Page 29 of Jenny James Is Not a Disaster
He starts googling on his phone, while I clear away and wash our dishes. At first, I am confused as to why no water comesout of the taps but remind myself to switch on the pump. Duh. Luke has already filled the tank and emptied the waste, and our leisure battery is fully charged. This, I am sure, is as ready as it gets for a motorhome. I dry the crockery and wrap it, as I have been shown by the master. I also do a quick scan of windows and skylights to make sure we’re good to go.
By the time I go back outside, Charlie is looking excited, gazing at Luke’s phone screen and nodding.
“Mum, you wouldn’t believe how many zombie films have been made in the UK! You know inWorld War Z, when they’re driving through Philadelphia trying to escape?”
“I do indeed. Brad Pitt being all macho and pretty at the same time.”
“Well, that wasn’t Philadelphia; it was bloody Glasgow! And at the end, when he goes to Nova Scotia, it wasn’t even Nova Scotia—it was someplace called Lulworth Cove in Dorset!”
His voice is slightly higher than normal as the words tumble out; he is so thrilled he can barely contain himself. “Wow,” I say, smiling, “the magic of Hollywood, eh? But... Glasgow isn’t in England, and Lulworth Cove is a long, long way away. Anywhere closer to home?”
“On it,” says Luke, continuing his quest.
Charlie pipes up: “We looked atShaun of the Dead, but it was all London, and, you know, that doesn’t really fit with the vibe, does it?”
“What about28 Days Later?” Luke asks, frowning at his screen.
“A classic,” Charlie replies firmly. “Fast zombies, though. Really scary. You need your zombies to be slow if you want to escape.”
“Well, I don’t suppose we need to worry about that, love—because, you know, zombies aren’t real?” I say, patting him on the shoulder.
“Ha! You’ve clearly not spent much time in the amusement arcade on a Sunday night. So where are we going, Luke?”
He sounds so thrilled, like a little kid sitting in the back of the car playing the ever-popular “are we nearly there?” game.
“Okay,” Luke replies, after some championship-level scrolling, “this could work. One of my picks was the Lake District—it’ll be in the hat somewhere, and now seems insanely mundane.”
“It does,” adds Charlie. “The way we’re going, we’ll be pulling out bits of paper that say ‘the far side of Jupiter.’”
“Nah,” I say, shaking my head. “Never Jupiter. I hate Jupiter. It’s so full of gas. Totally up itself.”
“Yeah, I know,” replies Charlie, grinning. “It’s such a show-off—I mean, who cares if it’s the biggest? If Jupiter was a person, they’d be an absolute cock, like one of those giant meathead men who goes to the gym and eats seven turkeys a day and has steroids for breakfast and parks their jeep in the disabled spots.”
“Or one of those people who go on talent shows and say they’re the world’s best singer in the video clip and when they audition, they’re terrible, and you find yourself wondering why they didn’t have any friends who told them that before they humiliated themselves on national television,” I add.
“Yeah. Total loser of a planet!”
Charlie holds up his palm, and I slap it with a high five.
Luke is leaning back in his chair. “I love your double act,” he says. “You should start a YouTube channel.”
I examine his tone for any sign of sadness, but all I find is genuine amusement. After last night, after learning that he lost his own child, his little Katie, there is part of me that worries about this kind of thing—the easy knockabout chatter I share with Charlie, the bond that isn’t perfect but always strong. I have had eighteen years with him, already far longer than Lukehad with Katie, and Charlie and I can talk like this for hours. Now more than ever, I appreciate just how lucky I am.
“Well, maybe not a YouTube channel,” I say, “but I did do some writing last night. Did a review of our day on one of those touring websites. I thought it only fair that I share that picture of Charlie asleep in the pub in Haworth with drool on his chin.”
“You didn’t, did you?” he says, looking aghast.
“No. But I do have the photo on my phone, so watch your step, sunshine. Anyway... I enjoyed it, writing it all up. Might start doing it for myself, keeping a diary.”
“Will there be any rough caresses or thrusting against the walls of the school gym?” Charlie asks, winking. He has clearly been reading those damned notebooks again, and I blush slightly.
“Moving on...,” I say, keen to do exactly that. “Where to then, Luke?”
“A place called Ennerdale Water,” he says, “in the western side of the Lake District. Apparently the closing scenes of28 Days Laterwere filmed there.”
I don’t remember the movie too vividly—I think I watched it once with Charlie when I was half asleep after work—but he clearly does.
“I know the bit you mean,” he says. “The survivors are holed up in a farmhouse and they spell out HELLO with curtains and stuff on the hillside until the rescue plane spots them. It looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. That’d be really cool. Have we got time for me to go and use the showers?”
