The journey varies, stopping, starting, slowing and speeding, and I remember Mark picking us up from the station and being stuck behind the coach. Being able to visualise the coach’s progress is reassuring as my stomach is turning slow somersaults. Please, please don’t let me be sick. Closing my eyes makes no difference, not that I thought it would.
I grit my teeth. I just to need to endure this. I’m plenty practiced at enduring things.
There’s a series of rapid gear changes and suddenly the going is much smoother. Faster too. We can also hear the rumble of other traffic, whooshing past us.
‘I think we might be on a motorway,’ I say.
‘Sounds like it,’ agrees Tom. ‘Which is good news. It’s taking us that much further away from the hunters.’ I can’t see him, but I can tell from his voice that he’s grimly satisfied.
The motion and the dark make me drowsy and droopy. My eyes close and I start awake as my head lands on Tom’s chest. He slides his arm down around my back, pulling me in to him. ‘Go to sleep.’
Miraculously, I do just that.
Chapter Eight TOM
I must have dozed off. Disorientated, I wake as the coach slows to a stop, the engine still running. Feeling stiff, I twist my neck, conscious of Lydia’s soft breathing, her head resting on my chest. She must be asleep.
I wriggle carefully so as not to wake her, stretching a little, my muscles protesting at the stiffness holding my legs to ransom.
‘What time is it?’ Her voice sounds loud in the dark belly of the coach and I feel bad that I must have disturbed her. I also miss the warmth of her body as she moves away.
‘It’s five to one.’ I do a quick mental calculation. The coach has been travelling for an hour and fifty minutes. Say an average of thirty miles an hour at a very cautious estimate which means we must have travelled sixty miles. Well out of reach of drones. I heave a silent sigh of relief.
‘So we must be a good way from where we started,’ she says, with that ever present spark of positivity in her voice.
‘Yeah, though we’re stuck in traffic now.’ Every now and then the coach lurches forward for a few seconds and then stops again. Somewhere around us, there’s a vehicle with very screechy brakes that squeal a few seconds ahead of us each time we stop. It doesn’t take long for the sound to get irritating. I tune it out and think about how I’m going to make my film. I’ve already got the opening scene in my head. I’m going to go in close on the lead actor to show his emotions. His wife is leaving him. I’ve got no idea how that feels. I’ve never done commitment in my life. My last girlfriend, Natalie, accused me of being emotionally unavailable. What the fuck does that even mean? I was always clear with her from the outset. We were exclusive. For me, that was enough. Realising I’m straying into stuff I don’t want to think about, I stop and go back to figuring out camera angles.
Another half hour passes of the interminable stop, start. The oily diesel fumes intensify to the point where I can almost taste them in my mouth and my jaw tightens along with the slow roil in my stomach. I take a couple of deep breaths but they really don’t help the queasiness that has taken hold.
Beside me Lydia starts wriggling. Why can’t she just keep still?
‘What’s wrong?’ I snap. I hate feeling weak like this.
‘I want something out of my rucksack. Do you think you could put the torch light on again?’
For Christ’s sake. ‘I’m trying to keep the battery going as long as possible,’ I say, but I turn on the light anyway and the tiny glow lights up the blackness. Lydia shuffles over to where the rucksacks are. I can see the dayglo orange straps of my pack and watch as she rummages in her bag. There’s a heavy thunk as she drops something. What is she doing?
‘Aha!’ she says but the light is too dim to see what she’s retrieved. I hope it’s worth it. My stomach rolls again. I’m not going to be sick. Mind over matter.
She sits down next to me again.
‘Would you like a mint?’ she asks as if we’re in the cinema on a date or something. ‘Take away the taste of the diesel. And I’ve got some water. It’s probably a bit warm but better than nothing.’
‘Thanks.’
She hands the pack over and my fingers close over hers. They’re freezing.
‘You’re cold.’
‘Just a bit. My bum’s the worst.’
I know the feeling. ‘Do you want a fleece? I’ve got a spare in my rucksack,’ I offer.
‘Thanks but I’ve got one.’ I smile a little in the darkness. She’s certainly independent. I think of Natalie again. She always expected me to do gentlemanly things for her – no doubt she’d have insisted I strip off and hand over my jumper.
I hear the rattle of pans as Lydia fights her way into her rucksack again. What does she have in there? We need to ditch some of her load. I can’t carry her on this trip.
‘Here,’ she says and I feel a lightweight sleeping bag dumped on my lap. ‘We can sit on this, insulate our arses.’
‘Good call.’
‘I am so glad I was born in the age of electricity,’ Lydia says. ‘Getting dressed in the dark with all those buttons must have been a nightmare.’
I burst out laughing. It’s so typical of her. I barely know the woman but she’s consistent.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ she asks.
‘Nothing. It’s you. You always manage to find a positive. Most people I know would have complained.’
‘You haven’t,’ she points out.
‘True.’
‘Wow, something we have in common. We’re both stoics.’
‘Who knew?’ I say.
‘Anyway, there’s no point complaining about something I can’t do anything about.’ I can feel her shrugging her shoulders. ‘What’s the point. You just have to get on with it.’
