The Things I Should Have Told You by Carmel Harrington

Author:Carmel Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008150112
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

OLLY

We’ve been in the Loire Valley now for two days.

I think we all felt regret as we said goodbye to the chateau. Mae said, ‘We’ll be back,’ as we drove down the long avenue. This sentiment was echoed by the whoops from Jamie and even a smile from Evie. Me? Well, I’m just glad that Mae is thinking about a future that includes the word ‘we’ in it. I’ll take all the victories, even the small ones.

The drive down south was uneventful. We took our time, stopping off at the services for a coffee. Door to door it took us just over four hours. And with some relief, somewhere over the past few days I’ve gotten used to Nomad’s intricacies. Here’s a top tip though, don’t leave it to the last minute to hit the brake when driving downhill. Especially when the lights turn red and you have no choice but to sail on through them. Whilst you pray that you’re not about to kill your family in a spectacular moment of idiocy. Just saying.

Top tip two, if you are planning a bank robbery, you wouldn’t choose Nomad as your getaway vehicle. Zero to sixty mph in about ten minutes, I’d say, is a fair assessment.

It is tiring, driving a camper van. Far more so than, say, our car at home would be for the same distance. It’s just heavier, I suppose. Mae has offered to drive, but I know she’s not keen.

Pops found us another gem of a campsite. Domaine de l’Etang is in the Anjou wine-growing region of France. Surrounded by vineyards, our site even produces its own wine, which we’ve happily bought from the campsite shop. As Mae said last night as we sipped a glass under the stars, ‘We’re a long way from home, Toto.’

Jamie is having a ball because there is a water park next to the campsite, with slides, toboggans and rafts and we seem to be spending most of our day there. We’ve been walking along the river to the local town each evening for dinner. I like Brissac-Quincé. It’s small enough, but has a majestic feel, with its own castle. We even stumbled across a fantastic market on Thursday and managed to buy lots for only a few euro.

Taking aside the unmerciful amounts of cheese we are eating every day, Mae and I are in better shape than we’ve been for a long time. Since that night – which is now up there with the best I’ve ever had – it seems we haven’t lost our inner teenager. We can’t stop touching each other. And I don’t even mean that in a sexual way. I mean the small, fleeting touches during the day as we pass by each other. I’d forgotten how much a touch can sustain me until an opportunity for some time away from the kids.

Mae will touch my shoulder as she walks by me. Or walk up behind me and hug me from behind, resting her chin on my shoulder, as we watch Jamie or Evie splashing in the water.

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