There were four of us last week in the caravan near the beach in north Cornwall for our annual family holiday: me, my boy, my boy’s grandma and my boy’s little half-sister, Amy, aged ten. We were very excited to be bringing Amy this year. Her Mum has agoraphobia and hasn’t been out of the house since Amy was born, and Amy’s father labours six days a week and rests on the seventh, so Amy never really gets to go anywhere.
But this year — hallelujah! — because Amy’s grandma was going down to the caravan with us, her mother agreed that Amy could come as well. Ten years old and the first time she’d been away from home for more than a day.
From the moment permission was granted, my mind had been filled with joyful fantasies of dear Amy being an outdoor girl for a whole week. In my mind’s eye, she had the sun on her face, the wind in her hair and she was pedalling furiously around the safe-ish roads of the caravan park; or on her knees making sandcastles on the beach; or carefully dipping her net in rock pools when the tide was out. Corny old Hollywood feel-good film fantasies, admittedly, but that’s how my mind works and there’s nothing I can do about it.
On the journey down we crossed the Tamar bridge, which, I informed Amy, is the boundary between Cornwall and England. Then I ran through some of Cornwall’s idiosyncratic laws, such as the one making it an arrestable offence to be seen in public without an ice-cream or ice-lolly in your hand. And the one stating that parents and guardians aren’t allowed to send their children to bed until after midnight. (Cornish children are disgruntled about this last one, I said, because until fairly recently the time was set at one o’clock in the morning.)
The Cornish are quite happy to speak English to foreigners, I said, but she mustn’t be fooled. Between themselves, they communicate by a combination of ancient gibberish, secret signs and telepathy. Also, I warned her that, although the pagan practice of blessing a new building by burying a child alive in the foundations has virtually died out in Cornwall, thank goodness, she should keep well clear of building sites.
I turned round in my driving seat to emphasise the danger with a stern look. In the back, sharing an armrest with her grandma, Amy was decked out in brand-new glittery top, jeans and trainers, the cheapest available from a high-street chain — the trainers obviously so — and bought especially for the grand occasion. Unless something drastic happens, Amy’s going to be a real beauty when she grows up. She’s already showing flashes of the real beauty’s understanding of the true lineaments of power. She suppressed a smile of contempt for this patronising style of humour, rested her forearms on the as yet unused Tupperware sick bowl and looked out of the window.
The reality, when we got there, turned out, as it generally does, to bear little relation to the fantasy. Rain kept us inside. Amy knelt in front of the portable telly most of the time watching the worst rubbish she could find. My boy and I sat around the table listening to his grandma’s tales about hard times and country life.
His grandma’s childhood must live as vividly in her imagination as in any of the great poets. Anything would trigger off a reminiscence. Pointing to a piece of cheese, she’d say, ‘Shortening, cheese is.’ If I was silly enough to ask what this might mean, she’d say, ‘Well. It was a dark and windy night.’ And another lengthy tale of a country childhood with not much to eat, but full of country wisdom, such as the negative effect of too much cheese on a man’s virility, followed.
We had the story of the how the pig got out and nearly ate the baby. We had the story of the cat trashing the kitchen when they moved house, in spite of having had his paws buttered to keep his mind occupied. We had the story of the secret burial, by night, of the donkey’s head. Expressed with precision, and with a strict selection of only relevant detail, these tales would have been absorbing. As it was I almost went insane with boredom.
Even when the rain ceased for an hour or two, none of them showed any inclination to go out. ‘Anyone fancy a walk on the beach, then?’ I said on the third day. No takers. Amy was kneeling in homage in front of the telly watching some unbelievably inane cartoon. My boy and his grandma were sitting on the step smoking long cigarettes. All three looked at me with contempt, as if I was some kind of lunatic scoutmaster. Such is the worrying gulf, in my case, between fantasy and reality.
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