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by Tim Dowling

  The inaccessible cupboard is bare. Peering into its recesses, I see nothing but four tiny buckled shoes, one pair slightly smaller than the other. Standing there with my head in a dark cupboard and my toes on the top step of a ladder, staring at the strangely formal footwear of toddlers past, I have an overwhelming sense of life being both fleeting and precarious. It’s a moment I’m certain I will revisit in dark times to come.

  Twenty minutes later I am stomping down the stairs, heels ringing on each tread, filled with a renewed sense of righteous anger. I intercept the middle one on his passage from the sitting room to the kitchen, and hold my hat up in front of his face so he can see the R.

  ‘Where did I find this?’ I say.

  ‘Dunno,’ he says.

  ‘IN YOUR ROOM!’ I shriek.

  He smiles broadly, with the uncomplicated delight of a toddler stepping on his first snail.

  ‘Oh dear,’ says my wife, from halfway up the stairs.

  We arrive in Austria to find it snowing hard. One does not expect an April skiing holiday to be plagued by a surfeit of snow, but this is what happens. Snow blows in sideways all day on Tuesday, and all night. In the morning, it’s still snowing. Large sections of the mountain are closed due to high winds, the risk of avalanche and too much snow.

  By lunchtime on Thursday, my children have had enough of the adverse conditions; I cannot persuade them to ski even one more run, despite my determination that they experience misery commensurate with the money I’ve spent. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll ski by myself.’

  The middle one raises a pole in acknowledgement as he slides off, his form dissolving into the churning whiteness. The youngest one is already gone.

  At the top of the lift, all the signs and trail markers have been coated with driven snow. The wind is a deafening howl, but I experience it as a kind of silence – my children have been bickering and swearing at each other all morning, and now they’re not here. I take a deep breath and set off in the general direction of down.

  I try to keep to the middle of the trail, veering left occasionally to counteract the effect of the wind. After a while, I stop to regain my bearings, but it’s a bad idea: the skiers below me instantly disappear. My immediate surroundings are an undifferentiated blankness and I am utterly alone. I am also, I realize, still moving. Suddenly, I feel air under my skis. At this point, the only organ sending useful information to my brain is my inner ear, and it’s indicating that I am no longer vertical.

  The ground smashes into me from a wholly unexpected direction. My shoulder makes an unpleasant crunching sound and my ears ring inside my helmet. I sit up and wipe the snow from my goggles, but the scene before me doesn’t change. After a moment, I hear the faint scrape of skis somewhere above my head. A four-year-old without poles materializes, turns neatly round me and vanishes.

  When I get back to the hotel my wife is lying on the bed and reading a book.

  ‘How was it?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m broken,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby,’ my wife says. ‘You’re on holiday.’

  On Friday, everything changes: the wind drops, the sun appears, the sky turns a hard blue. We’re on holiday with friends, but we haven’t skied with them yet because their kids are smaller and have lessons all day. Today, in spite of our wide range of abilities, we ski as a pack. The conditions are perfect, and the pain in my shoulder has faded. My children are surprisingly patient with the younger ones, shouting encouragement and scooping them up when they fall.

  ‘That was the best skiing ever!’ my friend says at the end of the day. ‘And your kids are completely charming!’ I shrug.

  ‘I guess they can be when they want to be,’ I say.

  ‘Seriously,’ he says. ‘They’re a credit to you.’ We’re sitting outside at a crowded bar, the sun is just setting and I have a second beer before me. Perhaps I really am on holiday, I think. Or maybe I died in that fall. Whichever.

  The youngest one finishes his hot chocolate and gets up to go back to the hotel. He turns to my friend. ‘Thank you very much for everything,’ he says. ‘I had a great time, all the usual formalities, etcetera.’

  ‘He’s so polite!’ says my friend.

  The middle one puts down his drink, slides off his stool and looks at both of us. ‘See you on the flipside, motherfuckers,’ he says.

  Eventually we moved our annual Cornish week to October half-term, when you can always make the argument that the terrible weather is at least seasonal. The main drawback is that I usually have quite a bit of work to do in late October, but I’ve finally come to like bringing work with me on holiday; it makes me feel important, and it allows me to cry off any bits of the holiday I think I might not enjoy. In any case there isn’t much else to do in Cornwall in late October.

  That changed with the advent of the cheap wetsuit. Suddenly my oldest son was keen to get in the water, even in October, even in the rain. This, I decide, is one of those bits of the holiday I might not enjoy.

  In the morning, after everyone goes to the beach, I retire to my temporary office – a patch of nettles on top of a hill where I can get a faint mobile signal – and make calls while sheep stare at me. In the afternoon everyone returns, sandy and tired.

  ‘Breakfast still not quite cleared away, I see,’ my wife says. The oldest one and his friend drift though the door.

  ‘How was surfing school?’ I ask.

  ‘They were both really good,’ my wife says. ‘They’re going back tomorrow.’

  ‘You should come,’ the oldest one says.

  ‘If I finish work,’ I say, ‘I’ll come and watch for a bit.’

  ‘No, you need to surf,’ he says. I consider this challenge carefully. I don’t like to think of myself as someone who is too old to learn to surf, unless it will get me out of surfing.

  ‘I have nothing to prove,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he says.

  The next day my wife drives the three of us to the beach. I lean my forehead against the passenger window, looking up at the leaden sky.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ my wife asks.

  ‘My back hurts,’ I say.

  ‘They do loads of stretching first,’ the oldest one says.

  ‘Wait,’ my wife says. ‘Is Dad actually doing surfing?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the oldest says.

  ‘Is that why he’s being so unpleasant?’

  ‘Probably.’

  The large crowd around the surf-school van gives me hope that they won’t have room for me, but they do. There are twenty-nine of us in all, with my son and I representing opposite ends of the spectrum of ability. After struggling into damp wetsuits, we end up in different groups.

  It looks as if there are a few men my age in the beginners’ group, but this is only because I tend to forget what my age looks like when I’m away from a mirror. In fact they’re probably ten years younger than I am, and in any case they are there to accompany their kids, who are my true classmates.

  For an hour we practise the proper way of paddling ahead of a wave, getting on the board and maintaining the correct surfing posture, all while standing still on the sand. Mothers circle the class taking pictures of their kids.

  Finally we are herded into the surf. The waves aren’t big, but the currents are unpredictable and the available space is teeming with learners. I abandon several attempts to catch a wave for lack of room. When I do find a little clear water, it takes me so long to run through the procedure – paddle, grip rail, raise torso, kneel, jump – that by the time I get to my feet I’m on the sand again. As I turn around, the oldest one rides a wave into shore and hops off in front of me.

  ‘Have you got up yet?’ he asks.

  ‘Not really,’ I say. ‘It’s too crowded.’

  ‘Come out with us,’ he says, pointing to the distant circle of experienced surfers sitting on their boards.

  ‘I’m only allowed in up to my waist,’ I say. He shakes his head and paddles off.

 
I stalk back out, cold and exhausted, and wait for a wave I can call my own. Finally it comes. I assume a kneeling position and scramble awkwardly into a crouch. The board is surprisingly steady beneath me. I stand a bit taller. I’m actually surfing, I think. A small girl – perhaps nine – crosses my path, board held sideways. I try to turn, but I don’t know how to turn. I pitch backward off the board. The wave crashes on top of me, rolling me over and driving water and sand into my ears. I sit up, spluttering and disoriented, to find the girl looking down at me and smiling.

  ‘Well done!’ she says.

  We’re in France, spending a week with Constance’s mother, and Constance, and Constance’s sisters. We’ve been here before, and I am practised at adjusting to the dramatic shifts in volume. In the mornings, when everyone under twenty-five is asleep, it’s so quiet that I can hear a horse sneeze a mile away. After supper, with ten people seated around the kitchen table, the conversation becomes deafening.

  ‘I think we should play a game!’ my wife shouts.

  ‘We’ve been playing a game for twenty minutes!’ the middle one shouts. ‘Pay attention!’

  The game we have chosen is meant to be simple enough for everyone to grasp, but we’ve aborted the first round three times because of technical infractions, mostly committed by a single party.

  ‘Wait, what am I?’ my wife says, not for the first time.

  ‘Have you looked at your card?’ the middle one asks. His tone is familiar: patience edged with exasperation.

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘Ace means you’re a werewolf,’ he says. ‘Face card: you’re a villager. A two means you’re the seer. D’you get?’

  My wife stares at him for a moment. ‘I have an ace,’ she says.

  ‘Oh my God!’ he screams. ‘Don’t fucking tell me your card!’

  ‘Stop being unkind to your mother!’ Constance shrieks. ‘I love her!’

  ‘Yes, let’s all be nice,’ Constance’s mother says.

  ‘Shut up, Mum,’ Constance says.

  Round one is declared null and void again, and the cards are redealt. The game is elaborate enough to require a neutral moderator: the oldest one, the only person in the room fully conversant with its intricacies. ‘Night falls on the village,’ he says. I close my eyes, and immediately experience the mild distress of not knowing where my wine glass is.

  ‘This is fun,’ my wife says.

  ‘Mum, shut your eyes,’ the oldest one says.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says.

  ‘Will the werewolves make themselves known,’ the oldest says, ‘and decide who they wish to kill.’

  A short silence follows; outside, a dry wind whistles through a field of stubble.

  ‘I love this game,’ Constance’s sister says.

  ‘Dawn breaks,’ the oldest one says, ‘and the lifeless body of Constance is discovered at the bottom of the village well.’

  ‘What?’ Constance says. ‘That is so unfair.’

  ‘Now the villagers must decide who to lynch,’ the oldest says. ‘Who would like to begin?’

  ‘Am I alive?’ my wife says.

  ‘Yes!’ the middle one shouts. ‘Open your eyes!’

  The youngest one raises his hand. ‘Should we do, like, a mercy killing?’ he says, pointing to his mother. ‘To put her out of her misery?’

  ‘How can you be so cruel to your own mother?’ Constance shouts.

  ‘I’d definitely vote for that,’ the middle one says, putting his hand over his head.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Constance’s mother says.

  ‘Am I the seer?’ my wife says.

  ‘You are so not the seer,’ the middle one says.

  ‘Any more votes to kill Mum?’ the oldest asks.

  All eyes turn to me. I realize I haven’t spoken for half an hour.

  ‘On the one hand,’ I say, ‘her failure to understand the game means she can’t cheat.’

  ‘I’m not speaking to you,’ my wife says.

  ‘On the other,’ I say, raising my arm, ‘yes, I vote kill.’ My wife’s bottom lip juts forward theatrically.

  ‘OK,’ the oldest says. ‘Mum dies, night falls.’ With those words, an innocent villager – one who never learned to play by the rules – is unceremoniously dispatched.

  ‘I can’t believe you just did that!’ Constance shouts. I want to explain that I acted not out of cruelty, or even impatience. But I say nothing, because I can’t tell anyone my real reason: I did it because I am the werewolf.

  As the years go by, our half-term holiday in Cornwall gets shortened – usually by work commitments at one end and the children’s social obligations at the other – but we mostly find that the annual autumnal excursion is enhanced by abbreviation: we are no longer used to doing everything together as a family, and four rainy days seems more than sufficient. On the upside, the dogs are allowed on the beach. Sometimes I think it’s really just a holiday for the dogs.

  ‘I can’t feel my legs,’ the youngest says from the back seat, his eyes just visible above the bag on his lap.

  ‘Only two more hours,’ I say.

  Even though we are down a child, we have packed the car with more stuff than ever; one whole bag is devoted to electronic distractions and their associated wiring. We may set off with the idea of walking along the beach with the dogs, but we invariably pack with an eye towards holing up.

  It is dark when we arrive, but everything in the house is in order: the electricity comes on, the pump springs to life. The children sit in front of the fire with laptops obscuring their faces, while the dogs run in and out of the door, coming back a little muddier each time.

  In the morning, we make the traditional trip into town to buy all the various things we’ve forgotten to bring: a dog lead, a phone charger, back-up wine. That night, the four of us play poker for three hours, using walnuts for chips, like imprudent squirrels.

  On the second day, the rain arrives and settles in. For a time it rains almost as hard as it did in the year of ‘MY WINE MY WINE’. We go to the beach and stand huddled, with our hands in our pockets, while the dogs gambol around at the water’s edge. The old dog struggles to keep up as we pick our way back over the rocks and I find myself trying to lead it along a less arduous route. ‘This way,’ I say, but the dog is too deaf to hear.

  On the fourth day, the sun finally shows itself. My wife prefers to pack up alone, so the rest of us make our traditional last-day pilgrimage across the fields to the nearest village. The sweetshop at the end of the walk is not as incentivizing for a fifteen- and sixteen-year-old as it once was, but at least the dogs are excited.

  At the edge of the woods, we come to a freshly refurbished stile: the gap where animals might slip under has been sealed off. There is no way the old dog will get over it.

  ‘We’ll have to lift,’ I say.

  It’s not a simple operation; the old dog is heavy and strongly objects to being picked up. It has to be passed from me to the middle one, each of us positioned on either side of the stile, while it tries to wriggle free. I think about how much harder it will be on the way back, when the dog knows what’s coming.

  The field on the other side is steep and muddy, and the old dog’s footing falters. Halfway up, it tips over and gets stuck, eyes rolling like a panicked horse.

  ‘I’m not sure this dog is going to make it,’ I say, pulling its back legs free.

  ‘I vote we go back,’ the youngest says.

  ‘We’re already halfway,’ the middle one says.

  ‘Let’s just rest here for a minute,’ I say, sitting down on some damp grass.

  I recall carrying both these children, one in each arm, across this field, while the dog zipped back and forth between us and the gate at the top eight times. I realize this is probably our last walk to the sweetshop together, unless the last one was the last one.

  ‘What are we doing?’ the middle one asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say.

  Coming home on the M5, we pull over at a motorway ser
vices – Cullompton, I think – to air the dogs, use the loos and get some petrol. I feel a profound sense of dislocation when I see the prices on the pumps: how long have I been away?

  The shop is quiet when I go in. I spend a few idle moments staring at the magazine rack – it’s the first time I’ve been alone in nearly a week – and then I get a bottle of water and some Quavers for my wife. It is only as I approach the counter that I notice the till is being manned by a vampire.

  I stop, turn and pretend I’m suddenly very interested in the road atlases. When I steal a second glance, I see that he is a Victorian-style vampire, with a wide-brimmed top hat, a velvet coat and a richly embroidered foulard knotted at his throat. He’s also a terribly plausible vampire: his eyes are sunken pits, his ivory skin is tightly stretched over the sharp contours of his skull and blood runs from both corners of his mouth.

  It occurs to me that it is Halloween. Then it occurs to me that it isn’t Halloween – not yet. I’m annoyed at being obliged to interact with a man dressed as a vampire a full two days ahead of schedule. Or have they moved the date forward for some reason? When did this happen? How long have I been away?

  I realize that when I go to pay, I should probably say something jolly by way of acknowledging the effort he’s made, but I’m tired, my back hurts and I don’t feel like joining in. I long for the sort of briskly efficient, slightly lemon-lipped transaction one normally associates with motorway petrol stations. The presence of a few more people might help to dilute the awkwardness of the situation, but there are no other staff on duty, and I’m the only customer. I wish I’d forced one of my children to come in with me.

  I glance up again. The vampire appears tired and distracted. Maybe his manager made him put on the costume. He’s probably been in it for hours – the heavy, ill-fitting coat, the lanky black wig that is possibly attached to the hat. Dozens of people will have already come up to him and said things like, ‘Hey, what time are you due back in your coffin?’ and he will have had had to smile as if it’s the first time he’s heard it. He may have started his shift in high spirits, but by now the indignity is likely beginning to grate.