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Chapter 1 - Soiled
I squatted down and looked at the fresh footprint in the soft July soil. It wasn’t
one of mine. This should have scared me or at least made me feel uncomfortable. It
didn’t. It pleased me. At last I had something to occupy me and to relieve the brain-shrinking
boredom of a summer holiday at home.
A two-week “staycation” seemed like such a fashionable idea. Then Monday arrived
and passed in a haze of kettle-steam and cups of tea. The only good points were that
my iPod was now full with every piece of music that I owned and I had discovered
a new radio station. This happened by accident as I mindlessly twisted the dial.
However, this small pleasure was tinged with guilt. I felt as if I had left my long-term
partner – the BBC – and found somebody new. If only life were like that: Turn the
dial and, “Hey, she looks really nice.”
The final plus of the day was to have ticked-off the solitary item on my holiday
“to do” list by posting adverts for a lodger on various Oxford websites. Whilst the
iPod, Absolute Radio and the lodger were in my credit column, there was a debit;
I’d discovered a broken clematis wilting against the trellis. I’d blamed a cat –
as I do for every unexplained event in my garden – but, for once, this may have been
unjust. Perhaps it was the owner of the footprint that had broken the plant. If it
were, it would be the most interesting thing that had happened to me for months.
And, if I had gone away for my holiday, I would have missed it.
I’d thought about going to Greece, or France, or anywhere. But why? Who goes on holiday
on their own? Not me. During a moment of madness I’d even considered a package deal.
That would have been the worst – a fortnight in Naxos avoiding people that I didn’t
like, being bored in a spartan room, eating on my own, and reading three-day-old
newspapers that had cost me a fortune. With the exception of the location and the
newspapers, it wasn’t different enough from my everyday existence to justify the
effort.
“Even as a little boy, Robert didn’t really like holidays: He couldn’t wait to get home to play with his toys and to see his friends.”
Joan Mumford
Rob’s mother
