by Jonathan Coe
We pitched our caravan and put up the awning. Mum and Dad and I are to sleep in the caravan, Ben will be in the awning and Paul has put up a little tent all of his own. I hope it gets blown away in these supposed gales of his.
Bad, Lois, naughty Lois! No no no!
5th August, 1978
3 + 257 a.m.
Was awoken at 7:30 by the sound of rain hammering on the roof. It always sounds twice as loud on the roof of the caravan, I remember that now. So Paul was right after all, I’m afraid that he usually is.
Lay awake for a while. Mum and Dad were awake as well. They were also listening to the rain. Mum said it sounded pretty settled. Dad looked out of the curtain and said he had seen rain like this before and it wouldn’t last. It carried on solidly for the next sixteen hours.
Finished reading “The Mirror Crack’d” and started “4:50 From Paddington.” One Agatha Christie is much like another, I must say.
Paul stayed in his tent all day. I am afraid he is at that age when young boys spend most of the time playing with themselves. I popped my head through the flap at one point and said, “What are you trying to do, make yourself another tent pole?” but he just gave me a rude sign. He doesn’t like it when I’m funny, none of them expect it from me.
Laughter is a great healer, Lois, as Doctor Saunders used to say to me. Mind you he was a miserable old sod if ever I met one.
In the evening Ben and I braved the downpour to walk to the phone box. He said he wanted to phone Jennifer. I stood outside while he spoke to her and as is the way with these boxes I could hear every word he said, not that there were many words to hear. I don’t think it is possible to conceive of a couple who are less suited to each other. At one point he said “Do you miss me?” and then there was a little pause, and he said, “Well yes, I know it’s only been two days,” so obviously she had said she wasn’t missing him very much at all. Well, it was a stupid question anyway.
Lois, Lois, be kind to your little brother. He was always kind to you.
On the walk back the weather got even worse and our umbrella blew inside out and flew away in the wind, and just after that I broached the subject of Jennifer. I reminded him that he said he was going to finish with her about six months ago. He said he was just waiting for the right moment. I said, “When do you think that will be, then, your golden wedding anniversary?” He said, “Well, it’s all good experience, I’m putting it in my novel,” and I said: “What’s it going to be called, then, The Cowardly Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?”
Holy Baloney, Lois, but you’re getting sharp! Not that Jennifer is a witch, of course, it’s just that she is not the best he could do and only the best is good enough for my Benjamin. But I think he knows that and what’s more I think he will do something about her, in his own good time and perhaps sooner than we expect.
6th August, 1978
3 + 258 a.m.
It rained all night and the wind did nearly blow Paul’s tent away so perhaps there is a God after all. I would love to see the wind just whip the tent away and leave him lying there in the middle of a field surrounded by sheep with his pyjamas on and one hand clasped firmly round his Little John Thomas. Oh! It makes me laugh just thinking about it. While we were having breakfast I said to him, “Paul, you’re not being unfaithful, are you?” and he said, “What do you mean?,” and I said, “Well, I’m sure I saw you doing it with your left hand this morning.” Mum and Dad were shocked to hear me saying such a thing but Oh! it was worth it just to see him looking so cross.
In fact despite the rain I’m feeling in a more and more cheerful mood and might even give myself five stars at the end of the day. Besides the rain is easing off I think. It really is lovely being here even though there’s not much to do. Benjamin has still got his headphones on and I have finished “4:50 from Paddington.” I started “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” but I had only got about fifteen pages in when Paul poked his head round and said, “I suppose you know the narrator did it?” He really is the pits. Anyway I started “Ten Little Niggers” instead although I see it is called “Ten Little Indians” these days and quite right too.
An hour later and the sun is definitely shining now. Dad has got the barbecue out and he’s frying sausages on it, gorgeous, my favourite smell. We can eat outside for a change which will be nice as we have been rather squashed around that dinner table with all the windows steamed up. Mum is working hard in the kitchen getting everything ready. Go on, Lois, get up and help her, she would appreciate that. Oh, all right then, I will, if you insist.
7th August, 1978
five thousand years is a long time
in anybody’s book
to be dead, and buried,
in a grassy cromlech.
the muttering rain
scalds me as I walk
the dead paths
in darkness
among these quick and breathing
souls
their bones like
powder to my touch
8th August, 1978
3 + 260 a.m.
Ooh, that knocked me for six! A whole day and I can remember almost nothing about it. I certainly don’t remember writing the above. It is horrid of Paul to talk about things like that over dinner when he knows how much it upsets me. Horrid horrid horrid.
I remember going for my walk but apparently I was gone four and a half hours. That must have been when the rain started again because Mum says I came back soaking. Now it is coming down in torrents, much worse than before, it feels like we shall be swept away.
What is a cromlech when it’s at home?
Ben says it is a neolithic burial chamber. (He knows everything.) That rings a bell, too, because I read the other day in a guidebook in Abersoch that they have some of those round here. I must have tucked the word away at the back of my mind. Weird though, not to remember where I went or anything.
I’m feeling better, anyway. Nowadays these feelings always pass and that is a blessing, count your blessings, Lois.
But I have not been keeping my promise! I said that I was going to watch Ben closely and I’ve been doing nothing of the sort, and I can see now that he is really upset and not enjoying this holiday at all. I wonder if it is something in particular or just waiting for his exam results and being cooped up in here with the four of us and this wretched, wretched rain which is getting worse by the minute as I write this.
Oh, why do I worry about Benjamin so? Perhaps it is just what Dr. Saunders used to call displacement activity. But I know what the problem is, he has not been tested like I have, he has not seen the worst that life can do to you, he hasn’t had to climb out of the depths. He has seen it happen to other people and heard about it but that is not the same. I know, Lois, I know that he is lucky in that respect, nobody should have to
Whoosh! There goes Paul’s tent. I’d better stop.
Thirty minutes later, and well, we are all going to have to sleep in here tonight, the tent is down and the awning is leaking and two of the other caravans in the field have packed up and gone home. Mum nearly got blown off her feet when she went to throw the washing-up water in the bracken and just now Dad was trying to bail the awning out and hold the flapping canvas down and Paul started singing out of the window, “We’re all going on a—summer holiday” and you should have heard Dad’s language! You learn all sorts of new things about your family on holidays like this. Now where was I? Yes, I was saying that Benjamin is lucky, in a way, nobody should have to go through those things, and of course he has his religion, he has his Miracle, but I somehow don’t believe in that. It’s not that I don’t believe it ever happened, I just don’t think it has any substance, or any weight or something—oh dear, I’m not putting this very well, and now I’m going to have to carry over on to the next page, so what do you think, Lois, three stars or four? I just worry that
9th August, 1978
3 + 261 a.m.
if he wants to write, if he wants to compose, all of those dreams that
he carries about with him so transparently every day, there will be something missing, something he will never be able to, oh, goodness, I don’t know, I can’t find the words tonight, and that was hardly worth going on to a new page for, was it?
And now (4:20 p.m., next afternoon) two more things have happened, one of them funny and one of them not. Well, actually Mum and I seem to be the only people who think either of them is funny. Are we the only ones around here who still have a sense of humour?
The weather is unbelievable. Dad was up at 6:30 this morning, trying to put the awning back up and tighten the guy-ropes in the freezing wind and rain. So he was in a dreadful mood even before Paul and Ben had their latest stonking argument. This one was about Doug Anderton. Doug’s on holiday in Portugal at the moment with some lucky girl or other, and Ben was hoping to get a letter from him before he left, but it never came. For some reason Paul brought this up again today and said he wasn’t surprised. He said he always knew Doug would drop Benjamin like a stone as soon as they left school. He thinks Doug is ruthless and calculating. (But I know he only thinks that because Doug embarrassed him once by printing one of his private letters in the magazine. And a very silly letter it was too.) Then he carried on twisting the knife by saying that Ben was kidding himself if he thought any of his friends were going to stay in touch. No one really stays in touch after school, he said. And he even mentioned Cicely and said Ben would probably never see her again either.
Ben didn’t say anything back but I’ve never seen him look so upset. I thought he was going to cry. He is still like that now, just along from me on the sofa, and I can tell he is thinking hard about something, trying to make a decision. I don’t know what it is.
I’m going to have to borrow an extra page from Ben’s pad, and paste it in afterwards, I think.
Anyway, now for the funny thing. Dad has just come in in the most deplorable condition. There is no proper sewerage in the caravan, just a chemical loo filled with urine and poo, not to mince my words or beat about the bush. Every second day Dad has to go to the cess-pit at the end of the field and empty the contents of the loo into it. What a job! Only today the wind was so strong that it blew him over. It blew him right over while he was tipping the stuff out and the next thing he knew he was covered from head to foot in the family business, as it were.
Well, I thought his language was bad enough yesterday, but now I realize that was nothing. He stood there in the awning, dripping wet and ponging to high heaven, with the wind still howling around like a force ten gale (which I believe is exactly what it is), and he was screaming at Mum, “This is supposed to be a f—king holiday, people are supposed to relax on holiday, they’re supposed to lie in the f—king sunshine and drink cocktails, and here I am, soaked to the skin and covered in s—t, and we’re in the middle of a f—king monsoon . . .” and on and on like that for about half an hour.
Well I’m sorry but I had to see the funny side. I became completely hysterical, in fact. And that got Mum started, as well. Dad was horrified. He couldn’t believe we were laughing at him in that state, only we weren’t really, we were just laughing at the whole terrible situation we were in, and the way the holiday was turning into a complete disaster.
Perhaps women are better at making a joke out of things like that. Benjamin certainly hasn’t seen the funny side. Just now—about five minutes ago—he stood up and said, “Dad’s right. This is no way to spend a holiday. I’m getting out of here.”
What does he mean by that?
9:40 p.m. Well, now we know. Benjamin has gone. He said he wanted to go home to Birmingham so Dad drove him off to Pwllheli station and put him on the train. It’s a rotten journey, you have to make about three connections, I hope he’s all right. It’s still teeming down out there. He’s probably done the right thing but I wish he hadn’t left me in the lurch, all alone here with no one but Agatha Christie for company.
Come on, Lois, you can do it! You’ve been through worse! What was it Dr. Saunders used to say?
27
The storm raged on. Darkness fell and Benjamin could barely see more than five yards in front of his face. The narrow, winding lanes seemed endless. There were no cars any more, and he hadn’t seen another walker for at least an hour. He was hopelessly lost. In the unbroken darkness, as the sharp arrows of rain drove stingingly into his eyes, he couldn’t have said whether the mountains lay to his left, or the ocean to his right. Even these, the most obvious landmarks, had been obliterated by the elements.
After his father had put him on the train at Pwllheli, Benjamin had waited for the car to drive away and then swiftly disembarked. He was not going back to Birmingham at all. He was going to find Cicely.
He walked back along the Abersoch road for fifteen minutes and then managed to find a lift to Llanbedrog in a farmer’s van. The weather seemed to be getting steadily worse, if that were possible, and he stopped for a while at the Glen-y-Weddw pub, hoping to allow time for the rain to die down a little. But it merely thickened and intensified. At about eight o’clock Benjamin began climbing the hill towards Mynytho. He was walking straight into the gale so it took almost an hour to reach the village, and by then it was quite dark. He continued on the road towards Botwnnog but soon plunged down a steep, single-track lane to the left, which he took to be the direction of the sea. Before long he realized that this had been his first mistake.
How long ago had he left the pub? Two hours? Three? And why had he not passed through Llangian or reached the grassy lowlands which led to Porth Neigwl? He had made a wrong turning somewhere, that much was clear. Surely this lane had to lead to a farm, or cottage, or village; surely there had to be some other living creature in this drenched and blasted spot, someone who could show him the way or even suggest a place to sleep for the night.
And then a living creature did jump out of the gloom. Three of them, to be precise, three terrified sheep running at full gallop down the lane towards him, their frantic bleating the first sound he had heard, apart from the wind and rain, since leaving the Botwnnog road. Benjamin leaped to one side, just as startled as they were by this freakish encounter. He looked back over his shoulder and quickened his pace, interpreting their sudden appearance as a bad omen. If even the sheep got lost on a night like this, what chance did he have?
After walking for another two or three miles, he came upon an empty barn at the side of the road, its broken doors flapping madly in the wind. He looked inside. There were a few scraps of straw on the earth floor; just enough to sleep on, if he gathered them all together. But it wasn’t an appealing prospect. He was shivering violently, now, and didn’t relish the thought of trying to sleep in his sopping clothes, with the wind pounding the walls of the barn and those doors banging all night. He threw his rucksack down on the floor and stood for a few minutes in the doorway, looking out into the storm. There was no sign of it fading. The blackness of the night remained absolute. It was easy to imagine that he was the last man on earth.
But then Benjamin felt a surge of hope: he glimpsed a pin-prick of light in the distance. It had just appeared, he was sure of that. Somebody, somewhere, must have only recently switched a lamp on. In another moment it could go out again. He must head towards it as quickly as possible.
He grabbed his rucksack and began to run along the lane, but he was too tired to keep this up for long. He settled into a brisk, breathless stride and felt his heart thumping complainingly against his ribcage. The light vanished periodically and re-emerged again; Benjamin took this to mean that it was partly hidden by trees. And then a mountainous bulk rose without warning in front of him and the road began to trace a steep upward incline. The trees were to his right, a dense cluster of them; an unusual feature, on this peninsula, where the landscape tended to be sparse and unwooded. Now there was a thunder-crack, followed by a jagged flash of lightning which flickeringly revealed the ocean, heaving with massive and angry breakers, only a quarter of a mile to his left. This, then, was Porth Neigwl, or as the Englis
h called it, Hell’s Mouth. He could not be far from Rhîw now. Buoyed up by this realization, he hurried onwards up the hillside with redoubled energy; the light had disappeared now but he was sure he could find it again. And Benjamin only had to walk a few more hundred yards when he saw what he was looking for: a rough wooden sign, nailed to a tree at the entrance to a long drive, bearing the two words “PLAS CADLAN.”
He did not know it, but he was on the point of collapsing from exhaustion. He tripped and stumbled along the drive which for most of its considerable distance felt more like a tunnel, so low and tangled were the many overhanging branches. Torn from its tree by the buffeting wind, one branch struck him on the head and almost knocked him out cold as he passed by. Then the lamplight flared up again, much closer and to his left this time, and although it was blocked out at once by a row of unkempt rhododendron bushes, within another minute Benjamin found himself standing by a tiny wrought-iron gate. He pushed it open and it shrieked in the dark. He felt gravel beneath his feet, strode keenly onwards, then missed his footing and fell over almost immediately, landing in the middle of something angular and prickly: perhaps a miniature box-hedge. He stood up and tried to calm himself. There were scratches on his hand and he sucked on one of them, tasting warm blood.
Treading more carefully, he followed the narrow gravel path as best he could, rounded three or four corners and came at last upon the house. His heart surged with joy. There were lights in two of the downstairs windows, and an oil lamp burned outside, illuminating a long covered walkway that ran the length of the house and led to a small cottage or annexe at its furthest end.
He had found it. He was there. The nightmare was over.
Benjamin hammered at the door and when it was pulled back found himself staring into one of the most frightening faces he had ever seen. A tall man in his fifties or sixties, his grey hair wild and unruly, his skin weatherworn like tanned hide, an astounding white beard reaching almost to his waist, stood on the doorstep glaring at him with manifest hostility and suspicion in his fiery brown eyes. The first words he spoke to Benjamin were in Welsh; and when they produced no response he barked:
