Chapter 36
Hope. For the first time in a long while, Mattie felt it, deep in her bones.
In the far distance was her first glimpse of the sea, glinting silver in the weak January sun.
She grinned so widely that the skin in the corners of her mouth ached.
She steered her car into the filter lane and took the junction for Torquay.
A thrill of excitement raced through her, blended with unaccustomed nerves.
In one hour and twelve minutes, she’d see Nell.
There was so much to tell and share with her.
Nell’s email came as a complete surprise.
She’d referred to Mattie as a trusted journalist. Trusted.
That’d given her such a thrill, even if the email was incredibly formal.
The only intimation that they were anything other than professionally acquainted was Nell addressing her as Mattie rather than Ms Elliott.
Accepting her invitation to interview the two women was a no-brainer.
The plan was for Mattie to chat to them tomorrow off-screen, to help them feel safe and comfortable with what they wanted to share.
The day after, Moeen would join them to film.
Those details had been thrashed out via email, in similarly formal tones.
Once everything was arranged, Mattie had sent a text to Nell: Please can we meet beforehand? We need to talk about us.
Nell had replied an hour later: Yes. We do.
On a whim, Mattie decided to take the coastal road the rest of the way into town.
She still had time to play with, and it would settle her nerves.
A little while later, she pulled over at a viewpoint and got out of the car.
Just breathing in the salt on the wind coming off the sea was divine.
She took a photo of the view on her phone and sent it to Shona and to Simon, along with #self-care.
The three cups of takeaway tea she’d drunk during her drive down from London were catching up with her.
She looked around, but there were no facilities.
She did a quick search on Google Maps and found the closest ones were at a car park about half a mile away.
Finding them was easy enough. The car park was empty but for a squat brick building at one end.
She parked and dashed over to it. She yanked on the cold metal handle of the door, but it didn’t budge.
What good were locked toilets? Damn it. Her bladder was bursting to the point of pain.
Either she wet herself or took a wild wee.
The bushes nearby were just about big enough to hide her.
She’d just squatted down to relieve herself when she heard another car pull up.
She edged lower to the ground, mentally crossing her fingers that there were no nettles, prickles, or brambles.
She heard car doors slam and urged her bladder to hurry up.
Footsteps crunched on loose gravel, and a car started up, this one closer to her.
Where were her tissues? She flailed, almost losing her balance as she searched her pockets.
A car engine revved, and its tyres spat gravel as it left unnecessarily quickly, followed by another car.
Wait. Two cars?
She dragged her jeans up and was still tugging at the zipper as she ran out from behind the bush into the car park. It was empty.
Fuck. Fuck. Triple fuck. How could she have been so stupid to leave her keys in the ignition, along with her phone and laptop, raincoat, and suitcase.
Who did that? No one in their right mind, that’s who.
And now here she was, stuck on a remote cliff road with no car and no way of contacting anyone.
Gormlessly, she stood in the car park and wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the increasingly bitter sea breeze.
All she needed now was for it to rain, and her misery would be complete.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?
Stay here and hope for someone to come along?
Start walking along the cliff road towards town and flag down a passing motorist?
She should be meeting Nell in about fifteen minutes.
Hopefully, Nell would presume that she was stuck in traffic and not that she’d blown her off.
Mattie shivered. This was ridiculous. She had to get moving, or she’d only get colder.
She headed left out of the car park on to the narrow road with a slippery verge and no pavement. It was remoter than she’d realised, made obvious by the lack of traffic. Didn’t people have dogs to take for walks?
Something wet splattered on her head. Either a seagull had crapped on her or it was raining. More drops fell. Rain then. Oh, joy.
Mattie could only guess at how long she’d been walking.
She had to be halfway to town by now, surely?
Knowing Nell, she would’ve left texts or a voicemail message.
What would she think when Mattie failed to respond?
Still stuck in traffic? Or that she was ghosting her again, just as she’d done since going to Turkey?
Mattie glanced up at the sky, wondering how many hours of daylight were left.
Being out here in the dark would bring extra dangers because there were no streetlights or pavements.
Her sneakers squidged with each footstep along the road’s slick surface.
Where was everybody? In the warm and dry, that was where.
Rain slithered down her neck, and her hoodie sagged with the weight of water soaking it.
This was monumentally shite. All her notes and contacts were on her phone and laptop.
Yes, she’d engaged her brain at some point and ensured everything was backed up in the cloud, but it was going to be a time-consuming pain dealing with it all.
She’d need to pick up new devices. Find some new clothes.
The sound of a car behind her was so unexpected that she nearly missed her opportunity to flag it down.
She stood in the middle of the road waving manically.
The car, a beige Rover which had seen better days, wasn’t exactly going fast and the driver stopped alongside her.
A woman in her sixties wound the window down and stared at her.
With straggly hair plastered to her head and drenched clothing, Mattie figured that she must look a sight.
“Please can you ring the police?” she asked through chattering teeth.
“My car was stolen while I was in the toilet.”
“No phone,” said the woman.
“No phone?” Who left home without a phone?
The woman appeared to size her up and then nodded at the passenger seat. “Get in before you catch your death. I’ll drive you into town.”
“Thank you so much.” Mattie got into the car before the woman had a chance to change her mind. “I’m so sorry, I’m going to make your car wet,” she said as water dripped off her face and clothes on to the seat.
“Don’t worry about it. At least you don’t stink, unlike Mini and Maxi back there.” The driver gestured at two Labradoodles barking from the sectioned-off hatchback.
Mattie sniffed. Yep, at least there was that. The woman drove off, driving at barely faster than jogging speed. Mattie caught sight of the time. Fuck. She was over an hour late. “Can you drive any faster?”
The woman snorted. “Not unless you want me to crash or get nicked for speeding. There’s a twenty-mile-an-hour limit up here.”
That would be one way of getting a message to Nell, but Mattie managed to suppress herself from saying it out loud. So, all her stuff had been nicked, she was chilled to the bone, the woman she loved had yet another reason to walk away from her. Oh, and she stank of wet dog. So much for hope.