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‘Is that your sheepdog? He doesn’t look very lively.’ Harry said, bending down to pat the dog, whose tail thumped against the doorframe as it wagged.
‘This old one’s a girl. Jen, they call her. Never made it as a sheepdog, not sharp enough, if you know what I mean, but she’s a friendly old lass, I’ll give her that. Company for me in the house. Our Peter’s right fond of her, couldn’t bear to part with her, even when she never made the grade. He’s not usually so soft, mind, only when it comes to the dogs.’
‘I’ve got a granny called Jen,’ Harry said.
‘I know, dear,’ said Mrs. Thompson. ‘Now, you can pitch where you like. There’s some lovely spots so you can pick one to suit you both. We don’t have too many rules here, so you’ll have to take as you find.’
Amy could cope with that. There had been a huge list of rules at the Scarborough caravan site where they’d stayed last year, on what had turned out to be their last holiday with her mother.
‘There’s showers and toilets in the stone building there,’ Mrs. Thompson continued, ‘and a washing up area and a washing machine as well as the bins in the end of the old barn, do you see the green door there? You don’t want a hook-up, do you?’
Amy stared in horror at Mrs. Thompson. What kind of campsite was she running here? ‘Hook-up?’
‘An electric hook-up point. To plug in your heater, your kettle and such like?’
‘Oh, I understand,’ she said with relief. ‘No. We’ve not got any of that.’ Her mam’s old camping kettle went on the double gas-burner, and she hadn’t even considered a heater, which was a shame, because the light mizzling rain which had been falling ever since they arrived was cold and starting to leak through her old waterproof coat. ‘Thank you. Right, Harry, let’s go and pick ourselves a spot.’
‘If you need anything, just knock on the door!’ Mrs. Thompson called after them.
Mrs. Thompson had seemed old twenty-five years ago, and yet she was still here, and Amy’s mam had gone. It didn’t seem right — and yet, it was comforting in some ways that so little had changed. For one moment she had forgotten she couldn’t phone her mam and say: we’ve arrived, and you’ll never guess what! Mrs. Thompson is still here! Yes, still going strong …
Amy still talked to her mother all the time even though she was gone. She kept the box containing her ashes carefully wrapped in the bottom of her wardrobe where she could still feel close to her, until she could decide what to do with them. Part of her wanted to keep them there forever, for the comfort of knowing she was safe, but that wasn’t what Mam would have wanted, to spend eternity in the bottom of a wardrobe.
‘Can I go off and play now?’ Harry asked. ‘Please? You said when we’d been to the farmhouse I could?’
He’d sat still for so long in the car as they crossed the Pennines. Perhaps he did need to run off some of that energy, and it would let Amy get the tent pitched.
‘Go on then. Change your shoes first, put your old ones on. Your dad won’t like it if you get those new trainers muddy.’ If he wrecked them on this camping trip, James would hold her personally responsible, and she couldn’t afford to replace them. ‘Stay where I can see you. I might need your help with the tent. Try not to fall out of any trees or into the beck.’
‘Okay!’ he said. ‘I wonder if there are any other kids here to play with?’
‘I think a lot of these tents are probably backpackers. They look like one-person tents, don’t they? So maybe not too many kids.’ She wasn’t too upset by that because she wanted this to be a holiday for just her and Harry, like it had been just herself and her mam when she was a little girl.
‘Oh well. Guess I’ll have to play by myself then.’ He ran off in the direction of the car to change into his old trainers. It would be easier to put the tent up without him getting in the way and constantly asking for food, and he would enjoy exploring down by the beck. It wouldn’t take long; she’d have the tent up in half-an-hour or so, and the kettle on.
How hard could it be to pitch a tent?
