‘You do remember that?’
‘Yes.’ The word is sullen and clipped but how can I not remember it? Those two nights are embedded in my memory like ferocious ticks clinging on for dear life. I don’t want to remember how easy she was to be with. How undemanding. It was just sex. Good sex. That’s all. If I tell myself often enough it will be true.
‘Just yes?’ she queries and I get the impression she’s fed up with having to prod and poke for every response, but I don’t owe her anything. I never lied to her that weekend. We never made promises and neither of us so much as indicated that there’d ever be a repeat performance.
‘What do you want me to say? I’m not going to apologise. We both had a good time, you didn’t complain—’
Of course, once again I walk right into that one as she can’t resist chipping in. ‘I don’t complain, remember?’
Now I’m getting pissed off. What does she want from me? It was a two-night stand.
‘Unless you’re one hell of an actress, you had a pretty good time. I particularly remember one point when I had my head between your thighs…’ Okay, low blow, but she’s making me feel annoyed and guilty and defensive and … I just want her to stop talking about it.
‘You don’t need to embarrass me.’ As soon as she says that, I feel like a shit. Because that’s one thing she shouldn’t be. The sex was amazing, unconstrained, natural. I want to reassure her.
‘Why would you be embarrassed? Like I said, we had a good time.’
‘Yeah,’ she agrees but she’s still pushing. ‘We had good sex and then you shut down. Closed yourself off.’
Of course I fucking did. I was terrified. There, I’ve admitted it … to myself, at any road. I was absolutely fucking terrified of the way I felt. That connection … Christ, listen to me. Connection? Whatever it was scared the shit out of me. Things like that don’t really exist. It’s a con. One-sided for sure. It ties you to people and you lose the control. That Sunday night was like standing on a precipice – one foot wrong and I’d be straight over to an uncertain … what, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to risk it. There’d be conditions, she’d want something from me and I’d be putting myself out on the line.
I push those thoughts back in the box marked ‘never to be looked at again’ and man up again.
‘It was a one-night stand. Hell, I didn’t even remember your surname until Barcelona. I thought you knew the rules. It was Sunday night. A school night. Time to go home.’ I say it so matter-of-factly, I almost believe it.
Chapter Nine TOM
It’s a relief when the coach comes to a stop. Lydia and I have been sitting in silence for the last twenty minutes, during which time the coach has picked up speed again and the road seems bumpier. We’re turning more frequently and there are fewer cars passing outside.
The engine is turned off and we both jump as light filters through the gaps in the doors as they start to rise. I nudge Lydia. I reckon we’re far enough away for us to jump out here and we need to be quick before anyone spots us. If they’re opening the storage compartments, I’m guessing we’ve arrived at a hotel or something.
Fumbling for our rucksacks we both scramble out of the compartment, dropping to the floor beside the coach. Dusting off my trousers I move away from the coach, hauling Lydia to her feet just in time as the coach driver appears. We’re in a layby in the middle of nowhere. As I gulp in fresh air, the nausea in my stomach suddenly deciding to make a comeback, I can’t decide if this is a good or a bad thing.
‘Where did you two come from?’ The short, stumpy coach driver with the bandiest legs I’ve ever seen puts his hands on his hips.
Lydia – she’s a quick study – follows my lead and we lean against the barrier at the edge of the layby, doing that nothing-to-see-here thing as if we’re a couple of hikers stopping for a breather. My heart is suffering from another adrenaline overload but I have to admit it feels good. We got this far and I reckon we can talk our way of this.
I coolly indicate back there with my thumb over my shoulder to the open rugged landscape. The coach driver doesn’t even look.
‘I fucking hate driving pensioners,’ he grumbles, talking more to himself than us. ‘There’s always some bugger who packs his bloody medication and then needs it urgently.’
I’m bloody glad I’m not an octogenarian on his bus. I have a sneaking sympathy for the poor sod who’s in dire medical need. It’s hard living your life trying not to inconvenience other people.
‘Gotcha. Mr fucking Leighton.’ The coach driver grabs a case and stomps off. Seconds later the compartment doors close and the bus pulls out with a sharp jerk. I see a blur of faces trapped behind the windows and I’m very glad that I’m outside under my own steam and not at someone else’s mercy. Although now I have a chance to look around, I realise we are the middle of nowhere. There isn’t a house or building in sight. Not a single telegraph pole, electricity pylon or road sign.
‘Where do you think we might be?’ asks Lydia.
‘No idea.’ There are no obvious landmarks or large handy signs saying ‘you are now in Lancashire’ or ‘Lower Beckington is ten miles away’. I do a quick calculation. ‘We were on the coach for three and half hours, and some of that felt like good roads.’ I up my previous average. ‘If the coach averaged say fifty miles an hour – at a guess I’d say we’ve travelled at least a hundred and fifty miles from the Lake District.’
‘So we’re near London?’
Is she taking the piss? I goggle at her. ‘We might have gone north.’
‘Geography’s not my strong point,’ she admits. ‘Born and bred in Essex, until I moved to London. Not really been anywhere else. And I don’t drive.’
I don’t stare, that would be rude, but seriously. She’s what, twenty-nine, thirty, doesn’t drive and has never been anywhere. I can’t imagine that. My parents regularly packed me, my brother and sister into their Mercedes estate for educational days out the length and breadth of the country.
‘I’m guessing we’re in Yorkshire or Derbyshire.’
‘At least we’re a long way from an orange Land Rover,’ she says with a wry smile.
‘I’d say we’re well out of range.’
‘Now all we have to do is get to London,’ she says.
‘Yup,’ I say with sudden determination. We’re over the first hurdle and we’ve put quite a distance between ourselves and our would-be captors.
I suggest we get our bearings and then make a plan. ‘If we walk to the nearest road sign or village, we can work out where we are and then try and hitch our way to London.’
‘Okay,’ she agrees, and I like that she’s happy to leave the decision-making to me.
‘Which way?’
I look up and down the empty road, then up at the sun and then at my watch. ‘If the sun rises in the east and it’s past midday… South is that way. London is south.’ Unfortunately, the road is unhelpfully east to west. ‘This way,’ I suggest, and we head west.
We set off, walking in single file. The landscape is beautiful in a bleak, uninhabited way but the distinctive stone boundaries running along the contours of the hills worry me and I can’t quite put my finger on why.
