Chapter 4 #2
I remember endless drives up this very motorway in Grandpa’s ancient car, eating Gran’s cakes and playing I Spy.
Grandpa knew all the best places to stop.
Rivers where you could dip your toes in.
Tiny village shops that sold ice cream in flavours you couldn’t get at home.
Fields of bleating sheep who would stand at the walls penning them in and peer at you with curious faces.
The air smelled of cut grass and drying hay.
Every morning, I’d wake up with the certainty that the day would be an adventure.
I loved how wild and big everything felt.
I loved being in a place where people weren’t in a hurry and school felt like a million miles away, like September was never coming, and I’d never have to go back.
Those holidays were the last time I remember feeling truly happy. Safe. Untouchable. Like the world, for all its bad parts, would always have a little corner just for me.
Without even realising it, I know where I’m heading.
I knew from the moment I saw that road sign.
I’ve never told Jared about those childhood holidays.
Those memories have always been just mine.
He would never even think of looking for me there.
No one would. I need somewhere I can get well and truly lost, and I can’t think of anywhere better than the rolling hills of North Yorkshire, where the only things likely to judge me are a few inquisitive sheep.
Who would also be hard pushed to call the police and report me, which can only be a good thing.
An unhinged peace settles over me now I have a plan.
The world shrinks to nothing but me and the van.
Junctions come and go, roundabouts terrify me, but this is like an intense driving course with no instructor.
Somewhere after Peterborough, the motorway opens out, and the van hums along in a way that feels almost soothing.
I’ve been driving for nearly three hours on autopilot, and London is already feeling like a distant memory, as quickly forgotten as the last series of Bake Off.
I can forget everything, except the insistent buzzing of my phone.
The screen is lighting up with constant texts and calls from Jared, Vickie, and an unknown number which is probably a police officer telling me to turn myself in, and if I plead guilty, I might get off with a hefty fine and community service rather than a custodial sentence.
I also can’t forget how much I need the loo, and a light has come on next to the petrol gauge that suggests the campervan probably needs something too.
Any peace I was feeling quickly evaporates when I see a ‘services’ sign and indicate to change lanes and start drifting towards the exit, and even though I think I’ve done everything right, I still get angry tooting from a lorry behind me.
The further north I’ve gone, the more persistent my phone has become.
Jared must be getting increasingly frantic as the day wears on and his van isn’t back yet.
Every time it makes a noise, my chest clamps tight and a fresh panic surges up.
I start imagining the worst. What if I’m on the evening news tonight?
Wait, can they track phones? Oh, God, all this time, I’m thinking I’m on the run, getting away from everything, but the police are probably watching my every move, and my phone signal is being triangulated by a team of digital forensics experts right at this very moment.
Once I’ve stopped, filling a parking space intended for three cars because I have no idea how to line the campervan up and get it between the white lines of one space, I know what I have to do.
The service station is right on a river, so I scramble up a grassy embankment and stop at the railing at the top.
Cars whoosh by on the motorway to my left, and below me, the water rushes, echoing as it swooshes under the bridge.
It’s fast flowing and muddy, and it looks freezing – more than cold enough to kill any wayward technology that might end up in it.
I look at my phone one more time, the screen that’s been the centre of my world for years now, and I jump when it starts vibrating in my hand.
Vickie’s name flashes up, almost like she had a sixth sense about what I’m going to do, and I think about answering, but then I remember those TV dramas where families are instructed to keep kidnappers on the line for as long as possible so the police have time to pinpoint their location, and I turn the phone off instead.
I throw it as hard as I can into the water.
After googling how to put petrol in a Volkswagen Transporter campervan, that is.
It disappears with a satisfying plop, and the world feels quieter. No buzzing, no flashing lights, no urgent demands for my attention. I can almost forget that I’ve done anything wrong.
Back at the van, I rifle through my binbags until I find a hoodie and slip it on to cover as much of my face as possible, in case police are trawling CCTV footage for my whereabouts.
Inside, I buy a sandwich and a drink, and then I have to negotiate another complicated junction to get into the garage and put petrol in, and hope I’ve chosen the right kind, and finally, I remember a trick I saw on a crime show once and buy a can of shaving foam to spray over the numberplate which is supposed to prevent traffic cameras being able to flag it up.
I don’t know when I fully committed to the life of crime, but it’s surprisingly enjoyable.
* * *
Three hours later, I’m somewhere in the middle of England and my back aches from hunching over the steering wheel like I’m defusing a bomb.
The traffic’s thinned out considerably, and I’ve almost got the hang of the clutch, though I still break into a sweat every time I have to stop at traffic lights.
I approach a low stone bridge that looks like it was built when people travelled by horse and cart.
The sign gives a warning about height restriction and I don’t think the van’s that tall, but short of getting out to measure it, I can’t be sure.
It doesn’t change the feeling of claustrophobia, like the stone arch is sure to shave the campervan’s roof clean off and leave me sitting in a convertible.
The road is narrow, flanked by walls on both sides, and the bridge is just sitting there, waiting to behead the next vehicle to happen along.
I slow down to about five miles an hour, ignoring the queue of cars building up behind me, and inch forwards like I’m threading a needle.
The bridge looms overhead, ancient stone peering down at me, and for a horrible moment, I’m convinced I’ve misjudged it completely and this will end up in one of two ways – decapitation, or stuck like a cork in a wine bottle, and ironically, I will have to call the police for rescue.
But then I’m through, unscathed, and the cars behind cheer me on with so much angry honking that it’s like being followed by a flock of furious geese.
I never knew there were so many irate drivers on the roads.
It’s almost like they’ve never stolen a campervan and driven halfway across the country in it, while trying to remember how to drive.
I roll to a stop on the far side to let them speed past, my lungs heaving and my hands shaking. Whoever knew bridges could be so complicated? I glance back, expecting to see angry locals waving pitchforks, but there’s just a blackbird, looking at me like even he is critiquing my driving skills.
The last stretch of the journey is pure magic.
It’s like driving into a postcard. The road unwinds like a ribbon through the hills as the sun is starting to set, colouring the sky with shades of pink and gold.
The fields on either side are impossibly green, dotted with specks of white sheep, towered over by the occasional ancient tree.
Drystone walls criss-cross the land, neat and comforting, because they’ve stood there for so long.
The view driving towards the Yorkshire Dales is probably not much different from what someone would’ve have seen on this journey hundreds of years ago.
Every village I pass is like something from a painting: tidy rows of cottages, an ivy-covered little pub, smoke rising from a single chimney.
I breathe in the smell of cut grass through the open window.
With every mile, the tightness in my chest loosens.
Rolling green hills stretch as far as I can see.
Stone cottages glow in the evening light.
It’s exactly like I remember, and completely different at the same time.
Bigger, somehow. More real, like someone’s taken my childhood memories and blown them up to full size.
I remember the village of Thimblenouth like I visited yesterday, but in reality, it’s been more than two decades.
Time doesn’t matter in a place like this.
It stands still, exactly the same now as it was in the eighties and nineties.
The cars parked outside stone cottages are more modern.
Some thatched roofs have been replaced with slate roofs, but there is eternally a village green and a red telephone box that is undoubtedly still functioning.
The whole place looks like something from All Creatures Great and Small, and I’m filled with the feeling that nothing bad could happen here, and no one is ever going to find me because I’ve stepped back in time along with the village.
Even though I hadn’t thought about this place in years, I remember the way to the cottage like a muscle memory.
Through the village, past the sign for Thimblenouth Force waterfall, and up a hill that seems to go on for so long you’re sure that, sooner or later, you’ll come face to face with the sky itself.
When I round the bend where I’m sure the cottage used to be, there’s a pile of stones that might once have been walls, and what looks like the remains of a roof beam poking out of a clump of nettles.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, not really. The cottage was lovingly described as ‘tumbledown’ when we came here.
In the past twenty-something years, it’s not a stretch to believe that it did, indeed, tumble right down, but it’s still a shock as I stop the engine.
A stark reminder that even if you think time stands still, it never does.
I stretch my legs and stand at the edge of the road, breathing in the fresh air and letting the silence fill my senses. There’s a peace here I haven’t known in years. A quiet so deep that it feels like the world is holding its breath.
I could stay here, but without the cottage to hide the van behind, it’s too exposed on the crest of the hill like this. Someone will notice a lime-green campervan and call the police because it’s so out of place.
Where else can I hide? I think of the sign I just passed, and the Kingfisher Arms – a pub halfway along the walk to Thimblenouth Force.
It had a perfect rose garden with tables and chairs outside, and back steps that led down to a tiny little car park, concealed by trees, hidden away on the walking route between one waterfall and another.
The kind of place you only knew was there if you knew it was there.
It would be perfect. No one would notice me. There’s nothing out of place about a van parked in a car park, is there?
I get back in the van and start the engine, but I’ve dillydallied for so long that darkness has consumed the world around me, and now the narrow roads are even more terrifying.
Gladly there are only a few bats to witness my attempt at turning the van around, but now, every bend could hide an oncoming car and every dip could conceal a sheep with a death wish.
I crawl along the winding roads, leaning forwards with a tight grip on the steering wheel again, trying to see further ahead than the campervan’s headlights allow.
At the signpost at the end of the village, I take the right-hand road towards the waterfall.
I pass a wall with a banner attached to it, and it reads ‘Get out, Kingfisher House’ in angry red brush strokes, and someone’s added devil horns and a pointy tail to the G.
I don’t know what Kingfisher House is or why anyone wants it out, but the van weaves because the sign has taken my attention off the road.
I indicate to turn left even though I haven’t seen another car for at least twenty minutes and turn down the even narrower lane that always felt like a secret passage leading to the waterfall walk and the hidden car park.
There’s uncomfortable squeaking as the hedgerows on either side scrape against the van, and I drive over an old stone bridge across the river before the lane opens out into a small gravel car park.
In front of me is the hill that leads up to the pub, a set of steps made of giant flat stones that are embedded into the grass so naturally that it looks like Mother Nature herself created them, but I can instantly tell that things have changed here too.
The pub looms on the hill in front of me, but there are no lights on and no welcoming glow from the windows. It looks closed. Abandoned, even. There’s scaffolding around one half of the building, and the car park is empty, apart from a skip with building materials spilling over its edges.
There’s a dark corner opposite me, a hedge along one side and a tree with branches that overhang so much that their leaves will brush the campervan’s roof. I couldn’t have dreamed of a more hidden place.
I inch forwards, trying to see in the dark, and make the van as inconspicuous as possible. If I park close enough to the hedge, I can pull some leaves over it to camouflage the lime-green paint.
And it’s all going really well, until the van lurches to a stop and jolts as something crunches under the front wheels.
‘Bollocks,’ I mutter to myself. It’ll be a log or a branch or something and I bet it will have caused damage to the underside.
Trust me to get all this way with no damage, and then at the very last moment, to bump into something that will probably cost hundreds to fix when I get this thing back to Jared.
I push myself up to see over the dashboard, but it’s an indistinguishable pile of rubbish in the dark.
It might be… camping gear? It looks like half a tent and a lantern and what might be a sleeping bag. Why dump it beside the hedge when there’s a skip just over there?
At least it probably won’t have caused much damage. It’ll be fine. No harm done, I tell myself.
And it is fine… until the pile of rubbish lets out an almighty scream.