Part 25 (1/2)

'You so do!' Joe glared at me and for a moment I saw Lexie. 'Tell about the time when me and Polly got turned into rattlesnakes,' he said. 'When we were on a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and we killed the bad guys with a laser gun and then when we got home again we met with the President and Congress. Dad, what's Congress?'

'It's a bunch of guys in Was.h.i.+ngton who talk all day and half the night and then they tell us what to do. It's called the democratic process. What colour are these rattlesnakes?'

'Magenta.'

'Huh?'

'It's a kind of purple. Dad, don't you know anything? Anyways, these rattlesnakes ...'

Joe told most of the story. Polly listened carefully, snuggled up against my chest and sucking on my cuff. But she was already dozing off as I kissed them goodnight.

'Dad, I'm not tired,' said Joe.

'You need to get some sleep. We're heading out tomorrow early. We'll see something awesome.'

'Did it come from outer s.p.a.ce?'

ROSIE.

It wasn't such a huge success, the outing with his children.

Or it wasn't at first, at any rate.

I drove to meet them at a big hotel in Guildford. It was dull and dank, one of those gloomy English mornings that cannot be bothered to get light, and threatening rain. People were putting stuff on Facebook saying spring in the UK was cancelled, had failed to install. Where was the flipping sun?

But it was also cold in Minneapolis. Yesterday, they'd had a foot of snow in just one night. I knew because since I had been involved with Pat I'd bookmarked various sites so I could check up on their weather, conduct my own tornado-watch and keep up to date with what was happening four thousand miles away.

Meteorological surveillance gosh, how sad was that?

I found them waiting in the hotel lobby.

'Joe and Polly, this is Rosie,' said their father.

'Hi.' I smiled at them. 'It's great to meet you guys.'

'Hi, Rosie,' said the little boy politely while the little girl just looked at me, her thumb wedged in her mouth. The children were both gorgeous dark-haired and elfin-faced with big brown eyes like Pat's. They seemed a little wary. But I suppose it was to be expected. I was a stranger, right? So I could not be trusted?

'Go on, Joe,' urged Dad. 'What did I tell you?'

Joe held out his right hand. I took it, shook it, smiled at him again in what I hoped was a non-threatening manner. He half-smiled gravely back.

'Who's driving?' I asked Pat. 'I'd be very happy-'

'Dad hates to be a pa.s.senger,' said Joe. 'Whenever Mommy drives, he tells her careful of that truck and slow down at the intersections and it makes her mad.'

'Then Dad had better drive.'

Pat's hired family saloon was big and smelled of recent valeting, not of coffee and old sandwich wrappers like my Ford Fiesta. It had proper child seats, too. I hadn't thought of child seats. Children didn't feature in my life ...

'You're all right with driving on the wrong side of the road?' I asked as we set off along the dual carriageway.

'Yeah, no problem, everybody else is on the wrong side, too. So I just follow them.'

'You know about priority at roundabouts?'

'You mean at intersections?'

'No, I mean at roundabouts. You have to give way from the right, okay?'

'Roundabouts so what are roundabouts I give way from the right what then?'

What are roundabouts?

We were doing sixty and I was about to panic. But then he shot a glance at me and grinned mischievously. 'Hey, don't look so worried. I read right through The Highway Code last night. I got the special interactive version for idiot Americans who never heard of roundabouts. So, where are we headed?'

'It's a surprise,' I told him tartly. 'I'll give you directions in good time.'

'Dad hates surprises,' Joe informed me helpfully. 'Mysteries, surprises, all that stuff he thinks it's dumb.'

'I don't,' objected Pat.

'Dad, you big liar, you so do. Anyways, you told me there's no mystery that science can't explain.'

'There might be a few.'

Polly was completely silent as we drove. But Joe talked all the time. He summarised the storylines of movies he had seen: Cars, Cars 2, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Shrek, Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third.

He seemed to like the stuff that came in series and involved a lot of mayhem and if possible machinery. Then he explained about the Revolution, which his cla.s.s was studying in school. The American Revolution starring Nathan Hale and Paul Revere and all the patriotic, good Americans who drove the wicked, greedy British out hurrah, hurrah, hurrah and then they got the Const.i.tution.

'What's the Const.i.tution, Joe?' I asked.

'What's the Const.i.tution, Dad?' asked Joe.

'I'll tell you later, little buddy,' said his father, who was concentrating on the road. As I had already realised when we were in Minnesota, Pat was a good driver. He obeyed all traffic signals, stayed a fraction just below the limit, didn't run red lights and never, ever cut anybody up.

But he did have his children in the back.

So maybe being a parent makes you careful?

But it's like in Sleeping Beauty, isn't it? You can have all the spindles burned and all the needles melted down for sc.r.a.p, but your child will always find the one you missed and p.r.i.c.k her finger on it anyway.

'Why have we stopped here, Dad?' asked Joe as he gazed across the sodden, grey-green wastes of Salisbury Plain.

'We're going to check out something even older than your father,' Pat replied.

'A tyrannosaurus rex?' demanded Joe excitedly. 'Or a pterodactyl, yeah?'

'You wait and see.'

We got out of the car and Pat swung Polly up on to his shoulders. I took Joe's hand and let him tug me through the empty car park. I saw him darting glances everywhere, clearly anxious to see dinosaurs.