تعطیلات

CHAPTER THREE

A holiday

‘Are you OK?’ Charlie asked Susie that evening as they sat in their small kitchen. ‘You’re very quiet.’ He watched her. Her dark, Eastern European eyes always made her face look white, but today she seemed whiter than usual. There were dark circles under her eyes.

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m not sleeping well at the moment, that’s all,’ Susie said. ‘I keep having these dreams. It was about Dad last night. I thought he was alive again.’ Her voice shook a little.

Charlie felt worried about Susie. Last August, after her father died, she’d seemed lost. She’d looked so ill that Charlie had made her go to the doctor. It was quite usual to feel bad after the death of a parent, the doctor had said. She would be better in a few weeks. He’d given her some pills to help her sleep. But today she seemed almost more afraid than sad, Charlie thought.

Susie didn’t say any more. And Charlie didn’t ask her to talk. He had always felt that there was a side of her that he could never understand. Although her mother was English and Susie had lived all her life in London, she still seemed a little foreign. Actually, this was what he’d liked about her in the first place, and now he loved her dearly. But sometimes he felt that he didn’t know her.

Maybe they needed something else in their lives. A child? Charlie asked himself if a baby would help Susie feel better after the death of her father. He was nearly thirty now; a good age to be a father.’

‘I think we should have a holiday,’ he said to Susie suddenly. ‘You know, relax a bit, get away from everything.’

‘Well…’ Susie started.

‘We should spend some time together, you know,’ Charlie said. ‘We’re both always so busy. Sometimes I don’t see you for days.’

Susie looked at him. ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right,’ she said slowly. ‘We could find a house in the country somewhere. Somewhere completely different, a long way from London.’

‘Good idea,’ Charlie said. ‘What about Wales? I used to go there for holidays when I was a child. There are some lovely little houses up in the hills.’

‘Great! Let’s do that,’ said Susie. ‘But there are one or two jobs I need to finish first.’

‘Me too,’ Charlie said. ‘I can’t get away until after next month. I’ve got a big show to organise.’

Two months later, on a cold grey Saturday in November, Charlie and Susie were driving along a narrow country road in the Welsh hills. They’d left London early in the morning and now it was nearly lunchtime. They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

‘Are you sure this is the right way?’ Charlie asked. The last houses had been in a village at least three kilometres before.

‘Yes, I think so,’ Susie replied, looking again at a hand- drawn map.

The road was full of holes and a thick line of grass was growing down the middle. It led them through a dark wood and down a hill. Just as they started to go up again, a fox came out of the trees. It ran along the road in front of the car.

‘Hey, look at that!’ Susie cried. She’d never seen a wild fox before.

‘Oh!’ Charlie was just as surprised. The fox stopped for a moment and looked with cold interest at the people in the car. Then it continued along the road and suddenly turned to the right.

‘It’s showing us where to go!’ Susie laughed. The fox disappeared into the woods just as, through the trees, they could see a dark stone building. ‘Cynghordy House, a painted piece of wood said. At last, their holiday house.

Inside, the little house felt cold and the tall trees outside made it rather dark. The front door opened into a small kitchen. From there, a door led into the sitting-room where there was an old sofa and an armchair in front of a fireplace. Beyond the sitting-room was a light airy room which looked south. Looking out of the window, Susie could see that the ground rose towards a high round hill. At the foot of the hill there was a small wood, but the top was empty of trees. Two large birds were flying round and round in the empty sky above the hill.

‘Charlie, come and look. What are those birds?’ Susie called. Charlie looked over her shoulder.

‘Red kites,’ he said. ‘They’re very unusual in Britain. You only find them in a few places and this part of Wales is one of them. They’re meat-eaters. There’s probably some kind of dead animal down there, which is going to be their dinner.’

‘Ugh! What a terrible thought!’ said Susie.

‘It says here that the nearest shops are in the village we came through. Llandafydd,’ Charlie told her. He was looking at a piece of paper with information about the house. ‘And there are a couple of pubs there too.’

‘It’s like an ice box in here,’ Susie said. ‘How do we heat the house?’

‘Ah,’ said Charlie. ‘It says, “The wood-burning fire in the sitting-room heats the hot water and all the house.” But it’s OK,’ he laughed as Susie’s face fell. ‘It says there’s lots of wood already cut outside in the garage.’

‘Let’s light the fire, then,’ Susie said. And I’m hungry. Why don’t we go back to the village after that? We can have some lunch in a pub and do some shopping.’

‘All right. Good idea.’ Charlie went out to the car to bring in their suitcases.

Susie watched him. His thin blond hair was falling into his eyes. He was much taller than her. He had a way of moving his head down towards her when he spoke to her. Suddenly, she wanted to cry. These days the smallest things made her want to cry.

Red in the face and hot, Charlie put the last of their suitcases on the kitchen floor. ‘That’s it, thank God,’ he said. ‘What on earth have you got in that one? It’s terribly heavy!’

‘Just my camera and things, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Can you help me with the fire? The wood won’t burn.’

‘Why can’t women light fires? That’s what I’d like to know.’ Charlie smiled at her. He went into the sitting-room where he found an old newspaper. He began to put pieces of it into the fire.

Outside, the birds screamed in the sky and the wind shook the tall trees. Susie felt cold again. ‘There must be a window open somewhere,’ she thought, as the air moved softly against her short dark hair.