Page 28 of The Trip of a Lifetime

‘Actually, Erin, you have given us a reason to beat them. We have both been hoodwinked by those men now. Let’s carry that grudge like a beacon of hope.’

Erin giggled in the darkness and then I could hear rustling as she got comfortable in her sleeping bag.

‘I thought we were sacking off the grudges, but I can work with that. So, are we good then?’ she asked.

‘We are so good,’ I said and then listened until her breathing became deeper, slower and I was sure she was asleep. I inwardly sighed. For Christ’s sake. I now carried second-hand embarrassment for her stupidity as well as my own. We were really going to have to pull out all the stops from now on.

14

ERIN

Erin woke feeling relieved at having unburdened herself to her grandmother. And really, Martha had taken it surprisingly well. Erin had braced herself for some serious words, but her nana, she remembered, was never really like that with her. She didn’t get cross or fly off the handle, she talked things through in a calm manner. It was one of the things Erin loved about her; how steady she was. Erin’s mother, Clare, hadn’t been an angry or an aggressive person but she wasn’t always emotionally grounded, and there had been times when Erin had been thrown off balance by an outburst from her. One thing Martha never said about Clare but one thing Erin remembered very well was that Clare loved a drama.

But now, there would be no more slip-ups from Erin. She would try to be the model teammate.

Noah and Cally arrived just before they set off at seven and then they were back on the road. Erin offered to drive again as she felt it was the least she could do.

‘I’d love a good breakfast this morning,’ Martha said as they left the campsite. ‘I think we could blow a little of the budget on something decent. We haven’t eaten properly since the hotel in Haida Gwaii. What do you say to a hot, cooked breakfast?’

‘God, yes!’ Erin said as she pulled onto the main road towards Edmonton.

Martha looked at her notebook where she wrote down all the useful information she gleaned.

‘It’s about a four-hour drive to Edmonton,’ she said. ‘I suggest we go for a couple of hours and stop anywhere that looks like it might serve us a breakfast.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Noah said. ‘Our hotel wasn’t serving food before the time we had to leave. I had to make do with a coffee and a packet of biscuits I pinched from the room service trolly.’

‘My heart bleeds for you,’ Martha said, turning to give Noah a half-hearted smile.

‘The thing is, it feels like we’re making great progress but we have no idea what the others are doing. They may have found someone prepared to drive through the night for them.’

Erin glanced at Martha and saw she was fixing Noah with a questioning look but he said nothing.

‘Well, it was worth a try,’ Erin said.

In the end they found a gas station that had a café attached and both Erin and Martha treated themselves to crispy bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs and sausages with a stack of pancakes covered in maple syrup on the side.

‘We should have just ordered one portion,’ Erin said, her eyes wide as the stacked plates landed in front of them.

‘Eat as much as you can and we’ll doggy bag what we can’t manage. I’m not wasting a morsel,’ Martha said as she dug in.

The waiter came over with two steaming mugs of coffee and it was a good ten minutes before either of them spoke.

Erin felt extremely uncomfortable once they were back on the road. She hadn’t eaten that much in one sitting for a long time and what she really needed to do was walk it off.

‘Don’t worry,’ Martha said when she voiced this. ‘Once we lose the van, we’ll be on our feet until we can find a way to get from Edmonton to Banff. We will need the fuel of breakfast to power us through.’

‘The way I feel right now, you might have to roll me around,’ Erin said.

Martha had the map out on her lap again and Noah was filming her perusing over possible routes out of the city. When they arrived in Edmonton they marvelled at what a huge place it was and how it had somehow sprung up unexpectedly out of the wilderness they’d travelled through. They weren’t there for sightseeing, though and parked up at the RV hire place before handing the keys to the man at the front desk. He thanked them but Erin felt that she and her grandmother were the ones who were grateful.

‘Do you think I could be cheeky and ask you to check out the coach times to Banff please?’ she asked him, and crossed her fingers there would be a few options and she wouldn’t have to run for any of them. ‘Ideally, we’d be there by the end of the day.’

‘Well, you’ve missed the ten thirty, which is a shame as that was a nice easy run to Calgary airport and then on to Banff on the shuttle bus.’

‘You haven’t got another haul back, have you?’ Erin asked hopefully.

‘Sorry, not to Banff, no. And there is no direct public transport to Banff. You can get a taxi but that will cost you over five hundred dollars.’