A Proper Family Holiday Read Online Free PDF

though; he was typing frantically.
    ‘You’re supposed to turn off your phone when you get on the plane. Who are you texting?’ Ronnie asked.
    Mark blushed before he answered, without looking up, ‘Just Cathy next door. About the cat.’
    ‘What about the cat?’ Ronnie asked.
    ‘Just telling her where the food is.’
    ‘She already knows,’ said Ronnie. ‘I told her yesterday.’
    ‘Yeah. Yeah, of course. She must have forgotten.’
    ‘Then why didn’t she text me to ask? Why would she have texted you?’
    Mark shrugged. ‘I don’t know, do I?’
    Sophie also sent a last few messages before a flight attendant asked her to switch off her phone. Three hours without recourse to text was going to be difficult, both for Sophie and for the people who had to sit near her.
    ‘Can’t you let Jack have the window seat?’ Ronnie asked her. ‘It’s the first time he’s been on a plane.’
    ‘It’s the first time I’ve been on a plane,’ Sophie replied. Ronnie knew Sophie still hadn’t forgiven her for saying she couldn’t join a school trip to Berlin. That they really hadn’t been able to afford it had not mattered. All Sophie focused on was how much she would be missing. It was especially hard on her because Harrison Collerick, the boy she had liked for so long – the love of her life (‘So far,’ as Mark always added. Somehow Sophie would take that from her dad) – was going to be on the trip, along with Sophie’s best friend, Skyler. As it happened, Sophie’s ‘best friend’ somehow ended up snogging ‘the love of Sophie’s life’ on the coach on the way back from a day trip to the Jewish Museum. Skyler later claimed it was the heavy emotional vibe of the history laid before them that had rendered her vulnerable to the awful boy’s charms. Sophie had forgiven her best friend and Harrison but it seemed she wasn’t about to forgive her mother. If Sophie had been allowed to go to Berlin, none of it would have happened, after all.
    ‘I don’t mind having the middle seat,’ said Jack.
    Jack was so easy-going compared to his big sister. Perhaps that would change when he hit puberty too, but for now Ronnie was grateful she had at least one laid-back child.
    ‘It’s still exciting,’ he assured her. ‘My first time on an aeroplane.’
    ‘Guess what?’ said Ronnie. ‘It’s practically my first time too. And Daddy’s.’
    Ronnie and Mark had flown only once before. It was before Sophie was born. Ronnie had joined Mark’s family on a trip to a resort in Portugal (against her parents’ better judgement). It was on that trip that Sophie had been conceived.
    The stewards began the safety procedure. Ronnie forced Sophie to put down her gossip magazine and pay attention.
    ‘Nobody else is watching,’ said Sophie.
    ‘Nobody else on this plane matters to me except you, your dad and Jack. Will you please listen to what they’re saying?’
    Jack was much more attentive. He wanted to know whether he could wear his oxygen mask regardless of the pressure on the plane, just in case. And when the safety briefing was over, Jack slid his hand across the armrest into Ronnie’s lap. She linked her fingers through his.
    ‘I’m holding your hand in case you’re afraid,’ he explained.
    ‘Thank you. Though there’s nothing to be afraid of,’ said Ronnie, more to convince herself than her son. Since she’d last flown, things had definitely changed. The whole business of going to an airport and getting through security had become decidedly grim.
    ‘I love you, Jack.’ Ronnie kissed her son on the top of his head. ‘You too, Sophie. I love you too.’
    ‘Right,’ Sophie grunted back. Sophie didn’t do familial love any more. Like so many things Sophie had once enjoyed, these days she considered time spent with her family as ‘lame’. Nevertheless, Ronnie noticed that Sophie had taken Jack’s free hand.
    Across the aisle, Mark was still fiddling with his phone.
    ‘Mark,’ Ronnie hissed. He