn’t you?’

  Mum turns to look at me. ‘The pressure of everything was making you ill, Finn. That’s why you were sick last night. It’s not fair for you to be in the middle of a tug-of-war like this. And the only way I could get you out of it was to bring you away somewhere we wouldn’t be disturbed.’