Free Precious Time by Erica James Page A

forgive Caspar for what he had done.
    Downstairs in the kitchen, while he washed the paintbrush under the tap and squirted a dose of Fairy Liquid on to the bristles, Jonah wondered if a family as bitterly divided as his could ever be reconciled.

Chapter Nine
    With Ned’s help, and with the aid of a simple device that turned the white plastic barrel into a mini garden roller, Clara was pushing their fresh supply of water across the dewy grass of the Happy Dell campsite towards Winnie. It was one of the many things about camper-vanning that Clara enjoyed: the multitude of unexpectedly clever gadgets that made life a little easier.
    This was their fourth day on the road, and already Clara and Ned considered themselves old hands at it. They were perfectly at one with the intricacies of their cassette toilet, could turn a dinette seat into a double bed with the speed and professionalism of a Formula One pit stop, could knock up mouth-watering meals on the two burner stove at the flick of a hand and, perhaps more importantly, they could do it all without once feeling as though they were living on top of each other. It was extraordinary how quickly they had adapted to living life in miniature. It reminded Clara of when she’d been a little girl and had played constantly with the doll’s house her father had made for her. She had been fascinated with the scaled down world he had created, and it was the same for her now with Winnie. Everything was so incredibly well designed, and appealed to her logical way of thinking and her need for order. As a child she had been ridiculously organised: her mud-pies were always neatly prepared, her bedroom was tidier than any other room in the house, her schoolwork immaculately presented - and always handed in on time - her social life thought out with every consideration given to when, how, where and with whom. And woe betide anyone who
    interfered with this carefully ordered infrastructure. At the age of ten, she had spent hours drawing cut-away sections of houses, each room in minute detail, and people joked that one day she would become an architect, or maybe an interior designer. When she expanded her repertoire to sketch the roads the houses occupied, then mapped out whole villages and communities of harmonious synchrony, they suggested town planning. Her brother accused her of being a control freak.
    But if Winnie appealed to Clara’s desire for pigeonholed regularity, it was a joy to see how Ned, too, loved their new home,
    especially his bed over the cab. He would lie up there with Mermy and his battalion of cuddly toys, pretending to read to them from his favourite storybooks, and Clara was relieved that, so far, he had shown no sign of missing anything he had left behind. But, as Louise would have been quick to point out, it was early days yet.
    Much as Ned loved the bed to which he had to climb up, there was a disadvantage in the arrangement, which had come to light on their first night. At three in the morning he had woken needing the toilet.
    It was the kerfuffle of him sitting up, bumping his head and letting out a cry that had woken Clara. It took her a few seconds to gather her wits, switch on the reading light and climb up to him. Parting the curtains, she had helped him down and carried him to the loo. He was so drowsy that she had had him tucked in again and fast asleep before she was back in her own bed.
    But he had always been a good sleeper, even as a baby. At two days old he had slipped straight into a comfortable, convenient routine of feeds and napping that had rendered her parents nostalgically envious. ‘Why weren’t you and Michael like this as babies?’ her mother had said, bending over the Moses basket and itching to smother her first grandchild with love as he slept on, his tiny hands balled into fists the size of walnuts, his lips quivering like butterfly wings. ‘You both had me up at all hours, never gave me a minute’s peace. Ooh, look, he’s opened his