The Last Weekend

by Blake Morrison

  ‘There’s more to life than winning,’ I said, as he aimed for double top.

  ‘That’s rich coming from you,’ he said. ‘You love winning.’

  ‘Me? I’m just here to keep you company.’

  ‘So you won’t mind if I sink this and make it five—nil.’

  ‘Why should I? We’ve not finished yet. It’s best of eleven.’

  He laughed and slapped me on the back before throwing the dart home.

  Whenever I wonder what Ollie saw in me, it’s his laughter

  I remember. At school I’d survived by mimicking the teachers. Busty Mrs Anders, lisping Mr Witchett, hunchbacked Mr Moody - it didn’t take much to send them up, but my classmates seemed to enjoy the parodies. With Ollie, too, I played the court jester. If nothing else, it helped him forget his gammy leg.

  On all our outings, it was Ollie who paid. I would protest, before we went, that I couldn’t afford whatever it was (a film, a gig, the pub), and he would tell me not to worry, he’d foot the bill. I told him I felt bad about it, and privately I was resentful: whereas I watched my pennies but got into debt, Ollie spent freely but still had money left over. Though the beneficiary of his largesse, I hated the system that made it possible. When we debated politics, I used to argue for the abolition of inherited wealth.

  ‘I suppose you’re a socialist,’ he said.

  ‘And proud of it.’

  ‘You want to clobber the rich.’

  ‘No, liberate the poor.’

  ‘Socialism is envy rationalised,’ he said.

  In retrospect, it all sounds pretty trite. But Ollie was a couple of years older than me and seemed to know stuff, exuding an authority which his height and build — he was six foot three, and lean — perfectly matched. The word ‘military’ came to mind. I attributed that to boarding school, but during one late-night conversation he revealed that he’d spent a year at Sandhurst, training to be an officer cadet. (He told me about it in confidence, perhaps fearing his fellow students would denounce him as a fascist if they found out.) At some level he’d always known that the army wasn’t for him, he said. But he felt he owed it to his father, who’d been an officer during the war, to give it a go, and he stuck it out as long as he could. The fact that his father was dead only increased his filial piety. He had died in a tragic accident, Ollie said, adding (his jaw quivering as he spoke) that if ever I met his mother I must be sure not to mention it in front of her. How crass did he think I was? ‘Just because I’m working class doesn’t make me an idiot,’ I was tempted to protest. But I kept my lip buttoned. In truth, I envied him the drama of having a father who’d died tragically rather than one, like mine, who never moved from his chair in front of the television. I also envied him having a mother who indulged him, rather than one whose mission was to stop her son from getting above himself. It seemed that Ollie had done well out of losing a parent, better than I’d done from hanging on to both of mine.

  (I’m sorry to sound mean about my mum and dad. But if you had them as parents, you’d understand.)

  In the May of my first year at university I began looking for somewhere to live from September, when I would no longer have a room on campus. Ollie, ahead of the game, had made plans to move in with three of his rugby friends. But in the event those plans fell through and we went to see a house together — a three-storey, five-bedroom slum which we signed the tenancy for, along with three Japanese postgraduates who had responded to the same advert. I was frankly surprised to find myself in the position of Ollie’s housemate and best friend. But at the end of an otherwise unhappy first year I took comfort from it. He had the edge on me in almost every way and that’s what made our friendship work. Prole and Nob, Little and Large, Tortoise and Hare. We were the ideal couple.

  Ollie was out to greet us even before I’d parked the car. He looked leaner than when I’d last seen him. Too lean, with that stringiness characteristic of long-distance runners, the hollow cheeks, matchstick legs and wafer stomach. I wondered if he might be ill, but he came at us so swiftly through the heat, like a greyhound out of its trap, I set the thought aside. Hopping from foot to foot, he semaphored for me to reverse into a space by the barn. I’d never seen a man look so impatient. Though Rufus was the one yelping as the engine cut, it might have been Ollie.

  ‘You took your time,’ he said, opening Em’s door.

  ‘Sorry, awful traffic,’ she said, accepting his kiss.

  ‘We were starting to think you’d never get here.’

  ‘Wherever here is,’ I said, climbing out. ‘If it weren’t for your directions we’d still be driving round.’

  We shook hands, then — as if a handshake were too stiff — held each other closer for a moment, eyeball to eyeball, his hand on my upper arm, mine on his right elbow.

  ‘How are you?’ he said.

  ‘Grand,’ I said, ‘apart from the journey.’

  ‘Come on, you must be hungry.’

  It was Ollie who looked hungry. He reminded me of a photo I’d once seen, of some artist riddled with angst or tuberculosis. Middle-aged barristers aren’t meant to look that way.

  ‘I hope you didn’t wait for us,’ Em said.

  ‘It’s only salad. Daisy’s inside somewhere. I’ll show you round. The barn used to be a coffin-maker’s.’

  We’d been expecting something posh, and the grass-seamed drive between iron railings had promised as much. But Flaxfield Grange was a serious disappointment. ‘A converted eighteenth-century farmhouse,’ Ollie called it as he led us through the back door, but unconverted outhouse looked nearer the mark. A wood-panelled corridor led past a cramped dining room, dingy snug and gloom-lined study; the three rooms must once have been loose boxes or cow stalls, I decided. Beyond them lay the kitchen, with broken floor tiles. The contents dated from the forties or fifties (no dishwasher or microwave), which would have been sweetly nostalgic had the chunky wall cupboards been less lopsided and the whitewashed walls less flaky from damp. From the kitchen we turned right, under a thick stone lintel, into the living room. The rafters and crossbeams suggested a hayloft, and Ollie clearly expected us to admire it. But the conversion had sacrificed the charm of the original without putting comfort in its place. The old brick floor beneath the tasselled carpet reeked of earth mould and the beams were noosed with spiders’ webs. Along the mantelpiece were three dusty photographs (a woman in a hat and two boys in school uniform) interspersed with porcelain dolls: the glazed expressions of the humans in their frames made the dolls look animated. The dolls and photos were reflected in the yellowing mirror behind, scarred and mottled with skin disease. Strangest of all was the display over the fireplace: a pair of swords X-ed below a mounted badger head, like a skull and crossbones.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Ollie said.

  ‘What do you think they think?’ Daisy said, stepping through the French windows behind us. ‘They’re trying to be polite.’

  It’s always a shock to be reminded how short Daisy is, five foot two at most. In my memory I obliterate this, as though the space she occupies in my head makes her physically large as well. But the real shock was her hair, which she’d grown again: it was almost as long as when I first knew her, falling halfway down her back.

  She kissed Em first, then me. Her pebble-blue eyes were less implausibly bright these days but she smelled of almonds, the same as ever.

  ‘Well, we like it,’ Ollie said, gesturing towards the high ceiling.

  ‘Ollie likes it,’ Daisy said.

  ‘No television. No phone. No DVD player or hi-fi system. It’s wonderful.’

  ‘It’s a nightmare,’ Daisy said. ‘We have to drive to the main road to get reception on our mobiles. I’m amazed there’s even electricity.’

  ‘Who needs mod cons? We’re on holiday.’

  ‘Yeah, on holiday in a hovel. Come outside while Ollie gets the drinks.’

  As we followed Daisy, I wondered if Em was thinking what I was thinking: that we’d only been asked because they were
too embarrassed to ask their posher friends.

  The garden was a slight improvement on the house. The French windows gave out onto a terrace laid with stable bricks and, beyond, a round pond, palisaded with irises, a stone man fishing in the middle. The lawn was a decent size and, knowing Ollie, I half expected to see croquet hoops or a badminton net. But the grass was too rough and tussocky for games. And the eucalyptus tree at the far edge had shed its leaves, which crackled like tinfoil under our feet. We crossed into the orchard – apple and pear trees with lichened trunks, and raspberry bushes overwhelmed by bindweed. Beyond the orchard lay a stubbly cornfield, with bright yellow bales like giant cotton reels strewn round its edges. A solitary tree stood in the middle, bare limbs thrust out in shock. We stayed there for a minute in the heat, leaning on the fence and sucking straws, like farmers surveying their harvest.

  ‘There’s shade over here,’ Daisy said, leading us to a metal table, chairs and parasol set out below a high brick wall — the north side of the house. Above us, the orange pantiles had slipped from their batons, exposing black felt.

  ‘You poor darlings, you look exhausted,’ Daisy said, as we sat down.

  ‘Terrible journey,’ Em said.

  ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ I said, brusquely. To hear Daisy poor darling us got up my nose. I wouldn’t care but her background’s no different from mine. In the old days she used to call me ‘love’ and ‘chuck'.

  ‘Looks like someone’s been enjoying the sun,’ Em said, nodding at the tube of suncream on the wooden lounger.

  ‘The house gives me the creeps so I lie out here,’ Daisy said.

  ‘Topless usually,’ Ollie said, appearing with olives and champagne. ‘The neighbours have been having a field day.’

  ‘Rubbish. It’s completely secluded. I hope you’ll join me, Em. You’re looking so well.’

  Had Daisy noticed that Em had put on weight? Did she think that she was pregnant? Or was the compliment an insult in disguise, drawing attention to her own slim body? If Em inferred a subtext, she didn’t show it. While Ollie opened the champagne, and Em described her fear of skin cancer, I studied Daisy’s hair. It had always been the core of her being — her pilot light. I remembered its shimmer under street lights. How it snagged on buttons. Or tickled your nose if you got too near. It wasn’t just her it enfolded — it was you.

  ‘What a treat,’ Em said, taking a glass from Ollie. ‘Normally at this time I’m seeing my ASBO boys.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘My juveoffs. My teenage criminals. My kids in care. A good pep talk on a Friday stops them doing something daft over the weekend. That’s the theory anyway.’

  ‘You’re so brave, Em,’ Daisy said, patting her arm. ‘I could never do a job like yours.’

  ‘No danger of me getting bored, anyway.’

  ‘I’m going to make sure you take it easy while you’re here. You too, Ian. We haven’t planned a thing.’

  I doubted that as much as I doubted the sincerity of Daisy’s solicitude. But it was hot, and the champagne tasted good, and I sat back.

  In a corner of the orchard was a fruit cage, its wire netting festooned with black ribbons — I thought of the dead crows I’d once seen strung from a gate on Cleckheaton Moor.

  ‘Paradise, eh?’ Ollie said. ‘Sun, cornfields, butterflies, waves breaking in the distance.’

  The sea couldn’t be less than ten miles away. But there was no point arguing with Ollie. If I couldn’t hear the waves, that was my fault.

  The bare tree in the middle of the field was dead, I realised. Had it been hit by lightning? It looked that way, as if suspended at the moment of impact. Like the photo of an electrocution.

  ‘How did you find the place?’ I said.

  ‘On the Internet,’ Ollie said. ‘Funny story, actually.’

  ‘Not funny,’ Daisy said. ‘Just weird.’

  ‘Em and Ian will find it interesting.’

  ‘You tell them while I sort out lunch,’ Daisy said.

  ‘Let me help,’ Em said.

  ‘It’s only a matter of putting dishes out.’

  ‘I’m finding it too hot here,’ Em said, standing up.

  ‘OK then, but bring your glass with you. Two minutes, boys. We’re hungry.’

  They walked off, Em overdressed in a black knee-length skirt and white high-collared blouse, Daisy light and easy in a short blue cotton dress.

  The sun glowed whiter than phosphorus. I sat there dazed behind my sunglasses, the heat lapping my face like a dog’s tongue.

  ‘I was talking to my ma one day,’ Ollie said. ‘Before she broke her hip and went gaga, this was — she’s in a nursing home now.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  I wasn’t that sorry, having met her only the once, but I let him witter on about her dementia and what it’s like when your own mother doesn’t recognise you.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, his voice washing over me, ‘before she lost it we were discussing the holidays we’d had when Pa was alive, and I asked her the name of the last place we went to, in the summer of ‘76. Badingley, she said. So last Christmas I went online, and among the entries for Badingley was a house for holiday lets. I recognised the place from the photos.’

  ‘The village?’

  ‘The actual house. Flaxfield Grange. We stayed here.’

  ‘That is weird.’

  ‘When I emailed I found it was free in August. So here we are. The owner lives in Belgium. A woman from the village looks after it. A real battleaxe. Talking of which — Daisy will give me hell if we don’t go in.’

  ‘Why a battleaxe?’ Em said, when Ollie repeated the story. There was a metal picnic table on the terrace but we were in the dining room, because of the heat. The room faced east and felt dank. We were told to help ourselves. A simple salad, Daisy called it — smoked salmon, tiger prawns, Parma ham, pâté, vine tomatoes, rocket, fennel, watercress, Roquefort, Cheddar, ciabatta, New Zealand Sauvignon, sparkling water. That’s not how we do simple salads in our house.

  ‘The old bitch obviously resented us coming at all,’ Daisy said. ‘It chucked it down all the way here — remember rain? – and took us four hours, so you can imagine how we were feeling when we finally arrived. It looked like no one had stayed here for years. You’ll see when you go upstairs — there are weapons hanging on walls and the wardrobes topple over if you open them. Plus I’m sure there’s a ghost. To be honest, I was all for getting straight back in the car.’

  ‘I carried the luggage up,’ Ollie said, ‘and there was Daisy, in the bedroom, ranting that the owner should be paying us to stay here, not the other way about. When I went downstairs again, blow me, the bloody woman from the village was there — she’d come to see if we needed logs for the wood-burner. As if anyone would need logs in the middle of summer.’

  ‘Mrs Banks, she’s called,’ Daisy said. ‘She was due to come in yesterday to change the sheets but she didn’t turn up.’

  ‘You frightened her off.’

  ‘We decided to stay the night then go back to London next day. But the sun was shining when we woke, and it’s been shining ever since. We either sit in the garden or go to the beach — so the state of the house doesn’t seem to matter. I’m sorry it’s uncomfortable. I was going to call you to warn you but Ollie stopped me.’

  ‘Who needs comfort?’ Ollie said. ‘Holidays should be an adventure.’

  ‘It’s certainly that,’ Daisy said. ‘Cheese, anyone?’

  ‘When the wind gets up, you can hear the timbers creak,’ Ollie said. ‘It’s like being at sea.’

  Even without the wind, I could hear movements above our head.

  ‘They didn’t bother with foundations in the 1700s. They built straight onto sand or earth. It shows.’

  He pointed to the walls. Three were plastered and had long cracks. The fourth was a flint wall backing onto the corridor, with several large fissures and holes.

  ‘Let’s hope there isn’t an earthquake,’ Daisy said.

&n
bsp; ‘The house has been standing for three centuries,’ Ollie said.

  ‘They didn’t have global warming then.’

  ‘They had gales and floods, just the same as us,’ Ollie said. ‘All this talk about climate change is hysteria.’

  Em raised an eyebrow my way. I lowered mine in discouragement. I couldn’t face arguing with Ollie when we’d just arrived.

  ‘What about the village?’ Em said. ‘Has it changed much?’

  ‘The shop has closed down,’ Ollie said. ‘Otherwise it looks the same — no housing developments, thank God.’

  ‘The place is in a kind of time warp,’ Daisy said.

  ‘That’s what I like about the countryside, it’s ten years behind.’

  ‘More like fifty. Some places don’t even take plastic.’

  ‘Sounds rather fun,’ Em said.

  ‘Fun till you try to buy something, but you’ve no cash, and the nearest ATM is ten miles away.’

  They to-ed and fro-ed while we listened politely, Ollie lauding the beaches and fresh air while Daisy bemoaned the lack of designer shops and delicatessens.

  ‘I’ve ice cream if anyone wants it,’ she said, standing up. ‘Coffee? Herb tea? No?’ She sat down again. ‘I don’t mean to whinge. But this time last year we were in the Maldives, in a five-star hotel.’

  I threw Em a surreptitious here-we-go look as Daisy ran through their recent holidays — the cities, deserts and mountains they’d seen during travels from Aleppo to Zanzibar.

  There were more thumps from upstairs. For a minute I thought it might be Rufus but he was lying under the table, waiting for scraps.

  ‘Though in some ways Madagascar is nicer, of course,’ Daisy said. ‘I wanted to go back but Ollie insisted on a British holiday.’

  I stared at the tablecloth, which had tiny peasant women in colourful costumes embroidered round the edge.

  Another loud creak from above.

  ‘Is that your ghost?’ I asked, interrupting Daisy’s holidays.