Take Nothing With You by Gale Patrick

Author:Gale, Patrick [Gale, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472205360
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2018-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Eustace had never travelled so far from home in his life and certainly not on his own. His mother had lent him a folding, Black Watch tartan suitcase, which she said was lighter than the others. She had stored it with lavender bags in it to prevent it turning musty in the loft and he felt sure it would make his clothes smell like someone’s grandmother so packed it at the very last moment in case.

He had never paid much attention to his clothes before. He wore his school uniform most of the year but otherwise wore the clothes his mother bought him and which reappeared in his wardrobe washed and ironed. He had black lace-ups for school and Lysander sandals for holidays. His socks were all knee-length and either black or blue, his Y-fronts, all white. His long-sleeved shirts, like his father’s, were all Tattersall checks; their summer equivalents were plain coloured T-shirts. His mother would countenance nothing with a picture or words on it. He had never considered any of this until required to pack the tartan suitcase with seven of everything, plus a jersey in case, because Scotland was colder than Weston.

Then it dawned on him he was not just going on a cello course, nor going for an extended music lesson, but spending a week in a big house full of complete strangers who might judge him for what he wore. He was grateful that his mother had returned from one of her recent trips to Bristol with some new, flared jeans for him and a couple of cheesecloth shirts but decided to save these for later and travel in clothes he had already broken in.

As the journey was to take nearly seven hours, he packed two of his longest books – a collection of horror stories by H.P. Lovecraft, which Vernon had lent him, and E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View . Louis had recommended he read the Forster.

‘You’re the perfect age for it,’ he said in the tone he used in which Eustace could never distinguish kindness from teasing, ‘as it’s all about yearning and escape.’

Come the morning he had assumed he would catch a train from Weston but his mother, not smitten by the expected headache, insisted on driving him to Bristol to catch the train from there.

‘It won’t be complicated changing trains,’ he told her.

‘No,’ she conceded, ‘but you’ve your cello as well as the suitcase with you and it would be a disaster if you missed your connection.’

Although his father always had chores to keep him busy in the morning, he insisted on coming as well. ‘Nonsense. It’ll be fun,’ he said. ‘It’s not every day you go on an adventure like this.’

But actually it wasn’t much fun as his parents’ forced air of holiday jollity and their slightly repetitive questions about the course kept breaking down into little irritated exchanges about his father’s reluctance to overtake lorries.

‘I’m sure they’re going as fast as they can,’ he’d say.

‘If he misses his train, it’ll be all your fault,’ she’d snap back.

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