Free Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert Page B

David’s colonial intonation didn’t bother Alan, but he knew very well the effect it had on her. He said once he couldn’t understand her: so impervious to her father’s lack of grace, and yet so painfully aware of his occasional slip in pronunciation.
    – That’s just the way your Dad learnt it. It doesn’t mean anything.
    – I’m not dense, I know the way he comes across. Anyway, I’m not sure many Kenyans would agree with you about that.
    – I’m sure most Kenyans have got more important things to worry about, no?
    Alan usually knew when to stop: Alice’s mother would throw something at him, a sofa cushion, a newspaper, anything soft but big or noisy enough to make them both laugh. But Alice had been present a few times when teasing wasn’t enough. She’d spent a weekend up at the farm with them not long after Alan’s conference, and the silent breakfast with his father-in-law obviously stillirked. Alice remembered her mum and Alan debating Grandad while they were packing up the car to drive back to York:
    – I never know what he’s thinking. Not just about me, about anything. I can’t be around someone like that for too long. It makes me nervous.
    – Maybe that’s your problem then, not his?
    – He’s such a stuffed shirt.
    – Do you have to be so rude about my Dad?
    Alan blinked at her. Then went on.
    – I’m sorry, Sarah, but I think he’s rude. It’s arrogant to think you’re above conversation.
    – You’ve got him all wrong.
    – Well, he doesn’t give me much to go on. Maybe he should risk an argument with me. At least we’d get to know each other that way.
    Her mum didn’t respond, just shifted an awkward box from the boot to the back seat, and Alice wondered if she was swallowing something: the risk of this argument turning serious too great for her to take. Alan was quiet too, shoving their rucksacks over to make more room, and it seemed as though he might be regretting what he’d said, or at least how he’d said it. Her mum got into the driver’s seat, and Alice picked up the last of the bags from the path, finished packing the boot with Alan, in silent solidarity. Hard to love someone if you don’t know much about them. Her grandfather didn’t dislike Alan, she was sure of that: he could be just as offhand with her and her mother, but at least they knew he was fond of them too.
    Joseph had been on that part of the coast a few times. His dad used to take him camping, just the two of them: places a train ride away at first, then further afield after they got the car. They never went away long, just a night or two, a weekend here or there. They didn’t have a stove or build a fire, just took sandwiches, ate pies and things from packets. Flew kites they made themselves and crashed them, got better at them over the years. His dad always had a can and a cigarette last thing, outside the tent when Joseph was meant to be asleep, and Joseph could remember listening to him, sitting quietly out in the dark, and the smell of it all too: night air, fag smoke, the earth underneath. They drove to the Kent beaches mainly, Herne Bay, Whitstable and Deal, because his dad liked the sea, but he took them to the Downs sometimes too, the High Weald. Joseph wasn’t sure he liked it there at first, missed the seaside towns, piers and arcades. But there were cliffs and woods as well as beaches, and chalk in the ground that came up with the tent pegs. The longest they were away was a week, when Joseph was about thirteen: the last proper trip they did together, too long probably, and Joseph was too old by then. Navigating while his dad drove them further every day, when all he wanted was to turn back and head for London again. He remembered making a box kite with his dad on the dunes at Rye. For auld lang syne, his dad said, and Joseph said nothing because he didn’t want a sentimental morning. But the kite was one of their better efforts, and Joseph remembered the beachtoo, curving for what