Chapter Nine Seven Years Earlier
Chapter Nine
Seven Years Earlier
It happened at the worst possible moment, although to be fair I’m not sure when a good moment would be to have a tyre blow out.
I remember checking my estimated arrival time and feeling pleased I was well ahead of schedule. The party wasn’t due to start for another two hours, which gave me plenty of time to travel the final twenty miles to the hotel to set up. The route on my map screen looked uncomplicated, and the roads were clear of traffic. In fact, I hadn’t seen another car for ages.
The bang sounded like a firework going off beneath my car and, for a mechanic’s daughter, I was embarrassingly slow to realise what had happened. One minute I’d been in total control of Betty, my old Ford Fiesta, and the next it felt as though an invisible giant had jerked the wheel out of my hands. The car veered sharply to the left, no longer under my control. Later I’d see the remnants of the front tyre that had been shredded to streamers as Betty slalomed whichever way she fancied towards the grassy verge and the unforgiving dry-stone wall running beside it.
I stood on the brakes, but the wall just kept getting closer and closer. With horrible clarity I could make out the shape and colour of the individual flat stones that were about to connect with Betty in the worst way possible. I braced myself for an impact that miraculously never happened as the car came to a stop just inches away from the wall. It took almost a full minute before I could persuade my fingers to unfurl themselves from around the steering wheel, and even longer before my heartbeat slowed down enough to stop deafening me.
It was the kind of near miss that makes you suddenly believe in guardian angels, and I instinctively glanced towards the wooden lucky mascot I’d had for years, which was still swaying back and forth from where it hung on my rear-view mirror. I steadied the tiny carved lily with shaking fingers and took a deep breath before reaching for the door handle.
The smell of burning rubber assaulted my senses as I stepped on to the grassy verge. Already fearing what I’d see, I rounded the front of my car and stared down in dismay at the shredded front tyre.
‘Shit! Fuck!’ I swore softly under my breath, although there was no one to offend except the skylarks, who were singing prettily from the top branches of a nearby tree.
It might have taken seven years, but my dad’s pessimistic prediction had finally come true. ‘One day, Lily, you’ll find yourself stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat tyre, and you’re going to be very grateful then that I taught you how to change it.’ We’d had that conversation on the day I passed my driving test, and I smiled wryly now because he’d been absolutely right. Today was that day.
I headed towards the back of the car where the spare and the jack were lodged, knowing they’d both be in perfect order because Dad checked them every time I went home. My floaty summer dress wasn’t exactly suited for mechanic duties, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.
It was only when my hand reached for the button to spring open the boot that I realised a flat tyre might be the least of my problems. How could I have forgotten the cargo Betty was carrying? I screwed up my eyes, convinced that all my hours of hard work had been reduced to culinary roadkill. Gingerly I opened first one eye and then the other, unable to believe my good luck had continued to hold. Despite Betty’s dramatic spell of off-roading, none of the cakes for the stag party had been damaged.
It took longer than I’d expected to empty the boot and transfer the cake boxes to the verge, where I stacked them against the dry-stone wall. It looked like I’d set up a roadside stand, and when I heard the sound of a car slowing down behind me, I fully expected they were in the market for a cake.
That thought quickly evaporated when I straightened up and saw four men, all a few years older than me, in the car. The passenger window rolled down and the aroma of cigarette smoke and alcohol wafted out.
‘Hey. You okay, babe? D’you need a hand?’ It would have been a more welcoming proposition if the hand the man was offering wasn’t already wrapped around a can of beer.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I said, remembering to tag a smile on to my words, because at least they’d stopped to offer help, even if it was unwanted.
I might as well have saved my breath because, one after another, all four car doors opened and the men, in various states of inebriation, climbed out. Thankfully, the driver at least appeared to be relatively sober.
‘Honestly, I’ve got it covered,’ I assured them, holding up my hands like King Canute. Like the tide, they ignored the gesture.
The driver had already walked all the way around Betty, pausing by her passenger side.
‘You’ve got a flat tyre there, love. You’ll need to get that changed.’
I smiled sweetly in the face of his mansplaining.
‘Yes, I know. Like I said, thank you for stopping, but really, it’s all under control.’
‘Nonsense. We’ve got time to help a damsel in distress, haven’t we, guys?’ asked the driver.
‘I dunno, Dougie, we don’t want to be late,’ replied the front-seat passenger, glugging down the last of his can before lobbing it into the verge.
I stiffened in irritation and came very close to pointing out that he appeared to have dropped something, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the two back-seat passengers bending to open the stacked cake boxes.
I spun around, forgetting I was trying to be polite.
‘Can you stay away from those, please? They’re for a party.’
The man whose hand was already halfway inside the box looked back at me over his shoulder. ‘Hey, we’re going to a party,’ he slurred. ‘I bet they’re for us, anyway.’
My jaw tightened as he extracted a cupcake from the box and sank his teeth into it. Meanwhile the driver had moved to the back of Betty and was obviously looking for the jack. An emotion I was slow to recognise as rage began to flood through me. I hadn’t asked for or invited their assistance, but they weren’t listening to me. It was totally beyond their comprehension that I didn’t want their help.
‘Look, thank you again for stopping, but like I said, there’s no need. I’ve called my boyfriend and he’s on his way right now. He’ll change the tyre in a jiffy. He’s a mechanic.’
The men exchanged looks, which if I hadn’t been so angry, I would have found really insulting. Clearly, they didn’t believe me. I’m not sure what they were struggling with: the idea that I had a boyfriend or that he worked in a garage. I wondered what their expressions would have been if I’d told them I was planning on changing the tyre myself.
It felt like we’d reached a critical impasse. The driver, who I’d hoped would simply shrug and climb back into his car, did the exact opposite, planting his feet wide apart and folding his arms across his barrel chest. Until that moment I had felt more irritated than threatened, but now I was starting to wonder if I had played this whole thing wrong.
I was considering backpedalling when we all looked up like startled meerkats at the sound of an approaching car on the quiet country lane.
‘Ah. That must be him,’ I said, swivelling towards the road. The sun was low in the sky, and I had to shield my eyes to even see the approaching car. ‘You’re free to be on your way now, guys.’
‘Maybe we should just hang around and check it’s him. You know, there are some dodgy people out there these days.’
The irony of his words was totally lost on him.
‘Honestly, it’s best if you just go. He can be a little . . . possessive . . . sometimes.’
I’m not sure what I’d been hoping to achieve with that lie, but it didn’t get them scurrying back into their car. If anything, it ignited yet another challenge.
‘You can do better than being with a guy like that,’ said drunk passenger number three. ‘A pretty girl like you.’
I glared at him for insulting my imaginary boyfriend and was wondering how rude I was going to have to be to get them to leave, when the sound of the approaching vehicle grew appreciably louder.
My line of sight was blocked by the men who, by accident or design, were clustered between me and the road. I was preparing to sidestep them and flag down the driver when the car sped straight past us.
Disappointment felt like a rock in the middle of my chest as I watched it disappear.
‘Ah, not your fella then?’ said Doug.
And then, before I could think of a reply, something amazing happened. The car that had just driven past us came to a stop. I stared at its twin brake lights, unaware that I had been holding my breath in anticipation. The miracle continued when the car’s engine restarted but, instead of driving on, the vehicle reversed back the hundred yards or so to where we were standing.
‘There he is,’ I said, the relief in my voice totally genuine. Not caring if I was being rude, I pushed my way through the men and half walked, half ran towards the car whose door was already opening.
‘Hi, sweetheart. What took you so long? I thought I was going to have to call a garage after all.’
A tall man with sandy-coloured hair climbed out of the car. I’m sure that beneath his reflective sunglasses his eyes held a million questions; I shook my head, my own eyes asking him not to give me away as I covered the distance between us. Not sure if I was jumping straight from the frying pan and into the fire, I acted on pure instinct and held out my hands to the total stranger standing in front of me.
He skipped a beat, just one. In that moment I saw his head turn and he seemed to take it all in at once. His jaw, which I was close enough to see was attractively covered with stubble, got infinitesimally tighter.
‘Sorry I got held up, Jessie.’
I smiled broadly, happily realising he was going to play along.
‘Thanks for stopping to help her out, mate,’ he said, addressing a seriously confused-looking Doug. ‘It’s nice to know there are still some good blokes out there.’
‘It sure is,’ I said, looking up at the stranger who I had no reason to trust more than the men who’d stopped to supposedly help me. But I did. Instantly and immediately.
‘Well, we don’t want to hold you up any more than we must have already,’ my new best friend said pointedly.
‘We’re going to be late if we don’t get going, and I don’t know how long the free bar is open,’ grumbled drunk guy number four. Clearly the thought of having to pay for their own alcohol was the most effective motivator of all, and one by one the men climbed back into their car.
The stranger and I stood side by side as they manoeuvred back on to the highway. I felt him throw an arm companionably around my shoulders; the other he lifted in a wave as the car was thrown into gear and disappeared in an engulfing cloud of dust.
My companion dropped the arm around me the moment the vehicle was out of sight.
‘Well . . . Jessie. That was fun.’
Unlike the ones I’d given to the men, this smile felt entirely natural. I held out my right hand. ‘My name is Lily.’
He placed his own in my grip. It was a perfect handshake: not too long, not too tight, and definitely not damp.
‘And I’m Adam,’ he said with an easy grin.