It's Still Life

Camping

The tent smells like vindaloo, Mum says.

Dad’s rented a tent. We’re trying camping before he buys one. In case we hate it. He’s picked a spot located in nowhere, and my little sister is already whining that something’s bit her arm. And her chin. She only stepped out of the car 2-minutes ago. Mum’s dabbing calamine on her, and she looks uglier than usual.

Come give us a hand, Dad says, make yourself useful. We’ll put this tent up before these midges start an onslaught.

I set out the poles, stakes – no connection with meat – rope and ties over there. Stretch the tent out, the door with the prevailing wind, I’m reading instructions to Dad, but he wants the door facing the lake, not facing the carpark.

Dad, we’re missing 2 stakes and 1 pole, I say.

Never mind, he says, we’ll make do. He’s off, whistling, to chop a few branches, while I watch my sister running away from midges. When Dad comes back with 2 straight-as-tent-pole sticks, I’ve already tied ropes to the stakes. I’m a Girl Scout; I’ve done this before.

Poles in. Stakes in. Lines tied. And just like that it’s a tent.

Sleeping bags inside, air mattresses inflated, although not my sister’s – she says it makes her head hurt – while Mum lights a campfire to cook dinner. The wind’s blowing out the matches, and I hear words coming out of her that I never suspected were inside her.

Bob, do you have any matches? Coat pocket, he says.

We ate cold baked beans and white bread for dinner. My sister’s plate toppled off her lap on to the ground, and nobody dared suggest Mum couldn’t heat beans.

That night, Dad’s feeling his way around with a flashlight, and I ask “Where you going Dad?” and he sssshush’es me and says, “Go back to sleep” to which I say, “It’s okay, Dad, I wasn’t asleep,” to which he says “then for god’s sake go to sleep,” to which I say “I can’t. She’s taken my teddy because she forgot hers.”

And then Dad walks into the straight-as-a-tent-pole stick, and the whole tent comes down on us.

We decided we hated camping, mostly because Mum said only Neanderthals cook on an open fire.

We returned the rented tent.

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