How to Hold a Grudge by Sophie Hannah

Author:Sophie Hannah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

The House in Amsterdam

Grudge Type: Selfie Grudge (a grudge you hold against yourself)

Four of us—me, my boyfriend (who later became my husband) and our friends Ewan and Paula—had got into a routine of going on holiday together. We’d done it several times over the years, and several “holiday norms and routines” had developed. One of these was that we didn’t split off into couples; we spent every day and evening together. It was unheard-of, on our holidays, for one of us to say, “I want to walk up Mount Whatnot today, and you guys want to go to the painted cave, so I’ll just go off on my own and do my thing, and I’ll meet you later for dinner.” Any such comment would have been viewed by Ewan and Paula as unfriendly and unsociable. Ewan in particular would have been hurt if he’d thought my boyfriend and I might not want to hang out with him and Paula as a foursome all the time.

One year we went on holiday to Amsterdam. We all wanted to look around lots of art galleries, and go out for nice meals and drinks, so that was uncontroversial. Ewan and Paula also very much wanted to see the Anne Frank House.

At this time in my life, I had had no experience of planning my own holidays. Zero. I’d gone from being a child who went on holidays planned by my parents, to being a very new adult who went on holidays organized by Ewan and Paula, or by my boyfriend’s mother and stepfather. Although I was over eighteen and legally a grown-up, it didn’t occur to me that I should be entirely free to choose what I did or didn’t do on holiday—especially on a holiday with other people, where one might need to compromise.

I very much did not want to go to the Anne Frank House. Although I hadn’t yet grown brave enough to tell the truth about my thoughts and feelings, I have always had strong views about what I do and don’t want to do on holiday. Since I was about six, all I’ve really wanted to do on holiday is swim in the sea, swim in a swimming pool, read on a sun lounger, eat nice food and drink nice drinks, and that’s it. I do love art galleries, so I’m happy to look around the occasional one, and I also like shops. I’m happy to go to the cinema or the theater while on holiday, as long as it doesn’t take away from my beach or pool time.

Here’s something I don’t want, have never wanted and will never want to do on holiday: go to a house associated specifically and exclusively with the genocidal murder of an innocent teenage girl, and immerse myself in thoughts of the horrors she must have suffered.

All the way to Amsterdam, the idea that I had to go to the Anne Frank House on the second afternoon of my week’s holiday (Ewan had drawn

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