Chapter 4
4
EMMA
As Callum marches himself away from me (hooray), I take my own phone out, and if I’m honest can’t help smirking a bit when I see that, unlike him, I have reception (four bars).
I should call him right now (or as soon as he’s moved enough to have reception) and tell him, so that he doesn’t have to walk too far in the rain.
He must already be soaking, though, so a little bit more rain won’t make any difference. And he’s clearly really annoyed with me so I’m sure he could do with the walk. Plus, it’s very weird being around him and I would like a little (long) break from his company.
I’m switching between three different weather forecast apps and they’re all telling me that this rain is set in for the rest of the day. (I cannot believe what an idiot I was to assume it wouldn’t rain; Callum’s obviously right about forecasts being unreliable and it being ridiculously dangerous to have no windscreen wipers in a downpour.)
I need to make a plan and I’d rather do that without Callum here so I can think straight.
Also, I want to think about Callum because something’s niggling at me.
So I’m going to take his lack of phone reception as a gift and sit down on a log – lovely and dry due to the tree canopy – and enjoy some blissful Callum-free peace and quiet.
The log’s surprisingly comfortable actually, and it’s extremely peaceful here, definitely conducive to good thinking.
Practical things first: are we anywhere near a garage and, if we aren’t, are we anywhere near a hotel?
It looks like the nearest garage is about ten kilometres away. It would have to be really close, I realise, for me to be able to drive safely there right now. Outside this cosy forest shelter it’s bucketing down; in fact some of it’s even starting to seep in here through the branches above, and, going by how dry the ground is, even beneath the bed of brown needles at my feet, that isn’t something that happens very often. So basically I can’t drive anywhere without new wipers and I can’t get new wipers until it stops raining.
Or can I? Maybe I could get a taxi to the garage. But could someone from the garage transport all their wiper-fixing tools here? And would it cost a fortune to pay them to come out? It would still probably be less than the cost of an extra night in a hotel, though.
It looks like there are a couple of small hotels about three or four kilometres away. That’s quite a long way to carry a bag in this weather, and there’s the cost of an extra night added to the trip to consider. Except I really don’t fancy camping here by myself and I really don’t fancy camping here with Callum. Walking in the rain would be better and I’d pay good money to avoid him.
I stretch my legs out in front of me and stare at my feet. I like the colour I painted my toenails yesterday. I was choosing between an orangey one and a greeny-blue one. I went orange and that was a good decision. By contrast, my decision to wait until getting to France to get my wipers fixed was bad , as was my decision to agree to give a lift to a person who I thought was just a friend-of-a-friend called Callum.
Okay, so maybe my best approach is to see if I can get a taxi from here to the garage and from there to a hotel if they can’t fix the wipers. I wonder if you can get Ubers in the middle of the countryside an hour outside Rome during a European-wide no-flight crisis.
I’m going to have to wait for Callum to come back, I realise, or at least call him and tell him that I’m going. Otherwise when he gets back here he might think something terrible’s happened to me and call the police or something.
Having Callum with me is definitely the worst part about this.
I mean, okay, yes, if I’m actually stranded in the middle of nowhere there are people (my mum, my sister, my friends, basically everyone I know) who would say that it’s a lot better for me to have Callum around just in case. (Honestly, when you embark on a trip like this there’s a lot of ‘just in case’ chat from people who care about you, which is obviously lovely but also a teensy bit annoying at times.)
However , I have not been enjoying his company today.
He was the love of my life. Until I met Dev. Who I think I thought had become the love of my life until he asked me to marry him and I realised that I couldn’t imagine pottering around a garden and doing crosswords and hopefully still having sex with him when I’m eighty, so I said no very regretfully and we broke up.
When I think about it, it never felt as breathtakingly all-consuming with Dev as it did with Callum, but that’s probably – almost certainly – because I was a lot older when I met Dev. Obviously you don’t love – or think you love – someone in the same way when you’re more mature. I probably wouldn’t fall in love with Callum in the same way now had we only just met.
Anyway, I don’t like being with him. It took me years to get over the feeling that I was somehow incomplete without him in my life and, even though overall he seems very different from how he used to be, he’s also the same in some ways. Like his smile. And his face. And his bigness. And the little edge to his voice when he’s being sarcastic. And the fact that (when he’s sober) you feel like nothing can really go wrong when he’s there.
Apart from maybe having your heart broken.
And on the heartbreak point, something very, very horrible is starting to creep into my mind and solidify as an actual thought. I thought we really loved each other and I have memories of us together as the perfect love. We didn’t break up because we didn’t love each other any more; we broke up because I couldn’t deal with Callum’s wildness any more – I was terrified that he’d do something terrible to himself – and he couldn’t stop with the wildness.
These thoughts – memories – are starting to cause a very twisty feeling in my stomach, almost physical pain, because they’re leading to something that has been quite nebulous in my brain since I first realised this morning that Callum was Callum and looking like a completely different Callum from the one I used to know.
He’s a lawyer, according to Azim, as in he holds down a job with regular working hours and presumably turns up every day when he should do and is sober when he turns up. And presumably he no longer does things like staying out for three nights in a row and turning up on a beach in Barcelona when his mother thought he was at his cousin’s house in Edinburgh, drunk and dressed head to toe in a stranger’s clothes, or accidentally investing his (not very big) life savings in a two per cent share of a llama farm in Poland, or taking a job as a sushi chef after pretending he’d grown up in Japan and being fired on day three. (Surprised it took that long.)
Or trying to drive off in a stranger’s car while very drunk the day he passed his driving test, which was our last big argument. After that, the next day – the last time we saw each other – we didn’t argue, we both just got sad.
I’m guessing that his lack of licence now might relate to an occasion when he didn’t have me there stopping him doing something terrible while drunk.
He isn’t drunk now, though, is he. Now , he’s really annoyed because my van does not have working windscreen wipers and that’s dangerous .
He’s right. It is obviously very dangerous to drive in the rain without working windscreen wipers and I was stupid not to get them fixed immediately. However , he’s being very hypocritical given what he tried to do driving-wise when we were young.
I’m like whatever about the hypocrisy, though.
What I am now about to admit to myself, which I’m really upset about, is that I really, really believed – and still did until today – that we loved each other as much – almost more than – anyone could ever love anyone else. We split up because he was destroying himself and he wouldn’t get help and I couldn’t bear to see it and he didn’t want me to see it. And when in desperation I gave him a clean-yourself-up-or-we’re-done ultimatum, he said fine, I’ll see you again when I’m sorted.
And that was that.
And I waited. And waited. Because I really believed that he would sort himself out and that he would come back to me.
I never changed my number or my email address.
He never came back.
And until today I just thought that he must be living some out-of-control life somewhere and that I’d never see the Callum that I thought he could have been – the one who would have been my life partner. I didn’t actually ever think that version of Callum could exist in this universe.
Basically, I acknowledge to myself as I kick a pile of pine needles and then regret it when some get stuck between my foot and the bottom of my flip-flop, I am deeply hurt that he got clean and then clearly chose to make his new, clean, functional life without me.
The fact is: it turns out that sensible, sober Callum didn’t love me.
Which should be fine . Water under the bridge. It’s all way in the past.
I am hurt, though, I think as I shake my flip-flop to get rid of all the pine needles still sticking to it, and then put it back on and start walking round the clearing. I’m sick-to-the-stomach, unable-to-raise-a-smile, life-feels-suddenly-incredibly-empty level hurt.
As I reach the board that Callum was looking at, I can’t help thinking that I’m more upset by this than I was by my split with Dev.
It isn’t because I loved Callum more though, not really. It’s just the youth versus maturity thing. Probably everything feels bigger when you’re young and you don’t know how to deal with your emotions; that’s all.
The board is not that interesting. We’re in a national park and it’s got trails and stuff. It is not going to be taking my attention away from my thoughts.
I don’t want to be wallowing in what-might-have-beens or my-first-love-did-not-love-me-as-much-as-I-loved-him thoughts.
I need to phone a friend. Solitude is unhealthy.
I choose Samira, because she was there through the Callum years and the just-post-Callum years so I won’t need to explain anything to her.
‘Ems.’ Just hearing her voice is good. ‘Don’t tell me, you’re somewhere amazingly beautiful in Italy while I’m sneaking a fag break in a really smelly alleyway where I might get murdered any minute.’
‘You should put the cigarette out and go straight back inside.’ I’m already feeling a bit better just from hearing her voice. My friends are my reality. Callum is just a weird blast from the past. That’s all. ‘What’s your weather like?’
‘Weather? Actually very nice and sunny today in London, so I’m genuinely not going to be jealous about yours.’
‘Rightly so because here it’s raining more heavily than I’ve seen for a very long time and I don’t have working windscreen wipers so I’m stuck in a forest in the middle of nowhere and I can’t go anywhere.’
‘Emma, genuinely that sounds more dangerous than this alleyway. Are you in your van? Don’t wander around by yourself.’
‘No, honestly, I’m fine.’ In a minute, when I’m feeling fully normal, I’m going to tell her about Callum and then I’ll feel much better and then I’ll send Callum a text telling him that I’m going to a garage and then I’ll call a taxi.
Hmm. I’ve just realised that Callum must have changed his number because I still have his old one stored in my phone and when we arranged me giving him a lift, the texts came from a different one.
Well, there you go. I waited for him and I did not change my number, while he moved straight on and changed his.
‘Ems?’ Samira’s been talking, I realise, and I have very rudely been caught up in my Callum-thoughts.
‘Sorry, bad line,’ I fib. ‘What did you say?’
‘Are you in your van with the doors locked?’
‘Well, no, but it’s fine.’
‘Are you entirely by yourself in this forest, though? Like, are you with a trusted companion?’
I look around me. Samira’s paranoia on my behalf is getting to me. Callum could be anywhere, miles away by now.
‘How do you know there isn’t a murderer behind some trees waiting to pounce?’ she continues. ‘ Get back in the van .’
‘Okay, yes, I’m getting in right now.’
I love Samira but I wish I’d phoned someone more blasé. She’s been worried about me this whole trip and once someone else tells you that you should be scared it’s hard not to feel a little tinge of worry. I mean right now of course there aren’t any lurking murderers but also I am a tiny bit panic-stricken.
‘In the van yet?’ she asks as I fumble the key. (The van dates from way before remote-control keys were invented.)
‘Yep. I…’
‘Hey.’ A man’s voice comes from the other side of the van and I find myself screaming. Really, really blue-murder-level screaming.
‘Emmmmmmmmaaaaaa.’ Samira’s screaming too.
‘Emma?’ Oh. Callum has appeared from round the van. ‘Are you okay?’
He’s sounding quite panicky, as you would if you heard someone screech like that.
‘Yes, fine, thank you.’
‘Emma?’ Samira’s still fairly screamy at her end of the phone.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her. ‘I’m with a… friend… and he’d gone to use his phone and now he’s back and you’d got me into a terrified frame of mind so I screamed but it’s fine.’
‘What friend? I heard a man’s voice? Have you hooked up with someone?’
‘No, no, no hooking up.’ I do not look at Callum as I say that. ‘Just giving a lift to a friend of a friend because of the volcanic ash downing the planes. He needed to get back to London and we were both in Rome.’
‘Okay so I can see two scenarios playing out here,’ Samira tells me. ‘One, he’s a murderer. Two he’s gorgeous and you fall in love.’
‘I mean, three, he’s a perfectly nice man who does not murder people but with whom, I—’ I cannot talk about not falling in love with Callum when he’s standing right next to me because that would imply that I do feel that there’s a possibility that I will fall back in love with him (which I certainly will not do), which would obviously be an excruciating conversation to have in front of him ‘—just have a perfectly amicable journey and do not see again.’
I glance at Callum and see that he is staring hard at a tree trunk just to his left. He’s clearly aware that someone is questioning me about my travel companion. A wave of sadness washes over me for a moment as I think that in the past he would have been outright laughing at me at this point but obviously now he feels too awkward to do that.
‘Is he single, though?’ Samira persists. ‘And attractive?’
I actually do really want to tell her it’s Callum and that I hate this situation, but I’m definitely, definitely not going to say it while he’s standing next to me.
‘Don’t know and average,’ I say airily. ‘Anyway, got to go. Got to deal with my windscreen-wiper situation. Speak later.’
‘I see you have reception here,’ Callum notes as I end the call.
‘Yep.’ I didn’t look properly at him while I was speaking to Samira but now I register that he is unbelievably sodden.
Drops of water are literally dropping off his eyelashes and nose and earlobes and it is genuinely comedic. I find myself beginning to laugh even though obviously that is not polite or very sympathetic and I shouldn’t.
Also, I note further: his very thick, dark, curlyish hair is not totally wet through because it’s so thick the water hasn’t penetrated to the underneath bit, and now the top has started to dry and is curling a lot at the nape of his neck and on top. Basically, it looks very, very cute.
I’m not laughing so much now; I don’t want to look at him and think he’s cute.
I shift my gaze down and oh my goodness that was a mistake. His shirt is not as thick as his hair and is entirely soaked through, and even though the fabric is dark, his extremely nicely muscled chest and stomach are outlined in a very Mr-Darcy-coming-out-of-the-lake-in-the-1990s-version-of- Pride-and-Prejudice way and I’m really not laughing now; instead I’m blushing like nobody’s business.
Okay. So I need to stop this. Apparently I am ogling my soaking-wet ex of many years ago while he is just irritated that I didn’t mention that I have reception.
‘I was about to phone the nearest garage and ask if they would be able to come here and replace the wiper,’ I say, in my best business-like manner, keeping my eyes firmly away from his chest. ‘It’s too far to drive there in this and it looks as though the rain’s going to continue for a while.’
‘I already phoned them,’ Callum says. ‘They can’t come until tomorrow because they finish early on Mondays. They need us to drive there. Which clearly we cannot do.’
‘Oh.’ I frown. ‘Maybe there’s another garage.’
‘I asked one of the executive assistants in my office to call around and she couldn’t find anyone who can do it today.’
‘Oh,’ I repeat. This is not welcome news. I was totally pretending to myself that it would all be fine and someone would come and do the wipers and we’d make it to Florence today as planned. ‘There must be other garages. I’ll call a few more.’
I open up Google Translate and type ‘Would you be able to come to a forest to mend my windscreen wipers?’ but Callum shakes his head.
‘Obviously you’re extremely welcome to check and I could be wrong,’ he says, ‘but also I don’t think I’m wrong.’
‘Maybe it’s worth a shot, though.’ I just don’t want to be stuck here with Callum.
More water drips off him.
‘The van’s open,’ I say. ‘So if you want you can get a towel from your bag.’
‘I don’t have a towel. I was staying in a hotel.’
‘Oh yes. Let me give you one of mine.’
‘No, no, it’s fine, honestly.’
I look at him. He’s got the set-jaw look he always used to have when he was going to refuse to listen to me. Usually when I was trying to be the voice of reason. Unless he’s changed a lot there’s no point trying to argue with him when he’s in this mood and this is not a battle worth having because he’s a grown man and he’s going to feel disgustingly damp all day at this rate but he’ll be fine . Plus, I recall, my towels have all already been used by me because I’m on my way home and didn’t want to do any more laundry.
‘Okay,’ I say, and start phoning garages.
Ten minutes later I have confirmed that Callum was completely right. We’re stuck here until tomorrow at the earliest unless the rain stops.
I walk over to the edge of the clearing to peer up at the sky.
Yup. It’s very grey and the deluge is showing no sign of letting up.
‘I guess we should both find a hotel, then,’ I say when I get back to Callum where he’s still standing next to the van. His clothes and hair are a little bit dryer-looking now but he must still be feeling very uncomfortable.
‘I also checked out the hotel options,’ he says. ‘And taxis. And they aren’t that great.’
‘How un-great?’
‘No taxis at all, probably because of the volcanic ash situation, and only one hotel within walking distance and it looks quite… basic. I’m guessing a lot of tourists have had to stay on because of the flights.’
‘I don’t want to be rude, but I might just phone a couple of places myself.’
Another ten minutes later I have established that Callum was again completely right. Given the constraint of having to get anywhere we go on foot, we both have two options. Camp in or out of the van, or go to the one hotel there is within five kilometres.
I have also established something beyond ridiculous, like fate is trying to set us up in true clichéd rom-com style.
I decide to tackle it head-on.
‘There’s only one room in the one hotel,’ I say.
‘Yup.’
We are not sharing it. Obviously.
‘So you’re soaking wet and you have no towel so you should take the room,’ I tell him.
‘While you…?’
‘I’ll stay here.’ I try not to gulp as Samira’s doom-laden warnings come back to me. It’s all nonsense. I’ll be fine if I stay in the van and lock the doors. Oh, God, what if the murderers have tools ? It’s definitely easy to break into the van; I’ve done it myself twice (with a bit of help) when I’ve locked the keys inside. Okay, no, that’s an easy problem to solve: I’ll stay awake all night. No, but then I might go to sleep at the wheel tomorrow. Oh God .
‘This is a tricky one.’ Callum frowns a little under his drying curly hair. Ridiculously, the frown somehow just makes him look even more gorgeous. It kind of adds a moody edge to the handsomeness. ‘I don’t want to be sexist and I obviously have no right whatsoever to dictate to you. But I would be very worried about you if you stayed here alone. So it looks like if you insist on staying here I’ll have to stay here too.’
I stare at him in horror. A whole twenty-four hours or more just the two of us in the van? No.
‘Outside the van, I mean,’ he says, hurriedly. ‘You in, me out.’
‘Well, we can’t do that,’ I say. ‘You’re wet and you’d freeze or go mouldy overnight and I mean just obviously not.’
‘So you have to come to the hotel.’
I stare at him in more horror.
Then I decide just to say it.
‘But we can’t share a room.’
‘No,’ he agrees. Thankfully. ‘I’m thinking we go to the hotel and we explain and there’s bound to be a communal area where I can sleep and just use the bathroom in the room. If that’s alright. When you aren’t there.’
‘But that would be very uncomfortable. No one likes sleeping in a chair.’
‘You have to drive tomorrow and I don’t.’ He smiles like he’s just played a huge trump card, and to be fair, he has. ‘I can snooze on the journey.’
I’d be quite happy if he snoozed, actually. People can’t talk or be sarcastic while they’re snoozing.
‘Maybe, then,’ I concede.
‘Shall we phone back to confirm our booking and then get going now?’
‘Okay.’
‘Let me pay?’ Callum holds out his hand for the phone.
‘No, no, my treat,’ I say. Treat is not the right word. ‘I’m the one who stupidly did not have working windscreen wipers.’
‘I mean, you are the one who stupidly did not have working windscreen wipers but you are also doing me a huge favour.’ The expression on Callum’s face does not indicate that he’s currently receiving a huge favour; he actually looks like he’s just discovered that he’s trodden in something quite grim. ‘And I would very much like to pay.’
‘Half each?’ I suggest. I don’t like the whole being paid for by a man thing.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Callum slightly snaps. ‘Without you I’d be completely stuck in Rome. As it is I at least have the possibility of getting back to London sometime this week.’
‘Okay, er, thank you,’ I say eventually.
‘Right. Good.’ Callum pulls his phone out.
‘Wow,’ he says when he gets off the line. ‘The price.’
‘Eek. What?’ I’m imagining thousands and thousands. And I’ll be honour-bound to pay half and be bankrupted but at least we’ll have a lovely bathroom and Callum will hopefully have a lovely sofa to sleep on.
‘Twenty-two euros,’ he says.
‘Oh wow.’ My not-that-nice hotel in Rome was nearly eighty euros a night and we aren’t that far outside the city. ‘Well, on the upside I don’t feel guilty any more that you’re paying.’
By unspoken agreement we take it in turns to get our overnight bags out of the van. I don’t want to get mine at the same time that Callum gets his, because I don’t want to inadvertently touch him, and from the wide berth he’s giving me I’m guessing that he feels the same way.
‘Should you lock the van?’ Callum asks when we’re at the edge of the clearing with our bags.
‘I was just about to,’ I lie, and then go back and do it. It’s hard to remember everything when your whole day’s gone so spectacularly tits up.
And then I go back to the edge of the clearing and take the handle of my wheelie bag and we stride out into the driving rain to begin the utter farce that is a three-mile walk towards one very, very cheap hotel room to be shared with the ex love of your life.