Chapter 30
ERIN
Your fifth checkpoint is Prince Edward Island
‘We’ll be in the Maritimes at last,’ Martha said as she pointed to their destination on the now well-used map later that day. It had got wet a couple of times and there was a rip, but luckily it was in the area of the Yukon and now redundant.
Prince Edward Island looked to be very far away but Erin took comfort from the fact that it seemed like it might be a shorter hop to the finish.
Just the thought of the finish line was like a teasing little delight.
A bit like when she was a child and her pudding was only a couple more mouthfuls of vegetables away.
This is the veg section of this leg, she told herself, which was ridiculous really because as an adult she loved all vegetables.
‘Here we go again, then,’ Erin said, feeling distraught at leaving Sam behind.
After the meal the previous evening, he had caught up with her and they’d found a sofa tucked away in the corner of the bar.
‘I’d love you to come and see me in Marlow,’ he’d said. ‘Let’s not let this race be the last time we see each other.’
‘Okay,’ she’d said. ‘I’m only down the road, don’t forget. It’s really not that far.’
‘I have a gorgeous friend who lives in Henley,’ he’d said and her heart had plummeted.
‘Do you?’ she’d asked tentatively, but he grinned broadly at her.
‘I do now,’ he said and kissed her quickly before disappearing back to his room and leaving Erin rooted to the sofa in delight.
Now, they had their packs on and were ready to go but Erin noticed her grandmother was a little out of sorts too.
It was all that talk about Priya before they left.
Erin wanted to find out what she was up to but Martha had said they should just concentrate on their race and try to be several steps away from her.
‘Do you think she even has an elderly mother in a home, or do you think she was just trying to soften us up before she stabs us all to death in our sleep?’
‘Erin!’ Martha had given her granddaughter a stern look but then it had fallen from her face and she had sighed. ‘Honestly.’
They really needed to reinvigorate their fighting spirit now otherwise they were going to lose their hour’s advantage. The trouble was it was eight forty in the evening and Erin wasn’t sure how late the buses went.
‘Come on, Martha, let’s go,’ she said and they began to retrace their steps to the hop-on bus back to the bus station and then on to Toronto.
There was something a little depressing about doing the journey in reverse, Erin thought, but there was no other option.
They couldn’t dip into America as that was against the rules, even though they were right on the border.
‘This is going to be a long journey again,’ Martha said as they got on the WEGO bus and paid for their tickets back to the bus terminal. Noah sat down on the seat behind them and Cally set off in the car. They were all a little jaded.
‘In all the time we’ve been in Canada, has there been any other kind?’ Erin said.
Erin ran for the ticket office when they got off the bus and Martha followed at a more sedate pace. Erin pulled money from her belt as she asked the woman behind the counter if she could get them to Toronto tonight.
‘It’s imperative,’ Erin said, as if that would somehow make any difference to a bus timetable.
‘You’re in luck. The last bus today goes in five minutes,’ she said as Erin thrust cash at her and the woman thrust the tickets back.
‘No one else will be able to get out of Niagara tonight,’ Erin said to Martha with glee.
‘Not on a bus, but I’m sure there are other options,’ Martha said.
‘Expensive ones, maybe.’ Erin settled back and couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
‘Pride comes before a fall,’ said Martha, but Erin shrugged it off and dropped her bag to the floor. She preferred her grandmother when she was chirpier and more upbeat.
The rain really began to fall as they left the city.
Erin watched it sliding down the window in heavy torrents as if the waterfall in Niagara had followed them somehow.
She chose to see it as a positive thing, though.
As they’d been in first place at the falls, Erin took it to be a very wet slice of good luck.
‘Oh, great,’ Martha said despondently. ‘Torrential rain. That’s a dark omen.’
* * *
They got to Toronto by ten thirty and began to look at the route properly.
Now in a major city, there were plenty of options but most of them would be expensive.
Martha had stopped what she had called a nice young man in the street and asked if he wouldn’t mind looking up the options on his phone for them.
He was in his late teens and had a skateboard tucked under his arm.
‘You really need to be following the Trans-Canada-Highway up through Montreal, past Quebec City to Rivière-du-Loup. Then heading down into New Brunswick towards Edmundston and then Fredericton. You can see that once you get to Moncton you’re just following the fifteen until Port Elgin where you pick up the Trans-Canada again and that takes you all the way to Prince Edward Island. ’
‘Okay,’ Erin said, quickly scribbling on a back page of her journal. ‘And how far it that?’
‘That’s 1,700 kilometres. It’s a long way.’
‘We’re used to that,’ Erin said. ‘So, we don’t need to get a ferry to the island?’
‘No, you use the Confederation Bridge. It’s the longest bridge in the world that spans ice-covered water, did you know?’ he said. ‘Twelve point nine kilometres.’
‘Wow. Did you remember that information?’ Erin asked him.
‘Nope, just read it on my phone.’
‘Thank you,’ Martha said. ‘Can I ask you to tell us whether it’s cheaper to get the bus or the train? I assume the train is more expensive.’
‘Significantly more,’ he said, scrolling back through his phone.
‘You can get a bus to Rivière-du-Loup but you’ll have to get connections in Montreal and Quebec City.
It’s gonna take you at least twenty hours and that’s about a hundred and forty-nine dollars each.
If you want to get the train you’ll be there in more like fourteen hours but that might be up to four hundred dollars each as you haven’t booked in advance. ’
‘The bus,’ both Erin and Martha said at the same time, and the lad laughed.
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. But if you’re going tonight you’ll have to be quick. The night bus leaves at eleven thirty and gets you to Montreal at six in the morning.’
‘You have been brilliant,’ Erin said. ‘Thank you so much and if you smile into Noah’s camera, you’ll probably be on TV in a few months’ time.’
‘Cool,’ he said and then rode off on his skateboard.
Erin was charged with buying the bus tickets and Martha rushed to the nearest store to get some provisions.
Then, armed with more cheap crackers and cookies and some fruit, they were onto the 11.
30 p.m. out of Toronto with Noah easing himself reluctantly onto the seats behind them and looking wistfully at the producer car out of the back window.
Erin had her journal out and was making notes as soon as they left Union Station bus terminal. She took some pictures with the camera too.
‘Another Canadian city we haven’t really seen,’ Martha said. ‘It’s not much of a holiday, is it?’
‘No, Nana, it’s a race and one that right now, we are winning.’
‘I like your enthusiasm. I’m glad you have enough for the both of us. I’m going to try and get some sleep, though.’
Erin was worried that Priya had really got to her grandmother. Well, Erin had the money now and the tracker. She was going to step up and make sure they kept their lead. In fact, she was going to make sure they extended it too. They would leave Priya in the dust.
Neither of them slept very successfully in the end and as they pulled into Montreal early the following morning, even Erin’s fighting spirit had got the better of her. Martha was definitely flagging.
‘I asked the driver, and the buses to Quebec City leave every hour,’ Erin told Martha.
‘Okay, so we should really get straight on another one?’ Martha asked.
‘Unless you want to rest for a bit then yes, I think we should. Forward momentum and all that.’
‘I want to sleep for a week but I can see that it would be best to keep going while we have transport easy and available to us.’
‘We could try for a lift share and save the bus fare,’ Erin suggested, but Martha shook her head.
‘Let’s just keep going. I think we should get as far as Quebec City before we try for lifts. We have the lead, let’s keep it that way,’ she said.
Erin looked at her drained expression, the way her backpack was slipping from her shoulder, and the obvious tiredness in her eyes.
She was seventy years old. It was only a few days ago that Martha had been ill.
Erin wondered if she should get the medic to take a look at her.
The thought of something happening to her nana was unthinkable.
It was three and half hours to Quebec City. Erin was determined they should rest for a bit when they arrived.
They settled back on the bus and Erin could see from the map that the route took them alongside Lake Ontario.
Not that she could see it from the window.
All she could see for miles were other cars, trucks, lorries and buses on the highway.
She turned her attention back to her journal and started doodling thoughts about Sam.
That would pass the time nicely, she thought.
‘So, you are happy to break away from the pack?’ Martha suddenly asked her.
‘What?’ Erin looked up from her journal.
‘I did wonder if you weren’t so keen to leave Sam behind,’ her grandmother continued with a ghost of a smile on her lips.
This bus had a toilet on board and Erin was relieved to see that Noah had disappeared into it.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
‘Oh, come on, Erin. I’ve seen the way you look at him. I’m not judging. He does actually seem like a nice man. Is he a nice man?’
Erin thought for a moment that she might deny it but really, what was the point? She wasn’t a child.
‘He is a nice man. He’s lovely. What happened back at the hotel at the start was a silly nothing that I have forgiven him for. He was so there for me when we got left behind. He showed his true self then. Caring, kind and…’ Erin trailed off.
‘Gorgeous?’ Martha offered, and Erin laughed.
‘Yeah, that too. Can you believe he lives in Marlow, not far from me.’
‘We all know where he lives after your back and forth at the dinner table,’ Martha said, and Erin widened her eyes.
‘You probably didn’t notice but everyone else did.
You know, I was saying to Harrison when we had breakfast the other morning that I thought there might be something going on between you two. ’
‘When you had breakfast with Harrison?’ Erin asked and watched as her grandmother’s cheeks went a pretty shade of pink.
‘Well, yes, but only because we were waiting for you. We wanted to make sure we both heard the tracker.’
‘You had one each.’
‘I know, but…’ It was Martha’s turn to trail off and Erin picked up on it immediately.
‘In his room or yours?’ she said.
‘In both,’ Martha said, and her voice came out in a squeak.
‘Nana! Are you saying…? Actually, I don’t want to know what you’re saying. Sam and I have shared a kiss… well, three, technically. It sounds very much like you and Harrison have visited several more bases than that.’
‘Oh, Harrison and I slept together in 1976, Erin. Been there, done it, got the T-shirt.’
Erin opened her mouth to say more but noticed Noah behind her grandmother with a grin on his face and his camera up to his eye.
‘Don’t mind me,’ he said and Martha groaned.
They pulled into the bus station in the early afternoon. Erin dragged herself and her bag off the bus and stretched her back out with her arms wide open.
‘How is it possible to be so tired when all we’ve done is sit down for hours on end?’ she said, but Martha wasn’t listening. She had sat down heavily on a bench.
‘We’re going to find a hostel and call it a day today,’ Erin said. ‘We cannot keep going at this pace and neither will any of the other contestants. We need to be well enough to cross the finish line.’
‘Agreed,’ was all Martha could manage.
* * *
The hostel was a two-star place but Erin was surprised how clean and nice it was. They could stay in a female dorm in bunks with privacy curtains and a shared bathroom for less than fifty dollars between them. Erin handed over the cash to the woman booking them in.
‘That’s with breakfast included. You can help yourself to cereal, fruit, toast, yogurts and maybe pancakes if Rudi is in to cook them,’ she said. ‘Either way, there’s plenty, and loads of fresh coffee.’
Noah hung around long enough to film them checking in and then he left them to it in favour of the hotel the crew were booked into.
Erin and Martha left the hostel in search of something to eat and found a pizza place where they shared a Margherita before they agreed neither of them had the energy to explore the city, so they walked back to the hostel.
It was only seven in the evening at this point but both women used the bathroom and crawled into their bunks.
‘I’ll be more on it tomorrow,’ Martha said to Erin and then drew her curtain.
Erin lay awake for a while thinking about that finish line and about the luxury of a phone and not having to do everything at breakneck speed.
She’d never usually be in bed so early but within half an hour, her eyes were beginning to droop and she fell asleep to thoughts of Sam and where he might be now.