Chapter 14
JOSIE
A scruffy white van with a dent in its side is parked at the end of the quiet side street. No, that can’t be it. It looks more like an ambulance. The campervan mustn’t be here yet.
Of more immediate concern is the fact that the moisture in my body seems to have gone to the wrong places.
My mouth is so parched I can’t swallow, yet my hands are soaked in sweat.
Last night I was full of bravado, having had several boosting messages from friends: It’s an adventure!
Have fun! What’s the worst that can happen?
But this morning I woke up with The Fear, glad that at least I’d turned down Shane’s offer to pick me up in the campervan.
The prospect of him bowling up at my flat was a bridge too far.
I’d have felt obliged to make him coffee, and have him check out my place and maybe judge me on it.
To me it’s home, and I love all my clutter and trinkets – but I’m not sure what Shane would make of it.
And what if Lloyd had still been swaggering around in his extremely thigh-revealing shorts?
It’s not that I’m ashamed of my boyfriend – far from it – but I could imagine Shane thinking, well… something at least.
I breathe in deeply, trying to quell my rising sense of panic. Hang on – did I take my pill this morning? I don’t think so. It hits me that, in my haphazard approach to packing, and shuddering as I stuffed in Ravi’s Polaroid camera, I’ve forgotten one crucial item.
My antidepressants aren’t in my rucksack.
That’s because they’re still sitting in the bathroom cabinet at home.
Five days in a van with Shane and no head pills!
Briefly, I consider rushing back home to fetch them.
What does it matter if I’m late? We’re not on a strict time schedule.
I weigh up the hassle involved with the blessed relief of being in possession of my meds and decide I can’t face it.
I’ll just have to self-medicate through this.
As white wine is my preference, I hope the campervan has a fridge.
But actually, I’m quite prepared to drink it lukewarm. This an emergency, after all.
My rucksack is weighing heavily on my back, my ancient sleeping bag billowing about like a badly tethered windsock.
I cross the road, passing a low-rise maisonette block with small, scrubby gardens at the front.
The street is filled with haphazardly parked cars bumped up on kerbs and jutting out into the road.
Hopefully one of them will move before the campervan arrives.
Calm down, I tell myself. Whatever happens, I’m getting out of town, having a little break away from everything: being shunned by Cora, nagged about commodifying my feet and worrying myself senseless about finding a new job.
And what was it that my friend Nisha said last night?
If it’s really awful, you can duck out early, can’t you?
Catch a train home. I hate to say it, but Ravi will never know.
And now, farther down the street – next to the ambulance, in fact – I spot one of those A-frame signs sitting on the pavement.
Back Alley Music, it says, with an arrow pointing to the left.
To an alley, in fact. So this is it. This is Shane’s shop and any minute now the van will be here, and we’ll be off.
A man emerges from the alley. It’s Shane, in a black T-shirt and jeans, looking extremely preoccupied.
I watch, hanging back a little, as he makes for the closed back door of the ambulance, bends slightly, and starts to scrub at something.
Whatever it is, he’s going at it furiously with some kind of scourer or cloth.
Why is he doing that? Surely the ambulance can’t be anything to do with him.
I take another fortifying deep breath and stop a short distance away. ‘Hi!’ I say.
He spins around and his face brightens. ‘Josie. Hi! I was just, um—’ He brandishes a Brillo pad at me. ‘Just, er…’
‘Doing a spot of cleaning?’
‘Yeah!’ He laughs awkwardly and rakes at the back of his head. ‘Just thought I’d spruce it up a bit.’
My gaze falls to the spot he’s been scrubbing at. Looks like the remains of a sticker, still clinging on. ‘This… isn’t it, is it?’ I ask. ‘This isn’t the van?’
His jaw seems to tighten and he emits a small groan.
‘It is, I’m afraid.’ The wet Brillo pad drips onto the ground.
‘Josie, I’m really sorry,’ he says quickly.
‘I feel like such an idiot. Honestly, I had no idea it’d be like this…
’ He looks away briefly and his cheeks redden.
‘I realise I should’ve checked. Or at least found out what kind of van it was.
I thought it might be a bit basic, but the way he talked about it, all the trips he’s done—’
‘And he definitely said it was a campervan?’ I cut in.
‘Well, yes. Yes, of course!’ he says forcefully, then seems to catch himself. ‘I’m sorry. I’m making this sound like Boris misled me, but he didn’t. I just imagined—’
‘A cute campervan?’ I suggest. ‘Like a classic VW in pale blue or pea green, with curtains?’
A smile flickers over his lips. ‘There are curtains, actually. Of a sort.’
‘Well, that’s okay then.’ I laugh dryly. ‘Look, this isn’t your fault. If someone offers to lend you their campervan, then that’s what you’d expect, isn’t it?’
Shane looks at me and nods resignedly. ‘Okay, so we can just forget about it. Forget the trip, I mean. Explain to Pam and Kamal—’
‘Is that what you want?’ I ask. Because now I’m here – with no job to go to and having lugged my rucksack halfway across London – I’m not sure I want to duck out.
‘I want to do what’s right for Ravi,’ Shane says with a shrug. ‘But the thing is—’
‘People convert all kinds of vehicles into campervans, don’t they?’ I interrupt. ‘Who cares what it looks like on the outside? As long as it’s fitted out, and we have the basics…’
‘Well, that’s the thing…’
‘What’s the thing?’
‘Let me show you.’ He sighs heavily and, with a firm wrench, hauls open the back door.
I stare in and my heart seems to plummet. ‘Oh,’ is all I can say. Because the vehicle hasn’t been ‘converted’ at all – it’s just an ambulance with all of its fittings and medical stuff stripped out, leaving nothing. There is a bed – a bed singular. Or rather, a mattress on the floor.
I stare at it wordlessly. It’s not that I expected luxury; that’s not the point. It’s the fact that this arrangement would mean Shane and I lying together at night – sleeping together – which of course is unthinkable—
‘Oh, hey!’ A tall, rangy man with fine sandy hair and a small, neat beard has joined us.
‘Josie, this is Fletch,’ Shane says distractedly. ‘My partner in the shop. Fletch, this is Josie.’
‘Nice to meet you.’ He grins, his eyes glinting with amusement behind chunky, black-framed specs. ‘So, what d’you think of your accommodation?’
I choke out a feeble laugh. ‘It’s not quite what I expected.’
‘Nope. Thought it might not be.’ I catch Shane throwing him a quick look. Please leave us alone, is how I’d interpret it.
‘So, what’re you gonna do?’ Fletch asks brightly.
‘Not quite sure yet,’ Shane murmurs. I sense him deliberately trying to exclude his friend from the discussion we clearly need to have.
‘Could you hire an actual camper?’ Fletch suggests. ‘There must be loads of places—’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ I say quickly. Not without a job, I can’t. Not when I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next month. Admittedly, Lloyd’s foot-focussed enterprise is becoming more appealing, and didn’t he say he’d take care of all the admin and the uploading of pics?
‘How about booking hotels then?’ Fletch asks. Clearly, he isn’t up for being left out of this. He whips out his phone from a pocket and frowns at it. ‘What’s your first port of call?’
‘Er, Grimsby,’ I reply.
‘Fletch, it’s fine,’ Shane says firmly, but his friend is already on , assuming the role of Trip Leader.
‘Place here. Four-star average. Free hot breakfast.’ He flashes the screen at me. ‘Not bad, eh?’
‘Yeah, we’ll just have a minute, mate,’ Shane says, at which Fletch nods, finally understanding that he’s not needed, and he lopes away into the alley.
I look at Shane. ‘What d’you think?’
‘I guess he’s right. One of us could stay in hotels. I mean you, obviously. This is all my fault, so I’ll pay.’
‘You’re not paying for five nights in hotels,’ I exclaim, ‘while you sleep in the van. How would that be fair?’ He shrugs.
‘Look,’ I add, ‘I might as well be honest. I’m pretty broke at the moment.
The only way I can do this is if we keep costs to the absolute minimum.
So—’ I tip my head towards the van ‘—how about we just do this as we planned? It’s clean, at least. And we do have our sleeping bags. ’
Shane nods thoughtfully, as if turning this over. ‘Yeah, we do.’
‘Although, obviously, as there’s no shower or anything—’
‘We’ll have to stay on campsites,’ he finishes.
‘Yeah. But that’d be okay, wouldn’t it? The van will just be somewhere to crash at the end of the day.
’ I’m trying to not even consider the many, many other hours we’ll be spending together – the non-sleeping hours – which I have no idea how we’ll fill.
We haven’t even discussed what our plans will be. Should I have brought Buckaroo?
‘I guess so,’ Shane says, seeming to relax a little now. ‘Shall we have a quick coffee in the shop, then? Before we set off?’
‘That’d be great.’
He bangs the ambulance door shut, and we head along the alleyway and into the shop, where I gaze around in amazement.
‘Wow!’ I exclaim. Gleaming guitars are hung along one wall, and rows of golden saxophones and silver trumpets are perched expectantly on stands.
Everything is immaculate and beautifully displayed.
Fletch looks up from behind the counter and chuckles. ‘Not what you expected?’
‘The shop, you mean?’ I smile. ‘I wasn’t really sure what to expect,’ I add truthfully.
‘It’s a labour of love,’ Shane says with a grin. Then, ‘Any coffee on the go, Fletch?’
‘Sure,’ Fletch says, disappearing through a door behind the counter.
‘Honestly, I think it’s wonderful,’ I say, remembering a couple of excitable women who’d tumbled into the bookshop last week.
Clearly tipsy from lunch, they were obviously delighted to have discovered us.
‘What a gorgeous little place!’ one exclaimed.
‘Thank God there are still unique little shops like this left in the world!’ Shane and Fletch’s place is just as special.
Briefly, I wonder if Rupert has replaced me yet.
Fletch reappears with two mugs of coffee and hands them to us. ‘So, you’re sticking to the van option?’ he asks.
I turn to Shane. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’
He nods with a wry smile and sips his coffee. ‘Yeah, I reckon we’ll be all right.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Fletch asserts. ‘But if anything untoward happens, you can always whack on the blue light.’
‘It doesn’t have a blue light any more,’ Shane remarks.
‘Pity, that,’ I say, taking a gulp of strong coffee. Because the reality is, I’m about to share a mattress with Shane for five days. And if that’s not an emergency situation, I don’t know what is.