Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘Trust me, there was nothing you’d have approved of,’ she told Olivia.

‘So there were places with availability?’

‘A few. But either they didn’t have pools or they weren’t right on a beach or they had no air conditioning or only a buffet in the evenings . . .’

Olivia was shaking her head. ‘We’re hardly going to need air conditioning or a pool at this rate,’ she said. ‘It’s cold and rainy. I told you it was too early in the year for Spain.’

A tight ball of heat began to expand in Charlie’s chest. ‘You also said you didn’t want a long-haul flight.’ Olivia had suggested going away in June, to avoid what she called ‘hot-weather anxiety’. Charlie had thought it a good idea; the last thing she wanted was to have to watch her sister leap out of bed every morning at six, run to the window and howl, ‘I can’t see any sun yet!’ But Detective Inspector Proust had put the kaibosh on the plan. Too many people were going to be away in June, he’d said. There was Gibbs’s honeymoon, for a start. And before that Sellers had booked an illicit holiday with his girlfriend, Suki. The official story was that he was going away with CID on a residential team-building trip. Meanwhile his wife Stacey would be in Spilling, not unlikely to bump into Charlie, Simon, Gibbs, Proust—the people Sellers had told her he’d be swinging on ropes and crawling through mud with in the depths of the countryside. Charlie was amazed Sellers’ double life had lasted as long as it had, given that his lies were so ill-thought-out.

‘So you wouldn’t mind somewhere with no pool and no air conditioning? ’ said Charlie, suspicious of what appeared to be an easy solution. There had to be a catch.

‘I mind that it’s not sunny and I mind that it’s colder than it is in London.’ Olivia sat straight-backed on her bar stool, legs crossed. She looked elegant and disappointed, like a jilted spinster from one of those long, boring films Charlie hated, full of hats and sullied reputations. ‘But there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m certainly not going to sit by an outdoor pool in the pissing rain.’ Her eyes lit up suddenly. ‘Was there anywhere with a nice indoor pool? And a spa? A spa’d be great! I fancy one of those dry floatation treatments.’

Charlie’s heart plummeted. Why couldn’t everything have been perfect, just this one time? Was that too much to ask? No one was more fun to be with than Olivia, if the conditions were right.

‘I didn’t look,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s unlikely, unless you want to spend a small fortune.’

‘I don’t care about money,’ Olivia was quick to say.

Charlie felt as if there was a coiled spring inside her, one she had to keep pushing down or else it’d leap up and destroy everything. ‘Well, unfortunately, I have to care about money. So unless you want me to look for two separate hotels . . .’

Olivia was less well off than Charlie. She was a freelance journalist and had a colossal mortgage on a flat in London’s Muswell Hill. Seven years ago she’d been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The operation to remove both ovaries and her womb had been immediate, and had saved her life. Ever since, she’d been throwing money around like the spoiled child of aristocrats. She drove a BMW Z5 and took taxis from one side of London to another as a matter of course. Getting the Tube was one of the many things she claimed to have given up forever, along with compromising, ironing and wrapping presents. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep, Charlie worried about her sister’s financial situation. It had to involve a lot of debt—an idea Charlie hated.

‘If we can’t do the hotel thing properly, I’d rather do something completely different,’ said Olivia, after mulling it over for a while.

‘Different?’ Charlie was surprised. Olivia had vetoed, quite unambiguously, any form of self-catering on the grounds that it was too much effort, even after Charlie had said she’d do any shopping and cooking that was required. As far as Charlie was concerned, making some toast in the morning and a salad at lunchtime was not hard work. Olivia ought to try doing Charlie’s job for a day or two.

‘Yes. Camping, or something.’

‘ Camping? This from the woman who wouldn’t go to Glastonbury because the toilet paper isn’t folded into a point by a maid?’

‘Look, it’s not my preferred option. A nice hotel in Spain in June, in the heat, was what I wanted. If I can’t have that, I’d rather not have some sad mockery of my ideal. At least camping’s meant to be shit. You go there expecting to sleep on some mud, under some cloth, and eat packets of dried food . . .’

‘I’m sure you’d dissolve like the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz if you ever tried to go camping.’

‘What about Mum and Dad’s, then? We haven’t been there together for ages. Mum’d wait on us hand and foot. And they’re always asking me when I’m next coming, with just a trace of disinheritance in their voices.’

Charlie pulled a face. Her and Olivia’s parents had recently retired to Fenwick, a small village on the Northumberland coast, and developed an obsession with golf that was at odds with the game’s leisurely image. They behaved as if golf were their full-time job, one they might be fired from if they weren’t diligent enough. Olivia had been to their club with them once, and she’d reported to Charlie afterwards that Mum and Dad had been about as relaxed as drugs mules in front of airport customs officials.

Charlie didn’t think she had the stamina to cope with all three members of her immediate family at the same time. She could not reconcile the concept of parents with the concept of holiday. Still, it was ages since she’d last made the trip up north. Perhaps Olivia was right.

The barman turned up the volume of the music. It was still Rod Stewart, but a different song: ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’. ‘I love this one,’ he said, winking at Charlie. ‘I’ve got a “Rod is God” T-shirt, me. I normally wear it, but I’m not wearing it today.’ He looked down at his chest, apparently bemused.

The combination of Rod Stewart and the tartan wallpaper gave Charlie an idea. ‘I know where we can go,’ she said. ‘How do you feel about flying to Scotland?’

‘I’ll fly anywhere that’s got a nice holiday to offer. But why Scotland?’

‘We’d be near enough to Mum and Dad to go to theirs for a lunch or two, but we wouldn’t have to stay with them. We could down our roast dinners and escape . . .’

‘To where?’ asked Olivia.

‘Someone at work gave me this card for a holiday chalet place . . .’

‘Oh, for God’s sake . . .’

‘No, listen. It sounded good.’

‘It’ll be self-catering.’ Olivia made a squeamish face.

‘The card said home-cooked meals are available if you want them.’

‘Three times a day? Breakfast, lunch and dinner?’

How was it possible to need a stiff drink even while you held one in your hand, even as you were throwing it down your neck in large gulps? Charlie lit another cigarette. ‘Why don’t I phone and ask? Honestly, Liv, it sounded really good. All beds super-king size, that sort of thing. Luxury chalets, the card said.’

Olivia laughed. ‘You’re a marketing man’s dream, you are. Everything calls itself “luxury” these days. Every flea-bitten B&B, every—’

‘I’m pretty sure it said spa facilities too,’ Charlie cut her off.

‘That’ll mean a derelict shed with a cold puddle in it. I doubt they offer dry-floatation treatments.’

‘You want to dry-float? Why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll hurl you off our balcony?’ Didn’t they say that all the best jokes had an undertone of seriousness?