been a pretty long day and, somewhere during the film, went to sleep.
I awoke at about three in the morning, still face down, fully dressed.
The bus was dark and quiet, the boys asleep in their bunks. I found that they had put a blanket over me instead of waking me up.
On the table by my head stood a full glass of water.
I looked at it with grateful amazement, with a lump in the throat.
The evening before, when I’d stood a glass there, Toby, to whom, since the explosion, anything out of routine was a cause of quivering anxiety, had asked what it was for.
‘The hospital,’ I explained, ‘gave me some pills to take if I woke up in the night and the cuts started hurting.’
‘Oh. Where are the pills?’
‘Under my pillow.’
They’d nodded over the information. I hadn’t slept much and I had taken the pills, which they’d commented on in the morning.
So now, tonight, the glass of water was back, standing ready, put there by my sons. I took the pills, drinking, and I lay in the dark feeling grindingly sore and remarkably happy.
*
In the morning, a fine one, the boys opened all the windows to air out the bus, and I gave them the Easter presents Amanda had packed into the locker under my bed. Each boy received a chocolate Easter egg, a paperback book and a small hand-held computer game, and all spoke to their mother to thank her.
‘She wants to talk to you, Dad,’ Alan said, handing me the telephone, and I said, ‘Hi,’ and ‘Happy Easter,’ and ‘How’s Jamie?’
‘He’s fine. Are you feeding the boys properly, Lee? Sandwiches and tinned spaghetti aren’t enough. I asked Christopher… he says you didn’t buy fruit yesterday.’
‘They’ve had bananas and cornflakes for breakfast today.’
‘Fruit and fresh vegetables,’ she said.
‘OK.’
‘And can you stay out a bit longer? Say Wednesday or Thursday?’
‘If you like.’
‘Yes. And take their clothes to a launderette, won’t you?’
‘Sure.’
‘Have you found a good ruin yet?’
‘I’ll keep looking.’
‘We’re living on savings,’ she said.
‘Yes, I know. The boys need new trainers.’
‘You could get them.’
‘All right.’
Conversation, as usual, confined itself mostly to child-care. I said, trying my best, ‘How did your sister’s party go?’
‘Why?’ She sounded almost, for a moment, wary: then she said, ‘Great, fine. She sends you her love.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Take care of the boys, Lee.’
‘Yes,’ I said, and ‘Happy Easter,’ and ‘Goodbye, Amanda.’
‘She asked us to phone her tomorrow night,’ Christopher said.
‘She cares about you. She wants us to go on hunting ruins for another day or two.’
None of them objected, surprisingly. They were eyes-down, of course, to their bleep-bleeping flickering games.
There was a bang on the door, which was opened without pause by Roger, who stuck his head in while still standing outside.
‘Your pal Henry,’ he told me, ‘has himself arrived with a crane on a low-loader and brought the big top on about six vast lorries and he won’t unload a thing without talking to you first.’
‘Henry’s big top!’ Christopher exclaimed. ‘The one we had over the pub, before you built our house?’
‘That’s right.’
The boys shut the windows instantly and presented themselves fast in the driveway, looking hopeful. Roger resignedly gestured towards the jeep and they all packed into the back, jostling and fighting for their favourite seats.
‘Sit down or get out,’ Roger commanded in his best parade-ground bark and, subdued, they sat down.
‘I’ll swop you the boys for Marjorie,’ I suggested.
‘Done.’ He careered in battle fashion up the private road, did a flourish of a four-wheel drift stop outside his office, and informed my progeny that any sign of disobedience would incur immediate banishment to the bus for the rest of the day. The troops, very impressed, took the warning respectfully, but ran off to greet Henry with out-of-school whoops.
Henry, huge, bearded, always made me feel short. He lifted Neil effortlessly to sit on his shoulders and beamed in my direction, walking frame and all.
‘Nearly got yourself squelched, then?’ he said.
‘Yeah. Careless.’
He gestured with a huge hand to his heavily laden monster trucks, currently cluttering the tarmac.
‘I brought the whole razzmatazz,’ he said, pleased with it.
‘Yes, but, look here –’ Roger began.
Henry looked down on him kindly. ‘You trust Lee, here,’ he said. ‘He knows what people like. He’s a bloody wizard, is Lee. You let him and me set you up here for tomorrow, and six weeks from now, when you’ve got another Bank Holiday meeting – I looked it up, so I know – you won’t have enough room in the car parks. Word of