Goat’s Cheese

It turned out Hortensia walked faster than the two of them put together.

She went out in front along a back road, setting the pace and telling stories. And she told them brilliantly. That was the surprise.

“I fell into a horse trough on the day of my first communion,” she said, without anyone asking. “Dress, gloves, crown, the lot. Well, fell, not exactly. My brother pushed me, because I’d said in front of three cousins that his crown was made of butcher’s paper. Which it was. And I got dunked in the trough and nobody said a word to him, because he was in shorts and shorts dry.”

Axel was in bits.

“And there were frogs in it, you know. And slime. And they sat me on a bench to dry off like a fish on a slab, and from that bench I watched everyone else’s communion.” She lifted her chin. “And I had a better time than any of them.”

The sun was starting to go down.

“We should start thinking about where we’re stopping,” said Axel.

A bit further on the perfect spot turned up. A flat bit of ground by the river, with fat trees, three stone tables and some brick barbecues gone black inside.

And a sign.

NO CAMPING OR FIRES OUTSIDE DESIGNATED AREAS

“Right,” said Axel. “We’ll find somewhere else, then.”

“What for?” Hortensia was already in.

“Because it says you can’t.”

“It says you can’t camp. We’re not camping, pet, we’re sleeping.” She dumped her rucksack on a stone table. “And the barbecue’s designated. It says so right there. Designated.”

Eva had stayed on the gravel at the edge, not setting foot on the grass.

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why ever not, love?”

“Because someone turns up and that’s that.”

“Who’s going to turn up here?” Hortensia laughed. “Worst that can happen in a place like this is a wild boar comes out. And boars couldn’t care less about signs.”

Axel thought about it for two seconds. Him, who got everywhere with fifteen minutes to spare. Who’d spent one night sleeping wherever he fancied and already felt like an explorer.

“Come on, Eva, it’ll be fine.”

And in he went.

Eva stood on the gravel a moment longer. Then she came in too.

Hortensia had been into the village shop and bought things without looking at the price: four thick steaks, fresh bread, tomatoes, a bulb of garlic and three different jars of sauce.

“Three?” said Axel.

“I didn’t know which one you liked.”

And a coffee pot. An aluminium stovetop one, the three-cup kind, still with the price sticker on.

“What’s this?”

“That’s the first thing I grabbed.” Very serious. “Everything else we’ll see. But I don’t leave the house without coffee.”

“It’s heavy,” said Axel, and he was already putting it in the top pocket of his rucksack.

He lit the barbecue with two sheets of newspaper and it caught first time. Then he went to town on the steaks. He crushed the garlic with the bottom of a glass because there was no mortar. He toasted the bread on the grill so it soaked up the fat. He kept asking Hortensia for this and that like he was in a real kitchen.

“Here, you know what you’re doing,” she said.

“Nah. I’m winging it.”

They ate with their hands at the stone table, with the river going behind them and night already down. Fay polished off a whole steak all by himself.

And at some point Eva forgot about the sign.

She started humming with her mouth full, quietly, looking at the fire. Axel had his back to her, crouched at the barbecue, fighting with an ember.

Hortensia stopped chewing. She looked at Eva. She looked at Axel’s back. She looked at Eva again.

She carried on chewing very slowly, with a tiny mouth, like a lady who’s just found something out at Mass.

The tent was a two-man. Good, light, bought for one.

“I’ll sleep outside,” said Eva. “I’ve got my plastic.”

“Nobody’s sleeping under a bit of plastic when there’s a tent,” said Hortensia. And that was the end of that.

They fitted. They fitted in a very particular way: all three on their sides like sardines, Hortensia in the middle because she was the skinniest, and Fay on top of whoever’s legs he fancied.

Hortensia made a pillow out of her cardigan, folded with the pocket on the inside, and patted it flat twice.

“This is indecent,” she said, over the moon.

What didn’t fit was Axel’s rucksack. He pushed it, turned it, stood it up, laid it down. Nothing.

“Leave it outside, for goodness’ sake.”

“What if it rains?”

“Then it gets wet. Stick it under the table and get in.”

Axel went out, put it under the stone table, threw the waterproof over it and came back in.

He saw something he didn’t understand. Eva had put her school rucksack inside the blue one, folded, shoelace and all, and zipped it up over the top.

They lay down. It went quiet.

And then.

“Good God almighty,” said Hortensia. “What is that?”

“No idea what you’re on about,” said Axel.

“It smells like dead cheese, my boy.”

“It’s his feet,” said Eva, very calm, like she was reading the weather. “They absolutely reek.”

“They do not reek, you horror.”

“They reek like you wouldn’t believe.”

“It’s because the tent’s shut.”

“The tent smells of tent. You smell of something else.”

“Of cheese,” said Hortensia.

“Goat’s cheese,” said Eva. “The kind with the white rind.”

“It’s not cheese!”

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Hortensia was laughing so hard the whole tent was shaking. “My father had feet just the same and in the army they called him Old Mature. But open that zip, for the love of God!”

Axel opened it a hand’s width, grumbling. In came the cold and the sound of the river.

“Eva?” said Hortensia after a while.

“What?”

“Do you snore?”

“Like a train.”

“Oh, good. We’re even, then.”

“Even? Who’s even?” said Axel. “I’m the only one in here who’s not getting a wink of sleep.”

The snoring started ten minutes later, in two voices, and it was spectacular. But what kept Axel awake was the sign. He lay staring at the roof of the tent, thinking about fines. About Eva’s face on the gravel. About how he’d said “it’ll be fine” without having a clue.

He fell asleep late.

And at six-something in the morning a car door woke him up.