Page 25 of The Man Made of Smoke

They get out of the car and his mother opens the trunk. They begin tocollect their gear, and James looks around the car park again. It’s empty to all intents and purposes… but actually, not quite.

He pauses for a moment, his fingers on the back of the car.

There’s an old camper van tucked away out of sight in one corner, dark and dirty. The branches of the trees above are overgrown and hanging down over it. The vehicle looks abandoned, as though it has been sitting there for years, but there’s something about it that bothers him.

He stares at the pitch-black windows of the cab.

It’s empty, or it looks it, but—

“James!”

He flinches suddenly—then moves his hands away quickly just as the lid of the boot slams down.

The sound echoes around the car park. His mother stares at him.

“Just pay attention,” she says. “Please?”

He’s not sure if she’s talking to him or herself, but he nods anyway.

Then he collects his share of the bags at the back of the car, and follows his mother over the ridge ahead of them. And while he can still feel that old camper van behind him, he doesn’t look back.

James helps his mother pitch the tent—or at least, he tries to. The whole thing is baffling and impossible. He struggles to click the sticks into place and then bend them through the loops on the thin fabric. The frustration becomes almost overwhelming, and he bites his lip in concentration. Everything starts shaking. The tent, the sticks, his hands. Then the end flicks away upward, and he falls back on his heels.

“It doesn’t want to be built,” he says.

His mother is struggling too and seems to be about to lose her temper.

“Don’t do this, James.”

“I wish Dad was here.”

That’s the anger talking. There’s probably nothing he could have said that would hurt his mother more. The stupid thing is that he isn’t even sure if it’s true: it’s been such a long time since James has seen his father that he can’t even really remember what he looks like. It’s more like he’s an absence that would be comforting to fill.

But he knows that’s not how his mother feels. James wrote a letter to his father just before Christmas, talking about life, and how he wished they were all still together. He even drew him a picture. But when he gave it to his mother, she’d tried to argue. So he’d got upset with her, and just as with Barnaby, she’d eventually sighed and looked sad, and promised to send it. But he isn’t sure if she did.

She takes a few deep breaths now, and then puts her hand on his arm.

“I’m trying,” she says.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. Just work with me, okay?”

There is a look of resolve on her face: a determination to make the best of it, despite the shabbiness and smallness of it all.

“Okay,” he says.

When they finish building the tent, it looks barely sufficient to protect them from the elements, but James feels happy with it.

Are you proud of me?he thinks.

That’s all he ever wants, but as usual he doesn’t dare to ask the question. What if she doesn’t reply? Because he’s let go of the anger from earlier, but he’s not sure his mother has. Emotions come and go quickly for him, but he knows that grown-ups hold on to them for much longer, and his mother more than most. So he justthinksthe question instead: concentrating on it so hard that it seems impossible she won’t be able to read his mind.

Are you proud of me?

“I’ll just get some things from the car,” she says.

“I’ll come with you.”

---