Chapter 27
MARTHA
We had agreed that while we didn’t consider what we’d done to be a mistake, it would be best to put it to one side so we could carry on with the race.
Harrison had shaken my hand on the threshold of my room before he left, declaring that he agreed wholeheartedly.
‘We should pretend it never happened,’ he said and then leaned in to kiss my cheek and lingered so long I thought I might just follow him back to his room.
Pretend it never happened, I thought, as we left the hotel the following morning to get the next bus out of Winnipeg.
The producers all decided that as we would have arrived at almost the same time we could all leave together too.
It was a reminder to me that it was anyone’s race at this point.
We were all rested and ready to go and the only thing that might separate us would be how much cash we had.
Less than half for us, so we would need to be as thrifty as possible.
Right now, I had to stop staring at Harrison and get a grip.
Erin came back from the ticket office to tell me our options were limited.
‘There’s a bus from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay leaving at one thirty this afternoon which would get us there at eleven twenty tonight. Then a bus leaves almost straight away at twelve thirty and gets us as far as Sault Ste. Marie,’ she said.
I opened out the map to see where these places were. ‘There,’ I said, following the road all the way around Lake Superior to Sault Ste. Marie. ‘That’s a fair chunk of Canada behind us when we get there. Also, there’s bound to be an easy bus to Toronto and on to the falls.’
‘You make it sound as if we’re there already but we’ve got eighteen hours’ travel to get through.’
The thought of another night bus was making me feel queasy.
‘Our only other choice is to try for a lift share or try and get another haul back,’ I said.
We decided to try those options first as we had to wait until one thirty for the bus anyway.
Very quickly we ruled out the haul back as there wasn’t anything available in the hire place, although the assistant did try her best to talk us into a rental.
Our budget just wouldn’t stretch to an RV, though.
We looked at the cost of hiring a car but there wasn’t a drop-off place near where we needed to be and would have involved a costly taxi to get us back on track.
Then we spent three hours in a service station car park trying for a lift which proved to be just as fruitless.
‘We’ve lost our touch,’ Erin said.
It made me think about Harrison and yesterday. Is that what happens if you sleep with someone; you lose your competitive edge? It was as this thought went through my head that I saw both Harrison and Sam getting into the back of a car.
‘They got a lift,’ Erin said and she looked so alarmed I threw my arm around her shoulders.
‘Don’t worry, love. Let’s treat ourselves to coffee and then get to the bus station. We can pick at those pastries we pinched from the breakfast buffet.’
The car pulled away and the driver performed a large U-turn which meant they drove right by us.
‘Smile,’ I breathed. ‘And wave. And hope they get a flat tyre.’
There was a slightly smug smile on Harrison’s face which actually made me want to laugh but Sam looked as alarmed as Erin did. I smiled and waved and then they were gone.
The bus left on time and we settled back in what were actually quite comfortable seats. Certainly more plush than the last bus. We had our coffees and slightly squashed pastries and Noah, of course, joined us.
‘No more getting left behind on this leg,’ he said to Erin with a guilty smile.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ she said. ‘Plus, I’ll bet you got loads of jigsaw practice in.’
‘A bit,’ he said. ‘Seriously, though, we’re all really sorry that happened to you both. We got such a bollocking from further up the food chain.’
‘That’s exactly what Gaz said.’ I smiled at him sympathetically. I could only imagine the telling off they all got.
‘It won’t happen again.’
‘I really didn’t mind. Sam was lovely,’ Erin said and she looked so wistful, I wondered if something had happened between them.
The look on her face said that yes, it might well have done but she quickly turned her attention out of the window.
I was in no position to make any comment but still, I couldn’t forget how hurt she was after his behaviour when they first met.
These men and their ability to wound us.
And perhaps we only had ourselves to blame.
Leaving ourselves open to hurt. Time to toughen up, perhaps.
Then, just before the bus pulled away, the doors opened and Femi and Liz got on.
‘Fancy seeing you here,’ Femi said with a grin and they sat down behind us.
‘Did you see that Sam and Harrison got a lift?’ Erin asked, turning to talk to Liz.
‘Yeah, but I heard the driver say she could only take them as far as Kenora,’ Liz said.
Erin grabbed the map and opened it up.
‘But what will they do then? Will they be able to get a bus?’
‘Why do you care, Erin?’ Liz said. ‘You haven’t gone all soft on Sam, have you?’
‘No,’ Erin mumbled.
‘No, of course not,’ I said, jumping in to help her out. ‘We just want to make sure they can’t get a bus, that’s all. Hopefully they’ll get stuck in Kenora.’
There wasn’t much conversation after that on the journey to Thunder Bay and the Trans-Canada Highway seemed never-ending. Road and trees, lakes and rocks, on and on and on and on. We crossed over into Ontario and Erin busily made notes in her journal.
‘That’s our fifth Canadian province now,’ she said. ‘Only two to go.’
I really hoped our budget would stretch; all these buses were costly.
It had set us back $650 to get to Sault Ste.
Marie and we still had further to go to Toronto and then down to Niagara Falls.
Then I remembered the tracker and the money belt and my promise to give them to Erin.
I undid the belt and slipped it out from underneath my jumper.
I thought about handing it over with the tracker and about how difficult it would be to relinquish that control. I let it sit in my lap for a moment.
I could easily imagine a therapist picking this apart. I fully understood it myself.
You had no control over your daughter’s illness and consequent death, Martha. It terrifies you to think of what you might lose if you hand over control of anything. If you can keep it in your grasp then nothing can go wrong again.
But this wasn’t true. It was precisely because I hadn’t handed over control that Erin had been left in the middle of nowhere without the possibility of calling for help. I reached down into my bag, pulled out the tracker and together with the money belt, I handed them both to Erin.
‘If I’d have done this sooner, you wouldn’t have had to spend the night with Sam,’ I whispered.
I was goading her a little, of course I was, but she didn’t bite. She just took them both from me and secured the belt around her waist. The tracker she slid into a pocket on her rucksack.
We arrived in Thunder Bay just after 11.
25 and then got off to wait for the connecting bus.
Femi and Liz disappeared and I did wonder if there was a better alternative but we’d made our plan and decided to stick to it.
Then at 12.30 the next bus arrived and we had the long haul of the night bus again.
Erin and I slumped against each other to sleep but we didn’t get a lot more than intermittent dozing. By the time we fell off the bus at 9.35 the following morning I was ready to find a hotel and to get some much-needed sleep. I felt drunk and disorientated.
‘We need to make a decision, Martha,’ Erin said coming back from the ticket office. ‘We either get on another bus to Toronto in half an hour, which will get us there late tonight, or we find somewhere to spend the day and night and get the bus tomorrow morning.’
‘I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I think we should keep moving otherwise we’ll be adding another day and the cost of a hotel room in the mix.’
I felt half-dead and the thought of another thirteen hours on a bus was galling to say the least, but this was a race and we had no idea where the others were. We had to keep going.
Erin bought two tickets which set us back another $360 and then we sat and waited for the bus.
‘We’ll get a hotel in Toronto tonight and room service,’ Erin promised me when I told her how terrible I was feeling.
‘The biggest bowls of comforting pasta,’ she said and my mouth began to water at the thought. For now, we bought more coffees and a packet of biscuits. I produced a couple of apples from my backpack – another lift from the breakfast buffet, and then the bus arrived.
My legs felt like wood as I forced myself up the steps to find a seat. It wasn’t actually that busy, though, and we had a row each so we could stretch out. None of the other contestants were on board.
‘Another bus, ladies?’ Noah said as he took his own seat. ‘I admit I was hoping you were going to get a hotel room and try again tomorrow.’
‘It wouldn’t be much of a race if we did that,’ I said.
‘I doubt you’ll get much from us as we’ll likely be asleep shortly,’ Erin said. ‘Why don’t you ride with Cally?’
‘Because, on pain of death, I have to stick to you two like glue.’
But he didn’t really because almost as soon as the bus pulled away, he was asleep.
‘This is such a long leg,’ I said to Erin. ‘I wonder where they’ll take us next.’
We pored over the map for a bit, making suggestions and guesses.
‘I’m thinking it will be through Quebec City next,’ Erin said. ‘They will want us to really stretch our budgets and it will be expensive. Plus, it will be good for the camera to finally have us all in a built-up area after all the mountains and prairies. Can you speak French?’
‘A very little,’ I said. ‘But we’ll do our best. And then I was wondering if they might have us travelling to one of the islands before the last haul to St John’s. Nova Scotia? Prince Edward Island? Expensive ferries possibly but maybe more chance of a lift share.’
‘I wonder where the others are,’ Erin said.
‘Any others in particular?’ I asked her. ‘You really like Sam, don’t you?’
‘He’s a nice guy, I guess,’ she said.
She made it sound like a throwaway comment but I wasn’t fooled.
I decided not to push it, though. I wanted to keep things level and good between us and had no intention of letting two men get in the way.
In truth, I was thinking about Harrison far more than I wanted to.
I hoped he did catch up with us in a way.
I didn’t want him to beat us but I didn’t want an easy win either, or to think they might let us.