Chapter 4
Entertaining ghosts is one thing, but if I don’t slow this van down and get myself under control, I’m going to be joining them on the other side.
Adrenaline is coursing through my body. My hands are gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles have gone white, and I’m panting for breath so hard that I’m definitely veering into hyperventilation territory.
The van lurches as I accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake, and from the back, there’s the sound of my binbags crashing into each other.
This is not how I thought today would go.
I glance at the clock on the dashboard. Five minutes.
I’ve been driving for exactly five minutes.
Who knew that someone could go from a perfectly normal, respectable member of society to being a fugitive on the run in a stolen vehicle in less than five minutes?
Never, in all my thirty-eight years, did I imagine my descent into criminality would start with Grand Theft Campervan, and yet, here I am, watching quaint streets flash past in a blur of semi-detached houses and perfectly trimmed hedges, like a singular version of Thelma and Louise.
Except it’s just me. No glamorous accomplice, no tragic love story, and hopefully not ending in quite the same way.
Any moment now, I expect to see police cars racing up behind me, sirens screaming, men in unforms waving around warrants for my arrest. Jared would have called the police immediately.
Of all the things I could have stolen from him, this campervan is by far his most beloved.
I could’ve walked into the house and filled my bags with all his electronics and gadgets and he would’ve let me go, but stealing his campervan is like driving a knife into his heart.
He will stop at nothing to get it back.
What have I done? Why did I ever even look at his beloved Genevieve, never mind climb into it and actually drive off?
I’ve never done anything wrong in my life before now.
The most trouble I’ve ever been in was when I got caught skiving off school with a couple of classmates.
I’m not a criminal, and yet, here I am, doing something that’s likely to end in a prison sentence and an appearance in a Channel 5 documentary about small-time crime.
I can’t go to prison. The thought of being in prison with murderers and armed robbers terrifies me. I’d never survive in there. And what about a criminal record? I’ll never get a job again if I’ve got a criminal record. I’d never even be able to pay a fine. What was I thinking?
I should stop. Pull over, call Jared, apologise profusely, and drive the van back to his house like a sensible adult before this goes any further. That would be the mature thing to do. The responsible thing. That’s who I am – a sensible and mature responsible adult.
And for the first time, I wish I wasn’t.
I don’t want to take the van back with my tail between my legs.
He doesn’t deserve it back after the way he’s behaved.
And my situation hasn’t changed. I still have nowhere to live, nowhere to go, and no way of even transporting my binbags.
With this campervan, I won’t have to worry about where to sleep tonight because there’s a bed in the back.
I always do the mature and responsible thing, and look where it got me. Stealing this van is the most unhinged thing I’ve ever done, and it feels… surprisingly good. Apart from the weird noise the engine’s making because I’m probably in the wrong gear.
I’ve come this far. If I turn back now, I’ll go back to being me, and being me doesn’t feel like it’s been a good thing lately.
It’ll just be temporary while I figure out what to do and find somewhere to stay, and then I’ll return the van to Jared, no worse for wear, with a full tank of petrol as an apology.
The van pitches forwards as I stall at a roundabout – again – and the car behind me toots impatiently.
I’ve listened to Jared talk about cars long enough to know that engines are supposed to purr, but this one gives me nothing but a displeased growl.
The clutch has got a mind of its own and only chooses to work when it fancies it, and the gear stick fights back every time I touch it.
It’s more than twice the size of anything I’ve ever driven before.
It’s too high up, the seat’s in the wrong position, and the view from the window is not what I’m used to in the passenger seat of a car, and the fact that I haven’t yet taken out someone’s wing mirror is nothing short of a miracle.
My phone buzzes from the passenger seat, again and again. I risk taking my eyes off the road for long enough to see Jared’s name flashing on the screen, followed by Vickie’s, then Jared’s again. I don’t need to read the messages to guess what they say.
The traffic’s getting heavier and I can see signs for the M25 looming ahead. That frightening ring road around London where lorry drivers go to lose their temper and normal people go to lose half their day to being stuck in traffic. Even as a passenger, it’s terrifying.
But where else can I go? I can’t exactly drive around suburban streets all day while I wait for the police to find me.
I need to get out of London, somewhere Jared won’t think to look for me.
Somewhere no one can track me down. Or I could just drive until I run out of petrol and then join a travelling circus. That also sounds like a good plan.
The van stalls again as we crawl towards the motorway junction, and this time the car behind me doesn’t just toot – it gives me a proper angry stream of beeping that says its driver has opinions about my driving skills and would like to share them with me.
My phone’s buzzing constantly, like an angry wasp with a glass over it. I can’t bring myself to look at it, but I can imagine the messages piling up. Jared’s definitely called the police. They’re probably already scouring the neighbourhood looking for me.
The traffic is moving fast, although the campervan seems to be stuck at twenty-two miles per hour, which honestly, feels too fast to me. I’m on the motorway with lorries thundering past that make the van shake and my heart rate spike even higher.
Where am I going? I can’t drive around aimlessly forever – I’ll run out of petrol eventually, assuming I don’t cause a catastrophe first. I need a destination.
In what is more of an accident than a decision, I merge into a different lane. There’s a moment of terror when I realise I’m not sure how to merge in a vehicle this size and nearly clip a BMW, and I spend a few moments imagining what my funeral will be like.
My hands are aching from the death grip on the wheel.
My arms are shaking. My teeth hurt from clenching.
There is sweat everywhere. My hair is stuck to my forehead, my shirt is clinging to my back, but amid the paralysing fear, I realise something.
I am driving. I am actually driving. It’s a freedom I never expected, in its own marginally deranged way.
In the back, the binbags bounce around in approval as I put my foot down harder and accelerate to a hair-raising thirty-four miles per hour.
I wind the window down and let the smell of exhaust fumes slap me into lucidity.
My heart is still hammering, but now it’s starting to feel like a hint of excitement, mixed in with the unadulterated panic and the certainty that I’m not going to make it off this motorway in one piece.
The world is suddenly full of possibility, or at least as much possibility as you can fit into a Volkswagen campervan and hundreds of miles of British motorway.
I don’t know where I’m going, but for the first time in years, I’m in charge of getting there.
* * *
I’ve been on the M25 for so long that if I carry on like this, I’m going to complete the circle and end up back where I started, and no matter what, I didn’t steal Jared’s campervan to take it for a joyride around the London Orbital and return it unharmed.
That would be the most disappointing ending to this adventure imaginable, somehow even more disappointing than getting arrested, which is undoubtedly how it will end.
I spot a sign for Hatfield and The North, directing me towards joining the A1, and I decide to follow that, partially because I’m already in the right lane and can avoid having to do that scary merging thing again, and partially because posters of the nineties boyband adorned my teenage bedroom walls, and as decision-making processes go, it’s not the worst one I’ve used today.
Even though ‘the north’ is a bit generalised, it brings to mind memories of family holidays in Yorkshire when I was young.
The little holiday cottage in the Dales where we used to spend every summer.
Me, Mum, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa. Mum and Dad used to put their warring aside for those endless weeks of summer, before their marriage fell apart beyond repair, before Grandpa got ill, before I hit my teenage years and decided I was too cool for family holidays.
Magical weeks in a cottage near an endless array of waterfalls, when the world was full of hiding places just waiting to be found.
Weeks where time stood still, and the biggest decision expected of me was whether to have jam or marmalade on my toast.