Chapter 6
ERIN
‘You’ll need that to get out of the park. Everyone will get one, I’m not helping you more than anyone else,’ Cally said.
The park looked huge and sat on the northwesternmost point of Vancouver city. There wasn’t much separating them here from the Pacific Ocean.
The car dropped them off and they followed Cally to a small building next to a café. Erin could already feel the weight of her backpack against her body. It made her want to lean forward to take the strain.
It was cloudy and without the sun, it felt distinctly chilly. In a way it was easier to wear their coats and hats rather than having them stuffed into their rucksacks.
Inside, the building was little more than a community hall and two park rangers were ready and waiting for them. Cally took both Erin and Martha’s phones out of her bag and handed them back to them.
‘For the camera, we’ll take these and any money you have and give you instructions.
I know we went through most of it at the welcome dinner last night but this is for the viewers.
I won’t ever be on camera in the final edit but it’s fine if you talk to me and I answer, it will just be cut out at the end. Okay?’
‘Bit weird,’ Erin said and Martha breathed, Get used to it.
‘Welcome,’ one of the park rangers said. ‘If you can hand over any phones or devices you have and wallets, purses, credit cards.’
Erin and Martha made a show of giving up their things for the second time but for Erin it felt even harder to hand her phone over once she had it back in her grasp. The reality was really beginning to sink in.
‘Goodbye, my friend,’ she said and saw Cally smile behind the camera.
‘You’ll need to give up your e-reader, Martha, I’m afraid,’ Cally said as Martha was tucking it into the front pocket of her rucksack. ‘I can’t have you accessing the Internet.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Martha said. ‘Damn.’ She chuckled as she reluctantly handed it over.
They were given a tracking device which Erin passed straight to Martha.
Cally had already explained that she and a camera guy would be following them at all times but the decision-making would be 100 per cent down to Erin and Martha.
They would only intervene if a contestant were seriously ill or in imminent danger of death.
‘You’ll barely know we’re there,’ Cally had said.
‘The camera is tiny and not at all intrusive. We’ll follow you but from a way back.
You have to know, though, that if you’re going to get a bus or a train or a lift, you can only get on it or in it if there’s at least one other place for the camera. No camera, no show, I’m afraid.’
‘That makes sense,’ Martha had said.
‘I wasn’t joking about the bear spray either,’ Cally said now as a ranger handed over a canister.
‘Bear spray!’ Erin said, but she knew she didn’t sound as shocked as she had the previous evening and it fell a bit flat.
She took it and tucked it into her rucksack, which was already full to bursting. She began to wonder how many miles she would have to lug it and whether they’d even need bear spray. She also had thoughts about accidentally using it on Sam.
‘Here’s your map of Canada,’ the ranger said. ‘And a guidebook and your cash.’
Martha took the money and briefly leafed through it. It didn’t look like much.
‘You’ve been here before, Martha,’ Cally said.
‘It’s not enough for any sort of comfort.
It won’t get you good food and fancy accommodation.
In fact, if you want to eat decently and get public transport, it probably won’t get you any sort of accommodation.
You’ll have to spend very wisely. Beg, borrow, steal, work.
And of course, you know you’re not allowed to fly, but then you can’t afford to anyway. ’
She then handed over a money belt. Martha tucked the cash inside and then clipped it around her waist, underneath her top, with no question that Erin should have it.
The way Erin was feeling this morning, she would wholeheartedly agree.
She wasn’t to be trusted with anything as important as their worldly wealth.
Erin had barely slept. She wanted to kick herself for being so stupid.
The first nice-looking man to show a mild interest in her since the Hamish shit show and he turned out to be, well, possibly worse than Hamish.
She couldn’t bring herself to share her stupidity with Martha, though.
When her grandmother had quizzed her on her mood last night she’d said she was just tired and feeling a little overwhelmed at what lay ahead for them.
This wasn’t untrue, she was feeling both of those things but there was also her utter shame.
Her nana wouldn’t be impressed if she knew all that Erin had divulged.
Erin had had one job to do: stay in the hotel room and not speak to anyone.
And now, to think of Samuel, or Sam, or whatever his actual name was, laughing with Harrison was unbearable.
‘So, we’re a team,’ Erin said now to Cally.
‘No,’ said Cally. ‘I’m not fussed if you win, I just want to make great TV.’
Erin felt Cally had made herself perfectly clear on that point.
Outside, they were handed an envelope. Erin took it and read what was written on the card inside.
Welcome to The Trip of a Lifetime in Canada
Your final destination is St John’s
Your first checkpoint is Tlell
The race begins at midday
She looked up to see Martha smiling and beginning to unfold the map as the camera guy, who’d been introduced last night as Noah, began filming.
He was familiar, Erin thought, but she couldn’t place him.
Martha and Erin crouched down over the shape of Canada laid out on the grass.
There was no getting over it, it was massive.
‘Where’s St John’s?’ Erin asked, overwhelmed at the scale of the map.
‘I’m going to guess a long way away,’ Martha said, running her finger from where they were in the westernmost point all the way over to Newfoundland in the east. ‘There,’ she breathed and looked up at Erin.
‘But that’s…’
‘Yeah, thousands of miles,’ said Martha.
Erin felt her legs go a little weak at the prospect but Martha was still smiling for the camera.
‘And what about Tlell? Where’s the first checkpoint?’ Erin asked.
They both looked at the map again, Martha’s finger tracing back and forth over the major cities in the south of the country between Vancouver and Newfoundland.
Erin just thought this was an impossible task.
Canada was enormous and there looked to be a whole lot of nothing in the north.
The huge expanse of Hudson Bay punched a hole through that whole lot of nothing, too.
She let her eyes travel further across to the group of islands on the Pacific side: Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii, further west than Vancouver itself.
‘It makes sense if our challenge is to do a proper coast to coast,’ Erin said and Martha agreed, beginning to move her finger in that direction. Erin’s eyes flicked over the many place names scattered across the map and found it on the island of Haida Gwaii. ‘There. It’s right there.’
‘Okay,’ said Martha brightly. ‘So, we’ll have to get a boat from…
I’m not sure. I guess Prince Rupert? There’s a dotted line across the water to the island from there.
Or maybe from Vancouver Island. It really depends on how much the ferries will cost versus bus or train travel further north.
I’d normally just look it up on my phone of course.
Right, let’s get back to the city and ask in the bus or train station.
There must be loads of connections going north. ’
Martha began to fold the map back into its neat little package and then got to her feet, that smile still held tightly in place.
‘Challenge accepted,’ she said directly into the camera.
* * *
The ten of them were lined up at the starting point with their producers and camera people in position to get the perfect shot of them leaving. There was another camera on a drone, hovering above them and waiting for the strike of twelve when they would set off.
Erin turned her back on Harrison and Sam and smiled at Priya and her daughter, Tara.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked them.
‘For the camera? Energised and excited. Just you and me? Bloody terrified,’ Tara said with an unconvincing smile. ‘I keep thinking I’m too old for this. I’m forty-six. But as Mum is seventy-two, I can’t really complain, can I?’
‘Stop fraternising with the enemy. We should be psyching them out,’ Priya told her daughter, but she laughed and Erin knew this would look great on camera. The crew would love this banter.
‘We can be competitive and still be friends, surely?’ Sam said from behind Erin’s back, but she didn’t dare look around.
‘No,’ Femi said. ‘This is not a social event, it’s a race.’
But Erin could hear the smile in his voice.
‘I agree,’ Don said. ‘I’m sure you’re all lovely people but Pete and I want to win. We owe it to Bob.’
Pete and Don were identical twins and a few years younger than their late brother.
They looked like fell runners, or similar, to Erin – fit, active types who wore their walking gear like second skins.
Everything Erin had on was new. Her grandmother had had to cut labels out of some of it last night before she transferred it from her suitcase to her rucksack.
Erin usually liked neat skirts and cardigans, cropped trousers and ballet pumps.
This whole outdoor wear was new to her in every sense.
When she looked at Pete and Don she realised that despite the age difference, she was clearly out of their league.
‘Hear, hear,’ Martha said. ‘But just so you all know, and I’m giving you fair warning, Erin and I will win, so go easy on yourselves.’
Erin did chance a glance behind her then, just in time to hear Harrison snort with mock laughter, but Sam was staring straight at her and his look was regretful. Mind games, Erin thought, and she wasn’t going to fall for it again.
Her watch told her it was two minutes to midday and she stepped back to stand next to her grandmother.
Martha took her hand and squeezed it. Erin wasn’t sure if they were supposed to run.
Surely they couldn’t run the whole way. She certainly couldn’t, not with this monstrous pack on her back.
She looked at Martha and wondered if she should ask, but her grandmother looked steely now and with all this attention, anything Erin said would be caught on camera.
She kept her mouth shut and waited for the gun to go off.
But it wasn’t a gun, it was a cannon that sent out a boom across the park at the stroke of twelve.
They all began to run.