Chapter 35
SARAH
I sit back in the plush leather seat and watch the slightly muted view through the tinted window.
The driver is silent, the radio is playing softly and the ride is smooth despite the odd bump in the road.
Being in a modern car, let alone a brand-new Mercedes, seems ridiculously luxurious after Betty, although I can’t imagine ever feeling any sort of affection for a car like this.
Have I just admitted to myself that I love a camper-van?
Perhaps there’s some sort of medication I can take…
I’ve belted myself in, but shuffled to one side so that I can raise my leg up on the seat.
It’s habit now more than anything. My leg is giving me very little trouble other than the odd ache, and I’m barely taking any of the painkillers I’d stocked up on before setting off.
I’m hopeful that in a couple of weeks I can finally rid myself of the boot and be back on my feet in every sense of the word.
It’s a little sad watching the scenery slip past and realising that everything – France, the road trip with Hal, Louis’s wedding – is all behind me and that I’m going back to normality and work.
But that’s how people feel when they come back from holiday, isn’t it?
It’s normal to slightly dread the drudgery of everyday office life.
But you soon slip back into the routine.
My thoughts slip to Peter and his confession to me just days ago.
I’d promised him we’d go to dinner to talk – after all, it’s the least I owe him.
But in no way did I ever intend for him to see this as a date.
Peter’s a great partner in work, but not someone I could see myself with in any real way.
He’s texted and called me regularly over the past few days, but I’ve tried to keep the conversation strictly work-related.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m feeling so sad to be going home? The thought of an awkward conversation waiting in my future is hardly a tempting prospect.
Instead, I think about the wedding, about the sense of hope and new beginnings it has created.
And how Mum and I have finally sort of learned to talk to each other.
And I think about Hal, how ridiculous but lovely it’s been to actually spend time with him after all these years.
Away from the obligation and the shared responsibility; just being us again.
I’ve cursed Hal time and time again over the past two decades.
When he’s been thoughtless or late, or taken Louis out for too many treats before depositing him, hyped and sugared up, back at my place come bedtime.
I’d forgotten that he is someone I used to like spending time with before everything changed.
I laugh to myself as I think of Hal’s flying trunks at the swimming pool, of the moment when Mum burst into my room and found us having a crisp fight.
And I’m glad in that moment that we were forced together for the trip – I’d probably have forgotten that version of him, and of myself, if that hadn’t happened.
I’m not crazy enough to be grateful for breaking my leg, obviously. I’m not completely insane. But it’s been a silver lining at the very least.
The driver’s turned up the air-con, making the blue sky and open ocean outside feel wrong somehow. Outside is lush, warm, sweat-inducing; here in the car everything feels sterile, dark and chilly. I am literally travelling in a fridge.
But it beats the train. And it’s probably a good idea that I decided not to go back with Hal.
Because if I’m honest, I was starting to enjoy his company too much.
Maybe because I’ve been lonely, and nostalgic, and have felt a bit vulnerable with my broken bone.
Hal’s got Georgie and I’m happy for him.
From time to time, I catch a glimpse of the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
It’s an odd sort of eye contact – I’m never 100 per cent sure if he’s aware it’s even happening.
But as I glance up, I notice them again.
This time, the rather thick brows are lowered, a deep crease running between them as if he’s concerned.
‘Merde,’ he mutters to himself.
‘Is everything all right?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice light.
‘Oh, yes. Oui,’ he says, speaking English with a thick and rather charming French accent. ‘I am sorry if you heard me curse. It is just some of the other drivers on this road. They are animals!’
‘It’s fine. I know what you mean,’ I say, nodding at a sports car that shoots past, almost in a blur. ‘People think they own the road.’
‘Exactly,’ he agrees. ‘They want to overtake, they want to speed, they stop suddenly, they don’t signal, or they try to force you to increase your speed by driving too close.’
I grimace. ‘Nightmare.’
‘Do you mind if I turn up the music? It helps me to relax. Calm down.’
‘Go for it.’ If I’m honest, knowing that my driver feels the need to calm himself down isn’t particularly reassuring.
We fall silent. He fiddles with the buttons on the radio, and some music starts to play, a little louder than before.
The soft sound of Paul Young’s ‘Every Time You Go Away’ fills the car; it’s one of my dad’s favourites and I feel a sudden pressure at my eyes, tears fighting to come through.
But I can hardly ask the driver to switch the song off. I’ll simply have to get through it.
I listen to the lyrics – how the guy singing feels his girl takes a little piece of him whenever she leaves.
And I can’t help finding new meaning in them.
But there’s comfort there too. The idea that you carry pieces of the ones you love with you: I lost Dad, but I didn’t lose everything he gave to me.
The happy memories and the life lessons.
I think about how it’s Dad, really, who brought Mum and me closer together even four years after his death.
We used him as a way to bridge the gap between us.
And Louis. My son has a new life ahead, a new wife, and soon, a baby.
He’s left a few times over the years – his backpacking year before uni, then again when he went off to study, only returning every couple of months.
But this time, he really has left for good.
But I carry him in my heart as well, moments from his childhood, the pride I feel for the man he’s become.
Hal’s there too, I realise. The boy he was back then, the man he is now.
Whatever happens next, we’ll be part of each other’s lives forever. This isn’t an end. Not really.
This sort of introspection isn’t doing me any good at all. I need a distraction. Luckily – or perhaps lucky is too strong a word – I’m offered one almost instantly.
The driver, who doesn’t seem to have been particularly well soothed by the music at all, starts muttering under his breath in rapid French.
I don’t have a hope of understanding him, but it’s clear he is very angry about something.
I’m about to ask him what is wrong when he starts waving one of his arms around.
‘These drivers!’ he says. ‘What do you want me to do, huh? You want that I drive the car off the road? Is that what you want?’
It is absolutely, categorically not what I want. But I’m pretty sure he’s not talking to me. I shrink a little in my seat, remembering times when my parents had quarrelled on family holidays and feeling very much the eight-year-old in the back, wishing things would just calm down.
They do not calm down.
‘I am sorry,’ the driver continues, catching my eye again.
‘But this driver, he is insane. He is going too fast. He flashes his lights at me. He wants me to speed up for him, non? But I do not wish to do this. So I slow, I flash, I beckon. I tell him that he can go past if he wants. Mais non! He does not wish to do this. He wishes, I think, to travel so close to me that anyone would think we were lovers.’
It’s an odd thought, but I get his drift. ‘Oh,’ I say.
‘And his van, it is a wreck! How can a camper-van from prehistoric times go at 80 kilometres per hour? Huh? Surely it will explode.’
Something tugs inside my chest. With difficulty, I twist farther around in my seat and peer up out of the tiny back windscreen.
There, rattling along at what must be breakneck speed for Betty, is Hal. He’s driving, gesticulating. The camper is letting out plumes of dark smoke in its wake. As I watch, one of Betty’s hubcaps detaches and begins to roll along the side of the road before dropping flat on a grassy mound.
‘Hal!’ I call out. He can’t hear me – or even see me.
‘Um… driver!’ I say, realising that I never bothered to ask my chauffeur his name. ‘Driver! You need to stop the car. That’s… he’s my friend. I don’t know why he’s… something must be wrong.’
Is it Mum? Has something happened? I check my phone but there are no missed calls.
‘You know this man?’ the driver gesticulates at the mirror. ‘This… this homme fou? This lunatic?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, feeling a little embarrassed. ‘Yeah, he’s my—’ But I can’t find the right word here. ‘My friend.’
I am treated to another choice sentence of rapid French before the driver hits the brake and we screech to a halt. I’m still watching Hal, who’s in the process of flashing his lights again. When he looks up to see our brake lights on, his expression changes to one of horror.
For a moment, I think he’s going to crash right into the back of us.
That I’m going to be crushed to death by a camper-van.
There’s a terrible squeal and screech of brakes, and a sick feeling rises up in me.
The van moves closer, almost in slow motion.
Betty’s brakes are just not up to the task, I realise.
He really cannot stop in time. My mouth opens in a scream.
Hal clearly realises this too, because at the last moment, he jerks the wheel to the right, aiming for the verge.
Only it’s uneven and Betty’s a little unstable at the best of times.
So she doesn’t come to a halt next to us as he presumably intends.
She wobbles slightly, a little like a Jenga tower with bricks removed.
I squeeze every muscle in my body, willing her to settle on her wheels.
But just when I think she might, she tips, and the whole thing crashes on its side.
The road is on the edge of a slope that falls away, covered in grass and rock, to another stretch of road beyond a few buildings, then the beautiful blue of the sea. It’s a view that people travel hundreds of miles to take in – a glorious, sun-drenched, perfect backdrop of a view.
But as I watch the camper flip and turn once again down the patch of grass, I know I’ll never be able to look at it the same way again.