Papa Georgio (3 page)

At the side of the house, squeezed in between the wall and the overgrown hedge, I caught a glimpse of the caravan with red and white spotty curtains at the windows. Just for a moment I felt excited.

Grandpa George led us to the house carrying his straw hat and I followed Mum, feeling a bit better about things. His hug had sort of warmed me up. But there was still Brenda.

It wasn’t a very big house for them to live in and have as a shop as well, so there was stuff spilling out all over the drive: chairs, stools, a long table stacked with piles of plates, china dogs and shepherds, some swords and a pretty clock. All along the little flowerbed under the window was a row of mysterious looking boxes.

‘Know what they are?’ Grandpa paused by the step with Mungo following as if he was glued to grandpa’s ankles. ‘They’re old rat-traps.’

‘Goodness,’ Mum said. ‘Do they sell?’

‘Oh yes,’ Grandpa replied airily. He pointed to one with a little metal slope for the unsuspecting rat to scuttle up into the trap. ‘That model is called “Delusion.”’

The hall was narrow and dark and we passed two rooms on each side, so crammed full of furniture that there was barely space to move. Grandpa and Brenda lived at the back of the house.

‘Brenda m’dear!’ Grandpa called, flinging his straw hat over the head of a gold plaster cherub balanced, smilingly on one leg. He turned and winked at us both.

‘Are they here yet?’ The sound of the flustered voice calling from upstairs made my stomach clench again. I only remembered Brenda from her wedding to Grandpa, with her scary glasses and tight face under her veil.

‘Yes – home and dry! I’ll get the kettle on!’

The kitchen and living room were all one long room along the back of the house with a kitchen one end and a snug sitting room the other. There were dark red rugs on the floor and a big open fireplace with logs in it. Mungo settled himself on his blanket in the corner with a loud grunt which made Mum and me laugh. Mungo looked rather offended.

‘He knows how to look after himself all right,’ Grandpa said as water slooshed into the kettle.

‘Well now, hello dears!’

Brenda sounded nervous, as if she was trying a bit too
hard
. She wasn’t dressed up like the last time I saw her, so she looked more normal, in dark blue ‘slacks’ (her word for trousers) and a light blue wool top with short sleeves. She was a small woman, her hair short and tightly curled, looked hard as if she’d got a whole can of hairspray on it. And you couldn’t exactly see her face because of her big specs which seemed to take over the whole area.

Scuttling over to us she pecked Mum on the cheek, saying, ‘Liz dear – you poor girl,’ and then did the same to me. She seemed frightened of us, and I felt chillier all of a sudden, as if I’d been kissed by the Snow Queen. I shot Mum a desperate look.
Please don’t leave me here, not with her! You just can’t!

But of course she did.

Mum stayed one night, the two of us crammed into a tiny room at the back of the house, her in the bed and me on the floor. Cuddled up under the old eiderdown I missed my quilt and everything smelt musty and strange. I didn’t say anything to Mum. I knew she felt awful about leaving me and I didn’t want to make it any worse.

In the morning Brenda fussed about, giving us boiled eggs in little china cups. She couldn’t seem to sit still for a moment, popping up saying, ‘Would you like more toast? Some marmalade? Another egg?’

‘It’s all right Brenda,’ Mum said. ‘Don’t worry, we can make it ourselves.’ But it was no good. I just wished Brenda didn’t seem to find us so terrifying.

After breakfast Mum packed her bag into the Two CV. I could see she was trying not to cry so I stopped myself as well.
Sometimes
, Dad would say,
you just have to put one foot in front of the other and get through things.

Grandpa didn’t try and stop Mum going to the mountains either. He could see she needed to do it.

‘Go well my dear, and take very good care of yourself. Janey will be in safe hands with us!’ And he kissed her on both cheeks and held her tight for a moment.

‘Do be careful, won’t you?’ Brenda said.

Last night when we were eating sausages she’d said, ‘I don’t know how anyone could climb mountains like that. It makes me go cold just thinking about it.’ And then, half to herself, she said, ‘What a waste.’ She was talking about Dad, and although I was angry with Dad for not being here I wanted to say to her, ‘Don’t criticize him! He’s brave and strong and he’s on his way home!’ But of course I couldn’t.

Mum cuddled me close and my chest ached, but my tears were locked deep inside. She gently pushed me away, held the top of my arms for a moment and looked very seriously at me.

‘I’ll be back
soon
. Grandpa’s told me roughly where you’re going. I’ll come and find you all.’

‘Give my love to Daddy,’ I whispered, because I didn’t want to say things like that in front of Brenda.

Mum nodded, her eyes staring deep into me, as if she was pouring love into me to last me through. Then she got in the car and drove away. The last thing I saw was her white hand waving.

Fizz and the Ship of Dreams

I.

Two days later we were, as Grandpa said, ‘OFF.’

Grandpa’s car was a battered green Land Rover with chunky wheels, three seats at the front and lots of room to pack things in the back.

Stowed on top of the suitcases was a feather bed – like a giant quilt stuffed with feathers and very heavy.

‘You’re not taking that Victorian monstrosity are you?’ Brenda protested as Grandpa staggered out carrying it. Her own arms were piled with plastic boxes of sugar, flour and tea.

Grandpa clearly
was
taking ‘that Victorian monstrosity.’

‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘Goose feathers. Utter comfort.’

Brenda rolled her eyes behind her batty glasses.

‘And Janey can lie on it in the back if she likes, and cuddle up.’

I liked the sound of that. Things were OK when I was with Grandpa. From the day we arrived, he never wore that loud suit again. Instead he appeared in washed out blue trousers and a blue and white checked shirt, sleeves rolled up, his arms deep brown and sinewy like old tree branches. He wore a coloured scarf tied at his neck instead of the scarlet bow tie, and always, always, the straw hat. And while he got things done, fiddling with the car and caravan, carrying things back and forth and getting me to help, he had a stream of tunes coming from him in ‘pom-pom-poms’ and ‘woof-oof-oofs.’

Mungo, at his heels, woofed as well, at anyone who went past on the road, until that evening when we had to take him to the kennels where he was going to stay while we were away. The lady who owned the kennels put Mungo in a big pen with chicken wire all round, with his own bowls inside for food and water. Mungo’s ears stood out from his head when he heard all the other dogs barking round him. He looked worried and bewildered.

‘Easiest if you say goodbye and go quickly,’ the woman ordered.

‘Bye bye Mungo.’ I patted the soft top of his head. It seemed so mean to leave him.

Grandpa bent over and patted Mungo’s toffee and white back.

‘Cheerio old boy. See you soon.’

The bossy lady shut Mungo in, and Grandpa seemed to be a bit watery round the eyes.

‘Now,’ he said, taking a deep breath as we walk away. ‘Just One More Thing. Then we’re ready to go.’

The One More Thing was a big cardboard box which he asked me to help him stow in the car under the goose feather bed while Brenda was inside cooking. It was wide but not deep and I could lift it: it wasn’t too heavy.

‘What’s in there?’ I asked.

‘Something I should have dealt with a long time ago. You’ll find out, in due course.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Best not say anything – all right?’

‘Five o’clock,’ Grandpa said, perched on my bed next morning. ‘Time to be on the move.’

Outside the air smelt delicious, full of flowers and dew and the scent of night turning to morning. I sat up between Grandpa and Brenda. The Landrover’s engine sounded very loud in the silent village. Light gradually washed over the fields and Brenda spread a tea towel over her lap and opened a packet of very tidy egg sandwiches, and coffee in a flask. The smell of it made me feel a bit sick but she’d brought me some orange squash instead. When I spilled some of it on my jeans, Brenda dabbed at it with the tea towel. She was wearing a neat, mauve dress and cardigan.

I decided to climb in the back. I could see out through the front and when I peered through the little plastic window in the back of the green tarpaulin roof, there was the caravan following along behind us. The feather bed was lumpy and squashy and wrapped in a huge piece of grey material with little white stitched patterns all over it, the same as the seats in the caravan. I lay on my side and opened my box of stuff.

Inside the box was a new pencil case Mum bought for me with crayons, felt tips and pens, glue and scissors.

‘You should keep a journal of the trip,’ she said. ‘Like Dad’s log book when he’s climbing. You can stick pictures in and show me where you’ve been.’

She’d put in a scrapbook for the journal and writing paper for me to write to her and Charlotte. There were books and a puzzle book and, most precious of all, my picture of Dad and one of Mum, Dad and me altogether taken by the castle at Dudley Zoo.

I thought about writing a letter to Charlotte now, even though we hadn’t actually got anywhere much yet. I could tell her all about the caravan, with its tiny little cooker and sink and wardrobe (and toilet in a cupboard) and my bed along the back seat and all our food and clothes stowed away in the tiny cupboards. And Grandpa’s mysterious box.

But of course instead of doing anything I lolled about and daydreamed until I fell asleep, while we chugged past the blossomy, dewy gardens, towards the sea.

II.

Fizz turned up that first day, on the ferry with its fat red funnel.

We drove down the ramp, ‘ker-lunking’ into its belly, joining the end of a row of cars and caravans. It was almost dark down there and windy and echoey when we got out of the car. Grandpa peered at the vehicle sliding to a halt behind us and exclaimed,

‘Oh dear me – look at that. Bunch of hippies behind us!’

The battered camper van stopped with a loud crunch of brakes. It’s basic colours were maroon and cream, but in the murky light I could make out that there were other things painted on it, squiggles and symbols in orange and lime green. I couldn’t see what Grandpa was complaining about. Grown-ups are weird like that. I thought it looked nice. Through the windscreen I could just see a strange looking woman on the front seat. Her face was long and thin, her nose curved like a pirate’s cutlass. Between tumbling hanks of dark hair she was looking down at a baby on her lap whose screams we could hear in torn scraps through the window.

We were trying to squeeze past the van to go up on deck when its door slid open with a whoosh and someone leapt out, almost whacking Grandpa in the face.

‘Steady!’ Grandpa said jumping backwards, and Brenda exclaimed, ‘Oh, I say!’

I took him in from the bottom up: a pair of very pink, chubby legs, the calf muscles bulgy and hard looking like cricket balls, tucked into faun socks and a large pair of spanking new navy deck shoes. Above the knees the flapping legs of a voluminous pair of white shorts was topped by a scarlet sports shirt. Over that hung a jacket in checks of brown and green so glaring that if Grandpa had been wearing his loud suit it would have looked dreary in comparison. Last, the face - round, very pink, a bald head with a rim of fluffy, sandy-coloured hair. The face grinned, showing a row of huge, but dodgy looking teeth.

‘Ull-or!’ the face exclaimed at high volume.

Brenda hoiked her lilac cardigan more tightly round her as if to protect herself.

‘Afternoon,’ Grandpa said briskly, trying to edge past. But the man didn’t budge.

‘Come far?’ he boomed. ‘We’ve driven all the way down from Manchester. Little’un in there’s had enough, I can tell yer.’ He jerked his head towards the howling baby, then looked straight at me.

‘Eh, love - you’ll have to meet our lad, Fizz! He’d be about your age. Only he’s on’t toilet at the moment.’

He had such a friendly grin that I liked him immediately and started to grin back, especially about the toilet thing. Grandpa and Auntie Brenda, however, had taken on the look of people caught out in a heavy rainstorm without an umbrella.

‘Oh – sorry!’ he stood back to let us through. ‘Here’s me rabbiting away and you want to get going. Cheerio!’

‘Cheerio,’ I said back, as Grandpa and Auntie Brenda hurried past the van barely murmuring a greeting. I was sorry they weren’t more friendly. But Mum had warned me that Grandpa had some ‘odd ideas’ about certain things.

As I followed them I was sure I heard a strange, cracked voice from inside the van shout, ‘Shut up! Just
shut up
!’

‘Did you see that
jacket
?’ Brenda erupted as we climbed the metal staircase. She even giggled.

‘
Manchester
,’ Grandpa said. ‘How dreadful.’

I walked behind them, wondering what was wrong with Manchester. I went shopping in Manchester with Mum once and it didn’t seem too bad. For a moment I had that horrible twisting feeling inside again, thinking about Mum, then about Dad and I felt so tired that I might fall over. I just wanted to go home instead of being in all these strange places with strange people.

We climbed lots of staircases and caught glimpses of different decks and lounges from which drifted smells of coffee and smoke and fried eggs and the sounds of clattering knives and forks.

‘What would you like My Little Dear?’ Grandpa asked Brenda.

‘I’d love a coffee please, dear.’ She settled in a chair close to a porthole, opening up a magazine which had a smiling lady on the front. ‘And a bit of peace.’

So Grandpa and I bought a coffee with milk but no sugar for Brenda, and a cup of frothy, sugary chocolate for each of us and we sipped and looked out as Brenda read her magazine. By the time we finished our chocolate, a loud ‘
bwa-a-arp
’ issued from the ship’s funnel, like a mournful giant blowing his nose and there was a shifting sensation as the ship heaved away from the quay.