CHAPTER 20
It turned into a busy pre-holiday session, just when most of us would normally have looked to start winding up our work ready for a few days of sloth. Rob in particular had us drilling with taser deployment, even those of us not licensed to carry them, while Blake refreshed our comms skills, if that is the word for hammering us into exhaustion.

A lot of what both of them were doing was instilling automatic reactions into us, so that our responses would bypass our conscious decision-making and become reflex. It was similar to what we had all done in our safety training, but far more intense, the focus a lot narrower. At the same time, well, not at exactly the same time, we worked to tie down as many details as we could concerning our two lead names, including who they lived with and even how up to date they were with their council tax.

Blake was another surprise, or rather Blake had yet another one for me, in that while we had our arms-length contact with HM Revenue and Customs, his brother only actually worked for the buggers. We drafted several more Data Protection Act applications, just, you know, on the off-chance. Whatever it took, those boys were receiving as full attention as we could manage.

In the end, Candice talked sense into us, and while we knew Elaine would be back for the dreaded New Year’s night shift, we assembled in a horrendously busy Chinese restaurant and ate Stuff while drinking Tiger beer, and our team bonding solidified properly.

The only down side to that was with Chris, who refused to come out with us.

“My darlings, for once, I know you are all bobbies and peelers with big truncheons, but THINK. What happens if they are actually out tonight, and they see me out with you all? What do we do then?”

He was right, we had to agree, but we only did so after a prolonged argument. He really felt like part of our team, and a team do without him was simply a ‘do’, no team involved. As it was, it ended up as an event that skirted the slippery edge of ‘debauch’ but only just. We had silly games, someone produced a Sweary Fairy Tiara that required extremely foul language from the wearer, and Songs were Sung. That was our New Year’s Eve. Christmas had been very different, not just from NYE but also from those I had lived through for the past several years. Blake was with us.

For years, I had lived through each year, not lived them. I had managed to get from one end to the other, January to December, without concerning myself too much about the intervening twelve months. Christmas at our house had always been observed, because that was the way Things Are Done, but I am sure Mam did the dinner on autopilot. Dad did a tree, the three of us put up decorations, ate the dinner, watched ‘The Great Escape’ or ‘Sound of Music’, took the decorations down and went back to work. Suddenly, Dad had a mate to invite over for the day, Mam had someone to natter with while she opened a very dusty bottle of sherry, and I had a dilemma.

What the hell could we talk about? Work was off limits for obvious reasons, Rugby only went so far and the story of my life was simply not going to make an appearance. There was no way I was going to dress up, ever.

“You’re not wearing those, love”

“Why not, Mam?”

The things in question were an old and softly comfy pair of track-suit bottoms and a sweat shirt from Cardiff Uni. And slippers.

“We have a guest, love”

“He is just a workmate, Mam!”

“Here. Try these, I’ve just ironed them”

Shit. At least the slacks were well worn-in, and the top was more of a long-sleeved T-shirt than a dressy blouse, but still.

“And brush your hair!”

So much for a slouch on the settee to whatever Bond film would be on. Whatever; Blake was round at 12 on the dot, and my mother went into hyperdrive. Whatever the other effects of Blake’s visit may have been, one very welcome result was a bloody good meal. We sat at table, we ate, Dad and the big man talked rugby, and Mam smiled. It got to me, in the end, because it was an absolutely bog-standard, unexceptional and ordinary Christmas dinner of the sort we hadn’t had since I was sixteen, and if I hadn’t hated the entire Evans family before we sat down, it was certainly a fact of my life when we moved to the living room.

Mam had offered to do the pud, and all three of us groaned.

“Ok, then. We’ll have it as part of tea. Beer, boys?”

Blake looked at Dad for a lead, and Dad simply grinned and said “That would be lovely, Mam. Er, love”

I beat her to the kitchen, and poured two bottles of ale into glasses only after I had made sure my own softer drink was in front of me. Tightrope walking isn’t easy at the best of times, and with a drink in me it might have been impossible to pull off safely. My swift move also made sure I got an armchair rather than being marooned on the settee, as I suspected I might doze off given the load my stomach had taken on.

In the end, I gave up on that idea, and simply got up, tugged Dad off the settee and into the armchair, and slumped against Mam. I can’t remember which Bond it was, whether film or actor, but it wasn’t spoiled by the constant low conversation between the two men concerning the cars, guns and stunts, impossibility thereof. I do remember one scene, where the Bond actor in question used a perfectly normal bit of rock-climbing gear that had been dressed up as a secret invention by whichever Letter of the Alphabet was supposed to do the hardware, but it dragged me into the conversation. Dad had been a climber in his youth, and before those wonderful things had happened in my life would take me on camping trips to the North, where he taught me the basics.

Afterwards…

After things had changed, he took me away a couple of times, camping in the big site near Capel Curig, or one of the little ones in the Ogwen, but it was never the same. I could never let go of events enough to indulge the there and then, just as I couldn’t for the here and now, but I had still enjoyed my times in the mountains, and it turned out that Blake had been a very keen climber before the job took over his life. I was glad, as it gave us something in common that was risk-free, away from work and personal history, and of course one set of tales of Silly People in Mountains took us straight through to stories of the fools encountered at work.

I realised I was enjoying myself. More than that, I was actually relaxed. We had a bloody good dinner, followed by a delightfully normal evening of telly-fed slumping and silly jokes finishing, without the usual complaints, in a cut-throat game of Scrabble, which Dad won, but only just. I should have been allowed a triple word score, but the other three ganged up on me, so I resolved to look for a copy of the Official Scrabble Word List or whatever the name was for the next time, and only then did my mind put its train of thought into a proper sequence.

Blake fitted. He simply sat down, smiled, relaxed and did his Blake thing, and he took tension out of the room, and the realisation that I was assuming a ‘next time’ would come was the first real surprise. The second was that I didn’t actually object to the idea. I was almost looking forward to it.

So it was dinner, tea, silly film, daft game, a moderately indulgent quantity of alcohol and a decent night’s sleep. He stayed over, we went to work the next day, got utterly shit-faced on New Year’s Eve and reassembled on January 2nd.

It seemed my family was getting a life again.

Those memories were there in colour as I packed the car so many lifetimes later, and so few years. I had indeed run the idea past Him Indoors, and the thought of such a silly idea as Christmas camping set him planning. Rhod was as excited as a dog with two noses and three tails, so there had, in the end, been no alternative. Annie had promised us space in the big tent she had mentioned, and had some spare sleeping mats and other bits. I bought my little man a proper sleeping bag to go with our heaps of quilts and pillows, the satnav was set and we were off.

Motorway. Traffic. Bridge. More motorway. Crap food. Even more motorway. Thank god for electronic tablets loaded with child-friendly animated sedatives and a husband who could drive smoothly, as well as knowing the way.

“Mam! Mam!”

“Yes, love?”

“Aeroplanes! Coming down!”

“Aunty Annie lives near a big airport, love”

“Can we go and see the planes, Mam?”

“We shall see. You can ask Aunty Annie if it’s allowed”

“Will there be fighter planes, Mam?”

“Don’t think so, love. It’s an airport for people who are going on holiday?”

“Are we going on holiday, Mam?”

You devious little sod. “Not that sort of holiday, Rhod”

I smiled to myself. “Ours is a holiday with our family, love"