Solace of the Road (15 page)

My eyes watered and Phil had to pass me a tissue. The only problem was I was crying years too late.

‘We’ll get you down there,’ Phil said. ‘D’you want to phone her?’ He reached into his pocket and passed his mobile over. ‘I should have offered earlier.’

My mind froze. I nearly said it was OK, I had my own phone, then I remembered mine was supposed to have been stolen, so I took Phil’s and muttered a thank-you. I punched in a series of numbers that was nearly Fiona’s but instead of the last digit I hit the # sign.

‘Mam?’ I said. ‘ ’S that you?’

All I could hear on the end was the whirl of
satellite dishes in outer space. Phil hummed softly to show he wasn’t intruding, but how could he not hear every word when I was sitting right next to him?

‘I’m on my way, Mam. Friend’s giving me a lift … What? … I’ll be with you this evening, Mam. Don’t you worry. How’s the head? … Where’s Denny, so? … What? You
dumped
him? Like, you mean, for
good? …
Hey, that’s great, Mam.
Great
. We’ll go celebrate when you’re … Yeah. You and me. Champagne. Girls’ night out … What? … Telling me … Ta-ra-la, Mam.’

I made as if to hang up and handed him back the phone.

‘Better?’ said Phil.

‘She’s dumped him. Finally.’

‘That’s good news, then?’

‘Sure is.’

We drove in silence and Phil turned the radio up. It was country-and-western disaster time but I didn’t care any more. We got back on the A40 and then Phil said did I want to try another scenic route through the Forest of Dean? And I said yes, because the name alone sounded so scenic. Soon we were going up a windy road, past a sign that said:

LITTLE LONDON
PARISH OF LONG HOPE

which cracked me up. It didn’t look like London, not even a small London, and if hope grew long here, that wasn’t London either. Instead of tower blocks there were cream cottages and round hills, a blue sky with
frilly white clouds, clumps of trees. There were road signs for deer. Any minute a magic white stag would bound across your path and make your wish come true.
Sweet dreams are made of this
. I smiled. We climbed up a steep hill, then over a low-slung wall came a view to die for. Treetops and houses like dots, and below that, a great river curling round like it had lost its way.

‘Look,’ Phil said. ‘The Severn.’

My heart was in my mouth. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.

If I lived here
, I thought,
in one of those houses with storybook windows, would life be like a storybook too? Would it?

Twenty-nine
Down in Devon

Maybe the beauty made me tired. Yawns came up my throat like armies on the march and soon my head was rolling with the road and I was dreaming.

Miko was walking over the hill with a backpack, thumbing. When he saw me behind him on the road, he turned and called. I couldn’t hear at first, then the wind brought the words of his crazy song over.
‘Hurry, hurry, Holly Hogan,’
he sang.
‘Before the road disappears …
’ I ran to catch him up and fell, and I whirled down to earth like a meteorite and landed on the beach in Devon where Miko took us camping that last summer.

Grace was lying on the sand, with her lime-green towel and gold bikini and her caramel-smooth skin. Her belly button was winking high, and she made me come and lie with her. I was sorting out her braids. We watched the clouds above, moving slow like giant-breath, and Grace said, ‘If you watch long enough, you float off with them and join the angels. It’s like going to heaven, Holly, without having to die first.’
And Miko had his guitar out, strumming a stretch of chords, and Trim was kicking up trouble down by the breakers.

‘One, two, three, four,’
Miko hollered. He was half singing, half bawling, and making up the words as he went along. ‘
You can go on down that road, Holly Hogan,’
he sang off-key. ‘
That bad old road that swallows up your heart. Hurry, hurry, Holly Hogan. Before the road disappears. Before you end up falling, falling
…’

‘Nah, Miko. Not like that,’ I begged.

‘OK, let’s make the road go up, shall we?
That good old road that’s like an escalator straightway up to heaven …
’ Grace and Trim were yowling, blocking their ears, and Miko’s song was all muddled up with the country song of Phil’s, but I was flying with the beat.
If I was where I would be, then I would be where I am not …
Miko was waving at me from the hilltop, going, going, gone, clean out of my life. And was being in the truck with Phil a dream I was having down on that Devon beach, or was the Devon beach a dream I was having up in the truck with Phil? And the notes of the song soared upward, like a military jet …

Thirty
The News on the Radio

… which is what passed over us, tearing the sky apart.

I woke with a jerk and yelped.

‘Just a jet,’ Phil said. ‘Relax.’

‘Bloody hell. Sounded like the end of the world.’

‘It’s the boys, back from Iraq.’

‘Why do they have to fly so low?’

‘Just their idea of fun, I suppose. Had a sleep?’

I stretched. ‘Nah. Just daydreaming. About that friend I told you about. Miko.’

‘The social worker?’

‘Yeah, him.’

‘Sounds like you still hold a torch for him.’

‘Hey?’

‘Wasn’t he an old boyfriend?’

‘Yeah. But he had to move away with his job. We petered out.’

Phil sighed. ‘Same old story.’

‘Too right. D’you have a girlfriend, Phil?’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah. You.’

‘Not in ages. It’s this job. You’re never in one place long enough.’ His hands rose off the steering wheel and fell back down. ‘Maybe I’m better off single.’

‘Know the feeling.’ We passed these hedges that somebody’d shaved into giant hedgehogs, then a pond of lilies ringed by the kind of trees that hang down into the water.

‘See them trees?’ I said to Phil.

‘The willows?’

‘Yeah. Just thought up a joke.’

Phil grinned. ‘Try me, birthday girl.’

‘Why do willows weep?’

He sucked in his cheeks, then blew out. ‘Dunno. Why?’

‘They can’t stand the sight of their own reflection. That’s why.’

Phil hooted. ‘Sounds like me the morning after the night before,’ he said. ‘Hey, look at that sign.’

I stared, but the letters didn’t add up:

SIR FYNWY

‘Who’s Sir Funny?’ I went.

Phil chortled. ‘It’s Welsh, for Monmouthshire. We’re in Wales.’

Wales. You won’t believe it but it was different, right away. We were running down a road with a brown mountain ahead. There were black and white cows in the field, all bunched up in one corner, sitting down. Then we passed a big tumble-down castle with a tower that wasn’t ruined yet. In my head I put a woman on
top, like Mam maybe, in a long dress with floating sleeves and a cone on her head. Maybe she was waiting for Mr Right to rescue her or maybe she was waiting for me to come up the mountain road. Then a whole string of mountains loomed up. The radio made beeping noises and Phil turned up the volume.

‘It’s the news,’ he said.

I didn’t listen, but rooted in the lizard for my baby-doll lipstick. I needed touching up. The posh mogit voice droned in and out of my thoughts as I dabbed.
‘Detectives are investigating the death of a baby in a fire in Leeds … The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a statement expressing grave concern … In Pakistan, a bomb has exploded in the capital, killing fourteen …
’ We went into a tunnel, with silver lights on one side and gold on the other. The radio crackled and I had to pause with the lipstick because I couldn’t see in the wing mirror. We shot out of the tunnel. ‘
… The Prime Minister has denied all knowledge of the memorandum … Police are searching for a fifteen-year-old girl who went missing from her south London home yesterday …
’

My heart forgot how to beat.

‘
… She was last heard of in the Oxford area …
’

Thickhead
, I thought. The call to the Gayle woman. They must have traced it.

‘
… and do not suspect foul play but they are urging the girl to get in touch with her foster parents …
’

The road pounded on and I stared at the lipstick but didn’t see it and I felt heat creeping up my cheeks.

Phil said nothing. I squinted over. His hands were on the wheel, same as ever, his eyes looking ahead.

Real slow, I moved the lipstick back up to my lips. I dabbed it on and dusted down the fringe.

‘Pretty country,’ I drawled over the mogit voice. ‘Castles ’n’ all.’

‘What?’

‘Wales. ’S pretty.’

‘Sorry. I was miles off. That’s the trouble with driving long distance. You get these times when you don’t know where the last hour went.’

‘Know the feeling. Like school.’ Then I remembered I was Solace, all done with school. ‘Mean, how school
was,’
I burbled. ‘Used to blank out in science and technology. Only got two GCSEs.’

‘I only got one.’ Phil whistled out a long breath. ‘And that was RE. Maybe I’ll retake them one day.’

I looked at my bitten fingernails. ‘So, Phil,’ I said. ‘When you drift off on the road, how come you don’t crash?’ The radio voice was on to the weather now, saying something about thunder and showers.

‘Don’t speak too soon.’

‘Yeah. But how come?’ I had to keep his mind off the news story somehow.

‘Guess I go on automatic.’ He glanced over. ‘Do you drive?’

‘Nah. Only people up a wall.’

Phil chuckled. ‘D’you want to learn?’

‘Yeah. I’ve got my provisional.’

‘That so?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I love driving,’ Phil said. He changed gear and
sped up. ‘Only sometimes after hours of it the white lines hypnotize you. Then I put the radio on to keep my mind on the job.’ He took his hands off the wheel for a split second. ‘You hear all kinds of strange stories on that radio.’

Did he suspect me or not?

We crawled through a town called Abergavenny, stuck behind a pick-up truck. I stared at a takeaway place called Balti Bliss and at shops with odd things like washing machines, buckets and leather chairs spilling onto the street. I wondered if I should just hop out at the lights and run. But the chance to jump went when we got out of the town.

If he believed that girl in the report was me
, I thought,
he’d have driven straight up to the police station
.

But even so, Phil kept glancing over at me like he was wondering something. Every time he did, that hot prickling crawled up my cheeks.

Houses clung to the slopes. I saw a big dead furry thing on the road with long hair, real thin, and flattened.

‘Ugh!’

‘That was a mink,’ Phil said.

‘A mink? As in mink coat?’

‘Yeah. They’re getting more common, apparently.’

What’m I going to do?

‘The fur trade must be laughing,’ Phil said.

The air got hot and sticky.

We went through another place, small and full of itself. It had rows of houses with flowerboxes on the sills, all pinks and mauves. I pictured old-people
fingers sifting through them. Flowerboxes give me the mogit miseries. My stomach was churning.

The sky went dirty brown. The mountains got dark and close.

‘Solace,’ Phil said.

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m going to stop at the next petrol station, if that’s OK.’

He’s going to stop and ring the fuzz and turn me over
. ‘Sure thing.’

He pulled in a moment later and got down from the cab to fill up the tank. I sat there with my thoughts raging and my head thumping. I saw him get out his mobile phone.

Great. He’ll look at the last call and figure it was a made-up number
.

I opened the passenger door. ‘Just off to the ladies,’ I breezed. ‘Won’t be a sec.’

‘I’ll wait,’ he said. ‘Take care getting down.’

‘Will do.’ I made sure I had the lizard and climbed out.

‘Solace?’ Phil said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Are you in some kind of …?’ He frowned like he’d forgotten what he meant to say. ‘Never mind. Nothing.’

I went in the toilet block and poured water over my face. There was no mirror.

Then I peeked through the crack in the door and guess what I saw. Phil on the mobile.

He’s phoning the police. Gotta get out of here
.

I froze. I could hear gravel crunching. Was he after me?

No, he was only going next door, to the gents.

Quick as lightning, I changed from the high heels back into my trainers.

I heard a toilet flush next door.

NOW
, I thought.
RUN
.

I sped quiet as a kitten round the back of the toilets and along the road. I climbed over a gate and into a field and behind a bush. I could still see the petrol station and the truck, maybe fifty metres off.

Phil came out of the toilet building, hands in his pockets, looking around.

The world forgot how to spin.

He was waiting, leaned up against the wheel.

Maybe he was calling my name.

He walked round the toilets, knocked on the ladies’ door.

Then he went into the shop.

Then he came out and waited some more.

He walked back to the truck.

He got his mobile out, looked at it and then looked up. For a moment it seemed like he was staring right at me, but then his gaze shifted and his shoulders slumped.

He got in the truck. But the engine didn’t start.

Minutes passed. From far away came a distant rumble. Thunder.

Then the engine did start. The lorry pulled away. And Phil with it.

The world started moving again.

I sat down in the green field. Me and Solace and the lizard-skin bag.

The lizard flopped over like it was beat.

The girl inside me called Solace breathed out over the dandelions.
Close shave
, she whispered. She opened her palm and there were a couple of coins, stolen from Phil’s stash. She couldn’t help herself. She was a bad girl, that Solace.