‘. . . and that’s the brewery; been there since before the war and I don’t know but there’s some of the original hops in the bottom of the vats. Me and me mates have single-handedly kept that place open, and the amount of bitter I’ve supped over the years it’s a wonder the canal over the road from the Wheel and Clamp hasn’t overflowed, if you know what I mean. Oh, there’s the place where the old theatre used to be; I had my first fag behind the storage sheds there, ‘cos I used to work there, you know? Oh yes, I met all the great stars. Eddie Large gave me a fiver for putting his mike in the right place; he’s a genuine bloke all right. I had a pint with him and he’s genuine all right. Yep, that piece of ground holds good ole memories.’

  ‘Am I supposed to be inspired?’ the Bat asked caustically.

  ‘And see that big block o’ flats ower there?’ John continued blithely. ‘I bought a sofa from two hippies there. All the tassels were unravelled and the brocade covers were tie-dyed, but it still had a lovely shape about it – and the smell! It was something different, I can tell you.’ John smiled at the memory of it.

  The Bat ground her dentures.

  Josh hopped backwards down the stairs to see if it would annoy anybody, and jumped down the last three. He had just started to play psychohopscotch with the patterns on the hall carpet when the front doorbell rang. He peeped through the letterbox, and gave a squeak of terror.

  The Bat!

  She stood, in suspended animation, on the front doorstep, looking disdainfully at a pair of Poppy’s boots half under a hedge, which were home to half the slug population of Great Britain. She did not look pleased.

  Morag wandered downstairs at that moment.

  ‘Someone at the door?’ she asked, noting the shadow against the glass.

  ‘Yes,’ Josh said, very slowly backing into the front room.

  ‘Well, usually when people ring the doorbell, they want to come in,’ Morag said, starting to open the door. ‘I mean, do I have to do everything myself? I am trying to write the world’s Greatest Novel, an – Jeesus wept! Uh, hi, Granny.’

  ‘Well,’ the Bat said. ‘Really.’

  Morag scuttled off in the direction Josh had taken.

  ‘Groundworm,’ she hissed. ‘Where’s Mum?’ This is her relative.’

  ‘She’s cleaning out the fridge with Aggy,’ Josh said. ‘Blasting the lower layers of ice out of the freezer with TNT; snaring roaming Greek cheeses with gin-traps.’

  ‘I’ll get Mum, then,’ Morag said. ‘You keep her occupied.’

  Carol was sitting on her heels in the kitchen, a sea of greeny-grey gunk washing about her feet. The odd detergent bubble looked very lonely as it sculled around. A little lettuce leaf raft floated about aimlessly in the dirty sea. Aggy threw her pink washcloth into the murky bowl of diluted Ark and watched in numb horror as it threw its hands in the air and shouted, ‘I surrender.’ A great glob of margarine, stuck to the inside of the fridge door, giggled evilly.

  A posse of renegade wilted carrots from the lower reaches of the salad drawer struck out with a firm breaststroke, and soon had Aggy and Carol surrounded.

  ‘Throw down all cleaning implements and give in,’ the little orange aggressors squeaked, ‘or we will make life very unpleasant.’

  Then Morag came into the kitchen to tell Carol the bad news, and life got even worse.

  Bill came back from his Very Important Business Meeting a little tanked up, feeling hot, bothered and very damp. All of Bill’s business meetings took place in the Wheel and Clamp; he said the air was conducive. Actually, there wasn’t much air in the Wheel and Clamp: cigarette smoke, beef fumes and Cheesy Wotsits smell, yes; but air, no.

  Bill staggered up the garden path, one foot in each weed-border, and so was particularly vulnerable when the Bat steamed out of number twenty-seven, hitting things with her umbrella.

  ‘Really,’ she said, jabbing Bill in the stomach. ‘Really. I never, well. Really.’

  The Bat pushed Bill to one side and marched off down the path, burnt-ochre pom-pom swinging wildly.

  ‘Wh’was all that about?’ Bill asked, staggering into the house.

  ‘Well, you know that money she lent us, to buy a new car with?’ Carol said, sitting him down on the sofa.

  ‘Yeah?’ Bill said, fumbling around in his pockets for a cigarette.

  ‘Well, she paid a surprise visit to see the aforementioned new car,’ Carol explained. ‘Only—’

  ‘We haven’t bought it yet,’ the Gonks chimed in.

  ‘And,’ Carol continued, ‘as soon as she found that the Gonks weren’t at school any more, there was a godalmighty row.’

  ‘She said, “Well!” fifty-seven times,’ Josh said. ‘I counted.’

  ‘It’s a pity she left so suddenly, ‘Bill said, with the air of one about to impart wondrous news. ‘Because – I’ve just bought the car!’

  ‘How much?’ Carol asked immediately.

  ‘It’s a Volkswagen caravanette,’ Bill said, shiftily ignoring Carol. ‘It’s got a fridge and a little cooker and a pop-top roof and loads of little cupboards—’

  ‘How much?’ Carol asked, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘—and a sink that actually works, and curtains, for every single window, and a Greenpeace “We Love Whales” sticker in the back—’

  ‘How – much?’ Carol said, with stubborn persistency.

  ‘—and it’s even got its manual, which is just as well,’ Bill said, starting to look uncomfortable, ‘because it needs a few things doing to it. Just tatting, that’s all.’

  ‘What, exactly, will you be tatting with?’ Carol asked.

  ‘Oh, the light doesn’t come on when you open the door, the passenger seat is a bit mobile,’ Bill said, squirming, ‘the suspension, brakes, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Brakes?’ Carol asked, leaning foward.

  ‘And we only seem to have two gears at the moment, both of which are reverse,’ Bill confessed. ‘And there’s a few light patches of rust. If no-one bangs a door it’ll be all right. But apart from that, it’s an absolute bargain.’

  ‘For how much?’ Carol asked, returning to her original question.

  ‘Um, seven hundred?’ Bill queried.

  ‘Seven hundred?’ Carol repeated.

  ‘Seven hundred, ‘ish,’ Bill said. Carol opened her mouth. The Gonks tiptoed away.

  Sometimes; just sometimes, it was best to leave the parents to get on with it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lily and the Bat Correspond

  Some two weeks later, a letter to Lily lay amongst the threatening ones, addressed in a slightly wavering hand. Lily took it upstairs and sat, cross-legged, on her bed to read it.

  12, Meatpie Lane, Bath.

  My dearest Lilian,

  It’s the Bat, thought Lily.

  As you know, you have always been, if not my favourite, then my favoured grandchild. As such, I was horrified to hear that your mother saw fit to take you out of full-time education. I had always cherished ambitions towards you finding and marrying someone who would make his mark on the world, as you have so many points in your favour.

  She means I look better than Morag, Lily thought wryly.

  But now, with any chances you had of gaining qualifications which would lead to a university placing, where such people are, gone, I admit I am worried.

  Please let me know if your mother is doing this against your will. As you know, I am but an old woman . . .

  ‘Pleurf,’ Lily said.

  . . . but I am quite comfortably off. I would be able to take any legal action you thought necessary. Although this would be a state of affairs I would deplore, I do have your best interests at heart.

  Love,

  your loving granny,

  Priscilla Rhodes

  PS, Of course I need hardly remind you that you must not breathe a word of this correspondence to your mother.

  Lily sat for a few minutes, in silent contemplation. Then she took out a sheet of penguin-edged notepaper and carefully wrote a reply.

  Dear Loving Granny,

  Thank you very much for the lovely letter. It was lovely. No thank you I am quite happy not doing exams. I probably wouldn’t have been very good at them anyway and would have ended up committing suicide when Morag passed fifteen GCSEs (Ha ha a joke).

  Morag said that she won’t ever bother doing them (the exams), but my friend, Louise, says you can do Open University ones and I asked Mum and she said I could and I probably will. I would like to go to Open University, but only for the parties. I hear they have lots of illegal parties. I would like that.

  Thank you very much anyway.

  Love,

  Lily

  PS, Had I known you were comfortably well off I would have kicked up more fuss about the boxed handkerchief set last Christmas.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Scotland the Brave

  ‘You see that wonder of modem science out there,’ Bill said, pointing at the Volky through the window.

  ‘What, old Vorsprung Durch Knackered?’ Carol asked, not looking up from her book.

  ‘It’s calling me, Carol, it’s calling me,’ Bill continued, ignoring her. ‘Do you know what it’s saying?’

  ‘Probably, “Heeeeeeeelp!”’ Morag said from the bright orange pouffe she was sitting on. ‘Probably, “I’ve got no rooooof.”’

  ‘It has got a roof,’ Bill said, bristling. ‘A few holes in the pop-top canvas are to be expected.’

  ‘Well, what’s it calling to you, Dad?’ Lily asked, in a mood to patronize.

  ‘It’s saying, “The world can be yours.” It’s saying, “With me, you could park on a beach and wake up in the morning with the ocean as your front garden,”’ Bill said, getting up from the sofa and starting to pace around. ‘It’s saying, “Let’s go on holiday.”’

  ‘I don’t want to go on holiday,’ Lily said immediately. ‘Wherever you go, the rain is always cold and wet and the Coke is seventy pence a glass. At least if we stay at home we won’t get lost down some poky little lane.’

  ‘Quite frankly, I’d rather share an oxygen tank with Bernard Manning than go on holiday,’ Morag added. ‘Holidays are a descent into an uncivilized world. Anyway, we always argue when we go on holiday.’

  ‘We argue wherever we go,’ Carol said, still not looking up from her book.

  ‘We could go to Devon,’ Bill said, turning to Carol, trying to raise some enthusiasm. ‘C’mon, we’ll vote on it. Who wants to go to Devon, run on beaches by the moonlight – that sort of thing?’

  Bill put his hand up. No-one else did.

  ‘Put your hand up if you want to live in a tin on wheels, poo by the side of the road and relinquish the late-night film on Channel Four!’ Morag cried.

  Again, no-one except Bill put their hand up.

  And so, with it clear that no-one, except Bill, wanted to go on holiday, and that if they did, which they didn’t, by default they would go to Devon, it’s easy to see why, by ten o’clock that night, all the Narmos were in the Volky and batting up the M6 towards Scotland.

  ‘There’s Glasgow!’ said Bill at half-past midnight.

  ‘Still in Glasgow,’ he said, half an hour later.

  ‘A bit more of Glasgow for you all,’ at twenty to two in the morning.

  ‘In the suburbs now,’ at quarter-past three.

  ‘This must be the bloody suburbs by now,’ at half-four.

  ‘Well, that was Glasgow, kiddies,’ Bill said at half-past five in the morning, as yellow sun crept into the sky and stained the pink clouds burnt-gold. ‘Big, isn’t it?’

  Day One of the Narmo Holiday

  It rained.

  The Gonks spent all their time in the Volky, reading the Observer’s Guide to Spotting Birds, the only book in the van, and arguing in loud voices.

  Bill found out that he’d left his boots in Wolverhampton where, by a cruel twist of fate, it was the hottest day since a caveman stuck his head out of his cave and said ‘Bloody hell, it’s hot.’ As the Scottish scenery was becoming more and more water logged every minute, Bill was confined to the van.

  ‘I don’t know why we ever came,’ Lily moaned, hunched up, and avoiding drips by moving her head around erratically, in the style of a frightened mongoose.

  ‘It’s a holiday. Bloody enjoy yourself,’ Bill growled.

  ‘Have we nothing else to read?’ Morag complained, hurling the Observer’s Guide to Spotting Birds across the cramped and steamed-up interior of the Volky. It landed on a pile of folded sleeping bags. They slowly fell off the seat, out of the sliding door and into the awning that was pegged on to the side of the Volky. They knocked the small pan of scrambled eggs off the little calor gas burner, and extinguished the flame.

  ‘Morag!’ Carol wailed. ‘That was breakfast, dinner, and the basis of tea. Now what are we going to eat?’

  ‘I, erm, brought some of my homemade bread,’ Morag said tentatively.

  The Narmos looked at the scrambled eggs, being greedily licked up by the cat and dogs.

  ‘The same loaf?’ Lily asked weakly.

  ‘It hasn’t gone off,’ Morag said, shrugging.

  ‘I’d say that was cause for concern,’ Carol said, with an air of futility, as Morag carved a few slices from the loaf.

  Day Two of the Narmo Holiday

  It rained.

  After dinner (of Morag’s loaf and jam. The jam hadn’t sat too easily on the bread. It kept trying to escape) Bill sat in the driver’s seat, unlit cigarette in his mouth, fiddling with his telescopic rod.

  In the course of his long love affair with fishing, Bill had lost three coats, gained a nasty nick in the ear which had gone septic, and half drowned Josh on one occasion, but never once had he caught a fish. He was still convinced, however, deep in his heart, that with a little Male Cunning and the off-chance that all Scottish fish had a death wish, he would be able to recreate a kind of Swiss Family Narmo.

  Once Bill had caught a fish, he had no idea of what he would do with it. He had a vague idea that it gutted itself, tossed itself in bread crumbs and leapt into the deep-fat fryer with a cheery ‘Hey Nonny Nonny!’ and a flick of its neatly battered tail.

  Sadly, this is not the case. For a start, any fish you care to mention has a skull that would put the crumple-zone on a Volvo to shame, and will steadfastly refuse to die. About twenty minutes later you’ll have a towpath covered with scales, and be holding a requiem mass for the poor dead fish that splintered three rocks, half a brick and the end of a rubber torch.

  Bill didn’t really know what sort of fish would be about either, but he thought it would be reasonable if, in Scotland in the middle of the summer, he caught a few seabass, dogfish, whelks, eels, and the odd pike for tea.

  He carefully Sellotaped the cork padding back on to the handle of the rod and looked out of the streaming window. He stiffened.

  A large, camouflage-painted Range Rover had just pulled up in front of Bill, ruining his view of the sea loch totally.

  A man with muscles reminiscent of eels in a pink bag leapt out of the driver’s door with the sort of healthy swagger that makes people feel violent towards them. Out of the passenger door jumped a woman with blonde hair that looked unfeasibly immune to split-ends.

  ‘Bill, would you like a marmalade sandwich for afters?’ Carol called from the awning.

  ‘Bread?’ Bill asked distantly, still gawping at the new arrivals.

  ‘Take this to your father, Aggy,’ Carol sighed, hacking another slice from Morag’s immortal loaf.

  The new arrivals, Bjorn and Odessa, had by now assembled a very expensive-looking tent, fished six healthy, plump fish from the sea loch, gutted them, grilled them over an open fire, and were now eating them with a tastefully arranged salad and wedges of lemon twisted into the shape of the Sydney Opera House.

  Bill found this very offensive. He started to pick the cork padding off his rod in annoyance.

  Aggy crawled into the front of the Volky, handed Bill his marmalade sandwich and sat down next to him. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Watching them,’ Bill said, nodding towards Bjorn and Odessa and patting his pockets for his Zippo lighter. ‘Me fag’s gone all soggy now.’ He took the sodden rollie out of his mouth and put it on the wonky heater on the dashboard to dry. ‘That was my last one,’ he added in annoyance. ‘How am I supposed to look sophisticated without a fag?’ he asked indignantly.

  ‘You could do what Morag does . . .’ Aggy suggested.

  Day Three of the Narmo Holiday

  It rained.

  Bill emerged from the Volky and headed towards the sea, his quilted nylon anorak absorbing and holding the rain rather than expunging it. The cigarette-shaped object nonchalantly dangling from his lower lip was, in fact, a piece of whittled turnip.

  Bjorn and Odessa emerged from their tent wearing matching yellow wetsuits, collected up their deep-sea diving gear and yomped down to the beach.

  Bill watched them disappear into the far horizon before squelching over to their camp and peering though the Range Rover window. Carelessly heaped up in the back were two jet-skis, some lethal-looking harpoons, fishing rods for every conceivable occasion and, balancing on top of a portable phone, a spotlight focusing on it from somewhere – a very large carton of king-sized, duty-free Benson and Hedges. Shining, Glistening. Not Bill’s.

  Bill bit through his whittled turnip in annoyance, and squelched back to the Volky.

  ‘Damn,’ he said, spitting bits of root vegetable from his mouth. ‘Damn damn damn.’

  Day Four of the Narmo Holiday

  It rained.

  Bill was frantically searching every corner of the Volky, looking for money to buy cigarettes. The initial surge of Feeling Good about giving up, albeit involuntarily, had been replaced by Feeling Very Very Bad, and all the Gonks were trying to keep out of Bill’s way. This was very hard as they were confined to the Volky, the rest of Scotland being wet.

  ‘Ahhh ha ha ha ha!’ Bill yodelled. ‘A penny!’

  ‘You only need another one hundred and seventy-nine,’ Lily said from her perch in Josh’s bunk.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Bill snapped. ‘I should never have had children anyway, I have monk in my genes. And stop fiddling with your nails.’