The Mini-Break

by Maddie Please

  Then I got back into bed. No I didn’t expect to either but it looked too fantastically appealing not to. I slept for a couple of hours and then jammed all my stuff into my inadequate car and set off for Devon. I was just in time to catch the worst of the rush hour. That was clever of me.

  Instead of bowling off down the motorway into a Hollywood sunset I found myself stop-starting and swearing my way along the A4 until I reached the M4. And then I stop-started and swore all the way to Reading thanks to the road works and a couple of minor accidents that had been moved onto the hard shoulder ages ago by the look of them. Still, it didn’t stop other drivers from slowing down to have a good look. People are so stupid sometimes – what are they hoping to see? Blood? Body parts rolling across the road?

  Eventually the traffic thinned out and I got to the giddy heights of fifty miles an hour before I realised I was starving and wanted the loo so I would have to stop again. I pulled into the next services and enjoyed, if that’s the right word, the delights of a Friday night motorway service station at its finest. The car park was nearly full and the place was heaving with cross-looking people and crying kids on their way to hell by the look of them. Then I realised it was the start of the Easter holidays. Brilliant. Couldn’t have timed that better if I’d tried.

  I even considered turning back and leaving it for a day or two before I made my move, but then I saw an information display TV warning of a pile-up and delays on the Eastbound M4 going back into London and thought better of it. Instead I enjoyed the proximity of a furious-looking father, his harassed wife and their two ghastly children. They sat in near silence chomping down huge burgers and buckets of fizzy drinks that would no doubt necessitate another pit stop before too long. Occasionally the father would shoot a glare at his offspring when they started squabbling and his wife would slap one or the other before it could degenerate into a full-scale row.

  I rammed down a weak overpriced latte and a bland overpriced cheese and pickle sandwich, and nursing incipient indigestion hurried back through the rain to my car and pressed on towards the West Country.

  Bristol and the Almondsbury Interchange was another joyful experience and delayed me by another hour until I got past Gordano services and ploughed on into the growing darkness.

  What in the name of all that was holy did I think I was doing? Until last year I’d managed to avoid going to Devon at all. Now it was as though I was pinging backwards and forwards on elastic.

  I knew I was doing the right thing. It might seem ill-planned – well more like un-planned if I was honest – and impulsive but this was something that I would not regret doing. This time I was not being dragged along behind Jassy. I was not escaping from London or my boredom or from Benedict’s pathetic attempts to make up. I wanted to go. I was deciding to do this for me.

  Still, it was bloody miles. I didn’t remember Devon being so far last time. Surely someone had moved it or something. Just as I thought I must be nearly there I would see a signpost with another unfeasibly large distance outlined on it. By ten thirty the roads had cleared but I think my hands had fused to the steering wheel like a couple of crab pincers. I would probably have to call the AA and be surgically removed from the car at some point.

  I reached Barracane House just before midnight and stumbled around by the back door, my legs almost numb, looking for the key, hoping against hope that I had put it back in the right place when I’d left last time. Eventually I had the bright idea of switching on the torch in my mobile, which made things much easier.

  Once inside the house I made a lot of noise and switched on several lights. Well there might be a party of mice enjoying themselves somewhere and if there were I’d rather not see them. The Aga was still keeping the winter chill off the house and I put the central heating on. I’d insisted I was going to pay Sally during my stay so I didn’t care about boosting the electricity bill. If I hadn’t been so tired I might have had a glass of wine or put a match to the wood burner. Instead I lugged my cases upstairs and went to bed.

  The sheets were cold and smooth under my back and for a few minutes I lay in the darkness and wondered if there was a hot water bottle somewhere that I could use. I tried to weigh up the benefits of going downstairs to find out against the definite disadvantage of having to find my dressing gown and slippers but having decided I would buy an electric blanket, I settled it by falling asleep.

  *

  I woke to another very black and wet morning. I pulled back the curtains and sat up in bed with my first cup of tea. The view was of nothing but the darkness. It was both a bit worrying and at the same time rather exciting. Outside I could hear gusts buffeting against the window and the occasional harmonica-like howl I recognised as the wind negotiating the letterbox.

  Once I had sorted breakfast out, I would drive over to the local supermarket and stock up. I would buy lots of healthy food. Fresh vegetables and fruit. Perhaps I should get skimmed milk and low-fat stuff so I didn’t improve on the writer’s arse I was developing. Then I would drive into Stokeley and look around. I knew there were some baker’s shops there. They might sell doughnuts, not that I wanted one. Or some organic seeded bread. I definitely didn’t want that, the mood I was in.

  I finished my tea, showered and dressed. By the time I had decided what to wear it was getting light and I could see outside to the battered and dull landscape that surrounded the house.

  Half an hour later I battled – and I do mean battled – my way against the wind and into my car. It couldn’t always be like this, surely? This had to be a one-off. A sort of once-in-a-lifetime Michael Fish moment?

  I was unfairly annoyed with Devon for a second. I wanted it to be as I had imagined it. Distant moorland stretching romantically on towards the horizon. Wind-blasted trees and strange rocky outcrops. A lone bird stretching its wings against the cerulean sky. Instead it just looked rather dull and neglected. High on the slope above the house there were some scrubby-looking ponies standing with their backs to the wind, their tails blowing over their haunches.

  I drove down the lane and out to what passed for a main road. This just meant two cars could safely pass without one of them having to scrape their paintwork on the hedge and pull in their wing mirrors. Eventually I found a road wide enough to have paint marks down the middle and an actual sign indicating that Stokeley was a mere five miles away. Speaking as someone who has been known to go out in my (smart) pyjamas for milk from the shop at the end of my road, this seemed quite startling. Five miles! Still it was a nice enough drive with hardly any traffic on the road and some lovely if rain-smudged views out of the window.

  I wasn’t quite as controlled as I had intended once I got to Superfine Supermarket – We love your food as much as you do. And several items with dubious health benefits sneaked into my trolley. And I did find an electric blanket, which filled me with unexpected delight. I was feeling quite perky by the time I got to the checkout where an assistant in a regulation purple check overall and a name badge identifying her as Maureen inspected my purchases with admiration as she scanned them through.

  ‘Love a bit of cheese I do,’ she said, ‘but them doctors dared me to eat it. Dared me. And bread? Don’t talk to me about bread. I could eat bread all day. My boy said to me: Mum, you’re an addict you are. A breadaholic.’

  She picked up the packet of Wagon Wheels that was trying to coyly hide under a pack of baking potatoes. ‘And I haven’t dared have one of them since I was a child. Although I did have one the other day come to think of it. And they were half the size, as I remember. Half! Or perhaps I’m twice the size and that’s what’s changed.’

  Eventually we got to the end of my shopping and Maureen moved on to the next customer who had a trolley filled with ready meals and biscuits.

  ‘Chocolate Hobnobs,’ I heard her say with a drool of regret, ‘my doctor dared me to eat those. Dared me.’

  It seemed there was a lot of food in the store that posed an imminent hazard to Maureen’s well-being and I q
uickly wheeled my stash off in case some of it had an adverse effect on her.

  Making my way back home I looked out for signs that I might remember from the last time I’d been there. My heart did a little leap of triumph as I passed the Cat and Convict. There was a chalkboard outside advertising Friday night Curry and a pint of Cat’s Piss. It sounded less than great but what would I know? It couldn’t be far now, and it wasn’t. A mile or so down the road I saw a metal signpost, painted white and green – Lower Tor Farm.

  I took a deep breath and swung my car into the driveway. I waited for a few minutes, wondering if Joe would see my car and come out to greet me. But nothing happened. I opened the car door and got out. I could hear the sound of dogs barking somewhere but no sign of life otherwise.

  I went up to the front door and knocked. It was a large, iron knocker, heavy and shaped like some sort of pixie or dwarf or something. I could hear the sound of it echoing in the hall. I could imagine it. The flagstone floor, the dark wood coat stand and the door into the kitchen open and welcoming. Perhaps there would be a stew in the Aga for when Ivy returned from school, the meat melting with the hours of slow heat. Minutes passed and nothing happened. I knocked again, louder this time.

  ‘B’ain yer.’

  I turned, startled for a moment. A man came round the side of the barn, Joe’s two sheepdogs at his feet.

  ‘Hello? Sorry?’ I said.

  He came a few steps closer, flicking the peak of his battered tweed cap at me in greeting.

  ‘B’ain yer, missus. Gorn backalong.’

  I was going mad. The man sounded as though he was talking English and yet I couldn’t understand a word.

  I repeated the words. ‘B’ain yer.’

  ‘Thas wor I sed. Joe b’ain yer.’

  ‘Oh! Joe’s not here? Do you know when he will be back?’

  My companion flicked the tweed cap again and stuck out his lower lip.

  ‘Carn’t say.’

  ‘Later today?’ I said encouragingly.

  ‘Ooo no. I shun think so. Gorn.’

  I understood that all right. Bugger.

  ‘Well if you see him, would you tell him Lu – Louisa was here. I’m back at Barracane House.’

  I almost rummaged in my bag for one of my cards to give him, but then thought better of it. Instead I posted it through the letterbox while the man and his canine bodyguards watched me with interest.

  ‘B’ain yer,’ he said again rather slowly as though I was simple.

  ‘No I do understand, but maybe he’ll be back later. I mean when does Ivy get home from school?’

  He thought long and hard about this one.

  ‘School holidays innit?’ he said. ‘I’m arter doin’ them sheep.’

  I translated this. Sod it. They could have gone off anywhere. Scotland, Spain, Turkey, Neptune for all I knew.

  ‘I’ll come back,’ I said speaking slowly and slightly louder as though the old man was deaf. ‘I’m at Barracane House.’

  ‘Happen you is,’ he said with a nod, ‘happen.’

  Great, I’d come here in a burst of enthusiasm, driven for hours, fought my way down the motorway and Joe wasn’t here. Instead I seemed to have encountered the village character. My imaginary reunion with Joe had gone all wrong. To add to the charm of the moment one of the sheepdogs went and peed on my front wheel.

  If this had been one of my books Joe would have come out of the house, perhaps he would have been dressed in jeans and a checked shirt. No, it was freezing. He’d have his thick Aran sweater on and the waxed jacket. Some battered leather gloves perhaps and a lamb tucked under one arm. No he wasn’t posing for a country clothing catalogue, FFS.

  He’d stop, look at me in surprise and then grab me and swing me round with delight. But then he’d have to drop the lamb and that wouldn’t be very kind would it?

  ‘Louisa, I didn’t expect to see you! How wonderful! I can’t stop thinking about you.’

  No that was ridiculous.

  ‘Louisa! Sweetheart! How I have longed for this moment!’

  Even more ridiculous.

  I realised that the old man was still watching me. I gave him a brisk farewell and got into my car, hoping against hope that I would be capable of turning it round without scraping anything or running one of the dogs over.

  Back in the kitchen I unloaded my shopping. Perhaps Joe would get home, see the card through the door and drive straight over here to see me?

  Nope.

  I made a sandwich and ate it standing at the sitting room window watching the lane to see if he was coming to see me. I then ate a Wagon Wheel and watched the news. The usual load of death, deceit and disaster and ugly people caught doing things that were unequivocally wrong or incompetent but loudly protesting their innocence and claiming lessons would be learned.

  I drank the best part of a bottle of wine and watched a film about a man saving some people from a tsunami. His children never once rolled their eyes at him and he formed an unbelievable relationship with a pneumatically enhanced woman who wore designer swimwear and little else. Then, cursing the fact that I’d forgotten about the electric blanket, I went to bed.

  I stayed awake long enough to have a debate with myself as to what I would do if Joe turned up to see me in the middle of the night. Would I let him in and take him upstairs with a seductive smile? Or would I shout abuse out of the window and slam it shut?

  Oh for heaven’s sake, of course he wouldn’t turn up in the middle of the night. If nothing else he had Ivy to consider. And it was blowing a gale and the rain was splattering against the window like gravel. And I had no reason to think that he might – I mean why would he?

  Chapter Twelve

  I spent the next few days unable to settle to anything. I thought about Benedict and wondered if he was all right; if he’d moved out. All the thoughts I’d had about writing and chilling and relaxing while going for long country walks and breathing in all that clean air didn’t materialise into any action at all. And why had I ever thought they would? I mean long country walks and I have always been strangers. The best I can claim is I once walked for miles across Hampstead Heath because I was promised blossom, birdsong and a great pub that did fantastic seafood at the end of it. All I got was sore feet and mud on my new, sensible shoes. And the pub was closed for refurbishment.

  Anyway, that’s not important. Eventually I got into some sort of routine. Breakfast, sometimes a trip out to Stokeley in order to support local businesses (like the bakery), and then drove home what I thought of as the long way round past Lower Tor Farm. There never seemed to be anyone home and I didn’t dare risk driving in to see if Joe was back because I just knew the old codger with the tweed cap would appear and start up again about Joe being backalong or whatever it was he’d said.

  In the afternoons I did some more writing, drank large amounts of coffee, ate biscuits and generally messed about. I’d found some distraction in the form of glossy cookery books on the kitchen bookshelf, presumably tomes given to Sally by hopeful publishers and by the look of them never actually opened or used. I decided to give it a go. I don’t mean complicated things, but I did make some more soup, taking particular care to screw on the blender lid properly this time, and a stew, which turned out better than expected. I wasn’t going to start making bread or pastry or anything. Still, it made a nice change from sticking ready meals into the microwave. Particularly after I’d checked the ingredients of one and found that actual food products as we know them were pretty low down on the list.

  I got to day five and realised it was a long time since I had actually spoken to anyone other than the old bloke in the tweed cap, who might have been the local lunatic for all I knew, and various shop assistants. How long did the Easter holidays go on for? Surely Joe and Ivy would have to come back soon?

  I wrote all morning, wrestling my heroine into a passionate confrontation with the hero that unfortunately ended with me sitting looking out of the window trying to remember and write down w
hat Joe had done that had made me almost melt. Then I wandered into the kitchen and flicked through the biggest and glossiest cookery book on the shelf, depressingly entitled Meals for Singles – I bet that wasn’t a bestseller. I mean you might as well call it Even Billy-No-Mates Has To Eat Something Other Than Crunchy Nut Cornflakes Sometimes. The cover illustration showed a perky redhead perched on a bar stool apparently eating a Michelin-starred meal off some elaborate china. By the smug look on her face she was not expecting to be alone for long and doubtless the appeal of her solitary meal was already attracting some hunky blokes to her door. I mean no one sits on a bar stool in full make-up, stilettos and what looked like a Dior vintage frock just to enjoy some toast and Marmite.

  I picked up the next one: Cakes for Lovers. What the hell did that imply? Making a certain type of cake that would attract a lover? Or a particular cake would satisfy a lover more than another sort? It reminded me of the old Tom and Jerry cartoons when a hot pie is left on the windowsill to cool and someone sneaks past and nicks it. Perhaps I would make a cake? There was no doubt I liked cake. Maybe now I had got to grips with soup I would unleash some untapped talents for baking and what they confusingly call pastry work on MasterChef.

  Maybe I would – God I was hopeless. Why wasn’t I getting on with some writing? That was why I was here after all.

  For want of something better to do I found all the stuff I needed and the right cake tins as well, which was nothing sort of miraculous. And then I made a Victoria sponge.

  It took me a very long time.

  I mean ages.

  Weighing things out and cracking eggs and then spilling sugar all over the floor, which is probably the most annoying thing that can happen in a kitchen, short of pouring boiling oil over your own feet. This meant I had to get the hoover out and it took me a good twenty minutes to remember where it was, plug it in, change the bag, which was strained to bursting point, and remember how it worked. Then I had to look at another book because I only had the Aga to cook in and it didn’t seem to have any temperature control.