4 Death at the Happiness Club (6 page)

Chapter 9 Burnt out

Having fun was as hard work and as unrewarding as Christopher remembered from the last time he had tried it.

Caroline had become over-excited at the fair, and tearful when she couldn't get the grabbie thing to work. He was afraid she had indulged in too much candy-floss - he wasn't sure how it would interact with her medication. Perhaps he should have checked that out with the doctors before they came away. But he hadn't really known about the candy-floss in advance, and you couldn't check up on everything.

In many ways he would have preferred to leave Burntisland and the fair well behind them. The idea of being trapped there any longer was rather terrifying. But there was a convenient campsite, and after carrying the tent and sleeping bags all this way he was determined to use them sooner or later. Caroline didn't seem at all interested in walking along to Kinghorn that day, so he gave in.

The first drop of rain splattered on to his head as he was removing the tent from its cover. By the time he had all the bits and pieces set out on the ground, it was pouring down. Caroline had retreated to the shelter of a large tree at the edge of the campsite and was watching him: even at this distance he thought he detected sulkiness in her expression.

Christopher absorbed himself in putting up the tent. It would have been quicker to walk to Kinghorn and search for a bed and breakfast, he realised in the end.

There was a slight respite from the rain and Caroline came back to inspect the sleeping arrangements. He arranged a sleeping bag on a mat at one end of the tent.

'There!' he said with as much cheerfulness as he could muster. 'Are you OK at that side?'

She peered into the tent from outside. 'It's a bit small, isn't it?'

Just in time to avoid all-out sibling warfare Christopher bit back a comment about how large it had seemed  when he was carrying it single-handed all the way here.

'It'll be nice and cosy,' he said instead. 'Even if it rains we won't get cold. And look, the ground-sheet's attached to the tent so there isn't a gap.'

'What if there isn't enough oxygen for the two of us?' she enquired.

'I don't think it's completely air-tight,' he said optimistically.

'Where are you going to do the cooking?' she said.

'Um - just outside the tent?' he suggested. 'It's only one of those instant dried meals anyway. Paella, I think. All you have to do is boil a kettle.'

It was when he found they had abandoned the kettle on the rocks at Aberdour that things took a nasty turn.

'We'll get a new one tomorrow,' he promised.

'But what about tonight?'

'Let's go for fish and chips,' he suggested.

Caroline thought about that option for a few moments. He held his breath. Please let her agree to it.

'I could go to the chip shop and bring it back,' she said suddenly. 'After all, you've done all the work so far. Carrying the tent. Putting it up in the rain. I'm sorry I haven't been nicer.'

She smiled at him.

Later he realised he should have been more suspicious, but of course he usually left that sort of thing to Amaryllis, who had years of experience behind her and was always on the alert.

He busied himself around the tent - not that there was much to do once he had set up the little table in between their sleeping bags and been to the communal tap to get some water in a bottle. He took out the map and stared at it. They had only come a few miles since he had met Caroline on Inverkeithing station. It was pathetic - they were only going to get as far as Kirkcaldy, and then only if they caught the bus again. Was there a world record for taking the longest possible time to walk the Fife Coastal Path? Maybe he could write a book about it - 'The Fife Coastal Path by Bus - well, the first few miles of it anyway'.

It was a while since Caroline had gone off. He hoped she hadn't got lost on the way. Or perhaps it was more likely that she had been tempted back into the fairground. It could be dangerous in the evening, though, especially for someone vulnerable like her. Maybe he should have gone with her. But he thought she would gain some self-respect by doing this small thing on her own.

He took out a postcard with a picture of Aberdour Castle. He had thought of sending it to Amaryllis with some positive message about the joys of walking with his sister, but that now seemed like such a distortion of the truth that he couldn't bring himself to do it. He put away the postcard again. Maybe he would find a suitable one in Kirkcaldy, assuming they ever got there. A picture of a derelict linoleum factory or something. Amaryllis would appreciate that.

Still no sign of Caroline. By this time he was standing outside in the rain watching the campsite entrance. If he walked towards town, he might bump into her. But there was always potential for disaster in that sort of maneouvre. She would find an alternative way back in, and they would wander around for ages trying to find each other, by which time the fish and chips would be stone cold.

At last! Caroline, looking oddly shapeless in Christopher's old waterproofs, came into view. She was carrying a supermarket bag. He hoped she had actually got the fish supper he was looking forward to, and not something random she had seen in a shop window that would turn out to need heating up in an oven.

As she approached, she took a brown paper parcel out of the bag and held it up triumphantly.

'Fantastic!' said Christopher. He was so relieved that he could have hugged her, except that he would have squashed their meal beyond repair.

It had started to rain again, quite hard, and they retreated into the tent to eat. The fish and chips, although cooling off rapidly, tasted wonderful.

'I hope it was all right to have salt and sauce,' said Caroline.

'That's perfect,' said Christopher. He felt he should have congratulated her on successfully completing this mundane task, except that she might have found it patronising. And yet he thought she deserved applause, or recognition, or at least some small sign that he was pleased with her. Traditionally he had always been the provider of food in their relationship, at least in recent years, so it made a pleasant change to have this reversed.

He just wasn't sure if it was healthy for her to be this anxious to please. It certainly wasn't natural for her. Ever since childhood she had resisted adopting these female ploys, and he had at times admired her for it, at other times wished she would be more normal. It was similar to the ambivalence with which he regarded Amaryllis. Maybe he just liked to feel ambivalent about women.

Before he could start worrying about whether this in itself was abnormal, she said, 'If you'd like to go over to the bar and have a drink, just go. Don't mind me.'

'But won't the smell of alcohol - ?'

She shook her head decisively. 'I can't cope with being in a pub just yet. But smelling it on your breath won't send me over the edge. It's OK, Christopher. I'll just get into the sleeping bag and read for a while.'

'If you're sure,' he said cautiously. Although he wasn't by any means desperate for a drink, and indeed he only usually went to the pub in Pitkirtly because that was where his friends gathered, it would certainly be nice to get away from Caroline for a little while. She probably wanted a break from him too. It was only natural. They weren't used to spending hours on end with each other.

There was a bar on the campsite, which he avoided on the grounds that there seemed to be some sort of country and western event going on there; instead he walked into town and found a proper pub somewhere along the main road, with taciturn local people, a grumpy barmaid and a cluster of old ladies in woolly hats who reminded him of Mrs Stevenson.

A couple of pints later, he thought he had better return to the tent. His feet were quiet on the grass, and when he unzipped the door to the tent, Caroline jumped, spilling the liquid she was drinking all down her face, her front, all over the sleeping bag…

'Christopher! What the hell are you doing back already?'

'Caroline,' he countered. 'What the hell are you drinking?'

She scowled.

'You made me spill it,' she muttered, trying to mop up the mess with the dry corner of the sleeping bag.

'Don't do that - you'll get it everywhere,' he said, and stepped forward to help. She pushed him away.

'I can do it. Just get out of my way.'

'Give me the bottle.'

'No!'

She clung on to the brandy bottle and glared at him, eyes fierce and protective.

'But it'll interact with your medication.'

'No it won’t,' she said. 'I haven't taken my medication yet. This is to help me sleep.'

'For God's sake, Caroline…'

He lowered himself on to his own sleeping bag and sat there staring at her. All the effort that had gone into saving her… all the months of hospital and therapy, and the things the children had gone through… it was all for nothing after all.

'It's all your fault,' she said, still clutching the bottle.

'How on earth do you work that out?'

'You're so perfect. It's impossible for me to live up to. It's always been like that. You laugh at me all the time - you've been laughing at me even those last couple of days since we met at the station. I can't compete with you. I might as well just do what I want.'

'I haven't been laughing,' said Christopher, thinking of the times he had been nearer tears than laughter since Inverkeithing. 'I'm not perfect.'

'But everybody thinks you are,' she said, took a swig of brandy and started to choke. With tears running down her face she added, 'You were top of the class at school. You went to university. You had a good job. You saved all of us - you and that spy woman. You've never done anything bad. Or wrong.'

He sighed. 'Even if I were as perfect as that, it doesn't mean your life isn't worth anything.'

'But it isn't, is it?' she said. The tears kept on running down her face, although she had stopped choking.

'Of course it is,' he said. 'Surely the therapists have told you that?'

'I'm just a tiny speck in eternity,' she said. 'I could be wiped away like that!' She snapped her fingers.

An image came into his head and he started to laugh.

'Wiped away by the cosmic windscreen wipers? Neutralised by the celestial de-icer spray?'

She waited for him to calm down, then spoke again. 'You're doing it again!'

'Laughing? Sorry, Caroline. I don't know what else to do. If I didn't laugh I would cry. You're not the only one who's a speck in eternity - we all are. We've just got to get over it and get on with our lives.'

He was astonished at how much like a minister he sounded: he had never articulated his ideas about this kind of thing before. Maybe it took a crisis in a tent with your sister to bring out this kind of talk.

'But what's the point?' wailed Caroline.

'There isn't any point!' he shouted.

'So why do we carry on?' she asked.

'Because it's the only thing to do!' he yelled. 'Why can't you see that, for God's sake?'

Behind him the tent door was suddenly unzipped, and rough hands grabbed Christopher by the shoulders and hauled him upright.

'What's going on here?' said a deep masculine voice. 'I don't know if you're scaring this lady, but you're keeping me and my whole family awake!'

Christopher tried to twist round to see his attacker, but it was impossible.

Caroline said, suddenly and unexpectedly, 'This is my brother Christopher, and we were just having a philosophical argument.'

'That's what it's called, is it? Well, either go and have it somewhere else, or pipe down a bit.'

The intruder released Christopher, who fell on his face on the sleeping bag. He heard the tent door being zipped up again. It was safe to laugh, but he did it quietly, in case the man objected to being laughed at just as Caroline had a few moments before.

Caroline.

He pushed himself up to a crouching position to look at her. She smiled at him tentatively.

'Are you all right?' he asked.

She nodded. 'I feel better now than I have for a long time.'