چادر و کافه بار

Chapter six

Tents and cafe bars

I’d like to be able to say the day got better after this, but I can’t, because it didn’t. Astrid stopped crying, but she was quiet and unhappy all day. Just after lunch it started to rain again, and it didn’t stop all afternoon.

By the time we got near our campsite, the people with raincoats were also wet. And even though he didn’t say anything, I could tell David’s leg was hurting. Even Ellen, James and Sarah had stopped smiling.

‘I’ll go on ahead and meet the driver; the bus should be there by now,’ Grant said. ‘Just walk straight on, Tess. You can’t miss the campsite. It’s called Les Pins de Montagne, and it’s about two kilometres away, just through the village.’ With that, he walked quickly away, leaving us to follow.

We stood in a wet group under some trees, watching him until he went around the corner, and then I turned to look at everybody. ‘OK,’ I said with a smile, ‘anybody know any jokes to make us feel better?’

There were a few smiles, but nobody said anything. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll start. Where do horses go when they’re ill?’ I waited a few moments before I told them. ‘To the horse-pital!’

‘That’s a very bad joke, Tess,’ Ellen said, but most people were smiling.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘how about this one? What game do cows play at parties? Moosical chairs!’

‘That one’s even worse!’ Ellen said, but everyone laughed because the joke was so bad. As we walked on through the rain other people told their own jokes. By the time we reached the village, we were feeling happier and when we reached a cafe bar, Ellen stopped.

‘I don’t know about anybody else, but I’d really like to go in there for a nice hot cup of coffee,’ she said.

The others agreed. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’m sure a quick cup of coffee would be fine.’

The cafe bar was warm with comfortable chairs. Even though it was August, there was a nice fire burning. ‘I made a fire because of this weather,’ the cafe owner told us. ‘This summer is the wettest in this area for fifty years!’

‘Thank you for telling us that,’ said Ellen.

We sat near the fire to dry off, and after we’d finished our coffee, nobody wanted to move. The cafe owner came over to take our empty cups.

‘Can I get you anything else?’ he asked. ‘More coffee perhaps?’

Ellen looked at her cup. ‘Just one more coffee before we go?’ she said, looking at me hopefully.

‘We have food as well,’ the cafe owner told us.

‘I am hungry,’ said Sarah.

‘Me too,’ said James. ‘It’s a long time since lunch.’

‘Ages,’ agreed Ellen. ‘In fact, I don’t think I could walk another step until I’ve eaten something.’

‘Me neither,’ said David, picking up a menu.

I looked out of the window. It was still raining, but I thought about Grant waiting at Les Pins de Montagne for us. I knew we really should be going. We had to put the tents up. But by now even Astrid had a menu in her hands. I couldn’t make them all come, and the weather was awful. Grant should understand.

I looked in my bag for my phone. It wasn’t there. I looked in my jacket pocket. It wasn’t there either. Perhaps I’d left it in my other jacket pocket, or my suitcase. I’d have to walk to the campsite to tell Grant what was happening.

I stood up. ‘I’d better go and tell Grant where we are,’ I said. ‘See you all back here later.’

‘OK,’ they said happily. ‘See you later.’

But as I walked through the rain towards Les Pins de Montagne I became more and more sure that Grant would not understand. He’d told me to bring the group to Les Pins de Montagne. He hadn’t said anything about going into a cafe bar on the way.

‘Tess?’ Grant was waiting for me at the campsite.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Where is everybody, Tess?’ Grant asked. ‘I tried phoning you, but your phone just rang and rang.’

I tried to sound brave, but it didn’t really work. My voice came out all wrong. I sounded like a schoolgirl. ‘I know. Maybe I. left it somewhere. I’m not sure where.’

Grant didn’t look surprised. ‘Where’s the group, Tess?’ he asked again.

‘They’re having a cup of coffee,’ I told him. ‘And something to eat. At. at the cafe bar in the village.’

‘Having something to eat?’ Grant repeated my words angrily. ‘Having something to eat? What about their tents? You knew I wanted to show them how to put the tents up first.’

‘But it’s raining,’ I said. ‘They wanted to get dry.’

Grant was really angry. ‘They’ll want to be dry tonight too when they go to sleep!’ he said. ‘They won’t be dry if they have to sleep out in the rain!’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘we can put their tents up.’

For once Grant agreed with me, but he didn’t sound very happy about it. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it looks as if we’ll have to.’ And he walked quickly away towards the Wild Country bus, which the driver had parked under some trees.

I followed more slowly, feeling a bit worried as I watched Grant get the tents out of the bus. I hadn’t actually put a tent up before. But it couldn’t be too difficult, could it?

It was. Within minutes of getting my first tent out of its bag, everything had gone wrong. The tent was very large, and I couldn’t tell which way round it went. While I was trying to find out, the wind caught the tent, and soon it was over my head like a big, wet blanket.

‘Oh!’ I cried, fighting to get it off.

Grant came to help. ‘Do you actually know what you’re doing at all, Tess?’ he asked. But he could see by the look on my face that I didn’t.

‘You’ve never led any camping tours before, have you, Tess?’ Grant said.

‘No,’ I agreed, ‘I haven’t.’

‘Have you even been camping before?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Well,’ said Grant, ‘you’d better watch and learn then.’

So I watched Grant put five tents up. Then he watched me while I tried to put the last one up. And all the time it was raining, raining, raining. I’ve never been so wet outside of a bath in my life.

‘No, not like that; like this!’ Grant told me impatiently when I did something wrong. ‘Do it the way I showed you!’

‘I’m trying my best!’ I told him angrily.

‘Are you really, Tess?’ he said, taking the tent from me to show me again.

‘Yes, I am!’ I said.

‘If you’d told the group they couldn’t stay in the cafe bar, we wouldn’t be doing this at all!’ Grant said angrily, his hands busy with the tent.

I knew it had been weak of me to give in to the group, but I didn’t want Grant to know that. ‘They were wet, and they’re on holiday,’ I said. ‘I wanted them to enjoy themselves.’

Grant turned to look at me. ‘Well, I tell you,’ he said, ‘if I wasn’t teaching you how to do your job better, then I’d tell you to do just that!’

I looked at him. ‘What do you mean, just that?’

‘I’d tell you to enjoy yourself,’ he said. ‘Forget about being a tour leader and just take a holiday.’

It sounded good, but as it was Grant’s idea, I couldn’t possibly agree. ‘You don’t think I could lead this tour on my own, do you?’ I said.

‘No,’ Grant said. ‘I don’t. And neither does your father, or he wouldn’t have sent you to learn from me.’

‘My father’s wrong,’ I said. ‘You’re both wrong. I could easily lead this tour. Why don’t you take a holiday, and I’ll be tour leader!’

The sixth tent was finally up. Grant stood up and looked at me. ‘OK,’ he said.

I looked back at him, surprised. ‘OK what?’ I asked.

‘OK,’ he said again. ‘You be tour leader, and I’ll take a holiday.’ He threw me the keys to the bus and began to walk away. ‘And I’m going to start my holiday with a good meal in the village. See you tomorrow at breakfast.’

‘But .’ I said, but he just gave me a wave without stopping.

‘Bye, Tess,’ he said over his shoulder.

I stood there, watching him go. Now what had I done?

When I got back to the cafe bar I found that most of the group had drunk wine with their meals. They were still sitting by the fire, and they were loud and happy.

‘Tess!’ Ellen said loudly when she saw me. ‘Everything OK at Les Montagnes des Pins?’

‘Les Pins de Montagne,’ I told her unhappily, my stomach feeling very empty at the smell of the food in the cafe bar. ‘Yes, your tents are all up. Maybe we’d better go now before it gets dark.’

But no-one was interested in leaving, so I stopped trying to be a good tour leader and ordered something to eat. And then everybody had some more wine. By the time we finally got back to Les Pins de Montagne, it was almost midnight. It took us quite a long time to find our tents in the dark.

As we walked around, Ellen, James and Sarah were laughing.

‘Shh!’ I said, trying to be a good tour leader again. ‘People are trying to sleep!’

For some reason that only seemed to make them laugh even more. ‘Shh!’ they all said loudly. I thought I heard a loud cough come from Grant’s tent.

But finally everybody was safely in their tents and I could take my wet clothes off. I was tired, cold and a bit worried about the next day. Would Grant really do what he’d said? Take a holiday while I acted as tour leader?

I put on my nightclothes and got into my sleeping bag. Well, if Grant wanted to play games it was fine by me. I knew we needed to get packed up quite early the next day. But it must be easier to take a tent down than to put one up. Everything would be fine.