Lindsey Kelk - We Were On a Break

‘Have you ever cooked yoghurt? Maybe it’s delicious.’ He handed me the Coco Pops without a fight and resignedly replaced them with a box of muesli. ‘I thought it might be a bit like Ready Brek.’

I looked at his all organic, sugar-free selections and tossed the box of Coco Pops back in the trolley. ‘Make sure they’re gone before Mum gets home.’

‘Oh, they will be,’ he said, leaning heavily on the trolley, his walking stick wedged in his shopping bag and resting up against his shoulder like a flagpole missing its flag. ‘Maybe you and Chris can come round tonight and help me finish them. Or we could even order a pizza. It’s bin day tomorrow, your mother would never know.’

‘Pizza?’ I asked in a doubtful tone. ‘I thought you weren’t allowed dairy or gluten any more?’

‘Or meat,’ he added. ‘Let’s get a pepperoni pizza.’

‘I don’t know if I can do tonight,’ I said, walking ahead. ‘I’ve got some stuff on.’

‘Oh. OK,’ he shuffled forward, a martyred smile on his face. ‘Your mum’ll be back tomorrow night. Would have been nice to have a boys’ night but, of course, I know you two are very busy.’

I picked up a packet of Weetabix. We were all out and I knew Liv would want to get back on her healthy eating kick now we were back from holidays. Right after she’d given me the kicking I was almost certain I deserved.

‘Has she had a good time?’ I asked, also remembering I had told Liv I wanted to take a break at three o’clock in the morning and I put the Weetabix back, swallowing down the dark feeling in the pit of my stomach. ‘It was a yoga retreat, wasn’t it?’

‘Yoga retreat and a sugar detox,’ he corrected, turning a corner and staring wistfully at a packet of chocolate Hobnobs. ‘And something to do with mindfulness.’

‘Intense.’ I raised my eyebrows at my dad in his freshly pressed shirt and trousers with a crease so sharp they could have sliced bread. Not that he was allowed to eat bread. Mum’s middle-aged interest in all things healthy had completely passed him by, but Coco Pop bans aside, they both seemed to be adjusting to her new path with relative ease. Probably because Mum didn’t know he was sneaking down the café for a bacon sandwich every other morning when he went out to get the paper. That was the thing about villages: too small for secrets. I’d seen him, hiding in the back behind his Telegraph , brown sauce all over his mush.

‘That’s the one,’ he nodded. ‘Are you sure you can’t do tonight? I mean, Chris has got his own business and a new baby but he said he could find half an hour or so. Early doors? Four-ish?’

Sighing, I picked up the Hobnobs and put them in the trolley next to the Coco Pops.

‘If Chris can make it, I suppose I can.’

‘He’s a good lad,’ Dad said with a nod. ‘He’s got a pitch, you know.’

‘I do know,’ I replied, folding the sleeves of my jumper over my knuckles. ‘He mentioned it. Twice.’

‘He’s doing so well.’ He smiled brightly at a furious-looking woman in a tabard and kept talking. ‘And little Gus, what a pumpkin. Healthy as an ox, he is.’

‘Total pumpkin,’ I agreed, unsure as to whether or not that was a good thing but Dad had been a doctor before he retired so I assumed positive things.

‘You should get some babysitting in,’ Dad advised. ‘Before it’s your turn.’

‘Yeah,’ I replied, focusing on the nutritional table on the back of a jar of Horlicks.

Ever since that fateful night Friday night at Sadie Jenkins’ house party in Year Twelve, me and my mates had spent almost every waking second trying to work out how to have sex as often as possible without knocking anyone up. Sex good, babies bad. Now they were popping up all over the place and I never knew how I was supposed to react. When Cassie first got pregnant, Chris was a wreck, hiding in the back of his garage and singing Oasis songs to himself while he played with his original, mint condition 1992 Game Boy. Now he was posting topless black-and-white pictures of himself on Facebook, holding the baby in the air like he was the FA Cup. As Liv pointed out, it was all very Athena poster and not in a good way. Chris was not a man who should be appearing shirtless in the world.

‘All right, out with it,’ Dad demanded as we headed for the toilet paper aisle. ‘You haven’t said a word about your holiday and quite frankly, Adam, I can’t remember a time you’ve had less to say for yourself since you went through puberty. Is something the matter?’

I shook my head and grabbed a twelve-pack of Andrex.

‘Nope.’

‘Your mum doesn’t like those ones.’ He fished them back out of the trolley and put them straight back on the shelf. ‘Ever since they put the dogs on the paper. She says it makes her uncomfortable.’

‘Fair.’ I swapped for an overpriced, unbleached organic, recycled brand and waited for Dad’s approval, which was given in a slow nod. ‘I’m just tired, we got in late.’

‘But you had a nice time?’ he asked. ‘And Liv’s well?’

‘We had a brilliant time the whole two weeks,’ I said. Not technically a lie, it didn’t really go to shit until the last night. ‘Liv’s fine.’

‘And she won’t mind me borrowing you tonight?’ He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, smiling brightly. ‘Pizza, Coco Pops and a bit of Newsnight ?’

‘How could any woman begrudge any man pizza, Coco Pops and Kirsty Wark?’ I replied. ‘Other than Mum, obviously.’

‘Sugar is more addictive than cocaine,’ he said wisely. ‘And meat is murder. And I’m sure there’s something about pizza but I can’t think of it right now and, to be frank, I don’t care to. I’ve earned the right to a slice of pizza once in a while.’

Couldn’t argue with the man.

‘When do you think she’ll pack this all in?’

‘I’m not sure she will.’ He tapped his fingers on the top of his walking stick while contemplating the different types of wet wipes. ‘She’s stuck to this a lot longer than she did the ballroom dancing or the pottery.’

‘Any joy on selling the kiln?’

‘Not a lot of demand for a second-hand kiln round here,’ Dad replied. ‘And you never know, she might take an interest again.’

‘You’re a saint,’ I said, thinking of all the oddly shaped bowls and redundant ashtrays filling up my kitchen cupboards. Mum’s hobbies must have cost them a small fortune. Almost as much as a half-completed law degree, suggested the little voice in my head that sounded an awful lot like my brother. ‘I don’t know how you cope sometimes.’

‘I knew what I was getting into when I married your mother,’ he said with a little shrug. ‘The only thing she’s ever stuck to for more than six months is me, so I can’t really complain. I know it’s different nowadays but I won’t say I wasn’t glad when Chris tied the knot. It changes things. You’ll understand when you get married.’

‘Yeah,’ I shivered involuntarily, not sure if I was more afraid of going over to apologize or the thought that she might not want to see me in the first place. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

There was, after all, a first time for everything.

I’ve never been a smoker but there were times when the idea of popping out for a cigarette sounded so great. Hiding at the back of the surgery and checking Instagram was not relaxing. All those photos of other people’s holidays, overdrawn-lip selfies and artfully shot pasta might have been easier to stomach with a lungful of nicotine. Every time I scrolled through, I thought of an old framed photo of my granddad hanging in my parents’ living room. He was standing in the surgery in his operating gown, enjoying a pipe with his colleagues immediately after performing his first successful spinal surgery on an Alsatian. I’m not saying it was the healthiest thing for my granddad or the dog, but everyone in the picture looked incredibly relaxed and every single one of them was puffing away. Here I was, squinting at a smudged phone screen, looking at what one-quarter of Little Mix had for breakfast and my anxiety levels were off the charts.