Road Trip to the Riviera

Chapter 1

SARAH

‘You’ll look fine!’ Steph says, trying as always to put a positive spin on things.

‘Steph, I have the leg of an elephant.’ Steph’s one of the senior partners at my firm and one of the reasons I love working with her is her sunny disposition.

But surely she can see that this is nothing short of a disaster?

I’m beginning to wish I’d taken a taxi rather than accept her offer of a lift home.

‘It doesn’t look…’ Her face creases with the effort of trying to find something diplomatic to say, ‘…that bad.’

‘Seriously? In what universe am I going to look fine in a summer dress, with one foot in a strappy sandal and the other in this thing?’

I stare down at my leg, encased in a grey hospital boot; the toes I’d painstakingly painted at the weekend mocking me at the end. Such a delicate pink! It really sets off the grey lump of plastic you’re wearing!

‘Well,’ she says, doubtfully, ‘it could be worse.’ She stops to let a car turn out of the junction and the driver gives her a cheery wave.

‘How exactly could it be worse?’ I turn to her, watching her forehead wrinkle as she struggles to come up with something suitably awful.

Before you interject, I do realise that there are worse things going on in the world.

That I live in a country that is not at war, that I have a home and a job and some semblance of a life.

It’s just that breaking my leg, three days before I’m due to jet off to the south of France for a wedding at my mother’s house, wasn’t exactly in the plan.

‘You could have broken both your legs!’ she says at last.

‘What?’

‘Well, that would be worse, right? If you had to wear two of them,’ she explains triumphantly, flicking on the indicator and turning into my street.

She stops and we both watch a woman dragging a toddler across the pedestrian crossing, her face set and determined.

The boy is wearing a Pokémon T-shirt which reminds me of something Louis used to wear and my heart cracks a little.

The kid is clearly determined not to cross.

He holds his legs in stiff, straight lines and almost topples forward as his – clearly frustrated – mum tries to mobilise him.

In the end, she picks him up and he starts to wail.

As they clear the pavement, she turns to us and makes an apologetic face.

I give her a little wave. We’ve all been there.

And I know it sucks, but I’d still swap with her, get those toddler years back.

I want to tell her some of those clichés people spout at you when you’ve got a little one – It passes so fast!

Make the most of it! – but sensibly hold my tongue.

I know when the kids are grown up you forget the complete exhaustion that comes with that stage of motherhood.

But what I wouldn’t do to be the centre of my boy’s world again, to feel his tight little arms wrap around my legs, fierce and territorial.

I turn to Steph again.

‘Actually, it might be better.’ I know I’m being unreasonable, and that Steph’s taken the morning off work to pick me up from the hospital and doesn’t deserve my prickly mood.

But don’t you ever feel as if the whole universe is just getting at you?

That somewhere up there someone is pulling the strings of your life and seeing exactly how much you can take before you go insane?

She laughs. ‘Sarah, two broken legs would not be better than one. Seriously!’

‘Yes, but at least they’d match.’

‘What?’ It’s half-bark, half-laugh.

‘Well, I’d have two boots, wouldn’t I? It would look less like an accident and more like a deliberate fashion choice. They’d give a certain je ne sais quoi?’ My mouth slips into a daft grin almost against my will. I am being ridiculous.

She glances at me, catching my eye, sensing the change in mood. ‘If you want me to drive back there and demand another boot, then I’m happy to do it. Maybe you’ll start a trend.’

‘Good idea! Grey is the new black, apparently. And boots are so this season.’

‘Exactly.’

We laugh and I reach out a hand and briefly touch hers where it rests on the gearstick.

Her hand, I notice, feels soft against my slightly rougher skin.

I have a dressing table drawer filled with moisturisers but never seem to get around to using them.

Maybe I’ll pack a tube for France and try to turn back time a little?

Five minutes later, she turns into my driveway and I climb out of the car with difficulty.

The boot weighs about two kilos, and the sensation of trying to heft along my leg with the thing attached reminds me a little of the period when Louis, aged one, used to hang himself from my ankle about 70 per cent of the time.

It was hilarious and exhausting in equal measure.

But at least I got a break once in a while.

This contraption is one I’ll have to wear constantly for six weeks and, as the doctor told me ominously, possibly longer.

‘Even in bed?’ I asked. ‘Even in bed,’ she confirmed, her eyes fixed on me as if she knew I might try to bend the rules.

I’m a lawyer! I wanted to say. My whole life is about adhering to rules! But I didn’t. She was busy, and besides, I just wanted to get out of there.

The hydrangeas that finally started to bloom in the front garden last week send out their sweet, sugary scent as I hobble towards the front door; I almost chopped them down when I first moved in five years ago, assuming they were dead, but Dad stopped me just in time, telling me that the dried-up sticks would eventually bud and bloom.

I didn’t believe him and had every intention of hitting them with the shears as soon as I’d finished unpacking boxes.

But before I got around to it, they started to form new buds and delicious pink flowers. They’re short-lived, but I’ve come to look forward to them bursting into life again. They remind me of him. I swallow the lump that always forms in my throat when I think of my father.

‘You’ll be OK?’ Steph calls uncertainly from her car as I reach the doorway, leaning heavily on a single crutch, and turn the front door key.

‘Yes, fine,’ I reply. ‘Thanks for the lift.’ I hobble just over the hearth to show her that yes! I am coping! Perfectly!

‘No problem, boss.’

I stand and wave her off from the open front door before letting my face fall.

I am fine, in all the essential ways. I can move around, although my ankle throbs occasionally.

But I feel exhausted from the accident, from the small procedure they had to put me under anaesthetic for. And more than anything… bloody annoyed.

Because this thing goes deeper than the boot and how it looks. This is the worst-timed fracture in the history of… well, in my history, at least.

When I was a kid, I longed to break a bone.

In those days they put all breaks in white plaster and for some reason, coming to school with a cast made you into a kind of celebrity.

Even Marcus Brumby, the geekiest kid you ever saw, got surrounded by new friends wanting to sign his cast, carry his bag. Instant kudos.

And believe me, I needed something to offset the braces and bad haircut in those days.

I imagined it sometimes. I mean, I kind of glossed over the fact that breaking a bone isn’t exactly fun.

I never really imagined the accident or the pain.

But I imagined the cast. The pure white slab of plaster that would encase my leg and give me a social clean slate to pepper with new friends.

If I’d tripped down a set of steps when walking to the shops back then, I’d probably have been quite pleased. Would have welcomed the drama of having to get in an ambulance, of people fussing over me. Would have hardly been able to hide my excitement at having to hobble into school on crutches.

Breaking a leg doesn’t have quite the same kudos when you’re in your late thirties though. It gives more of a ‘fragile old lady’ vibe than a ‘cool kid’ vibe. And besides, I didn’t even get a cast. Just this ugly boot.

‘Why not a cast, out of interest?’ I’d asked the junior doctor who’d fitted it for me.

‘Most people prefer the boots. And they’re better for weight-bearing, so you have a faster recovery.’

I’d nodded, trying to ignore the tiny child inside me who was still a little disappointed.

‘You’ll be given crutches too, to use at first,’ she’d added kindly.

It’s a white-skied, humid day, the kind that makes you hot without the sunshine to back it up.

Typical of England. Mum’s been boasting about the weather in the south of France for days, promising me that I’ll get the chance to dip in her new pool.

Now, the nearest I’ll get is probably hobbling to a sunlounger and getting a tan that leaves me with a white, hairy sock of skin when I finally get the thing off.

The fact I might not even get there now without some serious compromises is one I’m refusing to accept.

In all honesty, there are a bunch of things I’m currently refusing to accept.

I’m refusing to accept that the doctor says I can’t fly, which means I’ll either have to get across France by train (bad) or travel with Hal (worse).

I’m refusing to accept that my twenty-two-year-old son is getting married when nobody’s so much as popped the question to me my entire life.

(I was actually refusing to accept that I have a twenty-two-year-old son at thirty-nine years old.

But it’s kind of hard to pretend he’s still just a kid when he calls you and tells you he’s tying the knot.)

All grown up. How did that happen?

While I’m in the business of denial, I decide to eat half a tub of chocolate ice cream and pretend to myself that it’s perfectly healthy and low-calorie.

I call work and update them – I was taking a fortnight off soon anyway, so it’s not ideal, but I can work from home the next few days and keep up with things a little from France, so it should be OK.

My business partner, Peter, sounds concerned and assures me it’s all in hand, but I suspect he’s probably secretly pissed that I won’t be there for the contract meeting with Mrs Davis.

I tell him I’ll get Steph to sit in too and he gives a sigh of relief which he tries to disguise as a cough.

I call Mum and tell her that I’m fine, but that I may be turning up with a couple of kilos of plastic wrapped around my foot.

She makes the right noises, but I’m pretty sure she feels that on some level I’ve done this on purpose to ruin Louis and Summer’s day.

She doesn’t think to ask how I’m feeling, or whether my leg hurts.

And then, finally accepting that there’s no way I’d make the ten-hour train journey with the four changes it would take to travel from Cambridge to Nice, I call Hal.