Page 14 of The Seaside Cocktail Campervan

Jack was still wearing his sunglasses. It would look odd keeping them on in the house, he realised. Time to bite the bullet and take them off.

‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ Denise called cheerily as she headed off down the hall.

‘Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks, Mum.’

Tea was very much a key ceremony in the Anderson household. Jack followed his parents into the kitchen, which had been the family’s hub since they’d moved in when he was a little boy. It was like the beating heart of the house and had witnessed good times and bad, laughter and tears.

His mum began to fill the kettle at the sink. ‘So, how did last night g—?’ Her mouth dropped open as she half-turned, taking in the purple-green of her son’s bruised and cut eyebrow, the water suddenly leaking out over the top of the kettle’s rim. ‘Good lord. Oh … Jack.’ Her voice was concerned and also tainted with disappointment. ‘What on earth has happened to you? I thought you’d put those troublesome days behind you?’

Simon looked up then too, his eyes widening. ‘I thought you were working last night, son? What the hell’s gone on?’

Jack raised his eyebrows at their tone. Ah, even that gesture was uncomfortable. Honestly, they were confronting him as though he was fifteen, not a grown man. Yes, he’d had a couple of troubled years, but he’d been angry and hurt back then, feeling at odds with the world. He’d changed a lot since then. He’d grown up.

‘I was,’ Jack countered calmly. ‘Something blew up out of nothing.’

‘Like it always did … Oh, Jack,’ Denise’s tone was downcast; like he’d let them down again.

‘But fighting? Really son? You’re almost thirty now.’ Dad shook his head.

‘I wasn’t fighting. I was trying to defuse the situation, if you must know. And then, I just happened to be in the wrong place when the punch flew.’

‘Hmm, okay. Well, are you alright?’ Mum’s tone softened, realising she’d been quick to assume that he’d drifted back to his old ways. But he’d had such a troubled time a few years back. Coming home late. Getting into scrapes. And she still remembered that dreadful occasion when a policeman – who also happened to be a family friend – had turned up at their door, letting them know that Jack had been cautioned after being found fighting in the street. It hadn’t been taken any further, thankfully, but goodness, they had been so worried.

‘Bit sore, but yeah, I’ll survive,’ Jack answered, feeling that familiar sense of falling short in their eyes.

Denise poured boiling water into the teapot. ‘I do worry about this new business of yours, at times, Jack.’

New? He’d been running his Cocktail Campervan for four years now.

‘The sort of people you’ll be mixing with … drinking and all that,’ she continued.

‘Mum … it’s a bar,’ Jack was trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. ‘I’m bound to be mixing with people who drink, that’s the whole idea.’

‘Exactly.’ His mum clearly wasn’t going to be won over with sarcasm.

‘Look, most of the people I deal with are just having a nice time. I’m there to provide a unique and fun bar service for parties and celebrations. Last night there were plenty of older family members there, even good old Grandma. It was a Silver Wedding party, not some rave. A family anniversary celebration, not some drunken mob event.’

‘Yes, but you can always get that element. Why else were you getting punched in the face?’ Dad joined in now.

Why indeed? He didn’t have an answer to that one, unfortunately.

Jack still felt their disappointment, like a cloud hanging over him. He hadn’t taken their preferred route: the four years he was supposed to have knuckled down at uni, taking a law degree before landing that sensible, well-paid job. He’d only managed a year before dropping out to see the world, taking some time out, and landing some bar work abroad. Eighteen months later, coming back home to work as a waiter, soon working his way up to manager, at a busy bar and bistro in the town. Then, of course, he’d branched out on his own, buying and converting Ruby, and starting the Cocktail Campervan.

‘I like my job, Mum. It’s a good little business.’ The campervan bar gave him freedom and flexibility. He was working for himself, he enjoyed it. Every penny he earned was his, and he was doing pretty damned well. He’d managed to save a tidy sum. Okay, so it had its issues, of course. No business was problem- or stress-free. But he worked through all of those issues as they came up – they were challenges, that was all. He could choose his events and working days; giving him time to go and do the things he loved – cycling, running, hiking. He loved the outdoors life. And this was an outdoors job. How many of his mates could work just three or four days a week, make enough money to comfortably get by plus save a bit, and get to enjoy all that free time too?

‘It just doesn’t seem the kind of job to settle down with, though.’ Denise’s brow was still creased as she passed him a mug of steaming tea.

Here we go. Mum was still hoping he’d find the perfect partner, settle down, and have the 2.4 children or whatever the going rate was nowadays. There’d be time for all that … at some point … some distant point.

‘I like it. It’s doing well, and I’m making decent money.’

‘Well, that’s good.’ Dad, at least, was now shifting towards some positive support.

Simon generally preferred to sit in the middle ground on the home front. He focussed his energy on his role as deputy headteacher at the local secondary school; that took up enough of his attention, he didn’t need to start arguing on the domestic front too. Most of the time, he was easy-going and genial. Well, until the stuffing had been knocked out of him eleven years ago … out of them all. That was the only time Jack had ever seen his father cry.

Life could be cut short; they had learned that the hard way. It shouldn’t be spent wasting away in some ‘sensible’ job, not if you hated the thought of getting up to do it every day. Jack was sure about that. The lawyer thing, it had always been their dream for him, not his. He had realised that as soon as he’d started the course, but he’d tried to stick with it, at first.

It was Daniel who was the clever one. Daniel who loved studying, and was all set to become the medic. As young boys, they had always been very different, although Jack had always looked up to him. Jack was more entrepreneurial; selling sweets and cans of fizzy drink from his school bag at break times, boosting his pocket money each week. Daniel was the studious one. It was always going to be hard trying to walk in his shoes; they had always seemed just that little bit too big.