Chapter 1
FOUR MONTHS LATER
Caustic wine shoots the wrong way down Celia’s throat.
‘Are you all right ?’ squawks Bernie, her sister-in-law, who requested this family Zoom. The Blooms are not especially close. Their Zoom calls always feel like something of an obligation, and today’s was arranged to tie up lingering matters concerning Geoff and Bernie’s deceased father’s estate.
‘I’m fine,’ Celia manages, when her splutters have subsided.
This particular vintage could melt chewing-gum off the pavement but she has another swig anyway.
She and Geoff are stationed side by side, as if called in for questioning, at the kitchen table of their Glasgow flat.
In their Grade II-listed former rectory in Somerset, Bernie and Lindor are entwined on a swampy, deep green velvet sofa that seems to be threatening to suck them right in.
Celia drains her glass. In fact, it wasn’t the viciousness of the wine that caused the embarrassing choking episode. Rather, it’s what her sister-in-law just said. ‘Bernie, did I hear you right?’ she says. ‘D’you really mean you want us to have it?’
‘Yes, we’ve talked it over and we’d love that.’ As the elder sibling, Bernie has always assumed superiority in the family. She flicks her long, layered, dark brown hair and beams from the laptop screen.
‘Well, that’s amazing, Sis,’ Geoff exclaims. ‘If you’re absolutely sure?’
‘No, that doesn’t sound fair at all,’ Celia says quickly, shooting him a quick look.
‘No, it is,’ Bernie insists. ‘It makes perfect sense. You guys are near enough to use it. We never would…’ She glances at Lindor, who tweaks his pretentious, pointy little beard and murmurs in agreement.
The item in question is a rancid static caravan slowly rotting into the ground on the south Ayrshire coast. When their father died in September, everything was divided equally between his son and daughter, according to the will.
It all seemed very simple – until Bernie’s shock proposal today: that Geoff and Celia take the thing on.
Celia is fully aware of the state of it.
On her insistence, shortly after her father-in-law’s funeral, she and Geoff had driven over to check up on the place.
He’d been reluctant, and she’d assumed he simply didn’t want to bother himself with it.
Perhaps, she wondered, he was hoping it would miraculously evaporate into the air, or tumble down the steep hillside and into the sea.
However, her conscience had been niggling.
What if it had been broken into, or there were issues with the site managers and they wanted it taken away?
It’s not that Celia had nurtured any particular fondness towards her father-in-law.
Duncan was a belligerent old man and his attitude towards women left a lot to be desired.
Once she’d overheard him announcing to Geoff that she had ‘a fine rack on her’ – and she’d caught him leering at her extremely functional M&S bra on the radiator.
But still, she always found it hard to settle if things weren’t done properly and rules adhered to.
‘We can’t just pretend it’s not there,’ she’d insisted.
‘And Bernie’s not going to do anything about it, is she? ’
When Geoff’s mum had still been around, the caravan had been reasonably cheerful. But she’d passed away several years before and Duncan had spent his final weeks in hospital, railing against vegetarians, lefties and ‘all those bloody minorities. Like women!’
‘Women aren’t actually a minority, Duncan,’ Celia had explained at his bedside, and Geoff had glared at her.
‘Dad’s ill,’ he had hissed. ‘He doesn’t need lecturing.’
They had arrived at the caravan park on a bright, crisp winter’s day.
While the place was beautifully kept, the other mobile homes immaculate, Ailsa View stood out as the kind you’d hurry past in case you happened to glimpse something terrible at a grimy window.
The kind where you’d think, Bet there’s a pervy old man in there, masturbating in a filthy string vest .
After no small degree of wrangling, Geoff had managed to unlock the door.
Celia had gagged as the smell belched out: stale smoke and burger fat with undertones of chemical toilet and lingering farts.
She had peered around in the gloom, taking in the scuffed interior walls, the grimy grey carpet and fitted seat covers mottled with stains.
What on earth were they going to do with this, now that Duncan had passed away?
‘Well, it’s half Bernie’s,’ Geoff had replied, ‘so whatever we do has to be a joint decision.’
And here she is, sinewy arms draped all over Lindor, clearly relieved to have absolved herself from any responsibility for the wreck. ‘This really is so kind of you,’ Celia says, ‘but honestly, I don’t think we’ll use it.’
‘Oh, but you will ,’ Lindor drawls, as if he knows the first thing about their holiday habits.
In fact, for the past two years Celia and Geoff haven’t gone anywhere together at all.
They could go places. They are empty nesters now, and while they’re certainly not rich, they could afford an annual package holiday.
But it’s all golf for Geoff these days. Golf socials and weekends and even holidays to the Algarve with the lads from work.
The Bakery Boys, they call themselves, conveying the image that it’s all kneading dough and crimping pastry edges.
In fact, their workplace is a faceless production plant churning out thousands of pies, pasties and sausage rolls daily: the epicentre of processed meats and saturated fat.
Geoff is proud to have risen through the ranks to the lofty position of Production Manager, and Where would you have been without him, Celia? – that’s a favourite line of her mother’s. That, and Look how hard he works and what he’s done for you! I hope you make him a nice packed lunch?
A packed lunch? When will her mum realise it’s not 1953, and that there’s no shortage of readily available pastry goods at the factory? Yet somewhere, deep in her core, Celia clings on to the belief that actually, she should be grateful for Geoff having stepped into her life.
After all, she had messed up big time and had no one to blame but herself.
You should be grateful, girl. A lot of men wouldn’t have taken you on.
And now she and Geoff are basically being gifted a caravan, which would send her mother into a spin of delight.
But it’s like inheriting a dog, Celia decides, when you’ve had no say in the matter.
And not a well-trained dog who’s easy to love, but one with ‘issues’ – aggressive and prone to gnawing the furniture, with bowel troubles.
Having refilled her glass, Celia looks at her husband. ‘I hate to say this, Geoff, but I think Ailsa View has come to the end of its natural life.’
He affects a dramatic double take, as if she has just imparted terrible news – I’m sorry, but the kindest option is to put it to sleep.
‘I don’t think so,’ he exclaims.
‘Your parents loved that caravan. It’s so full of memories of them,’ drawls Lindor, who’s clearly an authority on the matter despite having never set foot in Scotland, let alone in proximity to the mouldering heap.
It’s always amused Celia to imagine the moment when he decided to rename himself after a spherical chocolate truffle, Lindor-von-whatever-the-heck-he’s-called, supposedly with aristocratic Austrian heritage, when occasionally a northern English accent sneaks out and she suspects he’s from Hull.
However, she isn’t amused now. Four months ago, Celia felt as if she were being basically exiled to London for Amanda’s wedding – albeit for just one night – and that feeling of things being weird and out of kilter engulfs her again.
‘All those wonderful holidays they had,’ Lindor warbles on, ‘by the seaside. All those happy, happy times?—’
‘And we will too,’ Geoff announces. ‘Won’t we, Celia?’
Feeling defeated, she nods.
‘And we’ll raise a glass to you two and to Mum and Dad,’ Geoff concludes, ‘every time we go there.’
‘Great!’ Unable to mask her relief, Bernie sweeps a hand through her chestnut mane and bares large, square-cut teeth.
And that, seemingly, is that.