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‘Look, this is pointless. We’re not going to--’ Paul slaps the guidebook shut and shoves it across the table. He swipes at the overlong hair falling over his forehead. It’s starting to get embarrassing; he has to find time to get it cut. ‘It just won’t work. Not for both of us at the same time. And you haven’t had time off in much longer than I--’‘Meeting Jane in London to sign divorce papers is hardly a holiday,’ Foyle points out mildly.‘I took two days, didn’t I?’‘And were back inside of one.’‘Because that hiker found bones,’ Paul protests. It wasn’t his fault -- how could he have known that the skull would turn out to be that of a sheep? albeit much broken and decayed. It wasn’t as though Foyle had known either.‘And then didn’t go back,’ Foyle points out, unnecessarily, Paul thinks.‘It’s not like I love London so much that I--’‘And you didn’t take the time later.’‘How do you know!’Foyle raises an eyebrow at him and flips the guidebook open, riffling absently through the pages.‘Well, that isn’t the point anyway,’ Paul says.‘What is the point?’‘The point is that no matter how long it was for, I had time off more recently than you. And you were ill last month--’‘Two months ago.’‘--Two months ago,’ Paul goes on doggedly, ‘and you need a rest.’‘Mm.’ Foyle turns over a few pages, then shuts the book firmly and pushes it aside, looking up at Paul. ‘And what if I don’t want to go somewhere without you?’The kitchen is silent for a minute, then Paul sighs and leans his head on one hand, pushing his hair back again with his fingertips. ‘Christopher--’‘Ah, that’s your sweetly reasonable tone.’ Foyle holds up a finger.‘So let me be reasonable!’‘No.’ Foyle gets up, pushing his chair back with a screech. ‘We've planned holidays like this before and we both hated it. Well.’ He touches his chest. ‘I hated it. I won’t speak for you.’Paul hesitates. He knows where Foyle is going with this. ‘It -- it wasn’t -- bad.’‘Well, then.’ Foyle turns to the range and fumbles for matches.Paul groans. ‘What do you want me to say?’Foyle lights the gas and shakes out the match, a faint whirl of smoke disappearing into the air. ‘I want you to say you’ll go on holiday like any sensible man at the end of August. You could go back to that place in the Dales. You liked that.’Paul drums his fingers on the guidebook. It had been a nice enough little hostel -- a farmhouse, really, where the family let out two or three rooms during good weather to hikers. If he had been able to do any of his planned walking, he might have liked it very much. He’d only gone up there because, after three years, he wanted to test out hillwalking again and because Foyle had gone to meet Andrew at his new posting somewhere up in south Scotland. So, yes, he had liked the farmhouse; the family, a husband, wife, and two young daughters, had been friendly and kind; the food had been excellent. And the rain had poured down solidly for four days out of the five; the family dog had chewed a hole in his rucksack; and the combination of bad weather, an unfamiliar house, and a solitary bed brought on nightmares that led to his being awake most of the last two nights. By the time he was on the platform at the train station, he devoutly wished he had never left Hastings.‘Paul.’‘Mm?’ He glances up.‘Just -- pick somewhere and go.’ Foyle waves at the guidebook, then leans across the table and flicks at the fringe of hair over Paul’s forehead. ‘And get a haircut while you’re there.’Paul catches his hand. ‘You know I don’t want to go without you, either. It isn’t -- it isn’t like I’m trying to pick somewhere we can’t go together. It’s just -- it--’ He stops and sighs.‘I was thinking about that.’ Foyle’s voice is carefully neutral and Paul looks up, dropping a kiss on Foyle’s knuckles before he lets his hand go.‘What?’‘I haven’t been back to the Mawddach in a few years. I used to go every summer.’ Foyle frowns to himself and stops.‘That river in Wales? You know I don’t fish,’ Paul says.Foyle smiles at him. ‘I know. But you do draw and it’s lovely country. There are some nice rambles around Snowdon, too. I used to stay with friends of Rosalind’s but -- I believe they moved to America before the war.’ Foyle hesitates again and then goes on, ‘So we’d have to be camping. That’s what I did the last time I went in ‘39.’Paul blinks. He has no real connection with camping. Some of his friends when he was a boy had been Scouts and rambled on and on about their trips into the countryside, but it had always sounded cold and damp and rather dull to him. Life under canvas just makes him think of the Army. He does remember one time when his sister had been reading through E. Nesbit’s books with her friends. They had finished The Wouldbegoods and she was in love with the African explorer uncle and the mock 'jungle' the children in the book created. She had insisted on making a haphazard tent out of some old canvas she found in a neighbor’s garden shed and hauling him out into their tiny back garden to sleep. There had been just room for the two of them and some blankets on the ground between the kitchen chairs she had used to support the canvas. It hadn’t been unpleasant certainly. Once the lights of the surrounding houses went out, they had been able to see the stars, sharp and crystalline above the rooftops.‘There is a hotel a few miles away if you’d prefer.’ Paul looks up and Foyle is looking down at his hands on the chairback. He clears his throat and goes on without looking up, ‘It’s quite a nice place from what I remember. Two rooms won’t break us.’ He hesitates and clears his throat again. ‘It isn’t that I want to take you somewhere on the cheap. I just thought perhaps--’ Paul can see a faint stain of color creeping into his face and he curses himself for being slow. ‘I’ve never been camping,’ he says aloud, pushing the guidebook away. ‘You’ll have to help me pack.’