Frank Derrick's Holiday of a Lifetime Read online

  ‘Did you tell him why you were there?’ Frank said. ‘Because you’d just been at the hospital?’

  Beth shook her head.

  ‘If you wait too long you’ll never tell him,’ Frank said, feeling strange to be the one offering anyone advice. It wasn’t something that he was used to. He was a hypocrite too as he hadn’t told Beth the truth yet about how he’d paid for his flights. He had planned to tell her and he didn’t want to take the secret home with him. He didn’t want to spoil things now, though, and he decided to tell her everything in the next few days. Or on the way to the airport. Maybe he would wait until he was thousands of feet in the air after a couple of complimentary airline gin and tonics. He could write it on a tiny paper cocktail napkin and slot it into the napkin pile on the flight attendant’s drinks trolley. He’d seen Warren Beatty do something like that in the film The Parallax View. Frank really needed to stop thinking of everything in terms of film scenes. Perhaps Hollywood wasn’t the best place to begin.

  The guitarist was playing a Jimi Hendrix song, complete with facial grimaces of ecstasy on the high notes.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ Frank said. The use of her full name often came before something weighty or serious.

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Have I ever let you down?’

  ‘Have you let me down? No. How?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. In any way, I suppose.’

  ‘No, Dad, you haven’t let me down.’

  ‘Right,’ Frank said. ‘You would say so though?’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Right. Sorry.’

  Jimi Hendrix was really showboating now. He was down on his knees in the tree-lined pedestrian shopping street playing the guitar with his teeth and Beth suggested they leave because she hated a show-off. She dropped a couple of dollars in his open guitar case anyway and they walked back to the car and drove to the grocery store, where they bought pizzas and a birthday cake.

  Looking at the selection of potato chips Frank said, ‘I know America isn’t so different to England any more. Your cars are smaller now and our supermarkets are bigger. But I think we win on crisps.’

  At the checkout the same man from earlier in the week packed their shopping. He used every inch of available space in the bag before opening out a new one. The shopping was packed as perfectly and tightly as the Bette Davis book. Frank exchanged Volkswagen-driver nods with the man again and Beth gave him a tip. On the way out of the shop Frank decided to give him the name Old Man Packing Bags.

  Back at the house Frank sat on the sofa and nodded off. When he woke up it was almost 7 p.m. Beth had been out without him waking and had picked Laura up from work and they were both in the kitchen. Music was playing on a CD player as the two women prepared food, swapping places in the small space, swerving to avoid each other and passing cutlery back and forth as though their movements were choreographed.

  Frank wondered what significance the song playing had for Beth. Whether it was the first song that she’d heard when she’d met Jimmy or the last song that was playing when they broke up. He watched his daughter and granddaughter moving around the kitchen to the music like More-cambe and Wise. It was striking how alike they were when they were together. And not just to each other; Frank could see Sheila in both of them. He could see nothing of himself physically in Beth’s face or any of Laura’s father’s in hers. It was all Sheila. Sheila’s nose and Sheila’s ears and, if Laura hadn’t cycled into a tree, Sheila’s eyes.

  Sheila.

  That would be Laura’s Native American name and it would be Beth’s too.

  Frank was suddenly overcome with how good it felt to be in a house with his loved ones and at the same time how much he missed his wife. In Fullwind, where they’d lived together for so many years, many of Sheila’s things were still there to remind him of her, just like Beth with Jimmy’s toy collection. Sheila’s things were in the backs of drawers and at the bottom of cupboards, they were hanging on the walls and the paint colours and wallpaper patterns were the ones that Sheila had chosen. But in spite of all the physical reminders Frank didn’t think of his late wife when he was at home anywhere near as often and as powerfully as he had since he’d been in America. Even just in the last few minutes watching Beth and Laura in the kitchen, he felt like he was watching a home movie of Sheila. Frank thought how she would have loved to be here now, dancing around the kitchen with her doppelgängers, the three of them together like Russian dolls or a set of matching suitcases.

  On the top of the deflated air bed, Bill stirred from one of his many naps. He stood up and arched his back like a gymnast and he meowed. There’d been no obvious change in Bill as a result of his short time in the US. He was still stonier-faced than Mount Rushmore but there was an unfamiliar twang to his meow:

  Are you just gonna sit here in the parlor all the live-long day, Frank, or are you gonna go out and fix me some goddam food?

  They ate the pizzas that Beth and Frank had bought and drank the wine that Jimmy had left as a birthday present. When Beth had seen the label with Laura’s name on it she’d remarked, ‘That was thoughtful,’ and Laura and Frank had exchanged a conspiratorial grin, both of them regarding the remark as a chink in Beth’s armour and a possible breakthrough for the project. Beth lit the twenty-one candles, she carried the cake into the living room and Frank joined her in singing happy birthday to Laura. She opened her presents, almost screaming when she saw that the book that Frank had bought her was signed. She said that it was too much but also refused to give it back. After 9 p.m. one of Laura’s friends came to pick her up and she went out to celebrate her birthday with people of her own age.

  Beth washed the dishes and then she found a long ball of string and tied one end of the string to Bill’s new cat collar. She switched off the security light above the front door and opened the door just wide enough to let Bill through. At first he was unsure, not moving away from the door, but then he slowly strolled further across the grass as Beth unravelled more of the ball of string.

  They peeked through the gap in the door, keeping an eye out for neighbours and stifling their laughter at Bill on the other end of the ball of string like a kite. He walked under the tree and then started to circle it until the string was too taut for him to go any further without turning back on himself. Bill sat down under the tree. A dog barked nearby. Bill went to the toilet beneath the tree.

  ‘Somebody’s going to have to pick that up,’ Beth whispered to Frank.

  ‘Don’t look at me. I’m a guest.’

  ‘We could tie a ribbon around it or attach a balloon to the poop,’ Beth said. ‘Leave it for Laura as a birthday present.’

  After a while Beth had to sneak out and unravel Bill and bring him back indoors. She then went back out and picked up Laura’s stinky birthday present in a thick wad of paper napkins. She put it in the dustbin and came back inside.

  They watched some more TV and speculated what Laura might be doing. Beth hoped that she wasn’t attempting something called ‘Twenty-one Drinks’ that involved drinking twenty-one different drinks.

  ‘She’s great, isn’t she?’ Frank said. ‘Laura.’

  ‘I guess she is. I suppose I’ve been very lucky.’

  ‘It isn’t luck,’ Frank said.

  ‘Shucks,’ she said, and then, ‘Hang on. You do mean because I’m such a great parent, don’t you?’

  Frank nodded.

  ‘It runs in the family. And I don’t mean on my side,’ he said.

  ‘You aren’t so bad,’ Beth said.

  ‘Oh I don’t know about that. Most of the important parenting decisions with you were made by your mother. I was very much watching from the sidelines, occasionally making unhelpful daft remarks or pulling silly faces. If anything I was a hindrance.’

  ‘Silly faces and daft remarks are important too. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are at the very least okay as a dad.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Frank said. ‘And you’ve been an adequate daughter.’
/>   ‘Thanks right back at you. What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?’ Beth asked.

  ‘You make it sound like I’ve been in a coma,’ Frank said. He changed his voice to what he imagined a man coming out of a coma might sound like. ‘I’m going to drink a pint of beer in a pub and eat a pork pie.’

  ‘I wonder if anything’s changed,’ Beth said. ‘I hate coming back after a vacation to find that everything’s exactly the same. No new houses or stores. Nobody’s died or got married or moved away. It makes me feel as though the whole world stops when I’m away and nothing can happen unless I’m there. I don’t want that responsibility.’

  ‘I had a dream that the flat had been knocked down and turned into a supermarket,’ Frank said. ‘If it comes true, I’ll have to come and live with you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He knew that she was only saying that because nothing they were saying right now was to be taken seriously and she had nothing to fear. But to Frank, the offer of him living with Beth sounded so irresistible. He let himself imagine that it was true. He pictured himself at the Griffith Observatory and walking around the grounds of Greystone Mansion with Beth and Laura and them all going to the cinema together every week. He’d buy warm pastries and pizzas at the grocery store where he’d become friends with Old Man Packing Bags. They’d meet up and sit in an empty bar in the middle of the day when it was too hot outside, drinking bottled Budweiser beer, eating peanuts from a bowl and watching baseball on a TV behind the bar. They’d play pool and darts and go for wet shaves together at Venice Slice. Frank would spend his weekends on the beach with Beth and Laura. He’d never wear long trousers and he’d learn how to play beach chess – and he wouldn’t have any gloves or a hot water bottle or an umbrella.

  Bill would be so much happier here too. Beth and Laura would stroke him and paw spar with him. And even if he was never allowed in the front yard, Frank would sneak him out and take him to the beach where he’d walk Bill on a lead attached to his stars-and-stripes collar. He’d seen a woman on the news walking down the street with a ferret on a lead and nobody had seemed to bat an eyelid. Frank would take Bill out on a lead. Or a leash. He’d need to learn the language. Leash, boardwalk, trash can, candy and potato chips, popsicle and ladybug. He’d have to get used to walking on the sidewalk instead of the pavement (which was the road). He’d eat tomaytoes, eggplant and zucchini, all from aloominum cans. He’d wear pants, the pockets filled with cents, quarters, bits and dollars. He’d have a zip code and a cell phone and in an emergency he’d call nine-one-one.

  It was gone eleven when Beth said that she was tired and Frank had to admit that he was as well. They took turns to pump up the air bed so that it was ready for Laura when she came in and then said goodnight and went into their separate rooms. It took Frank longer to fall asleep without the reassuring sound of Laura inflating the bed, but once he was asleep he was too tired to dream.

  18

  Beth sent a text message asking Jimmy to speak to the car company who did something magical and the car doors unlocked and all three of them squeezed into the black sports car because, as Laura said, ‘I don’t want to throw up in Mom’s car.’

  Even though she was suffering from her first legal hangover, she was still pleased that Beth had made this small step towards Jimmy. And when he in turn had acknowledged it with his own text to say that the car would need to go in for a service, they were practically courting again. Frank, meanwhile, was surprised that Laura hadn’t disabled the locks or simply pretended to not be able to open the doors and that there was something wrong with the car after all.

  Laura folded her sweatshirt into a pillow and folded herself into the back seat. She put her head on the folded sweatshirt and Beth drove them to the beach. Laura asked Beth to turn the radio on and then she asked her to turn the volume down. Beth hummed along to songs on the radio unaware that Laura had re-tuned it to a station that played hits from the era when Beth had dated Jimmy.

  At the beach they hired a quadricycle. It had four wheels, seats, headlights and two steering wheels. It was only an engine short of being a car. It was a bigger car than the one that they’d driven to the beach in. When the man in the beach hire shop referred to the quadricycle as a ‘Surrey’, Frank had asked whether it would have a fringe on top. It did. The quadricycle had a roof like the awning outside a tearoom. The awning was striped like toothpaste and it was indeed fringed. As they cycled along the beach bike trail that ran for twenty-two miles all the way from Malibu to Torrance, the fringe blew gently in the breeze all the way.

  Beth and Laura sat in the front of the quadricycle, pedalling while Frank relaxed in the back like he was the King of Siam. He offered to pedal so that Laura could recover from her hangover in the back but she said that she was feeling better already. Frank was relieved because, after pumping up the air bed the night before, his right calf ached as though he’d hopped a marathon.

  The quadricycle was the widest of the pedalled transport on the bike trail. It cast an impressive shadow on the path in front of them. It was also the slowest and they were overtaken by tandems, trikes, unicycles, beach cruisers, high-handlebar choppers, tag-a-longs, kiddy carts, rollerblades and parents on roller skates pushing baby buggies.

  Frank looked at the beach to his right and at the usual mix of joggers, sun-seekers and show-offs. He looked up at the sky. He wondered if he would eventually start to miss clouds. A plane flew over the ocean towards Hawaii or Australia. A walkout by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association or the Fullwind coup that he’d feared when he’d first arrived at LAX now seemed like a wonderful notion.

  ‘That’s where I work,’ Laura said. She had to shout to be heard above the noise of the pedals. She took her hands off the steering wheel and pointed over to the left. ‘Up that street and over a bit. Pedal faster, Mom. I called in sick.’

  They both pedalled harder. They were laughing. The whir of the chain and the wheels grew louder in volume but they didn’t noticeably go any faster. A rollerblader glided past Frank thought that the music playing in his large headphones couldn’t have been good for the skater’s hearing but he didn’t share the thought because he still worried about pigeonholing himself.

  They parked the ‘quike’ on the sand to the side of the bike trail. Beth went to buy some cold drinks and Frank and Laura sat under the shade of a palm tree and watched the world cycle by, locals and tourists, young and old, whole families riding by in convoy.

  ‘Do you cycle a lot?’ Frank asked. ‘I hope the accident on the tandem didn’t put you off.’

  ‘Not so much lately. But not because I’m scared,’ Laura said. ‘I don’t have a bike any more. I might have to get one, though, once Jimmy has his car back. An extra incentive to make the Reunion Project a success.’

  ‘I used to cycle everywhere,’ Frank said.

  ‘What made you stop?’

  ‘The brakes.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘Oh sorry, that was how I stopped. Do you remember when your grandmother was ill,’ Frank said, ‘and she was a bit forgetful?’

  ‘It’s called Alzheimer’s,’ Laura said. ‘I do know.’

  ‘Yes of course,’ Frank said, ‘Alzheimer’s.’ It was possibly the very first time that he’d spoken the word out loud in direct relation to Sheila. Doctors had said it to him and he’d read it in her medical notes but he’d never said it out loud. ‘When your grandmother couldn’t remember people’s names or how to hold a fork she still knew how to ride a bike,’ he said. ‘So I suppose that thing they say must be true, that you never forget how to ride a bike. Do they say that here too?’

  ‘I think it’s an international idiom,’ Laura said.

  ‘Right. An idiom. Well, I worried about all the other things she had forgotten. She could ride a bike but what if she forgot what traffic lights were or what side of the road to cycle on? Or what a road was. But she did really love cycling. Almost as much as swimming. She’d cycle to the beach or
the shops and sometimes to nowhere in particular, just riding her bike for the sake of it. So I didn’t want to be the one who had to try and stop her.’ He cleared his throat, surprising himself how emotional the anecdote had made him. ‘And this is the really awful part, I put an advert in the newspaper and sold her bicycle. That’s awful of me, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not if you were only looking out for her,’ Laura said.

  ‘But I didn’t tell her that I was selling her bike. When someone bought it, I told her it had been stolen.’ He shook his head, disgusted with himself for lying to Sheila. ‘I ended up selling my bike too because I couldn’t really carry on riding it when I’d taken that simple thrill away from her. That would have been too bloody unfair. Anyway,’ Frank said, looking for a lighter tone in his voice, ‘I don’t think I could go fast enough to be able to balance now.’

  ‘You could get stabilizers fitted,’ Laura said.

  Frank wanted to say that Sheila had been his stabilizers but, luckily, the sight of Beth in the distance returning with three canned drinks stopped him from making more of a sentimental fool of himself than he felt he had already done.

  ‘Your mother still had stabilizers on her bike almost into her teens,’ he said.

  ‘Interesting. Tell me more,’ Laura said.

  ‘I wish we’d had a video camera. I could still be living off the fees from You’ve Been Framed!’ Frank realized that Laura might not know what You’ve Been Framed! was. He started to explain.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Laura interrupted him. ‘Like America’s Funniest Home Videos. Details, Frank,’ she said. ‘Dish the dirt on Mom’s terrible cycling.’

  Beth was getting closer to them.

  ‘She just couldn’t stay upright,’ Frank said. ‘There were a lot of grazed knees and tears before that happened. And lots of sulking. Your mum could sulk for England. The first time we ever heard Elizabeth swear was after she’d fallen off her bike. She must have been only five or six.’

  Beth was about twenty yards away now.

  ‘What did she say?’