Chapter 2
2
EMMA
No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no .
It is him.
Even though it’s unimaginable that the Callum I knew – my Callum – could possibly have turned into this smooth-looking man – I mean, he’s wearing a navy Ralph Lauren shirt, the smartest pair of dark jeans I’ve ever seen, brown suede loafers (possibly Prada) and an insanely tidy haircut – it is Callum Harding. I know – knew – the bones of him so well, and his face is older but it is still him. The same impossibly square jaw and deep green eyes and gorgeous, perfectly arranged, slightly imperfect features.
It’s him.
I have offered to drive Callum Harding all the way back to London.
As in the two of us alone together in the van for days and days.
I can’t do it. Certainly not. No, no, no.
I feel myself frowning as I try to work out how this has even happened .
I think back to the call from Azim. When he asked if I could give a friend of his called Callum a lift, I told him No problem , because of course I’m happy to help a friend of a friend. Very, very stupidly I did not say: What’s his surname and did I ever spend two years joined at the hip with him?
Azim is my very good friend Becca’s husband. Becca and I met just after Callum and I had our on-a-break split (which turned out to be permanent without either of us ever acknowledging it). She and Azim met and got married in a real whirl quite recently, while living in New Zealand, and I only met Azim after they arrived back in England, with their gorgeous baby, Rose, in tow. I liked Azim immediately and trust his judgement, and obviously I trust Becca.
Azim said Callum was a really good friend of his from law school.
Law school? Callum? Although to be fair he does now look very lawyer-like.
Azim told me that Callum is very sensible, very sober, very clean-living and very hard-working. I’m pretty sure he used those exact words.
My Callum Harding was none of those things.
Azim also described him as mint and someone who would never take advantage of a lone female in a camper van, and to be fair those things do apply to my Callum Harding.
But going back to the sensible, sober, hard-working lawyer thing… I mean, no.
Do a slim-fit Ralph Lauren shirt and suede loafers lie, though?
I don’t know. It really is incomprehensible. But anyway. Here we are. Staring at each other in a back street in a not-very-fancy neighbourhood in Rome.
From the way Callum’s eyes are on stalks, his Adam’s apple’s moving but he’s making no sound and he’s gripping his case white-knuckle hard, I’m certain that he recognises me. Which of course he does; unlike him I have not morphed into a completely different external persona. I wonder for a split second whether he knew he was getting a lift with me , and then I realise that, no, of course he didn’t. If he’d ever wanted to get back in touch there are wiser ways of doing it. A quick coffee on neutral territory for example would be a lot better than several days of close proximity far from home. Plus, he’d have to be an amazing actor to fake the speechlessness and wide eyes.
We have been staring at each other for a very, very long time.
‘How are you?’ he asks eventually. And, yep, that’s Callum Harding’s voice. Deep, with a slight Scottish accent that I love. Loved, I mean.
How am I? Erm, shocked and pissed off.
‘I am good ,’ I say, surprised that my voice is working. ‘How are you?’
I realise that I do mean the question. I have – obviously – thought about him from time to time (quite a lot) over the years. I might also have googled him a few times (quite a lot) too, but there are a lot of Callum Hardings and I’ve never found him. Maybe because I did not know that my search should include the words neat and tidy-looking lawyer .
‘Also good,’ he tells me. ‘Thank you.’
It’s weird. It’s like watching an actor that you’ve always seen in similar roles suddenly playing someone completely different. Like Ewan McGregor not being the Star Wars person but the dad in the second Nanny McPhee film. Very confusing.
His voice is the same, though. Although entirely sober and somewhat horrified. I’d never heard him sound horrified until the last time we spoke. That last time stuck with me.
‘Great,’ I say, and then we resume our staring, until I remember the traffic and the fact that I hauled myself out of bed way earlier than usual to make sure we wouldn’t get stuck in the Rome rush hour.
Most of me wants to get into the van and drive off without Callum. A tiny part of me, I realise, wants to know everything about what he’s been doing for the past twelve years. How my Callum turned into this version of himself. Mostly, though, I really do just want to run away from him and not go there again.
‘Sooooo.’ I produce a really big smile that I do not feel. ‘I need to get going.’
‘Of course.’ He smiles back. When he used to smile at me when we were young, the smile always started in his eyes before his lips moved. Now his lips just go kind of sideways and back again. It annoys me that just thinking of how much I used to love his real smile makes my stomach lurch a bit. ‘I really need to get back to London. And I have no other options. I fully, fully appreciate—’ he sounds both incredibly earnest and fairly miserable, which, ridiculously, I find quite cute ‘—that you probably really don’t want to travel with me, but I’m kind of desperate, so if you’re still happy to have me, I’d be incredibly grateful for the lift.’
Dammit.
I do not want to spend several days with him.
I do not want to spend even several minutes with him; I’m already feeling all stomach-churny, heavy-shouldered miserable as memories swirl around my mind.
What can I say, though?
All the news channels have been saying that flights could be off for weeks, and if I’m Callum’s only option and he’s desperate to get back…
‘Of course.’ Clearly, there is no other answer I can give. ‘I’m all ready, so shall we go, so we don’t get caught in the morning rush hour?’
‘Great. Fantastic. Thank you so much.’
This is so weird. If you discount the past twelve years of not seeing each other, we’ve gone straight from mutual horror that we’ve split up for at least the time being to mutual horror that we’re going to be sharing this trip for the next four days. And that is just odd.
At least we can have breaks from each other when we aren’t driving. We don’t even need to stay in the same place overnight. He could book a hotel if he can afford it. And never judge a book by its cover but his super-smart clothes and shoes do indicate that he could afford it especially given that his travel is now very cheap. (In the only text we exchanged beyond the very basic he said in very strong terms that he couldn’t accept the lift if I wouldn’t let him pay for fuel so I agreed to let him pay half, but that won’t be much compared to a flight.) Okay so I’m cheering up a bit. Four hours’ driving a day isn’t long. We have twenty other hours to be apart each day.
Who am I kidding. Four hours is a long time to be stuck together.
Okay, no, it isn’t. It will be fine . We can listen to music. And not talk. All good.
‘Wonderful,’ I chirp insincerely. ‘Maybe put your suitcase at the back there.’
I point and then climb up into my seat at the wheel.
Before he gets in, I ask, ‘Been to the loo?’
Callum raises an eyebrow – I’m guessing because he wishes to point out that he’s an adult.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘but the number of fully grown men who say they don’t need to go and then within half an hour are desperate .’
He can go in my hotel. (That’s a strong word for where I stayed last night but it does have loos and checkout time was not until eleven.)
His eyebrow is still half-raised. ‘Yeah, no, I’m all good thanks – on the bathroom front.’
I give in. ‘Okay, cool. Soooo… let’s go?’
Callum’s still standing in the road. ‘Your shoes?’ he says.
‘Shoes?’ I look round. Have some of my shoes fallen out of the van?
He’s looking at my feet. ‘Just thought you might have forgotten to put your shoes on.’
‘No?’ I wiggle my feet. ‘I’m wearing shoes.’
‘You’re wearing flip-flops.’
‘Flip-flops are shoes?’
‘Not driving shoes, though?’ He’s frowning slightly.
‘I drive in flip-flops all the time.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ Honestly.
‘Just that I’m pretty sure that it’s illegal to drive in flip-flops?’
‘What? Really? Why?’ I hear my voice go quite high and realise that I’m frowning myself now. This is a ludicrous conversation. I’ve driven hundreds if not thousands of miles in flip-flops without mishap.
‘Because they could get caught on a pedal and cause an accident.’ He’s definitely serious.
I think of a loophole. ‘Is that just a British law, though?’
‘Maybe. It’s sensible, though.’
I stare at him. This is just weird . Callum is lecturing me about being sensible.
For some reason, I continue to engage.
‘The thing is, it is a very hot day.’ Satisfyingly, I see him nod. I deliver my crunch blow. ‘And the van doesn’t have air con and it is not safe to drive when you’re boiling hot, so I’m actually being safer wearing flip-flops to drive.’
‘What?’ he asks.
‘Yep,’ I confirm. ‘I am right. And I am not changing my shoes. Are you getting in?’
‘Right. Okay.’
Callum hefts his not-that-small suitcase into the back of the van effortlessly and even through his shirt I see his biceps flex. A little flashback of naked Callum pops into my head. I blink and look away quickly, even though he obviously doesn’t know that that’s what I was thinking.
It’s really weird how thinking about his much younger naked self feels quite rude . Like I’m being intrusive. And that is just odd.
Oh my God.
He remembers me naked too. Well, I say that. He was so out of it so much of the time that maybe he doesn’t. Plus, maybe he’s had so many partners since that we’ve all merged into one.
Okay, and now I’m annoyed at that thought. Really I’m being quite ridiculous.
Callum closing the rear door and climbing up next to me is a welcome interruption of my thoughts. Although I immediately realise that it’s also a very unnerving interruption. Callum, in all his largeness, is now sitting in the front of my van next to me. If I change gear too flamboyantly my hand might bang against his leg. I’ll need to be careful.
His voice cuts into my thoughts. ‘Thanks again. I really am deeply grateful. Can I help in any way to improve the journey? Map reading? Provision of mid-journey snacks?’ He looks at the – admittedly old-fashioned – dashboard and adds, ‘Help with tuning the radio or switching the wipers on?’
‘The radio doesn’t totally work,’ I tell him. ‘So I use my phone.’
About the windscreen wipers, there’s no need to tell him that there are basically none (there was an incident with a low-hanging tree a couple of days ago, which ended up with one completely broken off and the other one not working) so we can’t drive in the rain. But it doesn’t matter because no rain is forecast along our route for the next few days and as soon as we get into France I’ll get them fixed, so he never needs to know.
Actually, maybe I should have told him they’re broken; he might have decided not to come.
I open my mouth to say it and then close it again. He doesn’t seem happy to be here either; he’s clearly only joined me because he’s desperate to get back, so there’s probably nothing I can say to get rid of him, other than piss off out of my van (I wish I could say that) and this new Callum incarnation seems strangely big into OTT adherence to road rules (I mean the flip-flop thing – weird ), so it would be better to say nothing.
So I tell him, ‘Google Maps help and snacks would be lovely, though.’
I suddenly frown. Why did he ask what he can do to help but not offer to share the driving? Also, I’m pretty sure that Azim said that he doesn’t drive.
‘Azim said that you don’t drive? That you don’t have a licence?’
‘Yeah,’ is all Callum says.
Does he not remember that I was there when he passed his test? I mean, he must do, surely, because it led to our break-up. Which, despite subsequent events (or lack thereof), was definitely huge for him too. He must remember it, surely.
He got really drunk the night of the test. I had to take his keys and hide them so there was no possibility of him driving. He was so stupid then.
And the thought of him being his stupid self but with the ability (and apparently the inclination) to drive terrified me, and was part of the reason I ended up giving him an ultimatum: he had to stop the drinking and the insane alcohol-induced wildness. We both cried a lot when I said that, and then he told me he’d prove himself to me immediately.
From there we started our ‘on-a-break’ split, and then… he never got in touch again.
He definitely passed his test.
But now he’s saying he doesn’t have a licence.
I kind of want to ask what happened, but also I really don’t. There’s no good story that I can think of behind someone having a licence and then losing it, and, really, that’s the whole reason that Callum and I aren’t living in suburbia right now with our two point five kids, a couple of cats and maybe a goldfish. His wildness. Other than that… I mean, I thought we’d be together forever. I’m guessing he did too. That would be why he proposed.
‘Okay, then,’ I say, and put the key in the ignition.