Hugo
But that doesn’t stop him from watching her video for a third time.
“Here it is,” says a voice behind the camera as the shot pans out to reveal a long row of boxy storefronts on a quiet street. “This is where I’ve lived my whole life.”
The way she says that last part, the intensity behind the words—that’s what stopped him cold the first time he watched.
She answers his questions as she walks around the town, but it’s not an ordinary video.
It’s like a little movie, the shots changing swiftly from one frame to the next.
At the end, she turns the camera to reveal a round white face with a dusting of freckles across her nose.
Her brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and her eyes are a bright blue behind her glasses.
“My name is Mae Campbell,” she says with a little smile. “And as you can probably tell, I’m in desperate need of an adventure.”
There’s a soft knock at the door, and Hugo is quick to close out the video on his screen. A moment later, his dad steps inside with an armful of laundry.
“I heard there was a sock emergency,” he says, tossing the laundry onto Alfie’s bed.
“I think we’re well past emergency.” Hugo spins around in his chair. “He’s been wearing the same manky old pair since Thursday.”
“Why doesn’t he just borrow some of yours?”
“Mine aren’t as lucky, apparently.”
“Ah,” Dad says, sitting down beside the pile on Alfie’s bed.
There’s a ghost of a beard along his jawline, and he runs a hand over it, looking at Hugo with a serious expression.
“You know, I wanted to talk to you. I was thinking more about what you said at dinner the other night. The truth is, I was an only child, and all I ever wanted was—”
“—a big family,” Hugo finishes.
Dad laughs. “I suppose it’s possible I might’ve told this story before.”
“A few times,” Hugo says, but he doesn’t really mind. Dad’s father died when he was little, and his mum worked three jobs to keep them afloat. At night, with only the TV for company, he would play a game with himself, imagining a house full of brothers and sisters.
“We had eight plates, for some reason,” Dad says, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.
“I suppose you had to buy them as a set. I used to wedge them onto our tiny table and pretend we were about to have a big dinner together. Which was obviously a bit pathetic. But it’s the reason I like to set the table now. ”
“You never told me that part before,” Hugo says, and Dad smiles at him. It seems impossible that a man with six kids could have a smile specific to each one, but he does.
And this one is Hugo’s.
“It still feels like a gift to have a person for each plate,” he says, reaching out to place his hand over Hugo’s lighter one. “And you should know I’m going to miss setting yours while you’re away.”
Hugo nods, slightly overcome by this. “Now I’m feeling a bit guilty that we’re all leaving next month,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “Six plates in one go.”
“That’s different. You’ll be right up the road. I’ll keep them handy for weekends.” Hugo’s face must shift, because Dad gives his shoulder a little pat as he stands to leave. “Everyone grows up dreaming of something different, Hugo. And that’s okay. It’s what makes life so interesting.”
Alfie comes crashing through the door then, dropping his rugby kit and falling onto his bed in the manner of a dying man.
Dad shakes his head, but he looks amused as he points to the scattered laundry. “Clean socks for you.”
“Cheers.” Alfie sits up and peels off his old ones, which are damp with sweat. “Might be time to retire these.”
“Please don’t let us get in your way,” Dad says, winking at Hugo, then closing the door behind him.
Once they’re alone, Alfie motions at Hugo’s laptop. “So what’s new in the world of crackpots and freeloaders?”
“They’re not—”
“How do you know one of these girls isn’t planning to steal your identity or something?”
“I don’t,” Hugo says with a shrug.
Alfie frowns. “What’re you gonna do if Mum and Dad find out?”
“They already said I could go.”
“Right, but not with a stranger. Hard to imagine they’ll be too keen on that.”
Hugo ignores this, returning to the in-box they set up yesterday.
He sifts through the emails that have come in so far, way more than he would’ve expected at all, let alone in twenty-four hours.
When he gets to the most recent one—Mae Campbell from Hudson, New York—he pauses for a second, trying and failing not to be so delighted at the thought of her video.
He’s saved by a new email coming in. At the dinging sound, Alfie vaults off his bed and throws himself onto Hugo’s, still in his sweaty clothes.
“What’ve we got?”
Hugo opens it to find a message from Margaret P. Campbell of Naples, Florida, who is eighty-four years old. In the picture she included, she’s on a roller coaster, her halo of stark-white hair whipped back by the wind. She’s smiling a huge, gold-capped smile.
“This is definitely the one,” Hugo says, only half joking.
“Only you,” Alfie says, “would invite an eighty-four-year-old woman on holiday with you.”
“It’s not a holiday,” Hugo says. “It’s a business arrangement. They get a ticket, and I get a train ride. Besides, she doesn’t look like the type to nick my wallet. Or my identity.”
Alfie wrinkles his nose. “What kind of snacks do you reckon she’ll bring? Prunes?”
“Stop being such an ageist,” Hugo says, shoving his brother until he tips off the bed and onto the floor with a yelp. Alfie remains sprawled there like that, staring at the ceiling, while Hugo reads the rest of Margaret P. Campbell’s email:
When I was a girl, I took the train from Florida to South Carolina with my father, and ever since then, I’ve wanted to see the rest of the country by rail.
But there was school and then a job and kids and family, and then my husband died, and my own health was poor, and it seemed like I must be too old for such a thing.
But then my granddaughter sent me your letter, and even though I know she probably meant it as a joke, I can’t stop thinking about it.
Because why not, right? And maybe more importantly, why not now?
Why indeed, Hugo thinks.
Alfie’s voice drifts up from the floor, where he’s lying on his back, staring at the crack in the ceiling that they long ago decided was shaped like a whale. “Did you mean what you said the other night?” he asks. “About wanting some space next year?”
Hugo is quiet for a long time. “Yes,” he says eventually.
“I didn’t know,” Alfie says, propping himself up on his elbows.
“You don’t ever feel that way?” Hugo asks, twisting in the chair to face him.
Alfie considers this. “I suppose I’d prefer to have my own room, but otherwise I like having you all around. Most of the time.”
“I do too,” Hugo says. “It’s not that. It’s just…we never got a choice, did we? This is the time when most people move away from home and leave their families and start something new. But we’ve always known we’re going to Surrey together. We never really had any other options.”
“Right, because it’s free.”
“Not really. You know there are strings attached.”
“If the problem,” Alfie says, his eyes gleaming, “is that you’re worried about looking like shite next to me at the photo shoot, I’m sure you can stand next to Oscar instead.”
Hugo rolls his eyes. “Did you even read that schedule they sent? They’ve got us doing seven interviews the first weekend. Is that really how you want to start uni?”
“You mean with a live stream of us moving into the residence halls?” Alfie says with a grin. “I quite like the idea, actually. Gives me a chance to show off how much I can lift.”
“Well, I’d rather not be a spectacle, if it’s all the same.”
“It’s not all the same,” Alfie says, more serious now. “It’s part of the deal. You know that.”
“It’s like we’re circus animals.”
“Circus animals who get to go to uni for free.”
“I know,” Hugo says with a sigh. “And I realize how lucky that makes us. But haven’t you ever thought about what you’d do if things were different?”
“Sure,” Alfie says. “I’d be starting fly-half for England.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously? I don’t know. What about you?”
The question needles at something in Hugo. “I don’t know either,” he admits. “Which is why I need to take this trip.”
“To figure out what’s next?”
“No, the opposite,” Hugo says. “Because I already know what’s next.”
“And you want to see what it’s like to be on your own,” Alfie says, then grins. “Well, I can tell you this much: I won’t miss your snoring.”
Hugo tosses a pen at him, but Alfie dodges it. They’re both silent for a moment, and Hugo gives his chair a spin. When it stops again, he looks down at his brother.
“Do you think they hate me?”
“A bit,” Alfie says, picking at a patch of mud on his knee. “So do I, for the record.”
Hugo rubs his eyes, deflated. “I’m sorry. I really am. But you do realize it’s not actually about—”
“I know,” Alfie says. “And they do too. It’ll be fine. We’ll get over it eventually.”
“Even George?”
“Well,” he says, “maybe not George.”
“Brilliant,” Hugo says with a groan.
“Oh, hey!” Alfie scrambles to his feet, walking over to open his sock drawer. He pulls out a small package wrapped in newspaper. “I think I was supposed to wait on this, but…sod it.”
Hugo takes the package and unwraps it carefully. Inside is a brown leather passport case. He looks up at Alfie in surprise, his chest flooding with warmth again.
“Mum wanted to get you neon orange so you wouldn’t lose it, but then Dad pointed out that would make it easier for someone else to find it, too, and then Poppy picked out this horrid red one that you’d have been embarrassed to carry around, and then George suggested camo—camo!
like you’re going off to war!—and Oscar wanted to get you a flask instead, which would’ve been cool but sort of beside the point, and then I found this one, and Isla suggested getting your initials put on”—Hugo opens the flap to see a small HTW pressed into the soft leather—“and it seemed like we were in business. Do you like it?”
Hugo runs his fingers across the smooth surface. “I love it,” he says, and there’s enough emotion in his voice that they both know what he really means, which is this: I love all of you.