Page 62 of The One Plus One
He signalled and swung the wheel. ‘I might.’
‘Do you have more than one car?’
He glanced sideways. ‘Yes.’
‘Then you’re rich.’
‘Nope. Rich is private jets and yachts. Rich is staff.’
‘So what am I?’
Mr Nicholls shook his head. ‘Not staff. You’re…’
‘What?’
‘I’m just trying to imagine your face if I’d referred to you as my staff.’
Mum started to laugh. ‘My woman-servant. My cleaning wench.’
‘Yeah. Or those. Okay, well, what would you say is rich?’
Mum pulled one of the buffet apples from her bag and bit into it. She chewed for a minute before speaking. ‘Rich is paying every single bill on time without thinking about it. Rich is being able to have a holiday or get through Christmas without having to borrow against January and February. Actually, rich would be just not thinking about money all the bloody time.’
‘Everyone thinks about money. Even rich people.’
‘Yes, but you’re just thinking what to do with it to make more money. Whereas I’m thinking how the hell we can get enough of it to get through another week.’
Mr Nicholls made a sort of harrumphing sound. ‘I can’t believe I’m driving you to Scotland and you’re giving me a hard time because you’ve misguidedly decided I’m some kind of Donald Trump.’
‘I’m not giving you a hard time.’
‘Noooo.’
‘I’m just pointing out that there’s a difference between what you consider to be rich and what is actually rich.’
There was a sort of awkward silence. Mum blushed like she’d said too much and started eating her applewith big, noisy bites, even though she would have told Tanzie off if she had eaten like that. She had come awake again by then and she didn’t want Mum and Mr Nicholls to stop talking to each other because they were having quite a nice day, so she put her head through the front seats. ‘Actually, I read somewhere that to qualify for the top one per cent in this country you would need to earn more than a hundred and forty thousand pounds a year,’ she said helpfully. ‘So if Mr Nicholls doesn’t earn that much then he probably isn’t rich.’ She smiled and sat back in her seat.
Mum looked at Mr Nicholls. She kept looking at him.
Mr Nicholls rubbed his head. ‘I tell you what,’ he said, after a while, ‘shall we stop off and get some tea?’
Moreton Marston looked like it had been invented for tourists. Everything was made of the same grey stone and really old, and everyone’s gardens were perfect, with tiny blue flowers creeping over the tops of walls, and immaculate little baskets of trailing leaves, like something out of a book or maybeMidsomer Murders. There was a faint smell of sheep in the air, and you could hear them in the far distance, and there was this chill in the breeze, as if it was warning you what it could be like on a day that wasn’t sunny. The shops were all the kind you get on Christmas cards, in the market square a woman dressed as a Victorian was selling buns from a tray and groups of tourists wandered around taking pictures of everything. Tanzie was so busy gazing out of the window at it that she didn’t notice Nicky at first. It was onlywhen they pulled into the parking space that she noticed he had gone really quiet. He wasn’t looking at the phone – even though, she knew, he had really, really wanted it – and his face was all white. She asked him whether his ribs were hurting, and he said no, and when she asked if he had an apple down his trousers that he couldn’t get out, he said, ‘No, Tanze, just drop it,’ but the way he said it, there was definitely something. Tanzie looked at Mum but she was busy not looking at Mr Nicholls and Mr Nicholls was busy making this big to-do about finding the best parking space. Norman just looked up at Tanzie, like ‘Don’t even bother asking.’
Everyone got out and stretched and Mr Nicholls said they were all having tea and cake and it was his treat and please could we not make a big financial deal out of it as it was just tea, okay, and Mum raised her eyebrows like she was going to say something and then just muttered, ‘Thank you,’ but not with good grace.
They sat down in a café whose name was Ye Spotted Sowe Tea Shoppe, even though Tanzie would bet there were no tea shoppes in medieval times. She was pretty sure they didn’t even have tea then. Nobody else seemed to mind. Nicky got up to go to the loo. And Mr Nicholls and Mum were at the counter choosing what to eat so she clicked on Mr Nicholls’s phone and the first thing that came up was Nicky’s Facebook page. She waited for a minute because Nicky got really annoyed if people looked at his stuff, and then when she was sure he really was in the loo she made the screen go bigger so she could read it and then she went cold. The Fishers hadposted messages and pictures of men doing rude things to other men all over Nicky’s timeline. They had called him GIMP and FAGBOY, and even though Tanzie didn’t know what the words meant she knew they were bad and she suddenly felt sick. She looked up and Mum was coming back holding a tray.
‘Tanzie! Be careful with Mr Nicholls’s phone!’
The phone had clattered onto the edge of the table. She didn’t want to touch it. She wondered if Nicky was crying in the loos. She would have done.
When she looked up Mum was staring at her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
She sat down and pushed an orange cupcake on a plate across the table. Tanzie wasn’t hungry any more, even though it was covered with sprinkles.
‘Tanze. What’s wrong? Talk to me.’
