Read Online The If Game by Catherine Storr - Free Book Online Page B

should be shorts or long jeans as spares, trainers or flip-flops. Kept on finding he’d left out something he knew he had to have, then filling the bag so full it wouldn’t close.Wondering all the time where they’d be this time tomorrow, what sleeping on the ground would be like, whether it would be proper sea with big waves and an empty beach, whether he’d be able to swim, what the weather would be like. He hoped the beach wouldn’t be like some he’d seen on television, so packed with deck chairs and bodies that you couldn’t see the sand. Thought, uneasily, how he’d get through whole days spent with Dad alone. If you have a father who doesn’t talk except when he has to, you don’t count much on him for company.
    They got away at a quarter past seven. Not bad, considering that just on the point of leaving, Stephen realized that he’d forgotten to bring his swimming trunks. The front door had to be unlocked for him to go back and find them, which took time, because he hadn’t an idea where they were. It was just chance that while he was searching, his eye fell on his jar of keys and he snatched it up, then decided that he was fed up with them. He left the jar by his bed, and ran out to the car. He’d expected Dad to be cross, but nothing was said, and they drove up the street, across town and out into the country.
    It seemed a long drive, even though they weren’t going to Wales or Cornwall. After the first hour they stopped at a service station and had a sort of breakfast which would do for lunch. Stephen was ravenous and ate sausages and bacon and eggs and mushrooms and fried bread as if he hadn’t had a meal for a week. His dad ate less and studied the map, drinking coffee. Presently he said, ‘Martelsea.’
    Stephen said, ‘What?’
    That’s where we’ll make for. Look! Here on the map.’
    Stephen saw the name on the map. In small writing, not a big place, one side of a little headland sticking outinto the English Channel. Nothing to mark it out as different from thirty other places on the south coast. He said, ‘You been there, Dad?’
    â€˜Not for years. It was all right then. Not touristy, undeveloped you might say. We’ll try there.’
    â€˜How long will it take us from here?’
    â€˜About an hour. If you’ve finished, let’s get going.’
    It took rather more than an hour to reach Martelsea, and it was another two before they had found a place to pitch the tent. They had driven over heath and wooded lanes which wound up and down hills and finally came out into the town, which was small and old fashioned, two streets running down steeply towards the glittering steel-coloured expanse a little way beyond, which must be the sea. But before reaching that, Stephen’s dad insisted they must find the place where they were to spend the night.
    They were refused permission to camp more than once before they struck lucky. And it was luck. They had gone into a small shop, half grocery and fruit and veg, half post office, on the edge of the little town, to ask the man behind the counter if he could tell them of anyone locally who might allow them to camp on their land. He was vague and unhelpful and they were just leaving when a woman who had heard the conversation while she was buying stamps, asked Dad who else was with him and how long he wanted to stay. When she heard that it would be for three or four nights, and that he and Stephen made up the whole party, she offered the bit of ground at the end of her garden for their site. She explained that it was rough ground which her nephews had used for playing football when they were younger. She added that there was an outside toilet in her garden which they were welcome to use, and they could come to her door and ask for water if they needed to.
    Stephen was anxious. His dad didn’t like accepting favours, wasn’t easy with anyone, especially