Occupied

The peg bag's missing from the inside back left corner of the tent. Which is where Bryan always puts it, because the thing about camping is that it all turns to custard if you don't maintain strict order around routine and storage.

-  Sue Orr

So. That's weird.

Geoff, his camp neighbour, is keen to help him pack up the tent. He's already done his own. He keeps darting in and out, talking on his cellphone, coming back to check how Bryan's getting on with the search. Geoff's with the government but he'd rather not say which department. On holiday? Something like that, he said, when Bryan wandered over to introduce himself on the first day.

Bryan crouches, bends through the stabby old knee pain. The bag's dark green and nylon and from memory has a white mountain range printed on it, though he could be wrong about that. Fraying at one corner and if you don't watch yourself the sharp end of a spare peg will get you.

Have another look. It'll be right under your nose. Irene, dead a whole decade but still annoying him with her top tips. Another one of hers: keep an eye on young Robbie when I'm gone. It'll stop you fretting about things. Keep you occupied.

So when his grandson said he was coming here, Bryan said righty-oh, Irene. He pulled the old tent out of the garage rafters. Laid it out on the lawn and checked whether all the bits were there. They were. He was going to erect it in the garden - a practice run. But that made him think about Irene again, the way she sat on the porch steps, cigarette ash on the droop, reading out the tent instructions in her come-to-bed drawl. The cancer had done that - done things to her voice that could melt a man. Men. Remembering all that business made him weepy, so he put all the bits back in the bag and put the bag in the back of the car, ready for the trip.