Marty boiled the kettle and fished out a couple of tea bags and looked at the map of the world that Grandad had pinned up on the inside wall of the garden shed. The geography teacher at school had had a bright idea one day and hung a map of the world on the back of the door in school. He had asked everyone to mark on it with little stars the places they had been. The point of the exercise was to see how many places the pupils of 9D had been to collectively so that they could learn about them. Marty thought that it had probably been a good idea in Mr. Phillpotts’s head. Helen had been skiing in the Alps. Thomas had family in Canada, so he put a star there. Cassie had been almost everywhere, because her dad had a home in America and they holidayed all over the place. Marty had hesitated before putting a star over the town of Brighton. His grandad had taken him there one day. Only for the day, and it had taken so long on the bus that they’d only had a couple of hours to see the Royal Pavilion and have an ice cream before having to come back again. Grandad’s map was shabbier and curled at the edges from damp, but Grandad had put his initials on the places where he wanted to go. Paris. Italy. There were pictures of Grandad pinned to the wall of the shed too. In his old railway uniform. He’d gone back and forth in straight lines between cities for years and years, so perhaps it did make some sense that now, in retirement, he wanted to go his own way. Marty had never known his grandma; Grandad had been married to her about five years before Marty’s mum was born and then things had kind of fallen apart. Grandad was always hatching schemes and plans that would end up not working or even actually costing them money, and they had rent to pay and she’d be working long hours and Marty could imagine her getting fed up with him. The one thing that Grandad did very well though was kind of be there. Just at the side of Marty’s vision. A constant spot in the way that he looked at the world that gave perspective on everything else. He also told him stories, not ones from books, but ones from his head. Silly wonderful stories.

“How’s that tea coming along?”

Grandad was pulling off his gardening gloves. Marty handed him his enamel mug and wondered why anyone would decide to make a mug out of a material that got so finger-burningly hot. Grandad peered over Marty’s shoulder at the map.

“One day, my son, we’ll go to Paris … see that tower you’ve always wanted to see…”

“Do you think it’s as wonderful as it looks in the pictures?” Marty asked.