‘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 ofcoursethere 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 youhooked upwith 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 volcanicash 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 Ihatethis 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.’
