Five Go Glamping (15 page)

It was fascinating how being with Sam for a few hours was thrilling and exhilarating and easy and fun all at the same time. I loved his outlook on life so much, but more than that I loved how he made me think about my life. I’d always been so certain that planning for things was the best thing to do, but here I was on this little adventure, having planned none of it. And I realised for the first time that when I had planned anything, I wasn’t planning for the good stuff to happen; I was planning because I wanted to avoid the bad stuff that might happen.

I smiled at him and he looked a little puzzled, unaware that he was turning all my thoughts upside down. I couldn’t stop smiling in fact so, to stop Sam from thinking I was demented, I grinned at Brian Harvey instead who I like to think grinned back.

It didn’t look to me like there was anywhere nearby to get a cup of coffee but turning into an even smaller side road, Sam drove us up another narrow lane and we came upon a trailer, like one of those hot dog vans. It seemed a strange place to have a catering truck to me – on a bare patch of gravel with space for a few cars in the middle of nowhere. We exited the car, Sam lifting my door handle up in that peculiar way to ensure the decrepit thing actually opened.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Hop out.’

He held out a hand and I stepped onto the gravel with Brian Harvey and walked toward to the van. As we approached, I could see there were white plastic patio chairs that had seen better days.

‘Morning Sam, usual?’ called out a weathered looking man behind the counter in a white coat.

‘Yep please, Jimmy and a…’ he paused to look at me.

‘Oh erm, I’ll have a cappuccino thanks.’

Sam and his friend seemed to find this hilarious and when he stopped laughing Sam said ‘Two white coffees,’ and picked up a newspaper off the counter.

‘Take a seat’ said Jimmy and motioned me to the patio chairs. Brilliant. I was going to sit on a patio chair with probably a very crap coffee in a glorified car park while I was trying to get a million things done. But as I approached the seats on the little incline, I could see in front of me there was a small coastal pathway, and beyond that, a cliff where the world simply fell away, leaving only the sea – which went on forever. I stood silent for a moment, looking at this view that had literally taken my breath away. When I remembered to breathe again it came out in a gasp.

‘Not bad eh?’ said Sam, handing me my coffee at the same time as a gentle breeze blew in from the sea.

‘Yeah, not bad,’ I said, still totally flabbergasted. ‘There’s so much space.’

I took a seat and rifled in my bag for my phone while Brian Harvey excitedly yapped and ran around my legs. I pulled him closer on the lead, as I didn’t want him spotting a seagull and having a repeat of yesterday. While Sam had already shown himself to be heroic, saving me and Brian from the river bank, I couldn’t quite imagine him throwing himself down a cliff face to save Brian.

‘You’ll never get it all in.’ said Sam, not even looking up from his paper.

‘What?’

‘In your picture. You’ll never get it all in.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I said.

‘I’ve seen people do it before,’ he folded his paper up. ‘They see this view and try to capture all of it in the frame and it never works. You should try looking instead. You have to look at it. Just feel it.’

I was a little disgruntled that he thought I had ‘townie ways’ but I took a snap anyway and he was right, again. It looked like any old picture and I was sad because I didn’t think I’d see a view like it again. So I did what Sam suggested and I ignored my nagging thoughts that we had better get on, and I looked for a while. I just looked.

‘Don’t you ever take photos?’ I said.

‘Haven’t got a camera,’ he said.

‘Yeah, but you know, don’t you ever post little snaps to Instagram and stuff, like on your phone?’

‘I haven’t got a phone,’ he said.

At first I thought he was making this up, who hasn’t got a phone? But then I decided he was just the right side of bonkers not to have a phone, which meant he was probably telling the truth.

‘You’re serious?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to be uploading your life, when you could be living it instead.’

Sam’s way of looking at things was as mesmerising as he was to look at, but I was beginning to feel that I had gone beyond a little crush with him and was starting to feel a little bit deeper. His way of seeing things was so refreshing and genuine and I admired his unhurried attitude even though it was a little frustrating. Most of all I liked the way he got me to see things and experience things differently. I wanted to know everything about this man who had the ability to make me learn all these things about myself. I couldn’t ever be quite as laidback as him, but I enjoyed questioning myself about what I could be like. After a few minutes of sitting in silence and looking, I nudged Sam and said ‘Come on, let’s go and get this food then.’

‘Okay,’ he said.

I walked back over to the car while Sam spent too long with Jimmy, taking up even more time. I couldn’t see the sea from here so I picked up Brian Harvey and leant on the car.

‘What happens on day four?’ I said when he returned, curious to know where the customers disappeared to the following day.

‘Day four is when nobody comes. Everyone is re-fuelled and wants to get back into the swing of things. They’re too worried they’ll miss out on some fun. Too many opportunities to Facebook and Instagram and they worry their friends won’t think they’re cool.’

‘Or maybe they think your food is rubbish and don’t come back.’ I said as he got into the other side of the car.

‘Yeah, there is that as well,’ he said and laughed.

‘Where are we off to anyway?’

‘You’ll see,’ he said.

*

After a few minutes we came to small village with a few thatched cottages and a pub not unlike Sam’s. After this was a collection of barn-like buildings, like a pretty kind of industrial estate. I was getting a bit worried as we were getting on for eleven o’clock now and I wondered if Sam had any inclination of opening the pub at all.

‘What time do you open?’ I asked as we headed inside to the scaled down cash and carry.

‘Elevenish, sometimes twelve. Or one.’ He rubbed his ear and scratched his chin. ‘I don’t even bother opening at lunchtimes half the time.’

‘How do you even make any money?’ I said.

‘There’s more to life than money,’ he replied, with his gorgeous smile again.

Sam said hello to a guy working behind a counter and headed to a freezer where he leant in and started picking up piles and piles of frozen ready meals, cottage pies, sausage and mash and some microwaveable pies.

‘We’re going to microwave everything?’ I asked

‘Yeah,’ he looked at me with derision. ‘Why, do you have any better ideas?’

‘Yes, I do. I could cook it from scratch.’

‘Nah, they won’t appreciate it – they’ll only want hangover food.’

‘Why not get them some Pot Noodles then and be done with it?’

‘That’s not a bad idea, you know,’ he said, looking more taken with the ‘Pot Noodles for the masses’ idea than anyone in their right mind should be.

‘You really are an oaf.’ I said, taking the meals off him one by one. I thought Sam was great, but he was also an idiot. ‘Selling these makes absolutely no sense. After you’ve paid me, you won’t be able to make any profit at all. We’re cooking it from scratch.’

I led him away from the frozen meals section and starting putting piles and piles of mince into the trolley, along with a huge bag of potatoes, fresh sausages, gigantic tins of tomatoes, lasagne sheets and anything else I could find that I could use to cook food in bulk.

At the counter, Sam was surprised at how much cheaper it was than the two hundred ready meals he was going to buy.

‘We don’t want to give them much choice. We’ll offer them chilli, shepherd’s pie, lasagne and a toad in the hole. They’ll love it, trust me. And we’ll stop at that little farm produce stand we passed on the way back.’

Sam held his hands up in defeat. ‘Okay, you’re the boss.’

‘Well. Don’t give me a promotion yet. Let’s see how it goes.’

At least I’d had some kind of promotion, even if it was a one-day-a-year job.

I had to persuade Sam not to stop elsewhere for another coffee. For someone who liked caffeine so much he certainly didn’t have much get-up-and-go when it came to his business.

We stopped at the farm stand on the way back where I bought tomatoes and other vegetables, including broad beans and salad vegetables and fresh herbs that smelled delicious. I couldn’t wait to get back to the pub and get started. It was all so exciting. I could hardly believe I was going to be a chef in my own kitchen.

Back at the pub, Brian Harvey made himself comfortable again on his favourite chair. Sam went to put the kettle on and I persuaded him not to because according to his predictions, we had exactly two hours to get everything made before the crowds descended. I got to work in the kitchen, chopping onions and browning mince, preparing the lovely fresh vegetables. I persuaded Sam to get the potatoes on the go.

I don’t know how we did it, but the usually laidback Sam worked quite hard with me to get everything done. He’d even mashed a huge pot of potatoes which I was now spreading on top of the cottage pie. I gave it a few finishing touches and whacked it in the oven. It was all so satisfying and the time whizzed by. I hadn’t looked at the clock once so I was surprised when Sam said it was nearly time to open.

‘Right then,’ I said. ‘Cup of tea before we open?’

‘At bloody last, my stomach thinks my throat has been cut here.’

Sam filled the kettle and said ‘Thanks for all this. It’s great. I never thought it would be like this again.’

‘Again?’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said, pouring me a cup of tea and fishing the tea bag out. He made it just how I liked it.

‘Did you used to cook?’

‘No, not me,’ he said. ‘We had a few people work here.’ It was hard to imagine this place bustling.

‘We?’

He nodded, ‘When I first moved here, I was with someone.’

I winced when he said it and I began to wonder what she was like and what happened between them for her to leave Sam. He didn’t seem to want to say any more.

‘I’d say the first lot will probably wander up in twenty minutes or so,’ he said, unsubtly changing the subject. He looked over all the meals I had prepared. There were trays of lasagne ready to go in the oven and batter ready to be poured over sausages for toad in the hole. I’d prepped salads and other veg and couldn’t wait to assemble it all on the plates.

‘This looks great. You’re kind of a culinary genius aren’t you?’ he said and I beamed with pride. It was already so satisfying before the customers had arrived. I’d loved all of it, choosing the vegetables, thinking up the meals. I was resisting the urge to photograph them as I didn’t want Sam teasing me.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking, when I go home, I might go to college and do it properly.’

‘Yeah? Well looks to me as if you already know how to do it. Why go to college to learn how to cook, if you can already cook. Why not just cook?’

Why not just cook? It had never occurred to me until he said it.

‘When I started my job – it’s a food production company – they said I needed qualifications.’

‘For there maybe, but there’s all sorts you can do. If you want to cook, cook.’

There must be all kinds of jobs I could do that involved cooking. Maybe I could start at an entry level or see if I could get a job like this. Maybe I didn’t need to go to college after all. I loved how he changed how I had thought about things.

‘Well, you’re working in food now aren’t you? And I haven’t asked to see your qualifications.’

He was right. And I was already planning ahead without stopping to enjoy what I was doing now. Whatever happened when I got home, I would enjoy the moment today, doing something I loved and spending the day with someone I wanted to spend time with.

‘And now all I need to do is show you how to pour a pint.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘Depends if you are any good or not. Give it a go.’

‘How hard can it be?’

He offered me a pint glass, grinning and almost mocking me – the corner of his mouth turned up adorably when he was teasing me.

‘Let’s see then.’

He stood close to me and watched carefully as I grabbed the pump. I pretended to know what to do but before even starting Sam had to correct me and showed me how to hold the pump at an angle.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Now, pull.’

I pulled down the pump, which was harder than I thought it would be.

‘There you go,’ he said and he rested his elbow on my shoulder.

‘Come on, a bit harder,’ he said and moved his hand above mine on the pump. I glanced up at him and paused for a second and saw him smiling.

‘I’ve got it,’ I said.

‘Yeah, you’re a natural,’ he said and winked at me. I felt my cheeks going red when the door opened. I had thought it was one of Sam’s predicted hordes of customers, but it was Steph and Kirk.

‘There you are,’ said Steph. I noticed as they walked in that she had Weird Beard in tow. ‘What are you up to?’

I stood up straight and announced ‘I’m working.’

‘What do you mean, you’re working?’ Steph said.

Kirk went over to get Brian Harvey from his chair, but Brian Harvey did not like the thought of being disturbed and growled at Kirk. Kirk picked him and nuzzled him and gave him some treats so eventually Brian Harvey turned on the charm and they were best friends again.

‘I’m working. Here. Just for the day,’ I said, noticing how Weird Beard had fallen under the Steph spell and was looking more of a lap dog than Brian Harvey.

‘Where’s Sinead?’

‘Meditating,’ Kirk said which made Sam burst out laughing.

‘But we’re going down to see some bands. We want you to come with us,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you want to speak to Connor anyway?’

‘He’ll only be busy,’ I said. ‘Might as well do something useful.’

Sam stroked his chin and said ‘Look if you really want to go, I can absolutely manage now. I can pay you for everything you’ve done.’