Goat’s Cheese

It turned out Hortensia walked faster than the two of them put together.

On that back road, Hortensia set the pace and told stories that had Axel laughing so hard he could barely walk.

“I fell into a horse trough on the day of my first communion,” she said, without anyone asking. “Dress, gloves, crown, the lot. Well, fell, not exactly. My brother pushed me, because I’d said in front of three cousins that his crown was made of butcher’s paper. Which it was. And I got dunked in the trough and nobody said a word to him, because he was in shorts and shorts dry.”

Axel was in stitches.

“And there were frogs in it, you know. And slime. And they sat me on a bench to dry off like a fish on a slab, and from that bench I watched everyone else’s communion.” She lifted her chin. “And I had a better time than any of them.”

The sun was starting to go down.

“We should start thinking about where we’re stopping,” said Axel.

A bit further on the perfect spot turned up. A flat bit of ground by the river, with fat trees, three stone tables and some brick barbecues gone black inside.

There was also a very impressive sign: NO CAMPING OR FIRES OUTSIDE DESIGNATED AREAS.

“Right,” said Axel. “We’ll find somewhere else, then.”

“What for?” Hortensia was already in.

“Because it says you can’t.”

“It says you can’t camp. We’re not camping, pet, we’re sleeping.” She dumped her rucksack on a stone table. “And the barbecue’s designated. It says so right there. Designated.”

Eva had stayed on the gravel at the edge, not setting foot on the grass.

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why ever not, love?”

“Because someone turns up and that’s that.”

“Who’s going to turn up here?” Hortensia laughed. “Worst that can happen in a place like this is a wild boar comes out. And boars couldn’t care less about signs.”

Axel thought about it for a couple of seconds. Until yesterday he’d arrived everywhere fifteen minutes early. One night sleeping outdoors and he already fancied himself an adventurer.

“Come on, Eva, it’ll be fine.”

And in he went.

Eva stood on the gravel a moment longer. Then she came in too.

Hortensia had been into the village shop and bought things without looking at the price: four thick steaks, fresh bread, tomatoes, a bulb of garlic, a bag of charcoal and three different jars of sauce.

“Three?” said Axel.

“I didn’t know which one you liked.”

Best of all was when she produced an aluminium moka pot, a three-cup one with the price sticker still on it.

“What’s this?”

“That was the first thing I picked up,” she said, dead serious. “The rest we can sort out as we go. But I don’t leave the house without coffee.”

“It’s heavy,” said Axel, and he was already putting it in the top pocket of his rucksack.

Axel tipped the charcoal into the barbecue, wrestled with the newspaper for a while and waited for the coals to glow before putting the steaks on. There was no mortar, so he crushed the garlic with the bottom of a glass, put the bread on the grill to catch the fat and began asking Hortensia to pass him things as though he’d been head chef all his life.

“Here, you know what you’re doing,” she said.

“Nah. I’m winging it.”

By then it was dark, and they ate with their hands at the stone table, with the sound of the river behind them. Fay polished off a whole steak all by himself.

Eva eventually forgot about the sign and started humming with her mouth full, watching the fire. Axel had his back to them, crouching beside the barbecue and wrestling with an ember.

Hortensia stopped chewing to look at Eva, then at Axel’s back, then at Eva again. She went on eating very slowly, with the expression of a woman who’s just heard a juicy bit of gossip halfway through Mass and hasn’t yet found anyone to tell.

The tent was good and light, but the bloke who’d bought it had been planning to travel alone, and there was only room for two.

“I’ll sleep outside,” said Eva. “I’ve got my plastic sheet.”

“Nobody’s sleeping under a bit of plastic when there’s a tent,” said Hortensia. And that was the end of that.

They fitted, just, all three on their sides like sardines. Hortensia took the middle because she was the skinniest, and Fay settled on whichever legs he fancied.

Hortensia made a pillow out of her cardigan, folded with the pocket on the inside, and patted it flat twice.

“This is indecent,” she said, over the moon.

What didn’t fit was Axel’s rucksack. He pushed it, turned it, stood it up, laid it down. Nothing.

“Leave it outside, for goodness’ sake.”

“What if it rains?”

“Then it gets wet. Stick it under the table and get in.”

Axel went out, put it under the stone table, threw the poncho over it and came back in.

Eva had put her school rucksack inside the blue one, folded, shoelace and all, and zipped it up over the top.

They lay down and managed a moment of silence before Hortensia began sniffing.

“Good God almighty,” said Hortensia. “What is that?”

“No idea what you’re on about,” said Axel.

“It smells like dead cheese, my boy.”

“It’s his feet,” said Eva calmly. “They absolutely reek.”

“They do not reek, you horror.”

“They reek like you wouldn’t believe.”

“It’s because the tent’s shut.”

“The tent smells of tent. You smell of something else.”

“Of cheese,” said Hortensia.

“Goat’s cheese,” said Eva. “The kind with the white rind.”

“It’s not cheese!”

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Hortensia was laughing so hard the whole tent was shaking. “My father had feet just the same and in the army they called him Old Mature. But open that zip, for the love of God!”

Axel opened it a hand’s width, grumbling. In came the cold and the sound of the river.

“Eva?” said Hortensia after a while.

“What?”

“Do you snore?”

“Like a train.”

“Oh, good. We’re even, then.”

“Even? Who’s even?” said Axel. “I’m the only one in here who’s not getting a wink of sleep.”

Ten minutes later both women were snoring with a volume you’d never have thought could come out of that tent. Axel, though, was still thinking about the sign and the fines. He remembered Eva’s face on the gravel and how easily he’d come out with “it’ll be fine”.

He fell asleep late.

And at six-something in the morning a car door woke him up.