There, rattling along at what must be breakneck speed for Betty, is Hal. He’s driving, gesticulating. The camper is letting out plumes of dark smoke in its wake. As I watch, one of Betty’s hubcaps detaches and begins to roll along the side of the road before dropping flat on a grassy mound.
‘Hal!’ I call out. He can’t hear me – or even see me.
‘Um… driver!’ I say, realising that I never bothered to ask my chauffeur his name. ‘Driver! You need to stop the car. That’s… he’s my friend. I don’t know why he’s… something must be wrong.’
Is it Mum? Has something happened?I check my phone but there are no missed calls.
‘You know this man?’ the driver gesticulates at the mirror. ‘This… thishomme fou?This lunatic?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, feeling a little embarrassed. ‘Yeah, he’s my—’ But I can’t find the right word here. ‘My friend.’
I am treated to another choice sentence of rapid French before the driver hits the brake and we screech to a halt. I’m still watching Hal, who’s in the process of flashing his lights again. When he looks up to see our brake lights on, his expression changes to one of horror.
For a moment, I think he’s going to crash right into the back of us. That I’m going to be crushed to death by a camper-van. There’s a terrible squeal and screech of brakes, and a sick feeling rises up in me. The van moves closer, almost in slow motion. Betty’s brakes are just not up to the task, I realise. He really cannot stop in time. My mouth opens in a scream.
Hal clearly realises this too, because at the last moment, he jerks the wheel to the right, aiming for the verge. Only it’s uneven and Betty’s a little unstable at the best of times. So she doesn’t come to a halt next to us as he presumably intends. She wobbles slightly, a little like a Jenga tower with bricks removed. I squeeze every muscle in my body, willing her to settle on her wheels. But just when I think she might, she tips, and the whole thing crashes on its side.
The road is on the edge of a slope that falls away, covered in grass and rock, to another stretch of road beyond a few buildings, then the beautiful blue of the sea. It’s a view that people travel hundreds of miles to take in – a glorious, sun-drenched, perfect backdrop of a view.
But as I watch the camper flip and turn once again down the patch of grass, I know I’ll never be able to look at it the same way again.
36
HAL
I look at Vivian and she looks at me.
‘Well, go on then!’ she tells me.
‘What?’
‘For goodness’ sake, Hal. You let her get away because you thought she had a better man waiting for her back home. Which, if you ask me, is pretty defeatist in the first place. But now you know that you were mistaken, are you going to just get into Betty and go on a camping trip?’
It’s hard to ignore the curled lip as she mentions ‘camping.’ Like mother, like daughter, I think. But the rest of her words are… surprising.
‘Vivian, they’re in a Mercedes. They left twenty minutes ago. I’ll never catch them. I’ll just call?—’
But she puts a hand on my phone. ‘Don’t you see, Hal? This is your chance to make a grand gesture?’ She sounds inordinately excited.
‘Seriously?’
She nods. ‘You need to see her in person. Tell her how you feel. Strike while the iron is hot! Seize the day!’
‘Can’t I just speak to her when we get home?’
‘I dare say. But Hal, do you really think you two have it in you to have that conversation? It’s taken you twenty-two years and a broken leg to get this far!’
She’s right, I realise. If I don’t make the most of this burst of adrenaline I’ve felt ever since I discovered Sarah isn’t with Peter, that he didn’t book the car, I’ll probably just go home and slip into my normal life. Sarah will return to work, I will too. Maybe I’ll call her, but I can imagine putting it off until I forget just how much I want to be with her. Or chickening out altogether.
All this time I’ve been berating myself for not anticipating Sarah’s needs, for not being the kind of person who knows what to do, and Vivian of all people is offering me advice, a lifeline.
‘Borrow my car if you want?’ she offers. ‘She does nought to seventy in about four seconds.’
I shake my head. ‘No, I think it’s got to be Betty.’
‘So you’re doing it?’ she says, clapping her hands together.
‘Yeah. I think I am.’
