Read Frank Derrick's Holiday of a Lifetime for Free Online

he declined and selected ‘passport photographs’. Seconds later his digital prints were waiting for him. He didn’t have to stand by the booth while his pictures developed, struggling to get them out from behind the small metal bars before all the people queuing up to collect their own pictures saw his photographs and laughed at them. He didn’t have to waft the soaking wet strip of photos all the way home until they were dry. His five identical photographs were printed and bone dry almost before he could open the tiny curtain.
    Frank took the bus back to Fullwind. He went into the library and logged on to his email account to send his flight details to Beth. Now it was real. He was going to America. There were seventeen emails in his inbox. Fifteen of them were spam and the other two were from Laura. The subject title of the first one was ‘Lump’.
    Hey, Frank,
    Mom says you’re coming over.
    I can’t wait to see you.
    Mom’s mood today 8/10.
    I think that’s because you’re coming.
    I’m looking at tourist attractions now.
    Peace out.
    L
    The subject title of the second email was ‘Reunion Project’. Frank opened it and read the three short enigmatic sentences.
    I don’t think Mom’s sadder moods are all Lump’s fault.
    I’ve had an idea.
    More soon.
    L x
    On the way out of the library Frank asked the librarian whether they had any books on Los Angeles.
    ‘I’m going to America to see my daughter and granddaughter,’ he said. ‘That was my granddaughter just now.’ The librarian looked around. There was nobody else in the library other than herself and Frank. ‘On the computer,’ Frank said. ‘She sends me emails.’
    The librarian looked on her computer for LA books. Five minutes later, Frank left the library with a book on San Francisco and crossed the road to the post office where he asked for a passport renewal form.
    ‘Holiday?’ the woman behind the counter said with her back to Frank as she looked for the form.
    ‘I’m going to California,’ Frank said.
    ‘Lucky you,’ the woman said.
    ‘To visit my family.’
    The woman in the post office would tell the postman, who would tell the paperboys, who would pass it on to the roofers and the window cleaners, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, charity collectors and political canvassers, who would tell the librarian, who already knew, and the librarian would tell the gardeners, who would send the news along the grapevine to the trick-or-treaters and the knock-down-gingerers. Eventually Frank’s backwards doorbell would ring and he’d answer the door to somebody telling him how Frank Derrick was going to America to see his daughter and granddaughter and he’d say, ‘Yes, I know. Isn’t it wonderful?’

5
    CHRISTMAS
    There were no aeroplanes on Christmas morning. The skies were deserted. No birds sang a dawn chorus outside his window and there were no traffic sounds from Sea Lane below. No postmen or milkmen whistled. There were no paperboys. No hopeful roofers. Everyone was taking the day off. Even Bill, who was on top of Frank’s trousers, which were draped over a chair next to the wardrobe at the end of the bed, was having his Christmas lie-in.
    For Frank, Christmas Day was very much a busman’s holiday. If it wasn’t for the thicker television guide and the tree in his living room he could have mistaken it for just another ordinary day.
    He climbed out of bed. His first step was like the first step of an astronaut back on earth after a three-month space mission in zero gravity, and he felt dizzy and fell sideways, only stopping himself from falling over completely by putting an outstretched hand on the wardrobe. The permanently ajar door temporarily closed and in the kitchen the door of the oven opened. It was the flat’s butterfly effect. He pulled open the curtains, the left one snagged and another plastic curtain hook fell from the rail and onto the floor.
    ‘I must fix that,’ he said to Bill, who wasn’t listening. He picked up