Chapter 11
I wake up with a jolt to the sound of ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ being wailed outside my window and groan.
Is it morning? I lean over and pull aside the curtain covering the back window and squint as sunlight assaults my eyeballs.
I don’t know what time I eventually got to sleep last night, but far from sleeping soundly, I spent many unproductive hours lying in the little cabin bed and thinking about Reece, and now it’s like I’ve accidentally summoned him as a particularly noisy alarm clock.
I push the duvet aside and scramble down the ladder until I can unlock the door and slide it open.
Outside, I’m greeted by a can of paint. Or, more specifically, a can of paint being held in mid-air, suspended from a set of fingers closed around the handle.
‘Good morning,’ the owner of the fingers says cheerfully.
‘What’s that?’
Reece pulls back with a befuddled expression as he looks between me and the paint. ‘You can’t tell that’s a tin of paint?’
‘Well, yeah, but it’s…’ I look around for a clock, but there isn’t one in the van, and then I spot the watch on his wrist and lean out to grab his hand and pull it near enough to see.
‘…quarter to nine in the morning. As breakfast options go, it’s an odd choice.
I’m more of a coffee and toast girl, usually. ’
He laughs, a big, loud laugh, and even in my just-woken-up state, I love that he doesn’t hold back any laughs, ever. ‘It’s not for you, it’s for Campervan.’
I pat the closed door and address the campervan itself. ‘Aww, he called you by name, my friend. Wait…’ I turn back to him as my brain catches up with what he said. ‘Why would you have a tin of paint for her?’
I’ve become the thing I hate. I now see the campervan as a female co-conspirator, and she’s been good to me so far, minus the shower incident. Maybe she deserves a name, or at the very least, a gender.
‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you after I left last night, and I kept going back to what I said about Jared and social media. This is a very recognisable van and this is a busy touristy area. There’ll always be a slim chance someone could recognise it. So why not give it a makeover?’
He holds up the tin of paint again, and I squint at it, feeling so disjointed that I must still be in the middle of a dream. ‘You think we should paint the van? To what, disguise it?’
‘Exactly! Anyone looking for you is going to be looking for a lime-green campervan. With this, you won’t have a lime-green campervan. It’s camouflage.’
‘It’s…’ I take the tin of paint out of his hand and look at it. ‘It’s bright yellow.’
‘The shade is called Marzipan – that’s why I bought it. It seemed like a sign after your mention of Battenberg yesterday.’
‘You think we should hide the campervan by painting it the colour of Big Bird? A colour that screams “Look at me!” in every conceivable way?’ I rub my eyes, certain I’m missing something here.
‘At the moment, it’s screaming “radioactive vomit”, so yes, why not?
It’s bright and sunny and happy, and who doesn’t need more of those things in their lives?
’ The smile on his face is all of those things and more.
‘It doesn’t matter if people look at it – it does matter if your ex is mounting a campaign to find it and someone recognises it. With this, they won’t.’
He’s half-bouncing on his feet because his leg is holding him back from full enthusiasm, and there’s something infectious about it that makes the idea of painting a stolen campervan bright yellow seem completely sensible. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because I like you and I don’t want you to go anywhere.
’ He falters and his cheeks turn red like that wasn’t meant to come out quite like that.
‘I mean, I enjoy your company. And I only want you to move on from here if you’re ready to, and I don’t want you to be constantly looking over your shoulder.
The worst thing you can do to attract attention is try to hide it.
Nothing would look more suspicious than painting it brown and trying to cover it with tree branches.
For now, this is your van and you have every right to be in it.
If you project that outwards, nothing can go wrong. ’
I almost laugh because there isn’t anything that hasn’t gone wrong lately, but I’m also touched by how easy he makes everything seem, and by the fact he’s even thought of this.
I take the paint again and hold it up. The colour swatch on the front is a beautiful, creamy yellow that really does make me think of marzipan, and it is vastly better than the colour Jared chose.
It’s one of those decisions you can’t really back out of once you’ve made it though.
If I do this, it’s… what? Staking my claim?
Really, truly trying to take ownership of the campervan?
It isn’t mine and I never intended to keep it, but what else am I going to do?
For the time being, it is mine and I like it more than I thought I would.
‘Have you just been out and bought this?’ I ask, mainly to buy myself time to overthink it in my head, and when he nods, I go to reach for my purse. I have no idea what car paint costs, but it looks expensive. ‘What do I owe you?’
‘Nothing.’ He looks surprised that I even considered it. ‘Honestly. You’re the most exciting thing to happen round here in months, it’s the least I can do.’
‘Thank you.’ I like how he says what he thinks and doesn’t even try to beat around the bush.
‘I like you and I want you to stay’ is the nicest thing I can remember hearing in months, years maybe, and he simply blurts it out like it’s normal to be that straightforward.
‘And you want to help? Isn’t that aiding and abetting or perverting the course of justice or something? ’
‘Only if you get caught. That’s what makes it fun.’
I laugh out loud. That’s been the story of my life lately, and he’s the first person to inject any fun into it.
His grin makes it impossible to cling onto my sensible side.
I’ve already stolen the van and I trust Reece’s expertise that the police aren’t mounting a countrywide search for me.
He’s right on this too – it would be better to make sure that no one will recognise the campervan and…
stay here? Maybe I could look for a job up here?
Stay in the campervan long enough to save a deposit for a flat, and then get in touch with Jared to return it?
What better plan do I have at the moment?
Sharing my plans for the café with Reece last night has made a million ideas swirl in my head, and I keep picturing the closed tearoom in the village and the ladies who still use it, despite having to bring their own tea and cake…
‘Don’t you have to work?’ I ask when I realise Reece has been smiling at me through many minutes of silence.
‘It can wait,’ he says with a nonchalant shrug.
‘Seriously? You can just take days off whenever you feel like it? Don’t you have a schedule to stick to? Doesn’t your mysterious boss ever check up on what you’re doing? What if he turned up for a random spot check and found you painting a campervan in the car park?’
‘Not gonna happen.’ He does the same nonchalant shrug, and when I narrow my eyes, he sighs. ‘The work will get done, one way or another. One day doesn’t make any difference. Kingfisher House will always be there… more’s the pity.’
The last three words are added as nothing more than a murmur, and I don’t think I was supposed to hear them, nor see the eyeroll that accompanied them.
At the exact same moment as I do, he realises his guard came down with those words, and he gets flustered and uneasy.
He waves an all-encompassing hand towards the campervan and my pyjamas and messy hair.
‘Get yourself sorted and come up to the pub. I’ve got overalls you can wear, tarpaulin to save any spillages in the car park, plenty of paint rollers and brushes, and I may have called in the village shop so either breakfast is waiting, or I’m going to eat two Yorkshire curd tarts on my own. ’
The words are fast and tumbling over themselves and he’s already backing away, like he’s hoping if he moves fast enough, I’ll forget what I just heard.
I watch him as he tries to get away faster than he can limp, and then I watch from the back window as he hobbles up the steps towards the pub, looking like he’s giving himself a bollocking.
I quickly have a wash and change out of my pyjamas, and get my hair out of the way in a claw clip, but I can’t stop thinking about the words that I wasn’t meant to hear… There is something going on in that pub and I’m going to find out what.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, we’ve eaten breakfast and finished our coffees, and I’m wearing a pair of Reece’s overalls that are ridiculously oversized on me and standing on the steps, clutching an array of paint brushes and rollers, while he spreads sheets of tarpaulin on the ground surrounding the campervan to protect the car park’s gravel from yellow paint.
‘Are you supposed to paint vehicles with rollers and brushes? Isn’t it some sort of air gun spray thingy?’
‘You got one?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither.’ He shrugs without looking up, an all-encompassing shrug that says we’ll work with what we’ve got.
‘You’re very good at that,’ I observe, trying not to notice how his T-shirt pulls across his shoulders when he bends down to secure tarpaulin corners with bricks.
‘Good at preparing for unmitigated disasters in advance?’ He looks up and catches me staring, and something warm flickers in his eyes. ‘Yeah, I do that a lot.’