Page 36 of The Golden Girls’ Road Trip

‘Well, we have eight of them,’ I say. ‘Actually it’s seven because we dropped one off yesterday. I don’t think she’ll make it back by Friday, that’s tomorrow, she definitely won’t be back by then, we’re still in Preston.’

‘What?’ he says sharply. ‘You’re doing what?’

‘We’re on a road trip delivering some of the paintings. Alex said she liked to deliver them herself and give that personal touch and what with your ankle problem…’

There’s an ominous silence on the line and for a moment I think he’s hung up, then he barks out a hollow laugh.

‘But Lex has never even driven across town to deliver a painting,’ he says, his voice confused. ‘She’s playing with you, Con—’

He never gets to finish what he’s saying because that is when her phone dies. I reach for the charging lead and plug it in, stare at the blank screen while my mind catches up with what he has said and the phone decides if it has enough juice to start up again. Alex doesn’t deliver her own paintings, which means she’s chosen to do this with me. I’m not doing her a favour at all. A warmth begins to swell through me at the idea she has manufactured this trip so she can be with me, and then I have to push the smile from my face, because Alex appears in the doorway with a towel wrapped around her hair. I don’t want her to know that she’s been rumbled.

‘I need paracetamol for my head and then I just need to pack. You nearly ready, Connie?’ She sweeps her phone and the lead from the counter. ‘I’ll charge this in my room,’ she says.

‘Okay, I’ll just finish my tea and we can get back on the road.’

I decide not to tell her that Hank has phoned. When he phones back she can answer it herself. I’d like to carry her secret for a little longer, because when she finds out I know she fabricated this trip, I will definitely get sulky Alex back.

I pack our bags back into the van and watch Alex for signs that she’s spoken to him, but other than her being a little twitchy, which is pretty standard for her, I can’t really tell if she has.

We make sure the house is secure before we get going. Bardo pees in the same place as he did when we turned up yesterday, a sort of arrival and departure territorial marking, but I ignore it this time the same as Alex does; he’s her dog after all.

‘Can I use your phone for navigation, Connie?’ Alex asks me. ‘I forgot to plug mine back in and it’s still dead.’

I reach behind me for my bag, pull mine out and hand it to her, then reverse out of the driveway and we’re on our way.

‘It’s in Rufford, just outside Southport,’ she says, but it’s not somewhere I’m familiar with. ‘Not far, though. Do you want to buy some wool while we’re still here?’

Alex finds a large warehouse on the road out of the town and I stop to buy a ball of pink wool. It’s the colour of the walls in the cocktail bar from last night. Not sure how baby-friendly that thought is, but I shall enjoy telling my grandchild, when they’re old enough, about that summer Alex and I went on a road trip and how the baby blanket was born. I catch my breath at the thought that my grandchild might come to know Alex. Nana Alex, Granny Alex, but I’m getting way ahead of myself. We leave Preston on the A59 and cross the River Ribble again.

‘Keep right here,’ Alex says. ‘The fifty-nine towards Liverpool.’

In all the time I’ve travelled, I’ve always navigated my own way; stopping to look at paper maps in the past before satnav and Google were a thing, asking people for directions, just taking a chance and turning round if it didn’t feel right. Having someone beside me telling me the exact way to go is both comforting and also a bit disappointing. There’s little chance of stumbling down a blind alley and finding something or somewhere unexpected.

The land is flat on this stretch of road and the sky is huge. There’s not a cloud in sight and we have the windows down. Bardo is ignoring his own bed and is back on my seats; the radio is on and Alex is drawing again. She’s using charcoal. Her fingers are black and she keeps inadvertently wiping them on the seat. I try very hard not to mention it. Despite this, my sense of contentment is palpable and I hum along to the tunes on the radio.

Bliss, this is what this is: bliss.

‘Can we drive down to the beach in Southport after we drop the painting off? I really want to see the sea, and let Bardo have a dip,’ Alex says, and then resumes her work. She seems very well, and really has been these last few days. I still haven’t raised the thorny subject of her illness. Maybe she’s in remission, maybe I should just ask her what it is she’s got and be done with it. Maybe Morag was mistaken.

I slow down as we come into Rufford and I’m glad when Alex tells me to turn off the main road – I’ve seen enough fields and hedging for a while. I realise as she directs me into the car park that it’s a National Trust property – Rufford Old Hall. I can just see the building through the trees, a Tudor property and not big by National Trust standards, but very attractive all the same.

‘Not a man of the cloth this time then?’ I ask, as I come to a stop. The van isn’t sounding quite right, like there’s something in the engine waiting to give up. But it is still going, so that’s good enough for now.

‘I couldn’t possibly say. You know the rules, Connie.’ She grins widely and then turns round to climb into the back of the van, wincing as she goes.

‘Are you okay? Is it your leg? Your hip? Where’s the pain?’ I prompt, speculatively.

‘In my head. I should never have had that last cocktail last night.’

I pass her a bottle of water and she takes a hefty swig.

‘It’s for a portrait exhibition that they’re having here in a couple of months’ time, actually. I can tell you that. It’s not sold; it’s on loan,’ she says, pulling the larger paintings out of the way to get to the smaller ones.

How I thought I could ever sleep in this van with all these in the way, I don’t know.

‘It’s called Sitter One,’ she says and she slips out of the van with a thump and disappears into the trees. I don’t know if she’s joking or not, and have to assume she must be.

When she’s been gone for a few minutes, I grab a bungee cord and fashion a lead for Bardo. I’m not going to make the same mistake I did at the palace and have him messing somewhere inappropriate. He looks incensed as I clip it to his collar.