Page 18 of The Trip of a Lifetime

‘Do you happen to know what time the bus leaves Kitwanga?’ Martha asked.

Michelle tapped away on her computer and then turned the screen around so they could see.

‘It’s a bus that only runs twice a week, but you’re in luck as it goes at three thirty tomorrow afternoon. It gets into Prince Rupert at six thirty. What time does your ferry leave?’

‘Ten,’ Erin said. ‘God, even leaving at five it’s going to be tight to catch that bus.’

‘I don’t think we can ask this kind woman to leave any earlier,’ Martha said. ‘If it looks like we might not get the bus, then we try for a car share in Kitwanga or we get a taxi. I am not missing that ferry. Thank you so much, Michelle, you’re an absolute star.’

They flopped down on their beds, exhausted after only one day of travel. Erin didn’t want to think about the many days they had ahead of them. She glanced across at Martha who was already heading into sleep.

‘Nana,’ she said gently. ‘We need to do teeth and get PJs on. You’ll regret it in the morning if you fall asleep in your clothes.’

‘I know, you’re right,’ Martha said sleepily and then pushed herself up off the bed and walked into the small bathroom.

Erin noticed a slight wobble as she went. Her knee perhaps, or just tiredness? She really had to remember that Martha was seventy and as much as it suited Erin to see her as the boss, the strong woman who held everything together, she also knew she herself would have to step up on this journey.

9

MARTHA

Despite having a travel alarm clock with me, I decided to ask Michelle another favour; to get her colleague working the early shift to phone our room at four so we didn’t miss our lift. I’d fallen foul of not being on the ball once before in a race and I wasn’t prepared to let that happen again. Also, as kind as this woman was to be offering us a lift, it really wasn’t up to her to track us down.

When the call came, I was in a deep sleep and irritatingly dreaming about Harrison Golding. I snatched up the phone on the bedside table and was a little short with the poor boy on the other end. When we got our bags together and went through to reception, I was apologetic, though.

‘I’m used to it,’ he said with a grin. ‘No one wants to poke the bear first thing in the morning.’

Elizabeth was our driver. She was a British woman in her fifties who had decided to do some travelling after a bitter divorce.

‘I just want to open my heart and my mind to new possibilities,’ she told us as we loaded our bags into her boot. ‘My ex was always so happy to stagnate and hated anything outside of his comfort zone. I’m ready for new things now.’

Noah had arrived and was rigging up a separate camera in the front of Elizabeth’s car. He said that he would sit in the back but wanted to get two different angles.

‘I don’t mind at all,’ Elizabeth said when he suggested it. ‘Like I said, opening myself up to new possibilities. So, does that mean I’ll be on the TV?’

‘Yes, they’ll be a snippet of you chatting with the other two. Maybe you can ask them a leading question and get them to open up about something. It would be great to prise out a secret ambition or a clandestine love affair.’

‘Goodness,’ I said. ‘I imagine you’ll be in for a big disappointment.’

Cally lingered with Noah for a moment before she climbed into her producer car. They had their heads bent close together and I wondered if I was being paranoid or whether they really were talking about me. They must have an agenda; an angle they wanted from me and Erin. They knew about Clare because I’d told them. At some point I expected them to tug on the heartstrings of the viewers and have me talk about losing her. And I would. What I didn’t want to talk about in any candid way was Harrison Golding.

When we were all loaded in, I checked my watch and could see it was a little after five. I felt really twitchy about that bus and mentioned it tentatively to Elizabeth. I wanted her to know I was grateful but that we were also desperate.

‘I get it,’ she said. ‘It’s a race.’

And the speed in which she exited the motel car park, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake, left me in no doubt she was fully on board.

The sun rose about half an hour into our journey and something about watching the sky change from a dark inky black to a pretty pink and gold morning light made me think that Erin and I would manage to catch the bus from Kitwanga. In the months since Clare had died, I’d found there was positivity to be discovered in elements of nature. A willingness to carry on living in a warm summer breeze, the ability to bear a sudden memory in the chill of a late-autumn morning, the overwhelming and also overriding wish to see Erin happy in an unexpected flurry of winter snow.

I gazed out of the window as the country sped past us and took a breath because despite the positivity I encouraged myself to embrace, there was always and would always be that deep pain in my core at the loss of my daughter. And then, Elizabeth had to slow down as out of the woods, on the side of the road, lumbered a huge brown bear.

Erin shrieked and then apologised, but I noticed she slid the bear spray out of her backpack and Elizabeth laughed.

‘That’s my first bear up here in Canada,’ she said.

‘Ours too,’ I said. ‘Wow, what a beautiful animal.’

Noah quietly filmed it from behind me on the back seat out of the window. His dashboard camera was positioned so it just caught me, Elizabeth and Erin but he was hidden. I guessed he’d just edit out any of him that appeared in shot.