Raymond and George sat watching one of several editions of Countdown he had recorded for them. They did this every week, but he now had so many recorded that they were in fact almost a year behind the current transmissions. They enjoyed watching it together, Raymond armed with a pen and paper ready to form words out of the random letters the contestants were given. Or solve the mathematical problems. George had no need for such aids. He could do it all in his head. Something they both took equal pride in. But they were immensely competitive and had an ongoing scoreboard which Raymond kept in a notebook. This despite the fact that his son was so far ahead in the competition. Raymond had taken great pleasure in showing Christine how he could mention a Countdown transmission date and George would be able to say who won between them, for that particular episode.
Raymond could always tell whenever George was deeply immersed in a case, because on those occasions he didn’t really concentrate on the quiz. It was at these times Raymond invariably won the competition. George never looked troubled when thinking about work, just distracted. Tonight though, George was troubled. Raymond sensed it immediately and knew why. But said nothing. He’d come to understand over the years that tricky conversations with his son were best had only when initiated by him. At a time of George’s choosing and in a way that suited him. Tonight, George was obviously troubled by the prospect of Raymond going on holiday with Christine. Raymond had told her he couldn’t go. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t want to leave George. She had probably thought this was an odd reason, as would most people. George was, after all, a grown man, an adult. He didn’t need babysitting. Raymond had considered going, but only very briefly. This was because he’d been thinking, and worrying, with increasing frequency recently about his death. Raymond wasn’t at all sure George would be able to cope in the aftermath of it and it troubled him greatly. Maybe going away for a couple of weeks would be a good thing. It might provide George an opportunity to be alone and find out how he got on. But in the end, he had decided to take the easiest way out and say no to Christine. She had taken it in her stride but did ask him if she could discuss it with Stephen. Raymond was pleased that there was a social support network building up around his son. The conversation between Christine and the priest had obviously taken place, and George was clearly aware of it, given the troubled expression on his face. An expression, it had to be said, no one else would have been able to discern. But they didn’t know him as well as his father.
Raymond won their private Countdown competition that night and gleefully made a note of it with a good deal of satisfaction. George washed up the takeaway containers from their weekly Chinese meal and placed them in his father’s recycling bin. Raymond’s cupboard had a full quota of the agreed number of saved containers, so no more were added. This was just one of several small measures George was taking to prevent his father falling into his old hoarding habits.
‘I have decided that you should go to Spain with Christine,’ he said.
‘I see,’ replied Raymond.
‘Good,’ said George, glad the matter had been so quickly resolved.
‘Do you want to discuss it at all?’ Raymond enquired.
‘There’s no need. I’ve decided.’
‘All right. As you wish.’
George went to leave but turned back into the room again.
‘You will of course travel by ferry and car,’ he stated.
‘What? No!’ replied Raymond.
‘Yes. It’s my only condition and my agreement to the trip is predicated upon it. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There are several others. But after careful, considered deliberation I decided they were, on balance, probably unreasonable.’
‘I no longer drive and Christine is too old to take on such a long journey by herself,’ Raymond pointed out.
‘It’s not that far.’
‘It’s at least sixteen hours from Dieppe. That’s two days’ solid driving. Three, if you’re sensible.’
‘You could take the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao. From there the journey is under seven hours. Just like driving from Bristol to Scotland.’
‘We don’t want to go to Scotland,’ said Raymond. ‘And how long is that ferry crossing?’
‘Thirty-three hours,’ replied George as if it were nothing.
‘So over forty hours in all?’
‘Approximately, dependent, obviously, on how many breaks you take.’
‘Rather than a two-hour flight and a one-hour drive from Alicante to Calpe.’
‘Correct. Longer but much safer.’
‘Even though she’ll be driving a right-hand drive car rather than a left-hand one. On the right-hand side of the road, thereby considerably lessening her visibility when attempting to overtake?’ Raymond asked.
George thought about this for a minute.
‘Probably best not to overtake,’ he replied unconvincingly.
‘I’m sorry but that makes no logical sense to me. Do you happen to know the comparative numbers when it comes to the safety of flying to Spain for just over two hours and driving for seven hours on the wrong side of the road?’
This flummoxed George. He did not.
‘You make a good point. I’ll do some research.’
‘George, we don’t have time for this. This is her period of occupation. It’s a timeshare, remember.’
‘I’ll get back to you tomorrow,’ George said before he left.
Raymond realised that, for the first time in years, he felt frustrated by his son. He had a feeling, however, that the statistics, if George managed to find any, would prove him right. If George couldn’t find any, he would doubtless look up statistics of air crashes and crashes on the roads in Spain, with the added factor of right-hand drive cars, and come up with his own number. Raymond felt logic was on his side of the argument and George would come to see that. George never argued with numbers, so maybe he would see that flying really was the only option. But he wondered why he felt a little irked. Then he realised why. It was the first time in decades that he wanted to do something independent of his son. Something else was now in his life, which he was glad of. A friendship with his ex-wife. But it wasn’t going to be so easy for George to accept.