They slipped through the knot of one little town after another, going great guns on a bridge, skirting a pedestrian precinct, then, rebuked by a WHSmith or a Clinton Cards, going tail between legs back to a roundabout and sometimes exiting the town on the road they came in on. Dave was doing the map reading and, although he tried to bring a party approach to it, after more than six hours in the car they were beyond jollity.
‘Oh, happy days,’ he said, rejoining them in the car with another four pack at a small Wild West petrol station which sold, it seemed, rope, playing cards and Harp lager.
They stopped at a pub to ask directions, and were told to turn round and go five miles back down the road by which they had come until they found an unmarked dirt track.
‘Could be left, could be right. Not sure.’
A man with a pen at a newspaper looked up, thoughtful.
‘What the fuck’s a croque-monsieur?’ he asked.
It was dark, and outside in the full interior illumination of the car their father wasn’t getting any more gracious. Far from it, his concentration was focused on man’s second-best prize: revenge.
Dave larked about as they got in the car. ‘Did you hear his accent?’
‘Welsh,’ said his father darkly. ‘Say no more.’
‘It’s like – what’s the name of it? That movie when everyone looks up at them when they come in. What’s it called, that film . . .?’
Nick shook his head. ‘That hasn’t narrowed it down for me much, mate, I’m afraid.’
Dave was pickled, lolling about in the back. He started dripping on about how Nick’s problem was he’d always been
‘sarcastic’. Nick was apprehensive, as he switched his lights between bright and dim and squinted for the unmarked road, that things were going to go badly when they got to June’s son’s house.
‘Do you think there’ll be any argy-bargy?’ Dave asked his father.
‘He’s a nancy boy, that Andrew,’ his father said in the dark apropos of June’s son. But given he’d said it about him too, it didn’t give Nick much comfort.
‘He must hate your guts.’
‘Why? Why would he?’ asked the old man, querulous with indignation. It seemed that the power of insight he’d shown on the M42 had dissipated on the border of England and Wales.
‘He’s gonna try and lamp him one,’ Dave muttered. ‘He’s gonna take Dad on, but don’t worry, Dad, we’re right behind you, mate.’
‘You wanna be in front of me, not behind me! God give me strength. I’m nearly eighty years old! You’re half-cut and him, he’s liable to try to give ’em some of his so-called advice.’
‘What’s the plan then, chaps?’ said Dave, sitting forward, hanging on to their headrests.
‘I don’t know,’ said Nick. ‘Have we got a plan?’
‘Naargh,’ Ken said, looking thoroughly disgusted. ‘We go in, ask her for the money and we leave. Then we’ll find a room for the night in one of them Happy Eaters.’
Dave laughed.
‘’Ark at ’im.’ Ken nudged Nick, ‘Bag o’ nerves. Boozed up. No good to anyone. He’d have been court-martialled.’
‘So, we’re not bringing June back with us then, Dad?’ Nick asked.
His father grunted.
Nick put the lights on bright. To their right were two pine trees, just as the barman had said. He turned the car into the unmarked driveway which ran alongside a field to the left and a forest to the right. They could hear the hooting of an owl when Nick wound down his window to squint at a name on a board. ‘Here we are then. Nut Hall, it is. Like taking coals to Newcastle.’
‘Well . . .’ said his father, expansively pejorative. He put on his trilby.
The drive ended in a turning circle. Nick pulled up in front of the stone cottage. The wheels crunched on the gravel, making the noise of bubble wrap being popped. A dog started barking.
‘Right,’ said Nick. ‘It will all be quite civilized, I’m sure. No need for you two to get all up in arms. Just stay cool. Let me do the talking.’
But he hadn’t reckoned on Melinda.