Busy at the office

It’s wet.  The car’s stopped in a layby.  Dad’s left on the engine.  The wipers go backwards and forwards.  We’re under a tree, it’s windy; the rain seems to stop and then it’s loud again.  Steam from Mum’s thermos means we can’t see out.

My brother Douglas and I are in the back, Mum and Dad in the front.  I can smell Nescafe.  We’re going to Wales on holiday.  Every summer we do the same.  Years later Mum told me she hated the Welsh holidays, she went for us.  She wanted a fortnight in a hotel in Spain, like everyone where we lived.  But for my brother and me, she spent eight weeks in a static caravan, the toilet block a field away.

I think it’s odd that Mum and Dad only argue in the car.  But Douglas says it’s the same at home when we’re in bed; his bedroom’s above the sitting room so he should know.  He can tell when they’re getting started: they turn off the TV.  Mum’s pouring coffee into plastic mugs that she hands back to us.  She goes on and on at him, then she starts crying.  He barely speaks but when he does, he shouts, looking ahead at the windscreen, gripping onto the steering wheel.  She starts wiping her window but outside there’s only rain.  So she opens a packet of Rich Tea.  He lights his pipe and winds the window down an inch.  Drops of rain land cold on my bare legs.  Douglas’s staring at his steamed up window, knees clenched.  I try to hide my tears but Dad looks round, saying ‘Now look what you’ve done’; then she’s off again at him.

I can’t remember a summer holiday when we didn’t go to the caravan.  Dad loved the outdoors – that’s why he bought the van.  But he was almost never there, he was at home instead.  I asked him once if he didn’t come with us because he and Mum argued.  But he said, no, he had to go to work, he couldn’t get away from the office.

 
Martin Redfern lives and works in Edinburgh.  A publisher by occupation, he also writes short stories and poetry.  His work has recently been published in Ink, Sweat and Tears and Obsessed with Pipework.