‘I don’t want to go.’
I was adamant, inclined to render myself boneless, sink to the floor and become lead. My mother glared at me.
‘You’ll get your socks dirty if you lie on the floor. And we are all going.’
She would have sounded cold to a stranger, but this was an old tactic of mine that was exhausting its credibility. Perhaps I had been overusing it. I was nine after all. My Father looked in.
‘Come on, Skins – I’m going to get the car. Do you want to come?’
He was irresistible, my Father, when he called me ‘Skins’ and invited me to do something just with him. I got up from the floor and brushed myself down.
‘Me, Me’ my brother tugged at his shorts hem. I frowned fiercely at him from behind Dad’s back.
‘Not this time, you help Mummy with the picnic.’ Dad said.
Me and Dad walked up to Frankie Borge’s garage to collect the hire car. I hoped it would be the little red open top four-seater that we often took to the beaches.
I loved the rush of warm wind in my hair and the suck of the leather seats on my bare legs but Frankie handed the keys of the heavy Triumph Mayflower to Dad. He looked up at the perfect blue sky, saying confidently, ‘Rain coming.’...