The Making of Us

by Debbie McGowan

  “Have you got that word game on your phone, Jess?” Matty asked.

  “Which one?”

  “The anagram one.”

  I opened my eyes again, and he showed me his phone screen. “No. Why? Did you want a match?”

  “If you’re up for it.”

  “Sure.” I took my phone out and started downloading the game.

  “He’ll kick your arse,” Noah remarked without looking up from his Kindle.

  “No doubt,” I agreed. Matty might’ve struggled with anything that involved reading and writing words in order, but he wiped the floor with us when it came to crosswords and word searches.

  The game finished downloading and started up. “OK. I’m in.” I hit ‘accept Matty’s challenge’ and…that was us until the coach stopped in Bristol.

  Matty blinked in wide-eyed astonishment. “No way. We’ve been playing for two hours?”

  “Apparently so.” Only another five hours to go. Please, no more word games…

  “Lunchtime?” Leigh suggested.

  “I reckon,” Noah said. In the nick of time, he set aside his Kindle before Matty dumped his bag in Noah’s lap and started doling out sandwiches. “They’d better not be ham and jam,” Noah said.

  I bawked. Leigh snorted with laughter, although they still peeked cautiously between the slices of bread once they had their sandwich in their hands.

  “What is it?” I hardly dared to ask.

  “Chicken mayo?” Leigh guessed.

  “Yep,” Matty confirmed and took a huge bite of his own sandwich. “Ham and jam’s amazing.”

  “It’s so wrong,” Noah said.

  “You eat jam with turkey at Christmas,” Matty argued.

  “Not jam. Cranberry jelly.”

  “That’s just jam with no bits in. What do you think, Jesse?”

  “No comment.”

  “Spoken like a true politician.”

  “No election speak on this trip, thank you.”

  Matty huffed and puffed, but didn’t fight me on it.

  Soon after that, we were back on the road again. We played travel Uno for a bit, then Hangman, then I Spy, by which point, Noah’s sociableness was running on empty. He went back to reading; Matty went online, and Leigh passed me an earbud.

  “What are we listening to?” I asked, the question answered the second I plugged in. Nora’s studio album. I hooked my fingers with Leigh’s, leaned my head back and shut my eyes, lulled into drowsiness by the gentle guitar and sweet, poetic lyrics against the backdrop buzz of quiet conversations and road noise.

  I awoke as we pulled into Plymouth—three and a half hours later! Well, that was disorientating.

  “What have I missed?”

  Noah lifted eyes only from his Kindle and said nothing. I looked to Matty, who put his finger on his lips.

  “Seriously?”

  “No election speak on this trip.”

  “Oh, God. What now?” I was expecting more Twitter wars.

  “It’s good. You’ll like it.”

  “Will I?” I asked dubiously.

  “I think so.” Matty’s certainty fizzled out in front of me.

  “Go on.”

  “Sarah’s stepped down.”

  “On what?”

  “As president.”

  “Oh!” My sleep-addled brain had processed ‘stepped down’ as ‘backed down’. “She’s only got another three months to go.”

  “Yep. We all told her that, but she says her GP’s advised her to take a month off uni.”

  “Asthma?” I guessed.

  Matty shrugged.

  That worried me. Irrespective on my feelings towards Sarah, she was—had been—a brilliant president. “Who’s standing in?”

  “Jazz and Carlos have split the responsibilities between them.”

  “OK.” It was a lot of extra work for them, particularly as they were both third-year students. I didn’t understand the processes involved well enough to know if it was allowed, but I wondered if the new officers could deputise between the election and when they officially took up position.

  I was about to ask Matty when Leigh nudged me and said, “No election speak on this trip.”

  “Yeah, OK,” I conceded and said no more, though I couldn’t shake the feeling that back home, Pride was falling to pieces.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  We could’ve been anywhere in the world and I’d have known the woman who came dashing over as we disembarked was Matty’s grandma—same big blue eyes, white-blonde hair, slender dancer’s physique, mannerisms…

  “Good evening! How was your journey? Not too arduous, I hope?”

  …but different accents. Hers was pure, rolling West Country, and that really shouldn’t have surprised me, considering where we were. However, Matty was from Norwich, which was about as far east in England as you could get.

  “Hey, Nan.” he said. “It was good, cheers. How are you?”

  “All the better for seeing your face.” The hug they shared was openly emotional, with whispers of ‘I missed you’ and ‘I’m so happy to see you’. They hadn’t seen each other since Matty’s mum died, which was their first time since Matty’s parents cut contact when he was little. It was making me tearful just thinking about it, and I averted my eyes to the ground, chancing a peek in Leigh’s direction when their finger brushed the back of my hand.

  When Matty and his nan finally released each other, she moved on to Noah. “It’s lovely to see you again.”

  “You, too, Nan.”

  She didn’t linger so long with Noah, and he seemed strangely disappointed.

  “Now, who’ve we got here, then? Jesse?” she asked Leigh, who grinned and shook their head. “Leigh?” They got in one nod of their head before they were wrapped in another big hug. “I do like your hair!”

  “Thanks!” Leigh beamed. They hadn’t got around to the rainbow colours, I didn’t think. It looked a bit blue to me, so I guessed it might still be purple.

  “That must mean you’re Jesse,” Matty’s nan said to me.

  “I am,” I confirmed and soon thereafter discovered why my three companions were all doe-eyed. It was like being wrapped in a warm, fluffy blanket of love.

  “We’ll get our bags, Nan,” Matty said.

  “All right, me ’ansum.” She released me, and I sagged. I loved hugs. “Do you need a hand with anything?”

  “We should be OK, thanks.”

  “I’ll go and open up the car.” As she moved off, she pointed at an old VW Beetle. Noah and I looked at it, and then each other.

  “Is it walkable? Do you know?” I asked.

  “No idea.”

  There was no way enough space for the four of us and our luggage.

  Leigh appeared in front of me and held out my bag. I took it from them. “What’s up?” they asked.

  “How are we all going to fit in that little car?”

  “Snugly?”

  “And our bags?”

  “Trailer.”

  Trailer?

  “Come on.” Leigh grabbed my hand—I noticed Matty had done the same with Noah—and we walked/were towed to Matty’s nan’s car.

  “Load ’em in, folks. Now, it’ll be a bit of a squeeze, but we’ve not so far to go.” She waited until our bags were in the trailer and pulled the cover over, securing it with bungee cords. “Right, my lover,” she addressed Noah, “front seat for you. Jesse, sit behind me. There’ll be plenty of room for these littluns alongside.” She winked at Leigh and Matty.

  We took her word for it and pieced ourselves into the car as instructed. It was bigger than it appeared from the outside. Once we were underway, Leigh asked the question that was also in my mind to ask.

  “What do we call you?”

  Matty’s nan peered in the rear-view mirror. “Nan, if you like. Or Hazel. And Matty’s grandad is Stuart.”

  We left the streetlights behind and headed along a dark and winding country lane, round to the left,
and right, and up, and down. The little old car chugged as Hazel pulled it out of steep dips. Contrary to what people claimed, Norfolk wasn’t flat, but this was like driving through the Himalayas in the dead of night, and Hazel’s ‘beach is down there’ and ‘pub’s just behind those trees’ was something we’d have to trust her on until we could explore in daylight.

  Soon after, she said, “Here we are,” and turned sharp right onto a farm track with a well-lit house up ahead.

  “Were they sheep?” Matty asked. Both he and Leigh were gazing past me out the right side window.

  “Dozen sheep in there,” Hazel confirmed. “A couple of goats out back, and the hens, of course.”

  “Aw, never mind, Noo,” Matty said, then explained, “He was looking forward to a week without Dandy waking us up at stupid o’clock.”

  “That your cockerel, is it?” Hazel asked.

  “Yep. I named him,” Matty said proudly.

  “It’s a marvellous name.” Hazel stopped the car in front of the house and turned off the engine. “Well, Noah, you’ll be pleased to hear we don’t have a cockerel, so you might just get to have a lie-in while you’re here. I left Stu setting up your beds and whatnot. Let’s go look, see how he’s getting on.”

  We unpacked ourselves from the car but left our bags for the time being and followed Hazel through a gate at the side of the house.

  “Make sure that’s closed, please, Jesse. Don’t want the dogs escaping.”

  I shut the gate behind me, giving it a tug to be sure, turned, and literally stopped in my tracks—lucky I was taking up the rear. “Wow!”

  I had to admit, with the ancient VW and the farm animals, I’d expected a bit of a field with a hippie camper van. I couldn’t have been more wrong. For one thing, the camper van was a massive mobile home; for another, the garden was like…well, the kind of garden I dreamed of having one day. Pools of water overflowed into one another, down to a large pond with koi; there were plants everywhere, in pots and growing in the ground, pebbled footpaths and stone ornaments—toadstools with pixies atop, posed in thought or sleeping or dancing, or sheltering beneath—all of it delicately illuminated. It was bewitching.

  “Jesse? Are you OK?” Leigh asked.

  “Yeah. I…” I was speechless.

  “Didn’t you know Jesse’s an avid gardener?” Noah asked.

  “I had no idea.”

  “Not avid,” I protested pointlessly.

  Hazel emerged from the camper van with whom I assumed was Matty’s grandad. The fact I hadn’t noticed her enter the camper van to start with wasn’t something I’d be sharing.

  “Alright?” Matty’s grandad called on his way over. We responded variously with waves and hellos. “The beds are made and I’ve put the heater on. It’s a bit nippy at night now. Why don’t you get yourselves sorted, get your stuff in? I’ll get some drinks on the go. Dinner should be ready soon, I’d think?”

  “Whenever you are,” Hazel confirmed. “I made pasties.”

  “Cornish pasties?” Matty asked.

  “You’re in Cornwall, me ’ansum. Don’t get more Cornish than that. Right, you go on now, and when you’re ready, just come in through that door, there—” Hazel indicated the door in question “—and ignore the dogs. They’re fond of their own voices, but they don’t bite. See you dreckly.”

  And off she went, followed by her husband.

  “Dreckly?” Leigh and I repeated at the same time.

  Noah shrugged. Matty was on it already—his phone, that is. He scrolled, clicked, scrolled, read, and nodded.

  “Whenever we’re ready,” he said.

  ***

  The camper van was oldish but clean, and cleverly designed. It was a six berth, with two single beds and two doubles, a kitchen, bathroom and living room with the seats currently converted to form one of the beds; the other was above the cab. There was a brief, awkward moment when the four of us simultaneously realised Stuart had made up the two double beds, but then Leigh and I shrugged and got over it. So we were sharing a bed? It could mean as much or as little as we wanted it to, although I was excited about the prospect of cuddling up together, waking up next to Leigh. It was all so perfect, I almost wanted to pinch myself to see if it was real—did that even work?—or if I was still asleep on the coach.

  Now to decide who was taking which bed. The one over the cab… Just the thought of sleeping up there made me queasy. I wasn’t scared of heights or anything, but that fear I had of the bath crashing through the floor? The same applied here. I watched Matty scoot up the ladder, followed by Leigh. They both sat up there, grinning down at me.

  “You want that one, mate?” Noah asked, gesturing to the other bed.

  “If that’s OK with you,” I said. The conversation was a façade. He’d sussed me already.

  “No worries.”

  Leigh scooted back down the ladder and went straight over to the other bed. It filled one end of the van and was partly obscured by the bathroom, which meant crawling over it in order to get into it. Leigh did exactly that and sat, cross-legged, in the middle.

  “It’s really comfy,” they said and patted the space next to them—my cue to test it for myself. Seeing as Noah had accepted Matty’s invitation to do the same, I went over and sat on the edge of the mattress.

  “Yeah, it does feel comf-eeee!” I toppled backwards and peered up at Leigh’s upside-down, mischievous smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi. Did you see there’s a door?”

  “Is there?” I lifted my head. “So there is.” It was only a flimsy sliding door, and it wouldn’t be much of a sound barrier, but it was quite possibly the best door that had ever existed. Now I had somewhere to dress and undress in privacy, my last remaining worry about this holiday was snuffed out in an instant.

  Leigh’s fingertips pitter-pattered on my cheeks then across my lips. “We should go get our bags.”

  “Yeah.” I sighed out the word and felt my shoulder muscles loosen. My right shoulder clicked; my belly got in on the act and rumbled loudly.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “A bit.” The last thing we’d eaten was our chicken mayo sandwiches, almost six hours ago.

  “Only a bit?” Leigh asked in blatant disbelief. “I’m starving!”

  Reluctantly, I dragged myself up off the bed and moved aside to give Leigh space. “We’re going for the bags,” I told Noah and Matty, both lounging on their bed. “Want us to bring yours?”

  “Nah, we’re coming now,” Noah said. I waited long enough to see him and Matty start moving before I opened the door…and got ambushed.

  I can’t lie. Two unknown dogs charging in my direction and barking like crazy things nearly had me crapping myself. Fear kicked in first, the memory of Hazel’s reassurance second, by which point Noah was behind me. He bodily shifted me aside and strode off along the garden path, leaving me to fend for myself. Or not really, seeing as the dogs had followed him. God, they were noisy.

  At the gate, Noah commanded them to ‘stay’ and looked back at me. “You coming?”

  “Um…yeah.”

  “Ignore them,” he said and disappeared from view.

  Ignore them. Heh. The wonders of living with a mental German shepherd. OK, these were border collies, but they could still have taken a chunk out of me if they felt like it.

  Leigh and Matty bounced past me, and I quickly followed them out to the trailer, then back again with our bags, which we dumped, unpacked, in favour of dinner. The aroma wafting from the house was too delicious not to.

  I reach the back door first, for no other reason than I was trying to outrun the dogs, who I was pretty sure were deliberately singling me out. “I feel a bit weird just walking in,” I said but did so nonetheless, holding the door open until everyone, human and canine, was inside.

  “Through here,” Stuart called, poking his head out of a doorway along the hall and to the left. It turned out to be the dining room, which was quite small. I guessed, with only the two of them, they didn�
�t need anything bigger, and judging by the mismatched chairs, they rarely had visitors.

  “Sit yourselves down. Do you like beer?” Stuart was already setting bottles on the table, so we said yes and thank you, even though I could see from Noah’s squinty eyes and Matty’s and Leigh’s fight against the yawns that I wasn’t alone in being absolutely exhausted. As always with travelling, the day felt like it had way too many hours.

  Stuart left the room through a different door to the one we’d entered, as did one of the dogs, only to reappear on the other side of the room. They had both exits covered.

  “Making sure we stay in our pen, eh?” Noah said.

  The dog advanced, head low, body wiggling with the wag of its tail, and sniffed Noah’s hand. He tickled it behind the ears. The other one came over, too, eager not to miss out.

  Now they’d stopped yapping and racing around, I saw how beautiful they were—long, sleek, black and white coats, feathery tails swishing low, and the way they moved was almost like dancing—but they never stopped watching and listening.

  “We had a collie before Suke,” Noah said—I got the impression he was telling the dogs rather than us. “Banjo.” He must’ve sensed my raised eyebrows, because he glanced my way and added, “He was highly strung.”

  “I’d never have guessed.”

  Hazel arrived carrying a salad bowl and a stack of plates. “I hope they’re not pestering.” She put the bowl down and distributed the plates around the table, saying to Noah, “You can tell them to bugger off if you like.”

  “Nah. They’re awesome.”

  “They’re not bad dogs,” Hazel agreed and left again. I half watched, in a daze, and caught the tail end of Leigh’s yawn. Now I was infected, too.

  Someone’s belly rumbled, but we didn’t get as far as establishing whose; the wait was finally over, and Hazel and Stuart joined us at the table, not that we were paying any attention to them. The pyramid of pasties had stolen the show. They looked delicious and the smell…mmmm.

  “Help yourselves,” Hazel invited. She didn’t have to tell us twice.

  I usually avoided pastry because it was high in calories, but God, those pasties were good, and they were crammed with veggies, so healthy in a way—same with anything eaten in moderation.