another mile or two before breakfast. Then it’s back to Poole. See if my family have sunk my yacht yet.’
‘Wow, have you got a yacht, Mr Salt?’
Craig Salt’d scented my sarcasm but couldn’t act on it.
I stared back, innocent, defiant and surprised at myself.
‘Only a forty-footer!’ Dad said it like the man-of-the-sea he isn’t. ‘Craig, the trainees were saying what a pleasure it was yesterday to—’
‘Ah, yes, Mike. Knew there was something else. Would’ve been unprofessional of me to bring it up in front of the Great White Hopes at the hotel, Mike, but we need to talk urgently about Gloucester. Last quarter’s accounts are making me mucho depressedo. Swindon’s going straight down the bloody toilet as far as I can see.’
‘Absolutely, Craig. I’ve got some new concepts for in-store promotions we can kick about in the long grass and—’
‘It’s arse-kicking we need, not grass-kicking. Expect a call from me on Wednesday.’
‘Looking forward to it, Craig. I’ll be in the Oxford office.’
‘I know where all my area managers are. Be more careful, Jason, or you’ll cause someone an injury. Yourself, perhaps. Until Wednesday, Mike.’
Dad and I watched Craig Salt jog down the promenade.
‘What say,’ Dad’s jolliness was forced and feeble, ‘we get ourselves that bacon sandwich?’
But I couldn’t speak to Dad.
‘Hungry?’ Dad put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Jason?’
I nearly biffed his hand away and flung my shitty ‘trilobite’ into the shitty sea.
Nearly.
‘So while I’m neck-deep in shipping notices, stock inventories, mailing lists and artistic temperaments,’ Mum adjusted the mirror to perfect her lipstick, ‘you get to swan around Cheltenham all morning like Lord Muck! All right for some, eh?’
‘I guess so.’
Mum’s Datsun Cherry smells of Mint Imperials.
‘Ah, you’ll have a whale of a time! Now, Agnes says Chariots of Fire starts at twenty-five to two, so grab yourself a sausage roll or something for lunch, and get back to the gallery by…’ Mum checked her watch. ‘…a quarter past one.’
‘Okay.’
We got out of the Datsun. ‘Morning, Helena!’ A crew-cut man marched by to where a van was docking into a delivery bay. ‘Proper scorcher we’re in for, today’s forecast says.’
‘About time we had a bit of summer. Alan, this is my son, Jason.’
I got a crooked grin and a jokey salute. Dad wouldn’t like Alan.
‘Being as you’re sort of on holiday, Jason, why don’t I…’ From her purse Mum unfolded a crisp five-pound note.
‘Thanks!’ I don’t know why they’re being so generous at the moment. ‘That’s as much as Dad gave me in Lyme Regis!’
‘Silly me – I meant to give you a ten…’
Back went the fiver and out came a tenner! That made £28.70.
‘Thanks very much.’
I’d need every last penny.
‘Antique shops?’ The woman in Tourist Information began memorizing my features in case a robbery was reported later. ‘Why do you want antique shops? The best bargains are in the charity shops.’
‘It’s my mum’s birthday,’ I lied. ‘She likes vases.’
‘Oh. For Mum? Oh! Isn’t Mum lucky having you as a son?’
‘Uh…’ She made me nervous. ‘…thanks.’
‘Lucky, lucky Mum! I have a son as lovely as you, too.’ She flashed me a photo of a fat baby. ‘Twenty-six years ago, this, but he’s still as adorable! Pips doesn’t always remember my birthday, mind, but he’s got a heart of gold. That’s what counts, at the end of the day. Father was a waste of space, sorry to say. Pips hated the pig as much as I did. The men’ (she made a just-swallowed-bleach face) ‘just fire out their snot, roll over and that’s it, goodnight. The men don’t grow sons, feed them with their own milk, wipe their botties, powder their,’ she cooed at me but the bird of prey was back in her eyes, ‘little snails. A father will always turn on his son in the end. Only room for one cock-of-the-walk in any farmyard, thank you very much. But I showed Pippin’s father the door when Pips turned ten. Yvette was fifteen. Yvette says Pippin’s old enough to be living on his own, now, but that miss has forgotten who’s the mother and who’s the daughter since she got a pay-in-instalments wedding ring on her finger. Yvette forgets it’s thanks to me that that little Jezebel from Colwall didn’t get her sharp little claws into Pippin. Seduce him into some entanglement. Yvette’s still thick as thieves with that’ – the foamy lady nodded at the empty doorway – ‘clot. Her father. The pig. The dolt. Who else put the idea into her head? Poking her pointy beak into